The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  “You could’ve left it on the porch.”

  “Actually …” Nate stomps snow off his big rubbery boots—probably called “galoshes” in this neck of the woods. “I was gonna ask if you want to go riding.”

  “In the snow?”

  “The horses don’t care. Anyway, we can ride in the barn.”

  I start to beg off, because yes, I’m in a rotten mood. But then I see how hopeful Nate looks. Why does he like me so much? Because obviously he does. I guess I’m not used to being “liked” by guys who don’t immediately try to jump my bones.

  Nate studies me. “You have that look again.”

  “What look?”

  Cold fingers touch my cheek. “Like you want to cry.”

  “Well, I don’t.” Impulsively, I catch his hand. “But I do want to go riding.”

  His smile melts me. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Except I need to know one thing.” Biting back a smile, I point to his ugly hat. “What’d you do? Scalp Sasquatch?” I dodge away from his outraged response, hunt up paper and a pen, and scribble a note for Mom.

  After riding for several hours in Rocky Meadows’ indoor ring, and another hour hanging out in the paneled lounge with the moth-eaten bear rug—the owners are in Florida till Christmas, so it’s kind of our own private hideaway—we say good-bye in Nate’s driveway and I run across the street.

  Mom swoops down. “It’s eight o’clock! I was worried sick!”

  “I left you a note,” I protest.

  “I didn’t see a note.”

  Spotting it—the wind must’ve blown it from the kitchen table when she opened the back door—I snatch it up. “You didn’t look very hard.” I thrust it in her face. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  What did she think I was doing all this time?

  I know exactly what she thought. “Go ahead. Say it!”

  “Say what?”

  Furious at her fake facade, I shout, “You still don’t trust me! No matter what I do, no matter what I say, you’re just like Frank. You’ll never trust me again, ever.”

  “That’s not—true!” Mom swings her back to me and clutches her hair. “Oh God, oh God, I need a cigarette so bad!”

  Why am I so mean to her sometimes?

  “No, you don’t,” I say, hoping to make up.

  “Yes, I do. You have no damn idea.”

  Stung, I snap, “Smoke, then! Who cares?” Halfway to the stairs I remember something. “By the way, Frank called.”

  “I know. I spoke to him.”

  “Yeah, well.” I stomp off. “So did I.”

  The phone rings an hour later. I’m lying on my mattress, listening to the piano music drifting up through the register. I love that Mom’s playing again. Sadly, I think of Nana’s piano, a family heirloom brought over from Europe on a steamship. Then I remember what it looked like after the fire: charred wood, blackened ivory, a jumble of glowing red strings.

  Feeling very antisocial, I ignore the ringing phone and just stare at the beams and listen to the wind rattling outside. Snow! Fricking snow, one week after Halloween. This whole town’ll be on Prozac by Christmas.

  Mom appears at the top of my stairwell. “Rinn, honey. Something’s happened.”

  “Is it Frank?” Of course I think of him first. He’s much older than Mom, plus he drinks and smokes. He’s also been on my mind all day.

  Mom kneels beside my mattress. “That was Mr. Solomon on the phone. You know Dino wasn’t in school today, right? Well, apparently there’s been … an accident.”

  My shoulder blades crawl. “What kind of accident?”

  “Honey, Bennie found him in the pool room after school today.” Mom hesitates. “Dead.”

  I think I heard her wrong. “What?”

  “No one’s sure what happened. But I guess he was there, uh, all night.”

  All night? Bennie didn’t chase him out yesterday?

  He never got out at all?

  My voice quavers. “He died in the pool?”

  “By the pool, Mr. Solomon said. He couldn’t give me any more details.” Mom drags a wrist over her eyes. “Oh, poor Bennie. I can’t even imagine how …”

  I fly to my window. Through a curtain of snowflakes I make out, in the dark, the flashing lights of two police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance. The entire safety force of River Hills, no doubt.

  “Oh my God.” I yank off my nightshirt and reach for the jeans I wore earlier, the legs stiff and reeking of horses. “Oh my God!”

  “Wait! You are not going out there.”

  “He was my friend, Mom!”

  Friend? You liar. You never gave him the time of day. You left him behind yesterday.

  Defeated, I drop back onto my rumpled mattress. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut and wait quietly when Bennie showed up? Or go into the pool room with Dino?

  I moan. “But what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I honestly don’t.”

  I cover my face as Mom pulls me close.

  4 MONTHS + 2 DAYS

  Friday, November 7

  School is canceled. I watch the building from my bedroom window, not sure what I’m hoping to see. Then, disgusted by my own curiosity, I force myself to get dressed.

  Millie, of course, finds out the details first. As Mom and I start on our second pot of coffee, she blows into our living room in a flurry of perfume and leftover cooking grease. Tasha follows, hugs me, and wails, “I never knew anybody who died, unless they were old!”

  Same here. I hug her back as Millie tells Mom, “I talked to Claire. You remember Claire, from the team? Well, she’s an EMT now and she says it looks like that kid climbed the fence and then snagged his leg at the top, and”—Millie glances at Tasha and me—“couldn’t get loose.”

  Ashen, Mom whispers, “That poor boy.”

  “Bennie’s beside himself, I hear.” Millie fishes a Kleenex from her purse and blows a bubbly honk. “They think his heart gave out, what with him hangin’ upside down for so long, stuck like a piece of meat.”

  Upside down? “Why didn’t he call for help?”

  “Maybe he did. But Bennie swears he didn’t hear nothin’, and he was there till five. Not many other folks around, maybe a teacher or two. Nobody heard nothin’.” Jamming her tissue back into her purse, Millie adds briskly, “We can’t stay. We’re off to the Aquatic Center. With weather like this, I bet we get the whole place to ourselves.” She bristles at Tasha’s rude snort. “I told you, no point in wasting an opportunity. It’s bad enough I let you miss Saturday!”

  “And I’ll never hear the end of it,” Tasha mutters.

  “That’s right.” Millie points a red fingernail at Tasha. “You mess up at regionals and I’ll never be able to hold my head up again. All those nice people who’ve donated to your fund? The whole town’s rootin’ for you and you know it, missy. And don’t forget, your daddy’s driving in special just to watch you.” Tasha’s dad is a trucker and on the road most of the time. “You want to disappoint him?”

  Sour-faced, Tasha ignores this. She squeezes me again. “I’ll call you later if I don’t get back too late.” Millie hauls her off before she can even zip up her jacket.

  Mom says in disbelief, “I love Millie, but what is she thinking? A boy just died!”

  I wish Tasha and I could’ve hung out tonight. I bet Tasha wishes the same thing.

  The idea of Dino hanging helplessly upside down, suffering for hours, makes me sick to my stomach.

  So do the other crazy thoughts darting madly through my brain. Thoughts I can’t share with Mom, or anyone, really.

  Except maybe …?

  I grab the phone and dial Nate’s number.

  He obediently appears ten minutes later. After he endures Mom’s condolences, I push him toward the stairs, ignoring Mom’s warning to “leave your door open, please!” I don’t have a door to my room, just the one to the stairwell.

  Nate surveys my Precious Pewter walls. “Cool color.�
��

  “Way cooler than that boring white you slapped on.”

  “It was all new drywall. At least I painted it.”

  “Why didn’t you leave the walls the way they were?”

  He hesitates. “Uh, it was some pretty ugly wallpaper.”

  I watch him admire my band posters, all originals and most of them signed by the artists. Frank always gives—gave—these to me for special occasions. I flip in a CD for some background noise in case Mom decides to be nosy.

  “Pink Floyd?” Nate guesses after the first few notes.

  “David Gilmour. He played with Pink Floyd before he went solo.”

  He points to my Led Zeppelin poster: “Stairway to Heaven.” “Where’d you get this stuff?”

  “My stepdad’s a music producer. He’s retired now, but he knew all these people.”

  “Seriously? You meet any of ’em?”

  “Yeah, some. But rockers, they’re just people, you know? Mostly I was in bed whenever anyone came around.” Or sneaking off, doing my own thing.

  David Gilmour warns through my speakers that there’s no way of out of here, that we’re here for good. Frank loves this song. So do I. Listening to it now, I feel better, if not braver. I sit on my mattress and motion for Nate to join me.

  He does, maintaining a safe distance. “You want to talk about Dino? You okay?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah, I just—I just can’t believe this happened.”

  “Me, either.” I hesitate. “Nate, I have to tell you something. But you can’t laugh at me. And you can’t blow me off as ‘crazy.’” Nate nods seriously. “What happened to Dino? I don’t think it was an accident.”

  Already he’s skeptical. “Sure it was. I mean, if Dino wanted to kill himself, there are easier ways.”

  “I’m not saying he killed himself. Just listen, okay?”

  At first Nate says nothing when I explain why I think the tunnel is evil. Not only the tunnel but the pool room, too. Maybe he wonders if I’m delusional. Or where the nearest escape route is.

  “Nate, it’s exactly like you told me. Everything bad that happens to people happens after they’re in there.”

  Nate says wearily. “I never should’ve told you that stuff. Those are stories, Rinn. Urban legends. Whatever.”

  “What about the dead cat?”

  “You’re the one who said it might’ve been sick in the first place.”

  “That’s before I put it all together.” I inch closer to him. “Look, we’re in the tunnel, right? And Lacy goes nuts and attacks me. Then she starts with the migraines. Meg’s ears ring constantly, plus she’s different, Nate. She’s down all the time. Then Cecilia gets locked in there and now she can’t sing. Now look what happened to Dino.”

  Nate stays silent.

  “You don’t see a pattern here?”

  “We all use that tunnel,” he reasons. “All of us, every day.”

  I blow out my breath in increments. “Why’d I know you’d say that?”

  “Because it’s true. The rest of us are fine. I never noticed any funny air. And hey, what about Bennie? He’s in there more than any of us, cleaning and stuff. Why doesn’t something happen to him?”

  I study my folded hands. I forgot about Bennie.

  Nate slides closer, too. “You’re talking about earaches and headaches and people losing their voices. But then Dino dies? That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “Maybe he saw something.”

  “‘Something’?” he repeats. “A ghost, you mean?”

  “Yes, a ghost!” I rush on over his explosive sigh. “That séance, Nate. Before that, it was like you said: things happened to people, but nothing serious, right? Aside from that drunk teacher, I mean. But then we had the séance, and—oh, I don’t know! But what if we did something in there? Released some kind of power?”

  Something strong enough to hurt. To kill, even.

  Nate responds with an incredulous head shake. Stubbornly I insist, “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how eerie it was, how they all sat there like dummies. Not moving. Not talking. Then when I ran for help, they strolled out like nothing happened.”

  “They were playing you, Rinn.”

  “I thought of that, too. Except now Dino’s dead.”

  “Yeah, Dino’s dead. But you can’t tell me that has something to do with that séance.” Nate pats my leg. “Look, all those things, they’re like random nothings. Shit happens, surfer girl. Every day, every minute.”

  His touch, through my jeans, quenches my frustration. I throw up my hands, resigned. “Fine—I’m crazy.”

  “Look,” he says impatiently. “We all make jokes about Annaliese. But to believe in ghosts and think they can actually hurt you? What do you think this is? A Poltergeist movie?”

  I remember the shadows in the cafeteria that day, the way they didn’t match up to the table legs. My imagination? Or something supernatural? Either way, it sucks.

  “What sucks?”

  Holy crap, did I say that out loud? I think fast. “Okay, say ghosts do exist. Then why Annaliese? Why not my grandmother?” My voice breaks, frustrating me more. “Why can’t she come back? Why can’t people be haunted by the people they love? Not by stupid people we never met.”

  His hand creeps up my leg, reaching for mine. I watch, entranced, as he takes my fingers and presses them to his lips. Then Nate, who possesses radar far more acute than mine, drops my hand one millisecond before Mom pops up.

  “Not to intrude,” she calls sweetly over Gilmour’s guitar. “But your dad’s looking for you, Nate.”

  Muting the music with the remote, I wait for Mom to leave us alone to say good-bye. When she doesn’t, Nate politely excuses himself and clomps off downstairs.

  “Well,” Mom notes, “I can see he likes you.”

  I smile. “I like him, too.” My glow fades when Mom’s forehead pinches with disapproval. “Spare me the lecture. I’ve heard it before.”

  “For all the good it did. This is your bedroom, Rinn.” Ignoring my blaze of indignation—is she always going to suspect me of screwing around?—she disappears back down the stairwell.

  4 MONTHS + 3 DAYS

  Saturday, November 8

  Barton’s Funeral Home is packed, even with people you wouldn’t expect to show up. Like some of the football jocks, because of Jared, of course. Tasha, Lacy, and Meg are all here. Nate, too. Even Mr. Solomon and most of the teachers.

  Dino’s dad, in an outdated black suit and minus the bandana, looks strangely calm. I figure out why when I smell the liquor on his breath. His wife, Deb—silent, unfocused—hangs on his arm like she’s drugged on downers. Maybe she is.

  In front of the casket, Mr. Mancini’s dark eyes, identical to Dino’s, meet mine first. Then they rest on my mother’s outstretched hand.

  “Joey, Deb,” she says. “I am so sorry.”

  He accepts her shake with his own grease-stained hand. “Monica, Monica … been a long time, ain’t it? Y’know, I told your little girl here to tell you I said hi, to stop by sometime. She ever give you my message?”

  Mom looks at me. “I forgot,” I say reluctantly. It’s true. I never thought about Creepy Red Bandana Dude again.

  Mom extricates herself from Mr. Mancini’s grip. “You’ve already met Rinn?”

  “Yep.” He flashes yellow teeth.

  I nod back. Then, impulsively, I touch Mrs. Mancini’s sleeve. “I’m sorry about Dino.”

  Dino’s mom, thin and plain, works her mouth like she wants to smile and can’t remember how. Mr. Mancini chuckles humorlessly. “Me, too, honey. Now I gotta run that damn garage all by myself.” He shoves his hands into his shabby suit coat. “Monica Parker. Well, well.”

  Mom’s smile never wavers.

  Mr. Mancini sways, knocking his spooky wife off balance. Uncaring, she fiddles with a sweater button. “Know what my momma used to say to me, Monica? ‘What goes around comes around,’ that’s what she said. Reckon I’m just now figurin’ ou
t what she meant by that.”

  Mom, after a dreadful pause, murmurs some nicety. Then she draws me away, leaving the Mancinis to mingle with the next victims in line.

  “What was that all about?” I hiss. “What did he mean?”