The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  Sobbing, he reaches out to touch my cheek with his icy hand.

  “You know what would’ve happened after I shot them?”

  I’d started a sort-of fire in the fireplace in the lounge, but the puny flame does nothing to warm us. Nate’s teeth chatter so hard I can barely understand him.

  “You have to get out of those clothes,” I say bossily, poking the logs.

  Nate wrenches the poker away and grips both my hands. He’s so cold, so cold, his fingers don’t feel human. I shiver as he transfers the chill to me. “I would’ve shot myself. I had it all figured out. I’d put the gun in my mouth and hit the trigger with my toe. Right over there.” He nods at the couch. “I was gonna write you a note, but then I thought, maybe not.” I wince as he squeezes my hands harder. “Maybe it’d be better if I—”

  “Shut up! You didn’t do it. You’re still alive.”

  “Am I?” A dead, flat whisper.

  Twisting free, I dig two musty blankets out of a bin and dump them on the floor. “Take your clothes off,” I order, “and sit down.”

  Rigid, Nate gazes wordlessly into the growing fire, so I pull off his sodden jacket and unbutton his shirt myself. When I reach for his belt buckle, he pushes me away, kicks off his muddy jeans, and sits down like a good little boy. Nearly faint with cold, I strip down to my underwear, too, then kick the mangy bear rug aside and spread our clothes out to dry. I can’t figure out why we’re both so cold, why the heat from the fireplace hasn’t reached us yet.

  I crawl onto the couch and drag the blankets over us. “Don’t worry. Mutual body heat’s the best way to prevent hypothermia.”

  Nate’s marble lips press my temple. “I was gonna do it. Seriously.”

  “Why?” I whisper, cuddling close.

  “Because I love them. Because that’s what she wants.”

  We almost do it. We come so very close.

  I saw this coming before I took off my clothes. Maybe I saw it the second I met him. Still, I never dreamed it’d happen like this, with both of us shivering and scared under two smelly blankets. We kiss and touch, and I’m glad to say that it’s not because I’m a crazy girl who can’t control herself. Or because he’s a guy who tried to destroy so much and now needs to be reminded that everything’s okay.

  We stop in time. It’s enough for now. Slick with sweat, I fling off the blankets and dress quickly, all awkward and exposed, my heart fluttering like bird wings.

  None of this makes me forget there’s still a rifle outside, plus a paddock full of horses that nearly lost their lives. What if I’d gotten here five minutes later?

  What if I’d been the one to find Nate with that gun barrel in his mouth, his blood and brains sprayed all over the couch?

  “I’d hate you forever,” I hear myself say.

  Nate understands. “It didn’t happen.”

  I curl my legs under me and rest my head on his bare shoulder. His chest glistens; he’s warm, so warm. I touch the line of dark fuzz creeping down his stomach.

  “And I’m not suicidal,” he adds tonelessly. “Not like when you tried it.” He touches my neck. “It’s … it’s not the same.”

  I snuggle closer, enjoying the heat. “I know. It was Annaliese. Maybe I could lend you some drugs,” I half tease. “Then you’d be safe.”

  “Says you. Seriously, how many people at school even take that stuff?”

  “You said Jared—”

  “That’s one. But the whole student body? Except for the people she targets? Gimme a break. We’d all be running around with guns.”

  “The people she targets,” I repeat softly.

  Oh. My. God. That’s it!

  The idea explodes like a supernova. “You’re right. She’s selective. She chose us.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know! But I’m sure of it.”

  Nate lets my message sink in. “Okay, then how did she ‘choose’ us?”

  “The séance?”

  “You said Cecilia wasn’t there. Neither was I.”

  “You’re right.” I sigh, more puzzled than ever. “Now if you’d gone in the pool room with me, I’d say that’s when she got you, but—”

  Nate fidgets strangely. Dread punches my gut.

  “You didn’t, right? You said you dragged me out.”

  He observes the fire like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. “The first time we tried it, before you stopped your meds? And I ran back for your book bag?” Nate hunches over. “Rinn. Something was there.”

  “What?” I breathe, already afraid of the answer.

  “I’m not sure. But the locker room, it looked different somehow. I saw shadows where there shouldn’t have been any shadows. Like in the middle of the floor, and—and up by the ceiling. And the regular shadows were … wrong.” Nate flushes. “Don’t laugh.”

  I’m not even close to laughing. “Did they move?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what took me so long.”

  “Eight minutes,” I remind him.

  “That’s ’cause I couldn’t move. It scared the hell out of me.”

  I remember the night I stayed late to decorate for Homecoming: those table shadows, how they slithered and changed before my eyes. Not my imagination or a hallucination. So why am I not happier? Because now I’m wondering if Annaliese floats around the whole school. Do ghosts travel? If so, how far?

  Was Annaliese ever actually in my room?

  White around the mouth, Nate continues, “Rinn, when I said I dragged you out? I lied. You fell, I saw the blood, and I kinda freaked out. I did pull the rope, but I couldn’t move you. It’s like …” His Adam apple dances. “Like something was hangin’ on to you, keeping you from me. So I ran in and got you. I had to,” he insists as I gawk in disbelief.

  “No, you didn’t! Nate, you promised!”

  “What’d you expect me to do? Leave you in there?”

  “Oh, big hero. Thank you soo very much.” I kick angrily at the blanket. “You know, if you’d told me what happened the first time, with the shadows and stuff, I wouldn’t have made you help me.”

  Nate sneers. “Oh, right. Like you’d go alone.”

  “I could’ve gotten someone else.”

  “Like who? Meg? Lacy? Tasha?” I shrink back at his nasty laugh. “Oh, wait. Meg’s in jail, and Tasha’s dead, and Lacy’s, well, who knows? So who’s left, Rinn? Huh?”

  “Okay, I get it. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

  We sit there, side by side, as the fire spits and crackles. I hear the horses outside, but they’re happy horses now, not trampling around all wild-eyed with terror. Nate gets up, pats his clothes, and pulls his jeans up over his flannel Scooby-Doo boxers. And he laughed at my SpongeBobs?

  He buttons his plaid shirt, then picks up the poker and jabs the fire. “Okay, think. Why us? Why not the other three hundred kids in school?”

  “She takes things from us, like Cecilia’s singing. She took Chad away from Lacy. Then she took Lacy’s baby.”

  Nate knocks a log aside, an explosion of orange. “Go on.”

  “She took away Meg’s cheerleading. She stole her personality. She made her attack her mom.” Hyperventilating, I force myself to slow down. “She took Tasha’s diving away—”

  “And her life,” he says curtly. “Dino’s, too.”

  “She almost took yours.”

  The mental picture of Xan and Ginger, dead on the ground, surrounded by the bloody carcasses of their stable mates, makes me moan out loud. Nate drops the fire iron and kneels on the couch, drawing me close again. He smells like horses and gun smoke. Not chlorine.

  “It’s all part of her plan,” I say into his chest. “Everything we love she wants to take away from us. The parts that makes us happy. The part of us that’s us.”

  She changes people. She changed sweet, happy Meg into someone capable of murder. She changed my mother into someone I barely recognize.

  “The part that keeps us strong,” Nate agrees.

&
nbsp; “It’s the degree I don’t get. I mean, what happened to Cecilia and Meg and Lacy was bad enough. But Tasha and Dino are dead, and you almost died, too.” And you could’ve taken me out with you. “So if Annaliese can kill any time she wants, how does she decide …?”

  I stop, remembering his words: the part that keeps us strong.

  Superstitious that Annaliese may somehow overhear, I whisper, “She sucks our strength. She doesn’t care whose strength, as long as she gets it. Because it makes her stronger. And maybe, if she sucks too much of it”—I press my mouth to Nate’s ear—“we die.”

  Nate kisses me hard, his hands roaming over me with a quiet desperation. Like this is all he’s ever wanted to do in his life and now he’s afraid he’ll never get another chance. After what happened out in the paddock only a couple of hours ago, how can I feel so safe with him?

  Safety, I know, is nothing but an illusion.

  We’re not safe.

  Nobody is safe.

  5 MONTHS + 7 DAYS

  Friday, December 12

  It’s taking way too long for my meds to kick in. I sleep for a couple hours and then I’m up the rest of the night. I change my sheets again, finish reading Twilight, and rearrange my posters to cover the talking hole. Now it’s Kiss and Joan Jett and Lynyrd Skynyrd instead of Bible verses and Annaliese, Annaliese.

  While waiting for my alarm to go off, I practice my Christmas piece. This time my notes twang hopelessly off-key. After I drop the pick twice, I wonder: is this the beginning of the end for me, too?

  Skin crawling, I stuff my guitar into the case and zip it with a ragged squeal. It’s 5:53—seven more minutes till my alarm goes off. I wander in restless circles, then stop and stare up at the Hanging Beam. It hangs lower than the others, an easy reach; no wonder Mrs. Gibbons chose it. I drag over my desk chair and hop up on the seat. Balancing in my socks, I stretch out my arms, but fall a few inches short of touching the beam. Even so, tossing a rope up there would be simple enough. Then you drop the noose over your head, tighten the knot under your chin, and—

  I leap off, choking for breath before my toes leave the seat. The chair topples sideways with a crash that stops my heart.

  What am I doing, what am I doing…?

  WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?

  Each time I ended up in a psych ward, they made me sign a daily contract.

  Now, when my trembling hands allow me to hold a pen, I open a random notebook and write, from memory: I, Corinne Jacobs, promise not to hurt myself for the next 24 hours. If I feel I’m losing control I promise to tell someone immediately.

  I scratch out “the next 24 hours” and write instead: EVER.

  On the way to school I think of something. “Shouldn’t we warn people to stay out of the pool room?”

  Nate laughs bitterly. “Didn’t Solomon already do that? It didn’t stop you.”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t lock it again. Now anyone can get in. I think we should tell Mr. Solomon so he can go in there and lock it.”

  “Oh, sure.” Nate affects an excited falsetto: “ ‘Guess what, Mr. Solomon? Somebody picked your lock. Not me, of course. I just found it by accident.’ Oh no, that won’t look suspicious at all.”

  “What about an anonymous note?”

  “Why not cut words out of a magazine and paste ’em together? Like a serial killer.”

  “You’re not very helpful. Maybe my mom can lock it. I bet she can get a key.”

  “And what’re you gonna tell her?”

  “The truth?”

  “Hate to say it, surfer girl. That’s a bad idea, too.”

  “I know.” I sigh. “Lately, that’s all I have.”

  5 MONTHS + 8 DAYS

  Saturday, December 13

  I’m lying in bed in the dark with my eyes wide open. I hear the tree outside, knocking the house, and a brand-new snowfall hissing across my windows. So what do I say to my mom? First, I can’t let her know it’s me who picked that stupid lock. Second, how do I explain why I’m afraid something might happen to someone else? If I say it’s a matter of life and death, she’ll think I’m off my gourd again.

  And thirdly—since Nate insists that’s a word—if Annaliese does travel, and the whole building is cursed, why am I wasting so many brain cells worrying about this?

  With a sigh, I flip over, and then—

  BANG!

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my knuckles mashed to my teeth. I recognize that sound because it’s such an ordinary sound: the sound of a chair falling over.

  The same sound I heard yesterday. Only then I knocked it over.

  Creak … creak … creak …

  The grinding of a rope swinging from the Hanging Beam.

  Creak … creak … back and forth, back and forth.

  This isn’t happening. I am dreaming again.

  With my breath puffing from my lips in shallow bursts, I open my eyes and peek up at the moonlit ceiling.

  Nothing there. No rope. No swinging corpse.

  Giddy with relief, I flip on my lamp, scramble up—and freeze.

  There, on the floor, I see my chair—the same one I picked up yesterday after standing on it for some sick, unknown reason and pushed back under my desk—lying on its back, four legs pointed sideways. On the vinyl-cushioned seat, imprints of two bare feet fade away before my eyes.

  Real feet. Toes and everything. Feet much bigger than my own size sixes.

  “You’re not really here,” I whisper. Whoever you are.

  No answer.

  When I was little, I thought a monster lived under my bed, something with claws and fangs and foul, fiery breath. When my fear kept me awake, I’d scream for Mom and Frank till one of them showed up to promise me I was safe.

  Feeling ridiculously immature, I hold the covers to my chin and call, “Mom? Mom!”

  But Mom doesn’t answer, not even when I call her a dozen times.

  I don’t hear a sound, not even the piano.

  When I smell coffee brewing, I inch my comforter away from my head. Yes, the chair’s still there, a ghoulish monument. Tripping over my bare feet, I fly down to the kitchen. Mom, startled, sloshes coffee. “What? What happened?”

  Good! She can tell something’s wrong.

  “My chair fell over last night for no reason at all.” After it walked from my desk to the foot of my bed, that is.

  “Well. Isn’t that odd?”

  Surely she doesn’t mean this as a serious question. “Do you think this house is haunted?”

  “No, Rinn. Do you want toast or a bagel?”

  “I’m telling you, that chair fell by itself!”

  “Maybe it broke. Or the floor’s crooked. It’s a very old house.”

  Or maybe Mrs. Gibbons tried to hang herself again.

  I lick my lips. “Mom, when’s Bennie coming back?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because … because somebody needs to check that pool room door.” When Mom stops, a bag of bagels in one hand, a bread knife in the other, I anxiously push Meg and her kitchen knife out of my head. “I think it’s unlocked. I mean, I know it’s not locked.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  I hate that I have to lie. “Um, I just heard that somebody broke in there again.”

  She views me with increasing suspicion. “Why this sudden interest in the pool room?”

  “I—it’s because—” I can’t say it.

  You have to. HAVE to!

  So I rush upstairs, grab my list of “Annaliese things,” then race back to the kitchen and hold it out. Mom skims it and hands it back.

  “Well? Do you get it?” I ask hopefully.

  “Toast or bagel? Last chance. Though the bagels might be a bit stale.”

  “Mom, everything on that list is true! She hurts people.”

  “She?”

  “Annaliese! It’s like everything you’re good at, everything you love, she steals it away. Or if there’s something you shouldn’t do, something you’re trying not
to do, she takes away your willpower. She makes you fail. She sucks your soul out till there’s nothing left!”

  Mom sinks into a chair and watches me intently. She’s listening. Listening!