Bad Girl Gone

by Temple Mathews

  People were making speeches about me. Denise—of all people—stepped to the podium. She was blonde, and today was a big-hair day for her and she toyed with it, shaking it from side to side and touching it with her fingers. Apparently she wanted everyone to worship her hair as much as she did.

  “She was an amazing girl, one of the most amazing I ever knew, and one of my dearest friends. I’m … not sure how I’ll be able to cope.”

  I thought I might throw up, and I wanted to do it on her. She was snuffling away like a beagle now, dramatically wiping away tears and yammering on and on, every other word amazing. What a hypocrite! Me? One of her best friends? That bitch and her clique banished me to the hinterlands of the severely unpopular during the first week of school.

  “You’re almost pretty,” I remember her saying, having cornered me in the hallway, “but your accessory choices are rather unfortunate.”

  That had brought on a slew of giggles from her snotty entourage, and I had been dumbstruck, too shocked and frightened to defend myself. Denise loved an audience, and now here she was, at my funeral, using my tragedy to spew her drama-queen bullshit.

  I returned my attention to my dead self. Was I pretty? The girl in the casket looked like some oversized porcelain doll, not like the self that I’d always imagined I was. My father once told me that as humans we all had illusions about ourselves. The key, he said, was to be ready and willing to reject those illusions and see ourselves for who we truly were. I was all for taking an honest inventory of myself, my character, but how could I possibly see and accept who I was now? Dead? Really?

  My head was beginning to cloud with a growing sadness. I was on the verge of crying and couldn’t help but think how pathetic that would be. Me, staring at myself, grieving over myself, blubbering like a baby at my own funeral. It was ridiculous.

  “Are you all right?” Cole asked.

  “Um, I think I’m doing okay. For someone staring at their own dead body. Yep. I’m good. I’m fabulous.” But of course I was a wreck.

  People were standing now and marching up to view my corpse. I was losing it. I had to get out of there. A scream was working its way up my throat and I stifled it, muting it into a beastlike, sorrowful moan. Overwhelmed, all I could see were stars rushing at me, bursts of white illumination. I fled as fast as I could, blindly, into the mass of blazing lights. I shut my eyes as tightly as I could and ran.

  I was moving fast toward the door and with a jolt I found that I had entered someone, just like I’d entered Mick’s stepfather on the yacht! The ache in my heart—the one that plagued me ever since I woke up in Middle House—now took firm hold of my soul, sharpening, intensifying, growing monstrously painful. My vision was blurred, and I screamed like I was on fire.

  It was so weird, being inside another human being. Looking down through a blizzard of swirling lights, I saw a hand holding a hunting knife—which had been shoved into my chest! It was all very blurry and disjointed—but I could see that the knife had pierced my skin, sliced between my ribs, and found its way into my heart. My chest flooded with blood. Game over. I was seeing my own murder! But who was it? My eyes wouldn’t open! Come on, Echo, look, look! Is it a man? A woman? An adult? A teenager? Please, please let me see!

  Flashes from the murderer’s ugly mind assaulted me. I saw hallways at school. Girls casting fearful glances my way. Now darkness, the dull glow of a yellow light. A candle? I couldn’t tell. The murder weapon, that heinous hunting knife, being buried. This person was so familiar! But I couldn’t tell who it was; it was only a shape. Who was burying the knife? Man hands? Boy hands? A woman’s? I couldn’t tell; the images were too unfocused and rushed. Come on, Echo! Concentrate! See! See who it is!

  I tried with all my might. But the transmigration only lasted a few seconds. The trauma was severe. Every cell of my being was on fire—I felt like I’d been dropped into molten lava. I screamed until my throat went raw.

  Then it was over. I was outside the funeral home now, lying in the grass with Cole hovering over me. The blinding lights dispersed and gave way to normal vision. I was blinking, grateful now to be able to see a red-breasted robin in the oak tree above.

  “It happened again, didn’t it?” Cole said. “What happened on the boat…”

  “Yeah. I went in someone.”

  “I think you’ve found your power.”

  “I found more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cole, it was the person who murdered me! I saw the knife; I remember now, being stabbed. Right in my heart.”

  I looked down. For a moment, my image transformed. I could see blood gushing out of a gaping wound in my chest. Oh. Shit.

  “Who was it?”

  “I … I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”

  I gulped in breaths as fast as I could, my ghost heart pounding in panic.

  “Cole, what is wrong with me? Why couldn’t I see them?”

  “Take it easy. Try to be calm. Breathe.”

  I did. Five long, deep breaths. The images of gushing blood stopped. Cole pulled me to my feet as my spectral body returned to normal. There. I was good.

  “It was someone from school. I saw things … at the school.”

  “Good. That’s a great start.”

  Progress, though incredibly painful, had been achieved. I now knew that the same person who killed me, who brutally stabbed me in the heart, was right there at my memorial service. But who was it?

  BURIED

  My casket was being carried out and loaded into a hearse by Andy, my dad, my uncle, and Ethan Johns, one of my only other friends from school, a science geek. He was a loner, tall and strong as an ox. I never liked the glee he displayed while dissecting animals and we’d once had a nasty argument about animal rights. He had a violent streak, but I doubted he would have ever taken the time away from his video games to kill anyone.

  The boys bearing my casket looked uncomfortable in their stiff shirts, cinched ties, and tight-fitting suits. My body was driven two hundred yards up the hillside and unloaded. Cole and I moved to my grave and I stared at the living people as the minister spoke familiar words.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May the soul of Eileen ‘Echo’ Stone be welcomed into heaven, where the Lord’s compassionate hands will comfort her with eternal love and forgiveness.”

  Well, that didn’t happen. Not yet anyway. I scanned the assemblage, carefully studying the faces. Mom, Dad, Andy, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, Dani, Denise and her tribe, other kids from school, a few neighbors and teachers. Try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that one of these people had killed me in cold blood. But one of them had.

  The minister finished his spiel and last respects were paid. Weeping, Mom and Dad placed daffodils on my coffin. Dad had to tug at Mom in an effort to pull her away. She didn’t want to leave me. I wanted so badly to comfort her.

  “It’s okay, Mom, I’m okay, I’m right here. I’ll never leave you.”

  I rushed and hugged her, wrapping my ghost arms around both her and Dad. She couldn’t feel me, but I think she sensed me, because she stopped crying and when my dad started to speak …

  “Carolyn—”

  … she shushed him.

  “Shhh!”

  She listened intently as I spoke to her again.

  “I will always, always love you. I’ll never leave you. You’ll always be in my heart.”

  Mom looked confused, then pained. Had she heard me? I turned to Cole, who was by my side.

  “Can she sense me? Hear me?”

  “She can never hear you, Echo. Anything you do like this will probably just freak her out. She’ll think she’s crazy.”

  I wasn’t totally convinced he was right, but I backed off.

  Mom allowed Dad to pull her away and they walked slowly, sadly toward their waiting limo, each step now part of a long march of grief. I did feel as though I had touched her. And I wasn’t going to give up trying. But I knew that the time had to be just
right.

  Now my eyes found Andy, who held a lone silver rose, a beautiful thing, my absolute favorite flower, and placed it gently on my coffin. He was so handsome; I yearned for him so much I was wild with despair. Tears flowed from his reddened eyes and streamed down his cheeks. As he wiped them away, he moved his lips, his voice a whisper.

  “Good-bye, Echo. I’ll love you forever.”

  After these six words, the love of my life—my soul mate—turned and walked away from my grave, his eyes cast downward. I felt as though I had stones in my chest.

  A cry lifted up from my throat, growing louder and louder—at least in my world it was deafening. It turned into a high-pitched keening so loud that a flock of sparrows shot like bullets from a nearby maple tree.

  Cole looked like he wanted to offer some encouraging words but knew well enough to keep still. Better for him to wait this one out.

  “Andy, wait! Don’t go!”

  I ran in front of him and struggled against his progress, but my spectral self had no earthly substance, so he continued walking, staring intensely at the ground. He passed right through me.

  “Why can’t I enter him?” I screamed at Cole. “Help me!”

  “I don’t know how your power works. I told you I only heard of one other kid at Middle House a long time ago who had it. I think maybe you can only enter people who are scared.”

  But I didn’t want to scare Andy. I wanted to take him in my arms and hold him forever. I wanted me and him to become us, forever. A gust of wind swept in off the lake and Andy paused, feeling it caressing his face. I prayed he was feeling me, but it was probably just my hope. But what else was love but hope?

  “I swear, I will find a way back to you,” I said.

  He started walking again. I couldn’t just let him walk out of my life. I rushed ahead of him and, trembling, I screamed as loud as I could.

  “ANDY, LISTEN TO ME!”

  He stopped and slowly lifted his gaze from the grass to a point somewhere behind me.

  “Echo…” he said very quietly.

  “Yes! Yes, Andy, I’m right here!” I shouted.

  My ghost heart thumped. I wanted so hard to believe he could hear me.

  “I loved you so much…”

  Wait, what was he talking about? Loved?

  “Andy, don’t leave; stay here with me a minute—please, baby? Show me you can hear me. Lift your hand, like you used to do when you would touch my neck.”

  I waited, begging the universe to let this one small thing happen. But his hand stayed by his side. He shook his head, steeled himself against the world, and walked away from the cemetery. I collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. I looked at the world upside down. Cole’s feet came into view. He kneeled down.

  “Echo, you have to get up. This is important. Someone here is your killer. You said so yourself. Please. Get up.”

  Reluctantly, I allowed him to help me to my feet.

  “He didn’t … I wanted…”

  “I know. You loved him.”

  “I still love him!”

  “Right. You love him. And he loves you. But to him, you’re gone now, and if you want to find out who did this to you, then you better start taking a good look at everyone here.”

  There was an edge to Cole’s voice. Was he jealous? No, I wasn’t going to go there. I had a mission.

  As the cemetery worker began covering my grave with the mound of dirt, people were departing, fanning out to their parked cars.

  Dani, Denise, my aunt and uncle and my cousins, people from my school, Coach Reiger, Mr. Hemming. I concentrated to see if I could glean some hint of guilt or malice from their eyes. Nothing. I lowered my head in defeat.

  “It’s hopeless.”

  I couldn’t bear to see the final scoops of dirt heaped upon my grave, so I turned to leave. Cole was beside me when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. A man, standing behind a tree. I moved to get a closer look. Was he a random stranger? Or a coward watching my burial in hiding? I walked closer until I recognized him. It was someone from school. Old Mike Walker, the creepy guy with frizzy red hair who ran the lunchroom. His face was stoic, his thin, beady eyes bloodshot. But his eyes were always bloodshot because he was a boozer. He sucked on peppermints but you could always smell the liquor on him anyway.

  As usual, his craggy face was dotted with bristly stubble. Why was he here? He was no friend of mine. He was a pathological liar, who was always boasting about how he’d been a big Hollywood producer back in the day. The truth was he hadn’t done much of anything except lie. Today he didn’t just look hungover, he looked guilty. I remembered helping him once on lunch detail and he came and stood behind me, like he was smelling me—yuck!—and touched my shoulder and told me I was pretty and offered to put me in the movies. Yeah, right. I flinched at his touch and couldn’t help but blurt out “Eeewwww!” Later that day I’d gone into the supply closet and someone wedged the door shut with a doorstop. I kicked at it so hard I thought my foot was going to break. Walker came to my “rescue” and acted apologetic, like oh, how could anyone have done such a thing. I knew it was him and took off immediately. Creep city.

  As though he sensed my anger, Walker tossed a fearful glance over his shoulder and retreated to his beat-up old pickup truck covered with right-wing nutjob political bumper stickers. He started it up and left, the back wheels spitting up clippings and leaves. There was only one reason he would be here. Guilt. At having stabbed me to death with a hunting knife. Had Walker been inside the chapel? Was he the one I entered? Were those his visions?

  “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I know what I have to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go to school.”

  SCHOOL

  Cole and I flew back to Middle House—I was getting the hang of this amazing flying thing—and once the others heard about my encounter with the killer, they were all champing at the bit to help me call him out and haunt him to his grave. I slept fitfully that night, dreaming of a faceless boy reaching out to me. Was Andy fading from my dreams already? Or was it Cole, struggling to enter them?

  In the morning, Cole saved a seat for me in the dining hall. I didn’t tell him about my dream, but when I told him I had weird, confusing ones, he touched me again tenderly on the shoulder. His hand lingered.

  “You’re going to be fine. I promise you.”

  I tried to deny that he was starting to grow on me in a big way. But I couldn’t. He was pretty much irresistible, an annoyingly wonderful combination of strength mixed with tenderness. And his damn piercing, beautiful eyes didn’t hurt.

  After breakfast, it was time to get down to business. Cole called the same group—those who’d helped haunt Mick’s stepfather—together. I stood before them, my proverbial hat in hand. I kept trying to speak but the words were stuck in my throat like rocks.

  “Echo has something she wants to ask you,” said Cole.

  “So spit it out. I ain’t got all day,” said Darby.

  “Would you guys help me? Find my killer?”

  They all looked overly skeptical, averting their eyes and shaking their heads. It looked like I’d alienated all of them and wasn’t going to get a stitch of help. Then all of a sudden they began laughing and whooping it up and high-fiving and Darby clapped her hands together like a thunderbolt.

  “Hell yes! That’s what we do, girl!”

  I couldn’t help but smile. They’d nailed me.

  “I gotta say, it takes balls to go to your own funeral!” said Darby. The way that they looked at me I could tell they were all impressed.

  * * *

  We sailed across the sylvan landscape, passing a flock of geese—oh, hello there—and landed near my school. I was with Cole and my new Middle House friends, Lucy, Darby, Cameron, Zipperhead, and Dougie. Every time I looked at Cole, the nagging voice in my head kept saying, Boyfriend material? And I would answer, That’s crazy talk! Sure. Sure thing. We stood on the crest
of the wooded hill overlooking Washington High. It was an old building with several mismatched additions that made it look like an argument between a couple of cranky architects. Though it felt like a lifetime, only four days had passed since my last day in these hallowed halls.

  “This Walker guy, what’s he like?” asked Cole.

  “Everybody calls him ‘Grody Toad, the lunch dude.’ He’s been at the school forever. He runs the lunchroom and works the slop line, spooning out delicious servings of starch. Creamed corn, mashed potatoes, Spanish rice, barf beans. That kind of thing. Let’s go.”

  We moved down the hill. I thought about Mike Walker. He scowled at the boys and leered at the girls. We always held our trays up over our boobs so he couldn’t scope us out, and that pissed him off. He had more hair on his arms than the average orangutan and it never failed to make it into the mashed potatoes. He kind of skulked around, most of the time looking like he’d done something wrong.

  We floated toward the front entrance, and as I took a sidelong glance at my comrades, I realized that they were a troop of dead freaks. Most of them were too young for high school but didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. I guess once you’ve been murdered, not much else can daunt you. My new clique. Too ghoul for school.

  We passed through the front doors. The hallways were crowded with kids slogging back and forth between classes. Zipperhead kept looking at the short girls and I could tell he was longing for them in the worst way. Poor guy. I made a mental note to talk to him about girls. We came upon a flabby Hereford of a boy with a weak moustache who was twisting the ear of a much smaller underclassman, Denny McCarthy. I recognized the fat bully as Gary Magar, a senior and a first-class jerk with a nascent supervillain complex who walked around talking like he owned the school and had once pinched my left nipple. He was laughing as tears formed in the eyes of little Denny. I shook my head.