“My uncle, Oliver Finn. I asked him about you and he said you were an interesting girl. You and your friend made a movie for a project last year and everyone still talks about it.”
Mr. Finn was my History teacher last year. I liked his class a lot but I have no interest in getting to know his nephew. “I don’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“It happened last year. That part of my life is over.”
“It’s not over.”
He’s right, but how could he know? How could he have found out about the nightmares? I haven’t told anyone. It’s too weird and people already think I’m weird anyway. I don’t want to make it worse. This is high school. I need to seem as normal as possible. I want to fit in at least a little. That means forgetting about the movie and what happened last year, but there’s someone who won’t let me forget and he visits me in my dreams. Often.
“I’m gonna be late. Can I have my shoe back now?”
“The movie?” He’s over six feet tall and he’s holding the sandal up, just out of my reach; causing a small scene, right outside my English classroom.
I give in. “My house. Eight o’clock. Saturday night. Bring popcorn.”
His smile dazzles me. All white teeth and sparkly eyes. Finally, he hands over the flip-flop; I slap my foot into it and rush into English class. Ms. Coffman’s hardcore. She hands out detentions like mad and she hates tardiness.
I’m almost at my desk when someone comes up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. Turning around to see who it is, I find myself staring into Matt Riley’s face. He’s the reason I’ve sworn off boys.
I haven’t seen or spoken to Matt since the first week of summer vacation, shortly before he dumped me. I can’t remember any of the witty phrases I’ve been rehearsing in the mirror for this occasion, so I just warn him. “You’re gonna be late.”
“It’s okay. I have gym next. Mr. Burke doesn’t care.”
“Coffman’s gonna yell at you.”
“I don’t give a crap, Annabelle. What was all that between you and the new kid?”
“Nothing.”
“Stay away from him. No one knows where he came from or why he’s here.”
“Thanks for the warning. Bye. I gotta look over my notes. There’s a quiz today.” I have no idea when the next quiz is but I want to get rid of Matt Riley. Fast.
“Are you and Silver gonna hang out?”
“Why do you care?”
“I still care about you.”
“What happened to Liz? I thought you two were together now.”
“Not exclusively.”
That’s so him. “Not exclusively” is Matt Riley-speak for: “I’m waiting for the next girl to come along because she might be hotter.” I’m not good at interpreting Matt Riley-speak. I never did become proficient in his native language and I don’t want to. Last summer, I could’ve used an interpreter, though. I might’ve been spared a lot of heartbreak if someone had told me what he really meant when he said he loved me. I still don’t know.
“Matt, you’re gonna be late and none of this is your business.”
“Lots of guys you’ve known for a long time want to hang out with you. You don’t need to hook up with a stranger, Annabelle.”
“Thanks for your concern. But we’re not hooking up.”
“There’s a party Saturday, at Colleen’s. Her parents are at their Cape house. Are you going?”
“No, I have plans.”
“With Silver?”
I hate lying and it feels awful, but I don’t want Matt Riley to know anything about my life now that he’s not part of it anymore. So I answer, “We’re not together. We just sit next to each other in History class.”
That part’s true, but then I add, “He needs a study partner for a project.”
“Okay, but be careful. The dude’s weird.”
Ms. Coffman glares at me over the top of her goofy-looking glasses. They’re perched down near the end of her nose and the lenses are half the size of regular lenses. What’s up with those crazy-looking things? I think she wears them just so she can stare at you over them. To creep you out and make you feel guilty even if you haven’t done anything wrong.
I show her the smile I’ve been practicing for when I beat my personal record at the race this Saturday and all the kids on the team run over to congratulate me.
She stands down. Never underestimate the power of a friendly smile. I treat teachers like they’re human beings from the same planet as me. And I always laugh at their jokes. It helps to have a good relationship with your teacher when you need an extension for a research paper.
Coffman heads toward my desk. “Boyfriend troubles, Miss Blake?”
I want to say, neither of those douche bags is my boyfriend.
Instead I say, “No. It’s all good.” Then quickly change the subject. “New sneakers, Ms. Coffman? Very fashion forward.”
Laughing out loud, she says, “Same old sneakers. But thanks.”
Then she walks to the front of the room and starts talking about Shakespeare.
Chapter 3
Dumped but Not Forgotten
I recently closed the door on an episode of my life that I want to forget because of the pain and humiliation. Matt Riley taught me all about rejection last summer. And I hated it.
Matt’s a very chill, very popular guy. Last September, in Biology class, he started paying attention to me and then things moved along pretty fast. We had been together for almost ten months when he broke my heart on the first day of summer vacation.
Matt hooked up with the prettiest member of a clique called the Juicies. I don’t know what that means. Maybe like a juicy apple is tastier than other apples or something. I don’t care. I’m not nearly rich or popular enough to be part of their group anyway. And one of them recently stole my boyfriend.
Matt and I spent a lot of time together last year. Our favorite thing was watching movies at each other’s houses: slasher horror movies at his house, classic thrillers at mine. My brother Clement’s a film major at Emerson College and his enthusiasm’s contagious. He’s taught me a lot about film. When Clem’s home, we watch movies over and over again, debating, theorizing, discussing. It never gets old for Clement and me. Evidently it did get old for Matt.
For his birthday, I bought him the deluxe edition DVD of The Silence of the Lambs, with lots of previously unreleased footage and commentary by the author, director and actors.
Shortly before we broke up he confessed that he’d never watched it. I guess it wasn’t quite as exciting as Saw 12.
Last March, for my birthday, he bought me a t-shirt that said “Legally Brunette.” I never wore it. After Matt and I broke up, I gave it to Jen. I hate t-shirts with cutesy expressions. How could he not have known that? I guess I realized early on that Matt and I were way different from each other, but we definitely had chemistry. My biggest regret: he dumped me before I could dump him, and I never saw it coming.
I was babysitting for my neighbors one Saturday night in late June. As soon as the kids fell asleep, I texted Matt a couple of times. I remember how happy I was. The kids were old enough so they were fun to play with, but young enough so I could still boss them around. They had Wii and we played games for a couple of hours. After an intensely competitive burping contest, which I won, they went straight to bed without arguing. I kept thinking about how much fun we’d had and how I was getting paid ten dollars an hour for fooling around and laughing.
I thought I’d share these thoughts with my boyfriend, but he didn’t answer my text. I figured maybe his phone had died, even though, during our ten-month relationship, I’d always been able to reach him. We’d even texted each other at one in the morning sometimes, to share boring information about our boring lives. We flirted so furiously our phones should’ve caught fire.
On this particular night, though, he didn’t answer my text. The next day, he finally texted me back. He thought we should try being just friends for senior
year. When I sent him back a “WTF,” he finally called, so we could have an actual conversation.
He explained, “If we break up now, before we start our senior year, we won’t have to worry about a long-distance relationship when we get to college. I don’t want to influence you if you decide to apply to schools that are out-of-state. And you shouldn’t influence my college choices, either. We’re too young to get into all that.”
We’d never had a serious discussion about the future before, so at first I was impressed. Matt was thinking ahead and being logical. Even though I felt hurt, I saw his point, plus I thought I could easily change his mind when he saw me in person with my summer-time tan, wearing really short, faded denim shorts and the lily pad green shirt that matched my eyes. I’d just had my belly button pierced. Summer was here. Why wouldn’t he want to hang out with someone like me?
Because he had someone like her, that’s why. Liz Mayer drives a BMW which is actually hers, not her parents’. But they bought it for her. The license plate says, “LizM.”
Every article of clothing she wears advertises whoever designed it. I can’t make fun of her for being a bimbo, because she has the brains and the money to get accepted at an Ivy League school. She’s smart, rich and beautiful. It would be mean to say that whatever she wasn’t born with, her parents buy for her. But it’s true.
She has a great body, because her parents pay for her membership at an upscale gym, not because she participates in sweaty sports. Her year-round, golden-brown skin comes from tanning salon visits, not from helping with the yard work. From the roots of her perfectly highlighted hair to the soles of those two hundred dollar fur-lined boots she wears, even in warm weather, she advertises everything money can buy. And last summer she stole my boyfriend along with some of my self-confidence.
I scooped ice cream for minimum wage, went to the beach with my friends on my days off and sulked. I dealt with anger and jealousy by running. Senior year was going to be my year on the cross-country team. I ran my ass off; training seriously for the first time ever. I went to all of the captains’ practices and sweated like a monster.
With each pounding step, I assured myself that she would never get sweaty. Work hard at a sport. Run every day; even in a downpour. I made varsity this fall and it feels good. I’m one of the top ten runners on the team now. The coaches were surprised. For my freshman, sophomore and junior years I’d just cruised along. Cheered on my teammates and helped struggling new runners build up their confidence. I never tested myself until this year.
I decided that senior year was gonna be my time to shine, even if I’m shining with sweat. My mother comes to every cross-country meet and my dad often leaves work early to watch me run. Clement even came home from college last week end and captured me on film, my ponytail flying back, like a dark, glittering flag and my fast feet barely touching down on the path. He calls the film Run, Annabelle. And he’s entering it in a college film festival.
Take that, Matt Riley. You suck. Have fun with your rich, gorgeous, smart girlfriend, who’ll never be able to run five sub-seven minute miles in a row. And I can do it without barfing, too.
No matter how fast I run, though, I can’t escape the nightmares. Matt Riley couldn’t keep them away and Wyatt Silver won’t be able to either. I need a hero but I’ll never find him. No one can save me from the cold presence of my midnight visitor. He’s relentless and he seems so real that I wake up screaming.
Click, click, click. I hear the same sound every time. Frosty air seethes in from nowhere and wakes me up. Except I’m not awake. I’m dreaming but it seems real because I’m in my bed, right where I was when I fell asleep.
He brings the winter with him.
The window’s closed. So a nocturnal breeze couldn’t have lowered the temperature to below freezing. I watch as frost forms on the antique crystal doorknob. Click, click, click. An invisible hand turns the knob and the door opens, slowly. All on its own.
He crawls toward me, weeping quietly in the darkness. When he reaches the bed, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. His whisper feels like thousands of icy spider legs scuttling around on my skin. “Whhhhh…” no words, just white noise blown from between his frigid lips. Into my ear, along my cheek. “Whhhhh.”
He won’t leave me alone. I pull the bed covers up over my head. Grasping my blankets in a death grip, I imagine a cold-blooded hand as damp, dark and slimy as a salamander under a rotting log. What if his chilly fingers grab my throat and squeeze?
Huddling inside my cocoon of blankets, I try to scream but no sound will come out. When I start kicking my legs, I finally wake myself up, poke my head out from under the covers and look over at the door; it’s open. I closed it right before I went to bed. I yell like a five year old. “Mom… Dad!”
My father rushes in to reassure me. “Annabelle, just keep the door open. I’ll check the hinges again tomorrow when I get home from work, and the doorknob, too.” The nightmares started about a year ago and my parents and I have been replaying the same scene again and again since then.
Dad has his own theory about the dream; it involves one of our Blake ancestors. He explained it to me one night last winter, after I woke him up at midnight for the second time in a week. He spoke in the patient voice he uses when he’s trying not to sound annoyed because I’m bugging the crap out of him. His story was boring and his voice was soothing, so I fell back to sleep again. Before I dozed off, though, I heard him say:
“The original part of this house dates back to the sixteen-hundreds. For four centuries, our family has lived here in Eastfield, at the edge of the Great Hockomock Swamp. Sometime during the mid-1600’s Josiah Blake built a small and humble cabin, here on the driest section of his land. Gradually, through the generations, our ancestors updated and remodeled the existing building and built additions onto the original house.
“A few months before you were born, I finished remodeling your bedroom. I moved some old doors from another part of the house: the dining room addition, built by Zephyriah Blake in 1885, and used them to give your bedroom an antique look. I put one on your closet and one on your bedroom door. I wanted your room, which Grandpa Blake added in the fifties, to fit in better with the rest of the house. Plus, the removal of the old maple doors opened the dining room up to the kitchen, which made your mother happy. She always wanted an open floor plan.”
I drifted off to sleep, picturing myself sipping a cup of hot, sweet tea in our cozy, safe kitchen with its big open floor plan.
Dad joked with me the next morning. “Old Zeph’s annoyed and wants his doors moved back.”
If that’s the case, though, why now? My father moved the doors upstairs seventeen years ago. Why did Zeph wait so long to invade my dreams? And what about the crying? Why would Zeph be crying?
For most of my junior year of high school and then all summer long, I endured these nightmares. I like to sleep in a dark, quiet room, so stubbornly I closed the door every night when I went to bed but the dream kept waking me up at midnight. And when I opened my eyes and looked, the door was always open. Now I’m afraid to fall asleep because I know I’ll wake up in the dark, alone and terrified. Only my parents know about my recurring nightmare. I’m not ready to tell any of my friends such a freakish story.
Finally I did the only sensible thing; I started leaving the stupid door open. For privacy’s sake I hung a sign from the top of the door frame. “Do not enter. I might be naked.” And he left me alone, for one night. I decided to take it a night at a time.
I still have the nightmare once in a while, but not nearly as often. I’ve begun to feel a little bit happier and more relaxed.
Except now Wyatt Silver has come along. He wants to see the movie and that’s how the nightmares started.
Every fall, the students in the junior class have to do a big project on the history and literature of Massachusetts. Last year, Meg and I decided to make a movie about local paranormal legends.
“Do you know what would be fun?
Grab a flashlight. Let’s go find a ghost.” It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Eastfield is located in an area of southeastern Massachusetts known as the Hockomock Triangle. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle, but smaller and colder in the winter. Lots of weird things have happened here.
My last year’s History teacher, Mr. Finn, who’s also Wyatt’s uncle, is an authority on the Hockomock Triangle. So he was one hundred percent in favor of letting us do the movie. He even helped us with our research. That’s how Wyatt knows about it—but I still have no idea why he’s so interested. I guess I’ll find out Saturday night.
Chapter 4
Saturday Night at the Movies
Wyatt arrives exactly on time and I stay upstairs, hoping one of my parents will answer the door, so Wyatt will have to make awkward conversation while I keep him waiting. My plan is to stand at the top of the stairs and listen.
Dad lets Wyatt in and, sure enough, starts the interrogation. Where is Wyatt applying to college? What does he want to study? Is he thinking of playing a sport? I have to stop myself from running downstairs and hugging and kissing my dad for asking so many dorky questions and making Wyatt squirm. If it gets awkward enough, maybe he’ll leave me alone.
After about ten minutes of listening to my dad grill Wyatt about his plans for the future, I hear my mother enter the kitchen. She takes Wyatt’s box of microwave popcorn and begins popping it. Mom knows his Uncle Oliver because she’s a member of the Eastfield Historical Society and Mr. Finn’s the president. So she starts talking to Wyatt about the history of our house and the Blake family because we’ve lived here for so many generations. Wyatt’s probably bored to death, but he has to act polite and listen.
Finally, I make my belated entrance, looking dazzling in a pair of SpongeBob pajama pants and my dad’s old high school track sweatshirt. If my outfit for the evening could speak it would say, “Make this quick because I’m tired and want to go to bed.”
But Wyatt doesn’t seem to care about what I’m wearing. He looks happy and relieved to see me.
Enter If You Dare Page 2
