by Mintie Das
I walk by Caleb Rainey and a little shiver runs down my spine. His jaw is covered with patches of hair and I can’t tell if he was drunk-shaving this morning or if he’s trying to grow a beard. Either way, he looks more weaselly than usual. He takes a stack of books from his locker, and I start to go through it. After a minute or so I realize it’s nothing but standard school stuff and I switch to his bookbag, which is hanging on a hook inside.
I unzip the main pocket and rifle around. Nothing unusual except for a zip-lock bag of drugs. There are a few dime bags of pot along with a couple of handfuls of loose pills. I inspect the contents more closely. Other than the weed, I don’t recognize anything in here. These can’t all possibly be for him and Nate.
I wonder if Caleb is a dealer. It seems a bit off since he doesn’t need the money, but then, how else would he have friends? I put the baggie back. Even though the drug-sniffing dogs come out only twice a year, how arrogant do you have to be to bring drugs to school? Then I remember that the Raineys pledged a million dollars for the new football stadium and I realize Caleb clearly isn’t afraid of getting caught.
He shuts his locker and the loud bang makes me jump. I stick my hand into his front pocket to grab his phone, and just being that close to his junk grosses me out. It’s password-protected but I press 1-2-3-4 and it unlocks. I really can’t believe how many guys use that password. I’m sure it’s all the paranoia that Naresh has instilled in me about theft, but am I the only nerd who changes my passwords every three months?
I’ve snooped through so many phones today that I have it down to an exact science that requires only about four minutes. This time, I’m not even a minute in before I find a gallery of creep-shots. My mouth drops open. There’s gotta be at least a hundred pics of girls’ privates, all of which I assume were taken without their knowledge, judging by the “upskirt” angle of the photos. I start to feel sick as I scroll through them. I don’t know if these are all from my school but I can feel my pulse quicken when I recognize one of the shots. I can barely make myself click on it, but I do. My cheeks flame. I’ve got boy shorts on underneath my cheer skirt so I’m completely covered up, but that’s not the point. I feel so violated. I wasn’t going commando, but that doesn’t change the sense of rage, shame, and disgust that I feel.
I force myself to look through the rest of his photos to see if there’s anything in there with Naomi. Could be, but I can’t tell, since faces aren’t what Caleb focuses on.
I want to make that sicko bastard Caleb pay for this and realize I can start by going to Cameron Alvarez. I’d taken her digits down. I spend the next few minutes using Caleb’s phone to text all his photos to the detective.
I don’t know if these creep-shots mean that Caleb is Naomi’s killer but I certainly think his pervy ass is a prime suspect. I finish searching through his phone and am half relieved and half angry when I don’t find anything more.
I make a mental note to go check out Caleb’s house later to see if I can find more dirt on him. I walk down the hallway, trying to get the bitter taste of that degenerate out of my mouth, and I get happily sidetracked by seeing Austin.
He’s walking in late to class and I decide to follow him.
“Sorry, Mr. P.” He shrugs coolly as he hands the teacher a pink excuse note from the principal’s office.
“Sit down, please, and open your textbook to page two hundred and twelve,” Mr. Petrovic says.
I feel my heart race as I watch Austin saunter to his desk. I move so that I am standing directly next to him. Maybe it’s a bhoot thing but all of a sudden, I notice that my senses feel like they’re on fire. I can practically taste the remnants of the Coke he drank at lunch mixed with the piece of Big Red he’s chewing on. I fantasize about all the stuff I could do to him right now while I’m invisible. It’s kind of hot but also totally skeevy, especially as I flash to Caleb. Ick! I try to shake him out of my mind, at least temporarily. I’ve been sleuthing hard all day and deserve a perv-free moment with Austin.
Of course I’m tempted to rifle through Austin’s personal belongings although I know it’s shady. Even if I’ve spent the last several hours doing just that to other people, I really was looking for clues about Naomi’s case. Yes, I uncovered some curious tidbits about a couple of the baseballers along the way, but hot gossip is not a priority with death hanging over my head. I already promised myself that I’d never mention anything I found that wasn’t Naomi-related, which seems pretty fair. Except Caleb, but that’s an exception that I was more than happy to make.
However, Austin isn’t a baseball player and I hardly think he’s the guy in the sex tape. Although I really don’t know what Austin does when he’s not playing the guitar. Maybe that’s why I should try to find out, I tell myself. I can literally see a devil and an angel sitting on my shoulders and arguing as though I’m in a cartoon.
I hate to say it but it’s not my conscience holding me back; it’s fear. What if Austin has some strange obsession like our shortstop John Barnes and his furries fetish? Worse, what if I discover that Austin is crushing on someone else? I feel a pang in my chest. Our awesome movie kiss happened only yesterday but that already seems like a lifetime ago. I can still feel the vibration of him run through me, but what if I was kidding myself about our connection?
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach down and pull Austin’s cell out of his pocket. This time, I don’t mind how deep I plunge my hand next to his crotch. I type in 1-2-3-4, then click on his text messages. I can hear my heart beating in my ears as I scroll through them. When I reach as far back as a month ago, a rush of relief runs through me. Girls flock all over Austin but he doesn’t have a girlfriend.
I finish my investigation in exactly four minutes and happily determine that the guy is a standard horny teenage boy, but other than that, he’s pretty vanilla. I’m about to return his phone to his pocket when I notice a symbol of a treble clef.
I press on it and see that it’s some kind of songwriting app. I didn’t know that Austin actually wrote his own music. Guilt starts to creep up again. I am just about to exit the app when I spot my name among the other song titles. I catch my breath. If a guy writes a song about you, then he’s, like, totally whipped, right? Unless this is a hate ballad. What if he mentions my jiggle butt and cottage-cheese thighs?
The suspense is too much to take. I shakily click on my name. It takes me a second to process what I see. There is only one word: exotic. I cringe. I don’t know if it’s a song title but it bugs me that it’s under my name.
Exotic is the word white people use to tell brown girls they don’t belong. As in, You don’t fit in with our fair-skin-light-eyes-straight-hair standard of beauty, so that makes you exotic. I was described as exotic so often by the time I was ten that I finally looked the word up. It means “not native, different, foreign, strange.” I know most of the time, people mean it as a compliment, but it never feels like one. The fact that Austin used it makes me irritated and slightly confused.
All of a sudden, I feel a strange tingly sensation run through me, like I’m being poked with a thousand different needles. At first it tickles but then the feeling intensifies. A sharp, splintering pain radiates through me as a series of cracks and crunches echo in my ears. Something is twisting my ankle bones from the inside out and it is excruciating! I look down and nearly topple over from the shock. My feet are turned backwards.
* * *
I land with a loud thud in the middle of the parking lot at the Talbert Funeral Home.
“Did you tell them to do this to me?” I scream into Lukas’s face. I point down at my feet. They are grotesque, like Naomi’s, with the ankles facing front. The pain is so torturous that I fall down.
Lukas looks around to see if anyone is watching, then hoists me over his shoulder and walks behind the garage. He sets me down on the grass and I sit up but I don’t dare to stand on my aching feet.
“No, I did not,” Lukas says. “The Aiedeo make their own decisions.”
/>
“Of course you didn’t stop them!”
He crosses his arms. “No.”
I glare at him in silence for a minute before I speak. “So why did those bitches do this?”
Lukas scowls. The guy is so good at making me feel like a disobedient child that I wonder if he was a strict headmaster at an English boarding school in a past life. Although immortals probably don’t reincarnate.
“It’s because I snooped into Austin’s phone, right?” I say grudgingly. “I realize it’s like a total violation of the superhero code to use my powers for my own selfish reasons, but seriously, isn’t flipping my feet a bit harsh?”
“Most of what you said sounds like your usual nonsense but ‘selfish reasons’ does ring true.” Lukas sighs. “The Aiedeo turned your feet backwards to send you one step further into being a permanent bhoot. It’s a warning that this isn’t a game.”
“I know that! It’s my life!” I shout.
“Violet, I’m not here to tell you what to do but I believe you should speak with Naomi,” he says.
“Duh. It’s not so easy since she’s totally ghosted me. Know any spells I can use to get her back?”
“I don’t do spells.”
He lets out a noise that I think is a slight chuckle and I smile despite myself. Lukas points to an upstairs window of the Talberts’ house. “Dropping in unexpectedly might work.”
I follow his finger and see the outline of Naomi’s back against the window. A sense of dread comes over me. I’m also not quite sure why Lukas is being nice to me. That is, if not trying to kill me qualifies as “nice.” Then I remind myself that I am already dead. That’s why I have no choice but to force Naomi to talk to me.
I get up shakily and try to stand on my throbbing backwards feet. My gnarly hoofs definitely qualify as “exotic.” It’s good that the bhoot lifestyle requires very little walking because these puppies are painful. More agonizing than when Naomi forced the entire Squad to wear shimmery silver five-inch stiletto heels to our first national cheer competition. We looked like junior delegates at a stripper convention.
I turn to ask Lukas for a boost but he’s already gone. I brace myself against the garage wall for balance. When I’m steady enough, I leap up and fly through a third-story window of the Talberts’ house.
Eighteen
IT’S A PRETTY ROUGH LANDING on the hardwood floor inside Naomi’s bedroom but I’m actually kind of proud of myself for managing to get up here.
“Violet?” I hear Naomi say from somewhere. “OMG. You look totally busted.”
I stand up slowly on my wobbly bhoot feet and look for Naomi. The Talberts renovated the entire attic and turned it into a massive mega-bedroom for Naomi’s thirteenth birthday. Although it was supposed to be a gift for Naomi, I bet the real beneficiaries were the Talberts and their younger son, since this effectively kept Naomi isolated from them.
“Are you blind? I’m up here.”
I look up to see Naomi hanging from the ceiling like she did when she first visited me as a bhoot.
“I’m dead like you,” I say. There is no joy at reuniting with Naomi, just queasiness. “Sort of.”
“Did someone hurt you too?” Naomi asks as her face clouds with concern.
I’m touched by her display of what seems like genuine emotion. Plus, I’m surprised she hasn’t thrown me out yet, so I take a seat in an overstuffed black-and-white-striped chair. “Not exactly.” I prop my throbbing feet on an ottoman. I continue. “Remember the stuff we talked about with the Aiedeo, special powers and that helping you was my shama?”
“Powers? As in more than one? You can do more than just talk to dead people?”
I nod.
“Show me. I want to see what you’ve got.”
I shift in my seat. I should have guessed that Naomi would egg me on. “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t just spark up my powers at the drop of a hat. At least, not yet.”
“So you’re, like, the lamest superhero ever.” Naomi plops down onto her bed. “Is that why you’re dead? Because the Hall of Justice decided they didn’t want you around?”
“Ha-ha,” I reply dryly. “I’m not a superhero. I’m a bhoot. You’re a bhoot too.”
“I thought I was a ghost. What’s a bhoot?”
“Ghosts don’t exist. A bhoot is a spirit.” I falter a bit at this last part because it’s awkward to tell a bhoot directly to her face. “A spirit with a lost soul.”
Naomi stays quiet for a few seconds before speaking. “I’m still confused about the difference. But I do get the lost-soul stuff. I mean, my soul does feel pretty lost.”
I nod. This is going smoother than I thought it would. “But I have the possibility to reverse my status back to living.”
“So you’re only temporarily dead? I guess I forgot to check the box for that option.”
“The Aiedeo turned me into a bhoot so that I can help find your killer and, you know, help your soul find peace.” I point to my feet. “They gave me these suckers about an hour ago to warn me that if I don’t get my act together, I’m condemned to Bhoot World for eternity.”
“Well, my aunt Jenny tried to make out with my boyfriend last Christmas. Guess we’ve got shitty relatives in common,” Naomi says. “I feel your pain. I could barely stand the first day but it gets better after twenty-four hours or so. Maybe longer. When you’ve got eternity, you stop paying attention to time.”
“Good to know, I guess.”
“Aside from the fact that they killed you, the Aiedeo must really hate you, Violet.” Naomi scans me up and down. “Or was it your lame idea to wear your Pioneer Poms uniform? A dead cheerleader is such a cliché.”
I look down at myself and I’m completely stunned. There’s been so much going on that I haven’t even paid attention to what I’m wearing. I admit that I’m totally lame. Still, I can’t let Naomi get away with ragging on me. I eye her skintight jeans. “It’s still better than having a permanent wedgie in the afterworld.”
“Touché.” Naomi laughs.
“There’s no doubt that the Aiedeo totally suck for making me dead. And for making me wear this.” I pinch the roll of chub that hangs over my waist. “Check out my muffin top! It’s like the Aiedeo cursed me to damnation with a uniform that’s two sizes too small.”
Naomi cracks up and I join her. After a few seconds, we calm down enough to speak.
“But how am I supposed to trust you, Violet? I already overheard your plan to get rid of me. An exorcism? Seriously?”
“At the time, I thought you were a sadistic spirit, so can you really blame me for being scared? You got all in my face with that haunting-me-for-the-rest-of-my-life stuff.” I pause. Naomi isn’t attacking me at this very moment, but that doesn’t mean her viciousness isn’t going to show itself at one point or another. Dead or alive, Naomi has lots of different faces, I know. “But now, it works out for both of us if we cooperate.”
Naomi stays silent for a couple of seconds. “Fine. You help me and I’ll help you.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” I joke as I hold out my hand.
She takes it and we shake. I reach for my pocket notebook. “I went to the station and read your police report. Maybe some of these details might help you remember what happened the night you were killed.”
I look up at Naomi and she’s not listening at all. A slow, slightly devious smile breaks across her face. “Wanna see something totally messed up?”
I hesitate. In the past, when Naomi asked me this, it never turned out to be something that I wanted to see. Nor was it ever really a question.
“In a second, but first, let’s try to jog your memory,” I say with a bunch of false enthusiasm.
“Later,” Naomi says as she whizzes across the room. She stops at the doorway and then turns in my direction. “Follow me.”
* * *
“Oh my God, this so messed up,” I mumble.
We are standing in the Talbert Funeral Home’s morgue staring at Naomi’s dead c
orpse. The cadaver looks a lot like Bhoot Naomi except that it is naked and way stiffer with more veins sticking out.
A disturbing thought hits me. Where the hell is my real body? Have the Aiedeo stashed it somewhere? I make a mental note to ask Lukas. But now I need to put my full attention back on Naomi so I don’t lose her again.
“The embalming fluid totally makes me look bloated but check out my abs.” Naomi lifts the sheet to expose her six-pack. “Pretty bangin’, right?”
I notice Elizabeth, Naomi’s mother, watch the sheet rise.
“Wait—you can affect objects?”
Naomi nods. “It took me a few days to learn how to do it. But now I’ve gotten pretty good. See!” She drops the sheet, then lifts it again.
“Naomi, don’t do that!” I slap her hand. “It’s freaking your mom out.”
Elizabeth Talbert is a long-standing MILF and the obsession of every husband over at Meadowdale Country Club, all of whom count the days to swimsuit season. Watching Liz jump off the high dive in her two-piece has become a national sport for the Viagra set.
One can see where her only daughter inherited her beauty, but whereas Naomi is hot, Liz is more of a cool beauty. In the past few years, there’s been something almost ghostly about her. Her porcelain skin appears translucent and her gaunt face looks hollow. Some of the townspeople joke that Liz turned herself into one of the corpses. She’s responsible for applying the makeup on the dead bodies, and I have to admit, she has the same heavy hand with her own face. Especially the blusher, which she wears as if it were tribal war paint.
“Violet, do you see the half-empty bottle of vodka next to my mother’s chair? She’s too blotto to see or feel a thing. Believe me,” Naomi snaps.
I watch Elizabeth swoosh the ice around in her glass, then take a big long sip. A lump forms in my throat. How did I forget about Naomi’s alcoholic mother? Liz is a discreet drunk.
“Does she do this often?” I whisper even though Elizabeth can’t hear us.
