by Sarra Cannon
“You sure you don’t want nothing to drink?” she asked. “I’ve got some lemonade, I think.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I mostly just wanted to come see you.”
“I’m so glad you did,” she said. She placed her hand on mine and smiled. “Here, sit down. I was just making some hot tea. I’ll get you a cup.”
She poured hot water from a tea kettle into two small teacups. She unwrapped two tea bags and placed them in the cups, then put them both on the table between us.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot, girl. When I lost my Hailey, I was so scared we were gonna lose you, too.”
“I’m so sorry about Hailey,” I said, weak words for what I was really feeling inside. I hadn’t wanted to cry, but the tears came whether I wanted them to or not. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Me neither,” she said, sniffling and wiping under her nose with a napkin. “Some mornings I still knock on her door to make sure she’s ready for school or to ask her how her run went, but the second I see her room, I have to remember it all over again.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that, because the thought of it totally broke my heart.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better, though,” she said. “I tried to keep in touch with your mom to find out how you were doing, but I should have come up there to Longview to see you. I wasn't sure I could handle it at the time, though.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “No one really came up there.”
“You poor thing,” she said, grabbing my hand across the table. “I know you been through some hard times, and just like me, prolly nobody even knows.”
I nodded. “I miss her, too,” I said. “And I still feel like there are all these questions that no one can answer for me about what happened that night.”
Her eyes widened for a second, and then she looked down at the table. “I was hoping maybe you could answer some of my questions, too,” she said. “It just don’t make no sense. It wasn’t like Hailey to be doing drugs or drinking and driving, but they keep insisting she was doing all that. But I told them a thousand times that they had to be wrong. ‘Test results don’t lie’ they said to me, and I guess they’re right. But it still don’t make no sense.”
“It doesn't to me, either,” I said. “I’m having a lot of trouble remembering everything about that night, but me and Hailey, we never did stuff like that. You know that, but nobody believes me. Not even my own parents, I don’t think.”
It felt good to finally say those things without worrying that I would get sent for another therapy session on denial.
“It’s hard to argue with the results of the official tests,” she said. “But something isn’t right. They keep dragging my baby’s name through the mud when she’s not here to defend herself. What was really going on with her, Rayah?”
Chills ran down my spine.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I said.
She shook her head. “That girl was going to make something of herself and be the first one in my family to really be somebody. She didn’t deserve to die this way.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault, Rayah. I know that,” she said. “Whatever happened that night, you was messed up in it, too, somehow. And I’m glad you survived it, even though I know you’ve had one hell of a fight to get where you are now. I just wish my Hailey had been so lucky.”
Guilt ripped through me. It wasn’t fair that I was still sitting here and she was gone. She was the one who had all the talent and was really going to make something of her life. I didn’t even have a clue where I wanted to go to school or what I wanted to study, but Hailey’d had it all figured out. She could have had her pick of schools, and probably would have had a full scholarship to any one of them.
“Mrs. Feldman, can you tell me what you remember about that day?” I asked. “My doctor told me we’d gone to a party at Leslie’s late that afternoon and were supposed to stay there overnight, but that we’d left at some point and no one was sure why. Do you know anything about that? Did we come here first? Did we say anything about where we were going or who we were meeting up with?”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head.
“Not that I can remember,” she said. “You guys were here in the early afternoon, hanging out for a bit after Hailey’s run. You talked about going to that party, but as far as I knew you were going to stay there and not come home until Sunday afternoon.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me, too, but no one seems to know why we left,” I said. “Was Hailey acting strange at all that week leading up to the accident?”
“Strange?” she asked. “Like how?”
“I don’t know. Just not herself, I guess. Did she seem scared or withdrawn?”
Mrs. Feldman looked at me curiously. “You’re not saying you think she was really messed up with those drugs, are you?” she asked. “Because if that’s what you think—”
“No, of course not,” I said. I couldn’t very well tell her about the note or the strange symbol, but I knew those things were related. “I just wish I could make sense of what really happened.”
Mrs. Feldman shook her head. “I don’t blame you, Rayah,” she said. “And I honestly don’t know if there was something going on with her. I was working two jobs and falling straight into bed when I got home. But Hailey could always take care of herself. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. I sighed, feeling the weight of it all so heavy on my shoulders. I kept seeing her words on that piece of paper.
It wasn’t an accident.
I needed answers, and it didn’t look like I was going to get any from her mother.
“Do you mind if I go into Hailey’s room for a few minutes and look around?” I asked. “I know that’s a strange thing to ask, but I just feel like maybe it will help me remember something. Or maybe feel a little closer to her.”
“Oh, gosh, honey, you are welcome to,” she said. She wiped her hand across her tired face. “I’ve hardly had the energy to go in there myself, even after all this time. I keep thinking I should box her things up and put them away. Like maybe it would make me feel better or get some kind of closure, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I still don’t want to believe she’s really gone.”
“I know,” I said.
I didn’t want to believe it either. This whole thing felt like a bad dream I couldn’t force myself to wake up from.
I stood and placed my teacup in the sink. Mrs. Feldman didn’t stand up. She just sat there staring into space, as if lost in some memory.
I left her there and walked down the small hallway to Hailey’s room. The sign she’d made when she was younger still hung on the closed door, her name encircled with a wreath of pink and green hand-painted flowers.
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
Stepping into her room was like stepping into the past. I could almost see her still sitting on the pink comforter with her laptop open, watching YouTube videos and laughing.
“You’ve got to see this,” she would have said, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her.
But she wasn’t really there, of course. The dresser was covered in a fine layer of dust, one of her shirts still laying in a crumpled ball across the top. I ran my fingertip across the white painted wood of it, sending a tiny dust cloud into the air.
Everything looked exactly the same as it always had. It didn’t look as though her mother had even stepped foot in here since the day Hailey died.
I was grateful nothing had been disturbed. That meant there might still be clues as to what was really going on with her leading up to that night.
Hailey had kept a journal pretty religiously, writing in it every night before she went to bed. I searched for it in her usual hiding place under the mattress, but it wasn’t there. I opened the drawers of her side
tables and the top few drawers of her dresser and desk.
The familiar red leather journal was nowhere to be found.
But I knew Hailey. She rarely ever took it out of her room, because she was terrified someone would find it and read it. Of course I’d never even read it myself, but I knew that she wrote about all her thoughts and feelings. She’d once told me that the journal was an embarrassingly raw retelling of everything that happened in her life.
She’d once jokingly made me promise that if anything ever happened to her, I was to destroy it so that no one ever found out about her secret crush on our history teacher, Mr. Powell.
If something had been going on with her, she would have written about it in that journal. So where was it?
I searched the room for her purse or her school backpack, thinking maybe she would have taken it with her or thrown it in there, but I couldn’t find either of those in her room. The only place left to look was her closet, so I threw open the door and stared inside.
She had a small closet compared to mine, not one of those walk-in closets you see in newer houses. It was a tiny little space that she’d always kept neat and organized. Her shoes were arranged in double rows along the floor and her clothes hung neatly according to length from left to right.
Inside, I didn’t see her backpack, but I did notice something strange. Her favorite pair of running shoes were in the center of the back row of shoes, and they were covered in mud.
Or was that mud?
I crouched down to get a closer look.
Hailey was obsessive about her running shoes. She never would have left them dirty like this, but they were completely covered in what now looked to me like black tar. And it wasn’t just the soles of the shoes. It was the laces and the entire front of them, too.
My stomach drew into knots as I thought of the black oily liquid dripping from Hailey’s mouth in my dream.
I got down on my knees and reached for the shoes, but as my hand brushed the dress hanging above them, something on the wall in the back of the closet caught my eye.
Goosebumps broke out along my skin, and I pulled my hand away as if it had bitten me. I didn’t want to see whatever was back there, but I knew I needed to.
I couldn’t explain it, but I suddenly wanted to get the hell out of there. This room that had been a place of refuge and joy for me most of my teenage years had turned dark in an instant, and I had to look over my shoulder just to make sure no one was standing there.
Carefully, with trembling hands, I pushed Hailey’s clothes out of the way and stared at the wall that had been hidden behind them.
A single symbol had been drawn over and over in wild, thick lines. Three triangles with three dark circles surrounding them. The entire back wall was covered with them.
My hand flew to my mouth, and I fell back onto the rug. Panic consumed me like a raging fire.
What the hell was going on?
“Rayah? Everything okay in there?” her mom asked from the hallway.
The door to Hailey’s room was only partway opened, but I didn’t want her coming in here and seeing this.
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to control the terror in my voice. “I just tripped over something, but I’m okay. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Okay,” she said, but she sounded concerned. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said.
I reached into my back pocket for my phone, and as quickly as I could, I snapped several photos of the drawings in Hailey’s closet. I also took a picture of the tar-like substance on her shoes.
I carefully rearranged the clothes so that they were covering the drawings again and closed the closet door.
With one last glance around, I left my best friend’s bedroom and said goodbye to her mother, wanting to get as far away from that place as I could.
I had no idea what I was going to do, but there was no doubt in my mind at that point that something unnatural had happened to my friend. Something evil.
And whatever it was, it was happening to me, too.
15
My Life Next
About a block away from Hailey’s house, I had to pull over on the side of the road. My hands were still shaking, and I could hardly catch my breath.
I felt terrible for just running out on Mrs. Feldman like that, but I couldn’t be in that house any longer. There might as well have been a den of poisonous snakes in that closet.
No, what was actually there was much more terrifying, because it proved that whatever had happened to Hailey went much deeper than just some drunken accident or even a murder.
I couldn’t even begin to explain what I’d just seen or what it meant. It was like something out of a horror movie.
Was I going to wake up one day with an entire closet full of those drawings, too?
I tried to breathe. I just needed to calm down enough to get myself home before my mother showed up and wondered why I’d broken her rule about being out alone with the car.
I took several deep breaths until my hands were no longer shaking uncontrollably and finally drove the mile back to my house. Kimi was in the kitchen eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
“There you are,” she said with her mouth full. “Mom’s going to be home any minute. Where were you?”
“I went to see Hailey’s mom.” I dropped my backpack on the floor next to the island and leaned against it, unsteady on my legs.
Kimi frowned and set her sandwich down on the plate. “Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going?”
She came over and wrapped her arms around me. My sister was several inches shorter than I was, petite like our mother, and I rested my chin on the top of her head.
“That rough, huh?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. She had no idea.
I thought about telling her everything that had happened and showing her the drawings, but I couldn’t do that to her. I didn’t want her mixed up in this.
Besides, I was scared that if I started telling people about notes from beyond the grave and strange symbols and drawings in the back of a dark closet, they would lock me back up at Longview and never let me out.
And maybe I did belong there, after all?
Was it possible this was all some elaborate hallucination on my part?
That might be easier than the truth, but I knew that those drawings were real.
“She isn’t doing so well,” I said, instead, keeping the rest of it inside. This was my secret now.
“I can kind of imagine what she’s been going through,” Kimi said.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged and went back to her sandwich. “It was really tough around here for a long time before you woke up,” she said. “We didn’t know from day-to-day if you were going to ever come back to us. There were a few times the hospital called to say we needed to get over there, because they weren’t sure you were going to make it through the night.”
I sat up. “What? No one told me that.”
“It happened twice, I think,” she said. “Maybe three times. I can’t remember now. Those weeks kind of all blur together now.”
“What happened?” I asked. I’d never realized I’d been close to death during those months. I thought I was just sleeping peacefully.
“Your heart stopped beating,” she said. “Like, out of the blue, you had a couple episodes where you totally flatlined.”
She paused, chewing on her lip.
“What?” I asked, not sure I could handle this news on top of everything else.
“Maybe I’m not supposed to be telling you all this,” she said. “I just assumed you already knew.”
I shook my head. “No one ever tells me anything,” I said. “You would think I have a right to know what happened to me, but nobody wants to talk about it. It’s like they’re afraid that if they talk about it, I’ll just keel over and die or that I won’t be able to handle it. But I can. I deserve to know the truth.”
> “It was pretty scary,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “Seeing you lying there like that, attached to all those monitors with your head bandaged up. For a long time, I had trouble sleeping at night, because I was scared they’d get a call and not want to wake me up to take me to the hospital to see you one last time.”
I moved around the corner of the island and pulled my little sister into my arms again. She leaned her head against my shoulder, fresh tears falling against my skin.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“That’s not what everyone else thinks, though, is it?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” she said, pulling away. “Who cares what they think? What matters is that you’re here now.”
I wanted to agree with her. I wanted to be grateful for my life and leave the past behind. Get back to normal and forget about trying to figure out what really happened.
But I was beyond that now. Something horrible was happening, and I had to figure it out before it took my life next.
Outside, Mom’s car pulled into the driveway.
Kimi and I dried our tears and pretended to act normal when she came inside. But deep inside, I knew that normal was something I would never be again.
16
Even More Terrifying
I didn’t get a chance to look at the pictures on my phone until after dinner. I retreated to my room and pulled them up on my laptop.
They were even more terrifying the second time around.
It was all the same symbol, but they were all different sizes with varying degrees of wildly drawn lines.
This was clearly the work of a person who was completely out of their mind. That didn't fit with my friend at all. She was healthy and perky and much more positive and outgoing than I had ever been.
Hell, she’d just run a 5K two days before the accident and gotten first place. She wasn’t sick. She couldn't have been. Maybe I needed to talk to her coach and find out if she’d noticed anything strange.
