Ominous

by Kate Brian

  “You know, when I suggested going on a date, this is not what I had in mind,” Josh said, stepping outside.

  “I know. We’re still going to do that,” I promised him. I looked at the open padlock on the shed door. “So how did you—”

  “Hey!”

  Josh and I both screamed and clutched each other, the business end of one of the shovels nearly colliding with my skull. I released his arm when I saw Ivy trudging toward us. She wore a black ankle-length coat and a black skullcap, and she had her hair done in two thick braids.

  “What are you doing out here?” I demanded.

  “You didn’t really think I was going to let you guys do this without me, did you?” she asked, raising her perfectly thin eyebrows. She lifted her chin toward the shed. “You should probably relock that.”

  “Don’t you want a shovel?” Josh asked, angling toward the door.

  She scrunched her nose. “I don’t do shovels.”

  Josh laughed. I wished Ivy had told me she was coming instead of startling us in the middle of the mission, but I was glad to have her along. Sneaking around the eerie Easton woods in search of a ghost’s legacy was definitely a “the more the merrier” type of situation. Josh secured the lock on the door, slung both shovels over one shoulder, and nodded toward the woods.

  “Lead the way, Elizawannabe,” he said.

  I shoved him lightly and started into the woods. The spot where I’d been standing in my dream faced the back of the chapel, so I decided to walk around to the back, then head north from there to try to find the clearing. The three of us walked along in a straight line, Josh behind me and Ivy behind him, the woods silent except for the crunching of our shoes and the hiss of our breathing. Suddenly I remembered playing jungle adventures with my brother, Scott, and his friends when we were little—tromping through the woods behind our middle school with toy canteens and flashlights. Only then, my pulse hadn’t been pounding in my ears in this annoyingly unnerving way.

  “Wow,” Josh whispered as we stepped into the large clearing around the chapel. “That’s a beautiful church.”

  “You’ve seen it before, right?” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him.

  He’d paused near the cornerstone and tipped his head all the way back to better see the tip-top of the spire. “Yeah, but never at night. I should come back up here and paint it before graduation.”

  My heart panged at the thought of Josh leaving Easton, and he seemed to notice the change in my expression. He reached for my gloved hand and squeezed it.

  “Which is many, many weeks away,” he reminded me.

  I nodded. Ivy hung back at a respectful distance, her hands in the pockets of her coat, but I couldn’t help remembering that not that long ago, it would have been her hand he was reaching for. It was awkward enough when she’d been dating him and he was my ex, but now I was dating him again and he was her ex. The very fact that the three of us could be in the same room together, let alone on the same mission, was a small miracle. I cleared my throat and pulled away.

  “Come on. We’re almost there.”

  I walked to the center of the back wall, then turned my steps perpendicular to it and headed straight toward the woods. Now that we were so close, I suddenly realized how completely futile and insane this whole endeavor was. What did I really think I was going to find out here? This was just a product of my overactive imagination, spurred on by my obsession with the BLS and the book of spells.

  But when I got to the tree line, I paused. Right in front of me was a pathway. It was a bit grown over, but it was there.

  “What’s up?” Josh asked, coming up behind me.

  “Look.” I pointed at the ground, trailing my finger up to indicate the line of the path. We both squinted into the darkness. Up ahead, it looked as if the trees parted. “Is that—?”

  “A clearing?” Ivy said, stopping at my opposite shoulder. “You bet your ass it is.”

  She pushed ahead, leading the way into the woods.

  “I suppose we have to follow her,” Josh said.

  “It would be rude, right? To leave her here alone,” I joked back.

  “Majorly.”

  I glanced up at the sky for a moment, feeling suddenly that someone was watching. Not in a bad or scary way, just in an … interested way. I reached for Josh’s hand, glad that I didn’t have to do this alone, and lifted my foot to step over the pile of dead leaves at my feet. When we caught up to Ivy, she was standing in the center of a circle of trees. The ground beneath her feet was packed dirt, no snow in sight. My heart quivered. I couldn’t have sworn it was the exact same clearing from my dream, but it was familiar. Slowly, I trailed my eyes around at the trees—oaks and birches, evergreens and maples. And then I froze.

  “What?” Ivy and Josh said as one. “What is it?”

  Josh sidestepped closer to me, the shovels clanging together, as if trying to see whatever I was seeing from exactly my vantage point.

  “There,” I said, pointing. “That’s it. That’s the tree from my dream.”

  Ivy and I arrived at the foot of the enormous oak at the exact same time. She crouched down, just as Elizabeth had the night before, and I was hit with a sickening punch to the gut. I almost reached out to grab her—to pull her back. But then, that was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if Ariana was really about to charge out of the woods and attack.

  I took a deep breath to calm my fluttering heart and studied the woods around us. There was no one there.

  “Look at this,” Ivy said. “This area is packed down in a whole different way. Look. It’s lower than the rest of the clearing.”

  My stomach filled with butterflies the size of baseballs. Josh swung the shovels off his shoulder and handed one to me. He drove the tip of his straight into the hard, cold dirt.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, stopping his arm with my hand.

  “Digging,” he replied, matter-of-factly. “Isn’t that what we came here to do?”

  I smirked. “What happened to skeptical Josh?”

  “He’s officially left the building,” Josh replied. “So are you gonna help me or what?”

  The two of us started to dig, while Ivy tucked her coat beneath her legs and sat down on a wide, exposed tree root to watch. The ground, frozen solid, made the work slow and frustrating. Every now and then a hard jab with the shovel would yield only half an inch of silt. Still, every second I envisioned myself hitting pay dirt—imagined the point of my shovel hitting something hard and metallic—whatever it was Elizabeth Williams had supposedly sent me here to find. At some point clouds moved across the moon, darkening the woods around us, and Ivy had to flick on the two flashlights she’d grabbed from the emergency kit in our dorm. Soon my shoulders started to ache and my abs got tired of supporting my back. I wiped sweat from my brow, wondering when I’d gone from freezing to overheated.

  “Reed?” Josh said. He leaned both hands atop the end of his shovel handle and looked up at me. He was standing in a ditch about four feet deep. There was a streak of dirt from his nose to his earlobe. “Can we stop now?”

  I glanced at Ivy. She was shivering in the cold. “How long have we been doing this?”

  “Two hours,” she said, without glancing at her watch. She sighed. “This sucks.”

  “I know. I thought for sure we’d find something,” I said as Josh clawed his way out of the hole. “Maybe,” I added, realizing how nutso I sounded. But then, they were here with me, and they hadn’t even had the dream.

  “Are you sure you’ve never been in this clearing before?” he asked, taking a deep breath. “Maybe you dreamed about it because you’ve seen it yourself, not because—”

  “Not because the ghost of Elizabeth Williams wanted me to find it?” It sounded beyond ridiculous, even to me. I couldn’t believe I’d led two of my best friends up here for nothing. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I feel like a complete—”

  Just then, the clouds overhead parted, sending several shafts of moonlight down th
rough the branches of the trees. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something glint. Right in the center of one of the piles of dirt Josh and I had produced around the hole.

  “Ivy! Shine one of the flashlights over there!”

  “Where?” she asked, standing up at the urgency in my voice.

  “There!” I pointed at a spot just to the left of Josh’s feet, between him and the trunk of the tree. Ivy did as she was told, and I lost all ability to breathe.

  “Oh my God,” Ivy and I said at once.

  Josh whirled around as if he expected Elizabeth to jump down from the tree and bite his neck. I quickly skirted the hole and dropped to my knees next to the hint of gold. Using my aching fingers, I pushed the dirt aside until I’d uncovered a large, round pendant. I tugged it out by its chain and let the pendant lie flat in my palm. It was warm to the touch—odd, since it had been buried in frozen earth for who knew how long. An intricate design had been etched into the surface, and I tried to clear the grime away with my fingernail so I could make it out.

  “What is it?” Josh asked, hovering over me.

  Slowly I stood and polished the tarnished gold on my jacket. Finally I cleared enough of the dirt away to make out the design in the moonlight. Suddenly my head went light, and I reached out to grab Josh’s shoulder for support.

  “What?” Josh asked again. “What is it?”

  “It’s the same design,” I said, turning quickly to show it to Ivy.

  Ivy brought her face low, her eyes hovering just over the swirling circle motif. “Exactly the same,” she said.

  “Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Josh asked.

  I looked up at him, my eyes shining even as my heart pounded with uncertainty and fear. “It’s the same design that’s etched into the cover of the book of spells.”

  “So now you’re so desperate for good jewelry you’ll just wear any old thing you find in the dirt?” Noelle said as she sat down in her usual seat at the Billings table: last on the end, facing the door so she could see everyone coming and going. “If you really want something, I’m sure Daddy will get you whatever it is. He’s still waiting for you to call him back, by the way.”

  I rolled my eyes and dropped my tray across from hers. The locket felt warm against my skin and it gleamed in the overhead lights, thanks to the vat of jewelry cleaner Ivy had soaked it in overnight.

  “That’s all you have to say?” I asked, fingering the locket as I sat. “I tell you that the ghost of a Billings Girl led me to a necklace in the woods near the chapel, and all you can do is insult me?”

  Noelle flicked her napkin into her lap and shook salt and pepper onto her sliced hard-boiled egg. One of the crystal shakers clinked against her gold ring. She hadn’t looked me in the eye in about five minutes.

  “Noelle—”

  “Reed, do you even hear yourself?” she asked finally, resting both wrists on the edge of the table. “You sound like a crazy person. You don’t want to tell anyone that we’re sisters, but you’re perfectly fine running around telling everyone that some dead person led you to a locket in the woods?”

  My heart panged with some unidentifiable emotion and I touched the locket again. Just then Tiffany and Portia slid past us to sit in the next two chairs. Noelle shot me a warning look, clearly telling me to keep my mouth shut, as if I needed to be told. She was the only one I was interested in talking to about this.

  “Wait until you see the centerpieces I designed for your party,” Noelle said, deftly switching to a more audience-friendly topic. “I’m going with a whole Pisces theme, and I found a guy who does floral centerpieces with tiny aquariums in the bottom of the vases. Real fish and everything.”

  “Fabulous,” Portia said, lifting her hair over her shoulder.

  “What do they do with the fish after the party?” Tiffany asked.

  “Don’t get your La Perlas in a twist, green girl. Daddy’s going to take them all home for his personal collection,” Noelle said. She tore off a piece of her bagel and popped it into her mouth, looking at me mischievously. “He’s paying for the whole thing, you know.”

  A huge rock formed between my heart and my throat, and my hand automatically went to the locket again. I suddenly became very interested in my cereal.

  “Really? That’s nice of him,” Tiffany said, eyeing me curiously.

  “Why would he do that?” Portia asked, lifting her fork. “No offense.”

  I shrugged and gave them a tight smile.

  “He just knows how very close Reed and I are,” Noelle said, spearing an egg slice. “I mean, we’re practically sisters.”

  I choked on my orange juice and a little bit of it went up my nose.

  “All right, Reed?” Noelle prompted.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  I managed another smile and took a deep breath, trying not to cough again.

  “Reed! What an amazing locket,” Portia said suddenly, reaching for the pendant, which I hadn’t realized I was still toying with. “It’s so … unique.” She ran her thumb over the surface. “Definitely an antique. Where did you get it?”

  I shot Noelle a panicked look. “Um, I got it at a rummage sale when I was home.”

  Portia scrunched her nose. “What’s a rummage sale?”

  “Would you let go of her already, P?” Noelle demanded. “She’s turning blue.”

  Portia released me and I sat up straight again, righting the locket and rubbing at the back of my neck where the chain had cut into my skin. Portia was still sizing up the necklace out of the corner of her eye as she took a bite of her fruit salad.

  “You should have that appraised. It could be worth something,” she said.

  I glanced at Noelle, feeling hot under my arms and around my collar.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I will.”

  Kiki and Astrid arrived, dropping into the chairs next to Tiffany and Portia. Then Lorna, Amberly, and Vienna crowded into the last few seats, adjusting their trays on the table so everything fit.

  “Check this out,” Astrid said, lifting her chin toward the head table where the headmaster and the tenured teachers usually sat. My blood turned cold when I saw that Mr. Hathaway was holding out a chair near the head of the table for Demetria Rosewell. She wore a winter white suit that made her black hair stand out even from across the room. She shook her curls back as she sat and gave a thin-lipped smile as the headmaster introduced the teachers around her.

  “Why has she been hovering so much lately?” I said under my breath.

  “I can tell you why.”

  A chill shot down my back as Missy Thurber leaned toward me from behind. She rested one hand on the back of my chair and the other on the corner of the table. She must have been walking down the aisle behind me when I’d posed my question. She smelled of lavender perfume and peanut butter—a gag-inducing combination—and I held my breath. Constance and London hovered at the end of the table. From the corner of my eye I saw Sawyer Hathaway, my friend and the headmaster’s son, stand up from his table. He had a worried look on his boyishly handsome face, like he was anticipating a fight.

  “I don’t think anyone here was talking to you, Missy,” Noelle snapped.

  Missy stood up straight, mercifully giving me room to breathe, and moved to stand next to her friends. Lifting her chin so that I could practically see her brain through her huge nostrils, she addressed the entire table with the air of a girl who knew she was about to drop a serious bomb.

  “Demetria Rosewell and Paige Ryan have decided to donate a few million dollars to the school to have Billings House rebuilt,” she said snidely.

  My heart skipped an excited beat. Billings was going to be rebuilt?

  “Why do I have a feeling that’s not everything?” Noelle asked, lowering her fork.

  “Well, Demetria has been convening with the board the past few nights, coming up with a list of requirements for admission to the dorm,” Missy said. “But they’ve already decided on one thing.” She turned and lo
oked me in the eye. “You, Reed, won’t be getting in. Not after all the trouble you’ve caused this year.”

  My heart dropped and my fingers curled into fists atop the table.

  “In fact, none of you will be in,” Missy said, making sure to look each of the others directly in the eye. “The board asked me for a list of the girls who were the most disruptive influences during all that mess with Cheyenne and Sabine last semester, and I was more than happy to provide it.”

  “Missy,” Lorna said from the far end of the table, “you didn’t.”

  Missy’s cruel eyes slid over to her former best friend. “You chose your side. Now I’ve chosen mine.” Her mouth twisted into a wide grin. “Ta, ladies!” she said, twiddling her fingers at us. Then she turned on her heel and strode off. Constance shot me an uncertain look, ducked her head, and followed, with London behind her.

  “This. Cannot. Be happening,” Amberly said loudly.

  I looked across the table at Noelle, whose face was so red I thought she might start to melt. Then suddenly Sawyer was there, looking sheepish with his hands in the pockets of his slim-cut gray cords. He wore a white shirt open over a black band T-shirt.

  “Hey,” he said tentatively. “Are you okay?”

  “Is it true?” I said, looking up at him through my lashes.

  Sawyer gritted his teeth. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I would’ve told you, but I only found out this morning.”

  “Why?” Noelle asked. “Why would your father go to them instead of my dad?”

  Sawyer turned a little green, and I could tell that whatever he had to say next, he was afraid of saying it.

  “They came to him,” he said. “And when they did, my dad called your father to check … to make sure he didn’t want to try to outbid them or something. See, Dad didn’t want Billings back at all, but apparently the school needs the money so … I guess he figured whoever would donate the most could control the project.”

  “He told you this?” Tiffany asked.

  “No. I overheard him this morning.” He turned to Noelle. “On the phone with your dad.”

  “And?” Noelle and I said at the same time.