Light as a Feather

by Zoe Aarsen

  My attention drifted to the window, to the rain falling and the puddles forming in the faculty parking lot. Principal Nylander and his wife were parishioners at St. Monica’s, where we used to attend church before my parents divorced. To the best of my knowledge, the Portnoys rarely attended church other than on Easter and Christmas, so I couldn’t help but feel like Principal Nylander was scolding me directly even though I knew that Violet and her family were regular churchgoers.

  “Now, if any of you have questions about the afterlife, or about your creator, or, heck, even just about entertaining ways to pass time, I encourage you to contact a member of the clergy at your place of worship, a trusted teacher, or your parents. Messing around with occult practices is dangerous business,” Principal Nylander warned us, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses farther up his little pug nose.

  Back in the eerily quiet hallway, empty during the class in session, Mischa glared at Violet. “That was excruciating. I hope you’re happy. And I read what you said to that journalist from the town paper. You had no right, do you hear me? No right! ” She turned on her leather ballet flat and left me standing there, mouth hanging open, across from Violet.

  “Oh. My. God,” Violet said, her eyes enormous, her lips tilted into a semismile, as if Mischa’s reaction was way over the top. “It’s not like I ratted. I didn’t say a word. It was Candace who started blabbing.”

  Sticking with my plan to befriend Violet, I remained there, watching Mischa walk down the hall. “I know,” I assured her.

  “Whatever.” Violet’s eyes narrowed as Mischa disappeared from view around a corner. “Her days are numbered, anyway.”

  I couldn’t hide my reaction of surprised confusion from Violet as my face jerked back toward hers. I was sure I looked horrified by what she was suggesting. She immediately realized what her comment had just implied and quickly corrected herself.

  “I mean her popularity,” Violet clarified. “Without Olivia, Mischa doesn’t stand a chance of staying popular. There are a ton of prettier girls at this school.”

  “You might be right,” I heard myself murmuring, wondering if I was doing any kind of a convincing job of aligning myself with her.

  Violet looked me over, scrutinizing my face. “You should sit with me and Tracy today at lunchtime. We can talk about Student Government stuff. I mean, the election is practically over before it’s even begun.”

  “Maybe,” I said hesitantly before catching myself. “I mean, of course.”

  I was eager to sit with Candace and hear her scratchy voice again. But if I was going to be successful in convincing Violet that I was on her side, I was going to have to make some sacrifices. Sitting with Candace and Mischa was not going to be an option. I had also wanted to meet Trey in the library, but meeting with him was going to have to wait; I couldn’t be sure when I’d lose favor with Violet.

  In my Spanish class, I texted Trey to tell him that I’d be having lunch with Violet and wanted to walk home together. I had agreed the night before to spend the lunch hour with him, researching evil spirits and games. He would understand why it was more urgent that I sit with Violet and listen to her talk for an hour. Mischa wouldn’t be as accepting.

  “God. I just want to transfer out of this gym class and into Candace’s,” Mischa was grumbling when I got to the locker room. She was changing into her gym suit already, in a different row of lockers from where Violet was twisting the dial of her combination lock. I set my canvas bag down on a bench and watched until I saw Violet exit the locker room for the stairs leading up to the gym.

  “Listen, Mischa,” I began. Even as I was opening my mouth to present my reason for not sitting with Mischa and Candace at lunchtime, the one hour of the day when Candace and Violet would be in the same room, I knew Mischa was going to be skeptical about my logic. “I’ve been thinking. The only way we’re ever going to find out if Violet had any control over Olivia’s death is if one of us stays friends with her.”

  Mischa glared at me. “She killed our friend, McKenna. I really cannot understand why you’d want to stay friends with her. I mean, am I missing something here?”

  I pulled off my knit striped top and wriggled my gym shirt over my head. “I don’t mean really be friends with her. I just want to try to find out what she did.”

  Mischa looked outraged when she glanced up at me from tying the laces on her running shoes. “You must be insane. She’s a murderer!”

  Girls who had changed in the row next to ours looked over at us curiously as they passed us on their way out of the gym. “Look, we probably shouldn’t talk about what happened to Olivia at all anymore at school,” I said. “Do you have gymnastics today? Can we hang out and talk about this in private?”

  “I’m going to Candace’s house,” Mischa informed me haughtily, and then added, “You can meet us there.”

  At lunchtime, I sat with Violet and Tracy and struggled to listen to their big plans for the junior class while out of the corner of my eye, I watched Pete where he sat at our old table, flanked by Matt and Isaac. I wondered where Mischa and Candace were, but then figured that perhaps Mischa had thought better of letting Candace observe me sitting with the enemy. Violet and Tracy rambled on and on about bake sales and initiatives to recycle the foil containers in which we were served everything from tater tots to lasagna in the cafeteria. I shared with them my big plan to start leaf-raking and driveway-shoveling services as a means of raising money for the class trip, and Violet’s pretty face flushed with excitement.

  “Oh my God, McKenna, that is such an awesome idea. You’re a genius!” she exclaimed, flattering me more than I wanted to be flattered by her. Violet and I walked together to US History, and we passed Candace in the hallway, who glared at me as she watched us. Isaac stood protectively next to her at her locker, with one strong hand on her shoulder, and I hoped that Mischa had already taken the time to explain to her why I was spending time with Violet. The thought of Candace truly being mad at me upset me so much that I could barely concentrate on Mr. Dean’s lecture about Aaron Burr’s historic duel with Alexander Hamilton.

  After school, I slid out of the building without even stopping at my locker, where any number of girls with whom I did not want to speak might have noticed me. I met Trey down near the entrance to the library, in front of the vending machines, and we smiled nervously at each other. He pecked me on the cheek after neither of us knew what to do for a few seconds. It struck me as amazing all over again how cute he was even despite his stitches and bruises, and how it had taken me so long to notice.

  “I have to walk over to the Sherwood Hills subdivision,” I told him once we were outside, opening our umbrellas. “I’m going over to Candace’s house to meet with her and Mischa.”

  “I have trigonometry with Candace,” Trey informed me. “She was really spaced out. The teacher called on her once and she didn’t even respond to her own name.”

  Candace hadn’t even really looked like herself in school that day. She’d worn a cable-knit cardigan, floral button-down blouse, and a pair of pink corduroys that were, although tight, not at all her typical style. She looked, now that I was thinking about it, like her mother had dressed her for school.

  “Did you find anything helpful in the library?” I asked. I had offered to look on Google when Trey had volunteered to do research, but he had shaken his head as if I were a foolish child and had insisted that the research begin in actual books found in the actual card catalog. Maybe it was silly of us to think we’d find an answer in a book, or anywhere, for that matter. But Trey seemed pretty certain that information of value would not be found online.

  “Funny you should ask.” He wiggled out of his heavy black backpack and withdrew from it a hardcover book, its corners rounded from wear, covered by a faded paper jacket, on which the title was printed Requests from the Dead, by James W. Listerman. “I found this. I felt weird checking it out, so I just boosted it.”

  He handed it to me, and I didn’t even bother scoldin
g him for stealing the book. I examined it, trying to be careful not to let any of the slow rain falling come into contact with it, first checking its copyright page. It had been published in 1910. The book smelled moldy, and the pages felt fragile, like they might crack and crumble as I flipped through them.

  “Wow, this is old,” I commented. “Did you find anything good in here?”

  “Definitely some promising stuff,” Trey said. “Mainly that it seems like if old James W. Listerman knew what he was talking about, Violet might have made herself a deal with an evil spirit to serve as a medium. Like, a conduit through which other spirits can communicate, and share information with her.”

  “Why in the heck would anyone make a deal like that?” I asked.

  “Well,” Trey continued, seeming to have read more of the book than I had originally thought possible during a one-hour lunch break, “if Violet wanted something from someone—like Olivia, for example—then she might have struck some kind of deal with whichever spirit she was able to contact. Or, if an evil spirit had somehow singled Violet out and made contact with her because it wanted something from her, and was harassing her about it, she might have been willing to agree to anything to make it end. Even killing people. We can’t be sure unless we ask her. This book also says that spirits can be very deceitful and manipulative, so she may have been tricked. But obviously, don’t ask her yet.”

  “Can I borrow this?” I asked, holding up the book.

  He took the book out of my hands and tucked it into his backpack. “Not until I read it cover to cover. This is some really creepy reading material.”

  Trey walked me to the main gate of Candace’s subdivision, and for a moment as we said good-bye, I wished I could put everything related to Olivia, Candace, Mischa, and Violet behind me and just walk home with Trey, back to a normal life that felt like mine. But I already knew that whatever Violet had started had ended my normal life forever, or at least until I knew for certain that I and the rest of my friends were safe.

  “Finally,” Candace said when she opened her front door and saw me. She sounded more like herself, and was smirking more like she used to before the accident happened.

  “Hi,” I said, entering the Cottons’ huge home and enjoying how it smelled, unlike ours, like potpourri and fat, red, berry-scented wax candles. “You seem more . . . normal than you did at school today.”

  “That’s because I take my meds in the morning and in the evening. Right around this time of day, the morning meds are wearing off,” Candace explained. In her kitchen, Mischa was seated at the table, typing away on her phone, quite obviously concentrating on something intently.

  “So. About this plan of yours to stay friends with Violet,” Mischa said, looking up at me as I took a seat at the kitchen table. I hadn’t noticed when I’d first entered the room, but Candace’s half sister Julia was in the adjacent living room, stretched out on the couch, her bare feet dangling over the edge. “I don’t like it. What if you’re, like, some kind of double agent? Like, you’re really loyal to Violet, but just spying on us?”

  I looked at Mischa, and then at Candace, in disbelief. It seemed impossible to me that they’d accuse me of aligning with Violet when in actuality I was offering to stand by her against my every instinct to stay as far away from her as possible.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked. “I don’t really want anything to do with her! I am almost positive she orchestrated Olivia’s death, and had something to do with my dog’s death too. I just can’t prove any of it, and neither can either of you. So unless you guys want her to get away with it and keep doing whatever she’s doing, one of us is going to have to gain her trust and find out what her plans are.”

  Mischa looked guilty and shrugged up at Candace. After a moment of hesitation, Candace appeared to be considering the logic behind my plan. She pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table. “What happened to your dog?”

  I reluctantly confessed to them about the odd conversation I’d had with Violet on the track after Olivia’s birthday party, the one in which she had guessed I had a dog and had described Moxie. Then I told them about getting home from school and finding Moxie dead on my bed.

  “That sucks, McKenna,” Mischa said, shaking her head. “I think she’s evil. Truly evil. Check this out. At her last high school in Lake Forest, Illinois, four students died in weird accidents last year. And it gets freakier. One of the girls was killed in a hit-and-run accident, and she was the captain of the pom squad on which Violet was a member. One of the boys was a freshman, and Violet gave a quote at his funeral to a local newspaper saying that she used to babysit him when he was a little kid.”

  “What about the other two people?” Candace asked, suddenly very focused. She folded her hands on the tabletop.

  “I can’t make any solid connections yet, but I’ve only been looking for an hour. Violet’s such a freak, she doesn’t even have Snapchat. Anyway, it hardly matters. Think of how many times every day you cross paths with someone you don’t even know so well at high school. They could have all known Violet any number of ways.”

  “Did Violet ever mention why it was that her family moved to Willow?” I asked, unable to recall her ever providing us with a reason for her sudden arrival in our out-of-the-way little town. Candace said, “She said it was for her dad’s work.” Mischa snorted. “Work? What work is there to do here?”

  Mischa’s mother was a real estate agent in Willow; at one point or another she’d negotiated the sale of almost every house in town. Mr. Portnoy owned several luxury car dealerships between Willow, Sheboygan, and Green Bay. Candace’s mom managed the small nail salon at the Ortonville Mall, and her dad was a co-owner of a construction company in Green Bay. My own father had given up on opportunities that were within driving range of Willow and had headed down to Florida, where he’d gotten a better job at a state university. There simply weren’t a lot of jobs in Willow that anyone’s parents would uproot a family in another town to accept.

  Our wonderment at what circumstances could have possibly delivered Violet into our forgettable little town inspired Mischa to begin making a list. The list essentially became my assignment. It was composed of things we needed to find out about Violet. Was she an only child? Had she attended any schools prior to the one in Lake Forest? I would be observing her, spying on her, casually questioning her, and reporting everything back to Mischa and Candace.

  Of course, it had already occurred to me that Violet would not be happy if she were to catch on to what we were doing. Thankfully, Mischa and Candace seemed to share my concern about the danger involved, so we all agreed that for appearances’ sake, we would refrain from acting like friends while at school. We would let everyone think that we’d had a big fight about Candace’s refusal to be nice to Violet, and I’d communicate all my learnings to them over e-mail rather than by text message just in case Violet were ever to catch a glimpse of my phone.

  We heard the automated garage door open, and Julia turned off the television instantly. Candace’s mom entered the kitchen area, where we were all seated, from the garage, bringing a brief gust of perfume-scented cold air with her. She set beige plastic bags from the grocery store down on the kitchen counter. “Hey, ladies. What are we up to?”

  “Just doing homework, Mom,” Candace lied cheerfully.

  “Have you taken your medication yet?” Candace’s mom asked, opening the fridge to place a carton of soy milk in it.

  Candace sighed so loudly it was more like a dragon’s roar, and stood up from the table to retrieve her orange prescription bottles from the cabinet over the kitchen sink. Within minutes, her eyes seemed to cloud over, and the dazed and passive version of Candace was back.

  Walking home from Candace’s fancy subdivision, I felt more alone than I ever had during my sophomore year. My walk took me past the cemetery at St. Monica’s, and I was tempted to step inside its gates not only to walk past Jennie’s grave, but also to satisfy my curiosity about Olivia’s. A sign
on the front gate of the cemetery stated that it closed daily at sundown. Without consciously thinking through my actions, I began walking. As I passed the guard station, the uniformed guard looked at the watch on his wrist and told me, “I’m closing up in about twenty minutes, honey.” I asked him for directions to where I might find Olivia Richmond’s grave, and he had to look up its location on his computer. On a map, he drew a little line along the paths I should follow to find her plot, which happened to be in the opposite direction of Jennie’s grave, located in the northeast corner of the cemetery. I walked as quickly as I could down the paths that led to the unmarked plot that was Olivia’s. The headstone hadn’t been placed yet, but it was easy to assume that it was Olivia’s because the dirt covering it was still fresh and brown, and three arrangements of pink roses had been placed upon it.

  I scratched my head and stood there on the path, not attempting to get any closer to the plot. It was impossible to connect my memory of giggling, whispering Olivia, her glossy platinum hair and fringy eyelashes, with this pile of dirt fifteen feet in front of me. Just like when Jennie had died, Olivia’s death didn’t have an element of finality. She simply didn’t seem quite so far away.

  That night, I tossed and turned until I finally found myself falling in and out of a strange dream in which my reflection in the mirror was that of my old self, my sophomore-year self, with a rounder face. My reflection was mouthing words, trying to tell me something, and finally I overcame my revulsion toward my own image and leaned closer to the mirror to hear.