The Haunted

by Jessica Verday

  I opened my eyes. “You still have them? Didn’t you eat them?”

  “No. I mean, I ate the one in front of you, but I saved the rest.”

  “Why did you do that?” I asked. “Acted like you ate them?”

  He ducked his head and looked at the ground. “I didn’t want you to be upset if I refused them. And I was still acting… normal.”

  “So you pretended to eat my cookies? What did you do, spit it out later?”

  “I didn’t pretend to eat the cookie,” he said. “I really did eat it. But just the one. Eating is uncomfortable for me. Everything tastes like ashes.”

  Something in the back of my brain snapped to full alert when he said those words, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

  “So, you knew it would taste bad… but you ate it anyway?”

  He nodded.

  “And then you kept the rest of them?”

  He looked up, straight into my eyes. “It was a gift from you. The first thing you ever gave me. Why wouldn’t I keep it?”

  My heart did a little pitter-patter and lurched. I had to bite my lip to keep sudden tears at bay. His gesture was beyond words. “I’m glad you kept them,” I said. “And that you ate one in front of me. That was really sweet.” I could almost feel his exhale of relieved breath, and I glanced at him with curiosity. “Why did you invite me to go out for pizza, then? What were you going to do if I said yes?”

  “Convince you to get it to go?” He shrugged. “Then tell you I wasn’t very hungry? I don’t know… I just wanted to do something normal with you.”

  I understood that feeling. I leaned forward until we were face to face, almost nose to nose. “Next time we will do something normal. And you won’t have to pretend to eat, okay?”

  “Okay. Now, close your eyes again.”

  I closed them.

  “Hand.”

  I held out my hand and was rewarded with something dropped into it. “I hope you don’t mind another one,” Caspian said. “It’s sort of what I do.”

  I looked down. Another necklace was resting in my palm. I held it up and saw a perfect four-leaf clover pressed between two small squares of glass. The edges were soldered shut with silver metal, and a black ribbon had been attached to a tiny O-ring.

  “I know you already have two,” he said in a rush of words, “but I—”

  “Caspian,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” The clover was amazing, each leaf gently rounded and vibrantly green. “But how did you find a four-leaf clover? And where do you get the supplies for the necklaces from?”

  He glanced back at the boxes that held his stuff. “I have my soldering iron and supplies from before, when I helped my dad in his garage. The glass pieces are slides I, uh, borrowed from the school science lab. I found the four-leaf clover in the cemetery. I’m kind of good at finding them.”

  After tying the necklace around my neck, I lifted it up and held on to it. “That’s funny. I found a four-leaf clover on Kristen’s stone the last time I was there.”

  “I know,” he said. “I put it there. I was kind of watching over her when you were gone and thought she might like it.”

  I dropped the necklace and stared at him. “You left that there? Because you were watching over her?”

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  Everything was making sense now. All the puzzle pieces were fitting together. The reason why he kept making these gorgeous necklaces for me… “Since you can’t touch me, you made something that could, didn’t you?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  My world slowed and I closed my eyes. “I am going to give you my heart now,” I whispered. “Please don’t break it again.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  MAKING PROMISES

  It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time.

  —“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  I woke up on Thursday morning from dreams of white dresses and picket fences—the same dream I’d had about Caspian during school last year—and stretched lazily in bed, grinning at the ceiling. Life was grand.

  But a ringing doorbell broke through my happy thoughts and echoed throughout the house. I counted the chimes going off six times before I finally rolled out of bed, calling for Mom to answer it.

  There was no response, and as I stumbled down the stairs, I realized that the house must be empty. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I grumbled, hurrying toward the incessant ringing. “Give it a rest.”

  I threw open the door and was shocked to find Ben standing there.

  “Crap,” I muttered. “I completely forgot about our class today, Ben.”

  He looked at me with hesitancy. “Does that mean you want me to leave?”

  “No, no. Come drop your stuff off on the table.” Suddenly aware of the fact that I was still wearing the ratty T-shirt and gym shorts I’d thrown on last night, I glanced down at my bare feet. “I’m going to get changed. Be back down in ten.”

  He followed me in and disappeared into the kitchen. I ran upstairs and quickly put on some capris and a tank top, then brushed my teeth. My hair was a wild mess, but I didn’t feel like fighting with my curls, so I just spritzed them with some water and threw one last hopeless look over my shoulder.

  Tangled hair it was, then.

  When I made it back downstairs, Ben had several papers spread out on the table in front of him and was making this weird humming noise in the back of his throat. “Stop that,” I ordered, coming to take a seat beside him.

  He looked up at me. “Stop what?”

  “That humming thing. It’s annoying.”

  “Oh, sorry. I do that sometimes when I’m reading. Ready to get started?”

  I rested my chin on my fists. “I guess. What’s on the schedule for today?”

  “Reports. It’ll help with the memorization process. I’ve brought several books for you to use as reference material. So… go.”

  “‘Go?’ What is this, a race or something?”

  Ben tapped his fingers on the table. “You can either keep stalling, or get cracking.”

  I groaned. “Can you help me with them? At least one of them?”

  He shook his head. “This is where my tutorship ends. Do you have any more Funyuns? I’m going to need a snack to keep myself awake just sitting here.”

  I got up and dragged myself over to the Ben Cabinet. It was in bad need of replenishment, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt. I moved a couple of bags of chips around, but I didn’t see any Funyuns. “Nope. Your choices are Doritos, cheese puffs, or pretzels.”

  His tone was mournful. “I guess I’ll take Doritos.”

  “Next time I’ll have some Funyuns,” I promised, grabbing the bag of Doritos. He had no problem digging into them, and I sat back down to get started on my report.

  “If your crunching gets too loud, I’m banishing you to the living room,” I warned.

  “Okay,” he said, through a mouthful of chips.

  I picked up the nearest science book and cracked it open, groaning internally at the mountain of homework lying in front of me. Why couldn’t this be over already?

  Ben just gave me a goofy smile and continued crunching.

  Two hours later I snapped my book shut and gave in. “This is torture,” I said. Ben had a science book in his hands, and it looked like he was reading it. For fun.

  “Enjoying that?” I asked.

  He looked up and wiggled in his seat like a crazed monkey. “There’s a fascinating section here on storm-cloud formations.”

  “Are you kidding me? You actually are enjoying that?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Kristen used to be like that too,” I said. “But her subject was math. I always told her that there had to be something wrong with her brain to get so much pleasure out of reading a math book for fun.”

  “She was going to get her degre
e in accounting, right? Become a CPA?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But how did you know that?”

  “We shared a study hall once, and I saw her looking at college brochures. She wanted to go to DeVry or Northern Illinois. I told her to go to Cornell. Great science program there.”

  I sat back and studied him. “I didn’t know that. Kristen never told me.”

  “It was because of her brother. She said he was a whiz at numbers and wanted to study at Brown.”

  I frowned at him. He knows an awful lot about Kristen. “Yeah. She—”

  The phone rang and I reached for it, glad for the distraction. “Hello?”

  “Abbey, I need you to check on something for me.”

  I turned my back to Ben, but I could still feel the frown on my face. “Yeah, Mom. What is it?” Glancing out the window into the yard, I almost fell off my seat.

  Caspian was standing next to the house.

  Mom was prattling on about something, so I covered the receiver and turned back to Ben. “I’ll be… right back.” Without waiting for his response, I flew out the back door and gestured for Caspian to follow me into the covering of trees we’d met under before.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed at him, the phone cradled next to my shoulder so that I could still sort of hear Mom but she couldn’t hear me.

  Caspian looked at the house and then stepped closer to me. “I thought I’d come see you for a change. Did he do something to you?”

  “What? No. Why?”

  “You were frowning.”

  Mom’s voice grew silent, and some part of me was vaguely aware that she was waiting for an answer from me. “Um, Mom,” I said. “Can you repeat that again?”

  She said something about eggs and salad and waiting for me to go check, and I put the phone back against my shoulder.

  “Ben’s fine,” I said to Caspian. “He just mentioned something about Kristen that surprised me, that’s all.”

  Caspian’s face turned thunderous, and he took a step toward the house.

  “No, no,” I told him. “Really, it’s okay.” Ahhh, protective boyfriends. The tiny part of me that wasn’t furiously trying to multitask was very much enjoying this.

  “—and I can just check then.” Mom’s voice caught my attention again.

  I held up one finger to Caspian and turned back to the phone. “What was that, Mom? Sorry, Ben and I are studying, and it’s hard to concentrate on two things at once.” Make that three things.

  “I said never mind about the egg salad,” Mom repeated. “I’m on my way home right now. Oh, and don’t forget to pack an overnight bag. We’re leaving tomorrow to spend an extra day at Aunt Cindy’s before the picnic. Bye.”

  She hung up, and I stared down at the phone. Overnight bag? Extra day? When had that little detail been agreed upon?

  But I knew by Mom’s tone that her mind was made up. If Dad wouldn’t let me skip the family picnic, there was no way he would let me bail on an overnight trip. I was doomed.

  Sighing heavily, I put one hand to my head and rubbed my temple.

  “Are you okay?” Caspian asked.

  “Headache. Thanks to my mother.”

  He looked sympathetic. “Why don’t you come take a walk with me? We can go downtown. What do you say?”

  What did I say? I wasn’t going to get the chance to see him again until after we got back from the picnic. Of course I wanted to spend the afternoon with him.

  I hit the redial button, and it went to voice mail. “Hey, Mom, Ben and I are going to finish studying at his house. I’ll see you in a couple hours, and I’ll leave enough time to get my bag packed.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning to Caspian. “I’m in. Let me just go talk to Ben and get him to cover. You can… follow me, I guess.”

  I held the back door open for a couple of extra seconds when I walked into the house, and Caspian came in. I’m totally not letting my invisible boyfriend in. The hinge was just stuck. Or something.

  Facing Ben, I tried to pretend that Caspian wasn’t right behind me. “Ben, I need you to do me a favor.”

  Ben was still scarfing down chips, and he paused with the bag in midair. “What?”

  “Nice,” Caspian murmured.

  I forced myself not to let any reaction show on my face. “I need to get out for a while. I have something to take care of. But my mom’s coming home, and I told her I’d be going to your house to finish studying. So can you cover for me?”

  He looked down at the half-started report. “But we have to work on this.”

  “Please, Ben? You’ll be on my top-friends list forever. I really need this favor.”

  Caspian snorted, but Ben stood up and started gathering his books. “Okay, fine. But you owe me.” He came around the table and was dangerously close to going through Caspian, but I moved to help him pick up his stuff and stopped him from getting any closer.

  I led the way around the opposite side of the kitchen and held the door open for him. Ben walked through it, and then stopped outside. “Abbey, I…” He gave me a funny look. With his free hand, he brushed a piece of my hair away from my face.

  I pulled back and cast a quick glance over my shoulder. Caspian’s face was furious.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he warned Ben.

  But Ben had no idea what was going on. “I have to talk to you about something soon, okay?” His gaze dropped to my mouth, and instantly, vivid memories from the diner dream slammed into me.

  Good Lord, this was really not going well.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for helping me out with this, Ben.” He turned and stumbled before regaining his balance, then moved toward his car. I slammed the back door shut and gave Caspian a look.

  He put both hands up in the air. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

  “No, but you wanted to. And besides, we don’t really know yet what you can do.”

  “Well, I know I can’t make people disappear,” he muttered darkly. “Or else he would have been gone a half an hour ago.”

  I was a bit shocked at how serious he sounded, and then I looked into his eyes. “You’re jealous!”

  “He wanted to kiss you!”

  Now I was dumbfounded. “How do you know that?”

  “Because,” he said, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back. “It’s what I’d want to do.”

  “You’d want to kiss me?” I teased. “I never could’ve guessed.” He shook his head and I laughed. “Come on, green eyes. Let’s get out of here before my mom gets home. Take me downtown; I’m all yours.”

  “Promise?” he said, holding my gaze steady.

  “Promise,” I whispered.

  We walked side by side downtown, moving quickly from store to store. At first it was strange for me to see him walking among people while no one else noticed he was there. I kept wondering what would happen if someone suddenly moved right through him. I didn’t think I was ready to see that yet. But Caspian moved aside when anyone got too close, and eventually it almost felt normal.

  Normal.

  I was walking downtown with someone only I could see. There really was something wrong with me.

  We passed an antique store and the pizza place, but another building was coming up, and I felt a happy smile creep over my face. It wasn’t rented yet. My shop was still available.

  “Follow me,” I whispered to Caspian, moving across the street and toward the shop. He was right behind me, and we ducked down the alley.

  “There’s a trick to it, if you want to go inside,” Caspian said, sizing up the door frame in front of us. He leaned down to mess with something at the bottom of the door.

  “I don’t think it’s going to work. I was here before, and the owner was too, and he—” A scraping sound and then a clicking noise interrupted me. Caspian smiled as the door swung open. “How did you… ?”

  “There’s a piece of cracked wood at the bottom. When the door is closed, it’s wedged into place, and the lock stays. But
loosen the wood, and the door sags a little, slipping out of the lock.” He held the door open and ushered me in. I stepped into my shop and closed my eyes, imagining it all set up the way I would have it.

  When I opened my eyes again, Caspian was leaning against one of the walls, looking at me. I suddenly grew shy. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I like seeing you happy, Abbey.” He placed a hand on the middle of his chest. “It makes me feel…”

  “Feel what?”

  “Just feel. I don’t know what, but I like it.” The look in his eyes changed, and he leaned away from the wall, coming to stand next to me. “Tell me about your plans for your shop. Come on, start over here.”

  Caspian led me to a wide wall space, and I studied it for a moment. “Here I’ll put the reading section. I’ll bring in a fireplace mantel, arrange some chairs around it, maybe even an ottoman, and put out some of Irving’s books. People can read or just lounge while I create their perfumes.”

  He spun and pointed to the open floor space behind us. “What about there?”

  “An armoire that holds perfumes based on Ichabod Crane, Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman. With a scattering of fall leaves on the floor, and white baby pumpkins to decorate it. Nearby, I’ll have a tray that holds apple cider and warm pumpkin pie. Or caramel apples and roasted pumpkin seeds!”

  My mind was filling with pictures, and I could see it all. I pointed to our left. “I’d put an old-fashioned register there, with a big metal scale that holds Halloween candy. And, next to the register, three giant glass jars filled with bath salts, soap samples, and black licorice sticks.”

  I frowned then. “Hmm… I can’t have the candy so close to the bath stuff. It will pick up the scent.” I paced closer to the door. “Here,” I said. “I’ll have jars of candy set up here by the door on a row of wooden egg crates.”

  “And what about the windows?” Caspian asked. “What will your grand display there be?”

  “A cast-iron claw-foot bathtub filled with soaps,” I said, without hesitation. “All wrapped in bits of parchment paper and old string. Shades of robin’s-egg blue, soft dusky rose, coffee bean-brown, and aged yellow books.”