The Haunted

by Jessica Verday

  “Ben!” I called, waving my arms in the air. He looked my way, and then said something to his dad before jogging over.

  “Remember,” Caspian said. “He could have an excuse. Don’t fly off the handle right away.”

  I gave a short, jerky nod.

  “Abbey?” Ben said, getting closer. “What’s up? Why are you here?”

  I took a deep breath and clenched my fists, nails biting deep so that I would have something to distract me. Without waiting, or thinking, I plowed straight ahead. “I know, Ben.”

  He gave me a puzzled look. “Know what?”

  “About you and Kristen. I found her diaries and you were mentioned in them.”

  “What?”

  I wanted to yell, to scream in his face that I knew, and he needed to stop lying, but I saw Caspian shaking his head. Counting to three, I said very slowly, “I know that you and Kristen were dating, and that you wanted her to keep it a secret from me.”

  Ben took a step toward me, and even though I felt like flinching, I held my ground. “What are you talking about, Abbey? Kristen and I never dated.”

  His earnestness threw me for a loop. “But your first name is Daniel, and she was seeing someone named D.”

  “She was?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I mean, no. I mean… You should know. You’re D.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, Abbey. But it wasn’t me.”

  Caspian watched us, and I stole a glance at him, trying to keep my focus. “I know it was you. She wrote that you guys were meeting at secret places, and… and how do you know so much about her if it wasn’t you?”

  Ben blushed a little. “Because I liked her.”

  “How do you explain all the personal stuff you know about her?”

  “We shared a couple of study halls, and I asked her some stuff.”

  I searched his eyes, trying to see if he was lying.

  He wasn’t.

  “Why didn’t she ever tell me?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But I was going to tell you about my feelings for her. That’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about.” He glanced down, looking embarrassed. “I thought that maybe I had feelings for you.… But then I realized—” He broke off and looked up at me.

  I stayed silent.

  “Then I realized that I, uh, I didn’t really have those… uh, feelings… for you,” he said. “It was always Kristen. I guess it was just a temporary transference type of thing.”

  I unclenched my fists and stared down at my palms. “Where were you?” I asked. “The night she went missing?”

  “Out of town. With my dad. We went on a fishing trip upstate. Ask him if you want.”

  I studied him again. Looking for something… anything. “It’s not you?”

  He shook his head. “I almost wish I was this guy. Then I could give you some answers. But I’m not. In fact, one of the reasons I was so upset at her memorial was because I missed the search-and-rescue teams. I would have… helped.” He looked so miserable that I knew there was no way he was faking it.

  “You’re not D.,” I whispered. Half to Ben, half to Caspian. Hanging my head, I felt empty now and drained. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’m just… sorry.”

  He nodded once, and turned away from me to go back to his dad. I didn’t know what to say, so I let him go. Now I was even worse off than before. I still didn’t know who D. was, and I’d possibly cost myself a friend.

  The next day at Uncle Bob’s shop was long, and I didn’t think I’d make it through till the end. My brain and fingers were disconnected, and I felt clumsy and slow. Several times I dropped the scooper onto the floor mid-scoop, and I had to stop each time to get a new one.

  Then I hit the wrong button on the register as Aubra was showing me how to use it (“for the fifty-third time!”), and even Uncle Bob couldn’t figure out how to fix it. For the rest of the day everyone automatically got their ice cream at half price.

  Thursday wasn’t much better, and Ben missed our tutoring session. He called me later and said he was sorry, he just got busy, but I knew it was because of our awkward meeting at the tree farm. He wasn’t sure how to act around me now.

  But at least I had one bright spot at the end of each day. Caspian would come over and stay for an hour or two while we lay on my bed, just talking about nothing at all. Sometimes we didn’t talk, but listened to music instead, and that was nice too. Just knowing that he’d be there waiting for me was what kept me going.

  Friday, though, was the toughest day of all. Aubra was in rare form, even for her. At first I thought it was just a PMS thing, but she kept taking all these breaks to go text on her phone, and when she’d come back, her eyes were red.

  Then I just figured it was a Vincent thing. He didn’t exactly seem like the best boyfriend on the planet, so it was no surprise that he’d be making her cry.

  I tried to steer clear of her, and actually went to hide out in Uncle Bob’s office when it was time for my fifteen-minute break. Uncle Bob snuck up on me and made me jump.

  “Staying away from the customers, are we?”

  I spun around. “It’s my fifteen, and I…”

  He chuckled. “It’s okay. I understand. Sometimes they can be pretty rough. I swear, this summer heat brings out the crazy in people.”

  It drives some employees crazy too, I thought. He gave me an odd half smile, like he’d heard me.

  Moving around the desk, he shifted a stack of papers from one side to the other and then sat down in his chair. “You know what I like best about you, Abbey?”

  “Um… my adorable personality?”

  Uncle Bob shook his head. “You change people. That’s what I like best about you. Take this office, for instance.” He gestured around the room. “When you took it upon yourself to organize it, you changed me.”

  I started to protest, to say I was sorry for not asking him first when I’d come in here last Thanksgiving and rearranged his stuff, but he held up a hand.

  “I mean that in a positive way. I liked the fact that you took initiative. Now, granted, not everything took”—his eyes slid over to his messy cabinets, and I grinned at him—“but for the most part you helped me change in a positive way.”

  He picked up a metal, triangle-shaped paperweight and studied it before looking back at me. “Some of the people will be negative. They’ll go out of their way to make you miserable or choose to ignore you.”

  I glanced down at my feet. It wasn’t hard to figure out he was talking about Aubra.

  “What’s important to remember though, Abbey, is the fact that you change people. That overrides all, no matter what. Always remember that.”

  I looked up at him.

  “Do you understand what I mean?” he asked.

  “Yup. I got it. Thanks for the pep talk.”

  He looked pleased and bashful all at once. “It’s nothing. Just my way of buttering you up so that I can ask you to stay an extra hour. Busy shift.”

  I groaned. “Uncle Bob. Seriously?”

  “Sorry, Abbey. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need it.”

  “Fine.” I sighed heavily. “I’ll call Mom and tell her to pick me up later.”

  He pushed an old-fashioned, eighties-style professional-office phone my way. “Here you go, you can use this.”

  I picked up the clunky black receiver and eyed it doubtfully, but dialed Mom’s number. “Hey, Mom. Uncle Bob needs me to stay for an extra hour, so you’ll have to pick me up at six.”

  “Okay,” she said. Someone was laughing in the background, and she sounded distracted. “Wait, six? But the Maxwells are coming over for dinner, and I told them we’d eat at six thirty.”

  “They are?” I could feel a happy smile cross my face. “I haven’t seen them in so long! Oh man, that will be great. Just push dinner back to seven thirty, then.”

  She didn’t say anything, and for a minute I thought the old phone had given up the ghost. Finally, she came back on. “Mmm-hmm, okay. That’s fine,
Abbey.”

  There was more laughter, and she laughed too.

  “What’s going on, Mom?” I said. “Are you having a party or something?”

  “What? No. I just have some company over for coffee. See you at six.”

  I hung up the phone and rolled my eyes at Uncle Bob. “Mom’s schmoozing again. Hope there’s no wine involved.” His booming laughter followed me as I started to head out to the customers. “Just wait,” I called back. “You haven’t heard the story about my birthday party yet.”

  ˜ ˜ ˜

  Mom was about ten minutes late picking me up, and she drove with a lead foot the whole way home, telling me again and again how I had to hurry and change when we got there because we were running so late. I wanted to plug my fingers in my ears and scream.

  When we made it home, she rushed into the kitchen, and I took my time heading to the stairs. “Maxwells will be here in ten minutes,” she called out. “Hurry, hurry.”

  When I reached my room, I went straight for the closet. My hand automatically grabbed the first thing that was there, and I saw it was the pink shirtdress I’d worn when Aunt Marjorie had come over for dinner last year.

  That would do.

  Changing course, I brushed my teeth, detangled my curls, and put on some new deodorant. My ten minutes were close to being up, and I could hear car doors slamming outside. I got dressed quickly and slipped on some black sandals. My toes needed a fresh coat of nail polish, but I didn’t have time for that right now.

  I ran downstairs, eager to see Kristen’s parents. It had been months. They were standing by the couch in the living room, and I halted on the third step down as soon as I saw them.

  Mrs. M. looked… older. Her hair, once scattered with fashionable gray strands—“stubborn streaks,” she’d called them—was now almost entirely gray. And her face looked gaunt, like she’d lost some weight. Mr. M. didn’t look as bad, but there were definitely a few new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The stress of losing both of their children was clearly catching up to them.

  Mrs. M. must have heard me approaching, because almost as soon as I stopped, she looked up. Her face broke into a smile. “Abbey.”

  I flew down the stairs and threw my arms around her. “Mrs. M.!” She squeezed me tight, and I held on, overwhelmed with happiness. I reached out a hand to Mr. M., and he patted it, beaming at me.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said, taking a step back to size me up. “Look how beautiful you are. How’s your summer going? I heard that you’re doing some extra-credit science work?”

  “It’s great,” I said, leading her into the dining room. We sat down, and everyone else came in a second later. “I’m helping my uncle out, working at his ice cream store, and Ben, one of our classmates, is tutoring me for this science test I have to take before school starts. It’s a whole big thing.” And you know the reason I left? That dead boy I was seeing? He’s real. And I love him. I smiled at her and took a sip of water from the glass in front of me.

  The doorbell rang, and I looked over to Mom. “Who’s that?”

  She stood up quickly. “That must be the rest of our company.”

  “The rest of our… ?” I glanced at Dad. “What company?”

  “Oh, just some people that came over today for coffee,” Mom replied, going to answer the door.

  I waited for Dad to explain, but all he did was shrug. The classic I don’t know; ask your mother shrug. I shot a look over at Mrs. M., expecting her to be just as curious as I was, but she was paying careful attention to the napkin in her lap. Almost like she was avoiding me.

  Interesting.…

  Mom reentered the dining room with a man and a woman behind her. They were both dressed in navy blue, she in a crisp business suit with a breezy red scarf styled artfully around her neck, and he in a navy polo shirt that went perfectly with his pressed khakis. They looked to be about Mom and Dad’s age.

  “Of course you met my husband today, and the Maxwells.” Mom stopped for a moment and gestured across the dining room. Mrs. M. nodded at them, and the business-suit woman was all smiles. “And that’s my daughter, Abigail. We call her Abbey.”

  We call her Abbey. What was I, a pet dog? I bristled, but didn’t have time to show my displeasure, because they were both coming my way. Fast.

  “I’m Sophie,” the woman said, hand outstretched, “and that’s Kame.”

  I locked eyes with Sophie, getting ready to shake hands, and noticed right away that her eyes were unusually colored. Clear and glasslike. Almost translucent.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and something tickled the edges of my brain. They looked vaguely familiar.

  Sophie clasped my hand in a firm grip, and it suddenly felt like a million spiders went tap dancing along my spine. I shook her hand for the briefest of seconds and then pulled away, trying not to make it look so obvious that that was what I was doing.

  Kame put out his hand. Everything in me screamed not to touch it, but I didn’t know how to get out of it, so I shook it briefly. “Kame,” he reminded me, and I nodded. His voice was deep and lilting; it almost had a musical quality to it. Come to think of it, so did Sophie’s.

  Mom ushered Sophie and Kame to seats across from me, and as they turned to walk past, I got a whiff of something strange. Like burned toast, or dying ashes.

  Wrinkling my nose in distaste, I caught myself and then smoothed out my features. Whatever perfume Sophie was wearing did not suit her very well.

  Mom disappeared into the kitchen, then returned a couple of minutes later holding a large silver dish. “I hope everyone’s hungry. I made pork roast with cardamom mushroom sauce. And I also have meatball soup.”

  “Personally, I can’t wait for the meatballs,” Kame said. “I’m sure everything else will be wonderful too, but meatballs are my downfall. They are…”—he kissed his fingers to his lips—“delizioso.”

  Mom beamed a huge smile. “Well, I hope my meatballs live up to your high standards.”

  Kame smiled back at her, and I rolled my eyes. So gross.

  The pork roast moved steadily down the line from Kame to Sophie, and she waited until it was safely passed on to Dad before she said, “So Abbey, I assume you’re going to be a senior this year?” I nodded. “I hear the schools around here are just fantastic. The teacher-student ratio and academic courses—what an asset to this community. I’m sure that really helps with the value.”

  Asset to the community? Strong academic courses? What were they, school-board officials?

  “Oh, yes,” Mom raved. “And we have one of the highest secondary education continuance levels in the state. But of course, we are always seeking new and improved ways to help our students. One of our main goals this year is to encourage our local teens to become active in their community. Big brother/big sister programs, volunteer work with the elderly, community service to improve our parks…”

  I gave Mom a double take. This was the first time I’d ever heard of any of those things.

  “That’s so important,” Sophie agreed.

  Kame nodded. “Strong community gives people a better sense of self.”

  Okayyyy, so they’re… self-help gurus? “How did you say you know my parents?” I asked Sophie.

  “They knocked on our door at just the right time,” Mom replied. “The Maxwells were here, and we were discussing dinner, so it just turned into one big group meeting when we invited them in.”

  “We were here to introduce ourselves,” Sophie said to me. “We’re with the new branch of Hotchkiss Realty.”

  That explained their outfits, then.

  I watched her closely while she went on to talk about real estate, studying her hair as she spoke. It was a bright red color that was so vivid, there was no way it was natural. And as I looked closer, I could see little glints of pale blond peeking through here and there. Like the dye hadn’t been strong enough to cover up her original color.

  Almost perfect, but not quite.

&nbs
p; Dad handed me the roast, and I scooped some onto my plate, then passed it on to Mrs. M. I picked up a fork and stabbed one of the squares, then lifted it to my mouth. Just as I was about to take a bite, that burnt smell drifted up to me again.

  I moved the fork closer and inspected the food. There weren’t any darkened edges. Sniffing again, I got just the barest hint of a smell this time. Everyone else looked like they were enjoying it.

  I put the fork to my mouth again, forced it past my lips, and chewed. The taste was fine, if somewhat bland. I reached for another piece and discreetly smelled it. Smells fine. I shook my head, hoping to clear whatever was going on in there.

  The second bite went down smoothly, and I relaxed. But every now and then I caught a brief trace of it. It was almost like I was tasting Sophie’s perfume. Must be some weird scent-taste-association thing happening.

  Conversation ebbed and flowed around me, with everyone keeping pretty much the same pace. Mrs. M. was a little on the quiet side, but I think I was the only one who noticed. Eventually, the evening wore on, and Sophie and Kame were the first to say they needed to be going.

  Sophie came over to Mrs. M., and they shook hands before she slipped Mrs. M. her card. “I know that you said you’re not ready to think about anything permanent yet, but when you are, call me. I’ll make sure you get top dollar for your house.”

  Mrs. M. dutifully took the card and murmured a polite thank-you. I wanted to shake my head in pity for Sophie. She wasn’t going to get a sale out of the Maxwells. They’d never move away from Sleepy Hollow.

  Dad and Kame were standing nearby, discussing a baseball game, and I heard Dad say, “So, Kame. That’s an unusual name. Family heritage?”

  Kame looked over at me before he answered. “Yes. I guess you could say it runs in the family.”

  Dad shrugged and then clapped him on the shoulder. Suddenly, Sophie appeared next to me, and Kame was right behind her. It kind of surprised me how fast he got away from Dad.

  “We’re so glad we had a chance to meet you, Abbey,” Sophie said, her voice melodic and beautiful. She didn’t try to shake my hand again, and I was extremely grateful for that. She did, however, keep her gaze directly on me. Kame did the same, and I felt a prickle of unease run up my spine. It was… weird and uncomfortable to have them both staring at me.