Past Midnight

by Mara Purnhagen

  “Absolutely.”

  She went to a shelf and pulled two heavy books from it. We both sat on her bed. Dante growled in his sleep when I sat down but remained curled up on his pillow. Avery began with her freshman year, pointing out pictures of her and Adam. There were tons of them.

  “I can’t believe how young we look!” She giggled.

  “I know. It’s like in my AV class. All the boys look like boys.”

  I had spent the first week of school carefully avoiding Bliss Reynolds. It wasn’t too difficult because she usually left at the beginning of class with an obedient camera guy in tow. It was difficult for me to comprehend why she was so hostile toward me, but her angry glares and impatient sighs any time we came within a few feet of one another told me that she definitely considered me an enemy. We were the only girls in the class. Callie told me that Bliss had basically threatened any girl who had expressed an interest in AV with her unbridled wrath. Did she really believe that I was a threat? And if so, a threat to what? AV class couldn’t possibly mean that much to someone. It was a high school elective, not a life-altering career move.

  After combing through the freshman yearbook, Avery moved on to her sophomore edition. Signatures crammed the front pages—it seemed as if everyone in the school had signed her book. When she turned to the sports section, I noticed a picture of Adam with his arm draped around another guy. It didn’t register at first, but then I realized the other person was Jared. Avery turned the page quickly, but I knew she had seen it. Now was my chance, I thought. Maybe I could finally get some answers.

  “So what’s the story with Jared?” I asked.

  “Story?” Avery concentrated on the glossy black-and-white pages of the yearbook.

  “Avery, please. Everyone but me knows some deep dark secret about him. It’s weird. And no one will tell me anything.”

  “That’s because I told them not to.”

  I was taken aback. “Why?”

  She looked at me. “They think they know the whole story, but they don’t. And I didn’t want you to hear bits and pieces, some of it true and some of it not. If you really need to know, I’ll tell you.” She closed the yearbook. “But, Charlotte, I’m only doing this once. I don’t want to talk about it again—ever. Okay?”

  I nodded. Part of me was relieved to finally get the information I wanted, but part of me was scared of what Avery was about to tell me.

  “Adam and Jared were best friends,” she began. “More like brothers, really. They grew up together.”

  Avery said that Jared wasn’t thrilled when his best friend began devoting so much time to her, but he learned to live with it. The three of them often went to movies together or hung out. Sometimes Jared brought a date, but he was never with one girl for very long. Avery had even tried to fix him up with Callie during their sophomore year, but the two dated for less than a month. Callie complained that Jared never wanted to do anything unless it was with Avery and Adam.

  Things began to change when Adam became a senior. “He was so busy with college applications and school and being with me,” Avery said. “Jared started getting left out of things. He was angry.”

  Adam spent Christmas in Rome with his family. While he was gone, Avery and Jared went to a party together. “Long story short, he kissed me,” Avery said, sighing. “He’d been drinking and he was lonely, I guess. I told him to get a grip and sober up, but he was out of his mind. He kept coming on to me in front of everyone. It was crazy.”

  When Adam returned from Rome, he heard rumors that Avery and Jared had hooked up. He confronted them, the truth came out, and Adam never trusted Jared again.

  “I think Jared felt betrayed,” Avery said. “He thought that Adam had taken my side over his, but there wasn’t a choice, really. Jared crossed a line.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked. “How did he get the limp? Why won’t anyone go near him?” I knew there was more to the story. An entire school did not turn against someone just because he kissed the wrong girl.

  “There was an accident,” Avery said softly. “Jared got into a fight with Adam after a party. He was driving too fast and he hit a telephone pole. It messed up his leg.” She ran her hand across the cover of the yearbook. “After that, he stopped talking to anyone. Sometimes he would punch a locker or a wall. He makes people nervous, like he might explode at any second.”

  “That’s why people avoid him? They’re afraid he might go crazy?”

  Avery got up and put the yearbooks away. I realized that we hadn’t looked through last year’s book, and when I glanced at the neatly organized bookshelf, I saw that there was no space for it.

  “They’re afraid he has gone crazy,” she said. “He’s not the same. He’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?” There was something she wasn’t telling me. I can’t believe they even let him back in here after last year, someone had commented on the first day of school. What had Jared done?

  Avery’s back was to me as she stood in front of her bookshelf. “He’s dangerous because he’s unpredictable.” She turned around, and I could see that her eyes were red. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry if this is painful for you. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  She wiped her eyes. “It’s not you. I’m just trying to forget the bad stuff and hang on to the good stuff, you know? And sometimes seeing Jared makes that hard to do.”

  I suspected that she was leaving out details, things she felt guilty about. Maybe the incident with Jared had gone further than just a drunken kiss at a party. Whatever she wasn’t saying, I let it go. Avery had told me enough and I trusted her judgment. She was my friend, and that was all that mattered.

  We spent the rest of the day working on Homecoming themes. We came up with a few good ideas and a few backup plans. Avery was leaning toward “Masquerade Ball” because Homecoming fell on the day after Halloween and she wanted something festive yet elegant.

  “Not like last year,” she said. “It was a retro, 1980s theme. Basically it was just an excuse for everyone to dress like the extras in a Madonna video. I want to step it up this year.”

  I called home around eight that night to see if my parents had gotten back from Charleston, but there was no answer.

  “You can stay here as long as you like,” Avery offered.

  “Thanks. I’ll try again later.”

  We talked about school for a while, and Avery told me that cheerleading practice would soon be taking up more of her time. “I won’t be able to give you a ride home after school most days,” she said.

  “No problem,” I assured her. “I’ll take the bus.”

  “The bus?” She pretended to shudder. “You can go to the library or something and I can take you home after practice is over.”

  “I might do that. We’ll see.” I didn’t want Avery to feel as if she was obligated to serve as my chauffeur, or worse, that I had nothing better to do than read in the library while she went to practice.

  An hour later, I decided to go home. Avery’s mom made me promise to call once I’d gotten there, which I thought was odd because I lived just up the hill. I knew she was watching me from the window as I made the short walk to my house. When I reached the front door, I flipped on the porch light. Sure enough, their front light turned off.

  Inside my house it was completely dark. I reached for the light switch, sliding my hands across the wall. But just as I was about to flick it on, I heard a noise upstairs.

  Footsteps.

  I froze, my hand on the wall, and listened. Someone was definitely upstairs. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone and took a step back toward the front door. I kept my eyes on the stairs and my hand on the cell phone. A light flashed across the hallway.

  “Over here,” a voice said. “I’m getting something.”

  It was Shane. I realized I had been holding my breath, and I let it out, relieved, and ran up the stairs. The door to my room was open, and as I stood in the doorway I co
uld see Shane and my parents standing near my bed, looking down at something.

  “What’s going on in here?” I demanded. Everyone jumped.

  “Charlotte, you startled us!” Mom exclaimed.

  I turned on the light to my room and gasped. My parents had all of their equipment out—the ion meters and recorders and even the thermal camera. They brought the thermal along only if they felt confident that it would capture something on-screen. Something paranormal.

  “Seriously,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  Shane coughed. My parents looked at each other. Dad set the thermal reader down on my bed.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Mom walked over to me. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  She put one arm around my shoulder and ushered me out of my room. Dad was right behind us. “It’s time we showed you something.”

  As we headed toward the living room, I couldn’t help feeling dread. It was as if I was being led to my own beheading.

  Dad sat at one of the long tables and turned on a video screen. I immediately recognized the Courtyard Café in Charleston. Annalise and I were standing in the middle of the room and she was speaking. “Hello? Do you remember me? I was here last month. I felt—something. Was it you? Is someone here?” Dad fast forwarded the tape. I could see myself leaning toward Annalise and whispering in her ear. A second later, something happened. Dad froze the screen.

  “Do you see those white shapes?” he asked.

  I sucked in my breath. “What is it?”

  Mom shook her head. “We’re not sure yet. But, Charlotte, whatever they are, it appears that they followed us here.”

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  Shane came downstairs. “Got something!”

  Dad turned to me. “We think something powerful was triggered back in Charleston. We’re getting readings stronger than anything we’ve ever recorded.”

  My legs felt shaky and I gripped the back of Dad’s chair. The still images on the screen stared back at me. “Do you know what caused it?” I asked. No one said anything. I looked at Mom. “What triggered it?”

  “You did,” she said gently. “We think you’re the trigger.”

  seven

  I’d never felt so far from normal. Staring at the pale images frozen on the screen, I was overwhelmed by the notion that normal was a kind of place where other people lived but I had never even visited.

  “What are they?” I asked for the third time.

  Shane was hooking up the EVP readings. Mom and Dad sat at each side of me. “We think we have two distinct energies here,” Dad said. He pointed to a large mass of white on the screen. “We’ve connected this one with a male voice and this smaller one with a female voice.”

  The shapes on the screen did not look like people, exactly, but they were tall and thin, like pillars, and they hovered a foot off the ground, staying close to my side for several frames.

  “So you’re saying that I did something that brought out two ghosts, and these ghosts are now following me around?”

  “Not ghosts, honey. Energy,” Dad corrected.

  “White, wispy shapes that float around are ghosts,” I said angrily. “I don’t want to hear about harmless energy.”

  Dad frowned but said nothing.

  Shane pulled up the EVP screen. “Here we go,” he said, increasing the volume. At first, all I could hear was static. But the monitor showed spikes in noise, and when the recording reached those points, there was an audible whispering sound.

  “Isolate it,” Dad instructed, and Shane clicked on the sound.

  “I see her,” a man’s voice whispered.

  A chill spread through me. Shane played it again. Never had three little words terrified me so much.

  I see her.

  I felt numb. “When was this recorded?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, when you were standing in the doorway,” Shane said. He seemed excited, like he’d hit the paranormal jackpot. He lived for this stuff, but he could return to his safe little apartment after finding something freaky. I wasn’t so lucky. How was I going to sleep in my room when I knew that I was sharing it with disembodied stalkers?

  “What kind of things have you experienced since we’ve lived here?” Mom asked. “I remember you mentioned a strange dream once. Was that right after we moved in?”

  I realized she was using her professional voice, the one she used when she interviewed “clients.” I felt a fresh flash of anger—I wasn’t a client, I was her daughter.

  “Yes, I’ve had a few strange dreams. And I’ve felt some cold spots. Sometimes, I think I hear whispers.” I kept my voice calm and matter-of-fact. I knew my parents didn’t trust overly emotional people.

  “What do you remember about your dreams?”

  “There’s always the same girl in them,” I said. “And they seem to take place a hundred years ago. Maybe more than a hundred years.”

  Dad and Shane were still staring at the computer screen and mumbling things to one another. I stood up.

  “I can’t stay here,” I announced. “I’m going to Avery’s.”

  Mom followed me up the stairs to my room. I opened my dresser and pulled out some clothes, tossing them onto the bed.

  “How long have you known?” I asked her.

  She sat on the bed and began folding my crumpled shirts. “We finally figured it out today. At first, we thought it was connected to Annalise. The EVPs we captured mentioned a female. We just assumed…”

  I slammed a drawer shut. “You just assumed what?”

  Mom frowned. “You know that Annalise has always been more sensitive to energy than you. She has great intuition and the ability to elicit a response. You’re different.”

  “Different? Is that your way of saying that I’m basically useless to your research?” Mom flinched, and even I was surprised at the venom in my voice. I wasn’t sure if I was revealing my true feelings or simply releasing some of my anger and fear.

  Mom reached for my hand. “Your father and I have never, ever seen you as anything but a vital and essential part of this family and our team.”

  I let her pull me into a hug. “I know.” After a moment I pulled away. “So you’re sure these things are focused on me?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Mom gathered up my clothes into a little pile. “When we visited Annalise today, she was fine. She hasn’t felt anything at all strange since we left. So we went back over our footage and realized we had been looking at it all wrong.”

  I grabbed a duffel bag from my closet. “I thought only buildings were supposed to be haunted. I thought ghosts stayed put, not followed people around.”

  I knew Mom hated the word “ghosts,” but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, this was her fault. Her and Dad’s. They exposed me to something strange and creepy, and now they needed to find a way to stop it.

  “We’ll figure this out,” Mom said. “Charlotte, I promise you. Once we identify the trigger, we can stop it.”

  “You said I was the trigger.”

  Mom placed my clothes in the duffel bag. “Yes, but it could be more specific than that. It could be something you did, something you said. We’re reviewing all the tapes.”

  I remembered walking in the living room days earlier and the way they’d tried to keep me from hearing something. “There was another EVP, wasn’t there? One from Charleston?”

  “Yes.” Mom was being careful not to make eye contact with me. She focused instead on arranging the clothes in my bag.

  “I want to hear it.”

  “Okay.”

  I was expecting more resistance from her, but she must have heard the determination in my voice. We returned downstairs and Mom asked Shane to pull up the file. I slipped on a pair of headphones. Shane pushed a button and I heard the familiar buzz of static.

  “Her,” a low, male voice whispered.

  “Daughter,” a female voice said. The woman’s voice was slightly clearer and lou
der.

  I took off the headphones. “They think I’m their daughter?”

  “We’ve got Annalise researching the restaurant,” Dad said. “She’s trying to figure out who the couple may be, if they had a daughter, when they died, that kind of thing.”

  Shane tapped a pencil against the table, something he always did when he was thinking. “I’m trying to find a connection between your two visits,” he said. “Something that’s the same both times.” He squinted at the screen, and I followed his gaze. I had a nagging sense that I knew the answer.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told them. “But for now, I’m going to Avery’s. I’ll be back tomorrow.” I paused. “You don’t think they’re following me outside of my bedroom, do you?”

  “That never happens,” Dad said. “Energy manifests itself in one place at a time.” He sounded confident, but I wondered if he was just saying that so I wouldn’t worry too much. I decided to believe him, mainly because I wanted to. He gave me a hug, and Mom walked with me out of the house. She stood on the porch, watching to make sure I made it safely down the street. When I reached Avery’s door, I turned and waved. I saw my mom, illuminated by the porch light and I was filled with an inexplicable sadness. I felt like I was waving goodbye, and the sensation was so strong and heavy and real that when Avery opened the door, I burst out crying.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, pulling me inside.

  “Almost everything,” I sobbed.

  My official excuse for staying with Avery was that I was having “problems at home,” which was basically true. Having ghosts (I refused to call them “energy”) occupying your bedroom is, indeed, a problem, although not one that is easily explained. Avery and her mom didn’t pester me with questions, which I appreciated.

  “I want you to know that if you ever feel like talking about it, I’m here,” Avery told me as she set up a sleeping bag on her floor. “No pressure, but if you need someone to listen, day or night, you’ve got me.”

  It was such a sincere and thoughtful offer, and the crushing sense of desolation I’d experienced earlier had not faded, that I almost spilled my secret right then and there. Instead, I held back. I didn’t know how she would react, and I didn’t want to risk losing her friendship.