by Abigail Boyd
"Last night. At Lainey's party. You screamed, and then you looked really scared. Of something in the water, or maybe just the lake itself."
The look of genuine confusion on her face was so earnest, I knew she didn't remember. It made me heartsick and frustrated. I knew it was symptom from reading Other Worlds of being in Limbo, but there was no offering of how to help a spirit move on.
"I haven't been to Lainey's in a while."
"But you did go over there to party?"
She looked down, playing with the fringy threads on her jean shorts. "A few times. No big deal. She didn't pay much attention to me. I was background noise. I mostly just sat around and laughed at Ambrose being an ass."
I pulled the necklace out, making sure the letters lay on my palm so she could read it. "I found this there."
"Found what?" she asked, squinting. "Some garbage?"
"This is your necklace," I explained. "Or what's left of it. I found it in the lake by Lainey's house."
"I'm wearing my necklace, dorkus." She grabbed the chain around her neck and jiggled it. "Ta-da. Case closed."
"This was in the water for a long time. Over a year. That's why it's so rusty and broken up. It was cheap, it was never meant to last. The fact that you're wearing it now just means you were wearing it around the time you died."
She just stared at me dumbly. "Please don't start talking like that again. You know I'd freak out if this thing was gone, I'd notice. It's special, you bought it with your own money and everything."
"Believe what you want," I said wearily. "But I have questions."
"You always have questions."
"You said you went to Hush Lake road. The first day you walked in, knocking on the door. Why did you go there?"
"I don't remember," Jenna said, acting distracted. She slid her hands into her shorts pockets. Her claim rang false. She frowned, and as if in slow motion, she pulled her right hand out. There was a red lighter there.
She held the lighter up to her nose, as if she'd never seen such an alien creation before. Flicking the switch, colors in the plastic lit up as a little blue and orange flame popped.
"Where did this come from?" she said quietly. Then, as if staring at the lighter's flame provided her answer, she said, "The gas station. I met the guys there." Her voice was like wind through a crack in a window.
"What guys?" I asked impatiently. "Jenna, what happened?"
"I don't remember," she said, and I had to force back tears at the sadness and frustration in her forlorn voice. She pushed the lighter back in her pocket, and rubbed her temples as if trying to squeeze the memories out.
"I need to go lay down," she said, and I knew she was talking to herself. I didn't even know if she knew I was there anymore.
"Jenna..."
"I need to go for a while." With that, she blinked out. I'd never seen her do it before. She normally just walked out of the room or went away when my back was turned. It was exactly what I'd feared when she'd first been sitting on my bed; blink and she'd be gone.
Only I hadn't blinked. And I knew she'd be back.
In the meantime, I had to make some sense of whatever mystery I had stumbled into.
Theo accompanied me, and by that I mean drove both of us, to the gas station on Hush Lake Road. There was only one in that area of town, since it was away from the main street. It was not only a gas station, but also a kind of trinket store, of which we had a surplus in Hell.
We chatted a bit on the car ride there, but kept to casual topics. Even though we were going there to investigate what happened to Jenna, nerves made our moods lighter.
"Alex told me to tell you that he doesn't think he can beat Henry up, but he can try, if it'd make you feel better," Theo informed me. "I could probably take him, too."
She made one small hand into a fist and shook it.
"Not necessary. But thanks."
The Toyota pulled up to the front of the gas station, where parking spots were marked with faded white lines. A rectangular tin sign with the face of a devil perched on the roof, grinning at us. His broken tail waved back and forth behind him.
"What are we looking for here?" Theo asked.
"Jenna was here the night she died." It was weird how flippantly I could say it. I didn't even think about it anymore, because I seemed disconnected to the facts. "I just want to know if anyone here saw anything."
Getting out of Theo's Toyota, we walked through the doors. The place was chilly, air conditioning cranking. The man behind the counter looked up as a bell dinged. A look of suspicion crossed his features when he saw us, two teenage girls who no doubt in his mind meant trouble.
Theo and I looked around a little. I had to work up the nerve to talk to the cashier.
The whole place smelled of cheap room spray, cigars and gasoline. Rows and rows of snacks and dusty trinkets crowded the place. There was a ton of kitschy merchandise, piled high on the shelves in with the gum and potato chips and single packets of aspirin. All of it was Hell themed: rubber duckies in black leather bikinis, Damnation University graduation certificates, and black shot glasses.
Finally, Theo and I met back up and approached the register. The cashier was reading a tabloid intently. He wore thick black glasses, and had a droopy haircut with sideburns. A five o'clock shadow crept across his weak jaw.
"How can I help you ladies?" he asked, smiling. His teeth were cigarette stained, his beady eyes growing beadier.
"I don't really know how to ask this," I began. "But I was friends with a girl who went missing last year, Jenna Reed. She came here on the night she disappeared. This was the last place she was seen alive."
"That was the girl who drowned, right?" he asked. "Sorry to hear she was your friend."
"Thanks." I was picking up a weirdly creepy vibe from him. And his eyes kept darting towards our chests, concealed beneath our t-shirts. "Were you working here, by any chance?"
He puffed up a little and pushed the tabloid away. "I've worked here for the last ten years."
"Do you remember her? I know it was a long time ago. She had curly hair, she was a little taller than me?" I demonstrated with my hand.
He sighed, coming out from behind the counter. He started to unpack a box of flashlights with skulls on the ends.
"I already told the police everything I remember. We get a lot of idiot kids in here."
"She wasn't an idiot," I snapped, wanting to get out of their as fast as possible.
"I didn't say she was. But I mean, lots of teens," he clarified. "I do remember her, though. The hot little number in booty shorts."
She was sixteen, you creep.
"I just don't remember much of what she did when she was here." He put the last of the flashlights on the shelf and started breaking down the box.
"Think hard," I pressed.
"Well, she came in here, tarted up. I figured she was trying to pick up a dude, or waiting for one. I thought she might steal something, she had that guilty look about her. But she bought something..." He frowned, trying to remember. "Something little, snacks or..."
"A lighter?" I asked. Theo was watching me with intense fascination, like my sleuthing skills had surpassed hers.
"Sure. I don't really remember, like I said. Would you remember a transaction from a year ago? Let me answer that for you — no, you wouldn't."
"I suppose not." I wanted to throttle the idiot.
"Oh, and I remember I gave her the key for the bathroom. Then she came back, and took off with some guys out front in an Astro van."
"You saw her take off in a van? Did you tell the police that?"
He looked defensive. "I told them everything I know. I don't mess with cops. They knew she had been here, and they grilled me."
The police hadn't let me know anything, since I was only a witness to them. It irritated me that I could have saved trouble by finding it out from them instead of waiting for Jenna to give me answers. I wondered if they knew more than she did.
"What did the
guys look like?" Theo chimed in.
"One was old, one was young. Weird pair. And they looked preppy. I only remember that because I thought hey, what a great idea for a dirty movie."
"Was she hesitant to go with them at all?" I asked.
"Huh? She went with them just fine. Going to a party or something."
"Can we use the bathroom?" I asked.
"Need to freshen your Snapple, eh?" He went back behind the counter and retrieved a small key with a huge wooden keychain shaped like a coffin. HELL was spelled out with orange neon puffy paint on it. "You ladies always do it in pairs. Bathroom's at the back of the building."
I grabbed the key and we walked out.
"Well, he was a disgusting specimen," Theo said. "I think I need a shower. Possibly several."
Around the side of the building, the sidewalk was starting to break up. We passed a groaning ice machine and propane canisters. At the bank was the grimy aluminum door for the bathroom.
"Do you think there's evidence in the bathroom after all this time?" Theo asked.
"It's a long shot. But I don't think it'll hurt to look. We're already here, and I definitely never want to come back."
I jiggled the key into the lock. I expected fresh horror to greet us, but the bathroom was surprisingly not filthy. A potpourri air freshener sat on top of the toilet. The toilet paper roll was empty.
"Next up on the local bathroom sightseeing tour," I muttered.
"What?" Theo asked.
"It's just I've been hitting a lot of these lately," I explained.
There wasn't much to the room, or places where evidence could hide. It was tiny, about the size of a hall closet. The mirror had recently been cleaned. A ledge ran along the wall on the right. Despite a fear of finding spiders or rat poop up there, I ran my hand along the ledge. It came up empty.
Faded graffiti around the toilet, written in pen, declared different sets of initials to be lovers. I sighed, looking in the mirror again.
I was looking at Jenna's reflection, as if it was my own. It was her ghost, it was a memory. She looked conflicted, like she was regretting something. She dabbed at makeup on her face, puffy up her hair and going back outside.
Then she was walking to a dark blue van, the door thrown wide open like a black maw. Shadow people waited inside.
Then the orphanage gate loomed above. Lightning shot between dark clouds.
"Why are we here?" I asked in Jenna's voice. Someone was gripping her arms.
And then I was being dragged under the old tree again, as rain cut down through the air.
Theo was shaking my shoulder again. I came back to my senses and my own body, looking at my face in the mirror again, instead of the face of a dead girl.
"Where did you go?" Theo asked, bald worry in her words. "You were off daydreaming somewhere."
CHAPTER 18
CLAIRE AND I were eating breakfast together the next morning, a rare occasion. She had her bowl of wheat bran and a plate of hard boiled egg whites, I had Lucky Charms. She'd asked me a bunch of questions about how my summer was going. I had to stop myself from answering that she'd been here to witness most of it. I didn't know what she expected me to come up with.
She managed to make me feel bad about the few interactions I had outside of the house by telling me she worried about me every time I went out.
"What do you think, I'm going to break my neck?" I asked her in irritation as I poured myself a glass of orange juice. "I'm not an infant."
"Once you have kids, you'll understand," she said knowingly. "Oh! I almost forgot."
She got up and went to her purse, pulling out a paper pharmacy bag. I got a chill when I saw it.
"I refilled your medication," she said, undoing the staples on the top of the bag. "The bottle was empty. I'm glad I check every pocket when I'm doing laundry, which by the way you have a mountain of."
She handed me the bottle. "Thanks," I said, looking it over. What was I supposed to do with this?
"You didn't skip a dose, did you?" she asked suspiciously.
"No. I just forgot to tell you to refill it."
"You can't forget, ever," she said sternly, crumpling the bag for the trash. "You could get really uncomfortable if you miss a few doses."
Tell me about it.
She was watching me, and I knew she wanted to see me take one of the pills, as proof that I wasn't deceiving her. Again I wondered if she knew that I was seeing ghosts, and wanted to prevent it like they had for Eleanor.
I dropped a pill into my hand, but let it fall into my lap as I took a swig of orange juice. She seemed satisfied, and began filling a bucket of cleaning solution in the sink to scrub the kitchen tile.
I ground the little pill to powder beneath my shoe.
Jenna hadn't remembered any more details about the night of her disappearance. Just that there were some guys, although she wouldn't or couldn't say who, and she'd gone with them. She did tell me the plan was to go to a party, and that they'd met up at the gas station to car pool.
I was looking over Eleanor's medical records again in my room one night. Jenna was sitting in my desk chair, playing with the lighter. She was still looking at it like a foreign thing, like it was the first lighter she'd ever learned how to use.
I didn't bother talking to her when she was in this weird zone. It was impossible, and only made her mad at me. The early days when she'd come back, when I thought things could go back to how they were when she was alive, were very distant memories.
Laying on my stomach on my bed, I had taken the papers out and was organizing them. The file had been sloppy when I got it, like everything had been shoved in there by a disorganized doctor. Although I was hardly organized myself, the mess was irritating. Now I had piles around the bed of medication prescriptions, interviews with Eleanor, and doctor's notes.
Click click. Click click. I looked over at Jenna. The popping of the lighter was getting annoying, but I tried to ignore it.
Then my phone buzzed. The evening was full of distractions. It was another text message from Henry. I'd been deleting them unread, as he sent me a few every day since Lainey's party. The boy didn't know how to let things go, and I didn't appreciate being stalked. I'd never changed his contact name from Jerk, either.
I didn't want to talk to him, but I knew I had to go to the orphanage again. The placement of the gate in my vision confirmed it: She had been there sometime during her final hours. And Henry's father literally held the keys, as much as I couldn't stand the thought.
Click click.
"Can you cut that out?" I asked Jenna. She looked up at me in surprise.
"Sorry," she muttered, and put the lighter back in her pocket.
I felt like crap for yelling at her. I wanted to apologize, but I didn't know exactly how to say the words. I had to get out of this room. How was I going to solve the mystery of my murdered friend with her sitting beside me? I picked up my phone from beside me.
I know youre not going to write me back, however I'm still trying in the interest of persistence. Henry had written.
Wrong again. I'm writing back. I sent.
The lady finally speaks, he replied.
Don't get too excited. I'm asking a favor. You don't even have to consider it.
Shoot.
Can you get me into the orphanage?
Why do you need to go to that place again? Didn't we cause enough of a ruckus there last time?
If you can't help me, nvmnd.
Didn't say that. I can get you in there easy peasy. Name your time and place.
Friday. Daytime, so its not too suspicious. Meet me and my friends there.
Yes ma'am. I'll be there.
I had to tell someone about what I was seeing. I'd been living two lives for months, and I couldn't go on without connecting them. Especially since it was like they were trying to merge on their own. The notes I'd taken from Other Worlds proved to me that I wasn't alone, but it wasn't enough.
I needed to talk to a rea
l life person who would believe me. Theo was the only one I had any hope of believing me. And I didn't know how else to convince her to go back to the orphanage with me. And I couldn't go back to that evil place alone again.
She was dropping off some smaller paintings to Erasmus that day, to fill the spaces left by the work she'd sold. One of them was a profile of my face. She'd spent the morning putting finishing touches on it. I blushed every time I looked at it, and I didn't know how I'd feel when it was up on the wall for everyone to see. Her lines made me much prettier than I was in real life, what she had done when she'd drawn Alex. She worked magic.
"You keep this up, and it's going to look great on your art school application," Hugh told her.
Theo beamed. "I can't believe people are actually interested in what I love to do. But I'll take it."
Hugh and Theo talked about frames and placement for a while. I was full of nervous energy, of secrets ready to spill. Now that I'd actually committed to telling her, waiting was nearly impossible.
"Can we go to the library?" I asked her when we got back in the Toyota. "I have something to show you."
"Sure," she said, shrugging and changing direction. Typical Theo.
Inside the library, she followed me into the stacks, where I headed straight for the paranormal section. I yanked out the now familiar book and brought it out to one of the tables. I slammed the volume down without meaning to. It felt heavy all of a sudden, full of the weight of all the secrets and lies I'd been keeping.
"So what is this big mystery?" Theo asked jovially, sitting down across from me.
I was more nervous than I had been expecting, sweat beading along my hairline. I shook the neck of my t-shirt to get some air moving against my warm skin. "You're going to think I'm crazy. I know you've been very accepting of a lot of my weirdness, and for that I'm grateful. But I think even you will run without looking back when I tell you this."
Bemused, she said, "These revelations keep on coming, don't they? Go on, now I'm intrigued. How many people had to die?"
"No jokes, Theo," I said gently.
"Sorry," she said, running her fingers across her lips as if zipping them.
