The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  “It was slippery,” I mumbled. “Just…give me a sec to clean up.” What could I say? I was sitting on the edge of a cliff, smoking my dying grandmother’s cigarettes when my dead friend stopped by to visit me? I don’t think so.

  Dad sighed. “Go. We’ll deal with this later. Right now we have a birthday to celebrate.”

  “Well,” my mom huffed, “you know your driving privileges are—”

  “I know, Mom. I’m really, really sorry.”

  She nodded and waved to Cici. “Go help your sister get cleaned up.” Relieved to be dismissed so easily, I fled up the stairs with Cici on my heels.

  I went straight to the bathroom and stripped off my wet clothes, then wrapped a thick towel around me and tucked the corner in over my chest. Cici arrived with clean clothing and began rooting around under the counter for a washcloth while I filled the sink with water.

  “So,” she whispered, “what really happened to you tonight?” Avoiding her eyes, I stuck my hands under the faucet and winced as the warm water sprayed over the mud-caked cuts on my palms and wrists. Forgot about those.

  “Hmm?” she asked as she hunted for a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Remaining silent while I collected my thoughts, I let the basin fill and gently waved my hands back and forth in the shallow pool to soften the dirt. A fine cloud of mud rose up around them, turning the water black. But as I watched, the mud tangled together like gnarled, dirt-clogged roots. They wrapped themselves around my fingers. Startled, I yanked my hands out of the water and squeezed my eyes shut, but the sink was filled with only muddy water when I reopened them.

  Rattled, I took a steadying breath and then patted my hands clean with the washcloth, wincing again. There were several angry red scratches on my palms and wrists and a crusty oblong burn mark where my hand had put out the Camel.

  Cici pointed to it. “What happened there?”

  I grabbed the bottle of peroxide roughly out of her hand and poured a generous stream over each palm. The scratches and burn fizzed and hissed as the solution made contact. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I answered brusquely. “Okay?”

  “Okay, but…” She eyed me worriedly as she handed me a roll of gauze. I sighed.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that…it’s my birthday. So, I shouldn’t have to talk about anything I don’t want to talk about. Right?” I started wrapping the gauze around my palms.

  “Sure.” She nodded uncertainly. “See you downstairs.”

  Eating birthday cake with my family after my surreal evening was beyond strange. Everything had taken on an aura of newness, sharp edged and overly bright. It took a herculean effort to stay focused on the table talk and smile in all the right places. But when my mom began to tell the story of how I almost died the night I was born—for like the billionth time—I completely zoned out. Instead, I replayed bits and pieces of my conversation with Michael over and over again in my head. I was glad when I could drop the charade and go to bed. I was exhausted.

  A pale quarter moon hung high in the jeweled night sky. I lay on the ground with the cold dew from the grass seeping through the back of my fall jacket and jeans and swept my hand out to the side. My fingers broke the moonlit drops on the tips of the grass, leaving a dark trail in their wake.

  The world tipped crazily as I sat up and took stock of my surroundings. A few feet to my left, the deep pool from my nightmare innocently reflected the moon and the stars on its glassy surface. I could hear crickets and frogs calling to each other. If they weren’t afraid of its depths, neither was I.

  I crawled onto my hands and knees and crept forward, parting the tall grass near the pond’s boggy edge, sighing with relief. Only moon and stars and…Michael’s face.

  He tilted his scraped chin up toward me, his eyes filled with emotion.

  “Will you come back?” he whispered.

  My heart leapt into my throat. “No! I can’t!” I cried. “I’m…”

  I startled awake in my own bed, murmuring, “…afraid.”

  The glowing numbers on the alarm clock read 5:00 a.m. I hugged my blanket closer and tried to go back to sleep, but my thoughts would not be turned from the face in the pool, from his request.

  Would I go back? Would anyone in their right mind go back? Not likely. What if Michael was followed by legions of less benevolent spirits? Spirits like that thing that laughed at me in the nightmare I’d had the day Michael died. Spirits like the ones that stalked my sleep when I was little. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and without thinking I bolted out of bed and made for the safety of the light in the hall. Yeah. I was sixteen years old, and I was still running from nightmares.

  Clinking sounds drifted up from the kitchen. My mind flashed a warning: Mom. Avoid at all costs. But a remembered comment she’d made led me down the stairs instead. It was cold, and I grabbed the afghan from the back of the sofa, wrapped it around my shoulders and wandered into the kitchen.

  She was standing at the sink in her robe. On the counter, a few pieces of medical equipment were laid out on a paper towel to dry. As I moved closer, she was startled, then seeing it was only me, raised a sudsy hand out of the basin and wiped her flushed forehead with her wrist.

  “This is a surprise,” she said, opening the drain to let the sudsy water out. She didn’t bring up the car, so I guessed that lecture was scheduled for later.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  She pulled out the telescoping sprayer to rinse out the sink. “Want to talk about it?”

  I fidgeted. “Um…I wanted to know what you meant when you said something about trouble in Michael’s family…you know, the night before Michael’s funeral.”

  She finished rinsing out the sink and stared at her reflection in the dark window. “Do you want some tea?” she asked.

  She knew I didn’t like the bitter tea that she liked, and seeing the look on my face, she reassured me, “I have some vanilla chai that we can sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.” That sounded okay, so I sat down in a chair, pulled my bare feet up off the cold tile floor and tucked them under me to keep them warm.

  “Michael…” she murmured as she rummaged around in the cupboard. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when I asked you about that ring. It was like you had just found out you were Cinderella and were headed off to the castle to live.” She filled two mugs with water and popped them into the microwave. “I knew as soon as I saw it that it was real gold and aquamarine.”

  I smiled involuntarily at the memory.

  “It was beautiful,” she acknowledged. “But it obviously wasn’t Michael’s to give away.” The microwave beeped, and she took out the mugs and dunked the tea bags. She placed one in front of me and held up her hand. “Now, wait a few minutes. Then we’ll add the milk and sugar.”

  I leaned down and let the hot, sweet steam warm my cold nose.

  “When you went upstairs with Michael that day, Janine—that was his mom’s name—and I visited for a while. She was incredibly grateful to us for returning the ring. You see, Michael’s dad, Aidan, gave her that ring when Michael was born. They’d tried to have a child for years and lost four babies to miscarriages before he came along.” She got up to get the milk and cinnamon sugar, added them to the tea, then instructed with an expectant smile, “Taste.”

  I took a sip. It was good, really good.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She nodded her approval. “Michael was their miracle baby. But a few months after you gave the ring back, Michael’s father died, and his mom—she just couldn’t cope. You’d think Michael would have given her reason enough to…” Her eyes clouded over, and she took a sip of her tea and then glanced away. I didn’t remember anyone telling me his father had died.

  “What happened to his mom?” I prompted quietly.

  “Drugs,” she said, just one word and no more. Then the little bell that my mom had placed next to Mina’s bed rang, meaning she was having trouble breathing and needed to be suctioned.

  My mom jumped up from the t
able, but before she went upstairs, she said, “I’m so sorry about what happened to him. He deserved better.”

  My dad woke me up Saturday morning by throwing open the curtains above the sofa and letting the bright October sun beat its way through my eyelids. Then he cheerfully offered me a deal. My car privileges were suspended for a month, but I could subtract a week for each car I washed. Three cars. Three weeks. That meant I was only grounded from the car for one week. I could have done worse.

  By two o’clock, I was finished and had passed inspection. The worst part had been cleaning out everything from under the seats and figuring out what to do with it all. On the positive side, I’d had several uninterrupted hours to think about what had happened the night before and decide what I wanted to do next.

  For starters, I decided there was no way I could talk to anyone about seeing Michael’s ghost without incurring some serious head shrinking. Plus, until I could drive again, I couldn’t go back to the woods even if I wanted to without someone coming with me, which was definitely out of the question. In the meantime, I planned to keep busy and hope that I could forget about Michael, that I could convince myself it had all been a bad dream.

  Meri grabbed my bags as soon as I stepped into her foyer on Saturday night for our sleepover and pawed through them, intent on playing her favorite game: dress up Cate. I kicked off my shoes, and let my eyes wander around the house.

  The two-story foyer was immaculate. There were no dust bunnies in the corners or piles of shoes on the stairs. In the great room to my left, the baby grand piano that Meri and Leo practiced on for hours every day was polished, and there were faint lines on the plush ivory carpet confirming it had been vacuumed recently. The house smelled good too, like lemon furniture polish and lavender candles. The fragrance blend was a welcome change from the ascetic scent of disinfectant that had pervaded our house in the last week.

  When Meri finished rumpling half my wardrobe, she looked up at me and pouted. “I told you to bring something cute to wear.”

  “My T-shirts are cute,” I countered. “It’s only the guys coming over.”

  She stuck out her bottom lip. I had to remind myself that it was more about the process of getting dressed up than actually showing it off that made Meri’s day.

  “You can do my hair and face, and I’ll even wear some of your jewelry if you want,” I promised, trying to appease her.

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  Grace and the guys showed up an hour later, and we settled in for a night of pizza and movies. Spencer was still on crutches and was planning to start physical therapy the next week, hoping he’d be ready for the upcoming basketball season. He asked me discreetly if I thought Cici might want to work out with him. He wanted me to talk to her. I rolled my eyes.

  “That’s low, Spence. Pulling the injured card.” I peppered his face with popcorn. He managed to catch one of the kernels in his mouth before giving me his puppy dog “please” face. I shook my head.

  Around midnight, Mrs. DiMaro came downstairs and booted the guys out, forcing us to watch an extended version of the “Meri and Finn Goodbye Kiss.”

  “You guys are sick,” groaned Grace, but I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. I had never kissed anyone like that. Sure, there had been Jason, and he’d been a good kisser, but no way had he loved me, not like Finn loved Meri anyway.

  “Come on,” I prodded, dragging Meri away from Finn and shoving her toward the basement. “Let’s get our stuff set up for bed.” As we clomped down the stairs with our blankets and pillows, I was happy my plan was working. I hadn’t thought of Michael all evening and as long as we kept talking, I could continue to stay in my happy place. I really wanted to stay in my happy place.

  I was on my hands and knees staring hard into the deep, moonlit pool with my hair hanging loosely like dripping seaweed around my face. Something was gripping the back of my neck, pushing my head down. It wanted me to see what was in the water.

  My neck was stiff, my throat burned, and I felt tremendous pressure behind my eyes and forehead like I’d been there for a while. But that was nothing compared to the vice-like clamp that gripped my gut when I saw Michael’s face. No longer peaceful, his eyes were filled with sharp, armor-piercing terror. Billowing up from the bottom of the pool underneath him was a dark inky cloud, and tendrils of thick knobby roots were forming and wrapping around his legs and torso. As the black cloud gradually spread outward and upward, Michael’s eyes opened wider.

  “No!” he shouted. “Please, Catherine! Come back!” He reached for me, his bubbled words floating to the surface, and then he was yanked down by the roots into the blackness. Swallowed whole.

  “No! Oh God, Michael! I’ll come back! Please!”

  Someone shook me, and I snapped my eyes open to find myself tangled up in my sleeping bag, covered in sweat with two pairs of eyes staring worriedly back at me from the amber darkness of Meri’s basement.

  “Cate! We’ve been trying to wake you for the last five minutes!”

  “I need to go back,” I told them. My throat hurt like hell. My eyes drifted closed again. “I’ll come back.”

  “What’s she talking about?”

  “Must have been a bad dream.”

  Their words held no meaning for me. All I wanted was the soft blanket of sleep that descended. As it settled into place, a voice whispered, shh…I’m so sorry…just rest now…

  The next morning, it felt as if the whole world had shifted, and my fear for my own sanity—my own safety—paled next to my fear for Michael. The dream had been too vivid to ignore, and the fact that my neck still ached, my throat still burned, and my eyes were bloodshot—as if I actually had been upside down—only made me believe the dream more. Something was trying to tell me that Michael was in trouble. I needed to go back to Lewis Woods. I needed to go back today. The need was so overwhelming that I could hardly think of anything else.

  “I have to go,” I announced as my friends were sitting down for breakfast. Mrs. DiMaro, who had just served up a platter of blueberry pancakes and fruit in her sunlit kitchen, looked annoyed by my lack of appreciation.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” Meri wanted to know. I glanced toward the door, anxious to leave. She pointed to the breakfast on the table. “Don’t you want to—”

  “No,” I answered shortly and then reached for the excuse I never thought I’d use. “I…um…forgot to bring my inhaler and…” It was perfect. I faked a cough into my hand then looked at Leo, who had just filled a plate. “Can you take me home, Leo?”

  Leo looked down at his food and then at me, exasperated, but he set the plate down and motioned toward the door.

  It was cooler than the day before, but the sun was still shining. As the station wagon rolled down the driveway, Leo asked, “You okay?”

  I nodded and then stared out the passenger side window. The last person I wanted to talk to about any of this was Leo.

  “Okay,” he said, and left it at that.

  Only music sounded in the car the rest of the way home, a song called “Mirrors” by a local band named House of Cards, which was odd. I’d never heard any of their stuff played on the radio before.

  My dad and sisters had gone to Mass without me, and I peeked in through the crack in Mina’s bedroom door to check on her. Her chest jerked up and down erratically as she struggled for air, even in her sleep. Her coloring was gray. In the room next to hers, my mom was passed out diagonally across her king-size bed, exhausted from another long night.

  I briefly admired her strength and stamina, but for the first time I wondered if my mom had chosen the right path. Keeping Mina alive took all of her time and energy, leaving little room for anyone or anything else. There were nice places nearby where Mina would be well taken care of, and I couldn’t understand why my mom had taken this massive burden onto her shoulders alone.

  Back down in the kitchen, I paced back and forth, absorbed by my own problem. I knew I couldn’t ask my mom or dad or Claire to drive
me to the woods; they wouldn’t want me hiking alone. I could have asked Leo, but I guessed I’d already used up my goodwill allotment from him for the day. Think. I needed someone who could drive. Someone who didn’t mind going outside the rules and keeping secrets. Only one name came to mind, and I would have to swallow my pride to call him.

  Jason.

  Shit. I hated the thought of going to him for help. It was the same thing I had despised Kara for last summer, but I couldn’t think of anyone else.

  My stomach growled pitifully, and I grabbed a strawberry Pop Tart out of the kitchen cupboard and shoved it in the toaster. Then I pulled out my cell. Despite being in some classes together, Jason and I had hardly talked since the first day of school, and I was nervous about calling him. Then I realized how ridiculous I was being. Here I was, planning to head into the woods alone in search of a ghost, and I was afraid to call an ordinary guy I had known let’s just say pretty well last summer. Stupid. I punched his number into my cell.

  “Hey, Cate. What’s up?” he said. I smiled at his usual greeting. The Pop Tart bounced out of the toaster, and I pulled it out and tossed it onto the table before it could burn my fingers.

  “Just wondered how you were doing.”

  “Fine,” said Jason. I knew he knew there was more. I imagined his eyes narrowing with interest while he tried to puzzle out what I really wanted and why. He was smart, but I knew my motive was safely locked behind closed doors that read: “Thoughts of the Seriously Insane.” He wouldn’t guess I fit into that category.

  “And Kara?”

  “She’s great!” He paused and then laughed. “I actually might have to thank you for pushing me in the pool. She’s very…attentive, now.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was sure she was.

  “Um…Jason? Can I have a ride somewhere this afternoon?”

  “That depends.”

  Crap. “On what?”

  “Did you get my new cell yet?”