The Girl in Acid Park

by Lauren Harris

  His hands were clasped in his lap, and one twitched, thumb tapping. It seemed weirdly separate at the end of his sleeve.

  "I didn't tell them about the girl." My voice seemed to float out without my permission. Jamie's thumb stopped tapping.

  "Hm?"

  I clenched my eyes shut and opened them again, trying to clear my brain. I rubbed my eyebrows. "The girl," I repeated. "The one who warned us? With the hair and the disco-tactic dress? I didn't tell them."

  Jamie's eyebrows pointed toward his nose. After a second, they lifted again, and he shook his head, comprehension dawning. "I didn't see her. I only heard the wind chimes."

  "But..." I twisted toward him. "But you were just as high as I was!"

  A sigh registered behind me, and I saw Jamie glance up over my shoulder. I twisted around.

  "Lord help me, I didn't need to hear that," Brother What-a-waste said. I felt the blood drain from my face. That was it. As if my credibility couldn't get worse, I had to go confess to the very thing I was afraid they would discover. I must have looked terrible, because when I looked up at Brother What-a-waste, his expression arrested. His perfectly-stubbled jaw twitched. "I would urge you to come to confession."

  Jamie and I glanced at each other. I had a feeling it would take more than a couple of Hail Maries to work this one out.

  #

  When we got back to school, Jamie went straight to the office, where his dad had apparently been waiting for an hour and a half. Brother What-a-waste walked me to my room. My whole body felt heavy, and all I could think about was sleep.

  "We've gotten the glass cleared up, but your window-"

  "It's fine," I interrupted. "I just want to go to sleep."

  Brother What-a-waste's lips tightened, teal eyes looking at me with heightened worry. "We called your parents," he said. "They left it up to you whether you'd like to go home for a few days."

  I just barely kept myself from snorting. I wish I could say going home would be comforting, but my mom is always stressed out and my dad avoids fights by avoiding her, and either I'd be used as ammunition to hurt one or the other, or I'd find myself alone. At least at school there would be people around, and a distance between me and the press no doubt already sniffing for clues at the police station.

  Brother What-a-waste put a hand on my shoulder. His palm was warm, his grip firm. He was very accomplished at the comforting shoulder-clasp.

  "My office is always open, Ms. Collins," he said. He flicked his eyes upward. "And so is His."

  The slight warmth I'd felt at his concern cooled. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with people turning to God for comfort, it just doesn't work for me. I tried praying the pain away when I was 12, and ended up with nothing but scars on my wrist, two years of therapy, and psychopomp powers. Afterwards, I wanted to solve my own problems, and God could help if he wanted.

  Brother What-a-waste gave me a mild, sad smile, as if he knew what I was thinking, and turned back down the hallway. I stepped into my room. The tarp duct taped across my window blocked out the morning light. My bed called, and I barely had the presence of mind to shove off my shoes before falling into it.

  My skin vibrated with excess caffeine, even while my brain had solidified into something too dense for thoughts to move through.

  I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep, or how long I stayed in the grip of agitated half-dreams, but a knock on my door woke me. I disentangled myself from my sheets. One of my socks had disappeared into the ether, so every other step was a shock of cold. I fumbled for the door, clumsily pulling my shirt down over the waistband of my jeans.

  I opened the door to a slight, dark figure and the smell of coffee.

  "Brother Emmanuel wouldn't let me on the hall until noon," Hiroki said. He extended a paper cup from Higher Grounds. "Jamie said the sheriff's station had shit coffee."

  I stared. I don't know why it took so long to process what was happening, but I just stood there, sleep-rumpled and dumb with shock and stress, staring at the coffee cup and the gradually-faltering hope in my best friend's face.

  "I can...just leave the coffee and go," he said. "If you don't want to talk to me."

  That's when I completely lost my shit. My face crumpled, and I collapsed into Pranitha's desk chair, shielding my eyes from view as waves of hopelessness and relief passed over me.

  Hiroki crouched next to the chair, and I didn't have to look up to know he was panicking. I fought with my emotions, forcing my voice to quiet, so the sobs were merely heaves of air from my lungs.

  A cool hand took mine and pressed tissues into it, then withdrew at once. I swallowed, pressed the tissues into my face.

  "I'm s-sorry," I said. I swallowed, blew my nose and tried again. "I was a c-complete d-douche-nozzle to you yesterday and-"

  "It's okay."

  "It's not okay! You're my best friend and I didn't even think about how you might feel. I just assumed you were used to seeing ghosts, or liked it or something."

  Tears still rolled down my cheeks, but I was no longer in danger of dribbling snot, so I lifted my head. Hiroki was, indeed, crouched before me, his hands resting on his knees, looking up at me with his lips sucked in between his teeth.

  When he saw me look up, he reached up to Pranitha's desk, nudging the cup of coffee closer to my hand. I gave a sniff and picked it up. "Thanks."

  It had cooled down, and I imagined him pacing at the door to the girls' wing, either waiting for someone to let him in, or debating whether he had the guts.

  Hiroki cleared his throat. "So...what happened?"

  In a voice low enough that classmates passing by the open door couldn't hear, I told him. He was silent all through my story about the research, the brick, and the decision to go smoke pot in Acid Park. When I got to the part where Jamie and I hid from a gang member behind the whirligig, he said, "Oh, Jesus fuck," and went to hit boil on my electric kettle.

  He made fresh coffee as I told him about the body and the sheriff's office. When I finished, we sat there for a while, sipping our coffees. He seemed to be taking it in, or maybe he was just waiting for me to lead the conversation as usual. Finally, I sighed, and admitted what I'd been slowly coming to realize all morning.

  "I don't know what to do anymore," I said. "We helped. We found the body. It's over, but I don't feel like...God, this is so selfish, but-"

  "You were hoping it would help you, but it didn't change anything," Hiroki finished.

  Miserable, I nodded, curling my fingers tighter around my cup. He shrugged. "You know what I hate about working with the police?"

  "It makes you think about death?" I guessed.

  "No. Because the police don't care about what happens to them. Whether they move on. Sometimes, the solved investigation is enough to do the trick, like with Aaron. But usually, you need an exorcism. Depending on what the ghost believed in life, you have to perform very specific exorcisms. It's not a banishment, like a lot of people think. The ghost has to basically agree to the contract set out in the exorcism, and that's tough when they feel no religious obligation."

  "How do you exorcise an atheist?" I asked. He shrugged again.

  "Newton's first law? I don't know, I've never met an atheist ghost. Anyway, the police don't usually let you back on a crime scene to perform rites."

  I sighed. "You think helping the girl's ghost move on would help me feel better?" I thought of poor Amy Barnes, still hanging in the magnolias, but just envisioning her folded neck and dripping blood made me feel nauseous.

  "Maybe?" Hiroki said. "I mean, I hear closure helps everyone involved, and maybe it would be good to prove to yourself that you can actually, you know, do stuff."

  "Me? Actually doing stuff? The fuck?"

  He smirked. "You did a good job with Aaron's story. I think it would be cool if you could tell some others. It might help give you some more credibility too." A little hope returned to his face before it fell again. "I should have gone with you the first time."


  I extended a hand to ward off the apology. "No, I get it. It's not fair for you to have to deal with death all the time."

  "But you weren't wrong, and I could have helped. If I'd gone to the warehouse, I could have talked to the ghost there and you wouldn't have gone to Acid Park and, you know, nearly gotten shot."

  "We didn't nearly get shot."

  "Whatever." He leaned back in his chair, and I noticed signs of life in the hallway.

  "Do you think there might be a ghost?" I asked. "I mean, Acid Park is gonna be a crime scene, but they'll get what they need after a few days, right? What if the girl is possessing part of the whirligig, like Aaron was with the rosary?"

  I leaned toward my best friend. "I hadn't thought of that."

  His dark eyes glimmered. "I'm thinking interview-exorcism."

  I real smile worked its way onto my face. "You speak-a my language."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shrink Shrank Shrunk

  Breaking and entering had to wait until Jamie got back to school, because neither Hiroki nor I had a car. Saturday morning, the Bishop's dad had brooked no argument and taken his son home to spend the weekend with family.

  Research consumed my weekend. I was pretty certain there would be a news record of the girl's death in papers from the 70s, but it was a different matter finding one.

  I used to have this dreamlike vision of myself in a belted trench coat and Louboutins, posed over a microfilm projector in some wood-paneled library, where I would whisper-read relevant phrases to an invisible camera.

  But I had no trench coat, no Louboutins, and no ride to the county library, so I settled for pajamas and Google. I wasn't keen to give The Times any more web traffic than they'd already gotten, but a search of North Carolina papers told me it was pretty much my only option outside of church bulletins. At least it hadn't been called The Times back then, and it was a comfort to find a search for digitized micrographs didn't send me anywhere near their website.

  I knew the rough date, so it was just a matter of flipping through the Spring issues. A picture of the girl startled me backwards on my bed. My gut dropped before I'd even had the chance to read the headline, because she stared out of the screen.

  Her eyes were bright and alive under a crown of gerber daisies, which seemed to call out the scattering of dark freckles on her cheeks as she gazed up at the camera. She had a gap between her front teeth, but it only served to make her look more real, more beautiful. She had been beautiful, in the sort of way girls in the free-love years were, with their sheets of long hair, their printed shirts and high-waisted jeans. She did not look like a girl who had just died.

  I swallowed and let my eyes drift down to the article.

  HACKNEY HIGH PROM TRAGEDY

  Hackney High School senior, April Weir, died at one o'clock Friday morning when her automobile struck a tree outside her home. She was 17. Sources indicate she had left Hackney High School's prom at 10 pm Thursday night with her boyfriend, Joseph Vance (18). Vance admitted to local authorities that he and Weir had consumed hallucinogenic substances before parting ways at approximately midnight.

  Weir is described by friends as energetic and generous, and highly active in her school's 4H club and literary magazine, where she served as editor.

  She is survived by her father, Wallace Weir(43), and her stepmother, Angela Salisbury-Weir (39). A memorial service...(ctd. page 7)

  I closed the lid to my laptop. I didn't want to see her face, looking out at me from the screen. All I could imagine was the mess of blood, the dented forehead, her feverish eyes as she told me to hide.

  I pushed the laptop back on my desk until it pressed against the blue tarp still duct-taped to my window frame.

  She'd been the editor of her school's literary magazine. She'd liked writing, like me. Had she wanted to be a writer too? If she hadn't died, she could have been published by now.

  I shivered and took a sip of my coffee.

  There was a soft knock on my doorframe. I leaned sideways on my bed and craned around to see Hiroki standing there, all jeans and chucks and layered tee shirts.

  "What up?" I said. Usually, Hiroki would take that as a cue to enter, but he stayed in the doorway, tweaking the toggle on his messenger bag.

  "Hey. Brother Emmanuel wants to see us. He said it's..." Hiroki mouthed for a second, and the hesitation put me immediately on red alert.

  "What?"

  "I don't really know what he's going to say. He just mentioned talking to us about Jamie."

  I swung my legs off my bed, dread already making a fist in my belly. "Oh God. Do you think his parents are withdrawing him? They can't be. He's a senior! He's only got, like, a semester to-"

  "I don't know, G. Probably not?" Hiroki said, though I could tell he was only saying it to make me feel better.

  "Fine. Let me put on real pants." Hiroki pulled the door shut and waited outside as I pulled on my least muffin-toppy jeans and a black v-neck sweater. Normally, I wouldn't bother with the lacy camisole underneath, but since we were about to go talk with a priest, I thought extra coverage might be in order.

  Still, it was Brother What-a-waste, and if I popped on some lipstick and mascara, who could blame me?

  We skirted the high-traffic hallways, dodging comments and glares as we cut across the entrance hall and ducked into Brother What-a-waste's office.

  The priest himself sat behind a long writing desk, thumbing through a stack of dog-eared theology books. A laptop rested on a stand to his left, whirring despite being closed. The office itself was twice the size of the other teachers', with a bank of windows on one side and built-in bookshelves set into the right and left walls.

  These shelves were loaded down with books both old and new, some of which I suspected still remained from the last priest who'd worked at Millroad Academy.

  "Mr. Satou, Miss Collins. Come on in," he said. I slipped in past Hiroki, a flutter of embarrassment in my belly. The last time Brother What-a-waste had seen me, I'd been awake for over twenty hours, covered in pine straw, coming down off a high, having discovered a rotting corpse, been interrogated about said corpse, and really, desperately missing my best friend.

  Now, I wanted to show him I had my shit together. At least some of it.

  Hiroki took the seat beside me, and we waited for Brother What-a-waste to clasp his hands on the desk and lean toward us.

  "I brought the two of you in today because I have something weighing heavily on my heart."

  My skin chilled. At Millroad Academy, 'having something weighing on one's heart' was a stock opening for bad news. I rubbed my hands down my thighs and nodded for him to continue.

  "As you know, it's been a few months since Mr. Grant lost his roommate. I imagine that would be real hard for the two of you to forget." He opened his hands. "I prayed the two of you might be a blessing for him during this time. You have the unique opportunity to offer him the support and love he needs, to encourage him to seek out comfort in the Lord." He waved his hands. "Now I know, that's not the cool thing, and he's told me himself that he's havin' a hard time finding comfort in God. He's havin' a hard time in general."

  My heart hammered against the inside of my throat. Hiroki and I...we weren't Catholic. He'd been raised Shinto and me? In a little Methodist church that had more bake sales than bible studies. Jamie was the only one of the three of us raised Catholic, and the only one without doubts.

  Hiroki and I were not the type to encourage someone to seek out God for comfort. Actually, the two of us were sort of crap at the whole comfort thing in general.

  Which, now I thought of it, might be Brother What-a-waste's point.

  "What do you mean, having a hard time?" Hiroki said. "He's still doing alright in school, and I know he hasn't been in JUG."

  JUG was what Millroad Academy called detention, and Hiroki--despite having one of the highest GPAs in school--constantly ended up there for smoking between classes.

  Brother What-a-waste shook his head. "His academi
c performance is not the issue, and if anything, his classroom behavior has improved. It's his private behavior that has both myself and his parents worried."

  I pressed my lips and looked down at my hands. "The...the pot was because we were trying to see-"

  "I know why you did it, Miss Collins. And I know Mr. Grant had it for the same reason. That doesn't make it right. God did not see fit to give either of you Mr. Satou's Sight--did you not stop to think perhaps He knew you couldn't bear that burden?"

  I shook my head, at last finding myself too annoyed. "I can handle being a stairway to heaven, but not seeing who's using me to get there? Jamie has to go back to his room every single day and look at a stripped-down mattress where his murdered best friend used to sleep. He's just trying to cope."

  "Miss Collins, I know you care about Mr. Grant. Have you not noticed his behavior growing more and more reckless? He's never been above breaking some rules, now, but...I've been given permission to tell you that his psychiatrist diagnosed him with acute depression. He's displaying symptoms of PTSD, and his behavior has become increasingly reckless. Speeding tickets. Skipping meals. Some evidence of self-harm."

  I jerked upright, my fingers closing around my wrist.

  "Ask yourself--is it healthy for him to dwell on death? If not, how can the two of you support him?"

  It was hard to breathe. Beside me, Hiroki watched Brother What-a-waste over crossed arms, his head cocked.

  "I don't think it's healthy for anyone," Hiroki said. Brother What-a-waste's neck flexed. "Sometimes, we don't get a choice."

  "Then you know how much he needs to be relieved of that burden right now."

  I swallowed again, thumb rubbing along the scar on my wrist. Old, thin, still somehow a little painful. If Jamie was starting to show symptoms... No. We couldn't let him keep going. Not if he was going to hurt himself.