I sat in front of my computer and typed “Kayla Sloane, Woodbridge” into the search engine. I clicked on the first link — a news article.
Woodbridge, MA — A Woodbridge High School junior was fatally injured when she fell down the stairs in her home. Kayla Sloane, 16, died from trauma to the head and neck. Her mother, Katherine Sloane, found her daughter’s body at the bottom of the stairs when she returned to the home. The teenager was unresponsive and pronounced dead by paramedics.
Police aren’t commenting on the nature of the death, only saying the injuries sustained are consistent with that of an accidental fall down the stairs. However, a source close to the tragedy says the police are also following up a lead that Kayla may not have been alone at the time of the fall, spurring rumors that her death was, in fact, a homicide.
I gripped my abdomen as nausea roiled in my stomach. I shouldn’t have looked it up. The details only made me feel worse. My eyes drifted down to the picture of Kayla they’d included with the story. It looked like a yearbook photo. I was immediately struck by how beautiful she was. Flawless skin. A Hollywood smile. Electric green eyes that gave her an exotic look. And long black hair, parted down the middle, that fell in waves over her shoulders.
Long black hair.
I stifled a gasp.
Colby had said his glimmering girl had black hair.
No, I told myself. Just no.
Finding out the history of my house was traumatic enough. I didn’t need to go there. Colby was making up stories. That’s what five-year-olds did. His girl was imaginary.
Not real.
I went to school early so I could avoid Dad and Marie. I walked down the main hall, searching for somewhere to be alone. Fluorescent lighting leaked out of a large room on the left, the door wide open, so I went through and, finding it empty, sighed in relief. One half was full of easels, the other, desks. I sat down at the closest desk, unzipped my bag, and took out the Calculus assignment that I should have done the day before. Now that I was out of the house, it was easier to clear my mind, and I ticked off the problems quickly. I was on the last one when I heard a sharp intake of air.
I looked up and found Donovan staring at me from the doorway. He had a bowl in his hand, with a few paintbrushes sticking out of it. I remembered Alexa mentioning he was in the art room often.
“Sorry,” I said, breaking the silence. “Were you working in here?”
“Yeah.” He set the bowl down and pushed the hair out of his eyes.
Those eyes again. My body tensed. I gripped the pencil harder in my fingers and forced myself to look down at the paper.
“But you don’t have to leave or anything,” he added.
“I just had some homework to finish,” I explained.
He motioned with a brush. “Keep on keeping on, then. I won’t bother you.” He flashed a tiny smile, releasing a flood of warmth through my body in response. Particularly my neck, which was probably neon red. Then he turned his attention to whatever he was working on at the easel.
My attention was gone, though. I tried to focus on my last problem, but I kept wondering if Donovan was looking at me. So I’d sneak a glance, see him working away, then end up disappointed.
Why did I even want him to be looking at me?
He’d acted so strangely back in the office. But then I remembered what had brought on his attitude change — my address. And now I knew why. Still, he could have just told me I was living in a famous death house rather than run away and leave me hanging.
“So which one are you wearing today?”
Donovan’s voice snapped me out of my rambling thoughts. I looked up at him. He looked less like the emotionally frozen guy who’d sat silently in the cafeteria and more like he had that day in the office. After he’d met me, but before he’d found out my address. A bit of life had entered him again. He stood straighter, had an inquisitive smile.
And I totally forgot his question.
“Huh?” I said.
He pointed at my chest. I looked down and realized I’d been absentmindedly fiddling with my pendant.
“Every day, you wear a different one,” he said.
He’d noticed that. I licked my lips, suddenly nervous. “This is, um, a clear quartz.”
He stepped closer and squinted at it. “The black one you wore on your second day … was that onyx?”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. Not only did he notice me, but he noticed I wore pendants and not the same one each day. And now he even knew the name of one. I was impressed. “Yeah,” I said. “How’d you know? Staying up too late watching the home shopping channels?”
I smirked at my little joke, but he didn’t laugh. The light in his eyes went out and that closed-off look fell over him again. He crossed the room and faced the window, staring out at the kids pouring out of a bus. “I bought a ring for someone once, with that stone in it.”
He added, almost too softly for me to hear, “She loved it.”
The bell for homeroom rang, but he didn’t move from the window. I wordlessly picked up my books and left the room. What had started out awkward had turned promising and then just plain strange.
All morning I wanted to talk to Alexa about the house, but didn’t get the chance until we sat down at lunch. My appetite had returned somewhat, and I stabbed my penne with a fork as I told her the news.
“So you live in Kayla Sloane’s house,” Alexa said, shaking her head. “Creepy. No wonder everyone was talking.”
I held my hands out wide. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I didn’t know where you live, and I’d certainly never been to Kayla’s house before. And I’m not on Faye Bettencourt’s gossip grapevine.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I just hate that everyone knew something I didn’t.”
“I can’t believe your parents didn’t tell you.”
“No kidding,” I agreed. I paused as I chewed through a mouthful of ziti. “So would Kayla have been a senior this year?”
“Yep.”
Part of me wanted to forget Kayla ever existed, but another, more-insistent part of me wanted to know everything I could about her. “What kind of girl was she?” I asked with forced nonchalance.
Alexa snorted. “She was the girl who had everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was smart and athletic. She got the grades and made all-state in soccer.”
I sensed a jealous tone in Alexa’s voice. I remembered her freak-out over college applications, how she had the best grades but no extracurriculars. Kayla, it seemed, had both. Plus, I’d seen Kayla’s photo, so I knew she was beautiful. But Alexa didn’t mention that. Looks apparently weren’t something Alexa envied.
“Was she popular?” I asked.
Alexa rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement. More like worshipped.”
Wow. “Everyone must have been so sad when she died.”
Alexa had a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke. “You would think so.”
“There were rumors that she was …”
“Pushed?”
I nodded.
“I don’t believe it for a second. Donovan’s one of the only kids in this school who’s nice to freaks like me. He’s not capable of murder.”
My fork clanged loudly as it hit my plate. “Wait, Donovan O’Mara?”
“Yeah, what other Donovan would there be?”
Something in my heart twisted. Donovan was the suspect mentioned in the article? “Why did they think he killed her?”
“He was her boyfriend.”
A tiny spark of jealousy twinged inside me.
Alexa continued, “And he was the last one to see her alive. A witness saw him go into the house with her and come out alone. Then her mother came home and found her body in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.” Alexa paused. “Donovan swore she was alive when he left. The police couldn’t prove it one way or the other. All of Kayla’s friends turned on him, but the
rest of the school knows he would never do something like that.”
I glanced at his usual table, but he wasn’t there. This explained everything about Donovan. The girl he loved had died and then he was shunned at school. Suspected. Labeled a social pariah.
I felt guilty for my snap judgment earlier about his behavior in the office. He wasn’t a jerk. He was just … broken.
Alexa and I finished our lunch in silence but my mind was in overdrive. I thought about my quick conversation with Donovan in the art room. He had mentioned buying onyx jewelry for someone. Obviously, that someone had been Kayla. And the day I’d had trouble choosing a pendant, the onyx had been laid out on the bed for me. A chill went through me.
Coincidence, I told myself. I was a rational person. I was not going to jump to insane conclusions. The easiest answer was the most likely one. Colby had taken the necklace and put it on my bed, not a ghost. And it was only by chance that it was onyx, the same stone Donovan had given Kayla.
Because if it wasn’t a coincidence, the other option was that my house was haunted and a ghost chose the onyx to send a message to her ex-boyfriend.
And that was 100 percent pure, unfiltered crazy.
But, while I tried to convince myself of that, my mind also thought about what the message might be. What I’d want to tell my boyfriend, if it was me drifting out there, all alone, still haunting the house I’d lived and died in. If it was me, I’d want him to know —
I’m still here.
That night, I lay in bed but sleep wouldn’t come. I couldn’t shut my mind off, couldn’t stop thinking about Kayla. She’d lived in this house and done the same things I did. Ate in the kitchen. Showered. Did her homework. Slept. And now here I was. Living in her house. Going to her school. Meeting her friends. Finding myself drawn to her boyfriend.
I tossed and turned, then got up, thinking that a breeze from the window might help. I slid up the sash and crawled back into bed, but the night sounds of crickets were distracting, not lulling. The September air was a bit too chilly. And the breeze kept making my sheer white curtains dance. Even with my eyes closed, I sensed their movement.
I groaned and got up again, shut the window, and returned to bed. If I didn’t get to sleep soon, I’d be in a coma all day in school. But the more I thought about that, the more anxious I became, and my now racing heart made me even more awake.
I sighed and pulled the comforter tightly up under my chin. The ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, distant yet distinct, eventually calmed me. I imagined my heart slowing and beating to the rhythm of the clock. And soon my eyes got heavy and closed.
But then reopened.
A voice drifted down the hallway. Unfamiliar and muffled. Was it calling my name? My body tense, I held my breath and listened.
“Jade …”
The voice came again. Sure now, I threw off the covers and padded into the hallway, wincing at the noisy floorboards. I peeked my head into Colby’s room. He was sleeping — fitfully. He groaned and rolled over, then back again. I tiptoed down to my parents’ room. Marie was sleeping on her side, one hand hanging off the bed. Dad was lightly snoring.
So who’d called me?
I turned slowly, now at the top of the staircase, and peered into the darkness below. This was where it had happened. Where Kayla fell … or was pushed.
I placed my hand on the banister, closed my eyes, and imagined Kayla placing her hand in the very same spot, trailing her fingers over the polished wood … then feeling her balance go out from underneath her. I imagined what she must have felt in the instant she realized she was falling through air. The terror that must have gripped her heart. The panic rushing through her veins as she rushed toward the bottom.
I saw the floor coming up to meet her, fast and furious, but then realized in horror that I wasn’t imagining anymore. My hand no longer gripped the banister. I wasn’t picturing Kayla falling. I was falling.
What happened? Did someone push me? Did I fall on my own?
I screamed but no sound came out. The air rushing at my face told me I was falling fast, but it seemed to be happening in slow motion. I tried to put my arms up, to soften the blow I knew was coming to my head, but I couldn’t move my limbs. I was paralyzed.
And then I hit bottom.
My face crushed into the hardwood. Instant pain reverberated through me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t open my eyes. All I could do was wait for death to take me away.
Someone was calling my name again. But this time it was familiar. It was Colby, his voice panicked.
“Jade!”
I blinked as forms came into view, familiar but at wrong angles.
“Are you okay?” Colby asked, worry making his voice tremble.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. The confusion was burning away, though the ache in my cheekbone remained. I was on my bedroom floor. I quickly figured out what had happened. I’d fallen out of bed, woken Colby with my loud thump, and he’d come in and turned the lights on.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I said softly. “You can go back to bed.”
He blinked his glassy, tired eyes, nodded, and slowly retreated to his room. My bones cracked as I pulled myself up and stood in front of the mirror. Sweat plastered my hair to my face. I pulled it back and saw the raging red mark under my left eye. I’d have a bruise there tomorrow. How would I explain that in school?
Oh yeah, I dreamt I was Kayla falling down the staircase, but really I’d fallen out of bed and hit my face on the floor. Even though I’ve never fallen out of bed before in my life. Yeah, that makes sense.
A tightness pulled across my neck and I realized I’d forgotten to take my pendant off before I went to sleep. The clear quartz. I unclasped the necklace and stared at the stone uneasily for a few moments. The gem hung from a silver mounting and was delicately tapered to a pointed end. I shuddered as I thought of the crystal’s use: to promote out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, and communication with the dead.
Hola, Diary. Long time, no write. Been super busy with soccer, classes, parties, hazing the freshmen. Good times.
14 keeps asking me every day who I’m going to go after this year. She wants to know if I’m taking dibs on 7, obvs. I don’t think I will. Mainly because everyone expects me to. And 7 will always be in my back pocket, no matter what. I don’t even have to claim dibs. 7 is mine, natch. No matter who else he’s with at the time.
But, no, I have my eyes on someone new. Someone different. I’ve actually never even written about him in here before, so he’s going to need a number. And the next available one is … 28.
So, 28 was at 15’s party Saturday night. I wore my tightest jeans and that spaghetti-strapped red tank. Looked so hot I even caught 9 staring at me through the window. The creeper. Anyway 28 was all shy and adorkable, wearing some Halo T-shirt with paint stains on his fingertips. He’s not emo or anything. Just one of those artistic guys.
And I’m thinking … time for a taste of something different?
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. Apparently concealer did not work wonders. The fluorescent lighting in the school bathroom wasn’t helping any, either. “I fell.”
“Into a fist?” Alexa finished drying her hands and stomped up to me, suspicion in her eyes.
“No. I fell out of bed.”
“Face-first?”
“It’s a hardwood floor,” I explained. “And I’m embarrassed enough without the twenty questions.”
A flush came from one of the stalls and I rolled my eyes. Great, one more person who’d know I was a klutz, even in my sleep. The door opened and Faye walked up to the row of sinks. She hitched her giant bag up on her shoulder and eyed my injury, which was obvious now that it’d been pointed out.
“What did you try to cover it up with?” Faye asked.
“Liquid concealer,” I said.
“Did you powder over the concealer after?”
“No …” I said cautiously.
Faye hefted her bag up onto the counter and sifted through its contents for a minute, eventually pulling out a concealer pen and a powder compact. “Face me,” she said.
I snuck a wary look at Alexa, who was having a staring contest with the tile floor.
“Okay,” I agreed. What’s the worst she could do?
Faye worked on me for a minute, then backed up a few steps and nodded with satisfaction. “That’ll work.”
I turned toward the mirror, expecting to see the Joker’s face in the reflection, but it was only me. Unbruised. Maybe I’d been imagining the stench of evil coming off Faye the past few days. Maybe she wasn’t so bad.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I can’t even see it anymore.”
Faye repacked her bag. “No problem.”
On her way out, she stopped and turned. “Do you mind if I give you one more tip? Girl to girl?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Be careful of Kane Woodward. He’s probably going to be all over you like a nerd on math, but it’s because you’re fresh meat. He’s already torn through all the girls in this school, even the freshmen.” Her mouth turned down in contempt. “If he decides you’re next, he’ll pursue you hard, get what he wants, then drop you.” She stiffened her shoulders. “You hear me?”
I thought about the way he’d come up to me in the library and offered to help me with anything. “I hear you,” I said. “Loud and clear.”
After the door closed behind Faye, I looked up at Alexa, who shook her head and said, “Don’t even ask me. The mating rituals of teens are as much a mystery to me as the additive number theory.”
We joined the bustling hallway crowd and I clutched my books tightly to my chest. I was nervous about seeing Donovan, nervous about seeing Kane. When I spotted a giant banner reading SUNDAY OPEN HOUSE! I was glad for a distraction. “What’s all that about?” I asked Alexa, pointing.
“All the clubs will have their booths in the gym that day,” Alexa explained. “So if you’re thinking of joining any extracurriculars, it’s a good idea to walk around and see what you’re interested in.”
The Dead and Buried Page 4
