The Dark World

by Cara Lynn Shultz

  “Don’t be sorry,” Logan said, his lips quirked up in a smile. “So, do you want to get it on?” He held his hand out to me.

  My eyebrows shot up as I stared at his outstretched hand before glancing at the students around me. I didn’t have a ton of experience with the opposite sex, but things couldn’t have changed that much from when I dated Chris two years ago. Who asks that? People don’t just ask that question in public...do they? I thought only Dottie used that term. What the hell had I missed while I was talking to ghosts?

  “Um, what—what did you say?” I sputtered.

  Logan flicked his fingers toward my wrist. “The bracelet? You need help getting that on? You want to wear it now, right?”

  “Oh, yeah—of course. Thanks,” I stammered, handing him the bracelet and holding my wrist out, hoping he didn’t see how flustered I was. I said a silent thanks that Dottie wasn’t there. She would have told me to grab his hand and kiss it, most likely. Or tell me I should pretend to faint and let him catch me.

  “How did you know this was mine?” I asked as he grasped the ends of the bracelet. The tips of his fingers lightly brushed against the skin on the inside of my wrist, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. Who knew the skin on the inside of my wrist was so sensitive?

  “I saw it fall off your wrist,” Logan said, closing the clasp on my bracelet.

  “What?” I shook my head. “No. This was taken from my locker.”

  “I saw it fall off your wrist just now,” Logan insisted. “I just saw it happen. That’s how I knew it was yours.”

  “But I could have sworn...” I began, confused, and Logan just shrugged, giving me a sympathetic smile. The second bell rang—and we both had to run up the stairs, me to homeroom, Logan to whatever class he had next. I twisted the bracelet now that it was safely back on my wrist, satisfying my nervous urge, which was growing stronger. Had I imagined that I took off the bracelet? Why didn’t I get yelled at in gym class for wearing it, then? Did I put it on and forget about it?

  And then a small, but strong voice in the back of my head whispered my biggest fear.

  Maybe you really are losing your mind.

  I opened my homeroom door, hoping Mrs. Clifton would be late to class so I could silently puzzle over my confusing morning and avoid detention. Instead, she was standing in front of the room, introducing three of the four new students I’d seen with Vice Principal Miller yesterday. Guess Miller managed to scare off the fourth prospective student. Not surprising: he was as inviting as a poison-ivy welcome mat.

  “Ah, Miss Kelly, did you take the scenic route?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me over her glasses. Everything about Mrs. Clifton was severe—she was all hard lines and angles. Her eyebrows were perfectly symmetrical, inverted Vs that peaked just underneath blunt, razor-perfect gray bangs so sharp, they could cut salami.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, sliding into my seat and wondering if I’d have detention for the first time in my life or if Mrs. Clifton would give me a break.

  “She probably stopped to have a chat with the fire extinguisher,” Pepper stage-whispered from the rear of the classroom, eliciting laughter from the back row. I gritted my teeth. But the whisper in the back of my head got louder. Maybe Pepper is right about you. Maybe you really are insane. You had the bracelet on the entire time, and you forgot about it. Blacking out—isn’t that a sign of mental illness?

  I stared at my bracelet, wondering how it had fallen off my wrist. There was no other explanation. It’s not like Logan had gone into the girls’ locker room and stolen my bracelet. And my lock hadn’t been open... I must have forgotten to take it off. Or I put it on after gym and forgot about it. The clasp must be broken. It is an antique, after all. I’m just lucky Logan saw it fall off my wrist.

  I inspected the clasp—it looked fine to me—but I didn’t want to risk losing the bracelet again. I unfastened it and slid it into the left pocket on my uniform shirt. I would ask my mom to look at it when I got home. She’d been saying she needed to have a new battery put in her watch. Maybe we could get a new clasp put on my bracelet, so I wouldn’t lose it. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t even realize Mrs. Clifton was standing over me, handing me a detention slip, a hard smile on her prim face.

  I folded the pink scrap of paper and slipped it into the pocket along with my bracelet. At least you finally have plans on a Friday for once. The bitter thought bounced around in my head.

  “Check in with Vice Principal Miller after school,” Mrs. Clifton ordered, shaking her head at me with a disappointed look on her face.

  “Now, class, as I was saying, we have three new students today,” she said as she strolled to the front of the classroom to stand next to them. “Please welcome Blaise, Della and Aiden. They’ll be in your classes, so, please, help them find their way around the school. Preferably on time,” she added, casting a look in my direction. C’mon, lady. It’s the day after midterms, cut me a break. I almost scowled before I realized that would do nothing except earn me more time in detention.

  Of course, the three new students were now staring directly at me, thanks to Mrs. Clifton. Blaise was tall and lean, with pin-straight red hair that hung to her waist, and pale, thin legs that stuck out from underneath her skirt. She was bare-legged—and it was twenty degrees outside! I checked out Della’s legs, and noticed that she had the good sense to wear tights—but her skirt was so short it was practically a belt. Where Blaise was plain—the only remarkable thing about her being the look of sheer disdain on her face as her dark eyes flitted around the classroom—Della was stunning. She was short and ridiculously gorgeous—and all curves, I noticed a little jealously. I self-consciously folded my arms in front of my own chest, which was only impressive when I was retaining water.

  Della cocked an eyebrow and gave Pepper’s boyfriend, Matt Vogel, a lusty smile before mouthing “hi” to him. I didn’t know whether it was impressive, or tacky, that she managed to zero in on the best-looking guy in school before homeroom was over. I snuck a quick look behind me to see Pepper’s reaction, and she was glaring at Della with the “die-die-die” stare she normally reserved for me. I sighed in relief. Finally, someone new for Pepper to hate. I briefly wondered what had happened to the fourth student I had seen—a blonde girl, I think—then turned my attention to the last new student, the one who had given me the Captain Creepy smile yesterday.

  Remember when I said Matt was the best-looking guy in school? Now that I had a closer look at Aiden, I knew that Matt’s reign was over. Aiden was, without a doubt, beautiful. Tall, angular and black-haired, with eyes that looked violet. I smiled to myself, flattered that someone who looked like that had thrown me such a flirty look yesterday. Hmm...maybe he’s not so creepy. You’re just used to people treating you like you’re a pariah.

  And then I realized Aiden was looking right at me, noticing that I was, essentially, gawking at him in the middle of the classroom. If he’s Captain Creepy, you’re the General. I dropped my eyes immediately, positive that I’d just confirmed whatever Aiden would eventually hear about me being a weirdo.

  I kept my eyes on my notebook for the rest of homeroom and hunched down low in my desk, managing to avoid being called on in all my morning classes. Good thing—I had at least one of the new kids in each of my classes, and they were already staring at me curiously, probably waiting for me to talk to my pencil. Usually Dottie would show up in math—she particularly liked standing behind my teacher, Dr. Walsh, and mimicking the way she waved the ruler around. Walsh looked like she was conducting an orchestra, the way she wielded that thing. But Dottie had been suspiciously absent all morning. Maybe she was giving me a break, since her last words to me were instructions to not embarrass myself, and she was often the unwitting source of my humiliation— usually by making me laugh.

  I headed to Dottie’s third-floor bathroom during lunch, anxious to talk things o
ver with my best friend. It wasn’t like me to be so forgetful—or to not even notice that my bracelet was on my wrist. I played with it enough.

  I patted the bracelet in my front pocket, feeling the reassuring weight of the platinum swirls against my fingertips as I entered the bathroom. It was empty as usual, since most of the students were in the basement cafeteria. I hopped up on my usual perch on the barely warm radiator and pulled the tomato-and-cheese sandwich I’d made the night before out of my backpack, banging my heels on the metal coils as I waited for Dottie to appear.

  Finally, she shimmered into existence in front of me and gave me a big, relieved smile as she jumped up and down on the white tile floor.

  “Finally made it,” she said breathily—an impressive feat, since Dottie didn’t exactly need to breathe.

  “About time!” I agreed, after I swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been trying to see you all day, but I couldn’t find you,” she said, her brow creased with concern. “I was starting to get worried that I couldn’t come to this side anymore.”

  “Well, you’re here now,” I reassured her—even though my stomach began to churn with worry. Why hadn’t Dottie been able to break through? She usually just followed my “energy,” she said. It’s not like we had maps or directions for crossing between her dark world and mine.

  “But it took me long enough,” Dottie said, pretending to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. “And I’ve been dying to talk to you about Logan.”

  At the mention of his name, my brow creased—and then I blushed furiously.

  “What? Did something happen? Ooh, tell me!” Dottie squealed. I quickly explained about the bracelet—purposefully leaving out when I’d misunderstood what “get it on” meant—and I thought Dottie might faint.

  “That is just so romantic!” She sighed, folding her hands against her cheek and smiling sweetly. “Like Prince Charming returning Cinderella’s slipper.”

  “More like a classmate returning a bracelet he saw fall off a girl’s wrist,” I corrected her, trying to stem Dottie’s swoony tidal wave that threatened to knock me right off the radiator.

  “Do you like him, though?” Dottie asked, searching my face.

  “I don’t know him well enough to like him,” I replied.

  “Well, do you think he’s cute?”

  I took a massive bite of my sandwich to avoid answering her.

  “Paige, tell me.” Dottie gave me her best no-nonsense look. “I am older than you are, by tons of decades. Respect your elders!”

  I chuckled at her comment as I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and scratched at my roots.

  “What do you want me to say?” I asked, my shoulders sagging as I leaned against the chilly window. “Am I attracted to Logan? Honestly, who wouldn’t be? He’s really cute. But it ends there. It has to.”

  “It doesn’t have to.”

  “Yes, it does. He’s a nice guy who talks to me about assignments and begs for pens when he’s missing one. That’s all it is. Please, don’t try to talk me into thinking it’s more,” I pleaded with her. “I’m the weird girl. And no one wants to date the weird girl, Dottie,” I repeated, brushing the crumbs off my plaid skirt. “And to be honest, I don’t blame them. People have enough problems—why would someone want to take that on?”

  “Paige, don’t be like that! You’re not weird! You’re funny, and sweet, and loyal—”

  “So says the best friend that no one can see or hear.”

  “But you’re also smart, and pretty. Even though I don’t quite understand your choices in makeup and hairdos sometimes.”

  I snorted at that. Dottie’s shellacked hair wouldn’t move in a hurricane.

  “Look, I appreciate the support—really, I do,” I said, leaning against the window, then recoiling back when the condensation seeped through my shirt. “And I don’t mind being the school’s resident weirdo. It’s not your fault, and let’s be honest, it probably would have happened anyway. I’d have talked to a ghost on a class trip or at a party, and it would all have been downhill one way or another. But it means I have to be a little self-protective, Dots. I can’t start crushing on a guy when there’s no hope. I can’t set myself up for disappointment like that.”

  Dottie set her petal-pink lips in a frown.

  “You can at least flirt,” she bargained.

  I tried not to snort in reply. My best friend, the eternal romantic, stuck with me, the cynic.

  “I wish you’d flirt. At least for practice,” Dottie murmured. But all the fight was out of her voice, and I exhaled, relieved that this conversation seemed to be over. “He seems kind of shy but I swear I’ve caught him looking at you in class. And I thought he was so sweet to you....”

  Dottie’s voice trailed off and got weaker—as did her appearance. I could see the door to the bathroom appear through her as she became more translucent.

  “Dottie?” I called. What if she was right—that her connection to this side was weakening? I saw her mouth my name, and then she disappeared, fading out of sight right as the bathroom door swung open.

  The new girl Blaise barged into the bathroom, her long legs making her stride swift and graceful. She crossed the room quickly and stood a few feet from me before folding her arms and running her dark eyes up and down until they settled coldly on my face. I stopped drumming my heels and returned her stare. I was already in a bit of a foul mood, so I didn’t have much trouble matching Blaise’s scornful attitude.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, mimicking her condescending expression.

  Blaise snorted, a disdainful look crossing her face.

  “This shouldn’t take long. Pity,” she sniffed. “I was hoping you’d put up a fight, but you’re not much, are you? You’re kind of pathetic.”

  I was used to insults and nasty nicknames whispered in the halls, but I’d managed to avoid bullying of the physical kind so far. Well, guess that streak is over. I slid off the radiator and raised my chin, meeting her arrogant gaze.

  “I’m pathetic? And you just scream ‘thug life,’ right?” I drawled, doing my best to sound bored as I stretched out my arms and pretended to yawn, even though my heart began to pound. “I’m, like, so totally scared of you, like, oh, my God,” I said in my best sarcastic valley-girl accent.

  “You will be,” she vowed, the corner of her mouth pulling into a half smirk.

  “Bring it,” I challenged her, mentally taking an inventory of the bathroom for something that could be used as a weapon. I had a feeling the rolls of toilet paper stacked in the corner wouldn’t be of much use, unless I wanted to blot her to death. I hadn’t been in a real fistfight since fourth grade, and that had been over pretty quickly; I’d stood up to a fifth-grade boy who’d been harassing one of my friends, and come home with a black eye. You could say it was a pretty one-sided fight.

  My eye twitched at the memory, but I squared my shoulders as I glared back at Blaise. She smiled, her lips tightening into thin red lines as her grin stretched unnaturally wide across her face, baring more sharp teeth than anyone should have.

  More teeth than any human should have.

  Her menacing grin continued to expand, pulling past the corners of her eyes—eyes which opened wider, bulging out until they were massive dark orbs, glittering like black coal speckled with diamonds. She flicked a black tongue between her crimson lips, and I began sweating—and not just out of terror. It was hot in the bathroom, far too hot for late January. My shirt began to stick to my back as Blaise rushed toward me, arms outstretched, a fierce rumble emanating from her chest.

  I scrambled backward, stumbling against the radiator as Blaise slapped her palms against the window on either side of my head, condensation escaping as a small hiss and puff of steam from between her fingers. She tilted her head and gazed
at me with those large dark eyes, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back.

  “I can smell your fear,” she purred, running her nose along my neck as she inhaled deeply. “It smells like sour cherries. Delicious.”

  I swung my right fist up, aiming for her exposed neck, but Blaise caught my wrist with her free hand, jerking my arm sideways at an unnatural angle. I cried out in pain, her touch burning my skin as she bent my arm farther, forcing me to my knees.

  “What do you want?” I choked out, clawing at her skin as I tried to pry her fiery grip off my arm. Charcoal plumes of smoke wafted from where my fingernails sank into her skin, and Blaise whined in pain, rows of razor-sharp teeth gleaming in the dull fluorescent light. She released me from her tight hold, and I scrambled away from her, cradling my sore wrist.

  “Well, I want to watch you burn, but I’ve been told I have to take you alive,” she pouted, rubbing the dark crescent-shaped marks I’d left in her skin.

  The bathroom door pushed open, and Blaise’s features snapped back into place, her mouth shrinking to a small frown as three freshmen walked in. The trio gave us both suspicious looks as I cowered in the corner. One took up residence at the sink, vigorously brushing her hair and casting wary looks at us through the mirror as the others hurried to the toilets, chattering loudly to be heard over the divider between the stalls.

  “An audience is inconvenient, so we’ll resume this later. I’ll find you,” Blaise promised with a low hiss. They had resumed a normal shape, but her pupils still glittered as she stared at me, challenging me with those narrowed inhuman eyes. She turned on her heel and strode gracefully out of the bathroom, and the freshman at the sink reflexively flinched as Blaise passed by her. I slumped on top of the barely warm radiator, which felt cold against my overheated skin. The chill seeping in through the window was a welcome relief against my sweaty back.

  Dottie shimmered back into existence, her face twisted in worry.

  “What is going on, Paige?” she asked, frantic. Her brown eyes wildly whirled around the bathroom. I tilted my chin toward the girl now braiding her hair at the sink, and she instantly understood.