Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER FOUR

The day after my epic nervous breakdown at the mall I spend my free period outside on the edge of the quad, sitting under a tree and talking to Gideon. There are other students out too, occupying the ground that’s not shady, sacked out on the new spring grass with their heads on their backpacks or their friends’ laps. Occasionally they look my way, say something, and everybody laughs. It occurs to me that I used to do a better job of blending. Maybe I shouldn’t come back next year.

“Theseus, is everything all right? You sound distracted.”

I laugh. “You sound like my mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry.” I hesitate, which is stupid. It’s the reason I called him in the first place. I wanted to talk about it. I need to hear that Anna is gone. That she can’t come back. And I need to hear it in an authoritative British voice.

“Have you ever heard of anyone coming back, after they’ve crossed over?” I say finally.

Gideon’s pause is appropriately thoughtful. “Never,” he says. “It simply isn’t possible. At least not within the realm of sane probability.”

I squint. Since when do we live in the realm of sane probability? “But if I can propel them from one plane to another using the athame, couldn’t there be some other thing that could get them back?” The pause this time is longer, but he’s not really taking it seriously. If he were, I’d hear the jostling of a ladder or the rustle of turning book pages. “I mean, come on, it’s not that far-fetched a thought. A to B to G maybe, but—”

“I’m afraid it’s more like A to B to pi.” He takes a breath. “I know who you’re thinking of, Theseus, but it just isn’t possible. We can’t bring her back.”

My eyes clench shut. “What if she already is back?”

There’s wariness in his voice when he asks, “What do you mean?”

I hope a laugh will put him at ease, so I twist my mouth into a smile. “I don’t know what I mean. I didn’t call to freak you out. I just—I guess I just think about her a lot.”

He sighs. “I know you must. She was—she was extraordinary. But now she’s where she belongs. Listen to me, Theseus,” he says, and I can almost feel his wizened fingers on my shoulders. “You have to let this go.”

“I know.” And I do. Part of me wants to tell him about the way the athame moved, and about the things I’ve thought I’ve seen and heard. But he’s right, and I’d only sound nuts.

“Listen, don’t worry about me, all right?” I say, and stand up. “Dammit,” I mutter, feeling the wet backside of my jeans.

“What?” Gideon asks, concerned.

“Oh, nothing. I’ve got a huge wet spot on my ass from sitting under this tree. I swear the ground around here never dries up.” He laughs, and we hang up. On my way back into the school, Dan Hill hits me in the arm.

“Hey,” he says. “Did you get the history notes from yesterday? Can I borrow them during study hall?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, sort of surprised.

“Thanks, man. Usually I borrow from one of the girls, you know”—he flashes this rake’s grin—“but I’m pulling a low C and you got top score last test, right?”

“Yeah,” I say again. I did get the top score. To my extreme surprise and my mom’s utter glee.

“Cool. Hey, I heard you were on acid or something at the mall last night.”

“I saw a dress Carmel wanted and pointed it out to Thomas Sabin.” I shrug. “People make up some crazy shit at this school.”

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought. Later, man.” He walks off in another direction. Dan’s pretty cool, I guess. If I’m lucky he’ll pass my mall alibi on to a few others. Not likely though. Retractions show up in the back of the newspaper. The boring story loses out, truth or not. That’s just how it goes.

“How can you not like roasted garlic chicken pizza?” Carmel asks, her phone out to place the order. “Seriously? Just mushrooms and extra cheese?”

“And tomatoes,” Thomas adds.

“Just regular, cut-up tomatoes?” She looks at me incredulously. “He’s unnatural.”

“I’m with you,” I say from the refrigerator, where I’m grabbing sodas. We’re chilling at my house, streaming movies off Netflix. It was Carmel’s idea, and I’m choosing to believe it was because she wanted to relax, not because she wanted me away from the public.

“Maybe he’s trying to be a gentleman, Carmel,” my mom says, walking through to get a refill of iced tea. “Keeping away from the garlic for you.”

“Gross,” I say, and Thomas laughs. It’s Carmel who blushes this time.

My mom smiles. “If you order one of each, I’ll split the tomato one with Thomas and you and Cas can split the other.”

“Okay. But you’re going to want the chicken when it gets here.” She orders, and the three of us head into the living room to watch reruns of Scrubs until the pizzas arrive and we start the movie. We barely sit down before Carmel jumps back up, her phone between her fingers, texting away.

“What’s up?” Thomas asks.

“Sort of a finals studying party-thing,” she says. She heads for the front porch. “I told Nat and Amanda I’d show up there if the movie didn’t get over too late. Be right back.”

After the door closes, I poke Thomas.

“Doesn’t it bother you that she goes off like that?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” I start, but I don’t quite know. I guess it’s just that where Carmel has sometimes tried to mingle me in with her other friends, she doesn’t really with Thomas. I’d think it would bother him, but I don’t know how to ask that tactfully. And what the hell finals does she still have to study for? I’ve already taken all of mine but one. Teachers here really like to dial in the last few weeks. Not that I’m complaining. “Aren’t you her boyfriend?” I blurt finally. “Shouldn’t she be dragging you out with her friends?”

It wasn’t the best way to word things, but he doesn’t seem offended, or even surprised. He just grins.

“I don’t know what we are, technically,” he says quietly. “But I do know that we don’t work like that. We’re different.”

“Different,” I mumble, even though the moony look on his face is sort of touching. “Everybody’s got to be different. Did it ever occur to you that ‘same’ is a classic for a reason?”

“Big talk for somebody whose last girlfriend died in 1958,” Thomas replies, and then hides behind a gulp of soda. I grin and look back toward the TV.

Anna is at the window. She’s standing in the bushes outside my house, staring at me.

“Jesus!” I scramble up the back of the couch and barely wince when my shoulder rams into the wall.

“What?” Thomas jumps up too, looking first at the floor like there might’ve been a rat or something before following my gaze to the window.

Anna’s eyes are empty and dead, completely hollow and without any trace of recognition. Watching her blink is like watching an alligator cut through thick, brackish water. As I try to catch my breath, a wormy, dark rivulet of blood runs from her nose.

“Cas, what is it? What’s wrong?”

I glance at Thomas. “You mean you don’t see her?” I look back at the window, half expecting her to be gone, half hoping that she’s gone, but she’s still there, immobile.

Thomas scours the window, moving his head to see around the reflections of light. He looks terrified. It doesn’t make sense. He should be able to see her. He’s a goddamn witch for fuck’s sake.

I can’t take it anymore. I bolt off the couch and head for the front door, throwing it open to barge onto the porch.

All I see is Carmel’s surprised face, her phone halfway to her ear. In the bushes in front of the window there’s nothing but shadows.

“What’s going on?” Carmel asks as I plunge down the steps and beat my way through the brush, branches scratching my arms.

“Give me your phone!”

“What?” Carmel’s voice is scared. My mom’s out here now too, all three of them frightened by they don’t know what.

“Just throw it here,” I shout, and she does. I press a button and point it at the ground, using the bluish light to scour the dirt for footprints or disturbances. There’s nothing.

“What? What is it?” Thomas squeaks.

“Nothing,” I say loudly, but it isn’t nothing. Whether it’s all in my head or not, it isn’t nothing. And when I reach back for the athame in my pocket, it feels cold as ice.

Ten minutes later, my mom sets a steaming mug down in front of me at the kitchen table. I pick it up and sniff at it.

“It’s not a potion; it’s just tea,” she says, exasperated. “Decaffeinated.”

“Thanks,” I say, and sip it. No caffeine and no sugar either. I don’t know what about bitter brown water is supposed to be soothing. But I make a show of sighing and settling farther into my chair.

Thomas and Carmel keep exchanging these furtive glances, and my mom picks up on it.

“What?” she asks. “What do you know?”

Carmel looks at me for permission, and when I don’t say anything, she tells my mom what happened at the mall, with Anna’s look-alike dress.

“Honestly, Cas, you’ve been acting sort of weird since Grand Marais last week.”

My mom leans up against the counter. “Cas? What’s going on? And why didn’t you tell me about the mall?”

“Because I like to keep my crazy all to myself?” Obviously deflection isn’t going to work. They just keep on staring. Waiting and staring. “It’s just—I thought I saw Anna, that’s all.” I take another sip of tea. “And in Grand Marais, in the hayloft—I thought I heard her laugh.” I shake my head. “It feels like—I don’t know what it feels like. Like being haunted, I guess.”

Above the rim of my mug, the expression that ripples through the room is plain. They think I’m hallucinating. They pity me. “Poor Cas” is written all over their faces, hanging on their cheeks like ten-pound weights.

“The athame sees her too,” I add, and that gets their attention.

“Maybe we should call Gideon in the morning,” my mom suggests. I nod. But he’ll probably think the same thing. Still, he is the closest thing I have to an athame expert.

The table falls quiet. They’re skeptical and I don’t blame them. After all, this is what I’ve wanted, since Anna’s been gone.

How many times have I imagined her, sitting beside me? Her voice has rung around in my head a million times, some lame attempt to have the conversations we missed out on. Sometimes I pretend that we found another way to defeat the Obeahman; one that didn’t mess everything up.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Thomas asks. “I mean, is it even possible?”

“Things don’t cross over,” I reply. “Gideon says things don’t cross over. They can’t. But it feels—like she’s calling to me. I just can’t hear what she wants.”

“This is so messed up,” Carmel whispers. “What are you going to do?” She looks at me, then at Thomas and my mom. “What are we going to do?”

“I have to find out if it’s real,” I say. “Or if I’m officially nuts. And if it’s real, I have to find out what she wants. What she needs. We all owe her that.”

“Don’t do anything yet,” my mom says. “Not until we talk to Gideon. Not until we have more time to figure it out. I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it either,” Carmel says.

I look at Thomas.

“I don’t know whether to like it or not like it.” He shrugs. “I mean, Anna was our friend, sort of. I can’t believe that she’d want to hurt us, or even scare us. It’s the athame that bothers me. That the athame responds. We should probably talk to Morfran too.”

They all stare at me. “Okay,” I say. “Okay, we’ll wait.” But not for too long.