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Suddenly, my mad scrambling carried me through a pocket of freezing air.
As I tumbled out the other side, the laughter disappeared.
I plopped to the ground, my breath as loud in my ears as a passing train, and looked up to see Lydia standing a few feet away.
She pursed her lips and stared down at me.
“Why…?” I had to stop speaking to suck more air into my lungs. “Why, Lydia?”
I couldn’t contain my tears anymore, and I started to sob.
It was the ultimate display of weakness, and I expected Lydia to try to hurt me, to torment me, to chase me farther into the woods.
But she didn’t.
A few minutes passed, and Lydia didn’t go away. She didn’t speak, either.
She just stood there, looking at me.
Finally, I got to my feet, my legs unsteady beneath me. “I’ll leave you alone. I won’t try to send you to the void. I swear to God. Just stop hurting people. Please, Lydia.”
Without speaking, she turned to walk away. Her body grew fainter and fainter.
“Please!” I cried, too exhausted for pride. “I’ll get down on my knees and beg you, if that’s what you want. Or take me—kill me—do whatever you want to me, but…”
She was gone.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and groaned. The crunch I’d felt when I hit the tree had been the face of my phone cracking.
I drew in a breath of cold air, burning my throat and lungs.
I was totally lost, with no way to get back to my car.
Life’s not fair—I get it—but this was ridiculous.
And then there was a sudden sharp snap! and I looked up just in time to see a huge branch about to fall right where I was standing. I rushed out of the way, swinging around another tree trunk, full-on bear-hugging it like a frightened toddler hugging her mother’s leg.
After the massive branch crashed to the ground, and the dust and leaves settled, I took a step back…and saw the chalk slash on the bark of the tree in front of me.
I would have broken down in relief, except there was no part of me whole enough to break down. So I just followed the chalk mark to the next marked tree, and gradually made my way back to the car, surrounded by the miserable silence of the forest.
“HEY, HONEY, YOU’RE GOING to be late for school,” my father said, sticking his head into my bedroom the next morning.
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and pulled the blankets up to my chin.
“It’s already seven fifteen, you know.”
He was waiting for an answer, so I croaked one out. “It’s a four-minute drive.”
“But don’t you have all sorts of elaborate beauty rituals?”
“No.” I burrowed down into my pillow. “That’s Kasey.”
“What’s me?” my sister’s voice piped up. “Lexi, you’re going to be late.”
I turned away from them to look out the window.
“Never mind,” Kasey sighed. I heard her walk away.
“Well, don’t cut it too close,” Dad said. He left too.
Could I really make myself get out of bed and go to school—just walk around like a regular person having a regular day?
I felt a gentle hand on the back of my head. “Sweetheart, you overslept,” Mom said.
I collected all of my strength and sat up.
“Oh, you’re already dressed,” she said. “Are you feeling okay?”
I muttered that I was, and Mom went to the kitchen. I swung my legs—stiff in the dirty jeans I’d been wearing for nearly twenty-four hours—over the side of the bed and sat there, staring at nothing.
The fact is, I wasn’t “already” dressed. I was still dressed. And any paranoid parent worth his or her paranoid salt would have noticed that—and the scattered pieces of dirt on my pale beige carpet—especially my carpet, of all carpets, because I was a borderline OCD-level clean freak.
My parents hadn’t noticed.
But apparently my sister had.
“What happened to your carpet?”
I swung around. “My shoes were muddy.”
Kasey stood in the doorway, staring at the floor. “Why were your shoes muddy?”
“Because I stepped in some mud,” I said.
“How’s Jared?” she asked.
“He’s great,” I said. “How’s the cradle-robber?”
She rolled her eyes and sniffed, but she didn’t back away in a huff like I’d been hoping she would. “Keaton is fine. He got accepted to Berkeley.”
“No kidding,” I said. “That’s good. I mean, it’s pretty close…if you guys are still together.”
She shrugged and sort of swung on the doorframe a little. “I don’t know. I’m too young to get that serious…don’t you think?”
Kasey had just turned fifteen. I’d just turned sixteen when Carter and I started dating. And I didn’t feel like we were too young to be serious. It just felt so right with him. I mean, until Aralt and the Sunshine Club came between us, I could see myself with Carter forever. Not that we’d have gotten married right out of high school or anything, but I just never pictured us breaking up, because I just couldn’t imagine not wanting to be with him.
“I think it depends,” I said. “I think if it’s important to you to make it work, you’ll make it work.”
“Was it—” She cut herself off, and I knew she’d been about to ask about Carter—if it was important to me.
“Yeah, well,” I said.
She gave me a sad smile.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “I have Jared now.”
Her sad smile turned into a little grimace.
That’s when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, my cell phone. It sat on the nightstand with the shattered screen on display for everyone to see. Naturally, my life would be much easier if I could keep my sister from seeing it.
“I’d better get dressed for school,” I said.
“You’re already dressed.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Good-bye, Kasey,” I said, getting up and moving toward the door.
She backed away. I gave the door a push and picked up my phone to get a better look at it.
But Kasey had peeked back in. “Holy cow, what happened?”
I stepped forward, tucking the phone behind my back. “Excuse me, have you ever heard of privacy?”
“Your phone—” She craned her neck to try to see. “It looks like—”
“It’s fine,” I said, slipping the phone into my pocket. “I cracked the screen yesterday. It still works, though.”
I waited for her to ask me what I’d been doing that would crack the screen.
Stop, I thought. Don’t ask any more questions. Just go be normal. Be happy. One of us to has to come through this okay, and it’s not going to be me. So stop asking questions.
Her face fell. Her feelings were hurt. She looked like a little girl.
It’s for your own good.
She didn’t need to get messed up with ghosts again. She just needed to be a normal teenager.
“Sorry, Kase,” I said, and shut the door.
By the end of the day I was so exhausted from my constant fear of saying the wrong thing that I didn’t even want to go to Jared’s house. I knew they’d find the body before long—maybe even that same night. So I went straight home and got into bed.
Luckily, Kasey was off with her friends, so at least I didn’t have to justify my bedridden afternoon. I closed my eyes and let the misery sink down through my body. I could feel it going into my pores, through my skin, into the muscle and sinew, right into the core of my soul.
I was the only person in the world who knew Ashleen was dead.
How long would I have to carry that knowledge around with me while the police searched and Ashleen’s family suffered?
Lydia’s voice was clear and cold. “Warren, pity party of one, we have your table ready.”
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, afraid to move. But Lydia came and stood right above me. Her long ghost-hair hung down, almost touching my face. I fought the urge to try to brush it away.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I didn’t kill that Ashley chick. I didn’t push Kendra off that cliff. And I don’t want to be sent to the transitional plane.”