Famous Last Words

But I knew I could do this. I could sweat it out. I just needed to think about something more relaxing, that’s all. Something more pleasant.

The image that came into my mind when I closed my eyes was Reed’s face. His crooked smile and his clear green eyes, calm and confident. We’d had a couple of chance encounters during the week. I was finding that the hope of spending a few minutes talking to him was one of the things that got me through the days and the long, torturous nights.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard a voice.

“This is …”

I didn’t want to hear the words, but it was like when you get some random idea in your head, and you can’t get it out. The harder you try not to think about it, the more it haunts you.

“This is the kind of …”

The words came together like leaves tumbling around in the wind, meaningless sounds until they coalesced for a brief moment, long enough to fill the room with the whispered phrase — and then broke apart again.

I fought and pushed and shook my head, like I could dislodge the sound from my brain.

But the voice grew louder.

“THIS IS THE KIND OF —”

Stop, stop, stop.

“THIS IS THE KIND OF DREAM —”

I tried to grab on to thoughts of something else, anything else — school, Mom, Reed. Even my painful memories of Aiden. It didn’t work.

Then the whole thing came whooshing toward me, ringing in my ears like a bell.

“THIS IS THE KIND OF DREAM YOU DON’T WAKE UP FROM, HENRY.”

I had no idea who Henry was. Or whose voice I was hearing. Or why this particular message was being delivered to me.

The back of my neck prickled and my head ached. In desperation, I threw open my nightstand drawer. But instead of grabbing the ring, I yanked my journal out and flung it onto the bed.

Just one line, huh? For once, I was too frustrated to agonize over whether I had anything worth saying. In huge, blocky letters, I filled a whole page with one sentence:

I WOULD JUST LIKE FOR THINGS TO BE EASY FOR A LITTLE WHILE.

Then I slammed the journal shut and shoved it back in the drawer, my chest heaving.

I went downstairs, determined to distract myself for at least a few hours. But when I turned on the TV, the opening credits of a movie were playing.

I kid you not, the movie was The Birds.

So I did what any crazy person would do … I sat down and watched it.

It was ten past midnight. I was in bed and — surprise, surprise — I wasn’t even close to sleeping. Watching a horror movie about homicidal birds definitely hadn’t helped.

I flopped back onto my pillow and caught two flashes out of the corners of my eyes — the kind that usually mean a huge headache is about to sink its claws into my skull.

The wind picked up. Whenever a particularly strong gust blew, the branches of the huge walnut tree outside my room hit the windows with a smattering of sharp sounds. If you closed your eyes and blurred your brain just right, you could imagine a raging horde of birds clawing at the glass, desperate to get inside.

Don’t be silly. They’d just break the glass.

In the movie, they’d pecked through a roof, for heaven’s sake.

So then I pictured teeny tiny birds — baby birds. Gnashing their needle-size beaks and banging against the glass with all the force they could muster. Before long, one of them would hit hard enough to crack it, and then they’d come flying in like a horde of vampire bats — or how I imagined vampire bats when I was a kid, swarming around me and drinking my blood, like they’d done to Tippi Hedren, leaving her catatonic in the attic —

Okay, nope. Not helping.

After a few minutes, the wind died down, and the scratching subsided, leaving a sudden silence.

In the quiet, I became aware of another noise — a soft, steady sound, so persistent in its rhythm that soon I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it before:

Drip … drip … drip …

I told myself to ignore it. I mean, there were like twelve bathrooms in the house — one of them was bound to spring a leak at some point, right?

I buried my face in my pillow.

Drip … drip … drip …

It was the type of sound that could drive a person bonkers.

Finally, I got up and checked the bathroom that adjoined my room. All the faucets were off. I opened my bedroom door and looked down the silent, empty hall stretching before me, its polished floorboards lustrous in the moonlight.

I took a deep breath. Then I ducked into each of the upstairs bathrooms, inspecting all the faucets, but found nothing that could have caused the dripping noise.

Finally, I stood at the far end of the hall and stared at the door to the only room I hadn’t checked yet: Jonathan’s office.

I should really, really go back to bed.

But as I hesitated …

Drip.

Let’s be clear — simply being in Jonathan’s house seemed like more than enough of an imposition. I wasn’t exactly dying to bust into my stepfather’s office uninvited — but —

Drip.

— it wasn’t like I was going to go sit at his desk and mess with his stuff. I just wanted to tighten a faucet handle and get out. No rational person would get upset about that. Even thinking that Jonathan might get upset made me feel irrational.

Drip.

I opened the office door and paused to look around. The room felt like a time warp, a glimpse at life back in the golden age of movies. The walls, covered in luxe dark green wallpaper, were decorated with posters from classic movies like Casablanca and Sunset Boulevard, as well as posters of Jonathan’s own movies, signed by some of the biggest stars in the world: Brad Pitt, Je

The dripping was louder in here.

I opened the bathroom door and hit the light switch, but no light came on. Maybe the bulb had gone out. In the shadowy darkness, I walked over to the old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub.

When I saw it, I froze.

The tub was full of water.

When I say full, I mean filled up 100 percent. Its upper brim was a perfectly flat and motionless layer of water. And on the side closest to me, water crept over the edge and dripped to the floor, one slow drop at a time.

Drip … drip … drip …

The echoes of the plinking water were like something from a scary movie about a creature dwelling in a subterranean cave.

I stood over the tub, holding my breath and studying my dim, distorted reflection. Every time a drop slipped over the edge, it sent a tiny shudder through my face.

If I reached in to pull out the drain stopper, it would send a gush of water over the side. I’d have to bail some out first. I found an empty glass on the counter and dipped it into the tub, a stream of droplets spilling over and splashing my feet. I repeated the process about ten times, filling the glass and dumping it in the sink, until the water level had gone down an inch.

I rolled up my sleeve and returned the glass to its spot next to the sink.

Then I turned back to the tub.

The water was perfectly level with the top again.

Okay, no.

I stepped closer and peered down into the bathtub.

A face peered back at me — pale, with dark circles under the eyes. A slack, sullen mouth. A halo of short curls.

Not my face —

That is not my face.

I jumped back, slamming into the wall behind me — and the light switch — flooding the room with bright light. For a second, I searched my reflection in the mirror, praying I’d see dark circles, lips sullenly parted, a hint of curl in my hair. Anything to convince me that the face I’d just seen had been my own … and not the face of a stranger.