* * *
A long-established piece of wisdom from Ben’s soirees was that it wasn’t a party until someone was barfing in the bushes. Specifically, Mrs. Rogers’s rhododendrons. Fortunately, Katee Goode was filling that role quite admirably—and kind of impressively—when I came around the corner.
Such a sophomore. I shook my head in disgust and started to walk around her, and then stopped with a sudden realization.
Katee was a junior now. School was starting up again in a couple of weeks. Everyone was moving on, getting older. Everyone except me.
I looked at the back of her blond head—plainly visible in the bright moonlight—bobbing above the greenery, and felt a sharp pang of envy. Katee would, in theory, put in another two years at Groundsboro and move on to college and then the rest of her life, where this moment would be a distant memory. She had her whole life ahead of her. I did not.
I felt my nails dig into my palms as I clenched my hands in fists. I, who’d never envied anybody anything—except maybe Lily for her family—envied the girl upchucking in the underbrush? No way.
It was pathetic.
Anyone dumb enough to come here and get that wasted, especially alone—a very sophomore, third-tier move—did not deserve to be envied.
Maybe. Maybe not. But it didn’t change how I felt.
I sighed and kept walking.
Ben’s backyard looked like it had at all the other parties I’d attended here. The food—chips of assorted varieties in plastic bowls, and pizza that was already mostly gone—was laid out on several card tables.
The keg was probably just inside the tree line at the back of the property, based on the steady flow of red-cup-carrying partyers coming and going from that general direction.
Most people had gathered on the open grass between the deck and the woods, dancing, talking in small clusters, and generally stumbling around. The outdoor floodlights were on, and someone, Ben probably, had stabbed the ground with those tacky bamboo torches at varying intervals throughout the yard. The flickering flames cast wild shadows across the faces of those standing near them. Music thumped hard from huge speakers near the deck—someone’s iPod was plugged in, churning through a party mix that was mostly bass and nothing recognizable at that volume.
I spotted my friends—former friends, actually—sprinkled throughout the yard. Misty and Chris didn’t seem to be here yet—no surprise there, as Misty was always late for everything. But Ashleigh Hicks and Jennifer Meyer were dancing together near the deck in a manner probably intended tobe provocative. Unfortunately, it came off more like creepy and awkward, given their matching outfits (as always) of short navy skirts and blue-and-white-striped shirts and their wildly disparate body types. Jennifer was a good five inches taller than Ashleigh. Also, they looked kind of like slutty sailors from the 1970s.
Jeff Parker, the intended audience for said sexy dancing, was paying no attention, his head bent over his guitar, and an adorable underclassman girl standing next to him, asking about the guitar or playing or something. Ha, good for him. I’d always liked Jeff—he was less likely to participate in our bullshit. At least he hadn’t openly mocked me after my death. Unlike some people…
Miles Stevens stood off to one side, watching. He was spiffily dressed as usual, in a long-sleeved dress shirt and khakis, despite the lingering August heat. I couldn’t be sure from this distance, but I was willing to bet that, thanks to me, his nerdwear was now designer.
And Leanne was next to Miles, staring out at the crowd with him and likely whispering catty comments in his ear. But where was Erin/Lily? I didn’t see her near them.
My heart sank. Maybe she wasn’t here after all. She’d be near Leanne, the only person she knew, wouldn’t she?
I moved closer for a better look, skirting the edge of the crowd and weaving my way through the tiki torches. It wasn’t until I was within a few feet of Leanne that I realized she wasn’t watching the crowd in general but was focused quite intently on someone or something. Her eyes were bright with spite and amusement…not to mention something that looked an awful lot like loathing.
And she wasn’t the only one watching whatever or whoever it was. In fact, a good majority of the people on this side of the party appeared to be enjoying the same spectacle, pointing and giggling and whispering and…
Oh, God. I froze, afraid to turn around. Only one person made Leanne’s eyes glow with hatred like that—Ben Rogers. Ben and Leanne had hooked up freshman year, and when he’d dumped her, she’d never quite gotten over it. Any chance she could find to cause chaos for him—and get a laugh from it—would be an opportunity she’d take. But his presence alone wouldn’t have been enough to trigger much notice from Leanne or the partygoers. It was, after all, his party. Of course he would be here. Most likely surrounded by whatever drunken or stupid girls he could find…
And suddenly I was terrified that I knew exactly who one of them would be.
Let’s be clear: I never expected the Erin/Lily-at-Ben’s party scenario to be good. I had heard enough from Erin to know that if she was here, she was looking for debauchery at its finest. Or worst. Whatever. Combine that with people thinking she was Lily and remembering what had gone down at the last party she’d attended, and we were already in uncharted levels of nasty.
But I have to confess, when I finally convinced myself to turn around and see what everyone else was seeing just fifteen feet from me, I never expected it to be this bad. Erin/Lily was wrapped around Ben Rogers like he was a stripper pole. Dark lipstick—not a flattering color or the one I’d picked out for Ally—was smeared across her face; her top bore a huge wet spot from beer she must have spilled down the front of it; and she had grass stains on her jeans from where she’d probably fallen. She was also somehow missing a shoe. But that wasn’t the worst part. No. The worst—oh, sweet Lord—was her sticking her tongue so far down Ben’s throat I half expected it to be poking through the back of his head.
And all of it while wearing MY face and MY body. Well, a face and a body I still thought of as my own; I’d seen them in the mirror every day for over a month.
I gagged first—oh, so many germs; I couldn’t even think about what was living in Ben Rogers’s mouth—and then a flash of fury swept over me, burning everything away, including common sense.
The smart thing would have been to turn around before Erin noticed me, go back to the car to talk it over with Will, and come up with some kind of plan to get her out of here…or at least away from everyone else.
Right.
“You stupid bitch.” The words flew out of my mouth in a shriek, like I had no control, and in that moment, I didn’t. So much for doing the smart thing.
Erin heard me, even over the music, and looked around, dazed and startled. But she still kept her hold on Ben.
Unacceptable.
My vision blurry with rage, I threw myself past Leanne and collided with Erin/Lily, hard. She needed to learn. You do not mess with me. Any version of me. Past, present, or possible.
Ed woke up with a snort seconds after Alona slammed the door shut. The two events were probably not unrelated.
It seemed to take him a few seconds to orient himself in the world again. In the rearview mirror, I watched as he sat up slowly, one hand holding his head and the other reaching out to touch the roof of the car, as if he wasn’t sure it was real.
He belched in that alarming fashion that often precedes major stomach evacuation. “Where am I?” he whispered, more to himself than me.
I turned in my seat to get a better look at him. “About to get kicked out of my car if you’re thinking about puking.”
He squinted at me. “Hey, I know you.” He gave me a wobbly, still-drunk smile. “You’re that kid who sees ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts…” His smile faded as more details returned to him. “You were at my parents’ house.” He cocked his head to one side. “But they weren’t there. The place was empty.…” He sniffed loudly.
I shifted uncomfortably. ??
?Yeah, look, I’m sorry about—”
“Where are we?” Still holding his head, he leaned forward to stare out the windshield, most likely at the brick monstrosity that was Ben’s house.
I took a deep breath. Of course Alona would not be here for this conversation. She was much better at being…well, blunt. That was probably the nicest term for it. Insensitive, occasionally mean, brutally honest—those were probably more accurate. And exactly what we needed in this situation. “We’re trying to find your sister.”
“Erin is here?”
“Maybe.” I glanced back toward the side of the house, where Alona had disappeared. By now she’d reached the party and was probably searching. Given the chaos that Ben’s parties were reported to induce, it might take her a few minutes to determine whether Erin was there and then to report back. “We’re trying to find out.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “You said…you said she had a body.” He sounded vulnerable and uncertain, like he wasn’t sure if he was remembering correctly, or like he was afraid that he’d somehow incorporated an unrelated drunken dream into reality.
I grimaced. And here we go…“Yeah, she took the body of a friend of mine.” True, regardless of circumstance. “And we need your help to get her out.”
“No,” he said, as firmly as before. “If what you’re saying is true, then I—”
“Yeah, yeah, you owe her, it’s all your fault. Got it,” I said impatiently. “We covered that. But you need to listen to me.” I twisted around in my seat to face him, hoping that would help him understand the gravity of the situation. “It’s not just your life that this is messing with. There is a whole family affected by her actions. Whether she gives a shit about them or not.” Alona, to her credit, had done her best to keep that in mind, at least.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “And here’s the truth: you have got to own up to this, man. If you want to believe it’s your fault because you let her go to the party alone, fine.”
He winced.
“But neither one of you is moving on until you deal. She is here because of you. Because you are keeping her here.” That was, in fact, a guess on my part. But it made sense. The two of them had been so tied together in life, it would follow that it would also be the case in death.
He looked up sharply.
“Yeah, you.” Based on my admittedly limited interactions with Erin, she didn’t seem to have a specific reason for sticking around, other than to live more—and what ghost wouldn’t want that? And frankly, Edmund could see her, when he’d had no previous capacity to do so. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Once again, it would have been so much easier if this job came with labels and a how-to manual; but no matter what, in this situation, I had to go with my instincts and hope they were enough. Even if Alona didn’t want to be—or couldn’t be—Ally again, I couldn’t leave Erin in Lily’s body. I just…couldn’t.
“It’s better than her not existing,” Ed muttered.
I took a deep breath, struggling to hang on to my patience. For most people, this was new territory, and Ed didn’t have the advantage of years of seeing ghosts and the in-between world. “It was an accident, a horrible accident. But there’s nothing you can do to change that now.”
He shook his head.
“There was nothing you could have done, even if you’d been there,” I said, getting exasperated. “They said it was a freak thing. The drop off the porch roof was only about eight feet into bushes and stuff. She probably would have survived if they hadn’t put that walkway in, like, that afternoon.”
Ed looked up. “What?” He seemed paler suddenly, even in the dim light.
Finally I was getting to him. “She fell off the porch roof,” I repeated. “And she probably would have been okay, maybe a broken bone or two, except there were these paving stones piled up from them putting in a walkway earlier that afternoon. She hit her head just right, apparently.”
Ed flopped back into his seat with a dazed expression. Apparently this was news to him. Not all that surprising, I supposed, given that he probably hadn’t been prone to reading articles about her accident back when it had happened. Maybe knowing there was nothing he could have done was all he’d needed.
Encouraged, I tried to return to my original point, the one I’d attempted to make way back at Ed’s parents’ house. “If you can let her go, it will be better for both of you. It’s true that, to you, she wouldn’t exist anymore. But this is not the end. At least, it doesn’t have to be.”
He turned his head and stared out the window, but at least he wasn’t arguing. That was an improvement.
“You can’t let her run you, man. It’s bad for both of you. You’ll still be alive, but you’ll be a shadow of what you’re supposed to be.” I knew that from experience, always living in fear of the ghosts cornering me. Having Alona as my spirit guide had helped, but until today, when I’d finally stood up to the dead on my own, I hadn’t realized how much it had weighed on me. I felt freer than I had in…well, forever.
I was about to launch into my the-light-exists-and-it-is-awesome speech when the music from the party paused, a three-second gap between songs, and I heard shrieking from somewhere behind the house. It was loud enough for me to hear it clearly even in the car, but not distinct enough to understand the words.
I did, however, recognize the voice and the note of outrage in it. Alona.
My chest contracted in fear. She was in trouble. “Crap.” I scrambled out of the car without waiting to see if Ed followed.
* * *
As should be obvious to just about anyone by now, I’ve never been to one of Rogers’s shindigs, nor have I ever had the desire to attend.
Still, it kind of surprised me, after rounding the corner at a run, to find it so…ordinary, at first glance. Nobody was snorting cocaine off anybody else’s chest. That I could see. Instead, the yard was filled with intoxicated people hanging out, eating chips, and listening to really crappy music. It could have been a night from the old days of me and my few friends hanging out, except it was outside, with about a hundred more people, and, well, our music hadn’t sucked.
It was kind of a letdown after all the hype, frankly.
Then, of course, I noticed that, despite the so-called music, no one was dancing. Most everyone was crowded around the open space between the deck and the woods, watching something.
I bet I knew what, too. The shrieking had stopped, but I could hear the occasional shouted word or grunt. Definitely Alona and Erin.
I lowered my head and started to shove my way through the crowd.
“She’s having a seizure or something,” someone whispered as I passed.
“Get her off me. Do something!” Lily’s husky voice held an uncharacteristic whine, and she sounded out of breath.
“No, dude. She’s, like, crazy or something,” another genius declared.
I elbowed through the last layer of my former classmates and tormentors and arrived to find, pretty much as I’d expected, Alona and Erin/Lily grappling for position and rolling around on the ground. To the crowd, though, it looked simply like Lily was throwing herself around for no reason.
Leanne Whitaker stood off to one side, doubled over with laughter. Some of Alona’s former cheerleading cronies looked vaguely concerned…or maybe vague was how they looked all the time. Ben watched impassively, like it was something on television that was maybe a little annoying but mostly boring.
Asshole.
None of them could see Alona, of course, but they could see a girl in obvious distress of some kind. And not a one of them had made a move to help.
Erin as Lily already looked fairly messed up, her lipstick smeared everywhere and her clothes dirty. But Alona was in worse shape, her body shifting between solid and see-through, like someone caught in the transporter beams on one of those old Star Trek episodes.
Jesus.
I darted forward and grabbed Alona’s shoulder. She
was, for the moment, on top. “Hey, stop it!”
She twisted to look up at me, startled but with fury still stamped across her features, like she might lash out at me for interrupting.
“Look at yourself,” I whispered to her.
She glanced down and stiffened in shock.
Erin/Lily laid her head on the ground and laughed with the abandon that comes with relief and total drunkenness. “Tol’ you,” she slurred.
Fabulous.
Alona looked back at me with panic.
“Just stay calm,” I told her, trying to follow my own advice. Clearly, our original plan was blown to hell. And now I didn’t know if Alona had enough strength to continue existing, let alone routing Erin from Lily’s body. I never should have let her go in ahead of me.
At the moment, I was torn between the urge to grab Alona and haul her out of there to someplace safe—which, of course, was an illusion in this situation, given that the threat of disappearing was not something that could be escaped by changing location—and kneeling down to help hold Erin so Alona could try to transfer in right then and there, if she wanted.
But as it turns out, I didn’t get a chance to do either.
“Will Kill?” Ben asked in disbelief and disgust from behind me.
I froze. Shit.
I forced myself to turn in his direction. I didn’t want him coming at my blind side.
He stumbled a step or two toward me, and I had to fight the urge to move back. “Who invited you?” he demanded.
It didn’t take much imagination to see Ben as a mean drunk.
“Stay calm,” Alona murmured. “He’s wasted.”
Oh, good, so he wouldn’t even feel it if I managed to hit him.
My heart pounding, I held my hands up. I was so very outnumbered here. It was worse than even that one time I’d gone into the first-tier section to talk to Alona. Add alcohol and I wasn’t sure what the results would be this time. Worse than a black eye, that was for sure. “I’m just here to get my friend.”
Ben snorted. “Should have known, crazy attracts crazy.”