Yet I could feel eyes on me, as strongly as when Lainey had glared at me in art class. For a brief moment, I pictured her hiding in the ceiling vent, waiting for the opportunity to jump out and strike me down. A nervous chuckle escaped my dry lips, and my tongue darted out reflexively.
The door to the hall creaked as I pushed it open. Every second, every step, I expected the unseen intruder to show him or herself and catch me off guard. But the adrenaline rushing through my veins made me temporarily brave.
I flicked on the light in the shadowy laundry room. The shadows retreated, revealing no monsters, human or otherwise, in the sparse, tidy room. The washing machine and dryer stood opposite a freezer chest, a spare basket with detergent and fabric softener on the floor.
The storage room fared no differently. It was so packed with junk a flea couldn't find a comfy spot. But my feeling of unease only continued to grow. A box shifted with a shuffling sound and I jumped. My hand found my chest, trying to comfort my racing heart.
Nerves prickled along my neck like creeping bugs. The hall emptied out to the main room, the size of our living room upstairs. The only place I hadn't checked. Whoever (or whatever) was watching me had to be there.
The overhead light bathed everything in yellow fluorescence. Bric-a-brac and discarded furniture crowded the open room, casting rich, deep shadows. Especially in the corners, where the black shapes could have been anything.
The adrenaline ran out, and flight mode kicked in. I must be having a panic attack. What else could it be? I was getting scared of my own thoughts like a little kid.
On the far wall were the French doors leading outside, as our house had been built on a slope. Usually, I was proud my parents trusted me not to take advantage of the unguarded exit. Right now, it only made me feel vulnerable.
I could almost see Jenna swooping out into the night. I won't miss you, the memory of her voice taunted.
I was sure I'd locked the doors before bed. At least, I thought I was sure. But now that I considered it, I couldn't be certain it wasn't just routine that I checked the lock. There was no broken glass, no sign of an intruder. Still...
I stomped over to the French doors, growing weary of this cat-and-mouse game with my own fear. They were locked after all, but I didn't stop. One door protested loudly as I pushed it open. Stepping out into the cold night, my toes turned icy on the cement slab porch.
Not a soul was around. The sky lacked a moon, and the world slept peacefully below. A lone car rumbled by on the street, breaking the harmony only momentarily until it drove past. I put one foot on the dewy grass, turning in a circle like some kind of demented ballet.
The dark doorway I'd come from looked more like a threat than home. I forced myself back inside since my feet were freezing. Normal people were sleeping in their beds, not chasing phantoms. Why couldn't I be normal? It seemed like the harder I tried, the further I strayed from average.
I had to get back to sleep, to ward off this panic attack so that I'd be able to function for school in the morning. I yawned, trying to assure myself I was perfectly safe.
The air against my skin went frigid. Above me, the cheap light bulb flickered. The filament broke with a crackle, drowning the room in blackness.
A tiny noise escaped my throat. My fear peaked, heart pounding as though I were running as fast as the nightmare in which I'd followed Jenna. The shadows gathered and drew up in front of me. Two bright, almond shapes glared at me like fiery eyes. I swallowed thickly.
As fast as they had swept upon me, the dark shape and feeling of dread were sucked out of the room. Light stung my eyes and I blinked. I'd watched the bulb break, but it was back on like it had never gone out. I shut my eyes, rubbing the lids fiercely, but the room was still bright, almost obscenely cheerful.
Sinking down to my knees, I waited for my heart to return to a healthy beat. When I could finally breathe, I locked the doors and bolted back to my room.
I dove into bed, not daring to think about what I'd just experienced. I tugged the comforter up to my chin again, trying to find safety in its warmth.
A long night awaited me until I finally drifted into a light doze. Even though now I felt utterly alone.
CHAPTER 4
BY MORNING, WHEN the braying of my alarm clock woke me from my lousy sleep, I'd convinced myself that I had imagined the whole incident. The entire series of non-events seemed like a half-forgotten dream.
The remainder of the week breezed by. I didn't interact much with anyone, and just drifted through classes. It seemed like nobody knew how to talk to me, so they didn't bother. I knew looking at me reminded them that Jenna was gone.
The one person that had offered to befriend me was soon caught up with the popular crowd. Henry barely said a word to me after the first day, just a polite 'hi' here and there. To be fair, I didn't make much of an effort. I had a new place in the order of things now, and that place was making it through the days as unnoticed as possible.
Every night I came home and plowed laboriously through homework. When I was down in my room, I turned music up loud in my earphones, just in case I got the creepy feeling again. But it didn't happen.
On Friday, Hugh joined me for breakfast, pouring two bowls of unhealthily colorful cereal. He was in his robe and slippers, his trusty morning cup of black coffee beside him.
"I had a talk with Claire last night," he said casually, skimming the morning paper. He folded the paper up crookedly and set it beside his bowl. He hadn't combed his hair yet, and pieces stuck out at awkward angles.
"About what?" I asked, swirling my spoon around. I never had an appetite in the morning with the lingering taste of toothpaste.
"You know what. Your suggestion that you walk to school, remember? I thought it was an important issue."
"Oh, that."
"Yes, that," he said, almost irritated. He started to butter his toast with a random steak knife he'd pulled out of the drawer. He'd never lived on his own, and without my mother he would probably be helpless.
"Let me guess, she said no way in this lifetime," I predicted, sighing. If they started making playpens in teen sizes, I'd be screwed.
"Actually smarty pants, she agreed to let you walk. After intense deliberation. The only stipulation is that you have to send me a text when you get to school and when you leave for home. That way we know you're getting where you're going."
"No joke?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. I still couldn't believe it.
"No joke."
It was a little step, but it was the first breath of freedom I'd taken in months. I rushed off to finish getting ready.
Outside, fog hung low to the ground, obscuring the landscape. The sky was the flat, dull gray that came just after dawn. Despite the early morning chill, I felt happy just to be breathing fresh air. It smelled faintly of leaves starting to die and corn almost ready to be harvested. I inhaled until my lungs burned.
After Jenna disappeared, my parents had basically sequestered me inside, whether they realized it or not. I felt trapped, not just by them, but by myself. I hadn't wanted to leave the house; I saw no reason for it. I made up excuses to get out of anything occurring farther than our lawn.
I'd lived in our small town of Hell in the bowels of Michigan my whole life. Despite the unusual name, and the residents' affinity for dressing it up like Halloween town all year, Hell was a typical suburban town. We were lucky so far to miss the brunt of the state's economic troubles. Many cities surrounding us were in danger of becoming ghost towns. For Hell, ghosts were merely a bonus.
When I entered the commons, feeling more awake and energized than usual, it wasn't as jarring as it had been earlier in the week. Even though the cavernous room was packed and loud, I didn't have the urge to run anymore.
Ten minutes remained before school started. A couple of girls I'd been casual friends with for years, Becky Long and Sarah Abbot, were sitting together at one of the tables. Becky's mom had even led one of th
e search parties when Jenna went missing.
We had often occupied the same lunch table back in the day, although it seemed like a different life now. One belonging to a girl who didn't have a care in the world.
"Ariel!" Becky called. I felt a little embarrassed that she'd seen me staring, but I went over.
"Why don't you sit with us?" Becky offered amicably, gesturing to the unfilled seat across from her. I had the feeling they had been talking about me, the way all the girls had clammed up upon my arrival.
I sat and put my stuffed backpack on top of my knees. My stomach felt acidic, like I was waiting to receive bad news. The other seven seats were filled, and everyone was paying rapt attention to me.
"How are you?" Becky asked, clasping her hands together and tucking her little rounded chin on top.
"I'm fine," I replied, for lack of a better adjective.
Awkward silence followed. No one knew what else to say, and now everyone was deliberately not looking at me. Still, I was glad to be sitting there, even as I combed my brain for a conversation starter and came up short. I couldn't stand being singled out anymore, and at least I could blend in with their group and be just another girl.
"Loveless finally came out this weekend. We were going to get tickets," Sarah piped up, and the other girls jumped on the topic as if it were beef jerky and they'd been up in the mountains for days.
###
I started each day with geometry, the subject I dreaded most. Numbers twisted and morphed in my head, and I could never get a good grasp on them. Every time I learned long division, I forgot it again.
Mr. Vanderlip, the math teacher, was a twitchy little man in a paisley tie. On the billboard by the door, he'd pinned up dour photos of calculus classes and math competition teams, perfectly aligned in ruler-straight rows.
The board was covered in chalk, numbers and symbols. Vanderlip blurred and smeared the chalk with the side of his scribbling hand. He berated the first student who raised his hand and had a decimal in the wrong place.
"This is remedial stuff!" Vanderlip squawked. The boy who had spoken up turned beet purple. "This kind of equation should be second nature by now. It should be instant in your pea-sized brains. Have you all been sleeping for the last ten years?"
As he turned, the skinny stripes on his shirt contorting, I watched the other students silently debate whether they should ever raise their hands again. So far it had been a very quiet class.
"And just so you're prepared, your first test is on Monday," Vanderlip said sternly, still scribbling with his chalk-dirty hand.
Everyone groaned in unison, one boy throwing his notebook in the air and collapsing in defeat on his desk.
I sat at Becky's table again at lunch, still only listening, but comforted by the companionship. I'd lost my opinions somewhere along the way, but the others didn't seem to mind. It was easier to pretend I was wallpaper.
In history, Henry chatted busily in the back of the room. Ambrose kept patting him on the back like a brother. I should have guessed it from the first time I met Henry, the easy confidence and expensive sneakers, but he had seemed so different from the preppy jerks at Hawthorne.
A sea of gold and purple jerseys and sports jackets shifted between us. It was as though we were positioned on two different sides of a chess board, with a group of pawns in the way.
I've lost him, I thought briefly. But I'd never had him in the first place. He wasn't mine to want or lose. I turned back to Mr. Warwick. He was cheerfully describing George Washington's crossing of the Delaware, complete with a pathetic doodle on the board of said President in what was either a boat or an oversized banana.
In art, I'd been sitting in the same spot with the same indifferent male all week. My spying neighbor had gone back to ignoring me, and her adjoining seat was always taken up by her pin-loaded messenger bag.
Henry and Lainey were engaged in conversation, and I was trying not to pay attention. Of course, that only made my brain zero in on what they were saying. Henry hadn't said a word to me since the first day, despite teasing me about spending our afternoons together.
"All I'm saying is, since we live in Hell, we should be able to sin and get away with it," Henry said. His charming voice distracted me, so much more mature than other sophomore boys. The spell was broken by Lainey's high-pitched, fake giggle, aching my teeth like squeaky chalk.
"You are so baaad." She touched his bicep flirtatiously, her hand lingering there. I looked away, both oddly jealous and queasy.
"Everyone open your sketchbooks to last night's homework," Ms. Vore instructed from her desk. She'd passed out the slim black books the first day. As I opened mine, the binding crinkled pleasantly, still smelling of fresh paper.
Ms. Vore had replaced the batty, purple Mumu wearing art teacher from last year. I always assumed dressing like a carnival fortune teller was part of the job requirements, but she looked sane. Stylish, even. Today her hair was pulled back in a smart bun, and she wore a well-fitted black vest over a white oxford shirt.
"What do you see?" she asked. "When you look down at what you've drawn, what greets your eyes?"
I peered at what I'd managed. Crude stick figures, possibly drawn using the artist's feet.
"Think of your sketchbook as the window to your creativity," Ms. Vore said, rubbing her hands together. Her face was excited, as though she were a student herself. "Feel free to doodle whatever you want when the urge strikes you. There are no rules. If you fill up one book, I'll give you another. Just let yourself loose on the pages."
She launched into a demonstration of different shading techniques on the board, occasionally dropping her chalk and swooping up a dog-eared book that she held out so everyone could see.
I paid close attention. While she had perfectly okay ability, it didn't seem like she was the best artist, either. She seemed to have more appreciation than talent, which I found endearing.
I dutifully texted Hugh as I set out on my journey back home. As I came around behind the house, I noticed my neighbor was already sitting on the swing set next door. Her right hand scribbled in the sketchbook on her lap, attention never leaving the paper.
She wore a poofy, tutu-like black skirt and black and white striped leggings, and her glitter today was red, matching the vivid, artificial red of her hair. Her glasses kept sliding down her nose and each time she pushed them up with two fingers.
I stood on the grass, studying her over the fence as she had studied me. Birds sang cheerfully from their perches on electrical wires and the breeze blew the grass gently. Little kids' voices echoed down the road as they played a game of hopscotch.
She didn't seem so intimidating now; in fact, considering how little she was, she didn't seem intimidating at all. All big attitude and bad vibes.
An impulse hit me. I was prone to having them, but had rarely acted on them, until now. I darted inside my own house.
"I'm home," I informed Hugh, who was eating a microwave burrito and searching through a manilla folder full of important-looking documents.
"I see that." He didn't look up. "Thank you."
"But I'm going to be in the backyard for a few minutes," I said, hoping my neighbor was staying put.
"Digging up weeds?"
"Not exactly."
He saluted me and went back to his burrito and his work. As I walked over to the fence, I anticipated what to say. Or whether it was a good idea to be saying anything to the strange girl.
"Hey!" She startled, throwing her arms out, and almost fell off of the swing. The sketchbook tumbled open on the grass.
I hadn't expected that reaction. Most of the alt-kids at Hawthorne were tough and aloof, and talking to them was risking getting your teeth realigned.
"What do you want?" she asked, picking up her book and resuming her place. The words didn't come out rude, merely curious. Her slender left ankle was bandaged, pushing up the legging.
"Did I do something to offend you?" I aske
d calmly.
She capped the pen she'd been using to draw and gazed at me. I'd never seen such vibrant green eyes, the color of limes. I assumed they must be contacts.
"What?" Her cheeks reddened slightly.
"As far as I know, I've never talked to you before today. But it seems like you think I did something wrong."
She appeared caught for a second, then her features smoothed out. "No. Your friends just don't like me."
"I don't really have any friends at Hawthorne anymore," I said. It felt odd to say it out loud, and I knew I wasn't counting Becky and Sarah, but I felt more like a charity case than a friend to them.
"I thought you and that Lainey girl were friends," she said, relaxing her posture a little. "I've seen them talking to you."
I laughed for the first time in a while.
"I am way too dorky for them and also"—I gestured towards my house, middle class but not extravagant—"I don't live in a mansion. The fabulous encounters you've been witnessing are them using me for target practice."
"Never mind, then. I guess I was mistaken. Just pretend you didn't see me."
She started to stand up, but I was suddenly desperate to talk with someone who I wasn't related to. Someone who didn't know me, and hopefully wouldn't make assumptions.
"You just moved here, right? Where did you live before?"
"Chicago." She brushed a fallen leaf off of her sketchpad, but she didn't resume drawing.
"Do you miss it?"
"Every day." She looked up at the sky, as if there were an invisible dome above our heads instead of the azure blue atmosphere. "I don't like this town. It feels...isolated. Like we're cut off from the rest of the world."
"I don't like it either," I agreed, putting my foot up on one of the low fence supports. "And I've lived here my entire life."
"That sucks." Her nose rabbit-twitched momentarily.
"What's your name? I'm Ariel."
She paused for a second, tucking a lock of ruby hair behind one elfin ear. "Theo Weaver. Nice to meet you." She stood and walked to the fence, sticking out her hand above the posts for me to shake, an oddly formal gesture.
"Likewise," I said. "Theo, that's a pretty unusual name for a girl."
"It's short for Theosophia," she explained. "My mom has strange taste. I almost ended up an Elvira, but only because she loved Elvis as a kid."