chapter 11
On Tuesday of the next week, Henry caught up to me in between classes. I hadn't spoken to him since I heard about him asking Lainey out. I went back and forth from feeling like an idiot to feeling betrayed. Either I was naïve or I had been tricked. Or both.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" he asked. I didn't want to bring it up. I was still too hurt, and too vulnerable. I kept my eyes forward, hoping he would get the hint.
"I've been busy," I said curtly.
"Are we still on for studying tonight?" he asked. Lockers slammed around us, people chattering loudly, so he'd turned up the volume. "I made sure to clear my empty schedule for you."
I had completely forgotten we had agreed to continue the tutoring sessions.
"I don't know," I said, but then a thought occurred to me. I had my first big Geometry test coming up on Friday, and I could not flunk. "I mean, if Lainey says it's alright." I muttered.
"If Lainey says..." he repeated, frowning. "What does Lainey have to do with it?"
School was not the place to talk about it. I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing my feelings deep down.
"You know what? I need to be going," I said. "Just meet up with me after class."
The last thing I needed was to get upset and then have to sit in class and stew in it. I started walking as quickly as my legs would carry me, away from him. My daily sprint to school had given me more stamina.
After school, Henry followed me outside. This time it was much more awkward, with neither of us speaking. For once, he couldn't think of a thing to say. He always seemed like such a chatterbox in school. He didn't seem to be trying to get me to talk anymore, either. Finally, when we turned onto my street, he spoke.
"You're being distant with me again. Did I do something wrong?"
I looked at him, unsure of what to say. He seemed wrought with confusion, as though he had no idea why I would want to avoid him. I bent over and picked up a dry red leaf on the sidewalk, twirling it by the stem.
"If I did, I'll apologize a hundred times until you talk to me. I'm sorry," he said, walking around so he blocked my path and I had to look at him. I tried to concentrate on the space between his eyebrows. Looking into his eyes right now seemed too intense. If I did that, he would know exactly how I felt about him. I didn't even know that myself yet.
"You didn't do anything to me," I said. I held my breath for a moment. "I just wish you would have told me you were dating Lainey." The words sounded all wrong, like I was attempting a foreign tongue.
His reaction surprised me. He stared at me like I had grown another head, and then burst out laughing. Doubling over at the waist and clutching his ribs, he couldn't stop himself. I had no idea what he found so uproarious. Irritation filled me.
When he could finally breathe again, he stood up. His face was flushed, the corners of his full mouth turned up. Like he'd just been running around the block, or having sex. I blushed and looked away, hating my brain for its automatic thoughts. Why did he have to be so attractive?
"What?" he asked. Where did you hear that Lainey and I were dating? Is that why you've been avoiding me like the plague for days?"
"A bunch of people have been talking about it in school," I said defensively, holding on to my elbows with both hands for support. "It's common knowledge."
"It's not common knowledge to me," he protested. He bowed his head, getting me to look straight into his eyes. "I am not dating Lainey," he said. "I don't know if she passed the rumor on or what, but it's not happening. She is...vapid. And phony." He stopped, appraising me for a moment.
"Why didn't you just ask me?" he asked softly.
"I don't know," I offered. My eyes kept shifting all over his face, not being able to take him in properly. "It just seemed too good to be true that you would actually want to be...my friend."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," he jeered. "I expected more from you."
I glared at him, the harsh sun getting in my vision and making me blink, ruining the effect. "Why are you expecting anything from me? And why should I know any different?"
"Because I told you how things were," he argued, irritation flaring up on his usually agreeable features. "I thought you would believe me."
"I did believe you," I said softly, feeling defeated. "I just...thought I was wrong." I heard him scoff gently beneath his breath.
"I've told her that we're just friends," he said emphatically, retrieving the leaf that was still tucked between my fingers and spinning it with his own.
"Why are you always hanging out with her?" I asked. "I see you together in the halls, you sit with her in class...not that I'm paying attention." But of course, that's exactly what I'd been doing. I could feel the heat rising on my face, up to my forehead.
He shrugged, and we started walking on our way again. The clouds were hanging low in the sky, as if it might start raining. I wondered if we would make it.
"Because Lainey always seems to be around," he said. "Our dads are old pals, so it's an unfortunate requirement. But she drives me crazy." He snickered at some private thought I wished I knew. "Every conversation is about her clothes and her hair and blah blah blah and my only allowed input are my views on those things. I just do my part, nod and smile and it keeps her off my back."
I tried to take in what he told me. But for some reason it seemed like just words. I kept waiting for him to admit to tricking me, my paranoid nature winning out my thoughts.
"What is up with this, by the way?" he asked, snagging an acrylic black and orange striped spider off of the nearest mailbox. "It's like A Nightmare Before Christmas. I've never seen so many people decorate for Halloween. Do they know it's still September?"
He gestured to the huge blown up snowglobe in front of us, where a cutesy grim reaper and his scythe waited inside.
I shrugged, retrieving the spider and plopping it back on the mailbox, the googly eyes wiggling at me.
"That's just Hell. Everyone takes a lot of pride in whatever heritage they think we have. This is it."
We arrived at my house at the same time the first drops of rain splattered the pavement. Hugh merely smiled and said hi to Henry; no more questions for the moment. He apparently was satisfied with his interrogation last time.
We took our seats in on the couch in the den again. It seemed strange to have him back next to me, when I had assumed that since Lainey had snagged him I'd barely ever talk to him again. It was hard to concentrate on the numbers and shapes, but I forced myself to listen to the hypnotizing sound of his voice. I tried to pretend he was someone, anyone else.
By the time his dad came to pick him up, I felt prepared for my test, at least not to fail. As he waved goodbye to me, it finally sunk in that he and Lainey weren't actually together. I sat down on the couch in the living room, looking at the swirling green walls. I could almost imagine figures moving between the whorls.
If they weren't together, then why did everyone think they were? And what did they think about Henry and me?
October arrived, bringing the cold with it. I wore my jacket on my walk in the mornings. That Hugh and Claire still let me walk at all amazed me, since the other little girl disappeared. Alyssa still hadn't been found, and I saw signs stapled to electrical poles pop up next to the missing cat flyers all over town. Jenna's face had been there a few short months ago. Perhaps it was because she was so much younger; my parents didn't seem to connect Alyssa to Jenna.
But a voice in my head nagged me whenever I let myself think about it. It was a pretty strange coincidence that two girls would go missing in our little town only months apart.
The trees were dressed for autumn now, orange and scarlet leaves that appeared almost overnight, turning the town into a postcard. The colder days meant gray skies and drizzling rain, and the insulated feeling returned. My limbs felt heavier, as though I were dragging myself to school and back.
Hell went into annual decoration overdrive. Most of the year, there were a few witches flying into telephone poles, or the mere names of businesses like Screams Ice Cream to represent Hell's uniqueness. But in October, nearly every business and lawn had Halloween décor, from plastic ghosts hanging in trees to full artificial graveyards, complete with the obligatory skeletal hand poking out. Every day it was like walking through a party store.
I ended up getting a B+ on my big test. It was the highest grade I had gotten in Geometry so far. I felt more confident in taking my time in math, and my grades stayed steady. I found Henry by his locker after class and held my paper up like an excited child.
"Good job. I don't know why you're surprised. I knew you could do it," he said. He slammed the locker shut. His reaction only made my pride swell, and I grinned.
"Thanks for helping me," I said. I'd said it before countless times, but I couldn't stop myself from repeating it.
"You're welcome, again," he said, looking amused. His eyes practically glittered when he was in such good humor, I'd noticed as the days we spent together began to add up. When he was irritated, his eyes would darken, closer to the brown of tree bark. When he was excited about something, which was often, light radiated from the center.
"You really don't have to keep thanking me," he said. "I'm not doing charity work. I like spending time with you."
I felt the thump in my chest as my heart skipped a beat, as though I had sneezed.
"I do too. I mean, I like spending time with you." Why did I always turn into a stuttering imbecile around him lately?
"I knew what you meant," he said, smiling gently. He nodded at me as he took off and walked to his next class. As he reached the door, he turned for a moment, and watched me go.
Whenever the cold seasons came, I always wanted to stay in and read. I plowed through the books that Corinne gave me for my birthday, using them as late night reading material. Of course, that bad idea only intensified the eerie feeling in my room. No more odd situations had happened, though. But I could never fully shake the feeling of being watched. It remained like a light that was always lit in the corner of my brain. When I changed in the mornings and for bed at night, I did it behind the closet door.
I realized that I needed to get new books, something to keep me occupied. I ran inside the library in the middle of the week, but the reconstruction was still in full swing. Plastic sheeting blocked off half of the interior. A loud buffer started up behind the foggy partition, so loud that I left before I even arrived at the fiction section.
School was just as tedious as ever; both of my Honors classes buried me under piles of homework every night. I learned to deal with Ms. Fellows' boring monotone and gloomy classroom by writing the entire time, even if it didn't have to do with what she was lecturing about. One day I just scribbled down the lyrics to all my favorite songs.
The school got just as into Halloween as the rest of Hell. My Spanish teacher wore a sweater with huge candy corn buttons, which were very distracting when we were trying to learn new verbs. Construction paper ghosts and black cats were taped up on the walls by the student council, and a giant papier-mâché pumpkin sat in the vestibule until I watched Ambrose Slaughter casually kick a football-sized hole in it.
On Friday in homeroom, two energetic cheerleaders replaced McPherson on the morning announcements. I looked up at the loudspeaker, curious at what brought on the change.
"It's October, Ashley!" said the first girl, her voice gratingly peppy. I twitched.
"I know! Do you know what that means, Brianna?" The other girl asked.
"I dunno...oh yeah, Halloween!" replied Ashley. Wow, did you come up with that all by yourself?
"Not just Halloween. The annual Hawthorne Halloween dance!"
There were murmurs of excitement all around. I groaned and put my face in my hands. Freshman weren't allowed to go to the Halloween dance, so this year would be the first time I was eligible. The second biggest dance of the year, next to prom, it was always held Halloween weekend. Basically they combined homecoming and winter formal.
"Attendees can wear full costume or formal wear with costume accents, as long as they abide by the dress code," the girl continued.
Dances never used to bug me; I usually just thought they were boring in middle school. All the boys had sweaty hands and took a bath in cologne. My toes suffered damage from being stepped on during the group dates Jenna and I went with.
But now that there was someone I could potentially want to go with, a person who seemed to only be my friend, it was hard to think about. I couldn't tell what was going on in Henry's head, even though he seemed to know everything that went on in mine. Even though he wasn't dating Lainey, I knew that I wasn't really his type. After our initial flirtation, Henry seemed to be all business during our tutoring sessions, which had continued through the month. I didn't really know what to think.
Boys like him favored the girls who always wore a bunch of makeup and dressed in designer clothes. No matter how different he seemed, the rules seemed certain.
I went over to Theo's house after school. I'd been there several times before, but only for brief moments when she needed to fetch something or take care of a chore. Normally we hung out at my house, without comment from me. I knew how trapped I felt sometimes in my own.
Sitting in her living room, our discussion was fixed on the topic of the dance. Her cats, Persephone and Pandora, strode into the room, jumping on the couch. I petted Pandora's rabbit-like white fur as she nuzzled up next to me.
Theo sat on the floor, a mug of tea perched between her knees. Motel-style paintings of bowls of fruit decorated the walls. Theo told me Ms. Vore painted them herself. A cabinet with china dolls and figurines, the type advertised in catalogues for commemorative purposes, was tucked in the corner. It was nothing like I had imagined before I set foot inside; in my head, I'd pictured their house would look like something in a city apartment, Picasso prints and furniture from Beetlejuice.
"I've never actually been to a dance," Theo admitted, sipping her tea. The back of her hair fanned out on the faint plaid couch cushion. "No big deal."
"I just wish people didn't have to talk about it all the time," I said. I was only exaggerating a little; I had literally been hearing conversations all day about dresses and whether limos were a worthwhile investment.
"Anything to make them feel important," Theo said. "Have you heard or seen any shadiness from McPherson, by the way? We kind of dropped the ball on that one."
I had tried to put him out of my mind. The last thing I needed was to get on the Principal's bad side.
"Nothing. But I haven't been really paying too much attention to him, either. I don't want him to get too suspicious, especially when he already caught me following him. And I have no idea what he does after school."
"Do you think he still lives with his mom?" Theo asked randomly, looking at me.
"It's possible," I said, chuckling. "Why?"
"That's always a sign of a mentally unbalanced person, when they're over thirty," she said, tapping her forehead with one ink-smudged finger. "At least on TV. We should find out." I was glad to know I wasn't the only one who took my research from TV shows.
"Are you suggesting we locate his house and spy on it?" I asked, pretending to be taken aback.
"Nothing better to do. I'm bored," she said, stretching her arms up.
When one is in doubt, it's best to check online. We went to her computer (I had another short burst of jealousy at the fact that she even had her own computer, even though it was normal for most people) and typed in the school's name. Hawthorne had a pretty comprehensive website. Our parents could check our grades throughout the marking period online, so they knew when to berate us. It was a good bet that McPherson's personal information would be up, at the very least a phone number.
The entire administration had their addresses and phone numbers listed, including McPherson. We mapped his address and Theo printed out the directions, making a neat crease in the paper. Going into the backyard, we retrieved our bikes. Theo's had polka dot ribbons tied to the handlebars. McPherson's house was about ten minutes away in the opposite direction from Hawthorne. We biked there in silence, the cool, autumn scented air blowing in our faces.
The house itself was plain, with white siding and a meticulously clipped lawn. A neat little orange wreath was hung on the doorway for the season. Theo and I knelt behind the shrubs next to his mailbox.
"Alright, we're here. Now what?" I asked her. She was the one with the veritable degree in espionage.
Theo squinted, looking at the house through the gaps of the shrub. There was no car in the driveway, or any sign that anyone was home. I wondered if he was in a meeting or something at school. We hid our bikes behind another nearby row of bushes.
"Let's go up to the house," she insisted. We crept around the back, parallel to a line of neatly clipped, ugly crabapple trees. Theo boldly strode over to the back windows, and peered inside.
"Now I know I'm doing too much trespassing," I muttered. Theo looked back at me quizzically.
"What?" she asked. I shook my head and joined her at the window.
Inside was sparse, plain furniture: a white couch, a few tables and a TV. It almost looked like he had just moved there, as there were no photos, no decorative touches whatsoever, really. He seemed like a very organized person at first glance. But there was nothing so suspicious about that.
"We should probably get going," I said. "He's bound to come back any minute."
"What about over there?" Theo asked, gesturing towards a little shed set apart from the house.
We walked over to the shed and Theo tried pulling at the handles. It was locked.
"Do you smell that?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. I did; it was a stale, moldy smell, like something rotten had been there for a while. Theo and I frowned at each other. It didn't seem to fit with the picture of the spotless showroom house.
The sound of a car pulling up made us move. We ducked behind the bushes as McPherson arrived and pulled into his garage. After a moment, he came out and pushed the button for his garage door to lower, then stormed into his house. The front door slammed.
Quickly, we ran down the driveway and retrieved our bikes. Without a word to one another, we jumped on them and pedaled towards home.
"Wasn't the plan that we were going to spy on him?" I asked breathlessly as we slowed down, having put distance between ourselves and McPherson.
"Didn't you see him? He was not in the best mood," Theo replied, a little short of breath herself, taking her hand of the handlebars to push up her glasses. "If he had caught us snooping, he probably would have tied us up and stuck us in a box."
"What do you think was in the shed?" I asked as we pulled up into her driveway, safe and sound. "It smelled disgusting."
"I don't know," she replied. "But whatever it was, it didn't belong there."
On Sunday, I was doing homework in my room as usual. Theo and I had decided there wasn't much we could do about McPherson's mysterious shed, since we had been trespassing when we made the discovery. Still, the unknown made me nervous. McPherson had always thrown me a vibe that screamed wrong, and there had been something I couldn't put my finger on about his house that underscored the sentiment.
The letters in my biology textbook began to run together like broken eggs. I rubbed my eyes, yawning, ready for bed.
THUD.
I looked up above my head at the wall.
"Not again," I said to myself. I stood up and turned around, fully ready to go get one of my parents this time, no matter how immature that might make me seem. The lamp and the overhead light flickered for a moment, then disappeared, leaving me in total darkness.
THUD.
Fear pulsed through my veins with the beating of my heart. I was not alone in the room. Something was there with me. The dark was deeper than just having the lights off; something brought on the inky, thick air.
As I tried to make my way across the space to the door in the pitch blackness, it felt like something was pushing at me. Pushing me away from the exit. I waved my hands out uselessly in front of me.
I turned back, and for the shortest of seconds, I thought I saw Jenna's face flash before me. The image disappeared before I could fully process it. I thought I heard whispering again, from the vicinity of my closet. I felt along the wall and found the light switch, which was still in the up position. I flipped it several times, but the light was gone, swallowed by whatever brought on the dark.
I reached the door and grasped the metal knob with both hands. The light in the hallway was on, but as I glanced back, my room was still dark. No light could penetrate the empty void of my once comfortable room.
I rushed up the stairs, leaping two at a time, and to the living room. Hugh and Claire were watching movies on the couch. She was snuggled up to him and he had his arm around her shoulders. I hated to break their companion time up, but I was scared out of my wits.
"There is something in my room," I said, chest heaving as I tried to breath. A curious metallic taste filled my mouth, parching it dry.
"What?" Hugh asked, standing up.
"Something in my room," I repeated, gulping as I pointed to the staircase. "The lights went out. They won't come back on."
Claire started to stand as well, but Hugh held his hand out to prevent her from getting up.
"Just wait here, hon," Hugh said softly. "Pause the movie and I'll be right back."
He followed me back down the stairs and down the hall to my room. I stopped, allowing him to walk in front of me. I reached out and gripped his arm above the elbow, just in case.
We arrived at the door to my room, which was shut. I distinctly remembered leaving it open, when I stared at the black, yawning maw. He turned the doorknob slowly. The lamp glowed steadily on my desk, warm yellow light that seemed to mock me. Flipping the light switch, which turned on the overhead lamp, for good measure, he went inside.
I followed him in, looking up at the ceiling and over at the desk in disbelief. I hadn't imagined it this time, I couldn't have. The noise had been real, and the lights had definitely turned off. Was it a wiring issue? Or just the possibly faulty connections in my brain?
Hugh poked around in my closet, looked beside my bed and underneath, moving around the boxes, the same way I had when I thought there was a midnight intruder.
Finding nothing, Hugh stood up and turned to me.
"What exactly scared you so much?" he asked quietly.
"The lights went out," I said, disturbed to find my voice still shaking. I pointed at the wall. "And I have been hearing this banging noise, a couple of weeks ago and again tonight."
He went over and rapped on the wall, listening for any echo or response. When he heard nothing, he pulled back and regarded me, as I stood clasping my hands under my chin. I bet I looked just like a child, scared by imaginary monsters in the night. The thought made me feel utterly foolish.
"It's possible that an animal might have burrowed its way inside, trying to escape the cold," he suggested. "I'm sure it was nothing serious."
He gave me a familiar pat on the shoulder as he trudged out of the room, leaving me behind to stare at the space on the wall above my desk.
I knew better. Something was haunting me.