Phantom

Chapter Ten

“My face! My face!”

Wendy cried out in horror and tried uselessly to stop the flow of blood with her hands. At first, Rebecca could only watch, still as a statue as the sticky red blood seeped through her fingers. Wendy’s desperate calls for help finally spurred Rebecca into action, along with everyone else. The madness of the scene change was nothing compared to the mayhem that ensued. Suddenly, there were dozens of people swarming around on the stage, front and foremost being Miss King who was doing her best to calm the hysterical girl even though she was pretty close to hysterics herself.

“It’s going to be all right, honey.” Miss King consoled, and patted Wendy’s shoulder. “Help will be here soon.”

“My face, not my face.”

Tears were mixing with the blood that ran from the deep gashes on Wendy’s damaged face. So much blood that it was impossible to tell exactly where it was all coming from or how serious the wounds really were. The blood, Wendy’s sobbing, Miss King’s nervous pacing, it was all too much for Rebecca to take. She had to turn away from the carnage to keep from gagging.

The minutes seemed to tick by like hours as they waited for something, anything to happen. Thankfully, more than one cell phone had flipped open as soon as Wendy hit the ground, so in reality it wasn’t long before help arrived. Wendy was put into a neck brace as a precaution before they loaded her onto a stretcher, still crying and wailing. Rebecca was watching the whole calamity with silent horror, wanting to help, yet knowing the best thing she could do was stay out of the way.

“Now that’s gonna leave a mark.”

Only Jay could be that crude and make light of such a serious situation. He had materialized from behind the curtains along with Tom. Debbie and Carmen were coming from the opposite direction. Rebecca had lost track of her friends during the last scene, but was happy for their presence. Even Jay and his off color comments were better than being alone.

“Try to have a little couth, would you, Jay?” Debbie told him.

Jay’s response was to stick his tongue out at her, which only annoyed Debbie even more. The rest of them just ignored him.

“What happened?” Carmen asked. “Did you see her fall?”

“She must have tripped over something.” Tom reasoned.

They all watched in silence as Wendy was carried out of the auditorium. Everyone from actors to stagehands watched and waited, unsure what they were supposed to do next. Everyone, Rebecca noticed, except Justyn. His was the only face missing from the crowd of concerned onlookers. She looked around for him and finally noticed him lurking behind a curtain near the back of the stage. He wasn’t even looking at Wendy. He didn’t even seem to care that one of his classmates was seriously hurt.

Rebecca wondered if he really didn’t care, or if he was just trying to remain unnoticed. The shiny cord that had tripped Wendy had come from exactly the spot where Justyn had been standing. But when Rebecca looked down for the telltale wire, it was gone. Had she imagined it? Or had someone managed to move it during the frenzy that followed the accident? Whoever it was would have had to move quickly to avoid being seen. Of course, if someone was dressed entirely in black from head to toe, with nothing but a few shiny silver chains to give them away, it would be much easier to be overlooked in the darkness behind the stage.

Rebecca was about to voice her suspicions to her friends, but they were suddenly being shooed away by a visibly shaken Miss King. Wendy was gone, but the remnants of her accident still littered the stage, leaving behind an awful reminder. The fallen table, the broken mirror, the splattering of quickly drying blood. It all made Rebecca feel a little sick.

Mr. Russ appeared with a dustpan, a mop, and an angry scowl. Rebecca wondered if he had been waiting in the hallway all along for some kind of disaster to occur. She even thought for a moment that maybe he was the one behind the accident. But he had been in the doorway the whole time. It would have been impossible for him to trip Wendy with the wire.

The janitor mumbled to himself under his breath as he dragged his equipment up the aisle. But when he reached the top of the stage, he turned around, and very deliberately stared at them. No, it wasn’t really them as a group that he was watching. He stared right at Rebecca. It only lasted for a minute, and then he was back to work as usual, but it was obvious and deliberate enough that everyone in her small party noticed it.

“What is he looking at?” Carmen asked. “Is he in love with you too, Becca? I swear, it’s getting a little ridiculous the way every man who gets within five feet of you gets all weak in the knees.”

Was it just her imagination or did Carmen sound just a little bit jealous? She certainly wasn’t envious about the old janitor. But Tom had been as much of an unfilled fantasy for Carmen as he had been for Rebecca up until recently. She had thought her friend was happy for her, but there was an edge in Carmen’s voice that she had never heard before. It made her wonder if she was really okay about her budding relationship with Tom. But as quickly as it came, the unhappy tone disappeared, and Carmen was back to her normal, talkative self. It was probably just the stress of the day that was making everyone a little edgy. And Rebecca always did have a tendency to read too much into things.

It was no surprise when Miss King canceled the rest of practice. Carmen invited herself to Rebecca’s house so they could work on their science projects, which really translated to Rebecca doing the project while Carmen talked about boys and painted her nails. Debbie, of course, decided to tag along as well. Tom gave Rebecca a quick kiss on the cheek and left the girls to their business. He had decided to meet up with some of the guys from the basketball team, with Jay following behind him like an ever-present shadow.

Rebecca and her friends shuffled across the stage to grab their bags so they could leave. As she bent down, Rebecca noticed the crumbled paper that Wendy had tossed at her before practice had begun. She knew it wasn’t a good idea. She knew she was only going to drive herself insane, but she picked it up anyway, smoothed it out, and read the quote again. This time the words took on a much darker meaning because she knew it was more than just a joke.

“I tell you, daroga—mirrors can kill.”

How could anyone believe what happened to Wendy was just a coincidence? The note, coupled with the mysterious fall, was a prank worthy of the phantom himself. She would have thought the whole thing was suspicious even if she hadn’t seen the wire. But who would have wanted to do something so terrible? Sure, Wendy wasn’t the nicest person in the world, but she didn’t deserve to be hurt. Could it have been Justyn? He couldn’t possibly think that violence would be the way to her heart. But, then again, he knew how much she loved the story of Erik and Christine. It wasn’t inconceivable that he could try to mimic their story. After all, he was always quoting lines from the book and the play.

“Becca, your face is as white as a ghost,” Debbie said. She took hold of Rebecca’s hand, and squeezed it reassuringly. “What’s wrong?”

“This was no accident,” Rebecca told her. “Someone did this to Wendy on purpose.”

Debbie’s face turned just as white as Rebecca’s. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“How can you think anything else? The note, the mirror . . . .”

“The paranoia,” Carmen interjected. “It was just an accident, Becca. Wendy tripped over her own big feet.”

Rebecca shook her head. She thought about telling them about the wire. But she knew that now that it was gone, she couldn’t prove anything. It would only make her sound even more like a raving lunatic if they thought she was seeing things. So she dropped it altogether, and the three girls went out to her car.

The doors were unlocked, so Carmen and Debbie climbed in. But when Rebecca reached into her bag to get her keys to start the engine, they weren’t there. She had to resist the urge to smack herself in the forehead. She figured they must have fallen out of her bag and into her locker. The last thing she wanted to do was to run back inside the deserted school alone to retrieve them. But she also couldn’t stand the thought of her friends teasing her if she admitted she was afraid to go in alone because of an invisible stalker. So she fought back the unreasonable jitters and bravely walked up to the front doors on her own.

Once she was inside, and out of sight of Debbie and Carmen, Rebecca all but flew down the hallway to her locker. She rummaged through the unorganized bottom shelf until she found her heavy key chain. She had every intention of darting right back out the door, but of course that would have been too easy.

“Where are you running to in such a hurry?”

Rebecca jumped as Justyn came around the corner and stood between her and the exit. Her first reaction was annoyance. Why was Justyn always skulking around in the hallways after school was over?

“Do you even have a home?” She asked him in a huff. “Or do you just live in the rafters?”

Justyn actually flinched. “Ouch.”

Rebecca immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t like her to be so nasty. That was the kind of thing Wendy or Jay would say to him. Not Rebecca. She was supposed to be the nice one.

“I’m sorry; I’m just really stressed out over this thing with Wendy. And I really need to get out of here now, so if you don’t mind . . . .”

“Are you late for a date with your hero?”

Now she was getting annoyed again. Her emotions always ran a strange gamut whenever Justyn was in her presence, though for once the flustered feeling was absent. The jibe about Tom made her think again about her suspicions, and she had to wonder if she was safe being alone with Justyn. When she spoke again, she knew her voice was a little shaky, even though she tried to hold her ground.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Carmen and Debbie are waiting for me outside.”

She felt another twinge of guilt at the crestfallen look on his face when he heard the harshness in her voice. But her suspicions were overshadowing any guilt, and Rebecca tried to squeeze past him through the door. He stepped out of her way, but he looked confused.

“Is something wrong, Becca?” he asked, just as she put her hand on the door push. “I feel like you’re angry with me.”

Rebecca sighed and turned back around. She knew she wasn’t being fair. She had no proof that Justyn was the one who tried to hurt Wendy. He had never been anything but nice to her, not to mention open and up-front. And he obviously liked her, even though she was being a total jerk to him. She did her best to pull herself together and give him the benefit of the doubt.

“No, I’m not mad,” she told him. She tried to sound more relaxed, but her voice was still strained. “It’s just that . . . .”

“Just that you think I had something to do with Wendy’s accident,” Justyn concluded.

Rebecca had to stop and pick her mouth up off the floor. “Why . . . why would you say that?”

He laughed, just a little bitterly. “Because you’re practically jumping out of your skin. And because whenever something bad happens, the first person to get blamed is either the new guy or the person who’s a little different. In this case, I happen to be both. Who else would you blame?”

She swallowed hard. His voice wasn’t exactly belligerent, but it certainly wasn’t docile either. She couldn’t help but wonder why he would think it was anything more than an accident at all. No one, aside from Rebecca, seemed to think so. It made him seem even guiltier. But Rebecca decided that if he had done it, the last thing she should be doing was trying to make him angry. So she tried to be nonchalant.

“It’s not you. I just . . . I have a lot of homework to do.” That was so incredibly lame, she thought.

Justyn studied her, his dark eyes sad and brooding, for what seemed like a long time before he finally spoke. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be the reason why you didn’t make the honor roll this semester.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow at practice.”

She pushed open the door to walk out, but his lyrical voice stopped her in her tracks, so overflowing with all the misery and melancholy, all the heartbreak of the world, that she couldn’t help but listen. This time she didn’t swoon. Although he obviously meant the words as a testimony to his innocence, the fact that he was again quoting the same book as her real life phantom only made her doubt him even more.

"You are afraid of me and I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! . . . If you loved me I would be as gentle as a lamb, and you could do anything with me that you pleased."

Rebecca didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Instead, she walked out the door and into the parking lot without looking back.