The other girls stared at her, eyes wide, tears falling down. Dana could see that they believed her. Suddenly Karen pushed her back, spun, and ran away down the hall. The stockier girl lingered for a moment, caught between the need to follow her friend and a compulsion to say something.
“Maisie was her cousin,” Angie said awkwardly. “She tried to talk her out of going to that party.”
“I—I’m sorry,” said Dana lamely.
Angie shook her head. “It’s not…” She stopped and started to go, but Dana caught up and touched her arm.
“What is it? What were you going to say?”
The girl did not answer. She shook her head and walked away to find her friend. Dana almost followed.
“What was that all about?”
Dana turned quickly to see another older girl standing there. One of Melissa’s friends. Anne Hassett. A cheerleader, like Eileen. She had short brown hair and a very Irish snub nose. This was the first time Dana had ever seen her when she wasn’t smiling.
“Oh. Hi. It’s Anne, right?”
“And you’re Dana,” said Anne. She wore tight jeans and a shirt with a cartoon mouse on it. The mouse was the only one smiling right now. “What did those girls want?”
“Why?”
Anne walked over and stood close. She was the same height as Dana and looked her straight in the eyes. “Because I asked.”
Dana tried to think of a reason not to tell her, and couldn’t. It wasn’t that kind of day. “The one girl was Maisie Bell’s cousin and—”
“I know who she is. What did she want?”
“Well … she asked me about something that happened yesterday.”
“You mean in the gym?”
“You heard about that?”
“Everyone’s heard about it,” said Anne. “What did she want to know?”
“She, um, wanted to know if Maisie was in pain.”
Anne’s eyes searched hers. “Was she?”
“Yes.”
“You told her that?”
“Yes.”
Anne looked past her. “Oh, man…”
There was a sound, and they both turned and saw a teenage guy standing with his back to them. Dana recognized him as Angelo, who worked at Beyond Beyond. He was dressed in a janitor’s blue pants and shirt. She hadn’t seen him around the school before. Angelo removed the top of one of the hallway trash cans and began emptying it into a larger, wheeled plastic barrel. He didn’t glance their way, but Anne jerked her head and walked a few feet farther down the hall. Dana followed.
“Look, what’s going on?” she asked. “Everyone treats me like I’ve done something wrong here, but I’m not making it up. Maybe I’m losing my mind, but I saw Maisie in the locker room.”
“How come it was you who saw Maisie?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
A lot of different emotions seemed to come and go in Anne’s eyes. Anger, resentment, hurt, and others Dana couldn’t label.
“You know what everyone’s saying about Maisie, right?” barked Anne. “That she was a ‘dumb kid’ and she wrecked her car, and they make assumptions. That’s how it always is. Anything anyone our age does that’s not square is because it’s us acting out or being wild. Like we can’t think for ourselves. Like we don’t matter. Maisie’s dead, and they’ll always say that she did it to herself because she got high, and that’s wrong. It’s … it’s a lie, an insult. It’s just wrong.”
Dana nodded.
“And then you come along,” said Anne, “and you don’t even know Maisie and she appears to you for some reason. That freaked everyone out. It’s like a sign of some kind. That’s what I think. That was her trying to tell the world that she didn’t die the way people think she did.”
“You … believe I saw her?”
Anne nodded. “Yeah. A lot of people do. I even heard a couple of teachers talking about it. Everyone thinks you’re some kind of freak, but … sure.”
The knowledge that the other students believed her jolted her, and Dana did not know how to take it.
“Craiger’s a weird town,” said Anne. “Always been weird. Maisie was weird, too. She went to all those weirdo classes at that stupid hippie shop.”
“Beyond Beyond?”
“Whatever it’s called, but yes. Always doing that meditation junk and saying she was walking through veils and—how’d she put it?—connecting with the planetary energetics. Talking with the earth spirit Gaia. Talking about how she was part of the movement to bring everyone into a new age. I don’t know. She went on and on about that stuff, and I usually tuned her out. All that matters is that after she died, she came to you.”
“Why me, though?” pleaded Dana. “We never even met. Why come to me, of all people?”
Anne studied her for a moment, her eyes hooded and calculating. “All I know is that if it happened, there has to be a reason.”
“But what reason? It’s driving me totally out of my mind.”
“Yeah, like I said, this is Craiger. Welcome to the club.” Anne flapped an arm in disgust and then just walked away, leaving Dana alone in the hall. Angelo had gone, too, and Dana felt as if she was miles and miles away from anyone she knew, or anything that made sense.
She hugged her backpack to her chest and hurried to her next class, which she was already late for.
CHAPTER 19
Craiger, Maryland