“Didn’t she get into trouble?” Rad asked.
“We all did, which was totally unfair. We were the ones trying to stop her!” said Lucy.
“She got us kicked out,” I added.
“Your mum was furious,” said Lucy. “She took us straight home after that.”
“I was livid,” I laughed. “I kicked her in the shins for ruining my birthday.”
“When was the last time the three of you got together?” asked Freddy.
“I don’t even remember,” I said, sadly.
“She doesn’t answer her phone anymore,” Lucy said.
Shrieks of terror came from the roller coaster that wound its way above us. A small boy swung a giant hammer at the high striker, giggling with delight when the lights shot halfway up the tower.
“Hey, let’s go on the ghost train,” said Lucy, and the four of us went to join the line.
“Spoooooky!” said Freddy as we stepped into our carriages. The train jolted into life and began to move through a dark tunnel, decorated with hanging spiderwebs and silhouettes of ominous figures. I wasn’t a stranger to ghost trains, but for some reason, this one made me feel edgy. I felt for my rubber band in the dark but realized with a jolt of panic that I’d left it at home. I moved in closer to Rad, and he squeezed my hand reassuringly. He almost had a sixth sense when it came to how I was feeling.
“You okay?” he whispered in my ear.
“Fine,” I smiled brightly at him as a waxen Bride of Frankenstein suddenly dropped from the cavernous ceiling to confront us. There were several loud cries and shrieks, then I felt a tap on my shoulder and my head swung around sharply. My heart leaped into my throat. It was Ana. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
“Audrey! Audrey!” Rad shook my shoulders gently as I sat frozen with fear. One of the operators came over looking concerned.
“I saw a girl in there,” I told him, dazed.
“Wearing a white dress?” asked the operator.
I nodded.
“She must be one of our plants,” he explained. “We have a few in there.”
“Plants?” I was confused.
“Actors. Sorry if she gave you a fright.”
“I had some dude with a gorilla head tap me on the shoulder,” said Freddy. “Scared the living daylights out of me.”
My heart rate began to steady. “Jesus, I had no idea they did that.”
“Adds to the drama,” said Freddy, raising his hands in the air like claws and rippling his fingers.
“Audrey!” Lucy’s face was etched with worry. “You’re as white as a sheet.”
“You sure you’re okay?” asked Rad as he led me off the platform.
“Yeah, I just thought I saw a ghost.”
Twenty-one
Before long, city streets and department stores were glittering with Christmas displays. Rad and I were coming out of a movie theater one afternoon when I got a call from Lucy. There was an urgency in her voice. “Audrey, it’s Candela.”
We met Lucy at the Royal North Shore Hospital about twenty minutes later. “How is she?” I asked.
“Not great.” Lucy led us through the corridors. She stopped outside a ward, and we could see Candela through the doorway, lying eyes shut in a hospital bed. Her mother and sister, Eve, were sitting on either side of her. They both turned to us when we walked into the room.
“Audrey,” said Candela’s mother. Then she looked over at Rad and shot me a strange look. “Rad? Aren’t you the boy who was with Ana?”
An icy cold feeling enveloped my body.
“Yeah.” Rad looked a little uncomfortable. Eve’s eyes widened as though her mind had just joined the dots. At sixteen, she was the spitting image of Candela on the night I told that terrible lie.
“Any change?” asked Lucy.
Candela’s mother shook her head. “No, but we’re all praying.”
Candela was admitted to the hospital earlier that day. The details were sketchy, but Eve told us the ambulance was called to her house in Alexandria in the early morning. Though her housemates were tight-lipped, blood tests had revealed a deadly cocktail of drugs coursing through her body. Shortly after her arrival at the hospital, she slipped into a coma and had been in that state ever since. Eve relayed this to the three of us as we stood in the hallway, drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups. “When will she wake up?” I asked.
“They don’t know.” Eve’s voice was strained with worry. “The doctors said it was hard to tell with coma patients. We just have to wait and see.”
The next few days were a blur as Lucy and I took turns keeping vigil at Candela’s bedside. I brought a copy of Rad’s book and read it out loud to her. Sometimes Rad came along, and other times Freddy would be there. Not once did Dirk or Ramona bother to show up.
Late one morning, I was having lunch with Eve in the hospital cafeteria. “I haven’t seen Candela for months,” she admitted, picking miserably at her salad. We were quiet for a little while. “If only I had kept my mouth shut that night,” she continued, in a quiet, cautious tone.
I shook my head. “I was the one who should have kept my mouth shut.”
“It’s a strange twist of fate, isn’t it? How you’re with Rad now.”
“Yeah.”
“Does he know you were the one who saw Ana with her dad?”
“No,” I said quickly. Every time the thought popped up in my mind, I pushed it back down again, like a jack-in-the-box.
“My mother blames herself,” said Eve, putting her fork down. “When Candela found out Mum had told her friend about Ana, they had a huge fight. Then when we heard Ana had killed herself . . .” Eve trailed off.
“I know.” I was anxious to get off the subject. I knew exactly what Eve was alluding to. If none of this had happened, then Candela might never have moved out. If things had been different, she might not be lying in a hospital bed now, fighting for her life.
Later that night, Rad came over, and we decided to go for a drive. We were cruising up a long stretch of dirt road when he pulled over. I could tell something was on his mind. After a long silence, he said, “You’re the first person I’ve been able to open up to, since Ana.” As always, the mention of her name sent a chill through my body.
“You never talk about her.”
“I know,” he replied. “Being around the hospital these past few days has brought back some old memories. Ana wasn’t a stranger to hospitals—you’ve heard about that time she rigged up the garage while her parents were away?”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. Everyone knew about the day Ana’s parents had come back early from a trip to find her half-conscious in their garage, surrounded by a thick cloud of toxic fumes.