Invisible Ghosts

by Robyn Schneider

  Dedication

  For the girl who secretly hoped she’d get a Hogwarts letter—

  For the girl who makes wishes on every 11:11—

  For the girl who ran out of space on her bookshelves

  and bought this book anyway

  Epigraph

  The past is never where you think you left it.

  —KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, Ship of Fools

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Robyn Schneider

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  I LEARNED RECENTLY that the ancient Romans used to interpret even the most ordinary things as signs from the beyond. A spilled drink was a supernatural disaster. A sudden crack in a roof beam would send people into a panic. Things could sour in an instant, going from good luck to bad with a change in the weather or the setting of the sun.

  Even though I’ve never believed in those kinds of auguries, I can’t bring myself to dismiss them entirely, because there’s always been one specific omen in my life: a good-hair day.

  I’m not joking. Whenever my hair goes right, something else goes wrong. I have this theory that the universe expects payment for fixing it, except I never know what form that payment will take.

  The first time it happened was the morning the For Sale sign appeared in the Aldridges’ front yard. It was the summer before sixth grade, and my unruly bangs lay uncharacteristically flat while Jamie and I sat on his front steps, his cheeks splotchy as he mumbled that his parents were getting a divorce and he was moving to Santa Cruz with his mom.

  The second time it happened was during the auditions for my middle school’s production of Peter Pan. My hair was in these awesome braids Claudia had done, and I’d been rehearsing all week. Except I got hiccups right before I went on, and instead of Tiger Lily, I got cast as Pirate #5.

  The third time was the day of my brother’s funeral, which was already awful. I’d only been able to find two bobby pins for my bun, and then I’d accidentally dropped the deli platter, apologizing uselessly as my mom scraped lox off the kitchen floor in tears. But my bun had stayed put, despite its lack of pins, like it knew something needed to hold itself together that day.

  All of those disasters happened a long time ago, but there have been other, less devastating good-hair days since: the failed algebra test, Delia’s birthday scavenger hunt where I tripped over a patch of poison oak, the time I borrowed my dad’s car and hit a pole in the Trader Joe’s parking lot.

  They were days when I should have taken stock of my appearance and known to stay inside, marathoning Netflix in my pajamas. Except I never did. Each time, I convinced myself that I was imagining it, that good hair days couldn’t really be bad omens.

  Then I read about the ancient Romans, and everything started to make an odd kind of sense. Because I realized that superstitions don’t have to be just one thing for everyone. There’s probably a boy somewhere who believes heads-up pennies are unlucky, and a girl who refuses to wish on her birthday candles.

  People rarely have the same fears, so it makes sense that we have different omens. We’re all haunted by different things, until the day our ghosts finally leave us. Or the day we finally leave them. And maybe that’s what we’re really afraid of—not being ready to let go.

  THE FIRST DAY of my junior year dawned hot and cloudless after a week of gloom. It was the perfect weather for a beach trip, and I couldn’t decide whether that was depressing or just inevitable in Southern California.

  I stumbled toward the bathroom, already second-guessing the jeans and sweater I’d laid out the night before. That was when I glanced in the mirror. My impossible hair hung in loose waves instead of its usual tangled curls. It looked like those pictures on beauty blogs that explain how to get French Girl Hair, as though switching shampoos can change your nationality.

  No matter how much I reassured myself that everything would be fine, I knew how this went. And so I biked the mile between my house and Laguna Canyon High with a sense of impending doom. The whole way, I kept trying to work out what disaster might be waiting for me.

  I didn’t have any assignments due, other than the summer reading for Mr. Cope (Wide Sargasso Sea, which sounded like a euphemism for a vagina, but was actually a novel about postcolonialism). I guessed it could be a pop quiz in English, or some hideous group project in French, or a lemonade spill down the front of my shorts. But somehow I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  My phone vibrated gently as I biked past Canyon’s football field. My five-minute warning before the warning bell. I liked to think of it as my antisocial alarm, since it got me to school with just enough time to cut across the parking lot, dock my bike at the rack, and slide into my seat in advisement without having to talk to anyone.

  Advisement was the same group of students all four years, and there was literally no point to it. No one stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. No one had any announcements. No one cared.

  Plus, Mrs. Yoon taught biology, so we didn’t even get desks. Instead, we had to sit at four-top lab stations, on stools. In alphabetical order. Although I’d rather have an assigned seat than be forced to call out “here” at eight o’clock every morning. Especially with a last name like Asher, which usually placed me first on the roll sheet.

  At my station were Sean Baker and Colton Barnes, who promptly went to sleep inside their flipped-up water polo hoodies, and Darren Choi, who studied through every advisement with his headphones blasting hip-hop. Which meant I could either pretend to be fascinated by the lab-safety posters or dig out a book of my own.

  Despite my good-hair day, the universe remained suspiciously well behaved that morning. Mr. Cope went over the syllabus and begged us to cover our textbooks with paper bags. And then Ms. Dubois, aka Madame of the Perpetual Headache, put on The Adventures of Tintin. We’d already watched it last spring, and Darren, who was across the aisle, shot me an eye roll over this. I eye-rolled back.

  At lunch, I sat with the same group of girls who’d adopted me out of pity back in middle school. I guessed we were friends, but it didn’t really matter what we were, because lunch tables are just another version of assigned seating.

  It’s like when teachers tell you to partner up for a group activity. Most people pick from whoever’s sitting right there, because it’s easier than packing your stuff and moving across the room. Eventually, you start choosing the same people out of habit, without even considering the other options.

  There were four of us at my lunch table, which sat under the shaded overhang of the math building. An up-and-coming neighborhood, cool-kids adjacent, I’d joked one time, and Delia had practically murdered me with her glare.

  Some friend groups are defined by a sport everyone plays, or an extracurricular everyone joins, bu
t we were defined by Delia Kelly. We were her subordinates, the adjectives to her noun.

  Mrs. Kelly taught at our middle school, and back then, Delia had used her mom’s classroom as her private clubhouse. She’d ushered us into the cool air-conditioning and screened episodes of Pretty Little Liars at lunch like we should worship her for the honor. By the time we started high school, her power over us was absolute, and she made sure we knew it.

  Sometimes, though, I wished I could forget. I imagined drifting away into the sea of students and washing up at another lunch table. One where people seemed happy, instead of just resigned to each other’s company. Except I was afraid that if I ever let go of Delia’s table, instead of floating away, I’d drown.

  The cafeteria line at our school took forever, and only seniors could leave campus, so most of us packed lunch. I nibbled at my buttered bagel, and Emmy very earnestly dug into her tuna sandwich. We were both performing our specialty of staying out of it while Delia was a total bitch to Kate.

  This time, the drama was over the rolling backpack Kate had brought to school. It really was unfortunate, all pink-and-black checkers, like someone’s middle school Vans. And she hadn’t even tried to hide it, which I would have done. Instead, she’d parked it next to our table with the handle extended, which only proved what everyone already knew: that as far as groups of junior girls went, we were just a little bit tragic.

  “Ugh, it feels like we’re in an airport,” Delia complained, rolling her eyes for what must have been the third time.

  Kate’s cheeks went pink with embarrassment. I tore off another piece of my bagel, wishing we could move on.

  “If you want, I can loan you my bag from last year,” Emmy offered, trying to help.

  Except we all knew a different backpack wouldn’t undo the damage. Kate had made us look juvenile, which was unforgivable. And Delia would conveniently bring it up the next time she wasn’t invited to someone’s party or a cute boy didn’t smile back in the hallway.

  “I can’t,” Kate said, looking even more embarrassed. “My mom will be offended if I don’t use it.”

  She stared at her backpack like she was already resigned to dragging it around on a yearlong layover. And everyone was being so dramatic over that stupid bag that I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “What if you told your mom it’s too big to fit in the overhead compartment?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  No one laughed, and I wondered if there was something about me that neutralized jokes. Or, more likely, something about them.

  I sighed, disappointed with my friends, and how they never seemed to have fun, except in photos they’d posed for a million times. And then I glanced across the quad. Over on the slope next to the no-sodas vending machine, Sam Donovan and his crowd looked as cool as ever.

  Sam was holding court, his white-blond hair catching the sun. His theater-trained voice carried over everything, even though I was too far away to make out more than the boom of his laugh. Sam’s girlfriend, Claudia Flores, lounged stomach-down on a scarf, using it as a picnic blanket. Her shoes were off, and she was drawing on her wrist with a Sharpie. Darren and Max were there too, the school’s cutest couple in their matching sunglasses. Nima and Sam were arguing over something, which must have been hilarious, because Max put his head down on his arms, his whole body shaking with laughter. Nima gave a theatrical little bow, and Sam held up his hands, giving in.

  I watched as they laughed and chatted, and it felt like a million years ago that I used to hang out with them. Except it wasn’t a million years, just a lifetime ago—my brother’s.

  We all grew up together in Hidden Canyon. It’s the turn off Felicia Parkway that dead-ends at the back of the nature preserve. When we were kids, we’d ride our bikes up and down the cul-de-sac and swim in Sam’s pool and eat sour candy in our tree fort.

  The group was different then: Jamie still lived two houses down, and Nima constantly had piano lessons, and Darren hung around with those boys who played Yu-Gi-Oh in Chris Keeler’s garage. Then Jamie moved away, and Max moved in, and Darren started waving whenever we biked past.

  I’d distanced myself from my friends after Logan died. I’d thought it was a good idea, since it’s harder to tell what’s missing when nothing is familiar. But then I’d learned that running away is the easy part: it’s finding your way back that’s almost impossible.

  By freshman year, my window of opportunity had passed. Their popularity had been bestowed, their ranks had closed, and nobody remembered that I’d stood onstage alongside them in our sixth-grade production of Peter Pan.

  Now I was as good as not even there. My vibrant former friends raged on, while I’d faded so much that, when people looked through me, I barely even tinted the landscape.

  We hardly had classes together anymore, except for Advanced Theater, which I only took because I did costumes. Gardner’s class was our third block, right after lunch. The chairs in his room were arranged in a giant U, creating a makeshift stage.

  Gardner runs a tight ship—you need to be in Advanced to audition for the plays. Otherwise you get drafted into stage crew or ticket sales. He claimed it was because our class functioned as an extra rehearsal period, but I think he just liked playing favorites.

  I sat with Kate and her wheeled backpack, because that’s the other rule of friend groups: if you have class together, you sit together. And then you partner together, creating this endless loop of forced sameness.

  Kate wasn’t much of an actress, but she stuck around so she could design the playbills. Last year, we’d been the only students in Advanced whose names weren’t on the audition sheet—well, except for Leo Swanson, who’d broken his leg jousting at the Renaissance Faire, but that doesn’t count.

  On the far side of the room, my long-ago friends sat in a cluster, giving the impression they’d somehow transported their lunchtime picnic right into our class. They were our school’s reigning theater royalty, and this was the seat of their kingdom. They ran the drama club, the class-spirit committee, and the improv team. They ran so many things that I wondered if they ever got tired from all that running.

  Mr. Gardner was mostly stomach, which he somehow managed to belt his khakis underneath. It made him look like a human ice-cream cone. I did this thing where I imagined his polo shirts were the flavors: today, he was pistachio.

  Gardner droned on, making me want a scoop of Ben & Jerry’s. He was just about to announce his selection for the fall play when the door opened.

  “Sorry,” a boy said, trying to catch his breath. The sun was fierce behind him, and he was nothing but a silhouette framed in the doorway. “I thought Advanced Theater was in the theater.”

  “Well, now you know,” Gardner said. “Have a seat.”

  “Will do. Sorry, again.”

  He headed for an empty chair, and if I couldn’t already tell he was a new student, the way he was clutching his planner clued me in, folded open to the campus map. He was cute, though, with dark messy hair and soft brown eyes that turned down at the corners. His jeans were cuffed short, revealing a flash of ankle, since he was wearing loafers without socks.

  It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone did at our school, where our mascot probably should have been a flip-flop. He looked exactly like he made the girls in his English class fall in love with him every time he raised his hand, and he also looked like he knew it.

  I watched as he sat down on the other side of the room, crossing his bare ankles and glancing around in a way that was almost hopeful. I couldn’t figure out what he was looking for. And then his eyes met mine and stayed there just a moment too long, asking a question that I couldn’t quite decipher. It was strange, and totally unexpected. I frowned, because I had no idea what he wanted. He glanced away, embarrassed.

  I’ve always been suspicious of attractive boys. I don’t know why. It’s not like they chose to be born with gorgeous eyebrows or perfect jawlines. But still. Whenever a reasonably cute boy paid attention to me, I assumed
he meant it as a joke.

  “As you know, the fall play is usually a drama,” Gardner said, “and this year’s pick is no exception. At the end of the semester, we’ll be putting up the chilling, the creepy, the bloodcurdling . . . Dracula.”

  Everyone looked elated. Max and Nima high-fived, and Sam let out an ironic “hip, hip, huzzah!” Some of the seniors rolled their eyes, but everyone else loved it.

  Dracula. I couldn’t help but think how awesome it would be to do nineteenth-century costumes. I’ve always been hopelessly in love with Victorian England, even though living there pretty much sucked for everyone who wasn’t a rich white guy. Even so, I was slightly giddy at the thought of sourcing corsets and top hats.

  “All right, settle down,” Gardner scolded. “Auditions won’t be for another few weeks. And I still need to take roll.”

  He opened the manila folder, and I braced myself for the inevitable “Rose Asher?”

  “Jamie Aldridge?” he called instead.

  The boy who’d walked in late raised his hand, and I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open.

  “Here,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. But there was no way. Absolutely no way this was the neighbor I’d built pool-noodle floats with in the third grade.

  Except the more I stared, the more I could see it. Sure enough, beneath the trendy-somewhere-else clothes and hipster haircut was the boy who used to live two houses down.

  Sam’s crowd was also eyeing him with interest, and I couldn’t blame them. It almost didn’t feel real. But then, Laguna Canyon was no stranger to ghosts, both the kind that blew in with the Santa Ana winds and the kind that sat in your classroom looking nothing like you remembered.

  Gardner finished taking roll and picked up a thick stack of handouts. A table read, probably. We did those when we weren’t running rehearsals. The same students always volunteered to read, and the rest of us followed along silently, which is a perfect metaphor for high school, if you think about it.

  “This year we’re going to change things up,” Gardner said, splitting the handouts into stacks. “I want everyone to choose a monologue from this packet, to be memorized and performed on Friday.”