The Haunted

by Danielle Vega

  They were almost eye level. He was only an inch or two taller than Hendricks was. This close, she could see a faint spray of freckles on his nose. There was something vulnerable about them. They didn’t match with the black T-shirt and beat-up leather jacket.

  She shifted her eyes away. “Anyway. I’ll see you around. Or not, seeing as you hate school and won’t tell me your name.”

  She turned away from him, trying to walk fast enough to leave him behind without being totally obvious about what she was doing. She thought she felt the faint pressure of his stare on the back of her head. It gave her a strange thrill, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking back. Let him watch her walk away.

  She’d managed to put half a block between them when he called after her, “Hey! Hold up.”

  Hendricks hesitated. Then she turned back around.

  He made his way toward her slowly, not bothering to rush, which just made her feel like a spaz for speeding away from him.

  He waited until they were side by side again before asking, voice low, “Was someone . . . screaming at your place last night?”

  The blood drained from Hendricks’s face.

  “I—I saw a spider,” she blurted.

  “A spider,” he repeated. He didn’t sound convinced.

  Hendricks searched his eyes, her heart stuttering. His expression didn’t give anything away, but she felt his interest sharpen. He cared about what had happened last night. He cared more than he wanted her to know.

  “What’s your name?” she asked again.

  He held her gaze for a beat, long enough that she thought he might answer. Then he pulled a crumpled carton out of his jacket pocket and shook a cigarette loose.

  “You know what?” he said, sticking the cigarette between his teeth. “Fuck school.”

  And he brushed past Hendricks, heading back down the sidewalk the way he came.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Raven looked scandalized. “Hendricks, please tell me this guy you’re talking about isn’t Eddie Ruiz?”

  School had just ended, and they were crowded around Portia’s locker, waiting for Portia to reapply her lipstick. Some kid Hendricks didn’t recognize raced down the hallway past her, and she had to dart to the side to avoid getting hit in the face with his backpack.

  “Watch it, Gavin!” Portia yelled after him, her eyes never leaving the foggy mirror attached to the inside of her locker door. The boy turned in place, running backward, and cast an apologetic expression in their direction before bursting out of the school doors. Portia made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat and muttered, “Rude.”

  “Eddie Ruiz,” Hendricks murmured, distractedly watching Portia dab at her lips, making sure she’d gotten her cupid’s bow just right. She’d never seen anyone outside of a YouTube tutorial spend so much time on her lipstick. It was hypnotic.

  She shook her head and turned back to Raven. “Is that his name? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Well, obviously he wouldn’t tell you. He was probably relieved to find someone in this town who didn’t already know who he was.” Portia sniffed, and stuck the cap back on her lipstick. “God, he’s probably wanking it to you, right now.”

  “That’s nasty, Portia,” Raven said, and Portia grinned, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Wait, who is he?” Hendricks asked. “Why wouldn’t he want me to know his name?”

  “Eddie’s from the wrong side of the tracks,” Portia explained, “but not in a sexy, eighties-movie way. In a gross way.”

  “He said he lived around the corner from me,” Hendricks said.

  “It’s a metaphorical wrong side of the tracks. You should steer clear of him.” Raven fished around in her backpack and, a moment later, she pulled out a root-beer-flavored Dum Dum. “Believe me, you don’t want his drama.”

  She carefully unwrapped the sucker and stuck it into her mouth. Portia made a face and said, “Ew, where did you even get that?”

  “I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”

  “What kind of a doctor hands out candy?”

  Hendricks let them bicker. She shifted her gaze to the school doors beyond Portia’s hair, searching the yard for Eddie’s familiar black-on-black ensemble. But, of course, she wouldn’t see him. He’d skipped today.

  I can think of about ten thousand places I’d rather be than that hellhole, he’d told her. Well, at least now she understood why. No wonder she never saw him in school.

  “That whole family is so messed up,” Portia was saying when Hendricks tuned back in. “A lot of people think Eddie is, like, some sort of psychopath. Like maybe he kills kittens and—”

  “Anyway,” Raven cut in, giving Portia a pointed look. “Maybe we can save the Eddie rumors for another day? We don’t want to completely freak her out.”

  Portia shrugged. “Whatever. She’s going to figure all this out eventually.” Smirking, she added. “Our town has some serious baggage.”

  Raven rolled her eyes and said, lips moving around her sucker, “Our town is perfectly normal and boring, thank you very much. Hey, are we still headed to your place?”

  “What? Oh yeah, definitely,” Hendricks said.

  Her parents were taking Brady in for his eighteen-month checkup, so the house was going to be empty when she got home. She winced, remembering how her blood had gone cold when she’d gotten the text that afternoon. She didn’t want to be alone in the house, even if was only for an hour. The events of last night were still fresh in her mind.

  And so she’d invited Portia and Raven over. Problem solved.

  She added, “My parents won’t be home till after six, so you can camp out until they get back.”

  Please, she added silently.

  “Lead the way.” Portia slammed her locker door, and the three headed for the school’s main entrance. They were the last ones in the halls. Portia had spent a full twenty minutes perfecting her lips. “And by the way, the Ruiz family isn’t our only bizarre story. What about those boys who disappeared in the nineties?”

  Raven blinked at her. “Huh?”

  “Those boys! Come on, you know who I’m talking about. They disappeared when our parents were in high school. Didn’t you ever hear the story?”

  Raven pulled the sucker out of her mouth and pointed it at Portia. “Girl, you know my parents didn’t go to high school here.”

  “Oh, right. Well, my mom told me that her freshman year, three of the coolest boys in school just vanished, and no one ever heard from them again.” Portia snapped her fingers. “They were gone, just like that.”

  Raven snorted. “Bullshit. My dad tells the same story about some guy at his high school, and he grew up in Hong Kong. I call urban legend.”

  “It’s totally true. My mom showed me her yearbook and everything. There’s, like, a whole memorial page dedicated to them.”

  “Then they ran away to become contract killers or something.”

  Portia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Rave, all three of them ran away to become contract killers and never came back.”

  Portia and Raven kept up a steady stream of casual bickering for the rest of the walk to Hendricks’s place. Hendricks felt a pang of jealousy listening to them. She used to have that, back at her old school. She sighed, thinking of it. It kept hitting her at strange times: that was all gone now.

  And so she was more than a little relieved when the three of them finally climbed the steps to Steele House. At least being home meant she could play hostess. She might not have much to add to the conversation, but at least she’d have something to do with her hands.

  “You guys want something to eat?” she asked, heading for the fridge.

  Raven finished crunching through her sucker. “Maybe something healthy? I have to cheer tomorrow.”

  Portia snorted. “Yeah, like that s
ucker was healthy?”

  “It was from my doctor.”

  Portia rolled her eyes and turned back to Hendricks. “So,” she said, all casual. “Did you bump into Connor at all today?”

  Hendricks had just opened the fridge to grab them some cans of LaCroix, but she froze, one hand wrapped around the door handle, icy air cooling the heat rising in her face.

  “Um, just once, in the hall after bio.” She set the cans of sparkling water on the kitchen island and loaded her arms up with baby carrots and red pepper hummus. She knocked the fridge door shut with her hip and saw that Raven and Portia were both staring at her.

  Not sure what they expected, she blurted, “He said he had to do a makeup test over lunch and wanted to say hi.” A shrug. “That’s all.”

  That wasn’t all, not entirely, but Hendricks wasn’t sure how to tell them about what had actually happened. The whole thing had lasted maybe three minutes, but it had been the first three minutes she and Connor had spent alone, and Hendricks had used it to officially turn down his date offer. It had been . . . awkward.

  She blushed now, thinking of it.

  After a beat, Raven rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Hendricks, put us out of our misery. Are you going out with him or aren’t you?”

  Hendricks dumped the food on the island and ripped the bag of baby carrots open. She made a face. “He told you about that?”

  “Connor and I have known each other since preschool.” Portia popped her LaCroix open, and fizzy, grapefruit-flavored water gathered on top. She slurped it up, smudging the rim of the can with pink lipstick. “He was the first person I told about being gay, and I was the first person he called when Finn got into that car crash last year and stopped breathing for like two minutes. We tell each other everything.”

  Raven snorted. “Yeah, Connor and I have known each other for thirteen months and he tells me everything, too.” Portia shot her a disgusted look, and Raven added, “Come on, he tells everyone everything. The boy does not know what a secret is. Be prepared for the whole school to know everything about your entire relationship.”

  Hendricks swallowed too quickly and sparkling water went down her windpipe, making her choke. She threw a hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. That wasn’t good news. If everyone was going to talk about her dating Connor, what would they say once they’d heard she turned him down?

  She shifted her eyes to her fingers, clenching the sides of her can, and tried to ignore the squirming in her stomach. “Look,” she started. “I like Connor, I do, I just don’t think I’m ready to date anyone yet.”

  Portia rolled her eyes. “I seriously don’t get that. What, were you and your last boyfriend engaged or something? Did you exchange cheesy promise rings and swear that you’d wait for each other?”

  Hendricks felt her cheeks flush. “No.”

  “Then what’s the holdup? I can tell you like him, too. I’ve seen you staring at his arms. And you guys would be so cute together.” And then, eyes wide, “Your couple name would be Condricks.”

  Hendricks opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She had no idea how to respond to that.

  Maybe Portia was right. Maybe dating someone new wasn’t the worst idea in the world. It could be, like, a rebound, something to keep her from obsessing about Grayson.

  But it also sort of felt as if she was trading one boyfriend for another.

  It was hard to know what the right choice was. Sometimes she felt a little unhinged, like she was making everything that had happened so much bigger than it needed to be. Other times, she felt like she should be double-checking that every door and window was locked, never walking alone at night, hurrying past empty streets. She didn’t want either of those to be true.

  Now, Portia was frowning at her. “Seriously, though. You never talk about your old school.”

  Hendricks shrugged, staring down at her LaCroix.

  “Your old friends, hobbies, ex-boyfriends. You know, life.”

  Hendricks felt a little sick.

  Raven’s eyes darted to Portia, wary. “Come on, Portia, give her a break.”

  “I’m just trying to get an idea of who she is,” Portia continued, unapologetic. To Hendricks, “You show up here, all mysteriously in the middle of the year, and you’re not on social media and you don’t say anything about your old school, like, ever. You have to admit it’s a little spooky. Are you a vampire? Have you been a sixteen-year-old girl for the last two hundred years? Do you reinvent yourself whenever you move to a new town so no one discovers your secret?”

  “No,” Hendricks said.

  “Then what’s the deal?” Portia asked.

  “There’s no deal. In middle school, I had a bunch of girlfriends. I was into everything—sports, school plays, the newspaper.” Hendricks felt her cheeks grow warmer. “I was a bit of an overachiever, I guess. When I met Grayson . . . I forgot who I was for a while. He became everything. But no one knows who I used to be here, so I sort of thought I could start over.”

  And figure out who I am without Grayson, she added silently.

  It was the first entirely true thing she’d said since she moved here, and it made her feel vulnerable and raw.

  Luckily, Raven cut in before Portia could add anything else and said, voice flattened, “Was that enough for you, Portia? If you don’t leave her alone, I’m going to make you talk about Vi.”

  “Fine,” Portia said with a sigh. But two bright-red spots had blossomed on her cheeks.

  Hendricks raised her eyebrows. Grateful to have the conversation steered away from her, she asked, singsong, “Who’s Vi?”

  “No one,” Portia said at the same time that Raven said, “Portia’s first girl crush who she makes googly eyes at when she thinks no one’s looking.”

  Portia rolled her eyes. “Betty was my first girl crush.”

  “Okay, she’s your first girl crush who isn’t a character on a CW show,” Raven corrected.

  Portia glared daggers at her, but Raven just shrugged. “What? You told me about her easily enough.”

  “Yeah, after playing beer pong at Blake’s all night.” Portia shifted her eyes to her hands. To Hendricks’s surprise, the blush had spread to her entire face. “You can’t expect me to talk about her sober.”

  Hendricks had an idea. “You know, my parents decided to turn that weird basement into a wine cellar. My dad’s sort of a collector, and they have cases and cases of the stuff just sitting down there. I don’t think they’d notice if a bottle went missing.”

  And I would feel way more comfortable talking about Connor if I was a little buzzed, she thought.

  Portia’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “They don’t count the bottles?” Raven wrinkled her nose. “My parents count the bottles of this gross Bud Light Lime low-calorie crap they buy. As if I’d ever be desperate enough to drink that.”

  “My parents don’t count the bottles.” Hendricks held up her La-Croix. “We could make spritzers. I used to do it back in Philly all the time. You wouldn’t think grapefruit and red wine go together, but it tastes amazing.”

  Portia and Raven shared a look. “Yes, please,” Portia said.

  Hendricks ducked out the front door, arms hugged over her chest to protect against the chill. The wind sighed through the trees and rattled the fallen leaves strewn across the street. It struck Hendricks as a strangely mournful sound, like the breath you took just before you started to cry. She found herself checking over her shoulder as she wandered around to the side of the house, half expecting to see someone on the curb behind her, watching. But there was no one.

  The entrance to the wine cellar looked like a trapdoor angling up from the ground, the latches held shut with a chain that was supposed to be attached to a padlock but was currently attached to nothing. The old padlock had broken and Hendricks’s dad hadn’t gotten around to buying
a new one yet.

  Hendricks had one hand reaching for the chain when the chain moved, slithering between the latches, muscles thick and undulating in the dim, gray light. She heard the low hiss of a tongue, followed by a dry papery rattle.

  She recoiled, jerking backward so quickly she nearly lost her balance. Her pulse spiked in her throat.

  “Shit,” she said through her teeth, wrapping her arms around her chest. “Shit, shit.”

  She kept her eyes trained on the snake, trying to steady her breath.

  But . . . she frowned, tilting her head. It wasn’t a snake at all, but just a chain wrapped loosely around the trapdoor latches.

  She took a cautious step closer, leaning forward. Then, still unsure, she grabbed a stick from the ground and poked it.

  The chain didn’t move.

  “Jesus,” she muttered, embarrassed. Hands still twitching, she uncoiled the chain from the latches and pulled the door open just enough to slip inside. It thumped shut above her head, ominous.

  Darkness fell over her. Alone now, Hendricks felt her chest release, air whooshing out from between her lips. She stayed at the top of the stairs for a moment, just breathing.

  This was going well, she told herself, trying to calm her nerves. Or, at least, she thought it was going well. Raven and Portia seemed to like her.

  Except . . . God, how could you tell for sure whether someone liked you? She didn’t actually know what Raven and Portia thought about her. They were asking her questions. But maybe that’s just because they knew Connor liked her. Maybe they were upstairs right now, talking about what a freak she was.

  “Wine,” she said out loud. That was her only job for the moment. Choose a bottle of wine that her father wouldn’t notice missing and do her best to prove that she wasn’t a freak.

  The cellar was dark, with a low ceiling and packed-dirt floors. Hendricks flipped the switch at the top of the stairs, and the single light bulb blinked on, filling the small room with a tinny, electric buzz.