Sylvia’s head whips to stare at me and the answer is plain on her face. I curse under my breath, and Sylvia touches my arm. “Don’t blame your mom, okay? She saw how upset I was about you choosing Veronica over me, and she told us to help me understand why you did choose Veronica. She told us to help me.”
My vision tunnels. “Us? She told multiple people?”
Sylvia flutters her hands in the air as if that will calm me. “Just me, Mom and their close friends. They won’t tell anyone. They promised. Your mom said Veronica’s dad was adamant about that.”
My hands shake, and I have to put the strap of the camera around my neck so I don’t smash it into the ground. “That wasn’t her business to tell.”
“Don’t you understand? She told me about Veronica to help me. I was so hurt and when I found out about Veronica’s tumor, I was relieved. You didn’t choose her as a friend over me. You’re just a really great guy who is helping someone who is going through something horrible. And to be honest, I don’t get why Veronica doesn’t tell everyone that she has a brain tumor and not just any brain tumor. The type of one her mom died from. I didn’t even know her mom died recently. Do you have any idea how life would be different for her if people knew?”
“Why?” I have to work to lower my voice so Veronica doesn’t hear. “So people can pity-like her? Is that what you’d want? For people to only like you because you have a tumor? Shouldn’t they try to like her for who she is and not something she can’t control?”
“I won’t tell anyone, okay? And neither will Miguel. I think it’s a stupid decision, but we’ll respect it. And stop jumping down my throat. I’m part of this group to help. To help you. To help her. To help. I’m not heartless, and I really don’t appreciate the fact that’s how you’re making me feel.”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know!” I whisper-shout.
“I get that,” she whisper-shouts back. “But it’s not my fault your mom told me. I know about the tumor. I’m glad I know, but I’m not to blame because of what someone else decided to tell me. I won’t tell anyone else, and I won’t tell because I understand having a secret. Remember?”
I scrub my hands over my face. I do remember. I remember her fear as she told me she likes girls, not boys. How she was terrified I would reject her and then how she begged me to keep her secret. I did, and now I’m questioning my best friend whether she could do the same. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she says. “But none of this changes the fact that I’m terrified of death and she’s not and now I’m the one standing over a dead person’s body waiting for a bony hand to reach out of the ground and pull me under.”
“That won’t happen,” says Veronica, and my stomach drops as she walks into the light of Sylvia’s cell. How much did she hear and is she going to blame me? She should. It seems just knowing me is a train wreck no one in my path can avoid.
I study Veronica, searching for any sign that she overheard us. She gives nothing when she’s upset, but that doesn’t mean she did or she didn’t. Veronica is a queen at masking.
“We found the statue.” She jacks her thumb over her shoulder, and there’s adventure in her tone. “Come check it out.”
Veronica’s curls bounce and her red plaid skirt swirls around her thighs as she turns away from us. She wears a heavy jean jacket, one that appears too large for her, and black-and-white-striped leggings with combat boots. She’s damn sexy and with how she looks over her shoulder at me and winks, she’s aware of what I’m thinking.
“Do you think she overhead us?” Sylvia whispers.
“I don’t know.” I follow after Veronica and Sylvia stays by my side.
“Are you going to tell her? That Miguel and I know?”
My insides feel like a garbage pit. There’s no win in this for Veronica. If I tell her then she knows that other people know and pity her. Plus she’ll figure out my mom’s a nuclear waste dump of gossip. If I don’t tell her—that feels wrong, too. “I don’t know yet. Probably. But not now.”
Miguel’s face is lit up by the screen of his cell phone he’s currently scrolling through. “So I found two stories about this statue. The first story is the one we told you about earlier—if you touch Mary’s hands and they’re cold then you die.”
“Super,” mumbles Sylvia.
“The other is that if Mary’s hands are folded and she’s looking down then everyone here is going to live.” Miguel continues to read from his cell. “But if Mary’s arms are outstretched and she’s looking up to heaven, then at least one of us is going to die.”
Sylvia holds herself tight as if the sweatshirt she’s wearing isn’t big or warm enough. “FYI, I hate every single one of you. Stories about religious statues that move aren’t okay and I’m never going to sleep again.”
“So are you guys ready to see how she’s standing?” Veronica asks with an evil little smile, and I can already guess the results.
“Nope.” Sylvia turns her back the moment Veronica shines the light on the statue. “I don’t want to know.” She looks at me. “What’s the statue doing? No, I changed my mind. Don’t tell me. Her arms are stretched open, aren’t they? Forget it, don’t tell me.”
It’s hard to hide my smile, and when it appears anyhow Sylvia glares at me. “You are not cute.”
“I never said I was,” I say, and glance over to find Veronica and Miguel smiling from ear to ear as there is just something amusing about being worked up over a statue.
“Her hands are folded,” Veronica says.
Sylvia locks eyes with me. “For real? Are they? Because if I turn around and her arms are outstretched, I swear to God I will punch you in your stomach.”
“Hands folded,” I confirm.
But as Sylvia starts to turn, Miguel gasps, “She just moved!”
Sylvia pauses in terror and when her eyes land on the statue and she sees the hands are still folded, she throws her pissed-off glare at Miguel. “You’re dead.”
Miguel starts backing up as he’s quite aware Sylvia is faster than him. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m at a cemetery.”
She’s off, so is Miguel and their shouts and laughter carry off into the night.
That leaves me and Veronica. She’s smiling, which is beautiful, but a part of me is heavy. I hate that there are things I should tell her that she doesn’t want to know. I raise the camera and take of picture of her.
“Hoping to find a spirit orb attached to me?” she asks.
“Just like taking pictures of you.”
“Hmm,” is her only response. Veronica pivots on her toes and studies the statue of Mary. “I have to agree with Sylvia. The statue is creepy. Being Christian and all, I guess I should find some sort of peace in a figure of the mother of God, but I don’t. Something about this statue feels … off.”
I have to agree as I snap a few pictures of the statue. The energy of the cemetery is nothing like it was at the bridge. There’s something here that feels darker, heavier, as if there’s something looming behind gravestones, in the trees, watching, waiting … attaching.
As if there’s a coat of slime right above the layer of my skin and the longer we stay here, the thicker it becomes. “It’s because it’s cloudy tonight and a thunderstorm is supposed to move through later this evening. It’s the energy in the atmosphere messing with us.”
“It’s energy all right,” says Veronica, “but it’s not the weather. I think it’s the spirits here. The ones at the bridge felt more open and inviting after we took the fall, but here … I feel as if they want us to leave.”
Veronica reaches out her hand and a shock of electricity rushes through me when her fingers come in contact with Mary’s hands. I take a picture, several of them, and I’m surprised to find my own hands shaking when I lower the camera. Veronica isn’t touching the statue anymore, but she’s stretching her fingers as if they’re stiff and ache.
“You okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t respond immediately, just stare
s at the statue.
“Veronica?”
“I’m good.” She turns in time to see Miguel and Sylvia laughing and smiling as they walk back toward us. “We should take some EVPs, and maybe try the ghost box.”
VERONICA
The four of us sit on a grassy knoll on the edge of the cemetery and take turns asking questions into the recorder. Some silly, some serious, all with a level of respect. Something is a bit off here, though. Something beyond the normal, almost as if we’re the ones being watched.
“What would you do if a girl in a prom dress walked around that curve?” Miguel asks as soon as he turns off the digital recorder.
“Honestly?” Sawyer asks.
“Yeah.”
“Run.”
The two of them laugh while Sylvia and I glance at each other. We’ve picked nothing up on the recorder, nothing we can hear with human ears, and I’m growing restless as I feel that Sarah isn’t the one making the skin at the base of my neck prickle with unease. There’s something else here, the something Glory has been warning me about.
“I think Sarah’s ghost must be a residual haunting,” I say.
“What makes you say that?” Sawyer asks.
“Most of the stories we read have one thing in common—they see Sarah walking along the road and cemetery. As Sylvia said earlier, think of all the emotion that probably went into preparing for the dance. All the joy and hope and nerves and then for it to end with such disappointment and fear? That seems like a ton of powerful emotion and it seems plausible that emotion would imprint onto the area.”
“If it’s a residual haunting,” says Miguel, “then why haven’t we seen it?”
“Maybe we did when we took that curve,” I counter. “What we saw was a white flash. Unless there are albino deer on this hill or a massive, dinosaur-sized rabbit, that wasn’t Bambi or Thumper crossing the road.”
Sylvia shivers and wraps herself tighter into the blanket she found in the trunk of Miguel’s SUV. “I still think this is too creepy.”
“You’re looking at death and ghosts all wrong,” I say. “Why does any of it have to be scary? Why can’t it be the same as taking a breath in and then taking a breath out? A part of living that we do without overthinking?”
“She’s got a point.” Sawyer stretches out beside me on the grass, holding himself up by his elbows. “If residual hauntings are real then that means ghosts are nothing more than intense memories on replay so there’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I didn’t say ghosts aren’t real.” I’m quick to nix that train of thought. “I think residual hauntings and ghosts are real. Remember the EVP and the picture of the spirit orb?”
“Yeah, Einstein,” Miguel says, “explain that.”
“That’s not the subject at hand.” Sawyer is quick in his retort, and I have to say that I love how he doesn’t bat an eye to debate something he believes to the core is silly. “Veronica’s saying there’s nothing to be scared of and I’m agreeing. We should think this haunting through and determine for the paper whether or not we believe this is an actual haunting or a residual haunting. Fact one: someone named Sarah died in a car crash. Fact two: she’s, in theory, buried a few feet away from us. Fact three: there are reports of a girl walking along the side of the road in a prom dress. Has anyone here read anything about the girl interacting with anyone?”
None of us speak up. The one thing I’ve learned about Sylvia and Miguel is that they take their grades seriously. They’ve researched this hill nearly as much as I have.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Sawyer continues. “This haunting, if it’s real, is a residual haunting. The emotion of the car accident was so intense that it imprinted on this time and space. My guess is that Sarah’s not really walking around here, but at peace. The only thing that would be left behind is the fear she felt due to the crash.”
Sylvia pulls the blanket closer. “Still creepy and not making me feel better.”
“Why does death scare you?” I ask. It’s not a question meant to hurt or to even pry, but the look on Sylvia’s face, the pure fear, makes something deep within me hurt.
“Why doesn’t it scare you?” she spits out like she’s mad, but all I see is fear. “In fact, why am I the only person here freaked out?”
“I’m quaking in my boots,” Miguel says, but he looks about as calm as Sawyer. “At least the deer-slash-possible-ghost portion made me piss my pants.”
“Seriously?” Sylvia bites out. “I’m the only one who’s scared of death?”
“I’m not exactly a fan of it,” Miguel says.
Sawyer sits up, draws his knees to his chest, and rests his arms on them. “I’m not scared of dying as much as I don’t want to die. Sometimes I think of the stupid things I do and how it would be easy for it to go wrong and then question what would happen to Lucy if I was gone.”
Sylvia blinks several times, as if she’s shocked to hear that come from Sawyer.
“Are you scared of what happens to you after you die?” Sylvia asks. “Like, are you scared you’ll be trapped in your own body? As in you can hear, but can’t move or breathe or … you know … didn’t do it all right and end up burning in hell?”
The ends of Sawyer’s lips inch up. “I wasn’t before, but thanks, because I am now.”
We all giggle, but he’s right. It’s all there now in the forefront of the brain.
Miguel runs a hand through his black hair and mirrors Sawyer’s position. “Does any of this make you wonder what your residual haunting would be?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“If you were meant to die in your worst moment, the one moment that had such an emotional impact that it would stick around forever, what would it be?”
It’s a tough question, an honest question, and I hate that I know the answer so quickly.
“It’s not your fault, Miguel,” Sawyer says as Sylvia reaches over and places a hand on Miguel’s shoulder. The pain radiating from him causes me to shrink.
For so long, I thought of these three people as the enemy—the untouchable popular kids who never felt a thing, but sitting here, witnessing this moment of support, I realize that pain is more universal than I had given it credit for. Sylvia slides next to Miguel and places her head on his shoulder and wraps her arms around him, reminding me of me and Nazareth.
“Mine would be after Mom and Dad first split,” Sawyer says. “Lucy was a baby and cried all the time, I was miserable and used to complain how much I missed home. I was mad at my mom. So mad. I didn’t understand why Mom couldn’t make it work with Dad. They fought all the time and it was Mom always doing the yelling and I thought if she could have just stopped maybe they could have made it work.”
Sawyer lowers his head and it’s like the world quit breathing.
“I was at Mom all the time, every second, telling her it was her fault she and Dad split. Telling her it was her fault Lucy cried all the time, and then one day, Mom broke. We were in the kitchen and I was at her like I always was and she bowed her head and cried. I never saw her cry before and it scared me. Bad. Then she kept crying. She cried in her bedroom, she cried in the bathroom, cried in the shower. She kept crying. She broke and I realized I was to blame.”
“Oh, Sawyer.” Sylvia breathes out, and Sawyer shuts his eyes like her sorrow for him causes him pain. I get that. Pity doesn’t make anything better, but often makes it worse.
“Mine would be when my mom died,” I say while I keep my eyes on Sawyer. He finally opens his, and I see the raw gratefulness that I took the spotlight away from him. “She didn’t want to go through the last two rounds of treatment. She barely wanted to go through the two rounds before that, but she did, for my dad.”
My throat constricts and my palms grow clammy with the memory. I wipe my hands along my skirt. “My mom was life. When she walked into a room you could feel the breeze on your skin, taste the honeysuckle of a summer’s day, and smell the roses in bloom. She lived and she loved and she laugh
ed and then she was sick. So sick. We all knew she was going to die, but instead of dying with a smile on her face, doing what she loved the most, she died weighing eighty pounds, so sick she couldn’t even eat. Her skin and muscles so sensitive that my touch brought her pain. Watching that, seeing her, seeing my father fall apart … that was hell.”
I close my eyes as I try desperately to erase the images of her so weak, so broken, and there’s a touch. My hair lovingly tucked behind my ear—just like my mom used to do. When I open my eyes, I see Sawyer loving me.
“My grandma told me that I’m going to hell,” Sylvia says in a whisper. “In front of my mom, in front of my dad, in front of my brother and sister, in front of my aunts and uncles, in front of all the people who are supposed to love me. She told me that I’m a sinner, and if I don’t repent, I’m going to hell.”
“Your grandma is going to be seriously shocked when she dies and finds out God loves gay people,” I say, and Sylvia laughs. Really laughs, and soon Miguel does and Sawyer, too.
“If a residual haunting is remnants of the bad,” Sylvia says. “Maybe that means that the only thing that we carry with us when we die is the good.”
“Amen,” Sawyer says. He and Sylvia share the type of smile that best friends do. “I’m fine with all the bad being left behind.”
Miguel glances around. “I don’t know about everyone else, but this place is heavy. Since we got here I feel like something’s watching me. Something bad.”
I like ghosts, but it’s as if there’s something sinister hiding in the shadows.
“It’s because of the energy surrounding us.” All of Glory’s warnings are on repeat in my mind, and I wish I hadn’t left my cell in Miguel’s SUV as there’s a part of me that believes she’s texting me right now, calling me, cautioning me that I’ve stumbled upon the danger she was desperately terrified of. “If it’s a residual haunting then we’re feeling the effects of its negative energy, and I know exactly what we need to do to cleanse ourselves of it.”
“Is this going to include some sort of crystals with weird chanting?” Sawyer asks with a cocked eyebrow that tells me he’s half serious, half joking.
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