Missing, Presumed Dead

by Emma Berquist

  “Then why?” Ilia asks harshly. “Just to scare us?”

  “Don’t. Know,” Jordan says, his voice getting weaker.

  “Ilia?”

  “Oh thank god,” Ilia says, closing his eyes for a brief second. “Phillip, over here.”

  Phillip comes around the shelf, and the smile he has for me drops off his face when he sees Jordan.

  “What the hell?” He doesn’t ask for an explanation; he just runs forward and puts both of his palms down on Jordan’s chest. “Get me water and bandages,” he orders, not sounding like the Phillip I know at all. “Ilia, call my mother and get her down here.”

  “No,” Jordan groans. “No one else.”

  Phillip’s mouth goes thin and he looks at Ilia. “I can’t fix this all by myself; I’m not strong enough.”

  “Just do what you can for now,” Ilia says. “I’ll get the bandages.” He looks over at me, jerking his head toward the stairs. I follow him, crossing my arms tight across my chest.

  “How did you know?” he asks me quietly.

  “Nicole,” I say. “Ilia, we can’t break through a spell this strong. Not if that’s what it did to Jordan.” I don’t know much about witchcraft, but I do know blinding spells are notoriously hard to break. “And if we can’t trace them—”

  “We’ll keep trying,” he says. “Or we’ll figure out another way to find them.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  He swallows hard. “Then I need you to make that girl remember.”

  For a moment I wish Jane were here beside me, her heat driving away the chill.

  “I’ll try,” I say. “But I can’t force her memories out. I need you to get me that footage.”

  “I’m working on it,” he says.

  “What do we do, Ilia?” I ask softly. “If we can’t stop it?”

  “We watch each other’s backs,” he says. “And we hope the protection holds.”

  I nod once, but a shiver creeps down my spine.

  “What did you see?” he asks me. “When you touched him?”

  We’re the same height, and it’s easy to turn my head and meet his eyes. He’s just starting to get lines around the edges, but mine will always be older.

  “Don’t ask me that,” I tell him. “Unless you’re willing to carry the answer.”

  Ilia blinks first, ducking his head down.

  “Just go, Lexi,” he says, and I go.

  11

  PYROCLASTIC FLOWS CAN REACH SPEEDS OF FOUR hundred miles per hour and temperatures of a thousand degrees Celsius. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, hot gas and volcanic ash descended onto Pompeii with the thermal energy of a nuclear weapon, incinerating people where they stood. Some fates can change in an instant; some ends can’t be outrun.

  “Jane?”

  I’m barely inside my apartment, but something is wrong. It’s hot as hell and Jane is lying facedown on the floor, not moving. I drop to my knees, and as I start to turn her over she shudders in my arms.

  “Jane?”

  Her mouth opens wide in a silent scream, her eyes huge and white and blood dripping down her neck.

  “Shit!” I grab her shoulders and shake, her body stiff and frozen.

  “Jane,” I say, putting my face close to hers. “Look at me.”

  Her mouth is still wide, but her eyes at least start to focus on my face.

  “Look at me,” I order. “You’re okay. It’s Lexi. You’re okay.”

  Her body jerks in my arms and she makes a small choking sound.

  “That’s it,” I say, making my voice stay low and calm. “Keep looking at me. You’re in my room. You’re okay.”

  Jane goes completely limp beneath me, but I don’t let go. She blinks up at me, once, twice.

  “Lexi?” she asks, her voice raw.

  “Yeah,” I say, releasing her. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  I move back and Jane slowly pushes herself up until she’s sitting. She looks around the room, her eyes still white and dazed.

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  “I—I think so.” She shudders suddenly, her body curving in on itself. “What . . . what was that?”

  She looks small and fragile, blood thick around her neck. She scoots closer to me; I go stiff for a moment and then lean toward her, pressing against her side.

  “I have no idea,” I tell her. “What happened?”

  “Trevor left to go to a movie,” she says. “I was practicing, trying to make my clothes change . . . and then I was back in the alley.”

  I reach one arm out and almost stop, then let it slip around her shoulders.

  “Did you remember anything?”

  “I . . . I couldn’t move. No matter how much I fought, I couldn’t move.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, but I don’t know if it is. Jane isn’t acting the way ghosts are supposed to act. She doesn’t remember her death, she can’t hold her form, and whatever this is. But she doesn’t need to hear that right now.

  “Whatever it was,” I say, “it’s over.”

  I can feel Jane shiver even as her heat seeps through my shirt. I’m not good at this, at giving comfort, at being kind, but I try. I press my cheek against her hair, her face tucked under my chin.

  “I’m going to get blood on you,” she says quietly, but she doesn’t move away.

  “No, you won’t,” I tell her. “I told you, it isn’t real.”

  Jane goes still, her body loose against me. “Am I real?” she asks, so softly I barely hear it, like she doesn’t want to know the answer.

  “You’re real enough to me,” I say, my thumb making small circles on her shoulder.

  “But I’m not . . . what I was.”

  I try to think of the right way to say it, to make her understand.

  “Sound waves can travel through water and air, even walls and furniture,” I say. “But if the waves hit a big-enough obstacle, they bounce back and return to the sender.”

  Jane twists her head up to look up at me. “I’m a sound wave?”

  I shake my head. “You’re an echo.”

  Her forehead creases as she considers it. “An echo.”

  “You’re not less. Just not the same.” And I don’t want to tell her, but I owe her the truth. Or a truth, at least. “You don’t have to be, if you don’t want to.” I say it softly, almost afraid of the words.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to . . . stay here. On this side. If you don’t want to.”

  She pushes her head away from me and my arm wants to tighten.

  “You think I should go?” she asks.

  “No,” I say quickly. “No, of course not. I just want you to have options.”

  Jane shudders suddenly, her body vibrating under my arm. I know she isn’t cold, not when I can feel sweat collecting at the nape of my neck.

  “I used to think it would be like going to sleep,” she says. “Dying, I mean.”

  “Sleep is the sibling of death,” I mutter.

  “What?”

  I shake my head. “It’s just something Deda says. It sounds better in Russian.”

  “But it’s not like sleeping at all,” she says. “And now I’m afraid of what will happen if I close my eyes.”

  I look down at her, find her eyes wide open and clouded.

  “Do you know what it is?” she asks. “Whatever is on the other side?”

  “I don’t think any of us are supposed to know.”

  “Do you think it’s bad?”

  I press my lips together, lick them wet. “Maybe it’s not good, or bad. Maybe it’s . . . different.”

  “I know I’m not alive,” she says quietly. “But I still think. I still feel.”

  I should tell her about Jordan, that Ilia and I think it’s a witch killing people, but I’m afraid if I start talking she’ll move away. She leans back against me, rests her head on my shoulder. Something dormant starts to prickle inside me, something sharp and cold and lonely.

  “I’m an echo,” she sa
ys. “Maybe that’s enough for now.”

  Heat creeps into my arms, into my chest, but it doesn’t burn. I’ve never held someone like this before, never let anyone get this close to me. Never had anyone want to get this close. It feels strange, like using a muscle I didn’t know existed, uncomfortable but not painful.

  I fall asleep sometime in the night and wake up alone and cold, curled up on my side on the floor.

  “Jane?”

  Nothing but silence answers me, the light streaming in from the window telling me it’s long past morning. I take a hot shower to get the kinks out of my back, and she’s still not there when I get out, still not there when I leave for Deda’s.

  “Where is your friend?” he asks me when I show up. He takes one look at my face and pours me a large cup of coffee.

  “I don’t know,” I say, wincing as I sit across from him. I definitely pulled something in my neck sleeping on the floor. “I’m not her chaperone.”

  Deda makes a noncommittal noise and pushes the coffee toward me. I dump in as much sugar as my stomach can handle and enough cream to turn it almost white.

  Deda frowns at me and I shrug.

  “It’s breakfast,” I tell him.

  “You need to take better care of yourself,” Deda tells me. “You are not getting enough sleep; you are not eating enough.”

  “I’m fine, Deda, you don’t have to worry.”

  “Yes, I do,” Deda snaps, and I look up, surprised. “They will consume you if you let them.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Listen to me, Alexandra,” he says, leaning forward. “They are not like us. They do not have cake or wine or cigars. They will take your attention, your time, they will take and take until you have nothing left to give. And still they ask for more.”

  I look away from him, feeling acid bubble in my chest. “Jane isn’t like that.”

  “Then why do you look like death warmed over?”

  I rub at my eyes, trying to rub his words out of my head. “That has nothing to do with her. You don’t even know her.”

  “Do you? She is not what she was in life.”

  “So what? Maybe I like who she is now.” I shove back my chair and stand up. “And none of this is Jane’s fault. You want to blame someone, blame the monster who killed her. It’s one of us. One of us did this, Deda, not Jane. And I’m leaving.”

  “You just got here.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before you said I look like shit.”

  “Alexandra—”

  “I’ll come back soon, okay? You’re right, I need to get some more sleep.”

  I walk away from the table, but I can feel his eyes watching me leave, burning angry, worried holes into my back.

  Jane is still gone when I get home, and my stomach twists strangely as I stare at my empty apartment. I haven’t seen Trevor since yesterday. It’s not like they can get hurt, I remind myself, but it doesn’t fix the hollow feeling in my center.

  I pick up the dirty clothes on my floor, throw them into a larger, dirtier pile that I thrust into a corner. I think about making the bed, but instead I flop back onto it and stare at the ceiling, lying to myself about the pit in my stomach.

  It shouldn’t hurt anymore; I thought I made my peace with this a long time ago. But it’s loneliness that’s scraping out my organs, ancient and unmistakable. I shouldn’t have let them in, shouldn’t have gotten used to the warmth at my back, a voice at my ear. It hurts worse now, because I know what I’ve lost.

  I curl up on my side, press my legs to my chest. I let the loneliness take me, let it creep through my veins and settle into my bones, let it become part of me. It will always be a part of me.

  “Lexi?”

  I sit up, my eyes blurry; I don’t remember falling asleep.

  “Where have you been?” I ask her, and it comes out angry.

  “I went home.”

  That knocks the air out of me, and I sink back onto the bed. “Oh.”

  “I wanted to check on my mom,” Jane says, coming closer. “I used to make her hangover cures on mornings like this. Never really helped.”

  I study her for a moment. “You’re not bleeding.”

  A little smile plays at the corner of her mouth as she runs her hands over her clean shirt. “It’s working today. As long as I really concentrate.”

  She stands at the foot of the bed, and there’s an awkward silence as we stare at each other.

  “Thank you for . . . helping me last night,” she says finally. “For talking to me.”

  “Sure,” I tell her, shrugging. Hurt flashes across her face for a moment, but I can’t drop anchor here, can’t get used to having her around. She’ll leave eventually, like everyone does, and I’ll still be here, curled up with my loneliness.

  “Look, you were upset yesterday, so I didn’t mention it. . . .”

  “What?”

  I rub one arm awkwardly. “Someone tried to break through the protection spells on the club last night.”

  Jane’s shoulders stiffen. “What?”

  “Don’t worry,” I say quickly, “they didn’t get through. Urie has it under control.”

  “But how?”

  “Whoever killed you has power.” I blanch, remembering Jordan’s face. “A lot of power, going by what I saw.”

  A line appears across Jane’s neck, and her eyes start to go milky. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you crossed paths with a witch at some point. And if you can’t remember who or when, then we need to figure out what made you go to the club and who saw you there. I think we should talk to your boyfriend and see why you didn’t go to his concert.”

  Jane nods, her movements jerky. “Fine,” she says. “He’ll be at school right now.”

  She turns away, and it bruises something inside me.

  “Jane,” I say. “I’m sorry. That it was someone like me that . . . did this to you.”

  When she looks back, her eyes are white and empty. “It’s all the same to me,” she says. “Dead is still dead.”

  I forget sometimes that most people my age are in school during the day. I drive us to Culver City and park in the back lot of the high school. A bell rings in the distance, and for a moment we sit in the car, waiting while the clumps of teenagers trickle out of the building in fits and bursts.

  “Go Centaurs,” Jane mutters under her breath.

  “You okay?” I ask her, looking over.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” she says. “A week ago I didn’t think witches were real. Now I’m dead, and you’re telling me one of them killed me. It’s like a really fucked-up fairy tale.”

  “Fairy tales are fucked-up when you read the original versions,” I tell her. “You should hear the Russian ones. Baba Yaga eats children.”

  “Yummy,” Jane says dryly, staring out the window. I watch the line of her throat move as she swallows. “It feels different, from this side. Watching them. I used to be a part of that, you know?”

  “Not really,” I say. “I was never a part of it.”

  Jane slides through the door and I follow, making our way along the football field. Boys in jerseys are starting to wander onto the grass, slapping at one another and laughing. I watch them for a moment, and it’s like a movie with the sound slightly off, their lives so separate from mine that they feel unnatural.

  “Did you play any sports?” I ask, and Jane scoffs.

  “I’m not the sporting type.” She shoulders ahead, past the football players toward the school. “What type were you?”

  I lift one shoulder. “I liked science, I guess.”

  Jane grimaces. “I’m terrible at science. History, too— I can never remember the dates. The only class I got A’s in is art, and you have to be a real a fuckup not to make an A in art.”

  No one stops me as I open the heavy door to the building. A group of kids lounge around the hallway, looking young enough to still need baby-sitters. I hunch my shoulders up and glare, and they move out of my way in
a hurry. None of them meets my eyes as I walk by, flattening themselves against the lockers.

  “Why do you do that?” Jane asks, keeping pace with me, one of her shoulders melting through the row of lockers.

  “What?”

  “Glare at people like that, pretend to be all mean. You’re not mean.”

  I shove my hands in my pockets, give a slight shrug instead of answering. “Which way?”

  “Take a left,” Jane says, and I don’t like the way she’s watching me, like she knows what I’m thinking.

  We walk down an empty hallway, fluorescent lights bouncing off the linoleum floor. This place could be my high school—the same look, the same scent of tedious misery. It lingers, seeps into the walls with the grease and the disinfectant.

  “There.” Jane points to a row of shut doors along our left. “Music rooms,” she says, her voice flat. “He’ll be practicing.”

  I look through the glass on the doors, but the first two rooms are empty. The third one is occupied by a tall, thin boy playing a cello. The room is soundproofed, but I can imagine the notes as the bow draws across the strings. His head is bent over the instrument, and I get a glimpse of brown skin and hair that’s not much longer than mine. He certainly doesn’t look capable of hurting anyone. I look again, closely; he’s playing the bow with his right hand.

  “That’s him,” Jane says, watching him with a look of regret on her face.

  I rap sharply on the door. His head whips up, eyes dark, lips pursed in concentration. He frowns as he tries to place my face, but I don’t move from the window. Finally he stands up and carefully leans the cello against his chair before coming to the door.

  He opens it a crack and looks out.

  “Can I help you?” His voice is polite but suspicious.

  “My name is Lexi,” I tell him. “I’m a friend of Jane’s.”

  I don’t catch everything that flits across his face; there’s anger, and anxiety, and something like dread. It finally settles on resignation, and he opens the door wider.

  “Thanks.”

  The room is small, chairs and music stands stacked in one corner and a chalkboard on the other. Isaac nods to the chairs and I pull one out and sit facing him as he rearranges himself with the cello.