Sam looked like she was going to be sick. Jackson wasn’t sure if he was seeing grief flash across her face or if she was just really, really angry. “Stop. Now,” she said again.
But Trev kept talking. “Dad worked for people who studied the Doors. When . . . when it happened and Dad went to jail, those people gave us fifteen million dollars. Who gives that kinda money to orphans? I’ll tell you—guilty people.”
“It was a life insurance policy,” Sam said quietly. “You know that. And we’re not orphans. Dad’s still alive.”
Trev shook his head again. “I don’t know that. They told us that, but I don’t fucking know that. All I know is that a ghost got inside his head. That’s what they do. If they don’t drown you or burn you to death, they’ll fucking crack open your brain and climb in.”
No one else was looking at Macy—Dom and Sam were both just staring at Trev—but Jackson saw her open her mouth a few times, like she wanted to ask something. Finally, she said, “Can any ghost do that? Get inside a person?”
“No—” Dom started to say, but Trev cut him off.
“You don’t fucking know that, Dominick Vega. How could you know that? I taught you all this and now you’re the expert?”
Dom didn’t answer, and Trev didn’t say anything else. He just grabbed the almost empty bottle of schnapps out of his sister’s hand and stomped up the stairs.
When no one spoke, Jackson tried to fill the awkward silence. “Well, that was . . . ”
“Don’t,” Sam said. “It wasn’t anything. Just . . . let’s just drop it.”
Macy didn’t look like she wanted to drop it, but she kept her mouth closed. Then, when Sam retrieved a bottle of whiskey from a kitchen cupboard, Macy stood up. “I’m gonna take off.”
Jackson knew he should offer to walk Macy home, but Sam looked so breakable—like her skin was a windshield that had fractured, but was still clinging together in one shattered sheet. If Sam did break apart, Jackson wanted to see what was inside.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Claire wanted to go to the mall and look for a Halloween costume and then see a new movie about a possessed china doll. Macy wanted to escape her life for a few hours, so she climbed into the passenger seat of her friend’s Golf, turned up the music, and put her feet up on the dashboard.
Almost three weeks had gone by and Macy still hadn’t said a word about Henry to anyone. She could feel the lie in the back of her mouth like a sore throat. Her stomach hurt a lot lately, and the Tums she constantly chewed didn’t do anything except make her breath smell like medicine.
Macy didn’t know why she was so certain that she couldn’t tell the others about Henry. But she felt like telling them would be something she could never take back—not ever. Macy was sure they would kill him and whatever he was trying to remember would be lost forever.
She chewed another Tums—cherry flavored—and rolled down her window because the car felt too small.
“I was thinking of being a sexy pirate. You know, ‘shiver me timbers’ or ‘I’ll walk your plank,” Claire said in a seductive purr that she totally pulled off.
“Slutty eyepatch? Sexy pegleg?” Macy laughed. It had finally stopped raining a few days earlier. The fall colors weren’t very bright this year—more faded oranges and browns than reds—but the trees still looked a bit startling against the blue sky.
Claire laughed. “A pegleg is basically a portable stripper pole. What about you? What are you going to be?”
Macy hadn’t actually thought about Halloween yet. Claire still made a huge deal about it, but ever since she got too big to trick-or-treat Macy had thought Halloween was kind of lame. Everyone just dressed up as sexy versions of boring things. Sexy cat. Sexy witch. Sexy princess.
Last year Macy had dressed as a zombie, which was really hard to make slutty. She wore her regular jeans and t-shirt, and painted her mouth so it looked like her lower jaw was rotting off. She carried around a plastic container of pink Jell-O that was molded to look like brains. Claire was Tinkerbell, complete with sexy green fishnet stockings. It was her little sister’s costume from the year before—except for the fishnets. Those were all Claire’s.
“So, you and Dom?” Claire asked, not looking away from the road. “Anything happen yet?”
Macy shook her head. “Not really. I don’t know . . . ”
Claire popped her gum loudly—a trick Macy had envied when she first met her friend in seventh grade and still wasn’t able to do. She always ended up swallowing the gum. “You don’t know what? You don’t know if he likes you? Duh.”
Macy chewed another Tums. Some kind of green flavor this time—mint? Apple? “It’s complicated.”
“Is that what your Facebook status says?”
“Ew! No.”
“Mace . . . nothing is complicated unless you make it complicated. Be fearless. Kiss him.” Claire started singing the sha-la-la-la part of the “Kiss the Girl” song from The Little Mermaid.
“Ugh. Don’t ever do that again.” Macy didn’t tell Claire about the morning after Nick’s funeral, when she had kissed Dom. Sort of. He hadn’t mentioned his sister again since that day, or the kiss.
He probably didn’t know it had happened, because Macy was a creepy stalker who only kissed boys when they were asleep. She sometimes wondered if that conversation had even happened, or if she had made it all up in her head. Some kind of grief hallucination or something.
Claire sped up and the glove compartment started to rattle. The Golf didn’t like high speeds. “Just don’t be afraid to take a chance, okay?” Claire’s voice was unusually serious. “You deserve something nice.”
It took about forty-five minutes to drive to the mall (forty with Claire driving). When they finally pulled into the parking lot Macy started looking through her purse for a coupon—two for one pretzels—so she didn’t see the woman until they were about to hit her. Macy screamed. Claire slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. They ran right over her. Macy saw the woman’s eyes widen, and her blond hair flew back as they slammed into her.
“What. The. Fuck.” Claire was gripping the steering with both hands. She was shaking. “What happened?”
“You didn’t see her?” Macy pulled open her door and tried to run outside to find the woman, but was jerked back. She had forgotten to take off her seatbelt. As she fumbled with her seatbelt, a few cars honked and drove around them.
Claire’s eyes were huge. “I hit someone?”
Macy climbed out, and looked at the front wheels—bracing herself for what she thought she’d see. But there was nothing. Just wheels. Fucking ghosts. Again.
Claire had her phone out—probably about to call 911—but Macy waved her arms, shaking her head. “Sorry! There’s no one here!”
Claire rolled down the window. “So . . . I didn’t hit someone?”
“No . . . I guess I was seeing things.” Macy stared at the tires. There was no way she was ever going to get used to seeing ghosts. No fucking way.
Claire pulled forward into a parking space, then stopped the car again. She got out—her feet unsteady on her two-inch wedges. Then she walked over to Macy and punched her in the arm. Claire hadn’t done that since eighth grade, when it was cool to give each other “dead arms” in the hall.
“I swear to God! Never do that to me again. I almost swallowed my fucking tongue!”
Macy rubbed her arm. Claire had hit her pretty hard and her arm was tingling. “Sorry!”
“Next time you scream like that, someone had better be dying.” Claire stalked off toward the mall entrance, not waiting to see if Macy was following. Her friend would calm down in a few minutes, Macy knew, and then she’d want to go straight to the food court for a pretzel and a smoothie.
Ever since the gym fire, Claire had kind of a short fuse. It was easy for Macy to forget that while she had been trying to stop the ghost with the goggles from killing everyone, Claire was scared out of her mind in the girl’s locker room with no idea what was happening.<
br />
She’d told Macy about it after Macy told her the Dom-approved version of things—that Macy and the others had run outside and waited behind the school for the fire trucks. Before the fire started, Claire had gone to the locker room to clean the paint out of her hair. She was bent over the sink, her hair unbraided and loose under the faucet, when she heard the screams. At first she thought the senior prank was starting up again. But then she smelled smoke and the screams got louder and louder.
Claire thought of all those school shootings and terrorist attacks, and she ran into a bathroom stall and locked the door. She got out her phone and started to call 911, but then dropped her phone in the toilet because her hands were shaking so much. She fished out her phone and crouched with her feet up on the toilet because she thought that maybe someone wouldn’t look for her there. She tried to call 911 again, with her toilet-water soaked phone pressed to her ear, but it didn’t work.
Then she waited. And waited, breathing in and out so quietly that her head began to swim. She waited while she heard the sirens and waited when she heard the faint sound of a gunshot from outside the school. Claire waited until a fireman came in and carried her out. Claire fainted when she saw him. She would be forever mortified, she told Macy, that a hot fireman had to rescue her from a toilet.
Claire still didn’t know that it was Dom who got shot that night. No one knew that part. Trev and Sam drove him to a hospital in another town. Sometimes Macy thought she should just tell Claire about the ghosts, but she didn’t know how her friend could ever believe her. And it was nice, once in a while, to just hang out with Claire and not be a part of that world.
After they ate their pretzels and drank their smoothies—Macy’s treat—Claire steered Macy towards one of those costume shops that pop up in malls around Halloween before they turn into Christmas boutiques.
“Come on, we’re going to find you the perfect costume.” Claire was her normal self again, only a thousand times more “Claire” because she was on a mission. “Something pretty this time. No zombies!”
“What about prom queen zombie?”
“Maybe . . . only if you show a lot of leg. Or tasteful side-boob.” Claire flipped through a rack of dresses until she found an indecently short pirate costume. “Perfecto! Now to find you something.”
When Claire had her mind set on something, she was kind of like the second Terminator—the one who could morph into different shapes and sometimes looked like a puddle of silver ooze. That guy just kept coming, even if he was being shot or hit by a car. That’s exactly what Claire was like when she was shopping—except for the oozing part. She would probably punch Macy in the arm a second time if she ever heard her describe Claire as “oozing.”
“What about this?” Claire held up a very short black dress that was only identifiable as a witch costume and not just a regular short black dress by the pointy hat.
“Lame.”
“This?” Claire showed Macy a Cleopatra costume that was basically a bikini and a rubber snake. “I could do your makeup. You’d blow Dom out of the water.”
“Not a chance. But that reminds me, I thought of another slogan for your pirate costume: ‘Thar she blows!’”
Claire stuck out her tongue. She didn’t give up, even after Macy systematically rejected a sexy Raggedy Ann, sexy Pocahontas, and a strangely modest clown costume, complete with huge floppy shoes.
“I’m not wearing any of these. Disgusting.” Macy wrinkled her nose.
“You have to choose something. You can’t come to my party in jeans.” Claire had moved on to the accessories section and was hoisting a fake cutlass for her pirate costume.
“You’re having a party?” Something red caught Macy’s eye. It was a long, red cape with a hood. She couldn’t really feel the material with her gloves on, but it looked soft and shiny.
“Well . . . I’m planning this thing with Trev. It was his idea—a big party at his house. I figured he told you, ‘cause you’re always over there.” Macy knew that Claire was a little hurt by all the time she spent with the others without inviting her. But Macy just didn’t have the energy to think about Claire’s feelings all the time.
“Nope. He didn’t mention it.” Macy picked up the cape and tried it on. It was probably supposed to be part of a Little Red Riding Hood costume. Wrapping the silky material around her shoulders, she noticed that there were pockets on the inside of the cape. Perfect.
Claire smiled. “Well, we’re only going to invite other juniors—no fucking seniors.” Claire said that last part a little too loud, and a child who was trying on a set of vampire fangs looked up. The kid’s mother frowned at Claire and pulled her son towards the other side of the store. The little boy took the fangs out of his mouth and set them back on the shelf. Nasty.
“So, you and Trev are planning this? Anything going on there?” Macy raised her eyebrows.
“Um . . . you do know he’s gay, right?”
Macy did not know that. Her face flushed, so she turned away and pretended to be looking at the tag on the cape. “Sure. Just joking.”
There was so much that Macy didn’t actually know about her new . . . was “friends” even the right word? She thought about what Trev had told them about his dad. Was that even true? Sam, who usually acted like some bipolar anime character, had looked like her brother had just punched her in the stomach.
“So, what are you gonna be?” Claire asked, pointing to the red cape Macy was still holding.
Macy put the cape back on and spun around. “Fearless.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Macy checked her phone after the movie she had twenty-three missed calls, all from her parents. She didn’t even bother listening to the messages, but just called home.
“Where are you?” Her mom sounded pissed. Again. Macy tried to think what she could have possibly done wrong this time. Of course there were plenty of things her mom could be pissed about—like Macy hanging out with a boy in his bedroom, or sneaking out of the house before dawn to talk to a ghost. But her mom didn’t know about any of those things. Had Macy let Jasper outside by mistake? Did she break something? What the fuck?
Macy tried to keep her voice calm and happy. Normal teenage girl voice. “I’m at the mall with Claire. Remember? We just saw a movie?”
“Claire’s with you? Thank god. Tell her to call her mother this instant. I mean it, right now. I’ll wait.” Macy pulled the phone away from her face. She had been holding it so tightly against her head that her ear hurt.
“Claire, it’s my mom. She said you have to call your mom.” Claire shrugged and took out her lip gloss.
Macy put the phone back to her ear. Her mom spoke before Macy could even say she was back, like she had psychic mom powers. “Macy, why hasn’t Claire called yet? Is she really with you?”
Macy almost said “What the fuck?” out loud, but managed to bite it back. Normal, happy teenage voice. “She’s about to call. Besides, how do you know she hasn’t?”
“Because her mom is sitting next to me.”
Macy’s face flushed, and then felt icy—like she had a fever. “What happened?” The last time her mom was so weird was when she told Macy that Nick was in an accident. Macy could barely speak when she asked “Is it Jackson?”
“No, honey. Jackson’s fine. He answered his phone right away, unlike some people. It’s someone else. They won’t tell us who.”
“Who what? Someone’s dead?”
“Just come home. We’ll talk about it when you get here. Don’t let Claire speed.”
“She doesn’t speed.”
“Just tell her to drive safely.”
Once Macy’s mom finally hung up, Macy turned to her friend. Claire’s face looked stricken.
“What happened?” Macy still had no idea what her mom was talking about.
But Claire was still talking to her mom. “In the harbor? Really? Okay, I’ll be home soon. No, I won’t speed. Jesus, Mom, I just said I wouldn’t fucking speed. Okay. Love you
too.”
Claire dropped her phone back in her purse and turned to Macy. “The police found someone’s body in the harbor. They haven’t released the age or gender, so of course our parents assumed we were dead. Did they think ‘we’ll be at the mall’ meant we were going skinny dipping in the cold-ass water?”
“Is that what happened?”
“What?” Claire fiddled with her phone, turning the screen on and off.
“Someone was skinny dipping?”
“I don’t know. Jesus . . . is this shit ever going to end?”
Macy remembered saying something very similar to Dom, right after Nick’s funeral. It was sometimes too easy to forget that, even without ghosts, life could be pretty fucking terrible.
“They don’t know who it was?” Macy asked.
“No, not yet. What if it’s someone from school?”
Three days later a jogger found a second body below the bluffs. He almost didn’t notice the woman’s twisted form where it lay among the driftwood and other beach rubble that collected at the high water line. It was her hair that caught his attention—it was purple.
She was all cut up and had a broken neck. The police ruled it a likely suicide. They decided that the gash on her neck was from a tree branch when she hit the ground.
Macy saw the woman’s ghost as she walked to Dom’s house after school. The ghost was standing beside the twin’s yellow house, looking out over the bluff. At first, the woman’s bright purple hair distracted Macy from the blood running down her arm and dripping onto the ground, so she didn’t even realize right away that she was a ghost. Macy actually thought how peaceful the woman seemed looking out over the water. But then the woman turned and Macy saw the glistening red of her neck and how her blood soaked the front of her dress.
Macy was so startled she cried out “No!” holding her hand out between her and the bloody woman. The ghost stopped and looked down at her ruined shirt. She put a hand up to her neck and pulled it away covered in blood. The woman’s face crumpled and she shook her head.
Forests of the Night Page 7