Silent as the Grave

by Zoe Aarsen

  Moments before the bell rang, my phone buzzed with another incoming text. I assumed that it was from Violet, but when I looked at it, my heart leapt into my throat.

  MISCHA 1:13 P.M.

  I should never have listened to you. This is your fault, and I’m going to make you pay.

  CHAPTER 5

  I BOARDED THE BUS BOUND for work after school, fully aware that it was kind of insane to be going to work for my shift when it was imperative that I get on a plane to Wisconsin immediately. While waiting for the bus to arrive, I’d been mentally rehearsing ways in which I could ask, but the disappointment I anticipated hearing in my mom’s voice was not making me feel good.

  However, just as I was swiping my bus pass, I heard a distinct noise come through across my earbuds over the static. “Remind her. Just remind her.”

  I practically ran down the aisle of the bus to throw myself into a seat and check my radio app. It was tuned in to AM 1350, and I tapped the up button a few times to bring it to 1354, at which the static subsided. I angled the microphone on my phone toward my mouth. “Jennie? Can you hear me?” And then, just to seem like I was talking to a living, breathing friend and not the ghost of my dead sister, I added for the benefit of those sitting around me, “I just got on the bus.”

  “Yes.” Her reply was loud and clear. My heart skipped a beat. I was both overjoyed and frightened at the same time—relieved to have finally made contact but also thoroughly freaked out to be having a conversation with a dead person in the “dark place” while riding the number fourteen bus. When I’d been able to talk to her back in January through the form of a ghost she’d taken, everything she’d said had been stiff and formal, and it had seemed like she hadn’t really been able to hear me clearly. So I wasn’t sure of what to expect. “I can hear you.”

  I stared into the floral print of the scarf wrapped around the hair of the woman sitting in front of me, wondering if this was real or if I had finally completely lost it. I guessed I just had to believe. “Did you hear about what happened in Willow?”

  “I told you that would happen,” Jennie told me. Her voice didn’t sound the way I remembered it. It was lower in pitch, and hearing it made me recoil the same way that hearing my own voice in videos did.

  “Is this a good way to reach you?” I asked, automatically fearful that I might not have the presence of mind to ask her every question for which I needed answers at that very moment. The thought of our connection being broken also made me frantic; in a way, I resented having to use this precious line of communication to solve a problem instead of grow closer to the sister I’d unfairly lost so long ago. “Like, whenever I want to talk to you?”

  “I’m always here,” she replied.

  Thinking about how Mrs. Robinson had described Jennie as being “stuck in a dark place,” with all my heart I wanted to ask my twin if she was at peace in the afterlife. If she was safe, if she was intentionally lingering in an unpleasant state of being for my benefit so that she could contact me this way. But deep down, I suspected that was the case. And if she had been avoiding eternal peace—or heaven, or whatever awaited us after death—for the purpose of being able to help me now, then I couldn’t waste time with my own selfish emotional needs. So I launched directly into questions about Mischa. “If you knew that tornados were going to hit Wisconsin, can you tell me how to break the”—paranoid, I looked around and dropped the volume of my voice—“curse on Mischa?”

  “First, you have to get there. Remind Mom about my funeral,” Jennie told me.

  I thought back to that day. I had very few memories of it, as I’d been little. I suspect my parents had given me a sedative from my pediatrician. I know that I didn’t wear black because I didn’t own anything black at the age of eight, and I remember my mother arguing with my aunt Jean about how inappropriate it was for children to wear dark colors. “What about it?” I asked.

  “Elena and Adam Portnoy were there. Elena brought dinner to the house six times after the fire,” Jennie told me.

  Hearing this sparked a vivid memory of the doorbell ringing at our new house, or rather, the house Mom lived in today, the house on Martha Road we’d bought after our one on the corner burned down. We’d stayed with my grandparents in Minnesota for a few weeks immediately following the fire before the new house had suddenly gone on the market, and Mom had insisted on snatching it up, even though Dad thought it was kind of unhealthy.

  Jennie was right. For the first few weeks of the school year that fall after we’d returned to Willow, moms in the neighborhood took turns showing up on our front porch every night with casserole dishes, often still hot from the ovens in their homes. Of course Elena Portnoy would have been one of those moms. She may have even been the realtor from whom Mom and Dad had bought our house.

  “Good point,” I told Jennie. “She’ll feel guilty if I’m not at the funeral if I remind her about that.” Mom was not one to care much about social standards, but I knew she held dearly every memory she had of Jennie and people in town who’d checked in on us back in those bad days.

  I noticed then that my scalp was tingling so severely that I also had goosebumps up and down my arms. The bus was air-conditioned but humid, so I assumed my physical reaction was to Jennie’s presence rather than the temperature around me. “Is Amanda going to die?” I whispered, dreading the answer.

  “Yes. Unless…”

  I sat up straighter in my seat.

  “Someone else takes her place in line. That’s always how it works. A life for a life. An even trade.”

  Of course. Amanda was the compromise. The spirits had left her clinging to life by a thread as a means of pulling Mischa’s puppet strings. They knew that there was no one in life for whom she’d be willing to kill other than Amanda. If they’d just let Amanda die quickly, they’d have no leverage over her anymore. This was their way of blackmailing her.

  “Is Mischa mad at me?”

  “Very mad,” Jennie confirmed. “She blames you. For everything.”

  Great.

  Jennie went on to tell me that I could trust Violet this time, and it would be foolish of me not to. Since the curse was no longer on her, it was as if she wasn’t even on their radar anymore. And Jennie seemed to think there was something else, something unrelated to Mischa, for which I’d require Violet’s assistance.

  “It’s the house,” Jennie said, sounding confused. “It’s unclear. It just has to do with that house.”

  The bus was pulling up to my stop, and as if she somehow knew that, Jennie said, “We can talk more later.”

  She’d said she was “always here,” but that wasn’t true. I’d been listening for her voice for weeks, and I had never heard her this clearly before. “This radio station? Always?” I asked.

  “Always,” she assured me.

  By the time I passed through the front doors of the assisted living facility, I was bursting at the seams to tell Mrs. Robinson that I’d been able to reach Jennie and actually talk to her. I was so excited that, after changing into my scrubs, I clocked in and raced up the stairs (better to avoid elevators after that morning’s close call with the SUV, I figured) to the third floor before starting my schedule. But when I reached her room, I heard an unfamiliar voice coming from inside.

  “… in bed before eleven every night, you hear me? No more of these late-night movies.”

  I knocked lightly on the door and cracked it open to find a beautiful woman sitting on the love seat in Mrs. Robinson’s room. She raised her head when I said, “Excuse me. Just checking to see if Mrs. Robinson’s ready to submit her dinner order.”

  “You must be the one indulging my mother in all of her voodoo nonsense,” the woman snapped at me. When she stood, I saw that she wore an impressive business suit. Mrs. Robinson had said her daughter was a local newscaster, and I deduced that this was her.

  “I, uh…” I didn’t know what to say.

  “You leave her be! She’s just doing her job. She’s the nicest person arou
nd this joint,” Mrs. Robinson defended me.

  But Mrs. Robinson’s daughter walked over to where I stood in the doorway. “My mother had a stroke five years ago, and she’s been struggling with neurological issues ever since. All of this voodoo stuff is bad for her health, okay? I don’t want to find any more eggshells scattered around this room—or matches or candles or essential oil or powders—or I’m going to talk to your manager.”

  I nodded, stunned. Just as I was about to excuse myself, Mrs. Robinson called out happily, “So, you got through to her! Your sister! They aren’t happy about that. No, they aren’t.”

  With a weak smile, I excused myself and took the steps back down to the first floor to begin my daily duties. Well, this was a frustrating turn of events. I had been counting on being able to ask Mrs. Robinson questions about how we might be able to use voodoo to banish the spirits harassing Mischa. As much as I was excited about having made contact with Jennie, the directions she’d given me on Christmas Eve had only made the curse jump from Violet to Mischa. I needed all the help I could get.

  I couldn’t afford to botch an attempt to break the curse a second time.

  On my ten-minute break, I called Mom. At first she flat-out refused to consider the possibility of my returning to Wisconsin before June, which was when the judge had approved me for a one-week visit at home. I reasoned that my spring break in Tampa was the following week, so I’d only miss one day of school—even if I stayed in Wisconsin through the weekend and attended the funeral on Monday. But Jennie was right; Mom only relented when I reminded her that Mrs. Portnoy had once been there for us.

  “Mischa’s totally alone, Mom,” I reminded her. “Everyone’s been telling me that the doctors don’t think Amanda’s going to pull through.” Mom didn’t need to know that Mischa was ignoring my calls and texts, and probably architecting my violent death at that very moment.

  Mom sighed, and I could practically hear her changing her mind over the phone. “I don’t think I can swing it, McKenna. Would you mind asking your dad to pitch in for the flight? Last-minute airfare from Tampa’s going to cost twice what it usually does, plus it’s Easter weekend. There may not even be any tickets left.”

  “I can cover the plane ticket,” I lied, suspecting it would be best not to mention that Violet Simmons had anything to do with my plan to return home for the weekend. “I have a job, remember?”

  “Ask your father,” Mom said sternly, making it clear that she wasn’t looking for a reason to talk to him—and that I’d need his permission. Luckily for both of us, Dad tended to leave matters related to custody of me up to Mom as long as they were within the legal terms of the judge’s ruling on my case. If I told him she’d already given me her approval, he wouldn’t fight me on leaving Florida for a few days. And he was just as eager to avoid conversations with her as she was reluctant to communicate with him.

  I texted Violet before heading back inside and she replied almost instantly, saying she’d text me flight info. At six forty-five, when I returned to Mrs. Robinson’s room, I was dismayed to find the door locked. She and her daughter must have gone down to the dining hall together. This was a bummer. Not only was I prevented from requesting her advice, but I also wasn’t able to tell her I’d miss the next few days at work.

  My manager wasn’t thrilled to hear that I was asking for time off so soon after beginning work. “The residents like you, McKenna, but this is only your second week with us. I can’t guarantee that your job will be open when you get back,” Luis told me. “I mean, this weekend is Easter. How am I supposed to find someone to fill your shifts?”

  I swallowed hard, regretful that I was jeopardizing the one thing about life in Tampa that I genuinely enjoyed. But saving Mischa was my priority. It was imperative that I get back to Willow and deal with her before she started issuing death sentences. There was no option in the matter, especially if there was even the tiniest glimmer of a chance that we could save Amanda’s life.

  Rhonda was listening to rap when she picked me up at the end of my shift, which reminded me of how much cooler she was than Dad.

  “So. Wisconsin, huh?” she asked as we pulled out of the lot. Violet hadn’t wasted any time in booking my flight, which of course made me paranoid about her eagerness to have me back in town. She must have been really afraid that Mischa—or Henry—was going to hurt her.

  “Yes,” I said while buckling my seat belt.

  “You know, your dad’s feelings would be really hurt if you got into any more trouble while you’re there. I know he’s been very cool about you coming to stay with us, and I don’t want you to feel unwelcome—we’re both glad to have you here—but he trusts you, McKenna. You promised him there wouldn’t be more problems, and I’m counting on you. I mean, you don’t owe me anything, obviously. But I like to think that we’re, like… friends?”

  We’d stopped at a red light, and I stared out my window at a busy taco restaurant where people were eating outside on the patio. “I know,” I said quietly. I couldn’t promise that there wouldn’t be any more trouble, but the thought of getting hurt, getting killed—doing anything more to upset and disappoint my parents—did weigh heavily on my heart. “I’ll be back on Tuesday.”

  Dad was—not surprisingly—distant and quiet when we got home. Throughout dinner, he only seemed to want to talk about the cost of property damage in Willow due to the tornados, as if it were of any real interest to him when he hadn’t set foot in the town since my eighth-grade graduation ceremony. As I expected, when I announced that I needed a ride to the airport in the morning, he simply asked if Mom had given me permission to fly back to Wisconsin.

  I set my alarm for five a.m. and climbed into bed. Already knowing that my night would be sleepless, I pressed my earbuds into my ears. “So,” I said. “The house.”

  As I’d hoped, Jennie’s response came through immediately. I felt a little burst of joy at the sound of her voice again, now reassured that I actually would be able to communicate with her whenever I wanted. But her words were as vague as everything else she’d told me so far. “That’s part of it, but not all of it. And it’s not the whole house. I don’t know how to explain it, but what I see is half of the house. I don’t know what that means.”

  * * *

  Violet hadn’t told me that she’d booked me a first-class ticket, and it was a nice surprise when I checked in for my flight at six thirty the next morning after Dad dropped me off at the airport.

  I’d arrived with almost an hour to spare, which gave me plenty of time to browse magazines, as well as low-key freak out about the situation awaiting me in Willow. As I stood in line to pay at Hudson News, Johnny Cash’s lyrics, “I fell into a burning ring of fire,” drifted over the sound system. It struck me as an odd song to hear at that hour of the morning, but then again, it was a strange time of day to be buying Twizzlers and a paperback.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sold-out flight, so we ask that if you’re unable to stow your luggage in an overhead compartment, please allow one of our flight attendants to assist you with checking your baggage.”

  Outside the large windows at the gate, the sky was blanketed by gloomy clouds. I quickly checked the weather on my phone: thunderstorms. Great. I’d been so anxious about getting my parents to agree to this trip that I hadn’t factored in the element about my own life being in danger, and spending over three hours on two different planes during inclement weather definitely put me at risk.

  After settling into my seat in first class, I popped in my earbuds and listened for Jennie over the flight attendant’s preflight speech.

  “Any ideas on what I’m going to have to do to get this thing off of Mischa?” I asked in a low voice, hoping that the guy in the suit sitting next to me would assume I was on a regular phone call. Now that I would be landing in Wisconsin in a few hours, I had to deal with the fact that I might find myself facing Mischa as soon as the next morning, and I had no plan whatsoever.

  Jennie hesitated. “I c
an’t see into the future. I can’t tell you how this will end.”

  “What about when you showed me all that stuff about Violet?” I asked. “In the future? With the doctor?” Back in January, when we’d confronted Violet in Michigan on the ski trip she’d organized and forced her into playing a game of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board, Jennie had shown me how Violet would die one day.

  “That was different. Hard to explain. Someone else was showing me, and I was letting you watch.”

  I honestly didn’t want to know enough about life after death to ask her to elaborate on what she meant by that. “Any kind of guidance at all would be helpful. Like…” I side-eyed my seatmate to make sure he wasn’t listening too closely. He appeared to be deeply engrossed in a book. “What if Mischa dies while it’s on her? Wouldn’t that just make the curse jump to someone else?” I wasn’t suggesting that we would kill Mischa. The thought of Mischa dying under any circumstances made my stomach turn. I hadn’t really known Olivia and Candace all that well when they’d died in the fall, if I was being honest. But I’d become much closer with Mischa over the last few months. If she died, I would be devastated; I couldn’t even allow myself to imagine what that might be like.

  However, even after being trapped in this horrific loop of predictions and death since September, I still didn’t fully understand how anyone could ever appease the spirits of Violet’s five dead sisters.

  “Yes,” Jennie sounded like she was uncertain. “I think it would transfer to whoever killed her. It’s like an electrical charge. It will always jump to whoever’s closest.”

  “Well, that’s no good,” I muttered, hoping for everyone’s benefit that Henry had abandoned that line of thinking. I didn’t want to think about the curse transferring to him.