by Mimi McCoy
“Yeah,” said Dory. “They’re nice. We’re getting ready for the dance together tonight.”
“The dance?”
“The Halloween dance.” Dory gave her a funny look. “Don’t tell me you forgot about it.”
Anna had forgotten about it. It seemed strange to her that other kids were still doing normal things, like going to dances. Once again she had the feeling that she was separated from everyone around her by some invisible wall.
Dory shifted her backpack uncomfortably. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Anna took a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for how I’ve acted lately.”
Dory’s expression softened a little. Encouraged, Anna went on. “I know I’ve been kind of a jerk, but some really weird stuff has been happening. Things that are … hard to explain.” She looked her friend in the eye, “Dory, listen, I didn’t write that thing on your lawn.”
At once, Dory’s face closed off. “Forget it. I don’t really want to hear it,” she said. She slammed her locker and turned to leave.
“Dory, wait!” Anna grabbed her wrist to stop her. “You have to believe me. I wouldn’t do something like that. Not to you or anyone else.”
“Don’t lie, Anna!” Dory said, twisting her arm out of Anna’s grip. “I saw you.”
“You saw someone who looked like me, but it wasn’t me,” Anna told her.
“Oh, so that’s your story now? You’re totally innocent, and it was actually your evil twin?” Dory’s voice crackled with sarcasm.
This was going all wrong! Anna could feel her chance slipping away. “Dory, do you remember Emma?”
“Your new best friend?” Dory said, putting her hands on her hips and arching one eyebrow. “I can’t say I ever met her. So, where is she now?”
“I meant, when we were little,” Anna tried one last time. “I had an imaginary friend I called Emma?”
Anna thought she saw a flicker in Dory’s eyes. Was it surprise? Fear?
“Dory, she’s back,” Anna whispered. “Emma’s back. And this time, somehow, she’s real.”
Dory stared at her, and there was no mistaking the look in her eyes now. It was frank alarm. “You’re crazy.”
“It sounds crazy,” Anna agreed desperately. “I know it does. But it’s true. She hurt you — and other people, too. Dory, I need your help….”
But Dory was backing away from her. “My friends are waiting for me. I have to go.” Before Anna could stop her, she turned on her heel and hurried out the door.
Anna closed her eyes and put her face in her hands. She felt like crying, but she was too exhausted for the tears to come. She’d been so foolish. She’d thought Dory could help. But no one could help her. She was in this alone.
“Have a nice chat?” said a voice close by.
Anna’s eyes flew open. Emma was standing in front of her, wearing a sneering smile.
“I don’t understand it,” she said to Anna. “I’m everything you’ve ever wanted in a friend. I’m cool. Daring. Exciting. But you still keep running back to Dory.”
Anna shrank back against the wall, glancing around for someone … anyone.
“No one is going to help you, Anna,” Emma said, as if she could read her mind. “No one cares about you — except me. Don’t you get it? I’m your only friend now.”
“Friend?” Anna burst out. “You’re not my friend. You’re ruining my life!”
“What life?” Emma sneered. “You had no life before I came along.”
Anna knew Emma was right. She was what Anna had wanted — almost as if Anna had wished her into existence.
Emma’s eyes flashed. “We’ll have so much fun together,” she promised. Once again, her voice was crooning, hypnotic. “We’re just alike, you and me. We’re two sides of the same coin. We can have so much fun together. Just promise me you’ll always be my friend —”
“Stop!” Anna shouted, squeezing her eyes shut. With effort, she wrenched herself away from Emma’s magnetic pull. “I’m not like you, and you’re not my friend!”
“You’re wrong, Anna.” Emma’s voice hardened. “I’m your best friend. I should have finished this a long time ago. But you’ll see. Soon, I’ll be the only friend you’ve ever known.”
“Never!” Anna cried. Her voice echoed in the empty hallway.
Anna opened her eyes and saw that she was alone. Emma was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
At home that evening, Anna paced in her bedroom. Her room was so small she could only take a few steps before she had to turn around again. Back and forth, back and forth she went, like a caged animal. She was too upset to sit still.
Soon, I’ll be the only friend you’ve ever known. What did Emma mean? Her words echoed in Anna’s head, filling her with a terrible sense of foreboding.
Downstairs, Anna heard the clatter of a pot lid in the kitchen. Her mother was cooking spaghetti again. The smell of it drifted up the stairs, but for once it wasn’t comforting. Tonight, the warm, cozy house felt like a prison. Emma was out there somewhere, doing who knew what, and Anna was trapped inside, powerless to stop her.
Anna paused in front of her bedroom window, gazing out at the oncoming night. With the change of weather, the tree outside had shed most of its leaves, and now its skeletal branches reached up toward the darkening sky. For a split second Anna thought she saw a face among the branches.
Her heart skipped a beat. She leaned closer, pressing her face right up to the glass. There was no one there. The face she thought she’d seen had only been her own reflection in the windowpane. Still, Anna shivered. In that brief instant, she’d been certain she’d seen Emma.
Anna turned away and resumed her pacing, but she felt rattled. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Emma was close by, watching her, shadowing her every move….
“Shadowing,” Anna murmured.
Her eyes fell on a photo in the collage on her corkboard. It was the picture of her and Dory on Halloween when they were four or five years old. They were dressed identically in black leotards, with whiskers painted on their faces and furry cat ears on their heads. The picture had been taken in Anna’s room. Anna had her arm around her friend, grinning. Next to her, little Dory stared somberly into the camera, her forehead creased with worry.
Anna had always liked the picture. “What were you so worried about?” she’d once teased Dory. “Afraid I would get more candy than you?” But now, looking at the photo, she saw something different.
Anna pulled the photo off the corkboard and looked closer. On the wall behind Anna, there seemed to be a double shadow. Was it just a trick of the flash? Some blur of the film?
That was the night we didn’t go trick-or-treating, Anna remembered. The night Dory fell.
A dim memory flickered in Anna’s mind, like a match flaring in darkness. She and Dory were standing at the top of the stairs, just outside her room. Dory had been upset about something.
What was it? Anna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to plunge deeper into the memory. She remembered taking Dory’s hand. Don’t worry, she’d said to Dory. I told her she can’t come with us. I don’t like her any more. You’re my best friend now.
The next thing she remembered was Dory tumbling head over heels down the stairs. She’d broken her arm and her collarbone. Anna’s parents thought she’d slipped on the stairs.
But what if she didn’t slip?
Anna’s eyes opened wide as it dawned on her: Emma pushed Dory! That’s what Emma had meant when she’d said she should have finished this a long time ago. She’d tried to hurt her once before — and now she was going to do it again.
“I have to warn Dory!” Anna said aloud. Even if Dory thought she was crazy, she had to find a way to make her friend understand that her life might be in danger!
She jumped as the door to her bedroom opened. Her father walked in. “Anna? Honey? Who are you talking to?” he asked.
“Nobody … nothing … I was just thinking aloud.
” Anna tried to smile.
Her father studied her with concern. “Mom asked me to let you know that dinner’s ready.”
“I’m not hungry.” It was true. At that moment, the thought of being stuck at the dinner table turned her stomach. “I — I think I’m coming down with the flu or something. I just want to rest.”
Her father started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “Well, it’ll be in the kitchen when you feel hungry.” He left, shutting the door behind him.
Anna waited until she was sure her father was downstairs. Then she cracked open the door and tiptoed into the hall. When they’d grounded her, her parents had also taken away her cell phone. But there was a landline in her parents’ bedroom.
Anna went into their bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so she could hear if one of them came up the stairs. She took the phone off its cradle on her mother’s nightstand and quickly dialed Dory’s cell number.
“Pick up! Pick up!” she whispered. But the phone went to voice mail.
She tried Dory’s house next. On the third ring, someone picked up. “Hello?”
“Dory!” Anna exclaimed.
“No, this is Dory’s mother. Who’s this?” came the reply.
Dang! Anna hadn’t counted on Dory’s parents answering. She was sure they wouldn’t be happy to hear from her after what she’d supposedly done to their lawn. But she sucked up her courage. “Hi, Mrs. Welch. It’s Anna. May I please speak to Dory?”
“Dory isn’t here,” her mother replied in a frosty voice. “She’s gone to the dance with her friends.”
Anna tried to keep her voice calm. “If you hear from her, would you ask her to call me? Please tell her it’s urgent.” She hung up before Mrs. Welch could say no.
She had to get to the dance. But how? She was grounded — not to mention barred from all school activities. If Ms. Turk spotted her there, she’d be in trouble for sure.
If only I could be invisible, Anna thought. And then she thought of a way she could be.
Anna hurried back to her room and threw open the closet. At the back she found a shoe box full of old face paint from the year she and Dory had dressed up as scarecrows. Most of it was dried out, but she found an unopened pot of white makeup and a black grease pencil that still worked.
She took these to the mirror and began to transform her face. After all, Anna thought, it was a Halloween dance. Everyone there would be in disguise.
As Anna smeared the makeup over her skin, she began to have the feeling that she was being watched. Twice she had to turn around to make sure no one was in the room with her, and once she actually went to the window and pressed her nose against the glass to look outside.
“I’m starting to lose it,” Anna muttered to herself as she returned to the mirror. “If this keeps up, I really am going to go crazy.”
She put the final touches on her makeup and stepped back to look at her work. She’d painted her face bone white, with black circles around her eyes. She looked like a cross between a skeleton and a ghoul. It wasn’t much of a costume. But it would have to do.
Anna zipped on a sweatshirt and pulled the hood over her head. Then she grabbed a pile of dirty clothes from her laundry hamper and shoved them under her quilt, pushing them into a sort of Anna-shaped lump. Hopefully, if her parents came to check on her, they wouldn’t look too closely.
She stuffed some money into her pocket and started for the window. But as she threw it open, she paused.
Was she really doing the right thing, sneaking into the dance like this? There were so many risks. Her parents might discover she was gone. Or Ms. Turk might spot her at the dance.
And what if this was another setup? A chilling new thought occurred to Anna. By showing up at the dance, she might be risking more than suspension — if Emma planned to do something horrible to Dory, surely she also planned to frame Anna for the crime.
I have to take that chance, Anna decided. Emma had already hurt Dory once. She couldn’t let her do it again.
Taking a deep breath, Anna climbed onto the windowsill and swung herself out into the night.
When she got to the school, Anna saw a long line outside the door to the gym. She felt a burst of hope. Maybe Dory was still in line. If so, Anna could warn her quickly and be back home before anyone discovered her gone.
Anna began to move forward, alongside the line, looking for her friend among the rubber-masked monsters and mummies wrapped in toilet paper. She saw witches, ghosts, waitresses … but no one who looked like they might be Dory.
As Anna passed a girl with ratted black hair, she heard a familiar voice say, “This dance had better be good, because these boots are, like, killing my feet.”
Anna froze. Cautiously, she peered around the edge of her hood. Jessamyn, Kima, and Lauren were standing next to her in line. They were dressed as a punk band — shredded clothes, black lipstick, studded bracelets, and fake tattoos. Kima even had a length of chain wrapped around her neck.
Anna lowered her head and hurried past, making a wide circle around them.
She worked her way to the front of the line, but she didn’t see Dory anywhere. With a sigh, she realized she would have to go inside. The two girls standing at the front of the line were busy talking to each other, so Anna slipped in front of them.
“Five dollars,” said the Frankenstein who was taking money at the door.
“Hey!” cried one of the girls behind Anna, who’d suddenly noticed she’d cut in line. “We were next!”
Anna ignored her. She shoved a wad of bills at Frankenstein without bothering to count them.
“You forgot to get your hand stamped!” he called as Anna hurried into the dance.
The strobe-lit gym was a mass of bodies, all jumping up and down to the thumping beat of a hip-hop song. Anna peered at a zombie that staggered past, but in the dim light she couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. How was she ever going to spot Dory — or Emma, for that matter — in here?
She circled the dance floor, inspecting the faces she passed, but she quickly realized it was futile. Between the costumes and dark lighting, she stood little chance of finding anyone in the crowd.
Just then, Anna did see someone she recognized. Ms. Turk was standing against the wall of the gym, just a few feet in front of her. The dean’s arms were folded across her chest, and she was watching the dancers with a pinched expression.
Anna quickly reversed direction. As she turned back toward the doors, she caught a glimpse of a short figure in a yellow rain jacket. The hood was up, partially covering her face.
“Dory?” Anna murmured.
As she watched, Dory slipped out the side door into the hallway that connected the gym with the main school building. Anna hurried after her.
When she reached the door, she looked out and saw Dory walking purposefully down the darkened hallway. “Dory!” Anna called out. But Dory didn’t turn around. She went straight to the old girls’ bathroom and disappeared inside.
“What’s she doing?” Anna wondered. Had Emma somehow lured her there, away from the crowd, so she could hurt her? With her heart in her throat, Anna pulled open the door.
The bathroom was empty.
She stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. “Dory?” she whispered.
The buzzing of the fluorescent lights was the only reply. One of the bulbs flickered spasmodically, like a dying thing struggling to stay alive.
Anna checked each of the stalls, but they were all empty. The bathroom had no windows and no other door. Anna knew she’d seen Dory come in here. So where was she?
Anna turned to leave, but as she did, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the bathroom mirror. In the hot gym, her face paint had started to melt, the black and white blending together in greasy gray streaks.
But that wasn’t all. Anna pushed her hood back from her face and leaned closer. There was something weird about her eyes….
As she frowned into the mirror, her dark b
rown eyes suddenly turned silver.
Anna screamed and stumbled backward as Emma separated herself from Anna’s reflection.
You see, Anna? You can’t run from me. I’m a part of you.
Anna could hear Emma’s voice, though not through her ears. This time Emma seemed to be speaking directly to her thoughts.
“Leave me alone!” Anna turned to flee.
But at that second, the door opened. Jessamyn, Kima, and Lauren sauntered in.
“Well, look who’s here.” Jessamyn put her hands on her hips, her black lips twisting into a wicked smile. “I’m surprised to see you, Anna. Didn’t I hear that you were on probation? Maybe I should go get Ms. Turk. I’ll bet she’ll be very interested to know you’re here.”
Kima and Lauren flanked Jessamyn, like two guard dogs waiting for the command to attack. Kima had unwound the chain from her neck and was swinging it from one hand threateningly.
“On second thought,” Jessamyn said, narrowing her eyes, “I knew there was a reason I wore these steel-toed boots tonight.” She tapped the toe of her boot against the floor, and Anna heard the hard knock of metal.
She’s bluffing, Anna told herself. They’re all bluffing. They wouldn’t really try to beat me up, not with the entire school just a few yards away….
But as the group slowly closed in on her, Anna’s confidence vanished. She glanced around for an escape. The only way out was through the door, which the Jackals were blocking.
“I’m going to make you sorry you ever messed with me,” Jessamyn snarled.
Anna, another voice broke in, I’m here for you. Come to me. Come over to my side.
Anna glanced into the mirror and saw Emma beckoning to her. In that second, her fear of the Jackals overcame her fear of Emma. Anna reached out her hand.
Emma’s hand came out of the mirror and grasped her own. The other girls saw it, for they sprang back, and Anna heard their screams. But she wasn’t thinking about them anymore.
The moment Emma’s hand closed around hers, Anna realized she’d made a mistake. Emma’s grip was like steel, and as she pulled Anna toward her, Anna saw the evil in her eyes. In that instant, Anna knew she’d never be able to return to her old life again.