I started to bang on the windows, palms searing, and scream, “Stop! Now!” My mother’s sobbing increased, as if she could feel me. I reached at the door handle with all my strength, and my hand just went through it, stinging. I searched through my dwindling mind for an idea. Parts of my body had crossed through objects. I had to be able to push my entire body through the door. It was my only hope. Positioning myself against the far side of the limousine, I steeled my nerves and threw myself at the car door with all my strength.
It felt as if my body were being ripped apart by a hot poker, cell by cell. It was intense and excruciating but mercifully brief. And when I emerged from the whirl of motion and noise and pain, I was outside, soaring through the air. I tumbled onto the ground, my entire body stinging. But I was free, and I was whole. Well, as whole as I could be, given my condition. I watched as the limousine, and then the hearse, pulled through the gates of Wickham Hall and turned onto the country road, saying goodbye—probably forever—to my parents and to my body.
IT’S HARD TO KNOW exactly how long I sat and recovered from the pain. I watched surges of students bustle to and from classes on the horizon. Again and again, like sped-up time-lapse photography. It might’ve been hours.
I was jolted from the blur of time when someone crossed through me. He approached silently from behind. I didn’t have a clue he was coming until he’d already walked through me. As I got up and walked toward the lake, I realized something: it hadn’t hurt. When I’d thrown myself out of the limousine—and when I’d crossed with other people—it’d been unbearable. But when this random Third Former crossed through me unexpectedly it hadn’t hurt at all. Clearly my body had a whole new set of rules. If only I could make sense of them.
SEVERAL STUDENTS WERE OUT rowing, but I instantly recognized Malcolm. He was the most elegant. I stood on the dock beside the boathouse as he rowed his scull in, got out, and placed it on its rack. He was doing his best to go through the motions.
I walked right next to him as he crossed the campus just as I had on the Headmaster Holiday, only this time he didn’t know I was with him. He ended up at the cemetery. He paused and then entered the Founders Tomb. I followed.
He sat and looked at the painting, the lake landscape with my angel ascending from it. It took on a new meaning. And he cried. He didn’t have that embarrassed look guys usually have when they cry, like the way my dad had struggled against his tears. Malcolm let go, without shame.
“Is that you, Liv? Are you an angel now?”
“I’m right here,” I said, desperately hoping that in this charged moment, at this private place, he might somehow hear me. But he did not.
GABE HAD AN APPOINTMENT with Headmaster Thorton the next day. As I waited for him in front of the Headmaster’s Quarters—a daunting Gothic mansion near Old Homestead—I noticed a small plaque posted on the front of the building:
This structure was erected by Elijah Wickham in 1875 upon his return to Wickham Hall after five years abroad. While traveling in Europe, the younger Wickham discovered Gothic architecture, which he brought back to Wickham Hall. He desired for the following statement to be posted on this edifice: “Let it be known to all the students of Wickham Hall that I intend for these buildings to celebrate Infinite Intelligence and our ability to embrace such a power and use it to heal the world.”
Weird statement. Pretty arrogant, too, though that wasn’t a huge surprise. Maybe that’s why there was never any religious talk in the so-called chapel; he must have been an atheist or something.
When Gabe arrived, he told me quietly and firmly under his breath that I was not to speak in the meeting. I agreed.
Headmaster Thorton answered the door promptly and invited Gabe into his living room, gesturing for him to sit on the couch. Thorton, or someone who had lived here over the years, was quite a butterfly collector. There were framed collections on the walls. And even some taxidermy butterflies hanging from the ceiling—less a mobile, more like a swarm hovering around a sweet plant.
The headmaster sat in an upright medieval-looking chair.
Gabe jumped right in. “It has come to my attention, sir, that Abigail Steers lied to the police about Liv, er, Olivia Bloom. And others lied as well, backing up her story.”
“How did this come to your attention?”
“I can’t say.”
The headmaster sighed loudly. “I’m not going to play games with you, Mr. Nichols. This is a serious accusation leveled upon one of our top students.”
Gabe stayed cooler than I would have thought. “It’s not a game. I swear. She needs to be questioned again and fingerprinted or DNA’d or whatever it is they do.”
“Mr. Nichols, you have documented mental illness.”
“I know that’s what you think, sir. But …”
“And you have a record of defiance and, I might add, dishonesty. So why would I believe you?”
Gabe swallowed, losing his confidence. I was losing mine, too. Forget Thorton. No one at Wickham Hall would believe Gabe.
“The fact is, Mr. Nichols, the police are quite interested in you.”
“What?”
“That’s all I can say.” The headmaster shrugged, as if it was classified information. “Now you may be excused.”
As Gabe was leaving, I noticed something through a door at the far end of the room—a strange old photograph of a man. I whisked in. It was a tiny sitting room, dark, with no windows. There were other photographs hanging nearby, but I heard Gabe opening the front door so I raced out to catch up.
He walked swiftly, visibly upset, and I couldn’t blame him. He finally stopped behind the Art Center dumpsters. “They’re framing me,” he whispered. He kept shaking his head. “I’m so screwed. I touched all over that well right before the police got there.”
“Do you have an alibi?”
“I was in my room. Useless.”
“You didn’t talk to anyone or see anyone?”
“I don’t leave my room at night.”
I wanted to reach out to him, to touch him. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“They won’t listen to me. They won’t ever believe me.”
“We have to get someone on our side, someone they will listen to.”
“Like who?!”
“Malcolm.”
“No way!”
I had to convince Gabe. Who else would help us? Plus, I had to let Malcolm know that I wasn’t gone. “Would you rather go to jail? Let Abigail go free? Just because you don’t like the guy?!”
His shoulders sagged, and I knew he’d do it.
MALCOLM WAS SITTING IN one of the oversized leather chairs in the lobby in Main. Abigail, Kent, Amos, and several others were hanging around him, trying to cheer him up. He stared straight ahead at nothing. I stared at him, waiting for Gabe and hoping he hadn’t decided to blow off our plan at the last minute.
“Tonight,” Kent cajoled. “Eight P.M. You gotta come. We miss you.” He playfully gestured to his heart, trying to make light of the situation.
“No.”
“You have to.”
“I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“It’s your responsibility,” Abigail chimed in, annoyed. Clearly she’d used up her acting skills pretending to care.
“Then I quit,” Malcolm said evenly.
“It doesn’t work like that. You can’t quit,” Kent said. “Come on, it’ll make you feel better. You gotta get back in the swing.” Kent patted Malcolm on the back.
Malcolm sighed and turned away from him, just as the door flew open. Gabe was approaching. I breathed a sigh of relief. Gabe jerked to a stop, startled. He looked right into my eyes.
“You can see me?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Don’t talk to me. They’ll hear you,” I said. “Now go.”
He nodded again, looking around—probably afraid of seeing the Gossip Girl who lingered there—and proceeded toward Malcolm.
Abigail snapped, “Um, seriously? What are you doin
g here? This is our area.”
Gabe laughed harshly. He shot me a glare and turned to walk away.
“No! Go talk to him! Now!” I yelled.
After a final moment of hesitation, Gabe whipped around, turning back. The whole clique looked at him like he was crazy. And he did look crazy, with his ripped clothes and lurching movements. He smiled at Abigail. “Nice pumps.”
“Shut up, perv.”
He plopped down into the leather chair next to Malcolm, a parody of trying to act cool. “Hey, man. What’s going on?”
Malcolm turned to him, more baffled than upset.
“Seriously, get out of here,” Kent said, smiling all the while as if to soften the blow.
“He’s allowed to sit here if he wants,” Malcolm said.
“Yeah, I’m with him,” Gabe spat at Kent. “This is the form my grief is taking.”
Kent laughed. So did Amos and Abigail. That’s how preposterous the situation was to them—that an Astor would deign to hang out with Gabe, no matter what the circumstances.
Malcolm ignored his friends and smiled at Gabe sadly, knowing they now shared something: my death. Well played, I thought. Gabe smiled back, then leaned over and whispered, “She’s still here.”
Malcolm stood up with such force that his chair fell backward. He froze up as if to keep from punching Gabe. “Get away from me,” he barked.
“What’d he say?” Kent demanded.
“Nothing.” Malcolm grabbed Gabe’s T-shirt and pushed him. “Go away and stay away.”
“We mean it, freak!” Abigail yelled after Gabe.
Gabe stormed to the door, then turned back to them, suddenly simmering with a rage that frightened even me. “Fine, push me away,” he bellowed. “But we will reveal the truth! All of it!”
When I turned to follow, I was face to face with her—the Gossip Girl—close enough to see the mascara clumped to the lashes around her brown eyes and the lip gloss shining on her airy lips, slightly upturned in a smile. I choked back a scream and rushed to catch up with Gabe.
Me and Haley Pinfolds ruled the school. And even she didn’t know I was white trash. At least I didn’t think she did. My daddy had struck it big with a time-share property scam. I’m not real sure how it worked, but we went from a dump outside Gainesville to a house in Miami that was so big I constantly lost my dog, Gucci. When my momma asked what I wanted now that we had piles of money, I said I wanted class. So my daddy made a big fat donation to Wickham Hall, and I was accepted the following year.
I studied magazines—not like Us Weekly but classy ones like W and Marie Claire—to figure out how to dress. I got a dialect coach to work on my voice. A tutor to prepare me for the classes. I even read The New York Times.
I really thought I had them fooled. I certainly had myself fooled. I fully believed I was one of them.
But then I started to get IMs and texts—i know who u r, i know what u r, u don’t belong here—and stuff like that. My Myspace page got overrun—people accusing me of being dirty and trashy, just like my namesake Britney Spears. u r a liar, u suck, go away. They even put my name on the definition of “rich white trash” in urbandictionary.com. Haley wouldn’t talk to me. She said I lied to her.
I started to feel like they were right. I had lied and faked it. Maybe I was still white trash. I didn’t know who I was anymore. All I knew was I was a liar.
On my last day, I took a shower after dinner. While I was in there, it suddenly got dark, and the fire alarm blared. I got out of the shower and reached around for my towel. It was gone. I ran out in the hall, but it was empty. There was no light. I called out for Haley. For anyone. No one was there, and the alarm kept ringing so loud. I didn’t know what to do but run outside.
They were all there, surrounding me, laughing at me. All the girls in the dorm and even a few guys. A few of them pushed me around. Haley said she was going to “pop my fake tits.” One of her new friends groped me. Then everyone tried to get a grab. My boobs weren’t fake, by the way.
I ran back inside. I curled up, crouching on my bed until the power came back on, then I got out of bed. I blew out my hair, put my face on, and got dressed in my bestest outfit, including my new Marc Jacobs dress and Tory Burch flats. I packed up my Birkin bag and marched up to their hangout spot in the Main lobby, now empty. I tied together those crisp Wickham Hall sheets, attached them to that big metal chandelier, stood on one of their footstools, and then kicked it out of the way.
They had won. They didn’t get their hands dirty, but they’re the ones who killed me.
I soared alongside Gabe as he marched across campus with a new purpose. It wasn’t until we were passing the Art Center that he’d calmed down enough for me to ask him where we were going.
“To the woods and the well,” he snapped.
“Why?”
“To look for clues. Anything.”
“Like?”
“They never found your phone. Maybe we can find it.”
“But you’ll go back to Malcolm later?”
“No, Liv. No, I will not.”
Right. Not the best time to try to push that agenda. Anyway, we did need to look in the woods. The police hadn’t known the “military operation” route I’d taken to the well. They probably hadn’t even looked along the path Malcolm had so carefully planned. And maybe there would be some kind of clue on my phone.
I led Gabe to the clearing where Malcolm and I had met. While he scoured around, I stretched out on the pine needles in the spot where Malcolm and I had been. I stared up at the sky. It was mid-afternoon so there were no stars, of course, but the leaves were every possible orange and the clouds were perfect puffs. I thought of the poem Malcolm had recited to me right in this spot, and I looked at the stars he’d drawn on my arm. It wasn’t that long ago, and yet everything had changed.
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite …
Wasn’t that me now? Isolated and watching, with eternal lids apart? I didn’t sleep, and time didn’t really exist anymore (at least not like it had when I was alive). I was separate from the world. I had become the star, hadn’t I? That tragic, lonely thing.
“Am I going to be stuck like this forever, Gabe? Here, at Wickham?”
“I don’t know. Seems like the others have been.”
“What if I don’t want to be?”
“One thing at a time. Step one: let’s try to make sure I don’t get locked up for the rest of my life, because I can’t be much help to you behind bars. Step two: we’ll figure the rest of it out.”
“Okay.”
He started into the tall pines. “You went this way?”
“Yep.” I followed him, a few paces behind. “No, to the right of that tree.”
He went right, his eyes pinned to the carpet of leaves and dead pine needles with laser focus. Suddenly he picked up his pace. “And bingo!”
“You’re kidding. You found it?!”
He picked my phone up. “Unless somebody else has Starry Night on their iPhone case.”
I laughed. It was my first laugh as a ghost. It felt good.
“Anything?” I asked Gabe.
He pushed the home button but the phone didn’t light up. “I don’t know. It’s dead,” he said, slipping the phone into his pocket. “We’ll have to charge it up and check it later.”
That’s when I saw her: sitting on a branch of the weeping willow tree several yards away, red hair still set in perfect curls and blackened blood still caked down the front of her beaded flapper dress. She looked off in the other direction, singing to herself. I shushed Gabe so I could hear the words; it sounded old and bluesy or jazzy or something like that. Gabe went pale.
“I went down to the river, sat beneath the willow tree.
The dew dropped on those willow leaves,
And it rolled right d
own on me.
And that’s the reason I’ve got those weepin’ willow blues.”
She seemed at peace. In a strange way, I felt connected to her. I was like her, wasn’t I? But then she turned in our direction.
“Here you are,” she muttered.
Gabe was off and running before I could stop him. I followed right after.
GABE AND I TOOK a little-used path back to the main campus so he’d feel safe talking to me.
“How can we find out more about Abigail?” I asked.
“All the student records are locked up in the Headmaster’s Quarters.”
“Malcolm has access to those places. He’s got a key.”
“I’m sure he does. He’s got a key to whatever he wants. The whole friggin’ world.”
“You have to talk to him.”
“I won’t. I think he’s part of all this.”
“He’s not!” I wanted to punch Gabe right then.
“Can you just leave me alone for a little bit? Just go away!” Clearly he wanted to punch me, too.
“No!” My mind was spinning. There was so much I needed to know. Pieces that needed to be put together. “Did you ever notice they’re all girls?”
“Who are?”
“The ghosts.”
“Can we not talk about them?” He lurched away from me, scowling.
“I’m one of them.”
“You’re different. I know you. You don’t taunt me.”
“We could try to talk to one of them,” I said hesitantly and, as expected, Gabe went ballistic.
“I lied. You do taunt me. Just go away!”
I wouldn’t go away. And he knew it. I did give up on trying to get him to talk to one of the ghosts, but I would not give up on finding out more about Abigail.
MRS. MULFORD HAD IMPOUNDED Gabe’s computer, so I convinced him to go to the library to research. He positioned himself in the most abandoned and farthest away corner next to a bank of old steam radiators. They hissed, spooking me, as he Googled “Abigail Steers.” He scoured her Facebook page, her Instagram, her Twitter. He even checked her criminal history—there was none. Yet.
Liv, Forever Page 10