There was someone else there the night of the accident. He was chasing Amelia and he said he was looking for you too. Please be careful.
I need her to understand the danger, I need to warn her. So I tuck a corner of the note under her door and hope that she’ll take it seriously. I did my best to disguise Sophie’s handwriting by using all caps, but it’s not like there were any other witnesses to the accident. She’ll blame me for this. If she’s pissed, I’ll deny writing it. But maybe she won’t be angry. Maybe she’ll somehow sense the truth. Maybe she’ll finally be ready to listen. Maybe she’ll at least be a little more careful.
I linger in front of Mae’s door, letting her cries wash over me, wishing for the ability to absorb all of her pain. Why can’t whatever magic is at play here work that way? Why can’t I fix anything? The night Jake stood me up I was so humiliated, so devastated that I locked myself in my room. Mae stood outside banging on the door, begging me to let her in. But I ignored her. I was too pissed off, too embarrassed. All I wanted to do was blast angry music and ugly cry alone. After a few minutes the banging on the door stopped and I figured Mae had given up on me, which of course just made me cry harder. Hours later after the tears dried and my iPod ran out of batteries, I opened my door. And there was Mae. Curled into a ball at the foot of my door, fast asleep with one hand on her heart and her other hand on the doorframe. Later she told me that she sat out there forever trying to absorb my pain so I wouldn’t have to feel it alone. When I rest my hand on her door I close my eyes and take a deep breath, willing her heartbreak toward me, trying to save her from the despair and the pain. It’s the best I can do.
I tiptoe down the stairs because I have no other choice. As I slip out the front door, I notice the newspaper article I’d placed by the door this morning has blown into the corner. I move it back into place and hope they’ll see it.
My feet hurt, my eyes burn, and my throat aches. The tears start without warning. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t handle not understanding anything that’s happening to me. I have nowhere to go.
I should be used to this feeling, the constant isolation that comes with moving around so much etched into my personality, but nothing feels familiar right now. It’s like driving around the day after the first snow of the year. You miss turns because the world is now sparkling white and new. Instead of taking the scenic route and marveling at the beauty of a world I don’t recognize, I’m muddying the waters with secrets. I’m a stranger in this body and I’m a stranger in that other world, that other life. I picture the birth certificates with strangers’ names on them. How can I continue to fight for my life, for Amelia, without really knowing who or what I’m fighting for?
I wipe my tears but more follow, running under my nose and along my chin. And all I want is another scone. I have to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, at the ridiculousness of laughing out loud by myself in this stupid outfit, with these stupid shoes, with this world-altering information in this stranger’s life.
So I turn back to school even though the day is all but over. I go back because I have nowhere else to go and I can’t walk another step farther and there’s a boy whose car smells like a bakery who can give me a ride home.
The doors are unlocked now that the last bell has rung and as everyone’s fighting to come out, I’m fighting to get in. The whispers are the same and I imagine a girl like Sophie Graham is accustomed to being talked about. Preferably without mascara tracked down her cheeks.
Scones. Landon Crane. His vintage red VW. The thoughts propel me forward with more confidence and I lift my delicate chin a bit through the crowd. I finally find Landon lingering by the senior lockers and I wonder if my new social standing will impact the way he treats me, for better or worse.
When he sees me coming, he smiles. For better. “Well, look who it is! Did you see that someone created a meme of you eating a donut?” He laughs as I near. His friends raise their eyebrows and clap him on the back before slamming lockers and heading out like everyone else. “You must have hit your head harder than everyone thought.”
Under different circumstances, I’d curtsy and take full credit for the implosion of Sophie Graham. But everything’s come to a head and I feel all those tears bubble up again because I’m not even sure of my own name anymore. Everything is completely out of my control right about now. I’m exhausted.
Landon’s eyes widen, and when he blinks they’re softer somehow. “Oh, I didn’t mean. . . .”
I shake my head and sniffle. “I was just hoping you could give me a ride again.”
When he reaches for my hand, I lace my fingers in between his. And for a second my world stops spinning so wildly around me. For a second I feel safe.
Twenty-Seven
LANDON RUBS HIS HANDS OVER THE STUBBLE ALONG HIS CHIN AND looks over at me as we wait at a red light. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I think of everything I have to say, think of the notebook and all the information I’ve gathered and haven’t shared. I think of the fight to get out of this body, the impossibility of everything, the absolute powerlessness of it all. Do I want to talk? It’s the only thing I want to do. Spill everything. Have him believe.
But the real truth is just too impossible to say out loud. In words. Even to Landon. How do you tell someone you’re trapped in the wrong body? How do you tell him that the person you thought you were might not even exist?
“I’m just really overwhelmed.” Truth.
He makes the turn onto our street and I see the Grahams’ house looming at the end and I just can’t do it. I can’t go back there yet. I’ve barely digested everything that’s happened today and I can’t process with Sophie’s mom breathing down my neck.
“Would it be okay if I came over for a little while?” I scramble to think of a reason, an excuse, because I’ve just invited myself over to the house of the cutest boy I’ve ever met. “Our internet has been super spotty and I really need to look some stuff up.” It is such a stupid excuse, but I just can’t bring myself to care anymore.
“I’ve been used for a lot of things, Sophie Graham. My mad baking abilities, my kickass Photoshop skills, and even this guy.” He pats Murray’s steering wheel lovingly. “But I can safely say no one’s ever used me for my internet. Lucky for you the Cranes take wifi very seriously.”
I laugh. In another life, butterflies would flutter through my stomach. In another life, this would feel like the beginning of something. But all I can think is that the girl he’s starting to like is Sophie Graham, not Amelia Fischer. And it feels more like an end than a beginning.
What if that’s the whole point. What if I’m supposed to forget about Amelia and her twisted life and try to be Sophie Graham? Try to be okay with letting go?
“Have you ever felt like maybe you’re in the wrong body?” I spit the question out of my mouth before I can bring myself to worry about his answer.
“You mean, like, do I ever wish I was a girl? Because honestly . . .”
I cut him off. “No, I mean like the wrong life.”
“Like reincarnation? Because I totally believe in that. My mom had this friend whose kid remembered all this weird stuff about a village in Thailand and when they finally brought him there on a vacation he recognized people and called them by name. When he got older, he started to forget, but my mom totally believes that he lived another life before this one.”
I stop and absorb what he’s saying. Reincarnation. Is that what this is? Some kind of weird next life since my current body is on life support? Does that mean I’m going to forget all about Mae and Amelia and my mom? Does that mean that I’ll never know the real truth behind everything locked inside that box? So many questions and still no answers. Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s time to give up.
But I think about Mae. I think about the girl I used to be. The prickly little thing who loved her mom and her sister with ferocity. She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t a quitter. And even if my life as Amelia is over that doesn’t mean
I can’t save my mom and sister from the shadow man. Because maybe once I’ve saved them it’ll be okay to let everything else go.
We pull into his driveway. The Cranes’ house is an anomaly in Morristown. It’s tiny and painted a deep, moody blue with white trim, with window boxes overflowing with late-summer blooms and a tarnished brass plaque next to the front door that identifies it as a “Century Home Built in 1901.” It’s one of the few historical houses that butt up to the sprawling estates developed a few years back. And it looks weirdly familiar. It takes me a minute to recognize it but the moment I do I gasp loud enough to make Landon slam on the brakes.
“The house angel!”
Landon looks panicked. “Oh shit. Did I run it over?” He slams the car in first and jerks up the parking brake then looks at me. “Wait, what the hell is a house angel?”
“Your house. It looks exactly like this little figurine my mom has on our mantle.”
Landon looks relieved. “Oh, those. Some old couple makes them in Baltimore—the wife grew up here. They do a new historic house every year and come up for Art Fest. Ours was one of the first ones they ever did, before I was even born. My mom’s never been able to snag one. I’m surprised she hasn’t stolen yours yet.”
“Oh yeah. Right.” I’m processing the information, trying to figure out how my mom ended up with a carving of Landon’s house years before we moved to Morristown. My brain catches on something. Sophie grew up with that house on her mantle too. She’s lived here her whole life. I’m somehow trapped in her body after a man tried to take me. And then I find birth certificates with the wrong names unlocked by a key that was hidden in a wooden house from a town where we’d never actually lived. My mind tries to string all these details together, tries to pick up the thread and understand how they’re connected, but the whole story is a knotty mess.
I’m snapped back to reality when Landon opens my car door.
“Coming?”
As soon as we walk into Landon’s house, I hear his mom call, “Hi there, sweetheart!” and Sophie’s six again.
There are moving boxes stacked in every room and my parents are yelling at each other. The doorbell rings and they stop. They never fight when other people are around.
I open the door, happy to meet someone else. Happy that the yelling is over for now.
“Hi there, sweetheart!” a woman says, smiling widely. My mom comes up behind me and squeezes my shoulders just a little too hard. “We just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood!” she continues, holding out a basket of fresh bread, muffins, scones, and cookies. They smell so good, but I’m distracted by the boy in glasses standing behind her, stretching his neck to see inside the house. He probably heard my parents arguing. The thought makes me blush.
My mom takes the basket from her. “We’re just getting all settled in, you know how it is to move. Even if it’s only across town!”
“Oh, just the worst,” Mrs. Crane replies. “I know I’ve seen you around, but we haven’t had a chance to officially meet. I’m Emily.” She reaches out her hand and looks so pretty when she smiles.
“Hillary,” my mom replies coolly. She smiles, but I can still see the tears in her eyes.
Mrs. Crane probably sees them too, because she turns to me. “This is Landon!” she says, nudging the little boy forward. “You’ll be going to kindergarten together! What’s your name, honey?”
I open my mouth to answer, but my mom beats me to it. “This is Sophie. And yes, she’s six, but she’ll be in the gifted class. Is Landon in the gifted program?”
Mrs. Crane flushes and pats Landon on the head awkwardly. “Afraid not. We’re aggressively average over here.”
I feel my mom’s fingers tighten on my shoulders again as my dad comes to meet the new neighbors. I already know they won’t be friends.
“Sophie Graham!” The memory disintegrates, and I see a slightly older version of the same small woman with her son’s golden eyes. Her arms wrap me in a hug tight enough to knock the wind out of me and elicit protests from Landon who rolls his eyes. For someone so small, she’s strong as hell.
The house is cozy in the best way possible, at least fifteen degrees warmer than outside, and smells like something that would have a flaky crust and melt in your mouth. There are window seats and original moldings and a dusty piano tucked into an alcove with sheet music stacked in piles on top. The floors creak and the ceilings are low, but it’s somehow still bright and airy. The kitchen is a disaster of dirty dishes and spilled flour, and when she sees me looking, Mrs. Crane apologizes.
“Oh, please ignore the mess. I have scones ready to come out of the oven and cookies about to go in.”
“It’s fine, Mom. It’s just Sophie. All I promised was a fast internet connection and the pleasure of my company.” He looks oversized in this tiny kitchen, kind of hunching over like his head might graze the ceiling. So incredibly different from the boy in Sophie’s memory. Is it because she was the one doing the remembering? Would I have seen him differently as a six-year-old?
“Follow me.” Landon grabs a plate of scones and leads me down a narrow hallway toward the back of the house.
He opens a pair of glass French doors and I notice his laptop all set up in the corner, a few cameras, lenses, and a tangle of cords beside it. Landon places the plate on a table and if it weren’t for the view out the wall of windows, I’d have already stuffed a scone in my mouth. But even the smell of buttery deliciousness is no rival for the Cranes’ backyard. It’s literally a graveyard. Well, I guess technically the graveyard is behind them, but beyond their postage-stamp-sized backyard there are rows and rows of ancient headstones lining the green grass. I stare at them in shock, if not for the buried dead then for the memory that follows.
Candy sits like a brick in my stomach and I’m afraid I might be sick. I blame my mom because we never have it around, but it was still stupid for me to blow through half my bag before the night is even over.
“You’re up, Sophie!” Janie singsongs. Half our class is here, circled around the creepy tombstones that border Landon’s backyard. We still end up here every Halloween even though Brooke calls him a dork behind his back. We’ve never done this before though, and my stomach does a little twist again, nerves mixed with way too much sugar.
I lean forward and spin the bottle, the glass cool on my fingertips. It doesn’t spin well on the grass and before I even look up to see his amber eyes magnified by those stupid, thick lenses, I know it’s him because everyone laughs.
“I get a redo,” I snap. Maybe it’s the candy, my churning stomach, everyone else. But the words come out just as nasty as my nausea and I can’t take them back.
He rolls his eyes like he knows something I don’t, but still sits there like a lump while our classmates begin to chant the word kiss.
Now I know I’ll be sick. I break away from the circle, laughter lifting into the chilly night air behind me, with an acute understanding of an age-old set of rules. It doesn’t matter what I want anymore. It’s not worth the stomachache.
Landon reads my shock wrong, and I wonder if he remembers the Halloween where everything changed. “I guess it’s been a while, right?” His golden eyes follow mine to the graves. “You get used to it.”
The Amelia in me has so many questions. “Aren’t you scared? Like, at night?” I can’t help but ask the obvious one that I’m sure has been covered in the past.
Landon looks at me like I have two heads. “No, Sophie, they’re friendly ghosts, remember?” He shakes his head and laughs.
I don’t. I’m transfixed by the neat rows. I don’t think I’ve ever believed in ghosts but suddenly I’m sure they’re real. I can imagine their spirits weaving and wandering, calling out to one another and pressing themselves into the historic walls of Landon’s home. The stones feel alive in a way that they shouldn’t, and I realize with a sick certainty how much has changed. Maybe I do believe in ghosts. Or maybe it’s Sophie, yet another piece of Amelia gone. Or maybe it�
��s just that I can feel them more acutely now that I’m a wandering spirit too. Trapped in the wrong body instead of my own. Or instead of a casket. The thought feels like sharp fingernails trailing down the back of my neck.
“No one’s been buried here for pretty much a hundred years anyway,” he says, watching me closely. I pull my eyes away from the stones, giving myself permission to take in the sight of him. His shaggy hair shines gold in the sun and I see those blond tips on his eyelashes again. It must make him a little uncomfortable, because he pushes his computer toward me in an attempt to break the moment. “Are you ready?”
Am I ready? I don’t know if it’s the smell of those incredible scones or the warmth of the room or his perfect lips or his terrifying backyard full of memories and ghosts. Maybe it’s the image of Landon soaking wet, grinning at the real me behind the chain-link fence after my tennis match, or it’s Sophie’s six-year-old version of Landon with glasses and rosy cheeks. Or maybe I don’t want to follow the rules anymore. Maybe Sophie doesn’t either. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
I raise myself up on tiptoes and press my lips to his. His mouth parts without hesitation and he tastes like ChapStick and breath mints and possibility. I want to move closer to him, I want to feel his body against mine. I want to forget all about who I am and who I’m trying to find. I just want to be a girl, falling for a boy.
And for a second it doesn’t matter who I am. The only thing that matters is the way his lips feel, the way his hands hold my face, the way my fingers curl easily around his hair when they wind around his neck. For one magic second it’s nothing but that stomach-liquefying feeling of mouth against mouth, body against body.
When I finally pull away to catch my breath, I look straight up into his golden eyes, power surging through me. I’m not Amelia, I’m not Sophie. I’m someone new—someone who kisses boys in light-filled rooms with ghosts as witnesses.
He shakes his head and sits next to me. “Right, well, I’m gonna go ahead and take that as a yes.”
Now You See Her Page 16