“Has Dylan seen—I mean, has Logan—”
“No one’s seen Logan.” She squeezed my knee through the red sheet. “I think he’s really gone.”
I slumped back on my pillow, knowing I should be relieved instead of crushed. “But it was so sudden. Most people like that stay ghosts for longer than ten minutes. No way was he already at peace.” I remembered Logan’s face as his brother screamed at his dead body. Another tear dribbled out. “Maybe Logan’s mad at us.”
Megan groaned. “You too? Mickey blames himself. You blame yourself. None of what they say is true. You know better than anyone.”
I shifted my head on the pillow. “What who says?”
Her mouth formed a tiny O. “Um, nothing. People online are, you know, bullshitting about last night.”
I got so cold, it felt like my mattress had become a block of ice. “Where online?”
“Do not stress, okay? It’s covered. I told them where they could stick their stupid rumors.”
I sat up fast, my stomach somersaulting. “What rumors?”
“Aura …”
“If you don’t show me, I’ll look it up when you leave.” I rolled off the other side of the bed.
“Okay, okay!” Megan followed me to my desk and stood behind me as I opened my laptop. “Start on Amy Koeller’s profile.”
“Amy?” Our class president, future Peace Corps volunteer, was gossiping about me? She was always so sweet to everyone. I brought up my friends list and clicked on her profile.
At the top of her page, her status read, OMG Aura Salvatore’s boyfriend Logan died of cardiac arrest last night. We should send flowers or something.
“That’s nice.” I scrolled down to see a link that said, View all 152 comments. I clicked, then scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled some more.
Megan tried to close the laptop screen. “Aura, one last time. Please don’t read this.”
I shoved her hand away and angled the screen so I could see. The first couple of dozen responses were sympathetic or shocked, lots of people remembering Logan from when he went to Ridgewood before his family moved out to the County. There were offers to pitch in five bucks for flowers, then an argument about whether they should donate the money to a charity in Logan’s name instead.
Then Casey Crawford said, You know it was drugs, right? Heard Aura gave them to him.
“What?” I shouted.
Lauren Bankford: No way. Aura pretends she’s all badass, but she’d never have cocaine.
Casey:It’s what I heard.
Mike Brubaker: I could totally see Logan OD’ing. I knew a guy who used to get high with him in eighth grade. Dude always had to take more hits off a joint than anyone else.
Lauren: You ‘knew a guy,’ huh, Mike? ;-)
Amy: People, can we get back to the charity topic? Maybe we should donate it to a drug awareness group.
Mike:You mean those retards who put on skits for assemblies? I’ll feed the money to my dog instead—his turds are better quality than those plays.
Lauren:Shut up, Mike. I think it should go to the antidrug thing. When my granddad died, people gave money to cancer research.
Amy:Off to soup kitchen. Back later.
Nate Hofstetler:Maybe it should go to Viagra safety research.
Mike:ROFLMFAO @ Nate.
Casey:Wait. What’s this about Viagra?
Nate:Logan had a heart attack. Viagra causes heart attacks.
Lauren:Does not.
Nate:See the commercials? They say it at the end.
Lauren:It’s bc old guys use it and their hearts explode when they have sex, LOL.
Sarah Greenwalt:I don’t think cardiac arrest is the same as a heart attack. I just looked it up.
Nate:Maybe it’s not only old guys who use Viagra.
Casey:You are NOT saying what I think you’re saying.
Mike:I’d need Viagra to get it up for Aura Salvatore.
My stomach went cold, but I kept my face rigid so Megan wouldn’t shut my laptop. I had to keep reading, find out who had started these rumors.
Casey:No way, man, she’s hot.
Mike:She’s, like, three feet tall & she’s a total ballbuster. Italians yell all the time.
Casey:Aura can yell in my ear all she wants while I’m doing her.
Nate:Yeah, she’d be yelling, “IS IT IN YET?”
Mike:Plus, you can tell she’ll be fat in five years.
Megan McConnell:YOU GUYS ARE SUCH ASSHOLES. YOU WEREN’T EVEN THERE, SO YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!! NONE OF YOU, SO STFU!!!
Lauren:Srsly, let’s take this into chat. Amy’ll zap this thread anyway when she gets home.
Casey:Bitches.
My finger hovered over the refresh key.
“Don’t do it,” Megan said.
I hit F5 to reload the page. The thread disappeared.
“Thank God, Amy killed it.” Megan reached for the laptop lid. “Don’t worry about those idiots.”
I grabbed the base of the computer. “No, I have to find out what they’re saying now.”
“What difference does it make?”
“What difference?” I shouted. “Logan’s dead, and they’re telling lies about him!”
“What are you gonna do, huh? Tell everyone the truth?” She tightened her hold on the laptop lid. “Gina will kill you if you talk about this online.”
“I don’t care!” I wrenched the computer to the left. Megan lost her balance and knocked over my propped-up calculus book.
The hidden glass of ginger ale flooded my keyboard. My laptop sizzled as the soda soaked into the frame.
“Oh my God!” Megan yanked a tissue out of the box, then flipped it over. “It’s empty!”
I pulled the plug from the back of the laptop and held down the power button until the screen went black. Then I turned the computer upside down and propped it up like a tent so the liquid would drip out.
“Now what?” Megan dug her green fingernails into the tissue like it was the last one in the world.
“Nothing. It has to dry for at least a day.”
“How did you know what to do?”
“Last year Logan spilled Coke on his laptop and totally fried it. So I looked up the procedure in case it ever happened to me.”
“You’re so sensible.” She stroked my hair, picking out the gel-encrusted tangles. “And now you can’t obsess over those lies.”
I put my face in my soda-sticky hands. “They’ll be talking about it at school Monday.”
“I know, but you can’t say anything, okay? Gina told me that the Keeleys called right before I got here. They might sue the guy who gave Logan the cocaine. They might even sue the record company.”
“But without Logan, it’s just the band’s word against the company’s, and Warrant will have a whole team of lawyers.”
“You never know. Logan might still show up.”
It was wrong to wish it, wrong to hope I’d ever see his smile again. I should’ve been praying for the passage of his soul, as Aunt Gina was probably doing downstairs, with a rosary and candles and an altar to Saint Peter.
But I couldn’t help it. I wanted Logan back, even in violet.
Chapter Six
Logan didn’t return that night in any color, not even in my dreams. Probably because I was sedated.
Gina thought Valium would help my “condition.” I didn’t bother telling her that Logan was the only cure for my condition. I just shut up and took the flat yellow pill. It helped, if only by getting her off my case. Her eyes were full of grief, like she’d lost the love of her life.
I didn’t wake up on Sunday until my cell phone rang. I picked it up off my nightstand, dreading the gossip seekers.
The glowing screen said ZACHARY M. The name was vaguely familiar, and connected with something important.
“Hello,” came a deep lilting voice. “I never gave you my address.”
“Ohhh, no.” Friday seemed like it was three years ago. “I forgot about going to College Park toda
y. I should’ve canceled.” We were supposed to be there in an hour.
“Why?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
This guy was outside my universe. He didn’t know. “My boyfriend died.” An imaginary knife twisted in my chest—a sign the sedatives were fading.
“Christ, I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” He waited a few seconds. “What’s the name of the professor we’re supposed to meet with?”
“Why?”
“I’ll look up the number and ring them for you, to cancel.”
My aunt opened the door a crack without knocking. “Who’s on the phone, hon?”
“Someone from school.” When she didn’t retreat, I sent her a blank look. “This conversation is of an academic nature.”
“No need to get snippy. I’m leaving.” Except she didn’t. “You sure I can’t get you some soup? I made escarole. You love escarole.”
I turned my head away from her scrunched-up Sympathy Face. “Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute.”
When Gina disappeared—leaving my door open, of course—I put the phone back to my ear. “What did you ask me?”
“The professor’s name. Or number, if you have it. But I don’t mind looking it up.”
The thought of spending another day lying in bed crying, or taking phone calls, or reading rumors on the Internet (assuming my laptop hadn’t suffered Death by Ginger Ale), made me shrivel up inside.
“Give me your address.”
* * *
I picked Zachary up in front of his apartment building, on the other side of the Johns Hopkins University campus from my Charles Village neighborhood.
He set his book bag on the passenger’s seat floor and slid inside. “Brilliant, right on time.”
“I’m always on time.”
“Me too. I hate when—” He stopped when he saw my face. “Bloody hell. You all right to drive?”
“Yep.” I adjusted my glasses, the frames crooked from the time I’d sat on them. “The Valium’s worn off.” I pulled out into traffic, probably a little faster than I should have. “If we have to get together to work on this project, we could meet on campus halfway.”
The car beside me honked, and Zachary grabbed the armrest as I swerved back to the center of my lane. Then he quickly let go and scratched his chin, as if to prove my driving didn’t scare him.
“We’re in a temporary let,” he said, “while my dad gets settled at Hopkins. It’s just one room, plus a wee kitchen.”
“He’s a guest lecturer?”
“Something like that.”
“Which department?”
“Political science,” Zachary said quickly, as if he’d been waiting for me to ask. “We’re here for two semesters.”
“Is that what you want to do too? Political science?”
He pressed his foot to the floor as we approached the stoplight, apparently too fast for his taste. “No, I could never do what he does.”
“So three of you in a studio apartment? Or do you have siblings, too?” I didn’t know why I cared. Trying to avoid silence, I guess.
“It’s just me and him.”
I stopped the car at the light and adjusted my passenger side mirror (I always forget that one). “Your mom’s back in Scotland?”
“Er, maybe.”
“Is it a secret? She’s a spy or something?”
Zachary folded his arms and gave me a bitter look. “If it’s a secret, I’m no’ privy to it.”
“Sorry.” I probably should have revealed my own parental lack, so we could bond over the voids in our respective lives. But my nerves were too raw from losing Logan for me to talk about my mom and dad.
We both fell quiet until we got to the freeway and the sun came out.
“Don’t laugh.” I put on a pair of sunglasses in front of my regular glasses, officially becoming a gold-medal dork.
Zachary didn’t laugh. “How do you see like that?”
“Better than squinting and getting a headache.”
“Why not get prescription sunglasses?”
“They’re expensive, and I never wear my glasses out of the house.”
“Did you lose a contact lens, then?”
“No, they wouldn’t fit.” Maybe because my eyes were almost swollen shut from crying.
“Ah.” Zachary shrugged out of his dark brown leather jacket, tugging it from under the seat belt’s shoulder harness. I checked out his clothing in my peripheral vision. Just a few days ago, I would’ve envied his black shirt. Pre-Shifters had no idea what it was like to have to choose between wearing red or suffering major ghost harassment.
But I wasn’t envious anymore. I twisted the hem of my raspberry-colored sweater and thought about its burgundy twin (or triplet, if you count the scarlet one too). Maybe some new clothes would bring Logan back.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Get real, Aura. He’s not coming back, not for clothes, not for anything.
As we passed the Inner Harbor, Zachary craned his neck at the USSConstellation out the back window. “That ship’s huge. Was it used for battles?”
“It’s got cannons, so I guess so.” Apparently, the testosterone-y obsession with weapons wasn’t just for American guys.
“Have you been inside?”
“Ugh, not since I was a kid.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, already sore from the weight of two pairs of glasses. “It’s terminally haunted.”
“Oh, right. I guess they can’t BlackBox it without tearing it apart.”
I shrugged. “That, and it helps sell tickets.”
On the interstate I changed the subject to our project. Zachary took notes on the research I’d done so far, which wasn’t much. But I had set out the scope and direction, and I wasn’t about to let him drag me off course.
I didn’t tell Zachary how I’d found our adviser, Dr. Harris. That summer I’d discovered a locked box at the back of my aunt’s closet. The key was in her bottom drawer with a bunch of other family keepsakes. When I unlocked the box, I found a journal and a pile of old photos from the Newgrange megalith in Ireland, including one of a girl my age—Eowyn Harris. All dated a year before my birth. All written in my mother’s handwriting.
By this point, I had memorized Mom’s journal entries.
Thursday, December 20
It’s true what they say about Ireland—this place is magic. I never believed in any of that mystical crap before, not even Gina’s supposed “ghost sight,” but now I wonder. It feels like I was meant to come here, like my soul is home.
Nah, I’m probably just jet-lagged. Getting up early for the solstice sunrise tomorrow—woo-hoo!
Friday, December 21
There are no words to describe what happened this morning in Newgrange. But so, so, SO many questions.
Someone had torn out December 22’s entry, but who? My mom? Aunt Gina?
Rather than making me feel gloomier, thinking about my mother and the stuff she left behind calmed the cyclone in my head. I was on my way to finish her quest.
Zachary and I arrived at the University of Maryland fifteen minutes early—good thing, because it took ten minutes of driving around the humongous College Park campus to find the right building.
I reached between the seats to get my book bag, then caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. Mistake.
“Gross, I’m so zombiefied.” I pulled my matted hair forward to cover my puffy eyes. “Dr. Harris’ll think I’m strung out or hungover. Great first impression.”
“Amazing, though.”
“What?”
Zachary started to answer, then brushed his lips with the side of his finger. “No, it’s stupid.”
I’d never seen someone use so much of their mouth for that word. “What’s stupid, besides your mind games?”
“Okay, but if I start, you let me finish.” He spoke to the radio instead of meeting my gaze. “The pieces of you are complete shite today, the bl
oated eyelids and splotchy skin and your hair all”—he waved his hand—“you know, and all together you should look pure hackit, but somehow you’re more bonnie than ever.”
I rewound his sentence in my head. Zachary’s eyes flicked up to meet mine, and I must’ve seemed pissed, because he said, “Sorry,” and reached for the car door handle.
“Wait. What’s ‘hackit’? What’s that mean?”
“Ugly. But ‘bonnie’ means—”
“I know what ‘bonnie’ means.”
Zachary held up a hand. “I’m no’ flirting with you, not with your boyfriend just passing. I’m only making an observation.”
I took off my sunglasses to see him better. He didn’t look like he was trying to come on to me. He looked kind of pathetic, actually, for someone who was himself so, uh, bonnie.
“Thanks,” I said, partly because I knew it would shock him if I didn’t get offended. But mostly because his words made me feel better, seeing as I was, objectively speaking, pure hackit.
We stood in the doorway of Dr. Harris’s vacant office. A midnight blue silk tapestry covered the ceiling, speckled with golden spots representing stars in their constellations. An MP3 docking station on the windowsill behind the desk played a hypnotic synthesizer tune.
Posters and paintings of ancient megaliths were stapled or nailed to the bookshelves, covering all but a few spaces, which held miniature replicas of standing-stone formations. The famous Stonehenge sat next to the grassy dome of Newgrange, which gave me a shiver of recognition.
Dozens of books were stacked on the floor next to the shelves. On the desk facing the door, more volumes stood in foot-high piles along the perimeter. It looked like someone had started to build a fort.
I clutched my book bag strap with sweaty palms. I might actually get some answers today, I thought. I wish I still cared about the same questions.
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