The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  “I don’t know,” Nate says thickly. “Rinn, I swear. I don’t know what I believe.”

  Mom is back by midmorning. By then Nate and I are downstairs, sitting at the dining room table, though nobody ever sits there and we’re not even eating.

  “How’s Millie?” I ask.

  Mom throws her coat onto a chair. “A wreck. Bob drove in this morning.” Tasha’s dad. “He’s with her now.” She hugs me from behind with cold arms. “How are you?”

  “Okay.” I look at Nate. “Can we go riding?” Mom stares at me, aghast. “Mom, I can’t sit around and do nothing.” I remember how Xan, and all the hard work at the stable, took my mind off of Meg, if only for a while. Maybe it’ll do the same with Tasha. “And you can go back to Millie’s,” I add. I know she wants to be with her. I would, if Millie were my friend.

  Besides, all she’ll do is fawn over me. Ask me a thousand times how I feel, if I want to talk, if I need a shrink. On and on. I don’t think I can bear it.

  Nate squeezes my knee under the table. “I’ll take good care of her, Mrs. Jacobs.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s all right. But don’t be all day,” she warns, reaching for her coat again. “And if I’m not here when you get back, come down to Millie’s.”

  Hand in hand, Nate and I walk to his jeep. For once, the cold winter air feels good on my face. The sky is blue, not gray. Even the sun’s out for a change.

  It’s a beautiful day. I wish Tasha could see it.

  4 MONTHS + 24 DAYS

  Saturday, November 29

  At Tasha’s funeral, while I’m standing at the grave site—I was just here for Dino, how is this fair?—it occurs to me I’m the only person not crying. I rarely cry—not even when I was screaming in Mr. Solomon’s office—but I never thought much about it, or even wondered why.

  Now it’s perfectly clear: I don’t cry like other people for the very same reason I can’t be “touched” by Annaliese Gibbons.

  The drugs. They silence the Voices. They chase the shadow people away. They keep me down enough so I don’t get all manicky and do stupid things like hook up with strangers, break into houses, or try to grab hold of a police officer’s gun.

  They also keep me up enough so I don’t want to cut my throat again.

  Yes, the drugs make me safe—but they numb me, too. I can’t cry when I’m sad. I can’t always laugh at the funny stuff, either. Things that used to excite me don’t excite me as much. My guitar, for instance. I’m playing it now because Mr. Chenoweth socked me with that part, but I’m not exactly loving it. I just do it.

  Of course I’m glad I’m not sick anymore. Glad, too, that Mom trusts me enough to take those pills on my own. But sometimes those same old doubts creep in, and I wonder: if I’m numb all the time, how is that living? Maybe I’d like to cry over a sad movie, or because someone hurt my feelings.

  Or because I’m standing in a cemetery two days after Thanksgiving, knowing it’s Tasha in that shiny pink casket. Don’t normal people cry when a best friend dies? Maybe not hearing and not feeling things like other people is crazier than hearing and feeling things everyone else doesn’t.

  And watching bad things happen to your friends, one after the other, and not being able to help because you can’t understand what happened to them first because you’re a NUMB, PATHETIC, DRUGGED-UP FREAK is unfair.

  And frustrating.

  And incredibly scary.

  Annaliese exists! Even Nate can’t deny it. But if nobody finds out what she wants—and of course she wants something, isn’t that why ghosts hang around?—who knows what terrible thing might happen next?

  I have to figure it out. Yes, it has to be me. Nobody else cares enough. If I’m already labeled crazy, I have nothing to lose.

  So, as soon as Nate and I do what we need to do, I’m stopping my meds.

  “No, you’re not,” Nate says.

  “Yes, I am.” This argument’s getting old.

  “Rinn. You are not.”

  “You have nothing to say about it.”

  The funeral’s over. Like lobsters in a tank, we’re among a hundred other townspeople packed into the Boxcar Diner.

  “Not all of them,” I say. “Just the mind-numbing ones. I’m only telling you this so you can let me know if I get goofy.”

  “Goofier than usual? How will I tell?”

  I ignore his sarcasm. “Trust me. You’ll tell.”

  A commotion breaks out. Millie, physically restrained by a bald, frantic man I’m guessing is Tasha’s dad, screams at a cowering Bennie Unger. “You! This is your fault! It was your job to keep those kids away from that pool. Why did you let them in?”

  “I d-didn’t, Miz Millie,” Bennie stammers. “It just—it just happened.”

  “Just happened, my ass! You were there—why didn’t you stop her?” Breaking free of Mr. Lux, Millie lunges for Bennie. I automatically hide my eyes, a new habit lately. “What kind of moron are you? I’m gonna have your job, you hear me?”

  It takes half a dozen people to wrestle her away. Bennie, sobbing unashamedly, grapples for the door and stumbles outside. As the diner falls into a prolonged, sickening silence, I think: See? Even Bennie Unger can cry.

  4 MONTHS + 26 DAYS

  Monday, December 1

  “Honey, do you want to stay home today? I doubt many people’ll show up.”

  “You’re going,” I point out.

  “Well, I have a job.”

  “Aren’t you allowed to be sad?”

  “Yes, I’m allowed. But if I wallow today, then I’ll want to wallow tomorrow, and the next day, and then, who knows?”

  A funny thing for Mom to say. Mom never wallows. The closest she got to wallowing over Tasha was late last night, when I heard her playing Chopin. A sad piece, one she played over and over, and the more she played, the more she messed up. I think she’s exhausted from spending so much time with Millie.

  Bleary-eyed, Mom slops milk into my juice glass, forgetting I don’t drink milk, that I never drink milk except over cereal. It sits untouched as she scoops away my empty bowl. Where’s her makeup? Did she even brush her hair? She’s going to school like that? She looks like a—well, like a hag.

  “I might be late tonight,” I say nonchalantly.

  She doesn’t ask why. “If I’m not here when you get home, I’ll be with Millie.”

  “Okay.”

  I follow her to the foyer. She pulls on her coat, flinging her messy hair away from the fur-trimmed hood. When I step forward for my usual good-bye kiss, she dodges away out the door.

  What’s that about? Is she mad at me?

  Hurt, I wander back to the kitchen to shake my pills—my last dose—out of the bottles.

  First thing in homeroom, Mr. Solomon announces over the PA: “As you know, we’re all grieving the death of Tasha Lux.” Half the girls burst into tears. I stare at my desk as he goes on and on—and then I hear him say, “For those of you who keep ignoring my warnings, listen up: that pool room is completely—off—limits! If I find out anyone’s been in there or tampering with the lock, you’ll be immediately suspended, and most likely expelled. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

  Rats. Now what?

  “If I had my way,” he continues, “I’d block off the outer corridor”—his fancy phrase for the tunnel—“completely. But with no other exit from gym, the fire marshal won’t allow it. Now I know some of you are, er, a bit uneasy about walking through there in light of recent events. Therefore, I’m lifting my ban on cutting through the gym. All I ask is, if there’s a class going on, you’ll keep to one side and not cause a disturbance.”

  Well, Cecilia Carpenter should be happy about that.

  School’s tough. Another grief counselor sets up shop in the cafeteria. Students and teachers alike drift through the day in tears. At lunch, when I approach my vacant table, I’m struck by the most depressing truth of all: all my friends are gone.

  No Meg.

  No Lacy.

  No Tasha.r />
  I’m alone.

  I see Cecilia chattering with Stacy Winkler, the student council chick with the overalls, and with Pat Schmidt, apparently recovered from mono. Cecilia, no doubt remembering our unpleasant meeting at Millie’s diner, pays no attention to me.

  I ditch the whole scene and check the custodian’s closet. No Bennie, either.

  Next, I head to the office. “Mom, is Bennie here today?” I just want to check on him. As bad as I feel, he must feel ten times worse. Especially after what Millie said.

  Mom stares at her computer screen. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Duh, Mom. Isn’t it your job to keep track of us?”

  She raises her head, but looks past me, not at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to a class?” Then she picks up the ringing phone, dismissing me entirely.

  Last night, Nate and I planned to meet after school today. I know he didn’t believe I’d go through with this. Now he asks incredulously, “Didn’t you hear the announcement?”

  “Yes. But you said you’d help me.”

  “Well, not to get myself expelled in the process.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” I stalk off, secretly hoping he’ll follow.

  He does, of course.

  I think I love this guy.

  We wait forever, till no one’s around and most of the lights have been turned off for the night. We hang out in the wood shop, isolated in the basement, where I carefully choose my weapons. Then we sneak back upstairs and into the tunnel.

  “You’re crazy,” he just has to say.

  “Tell me something new.”

  “Where’d you learn how to pick a lock?”

  “You probably don’t want to know.”

  Breaking and entering is a lot harder than it looks in the movies. I ignore the new DANGER—DO NOT ENTER sign and examine the pristine lock, probably the same one Bennie dropped on his foot. Nate grudgingly keeps lookout while I insert my hooked wire and a tiny screwdriver into the lock. My technique sucks; I bet my old friend Carlos could jimmy this in ten seconds. Whenever I get one pin to pop, another one drops back down.

  Twenty minutes later I’ve gotten nowhere. Sweat drips. My knees hurt. At the doorway of the locker room, his impatience mounting, Nate carries on a soliloquy. “You sure you can do this? Seriously, pick a lock? Who knows how to do that? California, my ass. I bet you’re from the Bronx …”

  I jam the wire for the ninety-ninth time, cussing the stubborn pins. “I know what I’m doing. Quit distracting me.” Jiggle, push … jiggle, push. I’m about to give up when I hear a satisfying click. “Ha!”

  “Sweet.” He does sound impressed.

  We cringe at the frigid air as the door swings open. I also came prepared with a flashlight and clothesline. Nate watches with distrust as I tie the rope to my belt loop and hand him the other end.

  “Whatever you do,” I say, breathless, “do not come in after me.”

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he snaps. “You were in there with Tasha. Did anything happen to you then? No? So what’s the point?”

  “I was only there a few minutes.” I know this is true because I gave it a lot of thought. From the time I followed Tasha into the pool room till the moment she sprang off that board—five minutes, tops. It only felt like forever. “I want to make sure. So give me, like, fifteen minutes—”

  “Ten.”

  I decide it’s not worth it to argue. Ten uninterrupted minutes might be enough time. “Okay, then. And if nothing happens to me, it’ll prove my theory.”

  “If nothing happens, it proves Annaliese doesn’t exist.”

  “Whatever. You stay right here and hold the rope. And don’t forget to pull me back if, you know, something attacks me, haha.” My feeble laugh dies at his furious expression.

  “One dumb-ass move, you twit, and I’m yanking you in like a walleye.”

  “Ooh, I love it when you talk sexy.”

  Like an Eskimo stepping out of a warm igloo onto the frozen tundra, I walk into the pool room; I have plenty of rope, twenty feet at least.

  “Don’t come in,” I yell back, like I haven’t warned him a dozen times.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Nate tugs on the rope. “Ten minutes, surfer girl. I’m timing you.”

  Trailing the clothesline, I move toward the fence. The beam of my flashlight dances on the crisscrossed wires, casting light and shadows over the pool beyond.

  Pool? Don’t you mean the black pit of death?

  Did they make poor Bennie clean THAT up, too?

  Nauseated, I pause. Then I swing the beam along, till it touches the hole in the fence.

  I swallow hard. I’m not sure I can do this …

  No. I have to.

  I shine the light on my watch. It’s only been two minutes.

  Anticipating a panic attack, I slow my breathing. My fingers stiffen in the chill. My teeth chatter, but to try to stop them will only tense me up. I let them chatter, and keep breathing, and waiting …

  Breathing.

  Waiting.

  My breath billows out, visible in the beam. Senses on high alert, my teeth clanging like cymbals, I move as close as I dare to the missing section of the fence, gazing through it from one end of the pool to the other.

  I feel nothing. I smell nothing. I see nothing that vaguely resembles a human form, ghostly or otherwise.

  What did Tasha see? What secret was she talking about?

  Water drips. I hear faint, intermittent thunks, possibly from the furnace. Wind whistles through the crack in one of the tiny windows. Is that why it’s so cold in here?

  I peer at my watch again. I’m at the five-minute mark.

  I take one step closer to the gaping hole, shuddering as I remember how it grabbed my jacket, how I couldn’t get away, how Bennie couldn’t get past me …

  Shut up. Don’t think about Tasha. Concentrate on Annaliese.

  “Annaliese?” I whisper. “Are you there?”

  “Rinn?” A faraway Nate, waiting in the tunnel. “Time’s almost up.”

  No it’s not. I have at least four more minutes. Annoyed, I flap the rope to show him I’m alive—stop bugging me, farmer boy—and turn back to the pool. “Annaliese? Are you real? Are you in there somewhere?”

  Drip … clank … drip.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  “Rinn! RINN! Get back NOW!” He jerks the rope so hard, my belt loop snaps. The clothesline sails away from me, whipping through the air like a John Wayne lariat.

  Angry, I trudge back to the tunnel. “You said I had ten minutes—”

  He yanks me through the door without a word. I trip and land on my hands and knees. Disregarding my choice of words, he lifts me up again and heaves me into the locker room.

  I forget to be quiet. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Nate slams the door. “I said let’s go!”

  I balk, but he hustles me through the locker room, the gym, and the cafeteria so fast, all I see is one big blur. Finally, in the main hall, I free myself, resisting the urge to kick him into Christmas. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Why didn’t you come when I called you?”

  “You didn’t have to assault me!”

  Livid, I start for the doors, but remember I left my book bag behind. I whirl around and bolt back the way we came, with Nate thundering close behind. It occurs me that heading into a confined area with a maniac on my heels might not be the smartest move in the world.

  “Don’t touch me!” I snarl when he catches up in the gym.

  Shocked, he raises his hands in surrender. “God, Rinn. What’s with you?”

  “You’re chasing me. When people chase other people, it usually ends badly.”

  “I’m sorry, but—just don’t go back there.” He moves forward. I step back at the same time. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” Panting, we glare at each other. Then Nate asks carefully, “You didn’
t hear it, did you?”

  “Hear what?”

  He gestures toward the locker room. “If you’re screwing with me, Jacobs …”