The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  Now I know he believes me.

  Mom falls for my idiotic story about slipping on some ice. “Idiotic” because it was in the forties today, a heat wave for Ohio in December. No ice left anywhere.

  It bothers me that she believes this tale. The fact that she doesn’t insist on X-rays, or try to keep me awake so I don’t lapse into a coma, or ream Nate out like it’s all his fault, bothers me more.

  I think of a book she used to read to me ages ago: Are You My Mother? Today that story rings all too true. A funny WTF sensation gnaws me as Mom parts my hair to examine my gash for, oh, maybe one second.

  “You’ll be fine,” is her disinterested remark. Then she lights a cigarette—her old brand, not Millie’s, which means she’s buying them now—and turns to face the kitchen window.

  Nate, after a dubious glance at Mom, pushes my jaw back in place. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  I stagger after him to the front door. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Promise me?”

  “Ha. No chance of that.”

  No chance of telling? Or no chance of promising? Without clarifying, he kisses my forehead, swears he’ll call me later, and then he’s out the door.

  I notice the bare stove and no sign of dinner. Not that I’m hungry, but still. “Aren’t you cooking tonight?”

  “No.” Mom stays glued to the window. “You can order a pizza if you like.”

  “We can’t order a pizza.”

  “Then make a sandwich,” she snaps. “You’re sixteen! Why is it my job to feed you?”

  Flabbergasted—what’s wrong with her, what’s wrong with her?—I leave her hunched into herself. Upstairs, I throw a bath towel over my pillow and carefully rest my head.

  I know exactly what I need to do: get back on my meds and do it NOW! But that would involve walking all the way back downstairs. Between my head and my iffy stomach, I doubt I’d make it.

  Besides, I’m afraid of that woman in the kitchen.

  I’m afraid of my own mother, who’s never been afraid of me—not even when I hit her, cussed her out, called her horrible names—though I gave her every reason.

  My wall creaks. Not like the usual settling of this old house, but a prolonged, rasping creak, like it’s deliberately trying to draw my attention. Do ghosts travel? Immobilized by the idea, I stare at my Precious Pewter wall, hypnotized by the big raggedy hole.

  The hole stares back.

  Then it speaks.

  “I once was lost but now I’m found,” we recite in unison.

  Both voices, mine and the hole’s, aggravate my headache, making me retch. My ears feel plugged, like I’ve spent hours underwater. A stinging sensation lingers in my nostril.

  I address the deadly beam above the foot of my mattress. Somehow I know without being told that this is the beam Mrs. Gibbons hung herself from.

  The Hanging Beam.

  “She laughed at me,” I tell Annaliese’s dead grandmother. “I heard her. And I saw her friggin’ ghost.”

  We found her.

  It’s true.

  Annaliese exists.

  5 MONTHS + 4 DAYS

  Tuesday, December 9

  I do sleep, finally, but wake up during the night with the same raging headache, exacerbated by Mom’s butchering of “Liebesträum.” Once again, she can’t play for shit.

  Every—single—night she does this! I’m sick of it. Sick!

  “Will you stop banging that thing?” I shrill from the landing. “If you’re gonna play it, then play it! Quit fucking up every song!”

  Mom’s hands fall. She whips her face in my direction.

  “I’m the crazy one, Mom. Not you. Not you!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” she whispers.

  I shout, “Can’t you guess what’s the matter? Do you even give a shit anymore?”

  I stumble back upstairs, grab my iPod to block everything out, dive onto my mattress, and glare at the Hanging Beam till I fall back asleep.

  My alarm doesn’t go off, Mom doesn’t wake me, and I don’t regain consciousness till noon. Sore, vaguely confused, I slink downstairs in time to hear Mom say my name on the kitchen phone.

  Talking about me. Why is she always talking about me?

  I edge into the kitchen, fingering my matted hair. “Was that Frank?”

  “Yes, it was Frank. And no, he didn’t ask to speak to you.”

  “He hates you. You murdered his mother.”

  “You are no longer his daughter.”

  “He wishes you were dead. You SHOULD be dead.”

  “You should’ve died in that fire. Not Frank’s mother.”

  “Not Nana.”

  My frozen gaze sticks to Mom’s face. Her lips never moved.

  Is it still a hallucination if you know you’re hallucinating?

  If you cut your throat when no one’s around to see it, do you still bleed red?

  Do you bleed at all?

  Keeping a wide berth, I sidle around her to grab my meds. She says nothing. Neither do I. I rarely understood what the Voices said to me before. I never recognized them as belonging to anyone, either. But this time I did.

  It was my mother’s voice.

  I sleep straight through till 9:00 p.m., then I wash down my nighttime meds with a Pepsi I open myself. I return to bed without stopping to pee. My head lump feels like a mushy kiwi.

  Wasn’t Nate supposed to call me? Or was that yesterday?

  5 MONTHS + 5 DAYS

  Wednesday, December 10

  Next time I open my eyes, it’s morning again. Immediately I realize I desperately need to pee, not to mention take a shower. The bump pokes out of my greasy hair, crusted with old blood.

  Should I go to school? Is it Wednesday or Thursday? I squint at my wall calendar. Each month features a different rock album cover—Frank gives me these for Christmas—and December is Aerosmith’s South of Sanity. Ha, very funny.

  I hug my knees and try to focus. At least I don’t feel like screaming at Mom again, and I don’t hear any voices whispering in the wall.

  Yet something’s not right.

  In the shower, Steven Tyler screeches “Dream on! Dream on! Dream on!” in my head as I gently rinse shampoo from my hair. Did Mom really say I’m not Frank’s daughter? That I, not Nana, should’ve died in that fire?

  No no no!

  Dripping wet, wrapped in a towel, I run up to my room and halt in front of the hole. I stare at the random Bible verses, written in Mrs. Gibbons’s squinchy handwriting.

  At the endless columns of lyrics to “Amazing Grace.”

  At Annaliese’s name written over and over by the lady who killed herself here.

  I drop the towel, snatch up my book bag, and heave it at the hole as hard as I can. Then my hairbrush. Then a dictionary. Then my smooshed-up pillow and the bloodstained towel. Dust splatters. Loose chips of drywall fly. I snatch up my CD player, too, but luckily think twice. “You won’t win, you bitch. I’m onto you now. I’m gonna figure you out if it kills me!”

  “Where are your clothes? And who are you talking to?”

  CRAP!

  “Myself,” I say, shivering.

  “Oh.” Mom smiles a peculiar smile. “I do that, too, sometimes.”

  “I didn’t hear you playing last night,” I say at breakfast.

  “Good. I tried to keep it down.”

  I ask nonchalantly, “So, why do you do that?”

  “I can’t sleep.” Mom slumps in her chair like she has no plans to ever move out of it. “In fact, I think I’ll take today off. I haven’t slept in days. Not since Tasha’s funeral.”

  And looks like you can’t play the piano anymore, either.

  That niggling sensation kicks my stomach again.

  When did Mom start getting so weird? After Tasha died? Or after I stopped taking my meds? If it’s the meds, maybe I’m only imagining her weirdness.

  But I didn’t imagine the piano playing. And I’m sure Nate noticed how strange she acted when he dragged me home
with my head split open. I’d better ask him to be sure.

  Back upstairs, I dial his number. “What?” he barks without asking who it is.

  “Well, isn’t that a nice way to answer the phone?” Silence. “You said you’d call me,” I add awkwardly. “You didn’t.”

  I wait for him to explain. All he says is, “I know.”

  “Nate, I—I think we should talk about what happened at school. And there’s something really important I have to ask you about my mom.”

  “Are you back on your meds?”

  “What? Yes. Why?”

  “Good. Keep taking ’em. Because seriously, Rinn, you’re making me crazy now.”

  This stings. “How am I making you crazy?”

  “This ghost shit, Rinn.”

  “But you were there. You heard her.” A nasty idea dawns. “Or were you humoring me?”

  Nate says curtly, “I’m going to the stable.”

  “Wait, what about school?”

  “What about it?”

  I forget my indignation. “I’ll come with you. Wait for me!”

  “No,” Nate snaps. “I don’t want you there.”

  He hangs up on me.

  Miserable now, I watch from my window as Nate, in a camouflage jacket and that ugly fur cap I tease him about, tosses a rifle into his jeep and roars off down the street.

  He’s not going to the stable. He’s going hunting. Why’d he lie?

  One thing I know: I can’t go to school today, either. I am way too messed up. If I’m hearing voices in my wall, what’ll I do if the blackboards or lockers strike up a conversation?

  I also know I can’t stay here with Mom. If I start yelling at Annaliese again, it won’t take her long to figure out I’ve been skipping my meds.

  Or will it?

  Funny how her hovering used to annoy me so much. Now I miss it like crazy. It’s like she’s been taken over by aliens, like that Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie I once watched with Frank. I ragged on the idea that aliens would waste time spinning pods, waiting for people to fall asleep. After all, they’re aliens. Why not land, conquer the world, and be done with it?

  Because, Frank said, it’s better to do that gradually, insidiously. Then by the time people catch on, it’s too late to fight back.

  Forget aliens. What about Annaliese? Why does she want to hurt people?

  I dig up the worn, crumpled list I started ages ago:

  1. Lacy got headaches after she went into the tunnel. Plus she went Rambo on me.

  2. Meg’s ears started ringing after she went into the tunnel. She fell on the ground in front of hundreds of spectators doing a stunt she’s done a thousand times.

  3. Cecilia lost her voice after she went into the tunnel.

  To which I’ve since added the following:

  4. Dino died in the pool room.

  5. Lacy wrote a nasty letter to Chad, didn’t remember writing it, and lost her baby.

  6. Meg stabbed her mom.

  7. Tasha dove into that empty pool.

  The first three things happened before the séance. The last four, after.

  I scribble more:

  8. Miss Prout went crazy hanging around that pool.

  9. After she dragged Annaliese’s grandmother into her happy medium act, Mrs. Gibbons killed herself.

  10. That alcoholic teacher (maybe related).

  11. Lindsay McCormick’s cat (definitely related).

  12. I ALMOST died in that pool room.

  13. Mom doesn’t act like Mom anymore.

  14. Now Nate’s changing, too. Why did he lie? Why not SAY he was going hunting?

  But Nate wasn’t at the séance. Neither was Mom. Mom doesn’t even use the tunnel; she stays in the office all day and only comes out for lunch. I bet she hasn’t even seen that pool room since high school—

  Wait. That’s not true.

  Something claws at my neck.

  That damn séance! Who did I run for when they all zoned out on me? I ran for Mom. She did go in there that night, to chase everyone out.

  I crumple my list. Oh God. That’s it! Okay, maybe it took a while for Annaliese to “get” to Mom. But my mother’s a strong person. She wouldn’t make it easy.

  This time it is my fault. But how could I have known?

  With Mom not at school to realize I’m not, either, I decide to hike over to Rocky Meadows myself. Nobody’s there to mind, only a caretaker who now knows me by sight. Exhausted after the two-mile walk, I stumble when I notice Nate’s muddy jeep. He’s here, after all? I thought he went hunting.

  Unnerved, I slog up the long driveway. What’ll he say when I show up uninvited, and undoubtedly unwelcome? I don’t understand why he’s so mad at me in the first place. Like it’s my fault there’s some lunatic ghost on the loose?

  I walk through the stable, glad to be out of the wind and muck. Every stall stands empty. No shuffling of hooves or munching of grain. No welcoming whinny from Xan. Funny, Nate never turns them all out at once; not every horse gets along with the others. Ginger, for instance, loves to bite Xan’s hindquarters if she gets right up behind him, and he’s twice her size.

  No sign of Nate in the stable. I leave by the rear door, squinting in the sunshine flashing through a patchwork of gray clouds. When I hear the distant, restless nickering coming from the fenced-in paddock behind the barn, I stop.

  Something’s wrong. The horses know it, too.

  Heart thumping, I dodge into the barn and tramp through the carpet of dirt and sawdust. Then, as I duck back outside, I hear a horrific sound: the metallic slam of a rifle being loaded.

  I’m already running when the CRACK splits the air, followed by the acrid smell of gunpowder.

  Nate snarls, “Damn!”

  Panicked whinnying. The rustle of massive bodies. Stomping hooves and snorts of alarm. Desperate to escape the danger, the horses crash about the paddock in a brownish blur. Nate, over by the fence, slams another round of ammo into the rifle and then points the barrel at the creatures.

  The shotgun explodes a split second before it leaves his hands. My flying body slams him into the mud, knocking the breath out of us both. Nate, first to recover, flips me over and pins me to the ground, screaming obscenities.

  “Stop it!” I scream back into his damp scarlet face. “Nate, stop!”

  He shuts up and stares at me. His hot, ragged breath reeks of bleach. Sweat rains down as he violently shakes his head, and then abruptly releases me. He rolls away and flings an arm over his face.

  Side by side we lay on the cold earth. Mud splatters us through the fence, kicked up by hooves. I imagine the horses, with indignant snorts, discussing the incident among themselves. Wondering what would possess the boy who loves them so much to try to do such an unthinkable thing …

  Possessed.

  Slowly, I turn my head to the side. Aside from his heaving chest, Nate doesn’t move, and the rifle’s a safe ten or twelve feet away. This must be a dream. It can’t possibly be real life.

  As minutes pass, and wetness leaks into my jacket and jeans, Nate’s panting slows so much I wonder if he’s breathing at all. I whisper his name, afraid to touch him. His arm drops away from his mottled face. Tears trickle into his ears. “Nate, get up.”

  He could get up. He could jump up, grab the gun, and shoot the horses, anyway.

  Or shoot me.

  He could do anything he wants, something totally unexpected—because he is not Nate Brenner! Nate would never do this.

  Squelching my fear, I shove his head. “Talk to me, Nate.”

  Nate blinks at the sky. Then, very slowly, turns to face me. Will he hurt me? Should I run? No, because then I’d have to take the rifle with me, too. And if I can’t outrun him …

  “Rinn?” He says my name, softly, wonderingly, like he thought I was dead and now he’s shocked to see I’m not.