The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  So thank you, Annaliese. Even though you’re an evil, conniving, homicidal bi——

  I jump when Nate drops down beside me. “Your mom said I could hang out a while.”

  I drag my earbuds off. “You mean she decided you’re not an imminent threat to me?”

  “Depends on how you define ‘threat.’” He studies my face. “Poor Rinn. You look like a roof caved in on you.”

  I bat the one eye I can see out of. “Smart-ass.”

  “Can I sign it?” he asks, thoughtfully rubbing my cast.

  “Yeah, if you write something mushy.”

  Nate rummages through my desk till he finds a red Magic Marker. With exaggerated intent, he draws a big heart and writes inside it: Heal fast! I love you. Nate.

  I pluck the marker away and toss it aside. “Why, thanks, farmer boy.”

  “Shucks.” He crawls under my covers. “My pleasure, surfer girl.”

  He nuzzles my neck with teasing kisses. I kiss him back, not teasing at all. I feel his heat, and his weight, and how much he loves me.

  “Hey, in case you forgot,” I tell him. “I love you, too.”

  He sneaks back out before Mom has the presence of mind to check up on us. Gently I trace the message he wrote on my cast. Funny how, in spite of my throbbing arm, my black eye, the stitches in my scalp, and my shattered nerves, I feel so completely and positively wonderful.

  Downstairs, Mom begins to play Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The notes float up through the vent, each one lovely and perfect.

  Yes, my mom’s back. My whole life is back.

  Now that I think about it, I owe Annaliese an apology. What I said to her about her grandmother not wanting her? That was just plain cruel.

  “Sorry,” I say into the air. “I take it back. And I really do hope you find her.”

  No answer. Not that I expected one.

  The Onion Ring Goddess left town. Details are sketchy, but rumor has it that with Tasha gone and her husband Bob on the road, Millie decided to shut down the diner and take an extended trip. For Mom’s sake, and mine, I hope she doesn’t come back.

  “I’m sorry they hurt you,” I continue. “And that my mom hurt you, too. But if you knew her now, you’d see how different she is. She’s changed. I think you made her change. I think she felt bad when you died, for treating you like that.”

  Wherever you are, I hope you can hear me.

  I burrow under the covers and try to sleep.

  I think the smell wakes me up. No, not chlorine, or lavender, or anything weird like that.

  Magic Marker.

  “Oh, crap.” I scramble up the best I can, clutching the uncapped marker. Red ink stains my left hand and random fingerprints dot my comforter. Why didn’t I make Nate put this away after he wrote his little love note?

  I spot the cap on the floor and I reach for it, and that’s when I notice my cast. Yes, Nate’s funny crooked heart is there. But with my cast tilted sideways I can see something else.

  Precisely printed letters, one line, and not my handwriting. I’m right-handed, you know.

  My body freezes, trapped in a shroud of frost. I throw the marker aside and rub my fingers. The ink, still fresh, smears under my touch as I stare at blood-red words on my cast:

  I don’t believe you

  A Note from Jeannine Garsee

  The Unquiet is a story I’d planned to write for years, and for a very good reason: from kindergarten through the fourth grade, I attended a Cleveland public school similar to River Hills High. The wooden desks were indeed bolted to the floor, and the teachers wrote with chalk on blackboards, not with dry-erase markers. And, yes, I promise you: there was even a haunted tunnel.

  Like Rinn and her friends, we weren’t allowed to cut through the gym, so we’d take a long, narrow tunnel from one end of the building to the other. The tunnel wall, on one side, was made of brick or stone; the other side was a metal fence overlooking a treacherous pit. My first day there, at age five, a classmate told me the story: while workers were in the process of excavating an in-ground pool, somehow (insert vague details here) a girl was killed when she fell over the edge. For that reason the pool was never finished, and the pit remained untouched for years.

  Feigning terror, we’d sometimes hold hands and race screaming through the tunnel, hoping the ghost of the unknown victim wouldn’t rise up and, well, do whatever ghosts do to screaming children. Yet there were other times when I’d choose to travel that tunnel alone. Fascinated by the story, completely unafraid, I’d take my time and saunter along, peering through the links for a shadow, a movement, a wisp of vapor … anything to assure me that the ghostly girl existed. Yes, even at five, the writer inside me wanted to see the girl who tragically died here and now called this tunnel her home.

  When my family moved away, and I began fifth grade at a brighter, newer school out in the suburbs, I often thought about that haunted tunnel. I promised myself that if I ever did become a writer, I’d find a way to bring that ghostly girl to life.

  So many times while writing this story, I was tempted to pick up the phone, call that school, and ask if they’d let me return for a tour. I’d love to walk through that tunnel after so many years and see if I could sense something unearthly. But the fear that perhaps the tunnel no longer exists—that they’d replaced it with a media center or possibly a newer gym—always kept me from making that call. I didn’t want to see anything shiny and sterile, filled with light and activity and excited chatter. Nor did I want to have to wonder what became of the ghostly girl if an army of bulldozers and jackhammers had destroyed her dark, eerie home.

  Since then, I’ve had other, much more real encounters with the paranormal. And while this experience may have been based on nothing more than a legend invented by children, I’ll never forget that tunnel, or the girl who hovered, unseen, in the shadows.

  This book is partly for her, wherever she is now.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the following people, because this story wouldn’t have been possible without their help and support:

  My first readers—Pamela Reese, Holly Snapp, Sher Hames Torres, June Phyllis Baker, Charlotte Parker, Kathie Carlson, Brian Kell, Judy Walters, Laura McCarthy, and Elizabeth Garsee.

  My friends and coconspirators on LiveJournal and AWR.

  My coworkers in psych who’ve taught me so much over the past several years, and the countless patients I’ve cared for who’ve taught me even more.

  My family, of course, who once again had to put up with my seemingly endless journey through another Land of Make Believe.

  My brilliant editor, Caroline Abbey, and all the other wonderful, creative minds at Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books.

  And to my agent, the infinitely wise Tina Wexler, who tells it like it is even when I don’t want to hear it: thank you, as always, from the bottom of my heart.

  Also by Jeannine Garsee

  Before, After, and Somebody In Between

  Say the Word

  Copyright © 2012 by Jeannine Garsee

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

  make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

  (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,

  printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

  publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication

  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  First published in the United States of America in July 2012

  by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  Electronic edition published in July 2012

  www.bloomsburyteens.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Garsee, Jeannine.

  The unquiet / by Jeannine Garsee. — 1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When sixteen-year-old Rinn, who has bipolar disorder, and her mother move back to her mother’s hometown in Ohio and settle in a house where the previous owner hanged herself, Rinn discovers that both the town and her mother have some uncomfortable secrets in their past and that the ghost that supposedly haunts the school seems to be out for revenge.

  [1. Ghosts—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Manic-depressive illness—Fiction.

  4. Suicide—Fiction. 5. Death—Fiction. 6. High schools—Fiction. 7. Schools—Fiction.

  8. Ohio—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G1875Un 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011019559

  Book design by Nicole Gastonguay

  ISBN 978-1-59990-741-3 (e-book)

  Table of Contents

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  ANNALIESE

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20 (NO LONGER COUNTING)

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 22