Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance

by Abigail Boyd

  "The dance committee went all out," Henry said, giving me a side grin. He was so handsome I couldn't help but smile, remembering how I couldn't when we first met. I couldn't believe that I was actually there with him. It seemed like some untouchable fantasy that had amazingly come true.

  Volunteers were offering face and body painting out in the hall, and one girl had a full dozen roses across her back, starting to slowly melt in the warmth coming from the gymnasium.

  Inside the gym, everyone was so dressed up they were almost unrecognizable. The regular lights were turned down, and tons of twinkle lights were strung up on the walls. Most people were wearing formal wear with masks or horns or tails, but a few people had full on costumes. The teachers especially had gotten into the festive mood. Mr. Vanderlip was dressed as a pilgrim complete with buckled hat, which for some reason made me giggle.

  Madison and Lainey were parked by the refreshment table. Both wore low cut dresses — Lainey had devil horns, and was wearing a two piece red dress that looked like it could easily be from the dress shop Theo and I escaped from. A good four inches of her tan stomach were on display. Madison had at least used some creativity. The fabric of her modest dress looked fluffy, and she had lamb ears and white tights.

  Lainey's date appeared to be Ambrose Slaughter, who swayed and looked a bit tipsy as he took a drink from a presumably tainted glass of punch. Lainey didn't seem too thrilled. She and Madison were arguing, Lainey moving animatedly and waving her hands.

  "You look ridiculous," Lainey yelled angrily, her high-pitched voice carrying over the floor. I looked away from the car wreck they were quickly becoming.

  Mr. Warwick sidled up to us, a grin plastered on his face. A bulky trenchcoat draped over his lanky frame, the collar flipped up around his neck.

  "Hey, Wick," Alex said. "What's your costume supposed to be?"

  "I'm a turncoat," he said, showing the yellow lining of the coat which looked totally different. Alex just looked confused.

  "Is that one of those guys that sells counterfeit watches in the city?" he asked.

  Warwick looked at him with his head cocked to one side. He waved at us as he went off to talk to someone else.

  "Have fun, you guys," he said.

  "Excuse me," a woman next to us said to a teacher I didn't recognize. The teacher was dressed up as a box of French fries, "Have you seen Mr. McPherson?"

  The French fry lady shook her head. It gave me pause for a second, but I brushed it off, not wanting to think about our strange Principal.

  "Alright, let's boogie," Alex said, grasping Theo's hand. They went off to dance.

  "I hope she'll be alright with him," I said to Henry over the music.

  "She'll be fine," Henry assured me. We were huddled close so we could hear each other. "He's not that bad of a guy when you get to know him. He's not that great either, but not the slimeball he may appear to be."

  I opened my mouth to protest that declaration, but he silenced my argument by taking my hand and leading me to an empty space on the floor where we started dancing.

  I felt a bit awkward at first, but I got caught up in the spirit of everyone having such a good time, and the strobe lights flickering to the bass beat.

  Alex passes by with Theo, spinning her around, and they tangoed off, her cheek to his chest.

  Henry and I danced close, not letting go of each other's hands. We laughed, pressing our foreheads together and looking into each other's eyes. It dissolves into a fit of giggles on both sides. Song after song passed, the night stretching out endlessly.

  I was getting tired and I could feel sweat rolling down my back, my wings crooked, but I didn't care. I felt free. I couldn't get enough of Henry so close to me, and I didn't take my eyes off of his handsome face now that I had an excuse.

  The night began to wind down, a few people taking off or sitting down. A slow song started up. I looked around at all the other couples dancing as they started to sway slowly. Henry took both of my arms by the wrists and pulled them up around his neck, never looking away from my eyes. He slipped his hands down and slid them around my waist below my wings.

  I gulped. The friendly mood between us had taken on a different tone entirely.

  We pulled closer, so that our bodies were pressed together. Henry smelled so good and felt so warm, and fit so well against me that my head swam. I couldn't get close enough to him. I wanted him everywhere.

  His face nuzzled into my neck. I felt him begin to kiss my shoulder, sending little electrical shots through my body.

  Pulling away from me, he held my gaze with his own. So many times I had thought about this moment in the last few weeks. Our faces moved towards each other, and then our lips touched.

  One half of the gym lights flickered on, blinding me. For a moment, I just assumed another electrical issue, which had come at exactly the wrong time, as usual. I was prepared to shrug it off, nearly frenetic to kiss Henry again. Now that I'd had a little bit of him, it wasn't enough. I had to have more. Then I heard a woman arguing with others in a hysterical voice.

  "Don't tell me to calm down!" she shrieked. "I am not calming down! My daughter is missing!"

  As my eyes adjusted, I saw it was one of the chaperones. With a chill, I realized she was the one who had been asking about McPherson. I wondered if that meant he was involved.

  "I'm not going to calm down!" The woman repeated. "There was blood on the floor of the ladies' room."

  A few people gasped, frightened. The floor swiftly cleared off.

  "I guess the dance is over," Alex said, sidling up to us with his arm around Theo. For once she didn't seem to mind.

  Although some people began to file out of the gym, our group went over to where the woman was talking. I watched as a lone purple balloon deflated and fell gracefully to the table behind her.

  "What's going on?" I asked. The woman turned to me, her face blotchy with conflicting emotions.

  "I brought my ten year old, Susan, with me," she explained. "And she was right beside me the whole time. Then suddenly, she was gone, and I can't find her. And when I looked in the girl's bathroom, there was blood all over the floor. And they won't call the police!" she jabbed her thumb accusingly at the group of harried-looking teachers next to her. Their costumes made them look ridiculous now.

  "There's a protocol we have to follow," one of the teachers started, but Henry cut her off.

  "Let's look for her," Henry said decisively. "She's got to be somewhere." Everyone else began to split up into groups to search the school. The four of us, with a few adults, headed off down past the main hall, lead by the woman who told us her name was Lynn. She came to the girl's bathroom near the Science hall and pushed open the door.

  Theo and I peered inside. Blood was smeared all over the tile floor, like someone had wiped it around with their hands.

  "This is bad," I whispered to Theo. Her face was very pale, and she nodded silently.

  "See what I mean?" Lynn said. "You see."

  "I think you should definitely call the police," Henry told her. "Don't worry about what the teachers are saying."

  The woman nodded decisively, and walked off, cell phone in her shaking hand. The rest of us, without a word, continued down the hall to keep looking.

  "Susan!" we called, her name echoing off the walls, almost as if to answer us. In the night the school looked strange, and I felt like we shouldn't be there.

  We stopped in the hallway after a few minutes. Alex leaned against the wall. He looked pale against the purple of his suit.

  "What's taking the cops so long?" he asking no one in particular, taking off his shoe and rubbing his foot. Henry started popping quarters in the vending machine to get drinks. He handed each of us a Coke and I thanked him. It felt like we had been in the school for days.

  Ariel...

  Someone was calling my name again. Putting the pop down on a nearby drinking fountain, I left the others where they were standing and discussing what to do next, and turned the
corner. A sharp pain stabbed my temple, as if something was forcing its way through. Electricity danced its familiar pattern on the surface of my skin.

  The little girl in the blue raincoat was standing in front of me, about two yards away. I could feel reality trying to fall away, my body starting to float, and in my dissociation I clung to myself as hard as I could.

  The little girl turned and walked silently away. I remembered where I'd seen her — she was the little girl that went missing a month ago. The knowledge that her name was Alyssa entered my mind, and I pictured Claire watching the news the night we had gone out to dinner. I could faintly see the hallway through Alyssa's raincoat. The lights dimmed, everything taking on a bluish hue, like we were underwater.

  I knew she was dead. But for some reason, I wasn't frightened anymore. Tranquility settled over me. Calm in knowing that what was happening was real.

  I walked towards her slowly, and called her name. She turned around. Her eyes were completely black, like those of an insect.

  "Everyone's been looking for you," I said. She stared almost through me. I couldn't really tell if she knew I was there or not, as if we were in two different but very close parallel worlds, or I was looking at her through broken glass.

  "What happened to you?" I asked.

  As if in answer, Alyssa's small hands went to the hood of her coat, and pulled it down. I stifled the gag in my throat. Her neck was cleanly sliced from side to side. Even though there was no blood, it was grotesque.

  And then she was gone, and the blue of the walls melted into the regular cream that I saw every day.

  "Ariel, what are you doing?" Theo called.

  I turned around, and saw my three friends waiting for me.

  "Nothing," I called. "I'm coming back."

  I jogged back to them. I didn't tell them about seeing the girl. I didn't have any urge to; it was my own personal gift.

  We walked to the front of the building, where the police were questioning the now-sobbing Lynn. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks now, and she was having tremendous difficulty speaking.

  When I was a little girl, burglars broke in to the house across the street. The police came to the neighborhood, and talked to Hugh about it, asking him if he had seen anything. Jenna and I stood behind him the whole time, so excited that a real life drama was taking place in front of our eyes.

  It was less exciting when they grilled me after Jenna left. Why had I let her go? Did I know if she was involved in drugs? A hundred questions were aimed towards me, and I couldn't answer them fast enough.

  As we departed Hawthorne, treading over the torn purple carpet and fallen paper bats on the floor, listening to the woman sobbing and being taken off by a family friend without her daughter, it was all I could think about.

  Chapter 17

  School felt like a crime scene. After my parents received word of Susan's disappearance, I wasn't allowed to walk to school anymore. I had a feeling that the time was coming, but getting rid of the one big freedom I treasured was still a blow.

  The fact that I saw a ghost didn't surprise me as much as perhaps it should have. Instead, I felt more relief than anything. Even though it was entirely subjective, I felt like it proved that I wasn't crazy, especially after hearing about Eleanor from Corinne. I had inherited mommy's, well, grandma's little gift, after it skipped a generation. But I didn't know what to do now. I kept expecting her to pop up again, but I didn't see anything unusual, for a change. But I knew with total certainty that what I had seen was real.

  Hugh dropped me off Monday morning. I had forgotten to set my alarm, and the bell was due to ring in a few minutes. I wasn't late yet but I was close.

  I walked up the stone steps and opened the door to the vestibule, rubbing sleep from my eyes. When I took my hand away, I gasped.

  Jenna laughing. In front of me. And next to her was Alyssa.

  Their faces were printed on black and white flyers that someone had taped to the entrance doors, and Susan's face joined them. The word MISSING was typed in thick font below each photo. Shaken, I opened the door and walked inside.

  Lainey and Madison sat at a metal card table, like they were at a bingo meet, in the front hall. Stacks of neat flyers were piled in front of them. Their own missing girl committee. My stomach did a somersault.

  I walked over to the wall and ripped down one of the Alyssa's flyers. I couldn't bear to do it with one of Jenna's. I went up and shook the piece of paper in Lainey's face. She leaned back in her seat, her chin doubling.

  "What are you doing?" I barked.

  "What does it look like?" she asked, a condescending smile on her bow-shaped lips. "I assume your eyes still work. We're helping."

  "If I had any inkling that you had an ounce of good intentions, I would thank you," I said. "But this is nothing more than a ploy to get more attention to yourself. You don't need it!"

  "I'm just a concerned citizen, Ariel," she said, her chocolate chip eyes round and innocent. "Even if Jenna was a waste."

  I had never had such a massive urge to punch someone, especially when she said, "I haven't seen you do much for her, and trying to get into Henry's pants doesn't count."

  I crumpled the flyer and tossed it in Lainey's face. It bounced off her powdered forehead. Madison scoffed and leaned back in her own seat, glaring at me as I stomped away.

  Despite the events at the dance, school kept going like nothing had happened. A lot of people were talking about it, and the dance in general, but the teachers seemed to stay away from the topic, even with the gaudy flyers in every hallway. I wondered if they had a meeting on how to deal with us. For damage control, counselors wandered into first period, offering "someone to talk to" in case we needed it.

  In gym class, we were starting tennis. It was always the one sport that I kind of enjoyed. Claire and I used to drive up to the court at the middle school during the summer and play until the sun went down, drinking Kool-Aid mixed in water bottles. I had even taken a few lessons.

  Theo and I paired up, grabbing rackets out of the metal bin.

  "Why Alex?" I finally got the chance to inquire, still curious about how that pairing had been established.

  "I honestly have no idea," she said, shrugging. "He's just really into me. It's flattering. And he's not as bad as he seems. After I left your house on Saturday, we talked online for an hour. He has a sweet side; it's just buried deep, deep below the douchey act and terrible jokes."

  We played against the other pairings in class. It felt nice to get my body moving, almost like I was taking out my stress on every swing, successful or not. I hoped the hour would run out before we had to play Lainey.

  But of course, it didn't, and we were pitted against the torture twins. We made the slow march to their net. They were stretching their shoulders out, using their rackets for resistance. Lainey's eyes held a curious fixation as she looked at me. I wondered what insults were brewing in her tiny mind.

  Theo served first, tossing the ball too high in the air in her fervor. She swung clumsily and grazed the ball with the edge of her racket. Her second try whizzed right into our side of the net. This had been her experience the whole time, but this was the only match where it really counted.

  Lainey and Madison tittered with laughter. I looked at Theo sympathetically. Her face was almost as red as her hair.

  "You serve first, Maddie," Lainey commanded.

  Madison tossed the ball up daintily and swung her racket to meet it. Theo and I scrambled to the side of the court and ended up rebounding it.

  Despite the bad start, we held our own for the duration. This seemed to make Lainey angry. Not only when I returned her shots, but when she missed mine. Her eyebrows puckered, and her hair was unraveling from the tight, slick ponytail at the top of her head.

  I had never seen Lainey sweat, but little beads broke out across her tanned forehead. Her mascara was running underneath her eyes, making her look worn out.

  The score had been tied the last few minutes. Eve
ry time the ball whizzed over the net I prayed we could hit it back and win.

  Lainey got ready to serve. Her gaze locked right on mine. Hate made her eyes hard. She tossed the yellow ball up in the air and slammed it with all her strength, nailing me directly in the nose. I felt the sickening crack resound in my skull. My body fell backwards in slow motion. I expected to hit the hard parquet wood floor, but instead I fell through, the jolt I expected never coming.

  I tumbled.

  And then I stopped, and everything was black and silent.

  I felt warmth on my cheeks, and I could smell the ocean. I opened my eyes and saw blue sky above me.

  I could feel my limbs resting on a bed of sand. On a beach. Before I had much time to contemplate this, Jenna leaned over me. The necklace with her name on it dangled from around her neck. The sun caught the tiny rhinestones and they twinkled.

  And then the sky was dark, raining. Large droplets splotched my skin. I felt paralyzed, unable to move much. The smell changed to something briny and complicated.

  Jenna was still leaning over me, although now the necklace was missing. Her face was as blank as it had been the first time I saw her, like she was inspecting an alien. Curly hair like brambles fell around her face. Seeing her gave me no solace. Only fear.

  I noticed with a chill that her eyes were entirely black. No longer sky blue, it was as if the pupils had taken over everything else. Who else had I seen with black eyes...with I start I realized it was the little dead girl. That meant...

  My vision flickered again, and we were on the beach. I felt myself able to sit up, and began to do so. But as I moved the vision again wavered. We were on the shore of a lake, the muddy bank beneath me. My fingers sank into the muck. The green water boiled.

  Again to the beach. Sunlight glittered off of the lazily moving waves.

  You've never been to the beach, Jenna. I thought. You always wanted to go but your parents never had the time...

  I tried to speak.

  But I was tumbling again. The sun became the yellow orb of the tennis ball, whirling straight for me.