Evil Returns

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Devnee looked down, hugging herself, trying to pull herself together, to think of a way out of this mess. She was wearing a very short skirt and a shirt with the sleeves partly rolled up. Her ivory satin skin glowed.

  Aryssa’s skin, really.

  Devnee gagged and swallowed hard. She had the feeling she could unzip herself and step out. Leave Aryssa’s skin lying on the lobby floor, while the real Devnee—the plain, dull Devnee—would go on as she had before: unnoticed, unloved, unwanted.

  Give up my beauty? thought Devnee.

  Brilliant thoughts swirled in her head; quotations from Shakespeare and the Bible and Lincoln were complete and meaningful behind her eyes.

  Victoria’s thoughts and quotations.

  Give up my brain? thought Devnee.

  If I give up my beauty, my father won’t be proud of me anymore. My brother won’t brag about me to his friends. I won’t have any friends. Looking in a mirror and putting on clothes will be just as depressing as it used to be. If I give up my brains, I won’t be with William and Trey on High School Bowl. Mrs. Cort won’t fawn over me. I’ll be that ordinary girl nobody notices, nobody cares about, nobody wants.

  She had begun to cry, but she could not feel the tears on her cheeks.

  Because it’s Aryssa’s skin, thought Devnee. Perhaps Aryssa feels the tears, because she’s inside my skin.

  “Dev?” said a gentle voice. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

  Devnee opened her eyes. It was Victoria.

  “You seem so down,” said Victoria. “What’s wrong?”

  Devnee laughed hysterically.

  Victoria said, “Believe me, I know how it feels to have a bad day. About all I seem to be able to do this week is get out of bed. I have dried leaves for a brain. Lots of rustling around when the wind goes through my head.”

  Dried leaves rustling in her head did not have to come from emptiness. It could come from the presence of the vampire. Sometimes his very laughter sounded like the cruel rasping of branches in winter.

  “Maybe you’ll feel better next week,” said Devnee. But she did not know if the victims got better in the end, or if they stayed tired and worn and too exhausted to function. Even if Victoria isn’t tired next week, thought Devnee, she’ll still be dumb. Even if Aryssa isn’t tired next week, she’ll still be plain.

  “I hope so,” agreed Victoria. “Maybe it’s just a stage. But what’s happening with you, Dev? To make you so sad?” Victoria was truly concerned. She had left William’s side and come over to ask.

  I had three assigned buddies, thought Devnee. Aryssa, whom I gave to a vampire; Trey, who is a hunk but conceited and shallow; Nina, who is nothing more than a checkbook.

  But Victoria really is a buddy.

  If she knew …

  If anybody knew …

  “I’m not a very nice person,” said Devnee Fountain. That was the wish she should have made: to be nice.

  The very word wish, even when she was not making a wish, was terribly dangerous. Across the lobby the dark path began again to ooze forward, so it could arrive at the intersection of his victims.

  No! thought Devnee. I cannot let this happen! “I have to go to my locker. Come on and talk to me while we go.” Swiftly she linked one arm with Karen and the other with Victoria and trotted them out of the lobby.

  School had ended some time ago.

  Even the late buses were long gone. Sports practice was over. Tutoring had ended. The custodians had turned off most of the hall lights.

  Light came only from behind, from the lobby.

  Long black shadows, much much taller than the girls, trotted on ahead, as if scouting out the territory. Three shadows. For three girls.

  My shadow is back! thought Devnee. My shadow forgave me. My shadow thinks there’s a chance that maybe I can be human after all.

  “Gosh, Devnee,” said Karen, “thanks for including me.”

  “Sure,” said Devnee, rushing them on, turning the corner, leaving the dark path behind.

  Devnee was the kind of nonathlete whose stumbling stupidity caused any team she might be on to lose any game it might play. Victoria was fairly good at sports that required time and money, but not teamwork, like horseback riding and skiing. Karen, however, was a superstar among athletes and, in a year or two, would be recruited by college coaches with big plans. Devnee, Victoria, and Karen were not a likely trio.

  But Karen did not appear to notice.

  “Let’s—um—go get a doughnut,” said Devnee. “Want to go to the Hole and have doughnuts?”

  None of them had a car.

  “We’ll have to catch the boys if we’re going to go,” mumbled Victoria. “I wish I had some strength. I can hardly make my feet shuffle. You’ll have to order my doughnut for me.”

  “This is so nice of you,” Karen said. “I’m new in town, too. I feel so special that you’re asking me to go with you.”

  Devnee had had no idea that Karen was new in town. Karen seemed so established.

  “I hardly have any friends yet,” confided Karen. “I got on all the teams without any trouble, and we’re buddies, and I have a good time, and yet I don’t really have friends. You know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean,” said Devnee.

  Karen beamed at Devnee. Happiness transformed her. She was suddenly beautiful.

  Beauty, thought Devnee. I don’t even know what it is anymore.

  Karen’s smile demanded a smile in return. When Devnee’s beautiful borrowed face broke into a real smile, some of her inhumanity dissolved. Some of the real Devnee surfaced.

  And thinking occurred.

  Real thinking.

  Not the stolen thoughts out of Victoria’s brain, not quotes, not formulas and facts.

  Genuine shrewd planning and strategies.

  I won’t give him Karen. I didn’t make a wish anyway, so he can’t have Karen, no matter how much he wants her. He can’t have anybody if I don’t turn them over, can he? They have to be part of my wish, don’t they? Karen isn’t. So he can’t have Karen.

  I did make a terrible wish about my family, back at the beginning of all this. Even my mother felt the truth about that wish. He half possesses that wish.

  I am calling it back.

  He cannot have that wish.

  Somehow—some way—using what weapon I don’t know—paying what price I don’t know—I have to stop him.

  Stop him forever.

  And return what I stole to the rightful owners.

  She looked behind.

  The corner, dim and distant, blackened.

  The dark path crawled around the lockers.

  Laughter like a million breaking souls crept along the floor.

  She could see the edge of the cape now, and smell the rising swamp gas of his shadow.

  “Quick,” said Devnee Fountain, pushing Victoria and Karen ahead of her. “Outside. We’ll meet the boys there.”

  They ran because she made them.

  Behind her, the dark path oozed on.

  But ahead of her, equally dark, attached to her feet the way it ought to be, spread her own shadow, huge and threatening in the setting sun.

  Chapter 16

  IN HIGH SCHOOL BOWL practice Devnee asked the only question that really mattered. “How do you kill a vampire?” she said.

  Nobody blinked an eye. They were used to an assortment of study topics from chemistry to famous dancers, so the subject of how to off a vampire seemed normal.

  “I am not sure,” said Mrs. Cort, with a frown of uncertainty. “I believe it’s necessary to put a stake through its heart.”

  Trey said, “You carry a cross when you do it.”

  “And chew garlic,” added William.

  Devnee had not expected any of these answers. “Have you had experience with this?” she said.

  “No,” said Trey, “but that’s why houses lots of times have wooden doors with crosses on them.”

  Devnee wasn’t certain if she had ever seen a door with a
cross on it.

  “Wood molding,” explained William, “in the shape of a big T. Or cross. That way, the vampire can’t get in the door.”

  Devnee’s mouth fell open. Trey laughed at her.

  Mrs. Cort stuck to the ever-essential subject of High School Bowl questions. “Every now and then they do ask questions on superstition and myth. Where is Transylvania, what is voodoo, which mummies escaped their tombs, who wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  Superstition and myth, thought Devnee. I should be so lucky that he is nothing more than superstition and myth.

  She felt the vampire tapping at her skull and did not let him in. Force of mind could keep him out of her thoughts. It was only when she weakened, lowered her guard, or had wishes and yearnings and aches for things to be different—only then could the vampire come in.

  There was nothing now that Devnee wanted except to be free of him, and have her mother be safe.

  Not much, she thought, oh, no, not much.

  Just life and breath and family.

  Well, she did not think much of the suggestions of the High School Bowl team. Chew garlic? Please. The vampire stank of swamps and putrid gas already. He wouldn’t even notice garlic. Wear a cross? That was possible. But Devnee felt she should not stand behind the symbol of a god she had not trusted. She had not asked God for beauty and brains. She had asked the vampire. It would be slimy now, wouldn’t it, to back up and say, Well, I really believed in you all the time, gimme your cross, take care of me.

  And as for the stake through the heart—why, most of the time the vampire’s body wasn’t even there. And his body had no heart; it was the collected shadows of the dead, wrapped in his evil cloak.

  “Trey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember you mentioned a creepy girl used to live in my house?”

  Trey and William both shuddered. “Whew, was she ever weird,” said Trey.

  No wonder she was weird, thought Devnee. I’m feeling pretty weird myself. “What happened to her?”

  The boys shrugged. “She just disappeared one day. She used to date a guy in this school. He graduated. Her parties were legend. Everybody wanted to go up into that tower, and she would never let them.” Trey laughed. “She told her boyfriend that the shutters were haunted.”

  William laughed, too. “I remember that now. If she’d said her house was haunted, or her tower—you could believe that. It’s such a spooky house. But shutters? Did ghosts live in the slats?”

  There was space between the two sets of shutters. Was that the vampire’s tomb? A tomb of darkness on the inside and light on the outside? A tomb with access to towers and skies? A tomb from which shadows cast long black paths?

  “What was her name?” said Devnee.

  Nobody could remember the creepy girl’s name.

  “Do you guys ever go up into the tower?” William wanted to know.

  “It’s my bedroom.”

  “No kidding! You sleep there?” William put a finger into his mouth for gagging on.

  Devnee managed a laugh. “My bed is up there. But no, nobody could sleep there. Too much going on, what with the ghosts and the haunts and the banging shutters and the vampires. I get very little rest.”

  The boys smiled, and Mrs. Cort dragged out another set of quiz questions. French history. Talleyrand and Mitterand, Charlemagne and Charles de Gaulle. Devnee, of course, knew them all. “What famous building did the people of Paris destroy at the beginning of the French Revolution?” said Mrs. Cort.

  “The Bastille,” said Devnee. This is what it would be like, she thought, if they substituted computers for brains. You would know how to pronounce it and spell it, what it looks like, the date it came down. You would spew out the answer like a laser printer. But it wouldn’t be yours. It would be the computer’s. I want to put the facts inside my brain by myself. I want to give Victoria back her mind.

  Devnee faced the fact that she did not want to give Aryssa back her beauty.

  Either I take the vampire’s evil gifts or I don’t, she thought. I can’t decide that half of it’s evil and the other half is nice and I’m hanging on to it.

  She wondered what the poor creepy girl had given to, or taken from, the vampire. And where was she now? Safe and well? Or one of the shadows beneath his cloak? Was the cloak filled by the shadows of girls like Devnee, who once had taken the bus, done homework, gone to basketball games … and made a fatal wish?

  There would be no more wishes for Devnee Fountain.

  She would never use the word again.

  “What famous edifice in Paris was erected for a World’s Fair?” said Mrs. Cort.

  “The Eiffel Tower,” said William.

  The three team members smiled at one another. They were good.

  “I hope we win over Durham High,” said Trey. “They whipped us last time. I can’t stand being whipped.”

  “I think we will,” said William. “Devnee was fabulous against Roosevelt High.”

  “I know we will,” said Mrs. Cort. “Between the three of you, you seem to have everything covered.”

  In another life, at another time, Devnee would have spoken out loud, adding her own thought. Devnee’s sentence would have begun with two words she was determined never to touch again: I wish we would win.

  What a contrast to the others. They hoped, or thought, or knew. They didn’t wish.

  Be careful of wishes, thought Devnee.

  They might come true.

  Chapter 17

  DEVNEE ENTERED THE HOUSE with a spring in her step.

  She felt not just beautiful and not just brilliant, but also strong and clever and tough.

  She bounded into the big front hall.

  “Mom?” she called.

  There was no answer.

  The house seemed much darker inside than usual.

  Devnee stood very still.

  “Mom?”

  The house filled with faint sound. Fluttering here, rasping there, creaking above, and hissing below.

  “Mom!” shouted Devnee.

  Her mother’s voice was soft as a flute. “I’m in the tower, darling.”

  Devnee took the stairs two at a time.

  Halfway up, she smothered in a tapestry of black. Choking, pushing it away from her face, she kicked at it. It swirled around her legs, caught her hair, tilted her head back as if to strangle her. “Trying to back out?” said the vampire.

  His cloak was ice water, lowering her temperature, lowering her resistance.

  “Trying to retreat?” said the vampire.

  His glass eyeballs were not in their sockets. His fingernails were not on his hands. His parts shifted and slithered and stank.

  “Mom!” screamed Devnee.

  “I’m up here, darling. I made the loveliest wish. And it came true.”

  The vampire’s giggle was like bubbles underwater. She had the sense that she could bottle him, like seltzer, swamp-flavored. I’m going to be hysterical, thought Devnee. I can’t fall apart. Not now.

  “Mom. Come downstairs. Now.”

  Her mother did not answer.

  Devnee’s own shadow melded with the shadows in the vampire’s cloak. She could not tell where hers left off and his began. “Give me back my shadow,” she cried.

  “There is no giving or taking with a shadow,” said the vampire. “There is merely light and dark. Your shadow seems to be part of the dark, my dear. You have lost it. And shortly, very shortly, your mother will lose hers.”

  “No, she won’t! You can’t! Stop this! She’s my mother!”

  “Victoria has a mother. Aryssa has a mother. You didn’t seem to worry about them. I don’t quite see the difference.”

  “I was wrong,” whispered Devnee. “I’m sorry. Please undo it. Take back the beauty. Take back the brains. Let me have my mother, please.”

  “You’ll have your mother, my dear. She’ll just be … a little different.”

  “What did she wish for?” screamed Devnee, hand over her mouth.
I don’t want my mother any different, she thought. I love my mother the way she is.

  “That’s not what you said before,” the vampire told her. “I distinctly recall how fervently you wished for a better family. More interesting. Slender. Attractive. Socially acceptable.”

  “I was wrong. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You did mean it,” said the vampire, and he was right. Devnee knew he was right. She had meant it; she had made the wish; the wish had been strong.

  “I learned a lesson,” said Devnee desperately.

  “Human beings always do,” agreed the vampire. “Just a little late, that’s all.” He smiled, and the smile grew from a tiny piece of pleasure to a great gaping cave of fangs and dripping eagerness.

  “Not my mother,” pleaded Devnee.

  The vampire did not speak again. His cloak swirled, closing in on him like a container. If only she could rope him, handcuff him, smash him! But the wind tunnel of his leaving sent her staggering backward down the stairs, struggling just to breathe, let alone fight.

  He faded before her eyes, and when the door to the tower stairs opened, there was no hand on the knob, no steps on the treads, no cloak wafting in the air.

  She backed up because she had to.

  She ran into the kitchen. Of course there was no garlic—her parents did not like garlic. There were no stakes—why would you have a stake in the kitchen?

  But there was a door, a door with a cross: the powder room door.

  It was on two hinges: pins stuck down shafts. She tried to remove the pins but they did not budge. She tried to jerk the door off anyway but accomplished nothing. She ran back into the kitchen. Found the toolboxes. People who were remodeling had tools everywhere. Grabbed a screwdriver and a hammer. Raced back to the door, sticking the pointed end of the screwdriver on the bottom of the pin and hammering upside down to get the pin out. It was awkward, it was difficult, it took so long! How long would the vampire take to …

  She could not bear to think of it.

  Not her mother!

  At last, the pin came out. The door hung stupidly on one hinge.

  She got the other pin out. The door fell on her, and it was solid wood, and heavy. So heavy.