Scott again, Mary thought. Jesus, did he tie me—Joon—up?
Scott was holding something in his hand—a small device—but she didn’t recognize it. Beside him, on the rock face, was what looked like steel netting from a construction site, holding a thick pile of cinder blocks.
“Amy!” Real Mary was screaming. “Amy, where are you?”
She tried again to scream, but, again, all she could do was moan and squeal. The bandage on her mouth made it impossible to speak.
Mary remembered watching Joon squirm and buck and moan, from right over there—from exactly where Real Mary’s shadowy figure was moving forward. It’s just like Scott, in front of school, she realized, astonished. The exact same thing. This is me, warning myself.
“I can’t find Amy!” Real Mary sobbed. “Joon, hang on—”
No, no, no—Mary shook her head frantically, trying to signal Real Mary to stay put; she was about to drop into the—
Crack! Even hanging from the rope above the stream, Mary could hear the force of the impact as Real Mary dropped into the hole in the ground.
Below her, Mary could just make out the dim yellow of Scott’s oversize raincoat as he moved, reacting.
“Joon!” Real Mary screamed. “I’m trapped—I can’t move!”
Below, out of Real Mary’s view, Scott was moving again. Mary barely heard an electronic click just as she saw a red light flashing on the device in Scott’s hand.
Another click sounded, far above her—tilting her head back again, Mary saw a tiny flash as sparks detonated on the rope above her, and the rope started to come apart.
Some kind of trick, Mary thought. He put something up there, on the rope, so he could just press a button—some kind of clever Scott gizmo.
It was incredible, amazing. This was a setup. It was done on purpose. Scott was deliberately faking me out—making it look like the rope was breaking.
“Don’t move, Joon!” Real Mary screamed, from her spot planted halfway in the ground. “Jesus, don’t—”
Scott fumbled with whatever he was holding and another tiny light flashed and the rope broke.
This is it, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. I’m dead—
Mary felt the sickening nausea of sudden free fall as she dropped straight down—and then something grabbed her, roughly pulling her, and she felt a blast of pain as she tumbled forward, Scott’s arms around her waist as he pulled her on top of himself. She rolled, banging her kneecaps against the wet stone as she and Scott tumbled backward.
She was safe. She was on solid ground, her knees and scraped shoulder blades screaming in agony, raising her head, her hands still bound to the rope that now draped across the stone like a limp snake.
Up above, out of view, back toward the farmhouse, Real Mary was screaming.
Scott stood up, letting go of her, and then he lunged to one side and pushed against the steel netting, propelling the pile of cinder blocks so they toppled over the edge of the narrow embankment. After a moment, the entire cluster of steel and cement dropped into the stream, making a very loud splash.
That’s what I heard, Mary marveled. I can’t believe it. He completely fooled me.
But why?
Scott had returned to her side. She stared up at his shadowed face, hidden behind the hood of his ridiculous yellow raincoat. Scott was kneeling on the wet stone, mud smeared on his khaki trousers, fishing in his red book bag. He pulled out the soft silver cloth Mary had seen before (When I was him, she remembered) and, as he unfolded it, Mary suddenly recognized it as a space blanket—the kind that marathon runners draped around themselves after a race.
He was prepared for this, Mary realized, as Scott sidled over to her, producing a gleaming Swiss Army knife. He flicked on a flashlight (looking around critically first, to make sure the light wasn’t visible from up by the house), then leaned to cut the ropes, freeing Mary’s ankles.
“You okay, Joon?” Scott whispered.
Mary nodded.
“Good. I think I pulled my back out.” Scott was helping her to her feet, draping the metallic blanket around her. Mary was too astonished to react—she just shivered, staring at Scott as he stooped to gather all his belongings, including the flashlight and the knife and what she now saw was a plastic controller from a child’s remote control toy.
I don’t believe it, Mary thought weakly. Like a fucking movie stunt.
“I warned you it would be touch and go,” Scott told her, collapsing the antenna on his toy remote and coiling the rope. “I’m sorry, Joon—I thought I’d do a slightly better job of catching you.”
Mary couldn’t believe her ears.
They did it together—Joon was totally in on this.
But that was nothing compared with what she saw next.
In the near distance, behind where Scott was briskly packing up his belongings, a silhouetted figure was coming toward them, slowly edging along the narrow shelf of rock. Mary had been fumbling with the wet ropes on her wrists, trying to get herself free, but when Scott’s flashlight beam flickered in the right direction and Mary saw who was joining them, she froze in complete, mute shock.
Amy.
“That worked great!” Amy whispered, brushing her wet hair from her face as she joined them, leaning to help Scott latch his bag. Amy grinned at Mary, her eyes glittering in the reflected glare of the flashlight. “Joonie, did you see me? Did you hear me? I deserve a fucking Oscar for that!”
You sure do, Mary thought, totally bewildered.
She couldn’t believe her ears.
It wasn’t just Amy and Scott. It was Joon, too.
“You okay, Joon?” Amy had walked closer, carefully picking her way across the mud-streaked embankment and reaching to pull the silver blanket more snugly around her—Joon’s—shoulders. “You totally had the hard part—I can’t believe you agreed to just, like, hang there.”
The rain kept falling around them. Real Mary was still sobbing—her voice penetrated through the howling wind.
What the hell are you all doing? Mary wanted to scream at them. But her mouth was still taped shut, just like her raw wrists were still bound with loops of rope—there was nothing she could do but move along the narrow rock shelf with them.
“You took your bloody time getting here,” Scott complained in a harsh whisper, looking at his watch. “Listen, we’ve got to get moving. Dylan’ll be here in just twenty minutes.”
Jesus, Mary thought weakly. She’d raised her bound hands to her face and was trying to find the edge of the adhesive, to pull the bandage from her—Joon’s—face.
Him too?
They all ganged up on me! She still couldn’t believe it. Her head was reeling.
That doesn’t make sense. She was trying to remember everything that had happened next—after Joon’s fall—and how it fit together with what she’d just learned.
Like any of this makes sense.
“Do that later, Joonie,” Amy told her impatiently, pulling Mary forward. She was referring to the bandage. “Where’s your car, Scott?”
“On the other side of the parkway.”
They brought another car, Mary thought weakly. She remembered Amy sitting next to her in the Mercedes, driving intently—fooling her completely, playing her like a violin. She still couldn’t believe it.
Scott was checking his watch again as he led them along the embankment, back the way Amy had come. The rain kept falling as they followed the narrow rock ledge’s path as it sloped upward. They passed the edge of the farmhouse, far off through the trees, and suddenly the Mercedes’ headlights were shining right in her eyes.
“Patrick’s going to have a dead battery,” Scott whispered to Amy. “The headlights are going to be on all night.”
Their voices seemed to be fading away into the roar of the rain and the wind—Mary caught herself staring sideways through the weeds at the distant glare of the headlights, glowing like phosphorescent moons.
“Yeah.” Amy used a nasty tone that Mary had n
ever heard before. Her voice was barely audible now—the whole world was fading to white. “But did you hear the bitch scream? It’s totally worth it.”
3
AMY
A DEEP BASS ROAR—a blast of noise—accompanied the blinding white light, making Mary’s eyes water, growing louder and brighter until, just like that, the noise and light were gone. Mary was warm and dry, and her body didn’t ache, for the first time in what seemed like forever. She was in the backseat of a car, being driven at night, and the heat was up way too far. The roar of white noise had been a car whipping past in the other direction.
“High beams!” Scott Sanders muttered, from directly in front of her. Scott was driving fairly fast—Mary felt the car lurch back and forth as Scott flinched at the blinding headlights that had just dazzled her. “Imbecile,” Scott added.
It happened again, Mary realized.
This was the third time—she’d come back from the dead (the phrase stuck in her head like some kind of crazy comic-book tale, something out of a kid’s campfire story or a horror movie) as Scott, and then as Joon, and now—
Amy, she realized, looking down at herself, seeing her soaked party clothes and her conspicuously protruding chest. I’m Amy now.
Joon was in the passenger seat, still wrapped in her synthetic sheath. She was using a hand towel to dry her hair. Mary didn’t recognize the car they were in; it was some kind of enormous Japanese luxury sedan with rich leather seats and a new-car smell. Scott drove it confidently; Mary assumed it belonged to his parents.
The glowing green numerals on the dashboard clock said 11:34 P.M.
A little bit later, Mary realized, thinking it through. She wasn’t quite as panicked or freaked out by what was happening as she’d been the previous two times. She still had no idea why, but it was obvious that she was moving through time, recycling the events of the fatal day, her last day on earth.
Am I really dead? Mary wondered again. The car’s interior was uncomfortably hot; Mary could feel her skin—Amy’s skin—breaking a sweat.
The car was racing down the Saw Mill River Parkway. Mary could see the same dark masses of foliage whipping by outside the rain-streaked windows, just like the last time she was here, driving south with Dylan.
Dylan, Mary thought, feeling a lump in her throat. She pictured him lying in the pool of his own blood on her living room floor, crying hysterically while Mary’s mother crouched over him.
But that hasn’t happened yet, she realized. Not for … three hours.
Which meant that she might be able to prevent it.
Mary wanted to say something—to talk to Scott and Joon, to ask them what the hell they were doing, what this insane conspiracy was all about. But she couldn’t even start talking. She was too dazed, too baffled.
“There they are,” Joon said, pointing. “You want to get a little closer, Scott?”
“Right,” Scott confirmed. The muted whine of the Japanese engine cranked up as the car cruised forward. Mary was still too stunned to say anything, but she gazed intently through the windshield.
Ahead of them, Mary saw a familiar Ford Taurus.
She could just make out two people inside, in the front: a man, driving, and a woman in the passenger seat.
Of course.
It all made sense. That’s us—me and Dylan—up there.
Mary remembered their frantic drive—Dylan’s insane rush to get back to the city as fast as possible.
The car behind them, the car that had chased them all the way to Manhattan, was this car—Scott’s car.
Mary remembered asking Dylan who was following them. If I told you, you’d never believe me, he’d answered.
Mary realized he’d been right—she couldn’t believe it.
Sitting there in the backseat, furtively gazing forward at Scott and Joon, Mary felt sick. She was seeing her friends in a completely different light now that she’d learned what they thought of her—what they really thought of her.
They hate me.
Amy—darling Ame, who’d signed a Best Friend Contract with her more than a decade ago—whose body she was now inhabiting, had just called her a bitch. And had laughed as she said it. The sound of sweet Amy laughing as she relished hearing Mary Shayne screaming in agony and grief was so painful that Mary could barely endure thinking about it.
And Scott, whom she’d mercilessly exploited for years, evidently harbored a grudge so deep that he’d planned (or helped plan) this elaborate revenge scheme.
“That’s right, Dylan … that’s right,” Joon was muttering grimly, gazing ahead at the Taurus as it sped down the rain-slicked Parkway. “Keep moving fast—keep Little Miss Shayne nice and scared.”
“Are you warm enough?” Scott asked Joon. For Mary, it was strange just to see the two of them talking at all. She’d never thought that Joon would give a second of her time to a supergeek like Scott.
Obviously, she’d been wrong about that. Mary was learning that she really didn’t know her friends as well as she thought she did.
“I’m fine,” Joon said.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Scott reached down to shift gears. The Taurus had sped up, and Scott had to work to keep his position behind them. “You were hanging there a long time; I’m sorry I fumbled when I caught you.”
Mary didn’t dare interrupt. She wanted to hear every word.
“I feel really weird—I must be stunned or something.” Joon was frowning quizzically at Scott. “What do you mean, fumbled? What happened?”
“When the charge blew,” Scott explained, “and the rope came apart, I just barely managed to catch you. You almost fell into the creek.”
“I almost what?” Joon was still frowning at Scott, looking confused. “When you caught me? I don’t—”
“What’s the matter with you?” Scott returned Joon’s gaze before flicking his eyes back to the road. “Don’t you remember?”
“No,” Joon muttered. “No, I don’t remember. What the hell—”
“You must be stunned.” Scott sounded worried. “If you really can’t—”
“I remember hanging there, I remember all the planning, all the setup. I remember getting the bitch ready for her date; I remember everything we did today,” Joon went on. “But then—it’s actually a blank. The strangest thing—I actually can’t remember anything until, um, until we were done—until afterward. You said you caught me wrong?”
“Your knee banged the ground.”
“No wonder,” Joon said. “I couldn’t figure out why it hurts so much.”
“The same thing happened to me!” Scott said suddenly. “All day long, I’ve been—” He took a breath and started over. “I mean, I remember being at school; I remember something about dropping all my stuff on the sidewalk. But I can’t—I can’t remember how the day started. I can’t remember waking up. It’s been driving me batty.”
Suddenly, Mary understood.
That’s when they were me.
From the moment he’d woken up in the morning to the moment the linebackers had tackled him on the sidewalk in front of the school, Scott had been her—had been Mary Shayne. That was why he couldn’t remember, she realized; he hadn’t been there. His soul had been temporarily replaced by hers—by dead Mary Shayne’s.
Possessed by the dead girl, before she died.
It was definitely like something out of a Twilight Zone episode.
And the same thing had happened with Joon, she realized, thinking about it some more. The exact period of time Joon had described—hanging from the rope; falling and being caught (badly) by Scott; banging her knee against the stones; walking back, along the ledge that flanked the abandoned farmhouse’s property—was when Joon wasn’t Joon at all, but was actually Mary.
They don’t remember what happened, Mary thought, because I was them.
Amy won’t remember this car ride, she realized. She’ll have a blank in her memory.
It was impossible, of course—but here she was, inside Amy�
��s body, not dreaming.
I’m coming back as each of my friends, she thought.
Mary realized she was covered in sweat. It wasn’t her sweat, of course; it was Amy’s. Amy Twersky and her cardigans and layers of extra clothes; always covering herself up, always so modest. She reached to brush her wavy red hair away from her perspiring forehead, and her hands came away damp. Scott had the heat cranked up all the way—obviously because Joon was freezing cold; in danger, probably, of catching pneumonia. Mary’s body—Amy’s body—was overheating beneath the cardigan.
And there’s something else, Mary thought right then—something that had happened during the course of her day, her last day alive, that now made sense, that fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle suddenly matching up. Something about time, and remembering—something about missing time.
But she couldn’t quite figure out what it was—as soon as the idea had come into her head, she’d lost it.
(overheating)
Mary had something like half a second to realize it was happening again; she was about to experience another hijacked memory that wasn’t hers.
(overheating)
SHE WAS OVERHEATING. MARY’S arms were wrapped tightly around Amy’s waist as she tumbled through Amy’s front door at 2:36 in the morning. Her skin was warm against Amy’s cheek—hot, even—and it was moist. Amy wasn’t sure if Mary had been crying or dancing or just sweating at one of those underground clubs with no ventilation she always went to. She smelled like alcohol, but she also smelled like cigarettes and violets and freesia, and something else … cinnamon, maybe? One of the spaghetti straps on her lemon-yellow cocktail dress was falling off her shoulder. Mary was the only girl in the world who could pull off a lemon-yellow cocktail dress without looking like some sort of Texas prom queen.
“I’m staying over,” Mary said, barely opening her mouth.
“I know.” Amy laughed gently. “You told me when you called.”
“I did? See, I don’t even remember calling.” Mary ended with a giggle. She was too out of it to lift her head, so every word was breathed directly into Amy’s ear—warm, wet lips against skin. Amy tried to keep her breathing regular.
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