Overnight

by Adele Griffin

  By flashlight, though, Leticia’s eyes jumped out of the darkness, the black pupil defined against the orchid-petal whites.

  Leticia, the shape-shifter. Black-and-white eyes staring Martha down.

  Would the group split down the middle? And if it did, how would everyone team up, and which half would be better?

  Who was Luckier? Martha or Leticia?

  Right now Zoë felt too tired, too perplexed. She would have to wait and see. She would rely on her special, extrasensory perception, because it was important to get this answer right.

  “Maybe we should do a séance,” she suggested. “Maybe that’s how we figure out what happened to Gray.”

  “A séance. What’s that again?” asked Kristy.

  “That’s when you hold hands and try to raise the spirit of the departed. But first we need to make a shrine using things that belong to that person,” Zoë explained. “To provide a way for Gray to communicate.”

  “You can only do a séance if a person is dead,” said Martha flatly. “Which Gray isn’t.”

  “No, but if, like, if she’s in trouble, or got abducted even, then we could be the first to know,” said Zoë.

  “Abducted,” Martha scoffed.

  “Is a séance like playing Ouija board?” asked Caitlin.

  “Except there’s no board. You have to channel the person through your own powers. Like them.” Martha grabbed the flashlight from Caitlin and pointed it on the wall at Caitlin’s picture of the fairies and monsters. Zoë shivered. She never liked that picture. It did not fit with the other pretty things in Caitlin’s room.

  “No, that’s not…they’re only…come on, stop it!” Caitlin exclaimed. “We don’t know for a fact that anything’s happened to Gray. We shouldn’t, like, hex her! I vote no séance!”

  “Me, too!” said Kristy. “No séance, no way!”

  “I vote yes to the séance,” said Martha. She smirked at Zoë, as if she knew something that Zoë didn’t.

  “I’m tiebreaker,” said Leticia. “And I vote no. A séance is creepy.”

  “Three against two. Sorry, Zoë. Sorry, Meow! I’ve had enough.” Caitlin snapped off her flashlight and jumped up to go back to her bed. “Ouch! I just tripped on something.” The flashlight snapped on again. “What is that?”

  The other girls looked.

  It was Gray’s sleeping bag.

  “If I were you, I’d take it as a sign,” said Zoë. “Gray wants us to contact her. Please, let me try. Just for a minute, please? Please?”

  Gray

  TODAY WAS FRIDAY THE thirteenth, Gray remembered. Tomorrow would be Valentine’s Day. What did that mean, to have a day of bad luck right before a day of hearts and candy?

  She dipped a celery stick into the saucer of vinegar. She had stayed in the kitchen after Drew left. He had said don’t go anywhere and so she didn’t, even though she had been alone here for a long, long time. She felt the tears in her eyes but she did not spill them. She must keep hold of whatever bravery she had. That was always a good rule, although it seemed impossible, a joke, as if she’d slipped Robby’s toy pirate knife into her pocket.

  Even with the vinegar, the food tasted like nothing. Hardly any taste at all. It was like dipping food into the sea. She leaned back in her chair and chewed up the celery into its watery, stringy fibers and she tried to believe that everything was going to be fine. She swallowed the tasteless celery mash and took another stick.

  Why is this night different from other nights? The question seeped into Gray’s mind and made her ache in memory of last Passover.

  Last Passover, when she had to give up her participation in the Seder.

  Last Passover, when Robby had been allowed to ask the Four Questions at the table.

  “Robby is seven. He’s a big boy, Gray.” Her father bent and hugged her. “I know it’s hard to give up something you love,” he said quietly. “But that’s what gives your gesture meaning.”

  She had nodded her head in agreement, although her mouth set in a stubborn line. The Four Questions of the Haggadah was her favorite part of Passover. Already that night had been too different from other nights. Her mother had been at her most feeble, hardly able to stay awake, and the whole house looked and smelled funny. That was because earlier, Mrs. Caplan and her daughter, Jennifer, had come over to scour and scrub down the kitchen.

  Gray had overheard them talking, complaining lightly.

  “What a lot of work!” Mrs. Caplan harrumphed.

  “Too much,” agreed Jennifer. “We’ll have to scrape it clean.”

  “Well, she can’t be blamed. So sick.”

  They had attacked the kitchen, using bleach and ammonia they had brought, even going over the stove and windowsills with Q-Tips. All for the worst Passover ever. Gray’s mother had not even been awake for most of the reading obligations. Her chin sank into her neck or pitched wildly from side to side like a boat at sea, her sleep trance a not-death that scared them.

  Gray had watched her mother in silence. She had sat with the bitter taste of her own private questions filling her mouth.

  Aren’t you ever going to get better, Mom?

  Why don’t you just try harder, Mom?

  Why did this mistake have to happen to you, Mom?

  What are the rules if you die, Mom?

  Robby had not messed up the Questions. His childish voice was slow and brave. When he finished, Gray squeezed his knee under the table and smiled at him. She did not feel toward Robby what Caitlin felt toward Ty. Gray loved her younger brother intensely. Loved him right from the moment she’d seen his squashed, angry newborn face and her father had said, “Gray, say hello to the newest member of our family!”

  She set the example, and Robby loved her back. It was always with disbelief that Gray witnessed Caitlin and Ty’s nonstop fighting. There was no place in Gray’s house for bites or scratches or hair-pulling or tattle-telling or wet willies or Indian burns or elbow slaps or dead legs or, afterward, forced, fake apologizing with crossed fingers while Mrs. Donnelley said, “See? If you didn’t fight, you wouldn’t have to make up!”

  Drew had tried to hurt her by saying that she was adopted. He tried to hurt her by saying that she was not really Gray Rosenfeld, not really Jewish, not really meant to be part of her own family.

  He tried to hurt me with his mean wolf smile but my mom and dad told me about people like Drew Doe and I was Chosen not once but twice.

  Gray knew who she was when she stood in her family.

  With her friends, it was a different story.

  “The popular group has two leaders and all the rest are followers,” Annie Dearborne had proclaimed during that time when she and Gray were friends. “Martha is the first leader, Leticia is the second leader, and whoever they pick is who gets to be cool.”

  “No,” Gray disagreed. “It’s not like that. Different people are leaders at different times.”

  “Leaders are always leaders,” said Annie matter-of-factly, “and followers are always followers.”

  Gray had shaken her head. No no no.

  Deep inside, though, Gray knew Martha was the leader of a group Gray was hanging on to by the fraying thread of her friendship with Caitlin. A friendship worn bare of what it used to be, now that Kristy took up all of Caitlin’s attention, now that anything Gray and Caitlin had shared in common had slipped away long ago. Gray suspected that Caitlin stayed nice to her only because of their moms, or because of what had happened to Gray’s mom, but it wasn’t enough. Pity would not keep her in the Lucky Seven. She knew that.

  Being friends with Annie Dearborne was almost as good as being in the Seven. Annie was loyal. Annie was a girl who whispered if your zipper was down instead of pointing and yelling it out like Martha. Annie was a girl who wouldn’t blab to others if she caught you crying in the bathroom, the way Zoë had. Annie would not make faces if your sleeping bag looked wrong. Gray valued loyalty, too, but that quality never seemed very important to her other friends.

 
The moon broke through a cloud and shone into the kitchen. Gray stood up and moved to the sink. Sometimes the moon had a blue cast and other nights it was tinged orange, as if its core burned with lava. Tonight it was creamy yellow white, like a cheesecake that was the tiniest bit lopsided. Ms. Calvillo had told them in science class today that by Saturday night, the moon would be full.

  “So remember to look up at the sky,” Ms. Calvillo had said.

  Gray thought she remembered having read a story about how a moon, if looked into directly, made people go crazy. She made herself look into the moon’s single open eye. She might need to be a little bit crazy tonight. A good kind of crazy. A brave kind.

  From another part of the house, voices rose. Drew and Katrina were arguing about something. Gray could not make sense of the words. Her heart began to beat quickly again. She did not feel brave.

  She continued to chew her celery and stare into the moon, one wise yellowish eye in the darkness, until the voices grew too loud to ignore.

  Gray found them both in the bedroom. Katrina sat in the inflatable chair. Drew was standing over her. In one hand, he held Katrina’s coat bunched at the collar like a garbage bag. When he heard Gray at the door, he turned.

  “You see what she did?” Drew asked. His face was angry, purpling. He shook the coat at Gray. “You see what she did? Ask her what she did! Ask her what she did!”

  Gray caught Katrina’s eye. Katrina did not appear to be frightened. She made a dazed half-grab for the coat. Drew stepped back and held it away from her.

  “Katrina, what did you do?” Gray asked obediently.

  “She took all the money. Our money!” Drew burst out before Kat could answer. “She took it and she used it to buy this ridiculous—coat!”

  “It’s a pretty coat,” said Kat in her foggy, girly way. “It was for my party.”

  “Ask her how are we gonna get out of here with no money, no identification?”

  Gray thought she did not need to ask that. “Katrina, can’t you return the coat?” she asked instead. “And get the money back?”

  “She can’t prance back into that store!” Drew spat. “They’ll be waiting for her!”

  Waiting for her. Did that mean Katrina was missing? Did that mean people were searching for her? If so, it was good news, Gray thought. If people were searching for Katrina, then they would find Gray, too. Gray would be a bonus person.

  “I said I was sorry. I wish you wouldn’t shout.” Katrina made another reach. Drew dropped the coat on the floor and kicked it across to her. “You told me you were going to have a party for me,” Katrina pleaded. “You were the one who changed the rules.”

  “They’re gonna come by looking for the money, and then what do we do? Then what do we do?”

  Neither Drew nor Katrina was paying attention to Gray anymore. They were hardly paying attention to each other. There was no use talking to them. They were locked up in the enchanted spell of their own strange world.

  She left them there. Light-footed, she walked down the hall and through the front door, into the icy night.

  Whatever was going on between Drew and Kat, one thing was for certain. Gray was not in the middle of their problems. She was an extra. She was a tacked-on, last-minute problem.

  The night filled the outline of her and colored her over. It wrapped and disguised everything, the shapes of the trees and the house and the distance. Gray stared at the cheesecake moon. It was late. Bedtime.

  When she got back home, the first person she would call would be Annie Dearborne. Maybe she would invite Annie to her house for a sleepover. Annie would not care that Gray wrecked Caitlin’s party. Annie would listen to Gray’s story and ask, “Weren’t you scared?” And Gray would answer, “Yes! Yes! I was terrified! I thought they were killers!”

  How scared was she, honestly? On a scale of one to ten? Strength seemed to be draining out of her. Her legs felt jellied and boneless, not solid enough to keep her upright. Everything was too confusing. Noise was filling her from the inside.

  On a scale of one to ten, maybe a seven.

  If she screamed, if anything bad happened, nobody would hear her. Nobody would know.

  Maybe an eight.

  From inside the house, voices continued. Drew and Katrina had moved into the living room. “…have to pick up that little kid,” Drew was saying.

  Gray opened her mouth and made the scream happen. She screamed so loud and long that soon it stopped being a scream and bloomed and blossomed into something else that might carry on forever. And then it seemed to her as if the scream never had been inside her, after all, but was always outside. She made the noise go on and on, expanding outward, taking up all the air and space until it was as big as the night itself.

  Leticia

  “GRAY, ARE YOU OUT there? Gray, speak to us!”

  They had all joined hands in a chain around Gray’s sleeping bag, which sat in the middle of them like an upright log. The flashlight was balanced on top, pooling a spotlight onto the ceiling. Leticia linked herself between Kristy and Caitlin so that she would not have to touch Martha’s hands.

  Martha glared hard at Leticia. No matter how fiercely Leticia stared back, she could not mirror the meanness in Martha’s eyes. Double-mean now, since Leticia had crumpled up Martha’s last friendship valentine—that dumb lie-cheat that Leticia had won the dance contest.

  I can do this, Leticia told herself. I can go up against Martha. People will side with me. Everyone resents Martha for one thing or another.

  “Gray, do you hear me?” intoned Zoë. “Gray! Speak through one of us if you can.”

  Zoë was too much, sometimes. Always pushing for everyone to believe in her. She was doing a good job, though. She was scary. Involuntarily, a shudder rippled across Leticia’s shoulders, and she noticed that Caitlin’s hand was clammy in her own.

  “Good acting, Zoë,” said Martha.

  “Shh! Let her concentrate,” said Caitlin.

  “Oh, tell us!” Zoë implored. “Tell us where you are, Gray!”

  “Tomorrow morning,” said Martha in a regular speaking voice as if there were no séance happening, “when the police find Gray walking down some road, lost, whatever, and then she hears that we were doing these things, I bet she’ll tell on us to our par—”

  “Gray, I-I-I hear y-you!” Zoë’s voice was stuttering and unnatural.

  Kristy gasped.

  “Do you really?” whispered Caitlin. “Honest?”

  Zoë’s head listed and lolled and drooped over her neck. “Shhh. She is t-t-telling me.” Her mouth fell slack, listening. “She’s telling me that she’s l-locked in a very small space,” Zoë whispered. “Like a c-cave.”

  “A coffin, maybe?” breathed Kristy.

  Zoë’s eyes blinked and rolled. “She says she is s-safe here? She wants us not to w-worry about her?”

  “Oooh, where is it?” asked Martha sarcastically. “Get directions, if you know so much.”

  Leticia could sense that Caitlin and Kristy were rapt, listening. “She is saying do not be fr-frightened for her,” Zoë continued. “‘Do not fear me! Have no f-fear!’ is what she says. Oh!” Zoë dropped Caitlin’s and Martha’s hands to shade her eyes.

  “What is it?” Caitlin leaned toward Zoë and cupped her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. It’s just—” Zoë exhaled raggedly. “Well, if you want to know, but you have to promise not to tell? Lots of people in my family have ESP. I grew up around it. It wasn’t till now that I was sure, but I guess I have the Sight, too!” She pledged her hand to her heart and seemed to collapse against it.

  “Oh, brother,” said Martha. “I wonder if Fielding gives out a Best Psychic prize.”

  Leticia held back the laughter that burbled in her throat. Any other time, Leticia thought, either she or Martha would have caught the other’s eye with a sly wink, and they would have burst out laughing over Zoë and her dramatics.

  I’m going to miss being friends with Martha, she
realized. In spite of everything. I’ll miss laughing with her.

  “My ESP is a secret, Martha,” said Zoë stiffly. “So don’t spread it around.”

  “Zoë, you should tell the police about this cave vision of yours,” said Martha. “If you don’t, I think someone else should. Unless, of course, you’re making it all up.”

  Now Leticia caught Martha’s eye in a different way. “Why would Zoë make up having ESP, and why would you go blab about it, if it’s a secret?” she asked lightly. “Why are you always going against people who are supposed to be your friends?”

  Martha lifted her chin into another stare-off. “Actually, Luh-tee-sha,” she answered, biting off each syllable of Leticia’s name as if it were some bitter food, “I know for a fact that Zoë is faking.”

  Leticia rolled her eyes. “Really? And what makes you so smart?” But she could sense all eyes on Martha now.

  “Because I’ve got some real information about what might have happened to Gray. Information that, unlike Zoë’s, is one hundred percent true. If I tell it, though, you all have to promise not to inform anybody outside the group. Because it’s confidential.” Martha looked around the circle. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” said Caitlin and Kristy in unison.

  “Promise,” mumbled Zoë.

  “Promise,” said Leticia. Inside she fumed. All the attention had turned to Martha as if she were a magic lantern. Just the way she liked it.

  “Okay. When I went to get the mail for Caitlin’s mom this afternoon,” Martha began, speaking slowly so that nobody missed a word, “I saw a lady at the end of the driveway. Her hair was long and tied back with a scarf, and she was wearing a dress and this ugly coat with feathers hanging off it. And she was standing near a dark green or blue car that I think was hers. She came up to me and she asked me who was having a party. She talked like a preschooler. She was weird.”