As I moved toward the door, a hacking, nasty-sounding cough stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t even noticed anyone else in the room. The curtains were drawn around the bed.
I slipped out of the room and strode down the hall toward the elevators. The tile was cold beneath my feet, and I wished for socks. No one paid me much attention.
On the first floor, I sat in the lobby, wondering how I would get home. I had no shoes, no phone, and no money. Who would I call if I had a phone? Tate was probably still mad at me. Maybe he had even been in on the prank. I didn’t have his number memorized anyway, so I pushed that thought from my head. The only numbers I knew were Father’s, Henry’s, and Aubrey’s. Obviously, asking Father or Henry to pick me up was out of the question.
I didn’t know how it worked in a hospital when a patient went missing, but I guessed it was possible they would send security looking for me. They had probably already discovered I’d given them the wrong phone number. I approached the front desk. A plump brunette sat there typing on a computer.
“Excuse me. Do you have a phone I can use? I need to call a ride.”
The woman looked up from the monitor and smiled. “Sure.” She handed me a cordless phone. I stood off to the side and dialed Aubrey’s number. There was a great chance she wouldn’t pick up since the hospital’s number would be foreign to her.
I glanced at the large clock on the wall. It was a few minutes after 10:00 a.m., and there was a good chance Aubrey wasn’t even up yet. She was known to sleep well into the afternoon if it wasn’t a school day.
I was relieved when she picked up after seven rings. “Hello?” Her voice was muffled and slightly irritated. I pictured her scowling at her phone.
“Hey, Aubs.” I tried to sound as sweet as possible, since we hadn’t been on the best of terms lately. “I’m sorry to wake you up so early, but I need a huge, huge favor.”
She sighed. “Oh, really? What kind of favor?”
“I need a ride home.”
“A ride home from where?” She was probably rolling her eyes.
“The hospital.”
“The hospital? What the . . . Neva, are you okay?” I was relieved by the concern in her voice.
“I’m fine. I’m just stuck here.”
“All right. I’ll borrow my mom’s car. I’m coming right now. What hospital?”
That was a good question. I looked at the sign-in sheet on the counter. “Larkdale Memorial.”
“Okay. Be there in a few.”
“Thanks, Aubrey.” I hung up and returned the phone to the woman at the front desk. I sat on a bench outside, hoping Aubrey wouldn’t take too long.
In less than ten minutes, a maroon minivan pulled around the hospital’s circular driveway and honked the horn. Aubrey seemed so out of place driving such a “mom car.” I would have made a joke about it if I wasn’t in such a horrible situation.
“Neva, where are your shoes?” she asked as I got in.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get out of here.”
Aubrey pulled away from the curb, but she didn’t take her eyes off me. “You look terrible.”
“Watch the road,” I warned. I had no idea what I looked like, and I didn’t care.
“What the hell happened?”
I told her the long gruesome story. At one point, she had to slam on her breaks to avoid going through a red light.
“I knew it. I knew those girls were only being nice to you for some ulterior motive. I told you—they’re a three-headed dragon.”
“It was the two-headed dragon. Noelle had nothing to do with it. She’s at church as we speak.”
Aubrey shook her head. “Whatever. So what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“We have to do something. We can’t just let them get away with that. It was terrible. Then they just left you there passed out? Something really bad could have happened to you. What if the person who found you was some kind of psycho?”
Everything Aubrey said was right, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“I’m just going to let it go and stay away from them,” I said. “I don’t want any more trouble.”
“Neva, you’re not exactly the kind of girl who goes looking for trouble. No matter what you do, those girls will bring the trouble to you and make your life a living hell.”
I thought about what I’d told Stacia and the others about fighting back, but how was I supposed to fight all of them? I could never be as cruel to anyone as they were to me.
We pulled into my driveway, and I realized I had no keys. They were in my purse, and who knew where that was? We’d never hidden an extra key in case of emergencies. Father probably wouldn’t be home for another six hours.
I weighed my options. I could go to one of my neighbors’ houses, and maybe they would let me wait there, or I could wait in the backyard and perhaps Henry would keep me company.
“Do you want me to come in—” Aubrey began.
“No,” I said quickly. “I’ll go through the back door. We keep an extra key back there. Thanks so much for the ride, Aubrey. You were a lifesaver today.”
“Anytime,” she said slowly. “Are you sure—”
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I said quickly.
I closed the passenger door and headed for the backyard.
“Hey, Neva,” Aubrey called from the open window. “I’ll call and check on you later.”
I nodded and waved as she pulled off. Maybe she was a better friend than I had given her credit for. She’d gotten out of bed before noon for me without hesitation. There was no one else I could have called who would have done that for me, and she was genuinely worried.
I went to my usual spot at the fence and sat in the corner. It seemed like forever since I’d eaten an apple, and I craved one desperately. My stomach growled, craving anything edible.
I leaned my head against the fence. I was so exhausted, I could have fallen asleep right there. Just as I was about to close my eyes and doze off, something green appeared before me. Another Sour Apple Airhead. How did he always know when I needed one?
I took it from him. “Thanks, Henry.” I unwrapped the candy and ate half of it in one bite.
“You’re sad,” he said.
“I’m more than sad, Henry.”
“Where were you last night?”
“How do you know I went anywhere?” I asked.
“I was sleeping, and some noise woke me up. I looked out of the window, and I saw some kids in a Jeep making a bunch of noise. Then you came outside and left with them.” I hoped Dot hadn’t heard the noise, too. She wouldn’t hesitate to rat me out to Father.
I shoved the last half of the candy in my mouth and wished I had another. “I went to the fair.”
“That sounds like fun. Why are you sad?”
I told him everything—from how the girls pretended to like me to how they left me alone and scared in the House of Mirrors.
A sniffling sound came from the other side of the fence.
“Henry, are you crying?”
“I’m sorry they did that to you, Neva. I told you, they’re really not your friends. I’m your only true friend.”
Yes, him and Aubrey.
“You should do something bad to them,” Henry whispered. “Get them back.”
“That’ll only make things worse, Henry.”
“Not if you do something bad enough.”
I smoothed the empty candy wrapper with my fingers. “Henry, stop.”
“Fine. Who was that girl who brought you home?”
“Aubrey. She’s my friend from school.”
Henry huffed. “So that’s Aubrey. She’s not your friend, either. Why won’t you listen when I tell you I’m your only friend?”
“Aubrey and I have had our issues, but she came running when I needed her today.”
Henry banged his head against the fence.
“Henry, don’t do that.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Henry, I said stop that!”
The banging stopped. “Do you like her better than me?” he asked.
“Of course not. I told you, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and nothing will change that.” That was the honest truth.
“I’ll do something better than what Aubrey did for you.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“My mom’s calling me. I’ll come back later.”
“But, Henry—”
“Bye, Neva.”
I sighed and closed my eyes, wishing the entire weekend had never happened.
***
Thankfully, Father came home a little earlier than usual—around four o’clock in the afternoon. Father opened the backdoor and peered into the yard.
“There you are. You should come inside now.”
I nodded and hid my wrist behind my back, remembering I still wore my hospital bracelet. I raced upstairs while Father dug in the fridge for something to drink.
“How was it?” I asked Father after I’d gone to my room to cut off my hospital bracelet.
He removed his hunting jacket and tossed it over the back of his chair. “Great. I caught several deer and a few squirrels. Not the best, but not the worst. How was your weekend?”
I hung his jacket in its usual place in the hallway closet. “It was the usual. I read and watched some movies.” My body tensed, hoping he wouldn’t detect my lies. Waking up in a hospital wasn’t usual at all.
Father nodded. “I was thinking we could go out to dinner tonight.”
“That sounds nice.”
Father wasn’t into public places, aside from the necessary ones like the grocery store, so we didn’t eat out often. It was a rare treat, which I especially appreciated today since I was starving. The only thing I’d eaten was the candy Henry had given me.
“Good. I’ll take a shower, and you need to get out of those pajamas.”
“Okay, Father.”
Upstairs, I waited for him to finish his shower so I could take mine.
I stared down into the yard from my bedroom window. I wondered what Henry meant when he said he would do something better than what Aubrey had done for me. I pushed the thought away. Henry said a lot of crazy things. Besides, tomorrow I was going to school to face the kids who had been so cruel to me. Henry was the least of my worries.
13
At midnight, my phone rang. Aubrey was on the other end, screaming hysterically. I had to hold the phone away from my head to save my eardrum.
“Aubrey, calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
She took deep breaths, sounding like she’d just finished running a marathon. “Mia . . . her parents went out to a play tonight . . . they left her home alone. When they came back, they found her on the kitchen floor with an extension cord around her neck. She’s . . . she’s dead.”
I gasped as the phone slid out of my shaking hand. I climbed out of bed to pick it up. “Aubrey, this isn’t funny. Are you serious?”
“Yes! Someone murdered her.”
I couldn’t comprehend the words. Mia, dead, murdered, but they didn’t make sense together. I’d just seen her hours before. “Who would do that?”
“Who knows? We live in a sick world. You haven’t heard the weirdest part . . .”
“What?”
“She was found with a candy apple shoved in her mouth. The kind from the fair.”
My heart sank.
“That is really weird.”
“Yeah, it is,” Aubrey said, sounding far away. “Really, really weird and disturbing. Listen, I need to make some more calls, but I wanted you to know. See you tomorrow, I guess.”
She hung up before I could say goodbye. Feeling suddenly terrified, I snuggled underneath my covers, thinking about Mia. I couldn’t believe she was actually gone. Who could have possibly killed her and why had they stuck a candy apple in her mouth?
***
The mood on Monday morning was terrible. The hallways were full of weeping students and groups of kids in quiet huddles, speaking in hushed voices. It might have just been my imagination, but I could have sworn many threw dirty looks in my direction.
Avoiding eye contact with everyone, I hurried to my locker. Aubrey appeared, leaning against the locker beside mine.
“Hey,” she said, not looking at me. She played with the skull charm on her necklace.
“Hey.”
She pursed her lips. “So, I think you should know that people are saying things.”
I slammed my locker shut. “What kind of things?”
“Someone posted the video of you in the House of Mirrors on YouTube, but they took it down, probably because they didn’t want to get in trouble. A lot of people saw it, though.”
“Well, yeah, that may be funny to them, but I would think a murdered classmate would be bigger news than that stupid video.”
Aubrey glanced around, tugging at her hair. She only did that when she was nervous. “That’s the thing. Some people are saying that maybe you had something to do with Mia’s murder. Out of revenge.”
I forgot I was supposed to be holding my books as they crashed to the ground. “What?” Several people looked in our direction. “That’s crazy.”
Aubrey didn’t look like she agreed.
I stepped closer to her. “Aubrey, you don’t believe that, do you? That I killed Mia?”
She shook her head, hiding her eyes from me with her auburn waves. “Of course not. But you do have a thing for apples, and a candy apple is such a weird thing for the murderer to leave. What does it mean?” Finally, her eyes met mine.
“I don’t believe you. Are you honestly looking me in the face and telling me you think I’m capable of murder?”
“No, Neva, I’m just telling you what people are saying.”
She was lying. She believed the rumor, and if she thought I could kill anyone, she didn’t know me at all. If I were capable of murder, I would have broken my curse two hundred years ago.
Neither Hadley nor Noelle was present that day, which was understandable. Mia had been their best friend. I was glad Hadley was absent. She had probably started the rumor about my being the murderer.
***
I spotted Stacia and Marley coming down the hallway between third and fourth periods. Turning around so quickly that I almost bumped into a boy carrying a load of media equipment, I power-walked in the opposite direction. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak to Stacia, I just couldn’t face her. She had looked up to me. What was she thinking now? Did she think, like everyone else, that I’d had something to do with Mia’s death?
I ate lunch outside underneath an enormous willow tree. There was a nice autumn chill in the air, making the temperature just right. I didn’t want to see Aubrey or anyone else. Staying home from school would have been a good idea. I felt guilty as I removed an apple from my lunch bag, but I had to have it. As I stared at it, all I could think about was the candied one shoved in Mia’s mouth. What had she been thinking while it was happening? Who could do such a thing?
I took a deep bite of my fruit. This apple was dry and tasteless.
***
“There were no signs of forced entry, and nothing was taken from the house,” Lauren Bradley announced to the locker room as we changed for PE. “My father’s a detective. He says that means it was personal—this wasn’t done by a stranger. Someone wanted revenge.” The room fell silent as if everyone was waiting for someone to confess.
“But who would want revenge on Mia?” another girl asked finally.
Again, no one spoke. The truth was Mia had pissed off a lot of people, but because of the prank she’d pulled on me and that damn candy apple stuffed in her mouth, I seemed like the number one suspect.
All eyes were on me as I emerged from the stall. If it were up to me, I would have stayed hidden for the entire class, but that wasn’t an option. The girls watched me for a moment, then silently went about their business.
I had expected some nasty comments, but instead the others looked slightly afraid—like maybe if they pissed me off, what happened to Mia would happen to them.
At least Coach Woods took it easy on us. We ran our laps, and then she gave us a free period to do whatever we wanted. Girls formed huddled groups, speaking in whispers while I watched from the top of the bleachers to get as far away from them as possible. I didn’t need to hear what they were saying about me.
***
After school, I didn’t bother to wait for Aubrey. I knew she wouldn’t want to walk home with me. It was hard to believe that just the day before I had considered her a good friend, and now she thought I was capable of murder. Maybe I was a poor judge of character. Maybe Henry had been right all along.
I dumped the books I didn’t need for homework in my locker and exited through one of the school’s side doors. I hoped to pass as few people as possible.
A voice startled me as I pushed through the heavy double doors. “Was it really that serious?” I turned to see Blane leaning against a pillar with red, puffy eyes. He walked toward me. “It was just a stupid prank. You’re fine. We didn’t hurt you. It was a joke.”
Feeling afraid, I took a step back. There was no one else around. “Blane, I know what everyone’s saying, but I had nothing to do with this. Why do you guys think it was me? Just because of the candy apple? That’s stupid.”
Anger clouded the green of his eyes and his voice cracked. “No, it’s not just because of the apple. It’s because of the note her parents found next to her body.”
I hadn’t heard anything about a note.
“The police wanted to keep that detail under wraps, but her parents told mine about it.”
A lump rose in my throat, and no matter how hard I swallowed, it wouldn’t go down. “What note?”
Blane stepped closer, but I didn’t back up again. He towered over me. “I think it’s quite a coincidence that the note mentioned mirrors right after we played a stupid prank on you that involved mirrors.”
“W-what did the note say?”
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the deadest of them all?”
Forever Snow (The Everly Girls Book 1) Page 11