by Alicia Rades
I’m not fine, I wanted to say. But if it comes down to it, I hope you will be.
Emma hopped in excitement when her ring landed on the end of a bottle. Sage high-fived her in congratulations.
Emma turned toward me. “Let’s head down the next aisle. I want to visit your mom’s tent.”
“No,” I said too quickly. Everyone seemed to notice, and I quickly forced myself to relax. “I mean, it’s a popular booth, so maybe we should wait until a little later in the night. Then there won’t be a line.” Hopefully my friends would forget about it or be too tired to visit her. I couldn’t let the three people I loved most be together.
“Okay, well, we can at least go see how long the line is,” Emma suggested.
“How about we go through the haunted forest,” I countered. “There will be a longer line for it when it gets really dark out, so we shouldn’t have to wait now.”
“We already went down the haunted trail,” Sage pointed out.
“Come on.” Robin pulled at my hand. “Let’s just go down the next aisle.”
Emma rushed off in front of us, and I had no choice but to follow as Robin dragged me behind him.
“I guess you were right,” Emma said, looking toward my mom’s tent. “There is a long line.”
I followed her gaze and noticed curly brown hair at the front of the line. I had the sudden urge to call out to him and get him to join our group before a sinking feeling in my chest reminded me that Emma and Derek didn’t want to be by each other right now. If he wasn’t hanging with us, who was he hanging out with? Hadn’t he said he wasn’t going to come?
I watched as my mother pulled aside the flap on her tent and a young girl stepped out. She rushed over to a man I guessed to be her dad and jumped in excitement. She was probably telling him about the fortune she’d received. Derek stepped into the tent behind my mom.
“I kind of want to try the apple bobbing booth,” Sage admitted.
I pulled my gaze from my mother’s tent and back to my friends. “You can go ahead. I don’t really want to right now.”
“Yeah,” Emma agreed with me, “I’ll mess up my makeup.”
“I’ll try apple bobbing with you,” Robin offered, releasing my hand.
A moment later, a voice called my name from behind me. I turned to find Hope dressed as a unicorn rushing toward me with a smile on her face. She plowed into me and squeezed me into a tight hug.
I hugged her back. “Hey, Hope! Are you having fun?”
“Yes!” she answered enthusiastically. “Look what I won!” She held up a small stuffed animal shaped like a cat.
“That’s awesome!” I answered just as Hope’s mom, Melinda, caught up with her.
“Hi, Crystal,” Melinda said, taking Hope’s hand. “How was volleyball season?”
“It was good. I’m kind of sad it’s over.”
“Yeah, but at least you have another season. You’ll be ready to start babysitting again on Monday, right?”
I couldn’t look her in the eyes, so I stared down at the cat in Hope’s hands instead. “I hope so,” was all I could say.
“Well, have fun at the rest of the festival,” Melinda told me with a wave while Hope dragged her off toward a new game.
I nodded back. “You, too.”
I turned back toward my friends, who were giggling their heads off at the apple bobbing booth. Robin came up for air, still hopeless in the apple department. I couldn’t help but laugh along when he plunged his head back under the water and fought with an apple that bounced away from him every time he came close. Sage pulled her head out of the water, and her hands shot up in victory. An apple was trapped between her teeth, and Robin was still engaged in a losing battle. Mine and Emma’s laughter only grew louder, but a split second later when I heard my mother’s voice, my laughter died. I turned toward the sound, facing the stage. A woman dressed as a gypsy stood at the microphone and was trying to get everyone’s attention. It was the first time the microphone had been turned on all night since the band wasn’t scheduled to start playing for another half hour.
Emma noticed me staring. “Crystal, what’s your mom doing?”
“Can I please have everyone’s attention?” she repeated into the microphone.
“I don’t know,” I answered Emma. “Maybe Sheryl and Tammy asked her to make an announcement.” I inched my way down the aisle until I stood at the back of the grassy area in front of the stage.
Conversations seemed to die out around us, and the area grew quiet. When my mother was satisfied that she had enough of the audience’s attention, she spoke again.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your night, but I have an announcement to make, and it can’t wait.” She glanced toward the side of the stage and then back at the audience. “It’s not so much an announcement as a confession, and it’s time that I spoke up.”
A confession? What could she be talking about?
“Crystal,” Emma repeated from beside me, “what’s your mom doing?”
The hairs on my arms stood up, and I couldn’t answer. More people had gathered around the stage to listen.
My mother continued. “I think it’s time that Peyton Springs knew the truth.” She hesitated and glanced off stage. For a moment, an eerie silence hung in the air before she spoke again. “My tarot card booth you all like, the one you all say is so accurate . . . well, it’s for real.”
My heart nearly stopped in my chest. She told me she’d never tell the community. Why was she doing this now?
She didn’t stop. “The truth is, I’m not who you all think I am. Because of what I can do, I’ve hurt people, and it’s time you all know the story of Sam Marshall.”
Chapter 21
I didn’t give myself another second to ask questions. Something was seriously wrong. I didn’t know what it was yet, but I knew I had to stop my mother from telling the whole town our secret. Even she said it was best if the town didn’t know. I pushed through the crowd as she began her story. When I rushed up the stairs on the side of the stage, I immediately noticed a figure standing with his back toward me. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was staring at my mom on stage.
I drew in a deep breath. “Derek, do you have any idea what’s going on? Why is my mom doing this?”
He turned to me slowly, a wide smile plastered on his face.
My pulse quickened. “Derek, what’s going on?”
If possible, I could swear his grin grew wider. He spoke as if amused. “You’re so stupid.”
I took a step back, stunned. “Derek, what’s wrong with you? You’ve never been as mean as you have lately. You haven’t been acting like yourself . . .”
He noticed the realization cross my face, and he nodded in satisfaction.
I distanced myself another step until I gripped the railing to the stairs. My eyes widened in horror, and I completely froze in place. How could I not have realized it before? Derek had been so different lately. I had assumed something major was bothering him, but nothing made enough sense to cause such a drastic change. I should have paid closer attention, done my research, and realized such a thing was possible.
I spoke slowly. “You’re not Derek, are you? You haven’t been for a long time.”
“Bingo.” He laughed.
“Oh, my god!” I cried. Worry about my mother’s confession faded as I faced the new problem standing right in front of me. “Who are you? What have you done to Derek?”
“Oh, relax,” he said like we were having the most casual conversation in the world. “He’s still in here.” He tapped his head with his index finger. “I just needed to borrow him for a while.”
“A while? How long has it been?” I quickly shifted through my memory, trying to remember when Derek had changed. It was around the time I had stayed home from school, when we held that séance. A gasp escaped my lips, and my hand flew to my mouth in shock. I knew now why I hadn’t seen the shadow ghost since we held the séance. The ghost was never my father to begin wit
h.
“You possessed him when we contacted you,” I accused. That’s what the explosion of energy was about. Anger boiled in my blood, momentarily masking my fear.
He began pacing, but at least he was keeping a generous amount of distance between us. It was strange to watch Derek move in front of me, knowing it wasn’t him who was speaking. “Hmm . . . maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought.”
Suddenly, a lot more about the past few weeks made sense. “Derek never broke up with Emma, did he? It was you.”
“Ah, so maybe you are a bright girl.”
“My headaches? That was you, too?” My heart hammered against my rib cage, and I thought I might nearly fall over. Luckily, I was still gripping onto the railing to steady myself.
“I was wondering when you’d catch on to that one. I mean, come on,” he spread his arms wide mockingly, “you only got headaches when I was around.”
And my headache was only returning again. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between myself and the man standing in front of me, but if Derek really was still in there somewhere, I couldn’t just abandon him.
“How did you know so much about Derek?” I asked in an attempt to make sense of it all. I forced my breath to slow. I couldn’t let him see how much he was terrifying me.
He shrugged. “I didn’t. I just played along. It was so simple. I claimed I lost his locker combination, and the school gave me his class schedule. When I didn’t know how to get to the kid’s house, I asked your friend to walk me home a couple of times. I mostly didn’t talk to the kid’s family. And you were easy to convince. It’s like you didn’t even know enough about your friend to tell the difference.”
“I did!” I defended. I knew something was up, but never in a million years would I have guessed it was a possession. I didn’t even know for sure that was possible, not until now. I briefly thought back to the time Olivia Owen spoke through me. She’d done the same thing to Kelli. But I’d never thought of it as possession. She hadn’t actually inhabited my body; she’d just spoken through me. Was this the same type of thing?
He stopped pacing and stood still in front of me, tapping his foot. “There’s so much you still don’t know, Crystal.”
I swallowed, forcing my voice to remain strong. “Who are you?”
His brows shot up. “You haven’t figured that one out yet?” He glanced behind himself at my mother, who was still giving her confession at the microphone.
I knew I had to get to her, but I couldn’t with him in my way. I wasn’t even sure which was more important at the moment: my mom or Derek?
He scoffed. “Figures she never mentioned me.” His hard gaze met mine, sending my heart pounding again. He plastered a smile of amusement back on his face. “You see, Crystal, I’m the guy your mother killed.”
I drew in a sharp, hot breath. “You have the wrong person. My mother never killed anyone.” My grip tightened around the railing.
He threw back his head and laughed. It was the kind of laugh that sent a shiver down my spine. He began pacing again. “The wrong person? I don’t think so. Not this time.”
I forced myself to speak evenly even though my breathing wavered. “This time?”
“When I first saw you on the SMU campus, I thought you were your mother. You have the same blond hair, same blue eyes, and same nose. You see, at first, I didn’t realize how much time had passed. I saw this girl around campus that I could have sworn was Theresa, and all of a sudden, it’s like I woke up. The strange thing was, I still knew what had happened to me. Then you showed up, and I followed you. It wasn’t until I actually saw your mother that I realized you weren’t her. And then the rest made sense. They called you Crystal Frost, so I knew that meant Andrea had married David. I didn’t know who the new guy was, though. Teddy? That’s his name, right? So, tell me. What happened to David, then?”
The surprise on my face as he spoke was evident in my wide eyes. Could he really mean Theresa Hanson, Justine’s mom? And if he knew my parents, that meant . . .
“You’re Sam Marshall,” I stated confidently. It wasn’t a question.
He missed a step in his pace and then planted his feet firmly on the ground. “So, you have heard of me. Interesting . . .”
It all made sense now. Justine had said she felt like someone was watching her, and she was right. It was Sam all along. He thought Justine was her mother, and somehow that awakened his spirit. Then he’d been following her around campus.
“That’s why you went into the shop asking my mom about college. You wanted to make sure she was the right person. Derek never was worried about his future.”
He nodded with a haunting grin that made my skin crawl. “Right again.”
“You were so interested in her, always asking to come over to my house or go to the shop. And Diane’s visions? She said it was like she was seeing her own memories through someone else’s eyes. She was talking about the day you died. She was seeing it from your perspective.” Everything that happened over the last few weeks finally came together in my mind. I didn’t need my sixth sense to confirm it.
“Well, I don’t know anything about what things those witches see,” Sam responded.
I had the sudden urge to punch him in the face at the term, but I still saw Derek standing in front of me and couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Derek wasn’t exactly a huge guy, but I wasn’t big either. I’d have a hard time fighting him.
“I see you’ve joined them,” he said, gesturing to my costume.
I gritted my teeth but only reacted by raising my voice. “So, what is this?” I gestured to my mom on stage, who still hadn’t noticed me. She was nearing the end of Sam’s story. I caught a glimpse of Sophie and Diane near the stairs on the other end of the stage. They were watching my mom as warily as I was, no doubt wondering whether they should stop her or not.
Sam laughed again, and though he was in Derek’s body, it didn’t sound anything like my friend. “It’s my revenge, of course. You were actually the one to give me the idea.”
I released the clench on my jaw to speak. “How do you figure that?”
“At first, I thought I’d just kill her. An eye for an eye. I even tried a couple of times.”
My breath quickened, and another piece of the puzzle came together. That’s why my mom had been so clumsy lately. “The box cutter that could have slit her wrist, the crystal ball that could have cracked her skull, her tripping on the rug . . . That was all you!”
His laughter never seemed to end. “Of course it was!”
“You were there each time,” I thought aloud. “First as a ghost, then in Derek’s body.”
“Right again. I even tried killing you when I thought you were your mother.”
I instantly thought back to the bus ride back from SMU and the tree that would have fallen on our bus had I not screamed. Did that mean he had something to do with my first accident? No, I thought almost immediately. That happened before I visited SMU. All this stuff with Sam happened only after we spotted each other in the cafeteria that day.
“I was beginning to lose my patience,” he continued. “After all, it took some extra energy to make the objects move seemingly on their own. I had to wait a bit for my energy to return and try again. I could have framed the kid,” he gestured to Derek’s body with a shrug, “but he didn’t have anything to do with it. I just needed a body for the time being so I could actually communicate with people. It’s not like you were any help with that.”
I almost bit back with an explanation about why I hadn’t been able to help him earlier, but he continued without missing a beat.
“Then you mentioned a better revenge is public humiliation. And you were so right. Now she has to live with what she’s done!”
“Sam,” I pleaded. “I can help you. She didn’t kill you. It wasn’t her fault. Can’t we talk this out?”
He threw his head back to laugh again. It made me sick to see the satisfaction he was getting out of this.
&nb
sp; “You can’t help me,” he snarled. “You can’t change this. Besides, the secret is already out. Your mom is almost done with her confession.”
“Why is she doing this?”
He shrugged. “Because I told her that if she didn’t confess to killing me, I’d kill you instead.”
I wanted to run, to get as far away from him as I could so he wouldn’t hurt me, but my feet remained grounded. I surprised myself when I managed to spit my next words out instead of cowering away like instinct told me to do. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I’ve been dying to tell someone,” he answered hauntingly. “And it’s fun watching you try to figure it all out.”
Sam glanced to my mom on stage. She was reaching her closing remarks, and we both fell silent to listen.
“I cannot take back what I did,” she said, “and I can’t change who I am, a wi—” She paused like the word was too hard to spit out. “A witch,” she finished.
I glared at Sam, though he didn’t notice. He’d made her say that; I didn’t need my sixth sense to know she wouldn’t use that word on her own.
The entire bandstand area went quiet for several long seconds until someone in the crowd clapped their hands and shouted. “Great story, Andrea.”
Sam and I shifted to stare out at what we could see of the crowd. They weren’t taking her seriously.
Sam balled Derek’s hands into fists. “This was supposed to work!” He spoke as if I wasn’t there.
My mother’s voice filled the stage area again. “I am completely serious. This thing I can do, it’s why Divination is part of our town.”
An unfamiliar voice called from the crowd. “Props for being true to yourself!”
In that moment, it was clear. Half of our town didn’t even believe her, and the other half accepted her for who she was.
I relaxed slightly and spoke to Sam confidently. “It appears you won’t get your revenge.”
He scoffed and turned to me. “You know what the cool thing about possession is?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Even though I’m in someone else’s body, I still have some power.”