by Aarsen, Zoe
I saw Trey shiver beneath his army coat and he looked ahead toward the strip mall, stone-faced. My heart was racing as I waited for his reply. I hadn’t wanted to sensationalize the story, or lead him to believe that we’d willingly played some kind of scary paranormal game, but I’d been unable to control my blabbing and had done exactly that which I’d tried to avoid.
“Did she predict me? Did she know it was going to be me driving Olivia home?”
I’d been wondering that, myself.
“She didn’t say anything about you, Trey,” I told him honestly. “But that doesn’t mean Hannah didn’t know it was going to be you. She just didn’t mention that part.”
We reached the shopping center and began walking across the parking lot slowly as Trey led the way toward Rudy’s Ice Cream Shop, where a whole bunch of kids who appeared to be in around the fourth grade were spilling out of a minivan in their soccer uniforms.
“Have you guys told anyone about this? Like, parents?” Trey asked.
“Oh my god, no,” I said. “We would sound like idiots. Or lunatics. No one would believe us. Mischa and I confronted Hannah and she acted like the whole thing was in our heads. Maybe… maybe it is.”
Trey stopped and lingered in front of the door to the ice cream store. “Do you want any ice cream?”
I did, but refused. “I can’t. It’s too fattening.”
Trey raised an eyebrow at me, like he couldn’t believe I was turning down ice cream because of potential weight gain. “Well, what if I get a cone and you just have a lick?”
We ventured inside and waited in line behind all of the rowdy kids on the soccer team. Trey ordered a double scoop chocolate cone for himself and had the woman behind the counter put rainbow sprinkles on top.
“I would never have figured you for a rainbow kind of guy,” I teased him.
He replied with a smile, “I’m full of surprises.”
Back outside in the parking lot, he handed the cone to me before he even sampled it. “The first lick is yours.”
I was about to emphatically refuse, but then thought, what the heck, a cute boy is offering me a lick of his ice cream cone. What could one lick hurt? I licked the tiniest bit of sprinkles off the top scoop, and savored the sweetness on my tongue. It had been months since the last time I’d had an ice cream cone. Olivia’s birthday cake had been the last sweet I’d permitted myself to eat, and I’d only indulged in a tiny sliver of her cake.
A pickup truck pulled into the lot and momentarily blinded us with its headlights. As it pulled into a parking spot, I saw that the driver behind its wheel was none other than Evan Richmond. I motioned for Trey to slow down, feeling obligated to say hello to him, at least.
“Hey, McKenna,” Evan said after he closed the truck’s door. He waved at me shyly, looking every bit as cute as he had a week earlier, when my heart was still throbbing over the possibility of slow-dancing with him. He wore a checked button-down shirt and jeans without a belt, and had enough stubble to suggest he hadn’t shaved since Olivia’s wake.
“Hey,” I said, waving back. We were standing just a few feet apart, and I was all too aware of Trey standing to my right, eating his ice cream. “So, you’re still in town.”
Evan shrugged and looked down at the ground before glancing back up at me. “Yeah, well, I decided to take the rest of the semester off to stay home with my family. You know, because it’s my freshman year and all, it just seemed like it got off to a bad start and it might be best to wait until winter to start over.”
“Oh,” I said foolishly, hating myself for my heart swelling up a little bit at the idea of Evan being in town all season with Trey just a few inches away from me. The fact of the matter was I already knew that I felt more of a connection to Trey, but had never been in a position before of having to turn away the interest of a cute boy. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m sure your parents will be glad to have you around.”
“Yeah,” Evan agreed, seeming to notice Trey for the first time. As if a lightning bolt was striking me, I realized that Evan must have met Trey at some point in the last week during the police investigation of the crash. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”
“Okay,” Trey replied coolly. I sensed he wanted this little meet and greet to end quickly. His eyes were already fixed on a point ahead on the rural highway in the direction of Martha Road.
“Well, text me some time, McKenna. It would be good to go see a movie or something. Get my mind off of… you know,” Evan said.
“Okay, sure,” I agreed, fully aware that he was basically asking me out right in front of Trey. It wasn’t like Trey was my boyfriend, or had even indicated that he had any interest in being my boyfriend, but still… it was awkward.
“Gotta go inside,” Evan said, nodding his head toward the donut shop next door to Rudy’s. “My mom really wants a cup of tea and we’re all out of teabags.”
Trey and I were back in the darkness on the sidewalk before he popped the remainder of his cone in his mouth and said, “You like that guy.”
“He’s okay,” I replied, not wanting Trey to have any idea just how much I’d liked Evan just as recently as a week earlier. “Sorry about that. That must have been weird, him being Olivia’s brother and all.”
“It’s fine, just…” Trey trailed off and paused while he tried to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. “Last year that guy used to call me a freak in the cafeteria. This year, I’m the person who hears his sister’s dying words. High school is just crazy.”
I had forgotten that Evan was the kind of guy who had picked on less popular kids when he was still in school with us. Trey was cool, I was realizing. He looked kind of like he was in a rock band, but was kinder and more sensitive than I ever thought a boy my own age could be. It made me ashamed that anyone ever teased him at school; nevermind that a year ago, I was teased from time to time, too.
“So, you like him,” Trey repeated, seeking some kind of confirmation from me.
“Used to like him,” I said.
“When did it become past tense?” Trey teased.
I was pretty sure I knew what he was getting at and I was eager to know if he was interested in me or if I’d just been imagining the closeness between us over the past week. “Recently,” I said. “Probably right around the night those kittens were born, he lost his appeal.”
Trey stopped walking, and reached for my right hand. He laced his fingers through mine, and a car drove past us as he looked into my eyes. I knew then what he was about to do, and I wished I could record everything that was about to happen to memory forever. He leaned forward and awkwardly kissed me. At first our lips did all the wrong things, our noses bumped and teeth clashed. I guess that’s how first kisses between people usually go if neither person really knows what to do. But then after a few seconds everything fell into place and Trey pulled me closer.
“Glad we finally got that out of the way,” he said with a shy smile after we both took a step back.
“Really? What was it in the way of?” I teased.
“Everything,” he replied perfectly, making my heart soar.
And for just a split second, looking at Trey barely illuminated by the street lamp down the road, I was grateful that all of the recent events had happened exactly as they had, because if Hannah hadn’t told her story, and Olivia hadn’t died, and even if Moxie hadn’t passed away that afternoon, I wouldn’t be standing there with Trey at that very moment. Then, as quickly as that thought had occurred to me, I felt ashamed of myself for being grateful for any of it.
“So, let me ask you this,” Trey said as we continued our walk back home, my hand in his. “When you guys were playing this game, did Hannah tell the story of anyone else’s death? Did she predict yours?”
I felt the darkness around us swell, and all of the comfort and joy I had just experienced a moment ago, when had Trey kissed me, vanished. How could I have forgotten so quickly that death was right around the corner? It could claim me, or Trey
, at any moment. “She predicted everyone’s,” I nearly whispered. “Except mine. She couldn’t imagine any kind of a death for me, except…”
Trey looked at me with intense interest.
I continued, “She said she just saw fire. She saw Jennie’s death. Not mine.”
We walked for a block in silence as Trey thought about this. For the first time I wondered if my own death was imminent. Not even when Jennie had died had I so strongly sensed my own fragile mortality. Everyone dies, everything dies, but never before that moment on the sidewalk with Trey did I ever really wonder when my own death would occur. What was it that Hannah had done to invite so much tragedy to unfold in a matter of days? Was it intentional? Did she have some kind of secret desire to kill all of us who had befriended her?
“How well do you know this girl Hannah?” Trey asked, as if reading my mind. “She sounds like a pretty crappy friend.”
Trey agreed with me that something was not right about Hannah. I shared with him my plans to get a little closer to her in an attempt to try to figure out what exactly her deal was, and he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it, but agreed that it was a good idea.
In the morning, it was strange to not be awakened by the sound of Mom pouring food into Moxie’s bowl in the kitchen. When my alarm went off and I ventured out of my room, Mom’s door was still shut. On my way out of the house, I hurriedly put Moxie’s food and water bowls in a box in the garage so that my mom wouldn’t have to see them if she ever got up for work. Unexpectedly, Trey was sitting on our front stoop, waiting for me. Without exchanging words, we embarked on the walk to school together.
Together, which felt right in every way.
I wouldn’t read the article in the Willow Gazette about Olivia’s wake and funeral until I got home. Beneath the headline “A Community Mourns High School Student,” Weeping Willow High School junior Hannah Simmons was quoted as saying, “No one can believe this has happened. Olivia Richmond was an inspiration to all of us and was one of my best friends.”
Anyone in town who read that article in its entirety would have thought that Olivia and Hannah had been friends their whole lives.
CHAPTER 8
Candace returned to school the following Monday, sedated, a little thinner, and humorless. It was only after Candace changed so drastically that I realized how much I had liked her previously, when she was like an explosion of sunshine and noise. Her schedule had been rearranged by her mother the previous Friday. Mischa and I had seen Mrs. Lehrer sitting in the principal’s office with Mr. Bobek, the guidance counselor who encouraged each and every one of us to consider community college to save money. Mischa told me that Candace’s mom had called her own mother asking more questions specifically about Hannah, and had informed Mrs. Portnoy that she was going to have Candace switched out of all of the classes she shared with the new girl in town. Only after a week of intense psychiatric care and sedation had Candace stopped rambling about Hannah’s alleged evil powers and involvement with Olivia’s death.
Whatever it was that Candace’s mom had said to Mr. Bobek as justification for switching around Candace’s required classes, it resulted in me, Mischa, and Hannah being called into the principal’s office for a stern lecture. Candace wasn’t in my first period class in the morning, and when an office runner arrived in my English classroom with a pink slip requesting my presence, I was genuinely surprised.
“Girls, I don’t know what your religious upbringings have been, and to be perfectly honest, it’s none of my business,” Principal Nylander told us as he leaned back, way back, in his swiveling desk chair. The three of us sat on the brown couch in his office. I was in the middle, as was fitting, it seemed, trying to maintain a safe distance of a few inches from Hannah, who sat to my left. I could practically smell the fury emanating from Mischa, on my right. “But when I hear accusations of students at my school playing games involving evil spirits, or even alleging to involve evil spirits, I feel personally obligated to step in.”
My attention drifted to the window, to the rain falling and the puddles forming in the faculty parking lot. Principal Nylander and his wife were parishioners at St. Monica’s, where we used to attend church before my parents divorced. To the best of my knowledge, the Portnoys rarely attended church other than on Easter and Christmas, so I couldn’t help but feel like Principal Nylander was scolding me directly even though I knew that Hannah and her family were regular church-goers.
“Now if any of you have questions about the afterlife, or about your creator, or heck, even just about entertaining ways to pass time, I encourage you to contact a member of the clergy at your place of worship, a trusted teacher, or your parents. Messing around with occult practices is dangerous business,” Principal Nylander warned us, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses further up his little pug nose.
Back in the eerily quiet hallway, empty during the class in session, Mischa glared at Hannah. “That was excruciating. I hope you’re happy. And I read what you said to that journalist from the town paper. You had no right, do you hear me? No right!” She turned on her leather ballet flat and left me standing there, mouth hanging open, across from Hannah.
“Oh. My. God,” Hannah said, her eyes enormous, her lips tilted into a semi-smile, as if Mischa’s reaction was way over the top. “It’s not like I ratted. I didn’t say a word. It was Candace who started blabbing.”
I remembered how I had vowed to try to get closer to Hannah to try to find out exactly what she’d done to Olivia, and I remained there, watching Mischa walk down the hall. “I know,” I assured Hannah.
“Whatever,” Hannah’s eyes narrowed as Mischa disappeared from view around a corner. “Her days are numbered, anyway.”
I couldn’t hide my reaction of surprised confusion from Hannah as my face jerked back toward hers. I was sure I looked horrified by what she was suggesting. She immediately realized what her comment had just implied and quickly corrected herself.
“I mean, her popularity,” Hannah clarified. “Without Olivia, Mischa doesn’t stand a chance of staying popular. There are a ton of prettier girls at this school.”
“You might be right,” I heard myself murmuring, wondering if I was doing any kind of a convincing job of aligning myself with her.
Hannah looked me over, scrutinizing my face. “You should sit with me and Tracy today at lunch time. We can talk about Student Government stuff. I mean, the election is practically over before it’s even begun.”
“Maybe,” I said hesitantly. “I sort of have to do something at lunch time.”
I was eager to sit with Candace and hear her scratchy voice again, and see if there was any possible way that high school might ever again be the way it was during the two unbelievably fun weeks before Olivia’s death. If I was going to be successful in convincing Hannah that I was on her side, I was going to have to make some sacrifices. Sitting with Candace and Mischa was not going to be an option. I was specifically declining Hannah’s offer because I wanted to meet Trey in the library. But meeting with him was going to have to wait; I couldn’t be sure when I’d lose favor with Hannah. “Well, I guess I could do what I need to do after school,” I said.
In my Spanish class, I drafted a note and folded it tightly. It explained to Trey that I’d be having lunch with Hannah and wanted to walk home together. I had agreed the night before to spend the lunch hour with him, researching evil spirits and games. He would definitely understand why it was probably more urgent that I sit with Hannah and listen to her talk for an hour. Mischa wouldn’t be as accepting.
“God. I just want to transfer out of this gym class and into Candace’s,” Mischa was grumbling when I got to the locker room. She was changing into her gym suit already, in the other row of lockers from where Hannah was placing a combination lock on her own locker. I set my canvas bag down on a bench and watched until I saw Hannah exit the locker room for the stairs leading up to the gym.
“Listen, Mischa,” I began. Even as I was opening my mouth to present
my reason for not sitting with Mischa and Candace at lunch time, the one hour of the day when Candace and Hannah would be in the same room, I knew Mischa was going to be skeptical about my logic. “I’ve been thinking. The only way we’re ever going to find out if Hannah had any control over Olivia’s death is if one of us stays friends with her.”
Mischa glared at me. “She killed our friend, McKenna. I really cannot understand why you’d want to stay friends with her. I mean, am I missing something here?”
I pulled off my knit striped top and wriggled my gym shirt over my head. “I don’t mean really be friends with her. I just want to try to find out what she did.”