Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (Weeping Willow High)

by Aarsen, Zoe

  But for us, it was plainly obvious that Hannah might have been the only person in the entire junior class who had voted for herself, and that one vote had probably been enough to earn her the title of Queen. In disbelief, I watched as the crowd of students closed in on Hannah. Girls with happy tears in their eyes patted her on the back and urged her toward the front of the ballroom toward the podium. Hannah had covered her mouth with her hands in surprise and was shaking her head as if she just couldn’t believe that her name had been called. It was impressive acting, indeed, since it was unlikely that she was truly surprised.

  “Congratulations, Hannah. And next, our Homecoming King is… Peter Nicholson. Congratulations, Pete!”

  Principal Nylander was beaming proudly at the crowd as Pete rose to his feet from the chair on which he was sitting, urged by the other guys on the basketball team. He, unlike Hannah, appeared to be embarrassed to have won anything, and impishly took his place standing next to her. After greeting her with a shy smile, he looked down at the ground, his hands fidgeting nervously.

  “Way to go, man!” a male voice yelled from the crowd, causing Pete to reluctantly nod in acknowledgement.

  “Something’s going to happen,” Trey said, grabbing my arm. “Do you feel it?”

  I did feel that something was about to occur, but I couldn’t explain how. The room still felt warm, but the hairs on my forearms were standing on end. Something about the whole experience of standing next to Trey and hearing applause felt like déjà vu. Then, a nauseating feeling washed over me as I heard the first chords of a song I never expected to hear that night. Trey reached for my hand and squeezed, realizing in unison with me what was happening. "Soul Meets Body," by Death Cab for Cutie filled the ballroom of the Ortonville Lodge as Pete put one arm loosely around Hannah and they bowed to be crowned. After Principal Nylander placed gaudy plastic crowns on both of their heads, they looked up to face the applauding crowd, and tears of joy were falling from Hannah's eyes, stained purple from her eyeliner, glistening beneath the spotlight shining down on the Homecoming court. I felt like I was in a dream, where everything that was happening was wrong, and all I could do was watch.

  Through the crowd, I saw Mischa and Matt. Our eyes met, and she looked furious, angry enough to cry. Matt had his arm around her shoulders and was stroking her cheek, whispering in her ear, trying to calm her. The boys in the senior class, in their Sunday best suits, were chanting and hollering with their fists in the air, "Kiss her! Kiss her!" Pete turned to Hannah, smiling uncertainly, not wanting to disappoint the crowd. I tried desperately to remember how much of our suspicions about Hannah we had shared with Pete after the accident and realized that we might not have told him anything at all, wanting to spare him from more emotional anguish. It was very possible that he just thought Candace's rambling was an effect of her own grief over Olivia's death.

  Trey shook his head slowly as Coach Stirling and the wood shop teacher placed sashes over Pete and Hannah's shoulders. Only as Pete took Hannah's hand in his and raised her arm over their heads in victory did I notice Isaac struggling to hold Candace back. She was writhing with anger and yelling toward the back of the crowd, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the volume of the music. All of the care she had put into her appearance was overpowered by her animalistic rage. She looked monstrous, clawing at Isaac to release her, her face red. He lost his grip on her arms and she rushed for the podium, moving so quickly that she nearly tripped over her own heels. As she tumbled toward the front of the ballroom, shoving anyone standing in her way off to the side, she looked like a roaring blond cannonball, ripping through the crowd too fast for anyone to really put together was happening. She barreled into Hannah, knocking the podium over on its side as she and Hannah both hit the floor. Hannah hadn't even seen her coming; she'd been too busy waving dreamily to the rest of the students at the dance.

  "Holy..." Trey trailed off.

  The dance immediately turned into a scene of chaos. Teachers swept in, pulling rabid Candace off of Hannah. Pete and Coach Stirling helped Hannah back up to her feet and as she regained her balance she realized that her nose was dripping blood all over the front of her baby blue dress. Her crown had been knocked to the ground in the tussle, forgotten behind the podium. Melissa, the girl who had been along for the drive with us to Kenosha the night of Olivia's accident, dashed to the banquet table and returned with a stack of soft white napkins to press against Hannah's face. Pete concerned himself with Hannah and cast an angry glance at Candace as Mr. Paulson dragged her away. Several teachers called for ambulances and police, so within minutes, sirens could be heard outside. No one within the ballroom knew quite what to do; everyone was looking around in helpless surprise. The music had been silenced, and the entire grand ballroom was filled with the curious murmurs of confused teenagers.

  "Let's go," Trey motioned for me to follow him, and then led me by the elbow through the double doors which returned us to the hotel's lobby. Hotel guests looked in wonderment at all of the baffled teenagers spilling out of the ballroom in their evening attire. Candace had been dragged out to the front of the hotel and was being held back by Mr. Paulson and one of the physics teachers. Through the hotel lobby's floor-to-ceiling windows, we could see the two of them, grown men, struggling to restrain her as she tirelessly, maniacally thrashed in an attempt to break free of them. We watched, stunned, at her behavior.

  “She definitely doesn’t seem like she’s under hypnosis,” Trey observed.

  It was true; Candace seemed more possessed than hypnotized. A paramedic gave her an injection of something, presumably a sedative, and she fell slack about four seconds later, her knees buckling beneath her. The paramedics caught her before she hit the sidewalk, and gently positioned her on a rolling gurney before sliding it into the back of the ambulance.

  “Somebody, call an exorcist,” grumbled a senior girl passing behind us, returning to the dance from the ladies’ bathroom down the hall.

  We were lucky to have made our way to the front lobby quickly, because behind us, other chaperones and hotel administrators were preventing other students from leaving the ballroom, urging them to stay calm until the medical professionals had an opportunity to attend to Candace. Isaac was among them, and his attempts to explain that Candace was his girlfriend and his date didn’t gain him access to the lobby.

  “Stay calm, everyone,” we heard Principal Nylander commanding everyone over the microphone in the ballroom. “The night is still young.”

  Trey and I watched as the ambulance carried Candace away, trailed closely by two police cars. Behind us, we heard the music resume, and Homecoming continued on as if nothing had happened. As far as our classmates were concerned, all they had witnessed was an explosive cat fight, one started by a girl who was off her rocker. I was stunned. I felt positive that Olivia had brought that song to my attention so that I would realize something important about that moment, and I was furious with myself for not understanding the clue.

  “I just don’t get it,” I complained to Trey after we were herded back into the ballroom by Coach Stirling. “What comes next?”

  “Candace’s death in the game. How did Hannah describe it? Is there any chance she’s going to die on the way to the hospital, or at the hospital?” Trey asked me.

  I had to think back to remember the details of the story that Hannah had concocted for Candace.

  “It was drowning. On a beach. In deep water.”

  Trey put his arm around me and pinched my shoulder tenderly. “There aren’t really any beaches in Wisconsin, silly, other than rock beaches around the lakes. Olivia must have wanted us to take notice of something else. Maybe just that Hannah wants Pete? That much is pretty obvious.”

  Hannah and Pete were slow dancing at that very minute. They weren’t dancing very closely together, but they did appear to be having a friendly conversation, which was reason enough for us to be curious. Hannah still looked pretty even despite the blood stains down the front of
her dress, which club soda had done little to remove. I wondered if Hannah had ever originally made plans to go to Homecoming with Mark Regan, or if her mention of that had been part of her longer term plan to kill Olivia and steal Pete.

  “See that?” I heard a voice behind me and turned to find Mischa taking the seat next to mine, glaring across the ballroom at Hannah. She was risking the credibility of our fake fight by speaking to me, but she was in no mood to care. “It’s Pete. She wants Pete. I think she killed Olivia just to go out with him.”

  As if her head was guided by a mystical power, Hannah looked directly over at us at that moment and made eye contact with me. Her expression toward me was one that suggested I was in trouble rather than one of curiosity as to why I would be conversing with my alleged adversary at the dance. Whether she instantly was able to discern that my entire fight with Mischa had been phony, or assumed that we were in the process of restoring our friendship, I couldn’t tell. It was just clear that she wasn’t happy to see us together.

  Mischa glared back at her and snarled, “Oh, look at that! Someone’s not happy that we’re still friends. Too bad. No more sneaking around, McKenna. I want that girl to know that you’re my friend, too. It’s too dangerous for you to get close to her.”

  I had to agree with Mischa. Hannah was quite obviously outsmarting us all. But I was pretty sure that it wasn’t just Pete that Hannah had wanted to take from Olivia. It was everything: the popularity, the Student Government victory, the boyfriend… all of it. I just needed some kind of a breakthrough to better understand why Olivia had needed to die to make it all possible.

  CHAPTER 12

  Maude the puppy sat outside the bathroom door and barked at me as I scrubbed off my makeup at home in the bathroom later that night, “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She was quiet all night,” Mom said, studying the little dog. Maude looked up at me and barked, and turned to my mother as if to say, “See?”

  “Crazy dog,” I gruffly said, and walked down the hall to my room.

  An hour later, when Trey tapped on my window, he announced, “I’m not sure I should keep staying over here. My parents know something’s up.”

  My breath caught in my throat with both fear and panic. “What do you mean, they know? Do they know you’re coming here?” I looked through my window over to the Emorys’ house, which was dark and silent for the night.

  “They know I’m going somewhere. My mom sat me down tonight and told me that they didn’t want to bug me before the big night but that they’re concerned about my well-being and have noticed that I’m sneaking out at night.” He sank into the edge of my bed, not wanting to get too comfortable, looking to me to confirm whether he should stay or leave.

  “Crap,” I uttered. It was already quite late. I could hear crickets in the back yard, and the ticking clock on the mantel over the fireplace in the living room. “Maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe because we heard from Olivia last night, she’ll leave me alone.”

  “Are you sure?” Trey asked, not believing me. I didn’t really want him to leave, but was already highly suspicious that his parents knew exactly where he was going every night, and I didn’t want them to approach my mom with the news. The warmth of his body in bed next to mine had grown familiar, and I was a little terrified that Olivia was going to be enraged that I hadn’t figured out what she had wanted me to do at the dance from her clues. He took both of my hands gently in his, and ran his thumbs over the tops of my fingers. “I don’t really want you to sleep here by yourself.”

  I looked around my dark room, up at the shelf holding my music boxes, and the other shelf holding my CD’s, and shrugged. “I can sleep in the living room. I think it’s safe out there.”

  Once Trey reluctantly left and scrambled back into his own room through the window, I grabbed my pillow and a blanket, and rushed out of my room as quickly as I could. As soon as I was situated on the couch in the living room, I could hear Maude down the hall in my mom’s bedroom softly whimpering to herself. I hoped that I hadn’t awakened her; my mother definitely would have questioned why I was sleeping in the living room on the couch instead of in my own bed. Then I began thinking about how on reality TV shows about ghost hunts, oftentimes pets could detect paranormal activity that humans couldn’t see with their eyes, and I started freaking myself out.

  In the morning, my fears that Maude had sensed Olivia’s spirit was up to something in my room were confirmed when I peeked in there just after sunrise. At first everything in my room appeared to be in place, just as I’d left it, but then I nearly jumped out of my skin in surprise when I noticed one word written on my mirror in the plum-colored lipstick that my mother had left in my room while I had been preparing for the dance. It said:

  NOHI

  On Saturday morning, Mischa borrowed her sister’s car and we drove to the hospital in Ortonville to visit Candace. We talked lightheartedly about Homecoming and about boys, but primarily to distract ourselves from the severity of our situation. She told me that she thought Trey and I made a very cute couple and apologized for making fun of him weeks earlier at Olivia’s birthday party.

  “You have to admit he’s weird,” Mischa insisted, “but he is hot. I’ll give you that.”

  “Okay, he’s weird, but so am I,” I agreed.

  Mischa told me that I’d missed a somber trip to Bobby’s after the dance. Matt had driven her home in his dad’s Audi after Hannah, Pete, Melissa, Jeff, Tracy and Mike had shown up. Mischa hadn’t been in much of a mood to party after that.

  “I mean, seriously, who does she think she is? I asked Matt to talk to Pete, but they’re not really friends. I guess if he really likes Hannah, there’s not much we can do about it, but I mean, God! It’s just so messed up that she’d go after Olivia’s boyfriend and it hasn’t even been a month yet,” Mischa rambled.

  The nurse at the front desk in the emergency room told us that under no circumstances would we be allowed to visit Candace, because she had been admitted to the psychiatric ward and we weren’t immediate family members.

  “This is really, really important,” Mischa insisted. “It’s like, life or death.”

  “I’m sure it is, honey,” the nurse told us patronizingly. “But, it’ll have to wait until she’s released.”

  Fortunately, we saw Candace’s mother in the parking lot before we drove away, and bolted out of Mischa’s car to intercept her before she reached her own car.

  “Mrs. Cotton!” Mischa called.

  Candace’s mom stopped before opening the driver’s side door to her car and seemed startled to hear her former name called. She had officially been Mrs. Lehrer since we were all in first grade, but it never felt natural to call her that. She appeared to be exhausted, with bags under her eyes, and was dressed far less fashionably than she usually was, wearing a washed-out sweat suit. She carried a cup of coffee from the hospital cafeteria in one hand, and her car keys dangled from the other. “Oh, hi, girls. I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. I didn’t recognize you just now.”

  “We really need to see Candace,” Mischa pleaded.

  “I don’t think the hospital is going to allow that. Candace is having a difficult time and can’t have any visitors. She is still obsessed with the notion that this girl Hannah at school has some kind of evil powers because of whatever game you guys played at Olivia’s house a few weeks ago. Her doctors seem to think that game has become the fixation of whatever psychosis she’s suffering. I don’t think it would be beneficial for her to see any friends from school.”

  “My dad is a psychiatrist,” I piped up. “He said you should take Candace to the University of Wisconsin in Sheboygan and have her examined by one of his former coworkers. He gave me the name of someone.” I handed her the e-mail from my dad that I had printed out, which included contact information for Dr. Felipe Gonzalez. Candace’s mom inspected the sheet of paper before tucking it into her purse.

  “Thank you, McKenna, and thank your dad, too. I’m at my wit’s end with a
ll of this. I just don’t know what to do for her anymore. Candace’s dad and stepmom are driving up from Green Bay this afternoon, and I should have a better idea tomorrow of what’s going to happen next.”

  On the drive back to Willow, I grappled with the decision of whether or not to tell Mischa about all of the weird occurrences in my house, and about the Ouija board connection that Trey and I had made with Olivia. I really wanted to share, but didn’t want to end up in the room next to Candace’s in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. But still, if there was a chance that Mischa was receiving messages from Olivia, then maybe her messages, combined with my messages, would lead to some kind of understanding about what we needed to do to stop Hannah.

  “Have you been noticing anything weird lately at your house?” I asked with trepidation. I heard my cell phone buzz in my handbag with a text message, and ignored it. Hannah had been texting me all morning, wanting to see if I would join her and Tracy for a movie that afternoon, and I hadn’t gathered the energy to respond yet.

  “How do you mean, weird?” Mischa asked. “My sister is basically a terrorist. That’s weird.”