by Aarsen, Zoe
Hannah’s eyes flooded with tears that rolled down her cheeks and she made no attempt to wipe them away. “I didn’t know, not for sure. I never know exactly what will happen.”
Mischa’s temper was flaring. “What are you even talking about, Hannah? You’re not making sense! Who shows you things?”
Hannah took a deep breath and looked around the parking lot suspiciously. Rap songs blasted through the closed windows of cars, doors slammed, and horns honked at the corner where kids impatiently waited their turn to leave the lot. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but not here.”
“You’d better,” Mischa warned. “Because you were the one who suggested we play that stupid game in the first place, and I think you owe us a lot of explanations.”
The track was abandoned at that hour, although through the trees that separated the fields, we could see and hear the football team practicing for their game that weekend. Hannah had told Tracy she was going to hang out with us and declined a ride home, and throughout our walk from the parking lot down the cement path leading to the football field, we could hear Tracy furiously text messaging Hannah through the buzzes emanating from Hannah’s bag. We stood near the small row of bleachers and I shivered inside my denim jacket, wishing that we’d have the luxury of at least one more week of warmth before winter settled in for the season. Trey sat down on the lowest cold, aluminum bleacher seat, but Hannah remained standing, clutching her little leather bag, kicking at the dry grass beneath her feet as she spoke.
“They started showing me things a while ago. I don’t even remember exactly when it started,” Hannah began quietly. “Don’t ask me who they are, because I don’t know. Spirits. Ghosts? Friendly ghosts, evil ghosts? I don’t know. I’ve never felt afraid of them, and they’ve never hurt me. Certain situations make it easier for me to see what they want me to see, like the game, for example. It’s hard to explain any of this, really. They tell me things, but I don’t really hear voices. They let me see things, but it’s not the same as seeing these bleachers.”
“What kinds of things do they tell you to do?” I asked. A gust of wind stirred the dry leaves on the trees surrounding the track.
The question made Hannah uncomfortable, and she picked at her fingernails before replying. “Talk to certain people. Ask them about their lives. Offer to read their palms.”
I immediately felt sick. Our situation of Hannah having peered into the future toward our deaths wasn’t the first time she had played this game. Who knew how long this had been going on, how many lives had been taken?
“Like Josh Loomis, and Rebecca Shermer?” Mischa asked with one eyebrow raised.
Hannah didn’t look the least bit surprised to hear those names from her past mentioned.
“I guess,” she shrugged. “Look, I didn’t realize at first that what happened to them was connected to me. Josh was always a depressed kid. It’s terrible to say, but no one was really surprised when he killed himself. They didn’t tell me that if I read his palm I’d be opening the door for it to happen. I mean, I saw it happen in my head, but when they told me to talk to him I thought maybe if I gave him some attention, or showed some interest in him, I could prevent it. But that’s what it’s like, in my head, when it happens. It’s like a door opens and things just start moving through it.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her. Hearing her claim that she thought she could prevent a suicide simply by showing a nerdy boy in a lower grade a little attention was kind of far-fetched, but Hannah, at least the version of Hannah we had met in September, could be so naïve and sheltered that I guessed it was possible.
“Didn’t you realize after he killed himself that you’d made it happen?” Mischa asked, not buying any of Hannah’s innocent act.
“No! Not at all. Imagine if you were in my shoes. Would you really put two and two together? It’s like… what if the lady who works the cash register in the lunchroom died tomorrow? Would you ever think that her death was linked to a hamburger that you bought, or the five-dollar bill that you handed her? No!”
“And then what about Rebecca? Did you figure it out when she died? Or did things not click into place until the third funeral, or the fourth?” Mischa snapped.
Hannah straightened her posture and threw her shoulders back, growing defensive. “Hey. Rebecca was my friend. I didn’t know she was going to do what she did. I’m not a monster, you know.” Two enormous tears made their way over her lower eyelids and spilled down each cheek. She wiped them away with her fingers quickly, and blew her nose into a tissue she withdrew from her coat pocket. “I knew she was in a lot of pain, keeping a lot of secrets. I didn’t think she’d ever…”
“So, I have to know. Did your parents move you away from Lake Forest because of all the problems you caused there, or because of the estate here to settle in Willow?” I asked. For just a fraction of a second, Trey looked up from the bleachers and glanced at Hannah. She looked back at him, and I could have sworn I observed some kind of understanding pass between them. Just as quickly as their eyes met, Hannah looked away out toward the fence circling the track.
“The things that happened in Lake Forest were not my fault,” Hannah insisted. “I haven’t committed any crimes!”
Mischa snorted. “The way we see it is that you brought this on,” Mischa accused, taking a step forward and stabbing her fingertip into Hannah’s chest. “You killed Olivia, you killed Candace, and now I’m probably next. The last time I checked, murder was a crime. You have to make it end.”
I was a little afraid of Mischa. She was acting wild, but then again, if I had still believed my death was next in the line-up, I might have been acting with a greater sense of urgency, too.
“I don’t think you get it, Mischa,” Hannah said, smiling nervously, digging her hands into the pockets of her coat. “I can’t change what they showed me. I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t know how to make it all stop, and they also don’t show me a timeline of when things will happen. For all I know, you’re meant to choke on something when you’re one-hundred-and-five years old.”
This brought Mischa no comfort. She folded her arms over her chest and stared Hannah down. “I don’t want to choke to death now or ever. And if I’m going to die, I’m comfortable taking you with me. I want to be clear with you. If you don’t make this stop, I will kill you.”
I was chilled to the bone by Mischa’s conviction and tried not to turn and stare at her. To my left, I could hear the huffing and puffing of her angry breathing. The truth was that she had considerable upper body strength from gymnastics training for ten years. If she wanted to hurt someone, she could. If she wanted to kill someone, and wanted my help, I wasn’t sure how I’d respond. While I believed Hannah in her claims that she didn’t know how to bring the game to an end, I didn’t believe her charade of innocence entirely. I believed she was being guided through this confrontation. She was being told what to say, how to throw us off.
Hannah’s eyes darted beyond us; surely she was wondering if we’d chase her if she made a run for it across the track back toward the parking lot, where the late bus would be arriving momentarily to pick up kids who stayed at school an extra hour for extracurricular activities. Maybe her spirits controlled her words, but they couldn’t control her thoughts, and she was probably thinking in that moment that if Mischa lunged at her, she would be a goner. “How do you propose I do that, Mischa?” she asked. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you guys, I don’t have any control over this.”
“Then summon your spirits. Make them fix it,” Mischa demanded.
Hannah’s voice quivered. She was on the brink of crying. “It doesn’t work that way, I swear,” she insisted. “I can’t just summon them. They only come to me under specific circumstances, or randomly when they feel like it.”
Mischa and I exchanged determined looks. “You mean, like if we were to play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board,” Mischa suggested.
Hannah shifted her weight from
one leg to another. Beneath her, gravel that had drifted over from the track into the grass on which we stood crunched. She said finally, “Yes. Or if we held some kind of a séance. But even that’s not a guarantee. I’ve never actually asked them to do anything for me. They don’t take requests. They just arrive, show me stuff, and leave.”
Mischa’s plum-stained mouth set into a firm, serious line. “Then we play the game again to bring them back, and you tell them that they made a mistake.”
Hannah looked at me as if to object, and then carefully said, “But the game won’t work again. They already showed me your death. If they arrive again they might just show a repeat, or they might get angry.”
“We’ll play the game on Trey. They haven’t told his story yet,” Mischa suggested.
Trey looked at the gravel, and Hannah shook her head slowly. “They don’t have a story for him.”
“Then, McKenna. They didn’t show her death,” Mischa reminded us both.
Hannah’s eyes flew wide open in terror, and she looked to me to save her. As much as I didn’t want to participate in the game again, it wasn’t an ideal time to inform Mischa that Trey and I had other ideas on how to topple Hannah’s power. “Okay,” Hannah agreed. “Tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow,” Mischa shook her head. “Tonight. Be at my house by eight o’clock. I want to deal with this as soon as possible. I could be dead by tomorrow, remember?”
“I can’t tonight!” Hannah objected. “It’s my mom’s birthday and we have a bunch of people coming over. I can’t sneak out.”
“Then, fine. Tomorrow. My house.”
Hannah’s lower lip trembled a little bit before she agreed. “After the game. It’s only the second game of the season. I have to be there.”
Mischa’s arms flew out at her sides in exasperation. “You’re saying a basketball game is more important than my life!” A buzz came from within her bag, and she checked her phone to find a text message from Matt. After reading it, she said, “Okay. Tomorrow after the game, if that’s the best you can do. We’ll all be here tomorrow afternoon in the stands, so don’t even think about disappearing with the pom pon squad to go to Bobby’s or something. We’ll be waiting for you.”
Mischa turned and walked toward the gate leading back to the parking lot, through which we could see Matt pull up in his mom’s Honda to pick her up. Hannah and I stood in silence, with Trey sitting behind us, both of us waiting for Mischa to be out of earshot before acknowledging our mutual fear of the game we had just committed to resume.
“Do you think she’ll really kill me?” Hannah asked me after Mischa passed through the gates and climbed into Matt’s car.
“She might,” I mumbled. Things might have been different right after Olivia died. But Candace’s death changed everything. I felt it as sure as I felt the wind blowing; Mischa was doomed just like my other two friends had been. “Look, I’m not really thrilled about playing this damn game with you again, but I’m willing to try, because I actually care about Mischa when obviously you don’t, Hannah.”
Hannah looked down at the ground again, and startled me with a loud, uncontrolled sob. When her eyes met mine again, they were filled with tears and her nose was pink. “I didn’t want to tell Mischa this, but her plan isn’t going to work.”
I already knew that playing the game wouldn’t work to break the curse, as did Trey, but I put my hands on my hips. The cold November wind blew through my light jacket, making me wish I’d done as my mother had instructed and dug my winter coat out of the back of my closet that morning. “And why is that?”
“Because,” Hannah began, “I told you. When we played the game at Olivia’s house and it was your turn, the spirits sent me all these weird messages. They couldn’t show me your death, because it already happened. The door was already closed.”
“Well, I’m not dead, I’m right here,” I snapped. Trey stood up and took me by the arm.
“We’re done here,” he announced to Hannah. “You’re going to miss your bus.”
Trey and I walked home without saying much. “That girl’s crazy,” he muttered as we reached the corner of Martha Road. “Don’t pay attention to her saying stuff about you being dead. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I know I’m not dead. I’m right here,” I insisted. “But maybe Jennie and I shared a soul, you know? Maybe identical twins like us are one soul, split in half, and that’s what Hannah’s seeing when she tries to read me.”
Trey kept shaking his head. “Everyone has their own soul and yours is just fine. Ignore her. We really can’t believe anything she says. I was watching her reactions on the track. They, or it—or whatever is behind this—is telling her what to say.”
“What about the object?” I asked, still considering the destruction of the object to be a safer course of action for us than resuming Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. But to avoid initiating the game again, we were going to have to figure out the object, and destroy it, before evening the next day. “Any ideas?”
“I’ve got nothing,” Trey said. “My only guess would be something she keeps in her purse, because she kept it pretty close to her the whole time we were talking.”
I wanted to ask him if there was something he needed to tell me about him and Hannah to put to rest my curiosity about that moment they had shared on the track. But it didn’t feel like the right time to question him. Considering the level of trust I had invested in him over the course of the last few weeks, the thought of him withholding secret information about Hannah was too much to bear.
At dinner time, Mom asked me a ton of questions about my day, quite obviously trying to be a more involved parent. I was distracted as I provided her with adequate answers about my classes, my thoughts lost in musings about objects and the afterlife. Maude was being a general nuisance throughout the meal, first begging for a sample of chicken pot pie and then scratching endlessly at the sliding back door leading out to the deck. “Alright, already!” Mom exclaimed finally, flipping the switch on our kitchen wall to flood our back yard with light and sliding open the door so that Maude could race across the yard.
Almost an hour later, I put on my shoes and my jacket to try to lure Maude back into the house after she refused to return inside when Mom called her. “There must be a rabbit back there or something,” Mom theorized.
In the yard, even despite the light shining over our deck, my eyes adjusted to the darkness before I could see Maude’s dark body in the far corner of the yard, digging away at something. It was freezing cold outside, with frost settling on the grass, and I cursed the puppy for dragging me out of the warm house. When she saw me approaching she became very excited, running in circles around her digging spot, not far from where Trey and I had buried Moxie, happily yapping at me. “What are you doing back here, you bad girl?” I asked. As I grew closer, I noticed that the hole she had dug, which she was so anxious to show me, wasn’t very deep. It was about a foot in width, and oddly shaped. Standing right over it, I realized that the puppy had somehow scratched a hole in our grass that looked unmistakably like a heart. Maude barked at me enthusiastically, as if she was telling me, “See?”
And then clarity hit me like an unexpected slap across the cheek.
The sweaters.
Since the weather had turned cold, Hannah had been wearing new sweaters every day. All of them—thick wool and creamy cashmere—covered her neck. There had been loose cowl necks and tight turtlenecks, ribbed crewnecks and an ivory funnel neck which had shown off her figure, even before Candace’s death.
They had been covering the gold locket that she had so plainly displayed during warmer weeks of the school year. Whether she had subconsciously been obscuring it with knitwear to put the locket out of our minds, or had been intentionally piling on sweaters in the hope that we’d forget that she had worn it every day at the beginning of the school year, I wasn’t sure. But I had forgotten about it entirely, until Maude had reminded me. I thought back to the bo
wl of heart-shaped soaps in the bathroom at the Richmonds’ house, and how I’d been compulsively inclined to use them. And then I realized whether I was “dead” as Hannah claimed or not, I had just as much help on the other side as she did, if not more. It was possible that Jennie, Olivia, Candace or even Moxie had guided Maude outside to trigger this visual cognition.
It was that locket, that heart-shaped locket, connecting Hannah to all of this trouble. I was absolutely sure of it.
CHAPTER 17
The next day was a Saturday, which was an obvious complication in the easiest method by which we might have gotten the locket away from Hannah. In any scenario I could imagine, the most opportune time to snatch that locket would have been in the girls’ locker room before gym class. As Trey and I curled up beneath my blankets, considering what the next day might bring, I felt a small amount of relief that at least since the locker room scenario before gym class wasn’t a viable option, I could potentially involve Mischa and Trey in the grabbing of the locket. What if I reached for it and the clasp didn’t break? Or if something even more horrific happened, and the gold chain sliced through the skin on Hannah’s neck? I felt with certainty that we were on the brink of closure with Hannah, but surely she must have felt it, too. As much as I was ready to settle things with her once and for all, I was terrified of taking her on all by myself.