Nor would she need the stacks of wedding dress pictures she’d cut from Bride magazine in secret. She hadn’t admitted even to Melanie that she daydreamed about marrying Austin and had every single detail of her future wedding recorded in her purple notebook. Where was that journal?
Joy shifted some trinkets and papers around in the box. Ah. There it was, stuffed full of notes, business cards, wedding pictures she liked and hoped to replicate with Austin. And … on the very back page … Joy had written her vows. She flipped to the end of the book.
I, Joy Christianson, promise to love you and laugh with you all the days of my life. I promise to honor you and uphold you as my husband. I give you my heart. I give you my life. I give you my joy.
Yeah. Loving and losing was way worse than never loving at all. Whoever had said the opposite had obviously never been betrayed. Joy put it all back in the box, secured the lid, and then made another promise. At least seven days this time.
That’s it. She needed answers. Joy grabbed her keys and texted Raven:
YOU HOME?
Chapter 3
Joy sat on a pillow in the center of Raven’s candle-lit bedroom. A spicy aroma from the burning incense filled Joy’s nostrils. Why had she agreed to do this again? Never had only lasted three days. But sometimes the quest for knowledge beat out wisdom. “Um. What, exactly, do we hope happens here tonight?”
Lucas plopped down to the ground, crossed his skinny legs, and gave his signature grin—the same sneer he’d had since he moved to their sleepy Nebraska town of Ogallala in the middle of Joy’s second-grade year at Progress Elementary. The big city had been evident in everything Lucas did and said—still was, actually. He’d never quite figured out how to fit in among the Ogallala natives. Or maybe he never tried.
Luc cupped his hand over the incense as though to capture its essence. Or was he simply warming his hands? Maybe Joy was taking her creeped-out qualms a little too far.
Laying his hands on his knees, Lucas closed his eyes, every movement he made was a measured step. “We are reaching out to the spirit who tried to talk to you two the other night.” His voice droned in monotone. “It has something to say, so we’re going to listen.” He shrugged like it was the most natural thing.
A chill ran down Joy’s spine like someone hammered a scale on a xylophone.
He opened the Ouija board and placed it in the center of their human triangle. The glass piece in place, he settled his hands in position and waited, peering from behind a wall of black, greasy bangs.
Raven reached her fingers to the board and laid them beside Luc’s then scooted one hand a bit more until it barely touched his pinkie.
Joy cracked her knuckles and settled her hands in place. Just get it over with.
“Spirit friend, we know you’re here with us, and we believe you’d like to talk to us.” Luc’s voice held no emotion, not even a single inflection. “We’d like to know who you are. Will you please tell us?”
The candle flame danced in his eyes. If he started chanting, Joy was out of there.
She felt movement as her arm was pulled along the board until the glass stopped over a letter. It couldn’t be real. But it felt real.
M
Here we go again. Joy lifted some of the weight off her fingertips. She sure didn’t want to be the cause of where the planchette moved. She glanced at Raven who stared at Lucas, as usual. When he was around, no one else existed. Not even a dead person. Joy’s stomach churned. Never again would she care about a boy that much. Ever. Even if it meant not having a marriage like Mom and Dad. She’d rather be alone her whole life than risk the possibility of losing someone again.
Lucas cleared his throat. “Do you feel that?” He spoke in even tones and looked at Raven. “There’s, like, a low rumble, a hum maybe, in the room.”
Yeah. Probably the furnace, you idiot.
“I do feel it.” Raven closed her eyes and lifted her face.
Oh please. What did she want? A ghostly kiss on the cheek? In better times, Joy would have giggled at the thought of playing a trick on her. But not today … maybe never. Just too much effort.
The triangle continued its path on the board. Why hadn’t she stayed home? That would have been so much smarter than her chosen alternative. She’d leave if her legs weren’t superglued to the floor.
E
“See, Luc? That’s what it said last time. Me. What is it trying to tell us?”
“Shh.” Lucas shook his head. “It’s not finished yet.” He closed his eyes. “Are you still identifying yourself to us?”
With force Joy hadn’t been expecting, the glass eye slid to the Yes.
What had just happened? It sure felt spontaneous…. It had to be Lucas or Raven making that thing move. It had to be. But it just didn’t seem like it. Joy’s eyes flew open, and she searched her friends for a clue to the truth.
Raven chewed on her lower lip. Was she nervous? Joy had kind of counted on her being the strong one.
“Okay. It’s getting irritated. Feels interrupted.” Lucas sat up straighter. “We’re listening, spirit. Tell us who you are.”
Back to the normal speed of death, their hands eased along until they revealed another letter.
L
What if it was actually real? Pastor Joel talked about the spirit world sometimes. It made sense that if God existed like she’d always believed, the dark side would, too. Joy watched in fascination as her hands were drawn to the next letter.
A
It paused for only a few seconds and dropped to the letter below.
N
Wait just a second. Was this some kind of sick joke? Joy looked from Raven to Lucas. Were they in on this together? How undeniably cruel to make that thing spell out … “Come on—”
“Shh,” Lucas hissed, his eyes trained on the space above his gnawed fingernails.
I
Joy would never speak to them again. Simple as that. But then why didn’t she just leave? Why let them finish out their ruse at her expense?
Lucas nodded at Raven and lifted his hands. He reached across the table and lifted Joy’s fingers as Raven removed hers. Game over?
The planchette trembled and inched forward.
All. By. Itself.
Acid churned in the pit of Joy’s stomach. Everything she ever believed about life, death, God, and heaven crumbled into purgatory as a game claimed her faith.
E
“I’m going to throw up.” Joy scrambled through Raven’s bedroom door and dove for the toilet in the hallway bathroom. Holding her hair back, she waited for the contents of her stomach to make a reappearance. It tried to empty, heave after heave. Guess it would have to have something in it before it could expel anything. Had Joy really not eaten all day long? Come to think of it, had she even had a drop to drink? Her cracked lips screamed that she hadn’t. A shrink would say she was trying to kill herself.
Was she trying to follow in her best friend’s footsteps?
She sat back against the bathtub, the cool porcelain soothing her skin through her T-shirt. Her head thundered like a parade marched through.
“You okay?” Raven’s muffled voice called out from the bedroom.
Took her long enough to bother asking. Joy’s entire life, or whatever was left of it, had just been turned upside down, and Raven casually checked on her after an entire ten minutes had gone by? From the other room? Yeah, real concerned. She was probably in there making out with her boyfriend. Melanie would have been in the bathroom at Joy’s side the whole time she was sick, holding up her hair and pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. That’s what best friends did.
Wait a minute. Joy’s head whipped from side to side. Was Melanie there with her? Had she been by her side ever since … since her death? Maybe she’d listened to all of Joy’s conversations, counted the tears that fell, watched her sleep. Could Joy talk to Mel—like actually converse with her? Joy shook her head. Too much.
Placing her palms on the side of the tub beh
ind her, Joy forced her body to unfold from its crouch. Her knees wobbled as she shuffled to the sink then flipped on the faucet. She let the cool water run between her fingers and over her wrists for at least a full minute. Leaning over the basin, she splashed some water on her face and let it drip off, stripping dried tears with it. Yanking a black, rose-embroidered towel from the hook beside the mirror, she pressed it into her eyes.
“Joy? You okay in there?” Raven’s voice came through the door a little louder than the first time.
Hadn’t Joy answered her? “Yeah. I’ll just be a minute.” Joy blotted her face dry, hung the hand towel back on its hook, then made her way back to the bedroom. Act casual. Never let them see you sweat.
Lucas lay kicked back on the bed, his size-twelve Vans rumpling the covers.
Raven sat cross-legged on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut. Candle flames still flickered in the circle around her.
What was that smell? A floral note mingled with scrambled eggs … or more like rotten eggs. Joy opened her mouth to ask Raven, but the scent was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Probably just her imagination. Looked like she really was losing it after all.
“You okay, Joy?” Raven’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.
Um … seriously? Joy stood rooted in position. She didn’t know what to do, who to talk to, how to recover. How could she possibly be okay? Didn’t they get it at all? “I have to know. Did all of that really happen? For real?”
Raven opened her eyes and held Joy’s gaze. “Yes. That actually happened. For real.” She smiled softly, like it was no big deal. Like a parent soothing a child afraid of clowns at a circus. This was far more serious than that.
“You’re telling me that I just heard from my dead best friend?” Joy shot her glance from Raven to Lucas. “From beyond the grave?”
Lucas bobbed his head a single time. “Yes.” He rolled onto his side, balled the pillow under his cheek, and yawned.
One fog lifted and another settled as a shiver ran from the top of Joy’s head through the ends of her toes. No matter what, she couldn’t let anything like this happen again. Joy had seen the movies. She knew what became of people like her who messed with this stuff. It never ended well. “Okay, I’m out of here. I can’t handle this. Not that I even believe it.”
Raven peered through her thick lashes, her eyes laced with something that looked like compassion. “You believe it. I can tell you do. You wouldn’t be so terrified if you thought it was all fake.”
Raven had her there. Joy shrugged. “Fine, but I’m out. I don’t believe in this stuff—I mean, I guess I know it happened. But I can’t embrace it…. It’s not … I don’t think it’s right. It’s not like, God’s plan.”
Eyebrow cocked, Raven waited.
The instant they’d left her lips, Joy’s words had sounded absurd even to her. God’s plan? What of the past couple of weeks was His doing? At the funeral the pastor had said nothing happens that doesn’t pass through God’s hand first. Well, if that were true … if He could have stopped Melanie from taking those pills, but didn’t…. Unthinkable. Was that the kind of God she wanted to follow?
And on top of it all, now Joy had to deal with the fact her dead best friend could speak to her from the other side. If it had actually happened, then what did it all say about heaven and the afterlife? About everything she’d ever believed in? About her own eternal fate?
Too many questions. Not a single answer.
“I have to go.” Joy scooped her purse, keys, and cell phone from Raven’s bed then jerked the arm of her hoodie from under Lucas’s sleeping body.
He twitched and let out a snore.
Raven opened the door for Joy then grabbed her wrist until Joy looked her in the eyes. “Don’t worry about anything. I know this is tough to accept, but we can help you through it. Luc and I.” Raven stretched an arm across the bed and shook Lucas’s body. “Right, babe?”
He grunted what might have been interpreted as an agreement of some kind. Whatever. Not feeling all that reassured.
Raven reached out and patted Joy’s back. “You have some thinking to do first, then when you’re ready, we’ll teach you. There’s no hurry. We’re not going anywhere.”
That’s what Joy was afraid of.
Chapter 4
People didn’t usually cut homeroom—why would they? No lectures. No assignments. No homework.
Well, most people didn’t share their homeroom periods with Austin. Besides, there was a first time for everything. And after last night, Joy couldn’t take sitting in that classroom for one minute. Joy pulled the hood of her black, threadbare hoodie over her head, stepped out of the stream of students, and ducked into the locker room. Thankfully, Mr. Cavanaugh never took attendance. If Joy skipped class and arrived at practice early, she could be dressed and on the court stretching before everyone showed up.
She spun the dial on her combination, settling on the familiar numbers she used for every pin number, password, and lock combination: Melanie’s birthday. Which was coming up. What would Joy do on that day? The two of them had never spent a birthday apart since … well, for as long as Joy could remember.
She slipped on her spandex shorts and pulled her once-beloved black Indians hoodie over her head. It no longer seemed a badge of honor to wear her school colors. Now it was a sentence of doom that meant she was tied to that place for almost two more years.
Joy exhaled and slammed her locker door. The sharp crash reverberated off the empty shower walls.
Time to get sweaty and out of breath before anyone else showed up with the prying looks and chatty questions. Joy jogged out to the court and started right in on jumping jacks to warm up her body before stretching.
Would Joy’s efforts really keep her teammates from hounding her for info and staring into her eyes to see if she was losing it? Of course not. But it was something, at least. Way better than walking in past them all as they fired question missiles at her. Joy shuddered. No thanks.
How are you doing? How do you think?
What was it like? Death.
Do you have to catch up on all your homework? Was that a serious question?
What did the note say? Joy had to bite her tongue when someone asked her that. If she answered what she’d like to have answered … well … she’d have regretted it.
Heather appeared in the doorway, flashing her Zoom-whitened, glow-in-the-dark teeth for the world to see. Not that they could miss them. “Joy. Joy.” Heather squealed and bounced across the room like a wet-nosed puppy. Except puppies were genuine in their affection.
“Hi, Heather.” Joy panted. More than she needed to. Anything to prolong the arrival of the private moment they were about to have. Joy could feel it coming.
“So, Joy. I’m glad we have a minute or two alone before everyone else shows up.” Heather bit on the white tip of her acrylic nail.
Oh boy. Me, too.
Heather grasped Joy’s forearm. “Can you just tell me … How are you? Really?”
Sigh. People were clueless. “I’m fine, thanks.” What did she want to hear? Did she want Joy to admit she was falling apart? That she feared life as she knew it was over? That she was terrified of who she was becoming inside? Angry. Bitter. Sad.
“Well, I hope you’re not just being brave. I sure don’t want to arrive to the same scene in the locker room that you found at Mel’s house that day.”
Gravity defied Joy’s chin. Had Heather really just said that? One thing Joy had learned in the past weeks is that some people had no class. And it was so much worse than she could have ever expected. She’d been so naive to think people cared about her, had her best interests at heart. She’d lived with that assumption for far too long. It was time for her to wake up and face reality.
Heather bent down, yanked up her kneesocks, and wriggled a kneepad into place. She bounced a few times then pulled on the other one. “What was it like, anyway?” Heather’s eager eyes searched Joy’s for info.
�
��What was what like?” Please don’t be referring to finding Melanie dead. Please.
She glanced at Joy and raised her eyebrows.
Joy clamped her mouth shut and swallowed hard. “Heather. I don’t know how to answer you.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Think about what you’re asking.”
“You’re right. That was pretty rude. I’m sorry.” She tucked a stray wisp behind her ears and did a perfect spike approach to the net, her feet squeaking on the polished gymnasium floor when she landed.
Yeah. She sure seemed sorry. But at least Heather was gone. For now. How could people not realize that Joy’s horror wasn’t fodder for their curiosity? Would she have been so insensitive if she were on the outside looking in? No way. In fact, there was a time Joy would have gone the opposite way. She’d have put her own feelings of curiosity, grief, anger, whatever, aside just to make other people feel more comfortable. No more. They didn’t care about her; she didn’t have to waste her time and energy on them.
Mom said the girls weren’t curious as much as concerned. Suicide rocked a small town way more than drugs, sex, or any other stupid thing a teenager could do. They might even be worried that Joy would be next. The investigator had whispered that it was contagious, warned Mom and Dad to be on the lookout. Yeah right. If only Joy had the guts.
Wonder where they’d rank communicating with the dead compared to suicide. Joy smirked. They’d never believe her is what would happen. They’d lock her up in a straitjacket and slap a suicide watch label on her forehead.
Did they still perform electric shock treatments on people?
“Joy?”
She whipped around at the sound of Coach’s voice calling from the doorway to her office.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” She stood back, obviously expecting Joy to join her.
No? If only Coach could have let Joy slip under the radar, let her ease back in. She jogged across the gym, past the huddled groups of volleyball players, silencing whispers with every step. She ducked under the net and followed the scent trail of Coach’s coconut lime verbena lotion into the office.
THE SHADOWED ONYX: A DIAMOND ESTATES NOVEL Page 3