A half-truth, but it was the most they were going to get.
The police told me there was going to be some sort of plea deal. So my work was done. No trial. That didn’t mean Ellie would get off easy. But the specifics of her punishment didn’t matter to me as much as finally knowing the truth about that day and bringing peace to my home.
Looking back, we’d all been haunted by the dead and buried. Not just the house. We’d carried ghosts inside of us, making our spirits weary. Dad, Marie, and I with my mother. Donovan, Faye, Kane, and the others with Kayla. And perhaps heavier than the ghosts were the secrets we carried.
But we opened ourselves up and now, just as the house was free, so were we. At last.
At first, Dad and Marie still wanted to sell the house and move. It was like we’d flipped places. I was the one telling them the house was safe and we should stay. Colby helped me convince them. His mood had lifted and he was back to his sweet, cheerful old self.
Kane removed himself from qualifying for the scholarship — which might have been taken away anyhow. He was now hoping for a partial lacrosse scholarship to a state school. After everything that happened, I couldn’t be his friend. But he needed someone now more than ever, with what his family was going through. So I told him something I’d learned from Kayla’s diary. Something that made him give Faye another shot. They both deserved a chance at happiness.
Shuffling footsteps came from behind me and I looked up to see Donovan settling down next to me on the stairs. The tightness lifted from my shoulders. Just having him beside me made the sky seem brighter, the temperature warmer.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his blue eyes lit with concern.
Those were the same words he’d said that day, when my mother had saved my life on the staircase. I knew it had been her — the jasmine scent, the way she’d held me. I’d worn the pendant ever since, but never felt her presence again. Still, the gemstone that used to give me only anguish now filled me with a sense of tranquility. How my mother had managed to possess me — to save me — I don’t know. Maybe her pendant had opened a door like the Ouija board had done for Kayla. Maybe Donovan was right when he’d said it doesn’t hurt to believe in a little magic now and then.
I wove my fingers through his. “I’m great. How’d it go in there?” He’d had to give his final statement also.
“Fine. I’m just glad it’s done.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “And that you’re all right.” He took in a deep breath. “Talking about that day … remembering you falling … I was so scared that you were …” He shuddered and squeezed my hand.
“I’m here,” I reassured him. “It’s over.”
He reached out to touch my face and let his thumb trail down my cheek and my jawline, sending a pleasurable shiver through me.
He spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I spent months in this … limbo. I was alive, technically, but only going through the motions. Kayla had done these awful things and suffered a terrible end. I felt all this guilt. And everyone in school, aside from a couple friends, turned their backs on me. I think I just … lost faith in humankind.” He took another deep breath. “But then you came along. You woke me up. Made me see the good in the world again. You saved me, Jade.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little box. “I wanted to give you a little something, a token or … whatever.” His cheeks reddened as he stumbled over his words. “To tell you how much you mean to me.”
I opened the black velvet box. A pair of drop earrings sat nestled inside, the gemstones a deep, dark green. Almost a match to my peridot pendant, but these weren’t peridot. They were emeralds.
I didn’t bother hiding the blotches on my neck. I was pretty sure he was used to them by now.
“For your collection,” he said.
“Thank you.” I ran my finger over the smooth stones. “They’re beautiful.”
“I chose them because, um, well I looked up the meanings online and I wanted, um …”
Seeing him so nervous was the most adorable thing I’d ever witnessed.
He took a moment to catch his breath and tried again. “Do you know what the gemstone means?”
I couldn’t help the smile that overtook my face. “Emerald is called ‘the stone of successful love.’”
“Yeah,” he said, matching me smile for smile and blush for blush. “That.”
When I was in elementary school, I wrote my first book. It was only around ten pages long and involved a house that swallowed children who walked by. So I would like to thank my parents, for continuing to buy me horror books even after they read that. And thanks to my teachers for encouraging me. That little girl with the freaky story didn’t grow up to become a serial killer. Just a writer.
As always thanks to my agent, Scott Miller; my editor, Aimee Friedman; and the fantastic team at Scholastic, including Lauren Felsenstein, Nikki Mutch, Becky Shapiro, Stacy Lellos, Bess Braswell, Elizabeth Parisi, Starr Mayo, Rachel Horowitz, Janelle DeLuise, Abby McAden, and David Levithan. You all rock!
Huge props to:
Susan Happel Edwards, for keeping me sane. Relatively.
Rebecca Micucci, for jewelry design info, letting me borrow all your gemstone catalogs, and being hilarious on a daily basis.
Much love to:
My parents, extended family, and the outlaws.
Mike and Ryan, who are always the highlights of my day.
Copyright © 2012 by Kim Harrington
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrington, Kim, 1974–
The dead and buried / Kim Harrington. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: New student Jade uncovers a murder mystery when she moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a beautiful, mean girl who ruled Jade’s high school.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-51005-9
Jacket images © 2013 by Larry Rostant
Jacket design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
[1. Haunted houses — Fiction. 2. Ghosts — Fiction. 3. High schools — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction. 5. Murder — Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.H23817Mu 2013
[Fic] — dc23
2011043877
First edition, January 2013
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
From the Diar
y of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
From the Diary of Kayla Sloane
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
Also by Kim Harrington
Copyright
The Dead and Buried Page 22