Shadows

by Amy Meredith

  ‘Hi, Meggie!’ Jess said brightly, in full-on cheerleader mode. ‘You weren’t in school, so we came to give you the first-day scoop.’

  Megan just stared, her face as expressionless as the ghost from the movie.

  ‘You want to hear everything about the first day of school, right?’ Eve asked. She wasn’t sure Megan could even understand her. Megan didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink.

  Jess reached out and lightly touched Megan on the arm. ‘Are you—?’

  Megan flinched away. ‘Don’t touch. Touching lets it in.’ Her eyes flicked wildly back and forth. ‘It’s in you already,’ she told Eve. ‘I can smell it. Can’t you smell it?’ Her voice got higher and shriller the more she spoke.

  Eve wasn’t sure if it would be better to agree with her or disagree. What would calm her down?

  ‘I don’t think I smell anything,’ Jess said, before Eve could decide. ‘So, of course, the new boys were the big news at school,’ she added in a rush, clearly hoping to distract Megan. ‘Which do you think is hotter – Luke or Mal? As you know, Eve usually goes for the blondies, but, weirdly, she claims—’ Jess stopped and pointed at Eve. ‘Luke! That’s why you were asking about being shallow!’ she cried. ‘You’re still thinking about his purse comment. I now have evidence. You like him. You wouldn’t be obsessing if you didn’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t obsessing,’ Eve replied automatically. She wrapped her arms around herself, realizing that standing close to Megan made her feel cold.

  ‘Yeah, she so was,’ Jess said, turning back to Megan. ‘You should have heard her. All I do is shop. I have more make-up than Paris Hilton.’ Eve noticed that Jess was still talking fast, as if words could build a safety net for Megan.

  Megan’s eyelids fluttered, and for a second all Eve could see behind them was the whites of her eyes. Then her eyes snapped open wide, too wide. Megan clawed at her throat, her nails leaving streaks of blood. ‘I can’t get it out,’ she shrieked. ‘Get it out!’

  Eve heard footsteps inside the house, footsteps racing towards them. Megan’s mother appeared next to Megan in the doorway. ‘Sweetie, you were going to watch TV, remember?’

  Megan’s expression had gone blank again. It was hard to believe she’d been speaking – screaming – just a few minutes before. Her mother gently turned her round and used one hand to start her towards their living room. Megan zombie-shuffled away.

  Mrs Christie used her pinkie fingers to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘Megan … Megan isn’t feeling well. I was just upstairs in her room packing a bag for her. She … I need to take her to the hospital. Megan started—’

  A piercing scream, a scream laced with pain, blasted out of the house. ‘You girls go on,’ Mrs Christie called over her shoulder as she bolted inside.

  ‘It’s in my blood. It’s in my bones. Get it out!’ Eve heard Megan shriek.

  She and Jess exchanged a look as they stood on the doorstep. ‘Do we go in?’ Jess asked.

  ‘She said to leave,’ Eve said. They hesitated. Eve listened so hard it made her ears ache.

  ‘I don’t hear anything,’ Jess finally commented. ‘It seems like Mrs Christie’s got Megan calm again.’

  Eve nodded. ‘Let’s go then.’ She reached for the front door. Mrs Christie had left it open.

  Thunk! The heavy oak door slammed shut.

  Eve jumped back, surprised. It had almost taken her fingers off.

  ‘Nice, Eve. Are you trying to give Megan heart failure too?’ Jess said.

  ‘I didn’t touch it!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘I didn’t even touch it!’ She stared at the Christies’ front door, her heart still pounding.

  ‘You probably snagged it with your sleeve or something,’ Jess suggested. ‘You know how you are. If it can be tripped over, caught on or bumped into, you find a way.’

  True. But Eve wasn’t convinced. If she’d somehow snagged the door, she would have felt a tug. A big tug. That door was solid, and it had slammed.

  She hadn’t felt a thing.

  Wind? No, the September day was hot and still. She tried to come up with another explanation. There had to be one. But what? She reached out and tentatively touched the door, half expecting it to jerk under her fingers.

  There was no reasonable explanation. Eve shivered, despite the sun’s warmth beaming down on her. You’re just freaked by seeing Megan so … so un-Megan-like, she told herself. It was creepy, so now you’re feeling creeped out by everything.

  But the door really had slammed by itself. All by itself.

  Chapter Three

  ‘I have the perfect title for our history paper,’ Luke said as he and Eve headed down the hall to their biology lab a week later. ‘“Gandhi: No Saint”.’

  Eve blinked. She’d been momentarily distracted by trying to figure out what colour Luke’s eyes really were. They were an unusual green shade, flecked with gold. ‘You want to slam Gandhi?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s not what I said. It’s just that we’ve elevated him to this perfect being, and he wasn’t,’ Luke explained. ‘I’d like our paper to show both sides of him. Real humans are a lot more interesting than immaculate heroes. And I think they’re more inspirational too. Gandhi was a man with lots of contradictions. Did you know he was supported by industrial billionaires? He even went on a hunger strike to stop the employees of one of the billionaires from striking for better working conditions.’

  Eve flipped open her binder as they walked. ‘Look. Last week’s notes.’ She scanned them quickly. ‘Mahatma means Great Soul. Inspiration to civil rights leaders across the globe. In favour of women getting more rights. Against poverty. Against classing people as—’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t know you were an artist,’ Luke interrupted. He tapped one of the hole punches at the edge of the loose-leaf paper. She’d added a beak and feet to the little hole. ‘Cute.’

  Eve quickly closed her binder. She’d been making little chickens in the margins of her notes for so long that she didn’t even notice them any more. She’d forgotten about them when she’d showed the notes to Luke. The chickens were cute, but they were also embarrassing. Like something a little kid would draw.

  ‘We’re not talking about my art. We’re talking about the paper that we somehow got assigned to do together,’ she said. ‘I’m not risking a D just to diss Gandhi.’

  Luke looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘What?’ Eve demanded.

  ‘I was just wondering if you believe a high-school history class gives the complete picture about anything,’ Luke said. ‘Can’t you see the world is a lot more complicated? Do you ever really think about things? Or do you just eat up whatever anyone tells you, like baby food silver-spooned into your mouth? Gandhi was—’

  Had he just asked if she really thought about things? He really did think all she cared about was lip gloss and bags that had the perfect amount of fringe – and it was so not true.

  ‘Why is nothing ever easy with you?’ Eve exclaimed. A loud bang accented her question, making her jump. She glanced over at Dave Perry, who was sucking on his finger.

  ‘My locker slammed on it,’ he said.

  Eve winced. ‘I must’ve hit it with my elbow. Sorry.’

  ‘How’d you even do that?’ Dave asked, shaking his hand. ‘You weren’t anywhere near me.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m truly gifted at the klutz thing,’ she answered, then turned back to Luke. ‘I don’t want to write that Gandhi had a jerky side, OK? Unlike you, I don’t feel the need to make a statement every second.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘It’s wrong to have something to say? I guess we could do the paper on Gandhi’s feelings about make-up and fashion, but other than that Vogue cover in that really cute loincloth after he’d had all that diet success, we don’t have a lot of material.’

  Eve stared at him, astonished. And furious. That proved it. That’s what he really thought of her – that all she cared about was diet tips and cute clothes. He went around flirting with every gi
rl he saw … and he was being judgemental? How did that work? ‘You’re not trying to say anything about Gandhi,’ Eve said, stung. ‘You’re just trying to make a point. Well, we get it. You’re not from around here. You’re not a spoiled rich kid. You care about important things like working conditions for the poor and how buying a designer bag – I don’t know – rips food out of the mouths of the starving. You’re far superior to everyone you meet. You’re a special, special snowflake.’

  Luke laughed. Which wasn’t the reaction Eve was expecting. Or wanting. She’d just insulted him, the way he’d insulted her. Didn’t he get that? Or maybe he was incapable of being offended by the opinion of someone who he thought was a complete fluff-head?

  Eve turned and stalked away from him, fuming. She’d known him for a week and a half now, and he got more annoying every day. And she couldn’t get rid of him for another fifty minutes. Not only was he in her biology class, he was at the same lab table.

  Eve ignored him as she walked into the room and took her seat on her lab stool. Finally she risked a glance at Luke to see how he was taking it. He didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy flirting with Belinda Delaware. Somehow she’d become his girlfriend, or at least his number one groupie. The boy was shameless.

  Eve picked up her list of supplies for that day’s experiment. The final bell hadn’t rung yet, but she decided to start getting out the equipment – it would keep her from having to deal with annoying Luke.

  ‘One hundred-millilitre beaker, one hundred-millilitre graduated cylinder, one fifty-millilitre graduated cylinder, one twenty-five-millilitre graduated cylinder,’ she muttered as she knelt down by the cabinet under the lab table.

  ‘Great. It’s good to see someone using this time to prep,’ Ms Whittier said as she breezed into the room. ‘Today’s experiment is a long one. You’re going to need every minute.’

  Eve found the graduated cylinders and set them on the table, then grabbed the beaker. ‘Hey, Belinda, would you say I’m a special snowflake?’ she heard Luke ask. He was talking loudly, and Eve knew she was meant to hear him. Did he live to torment her? Her fingers twitched, and the beaker fell to the floor, leaving sparkling shards of glass around her feet. The tinkling sound seemed to echo through the room.

  ‘Man down!’ Luke called. Belinda giggled. She thought Luke was so, so funny. Didn’t Luke realize she was the stupidest girl in school? Maybe he didn’t care as long as she thought he was so, so funny.

  Eve straightened up, and as she did so, a beaker fell off the shelf, adding more glass to the pile.

  ‘Wow. Nice shooting, Tex,’ Luke joked. And Belinda giggled again. Of course.

  Ms Whittier walked over with a broom and dustpan. She handed them to Eve with raised eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Eve kept her back to Luke and Belinda while she swept. Her earlobes were burning. That always happened when she got embarrassed.

  ‘They should give you a medical excuse from lab. For Klutzitosis,’ Kyle Rakoff, her lab partner, said as he reached for the broom. Eve held onto it, sweeping harder, even though she knew he was just trying to help her. And that he was just trying to help her because he had a little crush on her. But Eve could clean up her own mess, and the sooner she got rid of the evidence, the better. Still, somehow she managed to knock two of the graduated cylinders off the table with the handle of the broom. She’d be wading through glass if this kept up.

  ‘Eve, I’m going to have to start charging you for breakage,’ Ms Whittier warned. The room was filling up with students now, and everybody who came in slowed down and stared.

  Eve kept her eyes down, willing herself not to notice the other people. She slowed down the sweeping, making each movement precise and steady. When she had a neat little pile of glass, she knelt down and swept it into the dustpan. Well, most of it. Some of the pieces were so small that they kept getting caught on the lip of the pan. She used her fingers to brush them in.

  ‘Ow!’ she exclaimed. She stared down at her right ring finger. A few tiny drops of blood had appeared on the tip. Great. Was a little piece of glass in there? Eve rubbed her thumb gently against the fingertip. Yeah, she had a sliver of glass inside.

  ‘Don’t rub it. You’re just going to push it deeper.’ Suddenly Mal was kneeling beside her. He must’ve come in while she was sweeping.

  ‘I know, but I can’t walk around with glass in my finger.’

  Mal pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.

  ‘Wait. You’re not cutting it out,’ Eve protested.

  Mal didn’t answer. He really wasn’t a talking kind of guy. That mini-convo the two of them had had on Day One was the most she’d heard him say, except when a teacher called on him. Although Eve had managed to get a laugh out of him once – by guessing that his name was Malvin. Plus she’d scored a couple of those slow, one-sided smiles. And looks. She’d caught Mal giving her quite a number of looks.

  But none of that mattered when he wanted to take a knife to her finger. ‘I’m fine. Leave it,’ she said.

  Mal just opened the knife – and pulled a little pair of tweezers from a slot in the side. He held his free hand out, raised his eyes to hers and waited.

  Eve took a deep breath and put her hand in his, palm up. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see when the tweezers were going to touch the glass splinter. She knew she was being a baby, but she couldn’t help it. She pulled in another breath, and the smell of wood-smoke filled her nose. She could even taste its tang on her tongue.

  It was coming from Mal. He was inches away from her, and the scent of him was wonderful.

  ‘You smell good,’ Eve murmured. Then her earlobes went hot again. Had she actually just said that out loud? What was she thinking?

  ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ She could hear the smile in his voice.

  Eve opened her eyes. Yeah, he was smiling. And not his usual half-smile, either. He was almost grinning. ‘I was playing football in gym last period. I didn’t have time to take a shower,’ he said. ‘I was afraid I’d scare people away.’

  She smiled back. ‘You must have good sweat.’

  ‘Who even knew there was such a thing?’ he said. He was still holding her hand, and Eve couldn’t help noticing how gentle his touch was. The heat moved from her ears to her neck, and her breath caught.

  ‘OK, I’m shutting my eyes again,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. I know, I know, I’m a big baby.’

  ‘Done,’ Mal said immediately.

  Eve’s eyes snapped open. ‘You can’t be!’

  ‘You were too busy smelling me to notice.’ Mal held up the tweezers and Eve could see the tiny chip of glass glinting in their grasp.

  ‘Thanks.’ Eve wished there was an excuse to stay down there with Mal, but she couldn’t think of one. Slowly she stood back up.

  ‘Maybe you need to put some lipstick on your wound,’ Luke suggested. ‘Since it has all those healing properties.’ Belinda laughed – as if she even knew what he was talking about.

  ‘Mal took care of it for me,’ Eve said.

  ‘Let me get that,’ Kyle said. He picked up the dustpan, then turned to Luke. ‘We’re going to need to work with you and Belinda. We have no equipment left.’

  Oh, God! I can’t deal with watching the Luke and Belinda lovefest all period. Especially with that inane giggling, Eve thought.

  ‘Eve’s working with me today. My lab partner’s out,’ Mal announced. He looked at Eve. ‘If that’s OK with you,’ he added in his husky voice. How much did she love that voice? So much.

  ‘Definitely OK,’ Eve told him.

  ‘So you got to be lab partners with Mal. That part is cool,’ Jess said that afternoon after school. She unlocked her back door and ushered Eve into the utility room. The Merediths only used the front entrance for guests during dinner parties. Eve could barely remember the last time she’d set foot inside her best friend’s formal living room.

  ‘You should have heard stupid Luke, though. It was like h
e was auditioning for Comedy Central,’ Eve complained. ‘Even when I wasn’t at his table any more, he kept making fun of me, and Belinda kept laughing. I still can’t believe I have to do my history report with him.’

  ‘Focus on the positive, remember? Partners with Mal. We’re not going to talk about the negative any more. We’re going to watch the Gossip Girl where Chuck says “I love you”, and we’re going to watch it more than once, while eating gourmet chocolate chips with whipped cream on top, and while not thinking about anything annoying.’ Jess had invited Eve over to help her forget about the horror of being partnered with Luke for the history project.

  ‘There’s no whipped cream left,’ Jess’s brother, Peter, called from the kitchen.

  ‘There has to be. I just convinced Mom to buy it yesterday,’ Jess protested. She dashed into the kitchen, Eve on her heels.

  Peter stood in front of the huge Sub-Zero refrigerator, squirting whipped cream into his mouth straight from the can.

  ‘Oh my God. That is disgusting,’ Jess said, rolling her eyes. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe you are only a year younger than me.’

  Eve just laughed. She kind of enjoyed Peter’s disgusting side. Jess said that was because she didn’t have to live with him.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ Peter mumbled through the white foam. The can started making an airy stuttering sound.

  ‘You really ate it all. Piglet.’ Jess went to what her family called the snack cupboard, which was actually a full-sized butler’s pantry, and stared inside at the yummy contents. ‘He didn’t finish off the cookies at least,’ she told Eve, grabbing the bag of Mollie’s Market soft chocolate-chunk cookies. Mollie had a tiny store on Main Street, and it was enough to perfume the whole shopping district with delicious cookie smells all day on Mondays and Thursdays, which were her baking days.