Feral (26 page)

“I've seen it happen before,” Rich said with a shrug.

“And you walked all the way back after that?” her father asked.

“We went across the street to the church. My dad drove us and dropped us off,” Rich assured him.

“Are you okay now?” Dr. Cain pressed, his voice sounding tight. “Not woozy? Dizzy at all? How do you feel?”

“Dad, I'm fine,” Claire grumbled. She glanced up again at Rich, who was staring at her father in surprise. “Really.” She tried to push her dad away, but he continued to tug on her lower eyelid, look into her pupils, pet the hair on the top of her head. Her dad's reaction was over the top, even considering what had happened to Claire at the funeral the day before. The way Dr. Cain hovered was going to tip Rich off to the fact that he had other reasons to worry about her—reasons bigger than a fall into a grave, bigger even than the discovery of a body.

Claire reminded herself of the relief that had washed over her simply by showing Rich the scratches on her ankle—but she wasn't ready to show him her scars. She wasn't ready for word to get out in Peculiar about what had happened to her in Chicago. Sanders had kept his promise; the details of Claire's permanent record—the fact that she had been absent from school during the last two months of her sophomore year and the entire fall semester of her junior year—had been kept quiet, in her file. She wanted it to stay that way.

“Maybe you should skip school on Monday,” her father said.

“No, Dad. Really? I'll be fine. I
am
fine,” Claire asserted, wishing her words could work like an off valve for her father's fears. “I'm going to school, and you're going to work. Rich'll drive me. Both ways. No walking.”

“I think a day off from all of this would be good for you,” Dr. Cain reasoned, trying to wrap Claire into a protective hug.

Claire struggled against him, trying to push his hands away, but that only made him reach for her again, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Dad,” she complained. “Seriously, okay? Enough. Dad—”

Glancing up at Rich's confused expression—and remembering the words he'd used at the church, the game he'd described playing with Serena, she echoed, “Olly, olly, oxen free!”

The odd saying made her father pull away. “What—?” he started.

“I'll drive her to school, Dr. Cain,” Rich promised, cutting off Dr. Cain's words.

“Monday,” Rich told Claire, “and every day for the rest of the semester.”

“That's nice of you, Rich,” Dr. Cain said through a startled frown, “but—”

“Don't worry, Dr. Cain,” Rich said in a soothing voice. “I'll look out for her. My word is good.”

That last bit made Claire shudder a bit. It almost felt like code—like he was referencing the words Claire had just used, the simple phrase that no longer felt like a game.

Claire felt torn between regretting using Serena's words to inform Rich that she was a girl in need of rescue, and feeling grateful that she now had a phrase she knew she could rely on—a way to get Rich's attention if danger ever crept uncomfortably close.

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T
hat weekend, Claire treated her scratches with the Prid salve that Rich had apparently bought just before she'd fainted at 'Bout Out. She'd smeared the strange, black tarry substance on her tender cuts, wincing against the pressure of her own finger. On Sunday, when the wounds refused to show any real sign of improvement, she decided to just cover them completely with gauze, tape them up against the outside air and her own steady gaze. After all, if a watched pot never boiled, maybe a watched cut never healed.

Monday afternoon, in history class, Claire accepted the seat that Becca had saved for her. She'd been accepting seats from Becca all day long: a seat next to her in the student convocation center before the morning's first bell, as Becca prattled on about a pair of earrings she had that would look lovely on Claire, and didn't she want them for the dance? A seat at lunch—beside Becca, instead of across the table—leaving Owen to sit in the seat Claire had been claiming for her own, across the table, next to Rich.

Claire had only just opened her history book when Isles began to hand out their test papers. Her shoulders slumped as she stared into the giant red F at the top of her test. Claire had never seen a flat-out F at the top of one of her tests before.

Becca leaned forward, saw it, and made a face that said, “Ouch.”
Sorry
, she mouthed.

Claire eyed it, tracing the letter with her finger throughout the entirety of the class period. When the bell rang, she delayed putting the test in her bag—somehow, it seemed that once it mingled with her folders and pencils, it would suddenly become real.

As she finally stood, hoisting her backpack onto her shoulder, Ms. Isles called, “Claire.”

Isles pointed to an empty desk in the front row.

“I'll wait for you?” Becca asked.

Claire shook her head. “Thanks, but I have a ride with Rich,” she said, which was true. Rich was serious about the whole ride to and from school bit. He was serious about it lasting the entire semester. But it wasn't the same kind of help that Claire had hated receiving back in Chicago—not the
just lie back in bed and rest while I fluff your pillows
kind of help. He wasn't treating her like someone who needed to sit still and wait for her next visitor, who, judging by the way things had been going, might very well be the Grim Reaper himself. So she found herself welcoming his help, his simple promise of a ride to and from school.

Claire dragged herself to the front of the room and slid into the chair Isles had chosen, the tops of her thighs squeaking on the glossy wooden surface.

Isles leaned on the edge of her desk, a beautiful flower surrounded by ugly walls. Claire couldn't believe how youthful Isles looked. Take away the heels and the red lipstick and the perfectly curled blond hair, and Isles was a sorority sister. Give her a ponytail, a white shirt, and some kneesocks, and she'd look like she was still a student at Peculiar High.

“I know these past few days have been really hard on you,” she started. “First you move into town in the midst of an ice storm, then you see—well—and then, that fall you took at the cemetery. When I was grading your test, I had to stop and think about how
hard
this all must be on you. I can't tell you how sorry I am.”

She plucked a sheet of paper off her large wooden desk and sat down in the seat beside Claire. She actually looked more at home in the student desk than in the teacher variety.

“It only seems fair that you should get a second chance. A do-over,” Isles said. “I'd like to offer you a chance to retake our test.”

Claire sighed as relief washed over her. “I thought I was going down in flames,” she admitted.

“No—I don't want you to do that. None of your teachers want that, Claire.” She nudged Claire with her elbow and winked.

Claire flinched against the elbow jab; that was how Rachelle had teased her. It didn't seem right, somehow, for anyone else to do that. She eked out a crooked smile as she reminded herself that finally, something good was actually happening in Peculiar. “When do I—”

“Right now,” Isles said.

“Wait, what? No—I'm—not ready,” Claire pleaded.

“Oh, please,” Isles said, rolling her eyes. “You're feeling better by now. In fact, this time around, I'll bet you'll ace it. I'm going to head to the restroom for a minute, but I'll be right back. 'Kay?”

She slid a new test paper in front of Claire and hurried out of the room, her heels clicking. On her way out, her right arm flew to the side, smacking a pull-down map. The map snapped, winding back onto itself along the roller above the blackboard. Claire frowned, realizing that the board was numbered one through twenty, with a single letter next to each number. Claire glanced back at her multiple-choice test. Twenty.

Isles had given her the answers. Did she honestly feel
that
sorry for her? Never, in her seventeen years, had Claire ever heard of a teacher risking her own reputation—or her job—by allowing—no,
helping
—her student to cheat.

That's what it said on Serena's hand. It said that when I tripped and the snow was chewing on my skin and the fall through the ice was like jackhammers on my body. When I turned and I saw her eaten fingers, that's what it said right there in her palm: “CHEATING.”

The realization traveled through Claire like sparks of electricity.

She got a sinking feeling that this was part of it, too. This test—and that word on Serena's hand. It was somehow all intertwined.

Claire sat immobile until Isles returned, pulling the map back down over the answers.

“Finished?” she asked cheerfully, holding her hand out.

Claire snatched her blank test paper, balling it into a tight fist. “Forget it,” she said, “I'll take the F.”

“You can't want an F.” Isles looked like she'd been punched as Claire threw the test into the trash and bolted from the classroom.

“Claire.
Claire
,” Isles called. “I'm just trying to help.”

But why should she care?
Claire wondered.
It's my grade.

Looking back over her shoulder as she raced toward her locker, Claire crashed into a thick wool sleeve. “Whoa! Watch out!” a voice warned her. Rough hands steadied her to keep her from collapsing onto the floor. When she untangled herself, she realized that the hands on her shoulders belonged to Owen.

“This test—” Isles said, emerging from her classroom. She flapped the blank page emphatically as Claire pushed herself away from Owen and scurried down the hall.

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C
laire sprinted to her locker, shrugged herself into her coat, and raced down the steps, into the parking lot where Rich waited for her.

“Cheating,” Claire shouted, slapping her open palm on the hood of Rich's Ram as she rounded the truck. She felt her cheeks flushing pink with cold and the rush of having maybe just uncovered a new puzzle piece regarding Serena's death.

“I know what it's about,” Claire announced.

“Cheating, huh,” Rich repeated, his face drooping with disappointment. “Get in,” he said, leaning across the bench seat and popping the lock on the passenger-side door.

“Isles,” he said as Claire climbed inside. “You have Isles for history, don't you?”

Claire's shoulders collapsed. “Yes. How'd you know?”

“Everyone knows,” Rich said. “At least, all the students do.”

“But—cheating?
Cheating?
” she asked, slamming the door shut beside her.

“Look, Isles just wants out of here,” Rich said. “She was kind of a star when she was a student at Peculiar High. After college, though, the only place she could get work was Peculiar. You know what a blow that was to her ego? Instead of teaching someplace like St. Louis or Kansas City, she's
here
.” He said it—
here
—with his lip raised, to emphasize his disgust. “In some respects, she's no better off than Rhine. We had to give her a small-town favor, too. She's been bumping up her grades ever since she got the job last fall, just so she can transfer.”

“And everyone's okay with that?” Claire asked.

“Not everyone. The faculty doesn't know about it. And as far as the students are concerned, it just
is
. It's not about being okay or not okay. It's kind of like—you know the kid next to you is cheating on his test. Do you rat him out, or do you just leave him alone, figure his business is his business, and take your own test, worry about yourself?”

Claire flinched at his word:
rat.
“I thought a small town was all about knowing everyone else's business,” she muttered.

“Knowing and acting on it are two different things.” He sighed, stuck his key in the ignition.

“But it was on her hand,” Claire insisted.

Rich pulled his fingers from the key, frowned at Claire. “Whose hand?”

“Serena's,” Claire said. “Just before—when I found her, she had it written on the palm of her hand. ‘Cheating,' all caps. Like somehow it was important. But the cat—while I was in the woods, I saw a cat—take a bite . . .” She paused to shake off the revulsion creeping into her gut as she remembered the scene. “The cat destroyed the word, while I was there watching. Sheriff Holman never would have seen that word on her hand.”

Rich leaned back into the bench seat. “She doodled,” he said. “On everything. When we were little, she used to even write words or draw things on her canvas sneakers. Her initials. She doodled those a lot, too.”

“But ‘cheating.' On her hand. The day she went missing. Why?”

“There was a lot of cheating going on in Serena's life, though. Chas, for example. You don't know for sure what that one word referred to.”

“I don't,” Claire agreed. “I wish there were some way to get in her head. If only there was something—even some draft of the story she was working on. About the basement. Anything. The tone of it, the words she used—it might give us some glimpse into what she was thinking about, in those last days of her life.”

“Her laptop, maybe,” Rich mused. “I think I might know where to find it.”

Rich pulled into the drive at the old Sims place and sat in silence as Claire fumbled with the buttons on her coat. “Come on, let's go inside,” he finally said, but the way he took a breath, as though trying to summon the courage to kill the engine and ring the old Sims bell, seemed to indicate he was talking to himself more than Claire. The front door groaned its way open, and Mrs. Sims appeared, her face reflecting the shock she felt to find the two of them on her step. “Rich? It's—nice to see you.” She hugged her ratty brown cardigan around herself, her eyes wide.