Ashes to Ashes (27 page)

Kat looks up at me and smiles.

And then the bedroom door starts to quiver and shake, like someone on the inside is trying to rip it off the hinges. Shep lunges forward, teeth bared, fur standing up on end.

“Oh my God!”

“Come on!”

Each door we pass starts to do the same, as if there is a spirit behind each one. Or maybe Mary's just everywhere.

Kat goes down the stairs, and I follow after her, shaking salt on each one. Kat has one of the books open in her hand, and she starts to chant. But I can barely hear what she's saying. Shep's barking like crazy now, deep and throaty, as if he were a pit bull. The doors upstairs sound like they're going to break open any second.

The temperature is even colder than before, like it's the dead of winter. Our breaths come out in little white clouds.

Kat takes out her Oberlin acceptance letter. “Give me your thing!” she screams. I fish the necklace out of my pocket and drop it into her hand.

I watch as tiny cracks begin to break along the walls. They're like spiderwebs. Pieces of plaster chip and fall onto the floor. Mary's in the walls, in the ceiling. The floorboards start to buckle up and snap one by one, like toothpicks.

Kat lights the corner of her letter on fire with her Zippo, and the whole thing goes up in a flash.

I swear I see someone streak past me, from the living room to the kitchen. Shep breaks free from Kat's hand on his leash. “Shep! Shep!”

Kat lunges to grab his leash, but it slips through her hands. He only gets a few feet away from us before the floor splinters violently. A board snaps in half and slices him straight through his belly like a wooden sword. He makes a sickening cry, and the sound goes right through me.

Oh no. No. Kat falls to her knees and lets out a moan. She picks him up in her arms and sobs. “Sheppy. Sheppy, I'm so sorry.”

I go to her. Tears blind my eyes. “Kat, we have to go.”

She's crying too hard to get up. Her sobs rack her body; they fill the whole house. They're all I hear. I pull on her arm. “Kat, please,” I cry. “We have to go.” She lets me pull her up. We pick Shep's body up together and then we run for the door.

Kat has my necklace dangling in her hand. I grab it, hang it on the front doorknob, and pull the door closed.

And just like that, it's quiet.

We run as fast as we can to Kat's car. We put Shep in the backseat, and Kat sits back there with him, her head bent close to his, tears falling onto his coat. She has blood on her shirt, blood on her arms. So do I.

I get into the driver's seat and gun it out of the driveway. I look up, and I see Mary in the window, expressionless, sedate. Trapped.

F
OR THE NEXT TWO DAYS
I post up at Reeve's house, just to make sure Mary doesn't figure out a way to come and get him. Also, it's easier to sleep here than at my house, where Shep would have been trying to climb into my bed with me all night. He might've been as old as hell, but he died like a champ, protecting me. My poor puppy.

I take out my Shep grief on Reeve and basically order him around like crazy. His room is disgusting. I make him throw out the booze, take a shower. The essentials. That first night after Mary's bound to her house, he sleeps like a baby. An overgrown
snoring baby. The stuff at school eases up on him too. He catches as break when two juniors get stoned during lunch and then go swimming in the fountain nude, and that becomes the thing everyone talks about.

Reeve's mom has tears in her eyes when she thanks me for looking out for her Reevie. God. I almost tear up too, been super emo ever since Shep died. I had to make up some shit to Pat and my dad about him running in front of a car on the road.

I do drive past Mary's house once, to make sure the spell worked. As soon as my car pulls along the curb, she runs up to the window in her bedroom and puts her palms up to the glass. It scares the shit out of me, and I burn rubber the hell out of there.

The hardest part for me, really, is to go back to normal life, to pretending I don't know what I now know to be true. I go over every minute in my mind of the time since I met Mary, looking for clues. There are plenty, and the books help me understand why people could see her on Halloween, but I still don't know if I'd ever have figured it out on my own. And since that's the case, the only thing to do, really, is to try to forget.

Lil and I basically have a new unspoken pact. We haven't talked about Mary once since that night. It's easier that way.

At school Lil asks me if I've bought a dress for prom yet, and
I tell her I already have something, and she gives me this dubious look. “Send me a pic,” she says.

So when I get back home, I put on the one semi-fancy dress I own, a black strapless bandage dress. I look like a hooker. Why didn't I realize I looked like a hooker when I bought it a year ago?

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just wear black pants and a button-down and a bow tie, and go for an androgynous formal look. I'm pretty sure I've seen the more edgy actresses wearing tuxedos at awards shows.

But I just end up looking like a waiter. So I put the dress back on and figure I'll wear a blazer on top of it.

I text Lillia a selfie, and she writes back,
UM NO. Come over right now.
I tell her thanks but no thanks, but damn, that girl can be persuasive when she wants to be.

So that's why I'm sitting on Lil's bed in my bra and leggings, tearing up my nails while she's taking her sweet time sifting through her ginormous closet. From inside, Lillia calls out, “Close your eyes, Kat. I'm going to present you with two different but equally striking options. Whichever one you gravitate toward first will be the right one. Just follow your gut.”

I roll my eyes. “Lil, it ain't that deep.” Lillia steps out of the closet holding up two dresses. One is a floor-length teal silk halter dress that drapes in the front and dips low in the back; the other is a corseted canary-yellow cocktail dress that nips in
at the waist and hits right above the knee. I let out a low whistle. “Holy shit. Why do you have such fancy stuff?”

“This one was for a black-tie wedding of a family friend, and, um . . . this other one I just had.”

I reach for the long one. It still has tags on it. Six hundred and ninety-five dollars from some store called C'est La! Holy shit. “I can't wear this. It's too expensive. I'll be scared of spilling something on it. Give me the other one.”

“The yellow one was even more expensive,” Lillia says.

“Well, I don't want to wear this one if you haven't.”

She shoos my hand away. “Don't worry about that. Which one do you like better?”

“I don't know!” I feel suddenly insecure—what if I look like I'm trying to be something I'm not?

Lil holds the teal dress up to my face, then the yellow. “You'd be a knockout in either . . . but the teal one brings out your eyes, and it's more grown-up. I think you should wear that one. Try it on.”

I slip it on over my bra and leggings, and Lillia helps me with the zipper. She ties the halter neck into a bow, and the ends float down my back like streamers.

I stand in front of the full-length mirror, and Lillia and I stare at my reflection. “It's perfect,” she breathes. She pulls my hair up and away from my face. “You should wear your hair up. It might not be too late to get a hair appointment at Cut. You'll
probably get stuck with a super-early time, but that's better than nothing. I have the perfect shoes for this dress too. Suede, crisscross with a hidden platform.” She pulls her hair into a ponytail. “What size shoe do you wear again?”

“Eight.”

“Darn. Why are your feet so big?”

I glare at her, and she giggles. Then she screams, “Mommy! I need your help!”

Mrs. Cho appears in Lillia's doorway a minute later. Breathless, she says, “Lilli, you scared me half to death. Don't scream like that—” Then she notices me standing by the mirror, and her face lights up. “Oh, Kat! You look gorgeous!”

“She's wearing it to prom,” Lil tells her.

Confused, Mrs. Cho says, “I thought you—”

“Can she borrow a pair of your shoes, Mommy?”

I break in. “Wait. Mrs. Cho, I don't need—”

“I've got the exact right pair,” Mrs. Cho says, nodding to herself. She disappears into the hallway and comes back with a red shoe box. Valentino. Shit.

They're gunmetal gray, studded, with a pointy toe. Rocker chic. Brand-new. I'm pretty sure these shoes are worth more than my car. They're freaking gorgeous.

Lillia pouts when she sees them. “I'd die for those shoes. God, I wish I had big feet like you guys.”

At the same time Mrs. Cho and I say, “Size eight isn't big!”

I strap my feet in. Suddenly I'm four inches taller, and the dress even hangs on me differently. “What if I mess them up? Mrs. Cho, do you have a cheaper pair of shoes I could borrow? Like, Aldo or Nine West?”

Mrs. Cho smiles at me. “Honey, you were made to wear these shoes with that dress. No arguments.”

When she leaves to go get me a clutch, Lil says, “Just promise me you won't smoke in my dress.”

“I won't. I've been really good lately.”

Lillia gives me a look like she doesn't believe me. “Smoking gives you wrinkles around your mouth, did you know that? Plus, and I'm sorry to say this, but it makes your clothes stink.”

I groan. “Stop with the lectures, Lillia!”

As prim as can be, she says, “Fine, but please just don't smoke in my dress, that's all I ask.”

I roll my eyes.

We're going back and forth over how to do my hair and what color lipstick, when I notice Nadia standing outside Lillia's door with her arms crossed. Reminds me of when she was a kid and she would spy on Lil and Rennie and me. Our eyes meet. She says, “That color lipstick isn't right for her. It's too bright. It should be darker. Richer. More like burgundy.”

Surprised, Lillia says, “I don't know if I have anything that dark.”

“I do,” Nadia says with a begrudging sigh.

I wink at her. “Thanks, beotch.”

She gives me a tiny smile back and disappears to find the lipstick. Lil falls back onto her bed and says, “I'm sad that high school's almost over. It feels like you and I just found each other again but we already have to say good-bye.”

“Lil, we have the whole summer! Let's just make it amazing, all right?” Lil nods a teary kind of nod. I go sit next to her on the bed, and in an instant we're hugging and crying. Over Rennie, over Mary, over everything.

“M
OVE CLOSER TOGETHER, YOU TWO,”
Celeste urges as Alex's dad snaps away with his fancy Leica camera. She's at his side, directing every shot. We're outside by our pool, and my parents are sitting on a chaise, drinking champagne and smiling at us fondly.

We've already done shots with us by ourselves, with our parents, with each other's parents, pretty much every combo you can think of, all at Celeste's behest. The way Celeste is acting, you'd think this was our wedding day. She had Alex's dad take like fifty shots of Alex putting on my wrist corsage. It's a calla lily. Just like his boutonniere.

I've got on the white Hermès bracelet Alex gave me. I showed it to him as soon as I walked in the door. He started to compliment my dress, but I kept holding up the bracelet in front of his face and saying, “Isn't it so cute?” which made him laugh.

I do love my dress, though. It could be a wedding gown, if it was white. I borrowed it from my mom—it's mint-green silk chiffon with a keyhole in the pleated front. The straps are twisted into ropes, and the back is completely open. My mom bought me a crystal belt to wear with it. My hair is up, away from my face in soft waves. I couldn't have worn the dress I bought with Reeve. It wouldn't have felt right. That was a dress for another girl, another night. I doubt I'll ever wear it. I should just tell Kat she can keep it.

Alex's arm tightens around my waist. He looks more handsome than I've ever seen him. His hair is freshly cut, and his tux looks like it was made for him. Which, knowing Celeste, it probably was. Her philosophy is that every man should have a custom-made tux.

“Lillia, find your light,” she calls out. My mom and I exchange a look. I swear, just because Celeste watches reality shows about modeling and photography, she thinks she's an expert. My mom's the one who actually used to be a model!

Through my smile I whisper to Alex, “Can you say something? We're going to miss the whole prom if we don't get out of here. Which would be weird, since it's at your house!” Thank God Celeste is spending the evening here, instead of chaperoning the prom. I can only imagine how she'd follow Alex around all night. I hold back a giggle. She'd probably want to slow-dance with him.

Alex nods, drops his arm, and says, “I think we've got enough pictures, Mom.”

“But we didn't get one with just you and Nadia.” She pouts.

Nadia's long gone, back up to her room. She posed for a few shots and then got bored.

“Mom,” Alex protests.

“Just go get her,” I say with a sigh. “And then we'll go.”

Alex bounds off, and Celeste comes over and puts her arm around me. “I get so happy thinking about the possibility of you and Alex in Boston together,” she says. “Your mom and I can do a girls' weekend and visit you guys every—”

“What do you mean? Isn't Alex going to USC?” I saw the acceptance letter on his desk last week.

She shakes her head. With a knowing smile she says, “You never know!”

My cheeks flush. Alex could be in Boston with me. I am
flooded with memories of our great weekend there together, when we almost kissed. I don't want to assume he'd be going for me, obviously, because we're just friends. The one thing I do know is that Alex giving up his dream is the last thing I want.