Beyond (7 page)

“Waking up in a coffin was bad enough. But now I’m trapped in there with that thing.”

“A corpse with a crush on you,” Lexi says. “Kinky.”

We’re sitting in Shipwrecks Cafe after school, talking nightmares. It’s a little place on the waterfront that used to be a bar where the fishermen went after bringing in their day’s catch. Now it’s been converted into a haven for caffeine junkies, with some fishing decor to show its roots. Like the old photos of the local wrecks, boats that were victims of what they call “The Teeth,” a string of spiky reefs that runs along this stretch of coast, and often takes bites out of boat hulls.

Lexi sips her coffee. “You know, that premature burial stuff isn’t just urban legend. There are cases where coffins have been dug up and they’ve found scratch marks on the lids inside, broken fingernails stuck in the wood, bloody handprints.”

I shudder, sipping my coffee to try to warm up. “And whatever it was, my undead date, its voice was so … strange.”

“Strange how?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t like a deep, dark voice. Sounded kind of … young, almost. I mean, not like a kid. But not grown-up either. Scary and kind of … sad.” I shake my head. “All I know is I never want to hear it again.”

“You need a restraining order for your dreams.”

Sitting here by the windows, we’ve got a rain-blurred view down the street to the stormy waves crashing against the seawall, throwing up showers of white foam.

“Hey, Lexi. Is that your mom?”

Across the street, her mother’s hard to miss in her fire-engine-red raincoat, her short spiky hair dyed platinum blond. She’s sharing an umbrella with a skinny guy in a leather trench coat, his hair buzzed down to black stubble.

“Who’s the guy?” I ask.

Lexi lets out a disgusted grunt. “He works at that tattoo place, Edge Ink. She met him when she went in to have hers changed.”

“Never knew she had a tattoo. Where is it?”

“On her chest. She got it on her honeymoon. It’s a heart broken in half, with a jagged edge. My father has the other half on his chest, with the matching edge so the two pieces fit together. Or he still had it years ago, last time I saw him.”

“Did your mom get hers erased?”

“No. It’s easier to just add on. So where the missing half is she got new orange flames inked in. Like the heart’s on fire. She says it means she’s red hot. And that my dad can go burn in hell.”

We watch as they turn the corner, huddled together under their umbrella.

“The guy’s name is Razor,” she tells me. “He had it changed legally.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-two.” Lexi shudders. “Change the subject, quick. Let’s stop talking about my nightmare and get back to yours.”

I look down at the counter where I’m resting my elbows. It’s actually a wooden railing salvaged from a shipwreck. There are hundreds of initials carved into the old wood, some enclosed in hearts, with equations like
J.C. + B.R. = 4 EVER
. Lexi calls it the love log.

“After your near-death experience, having coffin dreams is pretty understandable. Bringing a date along for the ride is an interesting twist.”

We sip our coffee and watch the rain.

I always tell Lexi my dreams, nightmares and other delusions. She’s great at analyzing them.

She was the one who found the pattern behind my shadow attacks. I’d always thought they just came out of nowhere, for no reason. But Lexi had the idea that there might be something bringing them on. Why did they happen when they did? Why so much time in between? What provoked them?

“Were you sick those times?” she asked me. “Upset about something? Depressed? Fighting with your parents? Think back. What else was going on? What led up to when your shadow turned against you?”

Those memories were still hyperreal, like if I shut
my eyes I’d be right there again. Made me feel panicky revisiting them, until I forced myself to shift the focus to what had happened just before.

I went over the hours and days leading up to the attacks. Different places, different seasons, different moods. Nothing in common that I could see.

I missed the link. But Lexi didn’t.

It was right there in front of me. Just like the log I’m leaning on now, with all these equations adding one person to another. So many hearts and initials carved here.

But never mine. No love math for me. Because that was the link. The hidden pattern.

See, it all started with a valentine. My first crush, in second grade, was Scotty McNab. He sat behind me in class and was always getting me in trouble by making me laugh at the dumb jokes he whispered in my ear. He was a huge Hulk fan—every Halloween he went green—so the day before Valentine’s I decided to make him a card. It was going to have a cutout of a roaring Hulk with a word bubble saying “Be Jane’s valentine or I’ll beat the crap out of you!” I was working on it at the kitchen table when I went looking in the cupboards for some glue.

But I found the drain cleaner instead, and my shadow forced me to drink it. I never sent that card. I turned scared and silent after that, forgot how to laugh at dumb jokes. And my crush got crushed.

My first date was a movie. Pretty tame, since we were only eleven, and there was a group of us. But me
and Charlie Watts sat together and shared popcorn. Held hands in the dark where nobody could see. He made my heart flop around like a fish caught in my chest. I couldn’t stop thinking about him after, and I was going to ask him over to play video games.

But the next day I found that fallen power line, and my shadow forced me to touch it.

Skip ahead to me at thirteen. Getting all hot and heavy with Jake Turner under the bleachers at the start of summer vacation. It was strictly over-the-clothes frisking and fumbling, but enough to get me in a fever.

Later that afternoon, while I was still flushed from Jake’s hands, my shadow froze me up on the train tracks.

Lexi connected all these dots for me, linking my few romantic highlights with the attacks afterward.

“So what are you saying?” I asked. “Every time I really like a guy my shadow sabotages it and tries to kill me?”

“I’m just going by the evidence.”

“But that’s …”

“Nuts?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So tell me then—have you ever gone on a date, held hands, got felt up or whatever and your shadow didn’t attack you?”

I tried to think, wanting to prove her wrong. Searching for any kind of romantic moment that hadn’t ended badly for me. I came up blank.

“But what does it mean?” I finally asked.

“Maybe you’ve got a jealous shadow. It doesn’t want
to share you with anybody. Wants to keep you for itself. And if you cheat on it—watch out. Sounds crazy, but it explains a lot.”

Even after she pointed out the link, I wasn’t convinced. The idea of me having a possessive shadow was plain insane.

The evidence was there, but was it really a pattern, or just paranoia? Or even coincidence?

I was never sure. Not until this last time, when my heart stopped and I flatlined.

Dying made a believer out of me.

The day I died the sun was shining and the sky was blue as a dream. After a week of wild storms that threatened to drown the town, with winds stripping the shingles off our roof, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen all the way to the horizon.

It was a lazy Sunday October afternoon, and I dragged a lawn chair out so I could catch some of those rare autumn rays in the backyard. It was just warm enough for me to get away with wearing my bikini.

Dad was up on the roof trying to repair the damage before the next storm blew in. The quiet was broken by the
bang bang bang
of him nailing in new shingles.

I was deep into reading a thick and juicy romance novel of tropical lust shipwrecked on a deserted island. But my mind kept drifting away.

So I just lay there with my eyes closed, soaking up the sun, reliving a little forbidden thrill I’d had the day before, when I was over at the Blushing Rose.

*  *  *

I was watching the shop by myself while Mom dropped off some funeral wreaths.

The sound system was driving me nuts. Mom always plays this soft classical crap. She says it makes a soothing and nurturing atmosphere for the plants. It was soothing me into a coma. So I switched to the radio and found the throbbing beat of dance-club music.

With that cranked up loud, I got to work spritzing the plants around the shop. The air shuddered with the deep bass, vibrating my eardrums and the thousands of leaves, fronds and flowers around me. Felt like being inside some giant green beating heart.

Dancing and misting my way down the aisles, I was spraying the ferns when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t alone.

I froze midspritz.

There he stood. Ryan. My secret sex god. Smiling at me.

Deafened by the music, I gave him a little wave. He waved back. Then I ran behind the counter and cut the noise.

“Sorry,” I said into the sudden quiet. “Been kind of a slow day.”

“Don’t stop the party for me.”

I could feel a blush heating my cheeks. “I’ve probably traumatized the tulips now. Shocked the lilies.”

“Plants like a little rhythm. Gets the sap pumping.”

I had to break away from his blue-green eyes. So I focused on the computer like I was checking something.

“So what can I do for you?”

Or do to you? Or can I just do you?

“Delivery,” he said. “The truck’s out back. I was beating on the door, but you had your own beat going on in here.”

“Right, delivery. Come on in back. I’ll open up for you.”

I’ll open up for you? I turned away quickly so he couldn’t see my new blush.

He got busy unloading the shipment and I distracted myself making room in the cooler for the new order. Ryan had me sign off on the invoice.

“How did you get that?” he asked, pointing at the scratch across the back of my hand.

“Got in a fight with a cactus today.”

“Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

I watched from the door as he disappeared into the back of the truck. When he jumped down, he was holding a potted plant with long, thick pointy leaves. “For you. Aloe vera.”

“Why?”

Setting the pot down on a table, Ryan broke off one of the leaves where it was thickest. “Let’s try this. Give me your hand.” When I gave him a doubtful glance instead, he smiled. “Trust me.”

I held out my wounded hand, and he took it. He squeezed the leaf with his free hand till it bled a few drops of clear liquid that dripped slow as honey onto my cut. Then he dropped the leaf and used his thumb to gently smooth the gel into my scratch.

“Old-school healing,” Ryan told me. “Thousands of years old.”

“You a witch doctor now?” I teased, trying to cover my full-body blush and racing heart.

Up close I could smell the green on him, a dizzying mix of all the plants, herbs and flowers he handled.

“In some parts of Asia they call aloe the crocodile’s tongue, for the shape of its leaves.”

“Really?” Could he feel my speeding pulse with his palm against mine?

“You wouldn’t want a crocodile licking you, though. Their mouths are infested with parasites and bacteria. And their saliva …” He trailed off. “I’m kind of killing the mood, aren’t I?”

We shared a nervous laugh. I could’ve listened to him talk about reptile spit all day.

“Keep going,” I said, meaning the aloe rubdown. Meaning whatever.

“Well, if their bite doesn’t kill you, all those nasty critters in their saliva will. It’s because of the croc’s bad dental hygiene, which makes their mouths breeding grounds for all kinds of germs and diseases—” He broke off and let me have my hand back. “I’m going to shut up before I make you nauseous. Anyway, I gotta go. More deliveries down the coast.”

I followed him to the back door. “Am I healed?”

“Your witch doctor prescribes a few drops twice a day.”

As he was getting in the truck I called, “Thanks for the tongue.”

He gave me a wave. “Any time.”

*  *  *

“He said that? Any time?” Lexi asked, when I replayed the whole thing to her over the phone that night.

“Yeah. What do you think he meant?”

“He meant any time, anywhere, anything.”

That was what I was hoping, what I was scared of.

“I wish, but I can’t. You know what’ll happen to me if I get hot and heavy with him.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re scared it might set off your psycho shadow. But look, you flirted, you touched, he gave you a rubdown—and nothing bad happened, right?”

“But if I try anything, what if it brings on another attack? You were there last time, with the train. You saw.”

“That was like four years ago. And I really don’t know what I saw. Maybe it was some weird hallucination we shared. Who knows? But it’s been a long time, and that thing never came back. Whatever it was. The whole jealous-shadow theory was my stupid idea.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve been a total nun. You can’t live in fear forever. Go for it.”

Lexi’s advice, Ryan’s touch and my own feelings came together as I was lying in the sun in the backyard that October day. I knew what I had to do.