Buried (5 page)

“But I can help.”

“I'll figure it out on my own. And you're going to be late if you don't leave now.”

“Fine,” he says, and by his tone I can tell I've pushed too far. He slams the door on his way out without saying good-bye.

I'm glad he's gone. I rub my fingers over the curved heart pendant … or I guess I should call it a locket. Does that imply something is “locked” inside? A precious memento of undying love, like a dried rose petal or tiny photo? Or more likely, K.C. is wrong and it isn't hollow.

But I can't stop wondering, so I snap on the light over my desk. I hold the locket under the bright yellow bulb, twisting it at different angles until I see a faint indentation. My finger slides over the groove and I dig my purple-tipped nail inside, jabbing and twisting until I hear a click.

The locket splits into two halves and swings open.

I stare in astonishment as a silky black curl falls into my hand. I hear a plaintive cry that sounds as far away as a moment lost in time. I think of the sarcophagus and death closing in. My chest tightens with horror.

And I know with certainty this curl was cut from a dead body.

S
i
x

I
return the curl to the locket, but the soft touch of the fine hair lingers on my fingertips like a ghost impression. Who did it belong to? What happened? A tragedy, I'm sure of that, although that flash of connection is already fading like waking up from a bad dream. Still, the certainty of death is so strong that my heart is haunted by half-remembered grief. I have to know more.

I phone the one person who might be able to tell me.

Sabine answers right away.

“Thorn!” she exclaims before I even utter a word. Her voice is so sincere and warm that I ache for my life in California, and the friends I left behind even more.

“How did you know it was me?” I ask. “A psychic vision?”

“Caller ID.” Sabine laughs.

I want to laugh with her but I'm staring down at the locket. Suddenly, I'm reluctant to talk about it, which makes no sense. Sabine will totally understand. She comes from a long line of psychics and has been seeing ghosts since she was a little girl. Her predictions are scary accurate. If this locket is haunted, she'll know.

“Thorn, are you still there?”

“Yeah. It's just … ”

“Are you okay? I'm getting a strange vibe, like you want to ask me something but there's a wall between us. And you're holding something that glows like a golden egg, only it's dangerous like a grenade. Does any of this make sense to you?”

“Yeah.” I glare down at the locket and think,
You have no control over me!
“Sabine, I've been having strange feelings and visions since I found a locket. It's messing with my thoughts and freaking me out.”

“I've heard of things like this happening with old jewelry. Nona says antique jewelry can hold onto energy from its previous owners. Remember all the trouble I had with that antique witch ball?”

“Yeah—but this locket isn't very old or possessed by an evil spirit. It's cheap and tacky, with a shoelace instead of
a chain.”

“Hmmm … there's weird energy around you.”

I swallow. “A … a ghost?”

“Not exactly, but something supernatural. I can feel it.”

“You can? Even when we're like two hundred miles apart?”

“Psychic vibes are sort of like phone lines. We don't have to be physically together for our energy to connect,” Sabine says. “Tell me more about the necklace.”

“I found it on the stage in the auditorium,” I begin, then explain how there had been chaos on stage because of Philippe's sudden visit and I have no idea who lost the locket.

“The
Philippe?”
Sabine gives a fan-girl squeal. “As in super-star rocker?”

“Down, girl,” I tease. “He was here, but I didn't see him so I can't tell you much except someone on the stage with him lost the locket. And when I opened it, I found … ”

“What?” she asks after I hesitate.

“A curl of soft black hair.”

“I just got shivers up my arms,” Sabine says.

“It gave me the creeps, too. I'm sure it was cut from someone who was dead,” I add grimly. “I don't know why I'm so certain of this, but I know it's true.”

“You're psychic, Thorn, that's why you know.”

“Stop already. I just find things—like this damned locket. You're the one who sees ghosts and talks to your spirit guide. Can you see anything now about the locket and curl?”

“I'm closing my eyes and concentrating … this may take a minute.” The phone goes silent and all I hear is my own quick-thumping heart. When Sabine comes back on, her voice is whispery. “I can't see anything, but I smell damp dirt.”

“Like a grave?” I guess, shivers rippling down my arms, too.

“Maybe. I'll try contacting my spirit guide. It takes some concentration—for an entity over three hundred years old, Opal can be stubborn. But she knows a lot.”

In the subsequent silence, I visualize Sabine in her attic bedroom with its homespun lavender décor … the quilt on the bed and the stained glass window. Whenever Sabine is thinking, she twirls the black streak in her blond hair that she says is the mark of a Seer. I twist my hair, too, hoping she'll come up with answers so I can free myself of this strange obsession with the locket.

“My spirit guide wasn't much help,” she finally says with a sigh. “Opal says confusing things that are hard to understand. I'll try to repeat it, although it doesn't make sense. She said, ‘A broken melody bleeds betrayal. Long-buried truths will be uncovered when the Finder follows the map.'”

“What map?”

“All Opal would tell me is that the map rides a paper saddle.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Exactly. Way confusing.” Sabine sighs. “When I asked Opal to translate it into English, she got all huffy and left. I'm sure she meant you when she said ‘the Finder.' Maybe her words will mean something to you later.”

“Maybe,” I say, disappointed.

Sabine asks about my family, and I'm glad to change the subject so I catch her up on Mom's job, my siblings, and K.C. When she asks about school, I share some of Rune's
Weird News
stories like space debris splashing into a wedding cake, and a twenty-foot-tall cornstalk.

I purposely avoid talking about the Grin Reaper.

Sabine fills me in on our mutual friend, Penny-Love, who is always at the center of some romantic drama. Her latest drama involves three new boyfriends who don't know about each other.

“What about
your
boyfriend?” I ask Sabine.

“Dominic is great.” Her voice softens. “His farrier business is keeping him super busy.”

“Too busy for you?”

“Never. We schedule a date night at least once a week.”

“I'm glad. You two are like the perfect couple,” I say enviously. I wonder what it would feel like to love someone so much—and have him love me back.

When we hang up, I'm empty and aching inside. I miss Sabine and my old life, but it's deeper than that. I have a sense of foreboding, like a dark wind is sweeping me toward the edge of a steep cliff and I may not survive the fall.

The locket taunts me. I have no idea what map to follow. How am I supposed to know what that means? The closest thing to a map in my room is a basketball-sized globe on my desk. I flick a finger at the globe and watch it spin. My vision blurs as I wait for magic to happen. But nothing does.

I cross over to my trash can and dangle the locket, tempted to toss it away forever.

But once again, I can't.

I try to push the locket out of my mind. I open a book that Rune loaned me,
Candle Burning Rituals: Spells for Every Purpose
.
I can't find any spells for dealing with haunted lockets, so I perform a basic spell warding off dark spirits. I gather red votive candles, an athame (sharp pin), smooth rocks, anointing oil, and herbs. I arrange them on an altar (end table), then anoint the candles with oil. I sprinkle the herbs at the base of the candles, then set the stones facing south to increase energy. I murmur words that I don't understand, but which sound very mysterious, as I use the athame to carve words of protection into the candles.

When I finish, I blow out the candles and close the spell book.

Doors bang. Voices rise from downstairs. Mom is back from church.

But Mom doesn't come to my room.
What's going on?
Are my parents waiting till after dinner to confront me about the letter? I mentally rehearse my defense, pointing out that it's unfair to punish me because of one bitchy person. My grades (except for History) aren't
that
bad. And no one has the right to criticize my friends.

All through dinner, I'm on my best behavior. I say “please” and “thank you,” even to the twins who just grab what they want, even if it's on my plate. And when my youngest sister Meg spills milk in my mashed potatoes, I don't slap her.

I wait and wait, wondering when the accusations will come.

Only they never do.

That night I'm tormented by uneasy dreams, in which squiggly lines curve and shape into roads that lead nowhere and I'm lost in a nightmare fog of despair. The next morning, I take a look in the mirror and groan at the dark circles under my eyes. I won't need much makeup to look like a ghoul today.

I glance over at my wig shelf, debating which one to wear. I'd dye my hair like most goths except for my weird allergy to hair dye. My natural hair is a drab dark-blond and makes me look like I'm twelve instead of seventeen, so wigs aren't a choice but a necessity. I choose a spiked, devil-red one.

Next comes my three-step routine:

Step 1: I smooth on a pale ivory foundation, around my face and down my neck. Instead of concealing my black circles, I exaggerate them, smearing on velvet-black eye shadow for hollow “dead” look. Then I slash a bruise of blood-red blush down my cheek. Black eye-pencil darkens my blond brows. And my lips bleed red gloss inside a dark outline of midnight black.

Step 2: I choose jewelry, putting studs in my eyebrows and multipierced ears. Metal chains go around my neck, beaded bracelets dangle on my wrists, and rings glimmer on my fingers. I add an ankle bracelet that looks like prison leg-cuffs. Very cool find for just $3.25 at a yard sale.

Step 3: Clothes always take longer, since I have a large wardrobe closet crammed with skirts, blouses, vests, jackets, belts, tights, corsets, leggings, and scarves. Then there are the shoes. Getting the right look is a fine art. I belt my favorite black velvet skirt and a laced black shirt, and wear a large red cross over my breasts.

I feel like myself … on the outside, anyway.

At breakfast, I avoid squabbling with my sibs and pretend not to notice my father's frown when he sees me. Dad doesn't complain, at least not anymore. But he doesn't approve, either. Mom is cool, even going thrift-store shopping with me a few times. The wig I'm wearing was her gift for my seventeenth birthday.

But that was long before the letter.

And still they don't mention it to me.

I've avoided conflict at home, but not at school.

When I walk into homeroom, my science teacher Mr. O'Brien hands me a note—a summons to the principal's office.

No reason to stress
, I tell myself. It's not the first time I've gone to a principal's office—although it's the first time at Nevada Bluff High.

Principal Niphai is a soft-spoken man who wears a colorful golf shirt and collects assorted golf balls on his desk in a dish, the way some teachers keep candy. He barely glances up at me, one hand tossing a blue-striped golf ball while he flips through papers with the other.

“Mr. Sproat says you cut his class yesterday.”

“Not the whole period,” I reply, trying to keep the sarcasm to a low minimum. Despite what some people think, I don't intentionally piss off authority figures—unless they deserve it.

“But you did leave and not return?”

“Um … yeah.”

“Do you want to tell me why?”

“Not really.”

“So you have no excuse?”

“Not really.”

“
That makes this easy.” He marks something off on a paper, his tone not really interested. “Detention. Today after school.”

I hustle back to my class, relieved to escape without expulsion or a phone call to my parents.

“Bummer,” Rune says when I tell her about my detention at lunch. We're back to our usual place on the steps behind the cafeteria. It's shady and private, but kind of stinky because of the nearby Dumpster.

“Detention isn't that bad.”

“But you won't be able to walk home with me,” Rune complains.

“Unless you want detention, too. I can help you break some rules,” I offer, because she's my best friend and I'm willing to help her out.

“Not a chance!” Rune opens her bag lunch, then glances up. “K.C. can walk home with me,” she says as he heads toward us.

“Where's Amerie?” K.C. asks. He sits on the stair step below me.

“Singing Star contest,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Good news, though—they reached the max number of entrants, so registration is closed and Amerie won't nag us to enter anymore.”

“Supreme news!” Rune high-fives me. “I'm over Philippe anyway. Sure, he's hot, but his music is lame. Enough idiots around here act gaga over Philippe. I'd rather meet the Grin Reaper.”

I glance down at my ham and Swiss sandwich, ignoring the look Rune gives me. She doesn't have to say it, but I can tell she still expects me to listen to the voice of every guy at school until I can identity the Grin Reaper for her. So I change the subject. “Hey, Rune, what's the weird fact for today?”

“A museum in Houston paid people twenty-five cents each to bring in cockroaches.”

“Cool,” K.C. mumbles, chewing an apple slice.

“That's just stupid,” I say.

“But strangely true.” Rune grins. “The museum plans to exhibit cockroaches feeding off decaying organic matter. If they weren't around, there would be more trash.”

“Makes sense,” K.C. says as he crumples a baggie. “But the museum people wasted a lot of money buying bugs that people would give them for free.”

“Roaches are disgusting,” I say.

“Vampires would love them.” Rune spikes a cherry tomato from her salad with a plastic fork.

“How can you say that? Vampires are not carnivores,” I remind her. “We've already argued that topic to death. They don't eat meat.”

“But they drink blood—which drips from fresh meat.” Rune puts down her fork. “Besides, I didn't say a vampire would eat a cockroach. Roaches have no blood vessels, so blood sloshes freely in their bodies. A vampire could stick in a straw and drink up.”