Dust to Dust (15 page)

This gold band feels more real to me than the words being spoken. More powerful than the “Amens” echoing around me as the service proceeds. Stronger than the voices of the choir that sing the hymns to uplift us all.

I feel guilty, believing in this token more than I do the religion I was brought up with, especially when I look over at my father and I see that his face is changing as the pastor speaks. Where the lines were hard and angles were square, they are softened and eased in this moment. Almost like someone is taking a hurt that is deep inside of him and drawing it out. Almost like something is
healing
him.

Turning back to the stained glass at the front of the church, I exhale. Maybe the specifics of religion don't matter. Maybe it's the feeling, that comfort, that sense of peace, that is true. Because that was a goal of the Prism, too.

When the service lets out, Dad and I are standing on the steps and talking to other parishioners and well-wishers when I see Carson
shouting and waving at me from across the parking lot.

“Hey! Callie!”

When I look back at my dad, he's grinning. “Go ahead,” he says, ushering me away from the people around us.

“Really?”

“Really. You've done your time this week. But be home for dinner.”

I give him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek before bounding off to Carson's VW.

When I get into the warm car and almost burn my legs on the vinyl seats, I smile at the sensation. It's a Sunday in the sun and I'm here in Carson's car and she's turning the radio up and putting the top down and saying, “Let's do something fun today! Celebrate freedom and all that.”

This morning while I ran around getting ready for church, I called Carson to tell her that Wendy gave me the ring. She's pretty confident that Reena and Leo won't be visiting us again, and while I feel very secure having it with me, I'm a little less inclined to believe that the poltergeists will just give up. Not when they have so much to lose.

I want to be cautious, like Thatcher would be. I want to be alert and mindful about everything around me. But doing “something fun” and being free is all I longed for when I was in the Prism—I wanted my life back, and now I have it. When I close my eyes and feel the wind rush over my face, my heart is torn.

Why can't I have all of this
life
and Thatcher, too?

My phone buzzes with a text and Carson leans over to look at the screen.

“Oh cool,” says Carson. “Let's go!”

I've been to a dozen picnics on the upper Wando—there's a perfect little beach with a small dock you can swim out to. Still my heart jumps into my throat. Not because this is the first time that Nick has reached out to me in a few days, but because Thatcher took his dying breath in that water.

Carson turns left toward our neighborhood. “I'll stop to get our bathing suits.” When she pulls up to my house, she says, “Why are you being so weird? We have the ring. If something happens, we'll use it, okay? Run in and change. I'll meet you in my driveway in ten minutes. Oh, and can you bring that good face sunscreen you have?”

“Carson, I don't know if we can go,” I say.

“Of course we can.”

When I don't move or respond, she places her hand on my arm. “Is this about Nick? Do you not want to see him right now? I know things are weird, but maybe facing him and talking it out is what you both need, you know?”

“It's not that.” I look into her eyes and bite my lip. “The upper Wando is where Thatcher died. He drowned there.”

Carson's mouth falls open in shock and she stares back at me
for a moment. But then, to my surprise, her eyes light up and she smiles.

“Callie, this is
it
,” she says.

“What?”

“I saw something about this on
Hallowed Hauntings
last year—the death spot is a very powerful place. If you want to really connect with Thatcher, that's where it would be most likely to happen! It's the perfect place to try the ring and see if it's as strong as we think it is.”

My pulse quickens. She's right. I know that the location where someone died holds a lot of energy. I feel the weight of the ring between my fingers. “I don't know . . . Thatcher said not to use it unless there was an emergency. And the poltergeists haven't tried anything since that day in the car.”

“But you should test it, right? What if you're in a bad situation? It's good to be sure first.”

I nod. What she's saying makes sense but . . .

Carson narrows her eyes at me. “Do it for me, okay, Cal? I know I've been acting all brave and everything, but that stoplight thing really freaked me out. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. The idea of something bad happening to you again, even knowing what I know about the other side, I just . . . please. Make sure the ring can protect you.”

I reach over and hug her tightly, silently asking Thatcher to forgive me in my mind. “All right. I'll do it.”

At the picnic spot, Nick throws a Frisbee back to Eli and jogs over to meet us. “Hey,” he says, knocking me on the arm awkwardly.

I look up at him and force a smile. “Hey.”

We spread out our towels on the sand and Carson rifles through the cooler that she packed with cold cuts and a pitcher of homemade lemonade that Eli will undoubtedly spike later. “Who wants a sandwich?” she shouts.

All the guys, plus Jessica Furlow and Gina O'Neill—girls we've been hanging out with since preschool, but in a peripheral way—raise their hands and Carson starts getting out the bread and spreading mayonnaise across each piece.

There are four of Nick's soccer teammates here, and six girls total, including Holly Whitman, whom I notice is wearing a really cute retro bikini.

Nick nudges me over on my towel and I let him sit. He brushes his hair out of his eyes and I notice the extra freckles that have formed on his cheeks since I last saw him. He's obviously been spending some time in the sun, and I instinctively glance again at Holly, checking to see if she has a burn or anything else that might connect them together. It's a little petty of me, given that I've been avoiding Nick for the last few days, but I can't help myself.

Even though we're drifting apart, it's still weird to think of him with anyone else.

“It's good to see you,” he says, bumping my leg. “Sorry I've been kind of MIA.”

“Me, too,” I say, remembering the first time Nick and I touched
years ago. It was electric then, sparks flying. But now it feels like sweetness, like friendship.

It's hard to admit, but something inside me just aches over it.

Eli trots over, and I'm thankful for the distraction. “Hey, Callie,” he says, reaching for the cup of lemonade Carson is pouring. “Good to see you out.”

“Thanks.” My voice is hesitant, because did Eli Winston just make a sincere statement that wasn't followed by a joke or an insult?

He turns and jogs back to the Frisbee game.

“That was unexpected,” I say.

Nick nods. “Eli's misunderstood. He's not a bad guy, you know. He just isn't as in touch with his feelings as, say, I am.”

He stretches out his leg and it knocks over my canvas tote, sending Thatcher's ring tumbling out onto the sand. I snatch it up before Nick notices and hold it tightly in my hand.

“My bad.” Nick stands my bag upright again. He didn't see the ring.

“It's okay.” I finger the smooth gold edges. What would I have done if I lost it in the sand? My chest tightens when I allow my mind to consider it. Then a pang of guilt creeps up on me. I'm sitting here with Nick, holding on to a piece of someone else—no, someone dead—wishing for the impossible.

“Callie?”

“What?” I look up at Nick, and it's clear that he was saying something to me. Something I didn't catch because I was lost in my thoughts.

His eyes look wounded. “I thought a little time apart might
help. But I was wrong, wasn't I?”

“Nick!” It's Holly, her voice high and playful. “You promised you'd show me how to throw better.”

I drop my sunglasses down over my eyes and pretend like he didn't just ask me that question. “Go ahead,” I say. And I mean it. He shouldn't be sitting with me.

“You sure?” he says, a little surprised.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I say gently. “Go help Holly with her Frisbee toss.”

“Do you want to play, too?” he asks. It's kind of him to try to include me. He didn't have to ask me to this picnic. He admitted he was trying to give us some space. It's just in his nature to care, and I'd never want to take advantage of that.

And yet I am a little.

“Nah,” I say. “My skills are too advanced for this crowd.”

Nick lets out a guffaw that's almost insulting and then he leans toward Carson. “Save me a sandwich.”

“If you're lucky,” she says.

After he goes back to Frisbee, she whispers, “What was that?”

“Eavesdropper.”

“Obviously. I'm right here!”

“I don't know,” I say. “I think we're kind of letting go. Or becoming friends. Or something.”

Carson sighs as she places a circle of bologna onto the bread in front of her. “You guys are like the sitcom couple who are best friends and everyone kind of wants to be together, but then there's a handsome, mysterious stranger who comes in season two and then
everyone wants the girl to be with him.”

I swat her arm. “Um, thanks for reducing my life to a bad sitcom, Cars.”

“You're right. Not a sitcom. Totally an hour-long paranormal drama with a few funny parts. And your show won't make it to season two if you don't test out that ring and make sure we're safe.” She smiles at me. “Now's your chance.”

“I will; I just need a minute.”

I sit back and fold my knees under my arms as I gaze out over the water. It's a sunny day, the sky is clear and blue, and the trees are the vibrant green of summer, hanging into the river's soft, marshy edge. I hear my friends' laughter across the beach, but suddenly they all sound very far away.

When a cloud covers the sun for a moment, the palette of the day changes. The water . . . it looks black to me. It looks like death.

The story that Thatcher once told is before me. I can almost hear his voice. “It was homecoming night, after the dance, and we went out to the upper Wando River for a bonfire.” He was with Reena, his date—actually, his girlfriend—and Leo, and another girl named Hayley. They found a boat, and climbed in. His words echo in my mind again. “We'd had a lot to drink. In the rowboat, Leo and I were standing up and being stupid. It had just rained for three days straight and the river was higher than usual, rougher. We shouldn't have been out on the water.”

When the rowboat tipped far out in the river, they were too drunk to swim to shore. Hayley hung on to the boat—she made it.
The rest of them never came back. Three bodies in the water, one girl who escaped.

I shiver, despite the warm sun on my arms, the image of Thatcher's lifeless body filling my thoughts.
My breathing is becoming labored, too, like my lungs are filling up with fluid. It's crazy, but it's almost as though I'm in the river, ten years ago, drowning alongside him.

I close my eyes and tell myself it's not a dark night where people are going to die. I tell myself what I'm feeling isn't because Reena or Leo are somehow forcing themselves on me, trying to cause me pain and scare me. It's a bright late-summer day with my friends. I have Thatcher's ring, and that's all I need to feel safe. That's all I need to make the thought of him drowning go away, and then I won't be hyperventilating like this.

I finger the ring again, smooth and powerful. But it's not enough.

I have to get away from this picnic and be with Thatcher.

“I'm going to take a little swim,” I tell Carson.

She eyes me carefully. “Want me to come with?”

“No,” I say, flashing a smile as I pull off my cotton sundress and stand up, still holding on to the ring. “I'm just gonna cool down for a minute.”

I kick off my shoes and walk right in, diving under the water, warm from a summer of the hot Charleston sun. It feels like a relaxing bath, and now that I'm here, up close, I see that it's not black. It's just the Wando—green and blue and sparkling in the bright day. My breathing is starting to return to normal, my lungs filling with clean air. Maybe I was just working myself up before. Maybe all those physical symptoms were just me channeling genuine empathy and not the evil hand of the poltergeists.

Jessica and Gina are lying on the floating dock and they wave at me as I go past doing the breaststroke. Everything seems to be okay, but still part of me won't accept that.

I swim out farther and farther, trying to still my thoughts and enjoy the feeling of the water moving gently over my skin. I bob my head under and up, under and up.

When I get out far enough, I tread water as I open my hand just above the small waves. The gold class ring is wet and sparkling in my palm. I look back toward the shore. Laughter, lunch, friends, games. Life.

And in my hand? Longing. An impossible love. Death.

I turn to face the stretch of water in front of me, and I close my eyes at the same time that I wrap my fingers around the ring.

Thatcher
. I don't call with my voice, but I call with my mind, my heart, and my soul. I feel desire rush over my entire body like the
whoosh
of a sudden kicked-up wind.

Then I hear a small splashing behind me. When I turn, I see Nick. He saw me come out here and followed me.

For a second I'm annoyed, because it seems like he still thinks I need monitoring, but then something in the water changes. It's like there's an energy field connecting us—me and Nick—and as he comes closer, I see his eyes. His brown eyes. But they're blue.