Hanging by a Thread (16 page)

It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse—last night everyone had been planning to get together again tonight. Everyone’s parents were offering their backyards and family rooms, anxious to keep the kids together where they could keep track of them as the anniversary drew near.

But I hadn’t seen Jack last night at Giselle’s, and I didn’t expect him to show up tonight, and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. The idea of another night of babysitting Rachel and watching Ky and Hopper pretend to beat each other up didn’t hold a lot of appeal for me; maybe I’d take a
night off from partying with them. Besides, it wouldn’t kill me to spend a night with my mother. I could work on my corduroy pants, do a few other hand-sewing chores in front of the TV.

“That’d be cool,” I said. “I’ve got a few things to do this afternoon. And I might go to the gym later.”

“Okay. Good. Seven, maybe?”

I resisted mentioning that Nana would probably kill for a dinner invitation. Nana had only been by the house a few times in the three weeks since we moved back, mostly when Mom was gone, and I wasn’t sure Mom had gone to see her at all. Once, when we were driving up along Grover Hill, I asked her exactly what it was that she couldn’t forgive her mother for. I was tired of their feud; I thought I was old enough to know the big secret. But she just said it wasn’t my business and that she’d have Nana over for dinner “as soon as things settled down.” Given the pile of paperwork in her briefcase, that wasn’t going to be any time soon.

I wondered if I should tell Nana about the vision. Maybe she could help me figure out what was going on. From what she’d told me, her gift had disappeared after she stopped responding to her own visions, and I got the feeling she didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. But for something this big, this important, would she make an exception?

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stared at it, but I didn’t dial her number. For one thing, Nana was famous for forgetting to check for messages, and she didn’t have a cell phone. She spent her days working in her garden or for her causes, and the best way to talk to her had always been
to just show up and go looking on the grounds of the old mansion until you found her, usually crouched down next to a flower bed weeding, or pulling aphids off a rosebush.

Which I resolved to do. Soon.

I went into my room and carefully shut the door, trying to send my mom the message that I didn’t want to be disturbed. I thought I’d check Facebook, maybe play a few rounds of Bubble Spinner, and then take a nap—I was exhausted from another nearly sleepless night—before I planted myself in front of the TV. The gym thing was a lie, just my way of ensuring that I’d have the afternoon to myself. Mom probably knew it, too, and I was grateful to her for not making an issue of it.

Tossing my purse onto the bed, I was about to sit down at my desk when I saw the box shoved into the closet. The tape had come loose and the flaps had popped open, revealing a flash of denim. A small but powerful jolt of urgency flashed through my body, starting in my gut and radiating out, leaving a tingle in my fingertips. An urge to dig the jacket out, touch it, hold it.

I exhaled hard, nearly overwhelmed by the force of the feeling. My mind resisted the idea—I really, really did not want to go through the painful vision again—but my body reacted independently. Without even realizing my intentions, I took a step closer.

“No,” I whispered, sinking to my knees on the soft carpet. I did not have to do this.

I edged closer.

Crawling toward the box, my hand soon rested lightly on
the box flap. Inside I could see that a denim sleeve had twisted around a pair of leggings.
Close it
, I willed myself.
Close the box
.

My heart was beating faster, the tingling sensation in my fingertips increased, and now my teeth had begun to chatter. So slowly it felt like I was made of lead, I slid my fingers along the cardboard, feeling the corrugated edge flip up effortlessly. I pushed two of the flaps down, careful to avoid the material. The trembling had reached my hands now and as I folded the second set of flaps over the first, they began to shake violently. I picked up a pair of Converse sneakers and plopped them on top of the box to keep the flaps in place, and then I fell—I literally
fell
backward, pushing myself well out of the way.

I lay on my side, staring at the box, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat. I felt exhausted. Slowly, slowly some of the anxiety subsided.

I lay there until my breathing grew steady and I stopped shaking and I actually started to feel sleepy.

But a few seconds later I got back on my knees and crawled to the box, tossing the shoes onto the floor as I reached inside to grab the jacket, like I was drowning and it could save me.

I can’t say why I did it. I only know that the second my hand closed on the fabric, I understood deep in my soul that there was a message meant just for me and that I wouldn’t rest until I understood it.

My vision flickered as a lurching dizziness engulfed me and I lay down again, still holding the jacket tightly. Under my fingertips I felt the weave, the folds of the fabric, but then they seemed to melt and grow warm, turning into something pliable and soft. Alive.

The feeling of horror, the buzzing electric thrill of fear. I vaguely felt tears spilling down my cheeks. Silver sparkles danced and began to settle, like the flakes inside a snow globe, falling into place to form an image
.

At first I couldn’t make it out clearly. Darkness, little spots of light, a wavery white rectangle. Then the sensation in my hands returned—sort of. Except instead of holding the fabric I was now holding something hard and square in my right hand and my left—

My left hand rested on a steering wheel. For now, in this moment, I was Amanda, and I was driving
.

I glanced down at my other hand and I was holding a cell phone. That was the glowing rectangle—the phone’s face. My thumb moved over the keys, typing something one letter at a time—and I was much faster and better at it than I was in real life
.

Somewhere deep inside my mind I felt rather than heard the ding of the message being sent, and then my thumb was moving again
.

And then the whoosh of terror as I felt myself being thrown against the door, slamming my knee against the handle. I’d driven off the road, and I hit the brakes. The phone fell from my hand as I gripped the steering wheel hard, yanking it to the left as the darkness outside my windshield took shape and I saw the road again, angling in front of me. A shadow crossed my headlights as I drove back onto the road, crossing a steep shoulder. Was that the bump? The lurch? Had I hit something?

Get out,
the part of my brain that was still me urged
. Get out and make sure everything’s okay.
But that voice barely registered. The panic and fear and adrenaline inside me escalated as I cursed under my breath, and again there was no sound, just the rushing of my mind
.

Fuck
.

The word had barely passed my lips when everything rushed away from me again, replaced by raw terror
.

Pain
.

Oh my God it hurt, the feeling of my skull being cleaved in two, my heart crushed against my ribs from the inside, electric shocks racing up and down my nerve endings—all twined together with a terror like I’d never known, a fear so great and terrible that I felt like my soul—Amanda’s soul?—was being savagely yanked from me
. What is it what is it what is it,
my own mind clamored, desperate to understand what was happening, but there were no answers, there was just the dark slicing through the smashed shards of what I’d seen, as though it had been a screen that shattered with the last frame frozen in place. The car was stopped; everything was silent. The road, the
phone, my hand, the glow of the dashboard, all mixed up and broken, and in their place a pain that grew along with fear until I thought I would explode. I was screaming as loud as I could and heard nothing, nothing at all, because my breath had been stolen away and there was only my weak heartbeat as everything finally, mercifully, disappeared
.

T
HIS TIME CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED
more slowly, in little surges, as I was lying on the floor again. The vision was over, the jacket lying crumpled next to me. My fingers were curled around nothing, and I wondered how I had finally managed to let go.

I felt weak and sick, like I’d survived a long bout of the flu and was still feverish and parched. I moved my fingers just to make sure I still could, my head throbbing as my eyes tracked their movement. The pain was different from other visions; in the borrowed memories I’d struck my knee, but it was my head that had felt like it was splitting. It was as though part of the vision was too much to absorb, as though I couldn’t fully grasp what I’d seen and I’d blocked it instead, but blocking it had taken a toll on my body. I couldn’t fight the visions, and this was what I’d gotten for trying.

Pushing myself carefully upright, the blood rushed from my face and my stomach lurched, a wave of nausea passing
through me. The bars of sunlight from my window had moved across the carpet, and I knew I had been out longer this time. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table—2:18. How long had it been? Half an hour? More?

I stared at the pile of blue fabric. What would happen if I touched it now? I hadn’t resisted the vision this time; I’d let it come, tried to see it through to find out how it ended—and still it had been interrupted. By what or who, I didn’t know. I didn’t have the strength to try and fight the searing pain again and I guessed that even if I did, I wouldn’t get any farther than I already had.

Which was … where? The first time I’d seen darkness dappled with spots of light. Something that might have been the inside of the car. And then the vision had changed and I had seen a face—the furious face of a woman, threatening me, screaming at me.

This time I’d seen more—the phone, the message Amanda had been writing—and something else had happened. I’d run off the road. I’d bottomed out or hit something, or else it was a bigger drop than I’d realized. I’d yanked the wheel and gotten the car back on the road.

I shuddered at what I had to do next. I couldn’t leave the jacket on the floor like that. I got the tongs again, along with a large Ziploc bag. I fished up the jacket and dropped it into the bag, sealing it carefully to make sure I didn’t touch the fabric. Holding it through the plastic, I felt no resistance.

I had to find out more about that night. Jack had told me what he knew, which was basically nothing—he’d
received her texts but hadn’t answered them; he didn’t know she was missing until the next day. He didn’t know where she had ended up or what had happened. And I didn’t know anyone else who’d been friends with Amanda.

But …

Tucked into the drawer of the wooden table in the hall, where Mom kept a dish for her keys and a glass jar full of pretty shells, was a thin Yellow Pages. Why they still printed phone books I had no idea—no one I knew ever looked up numbers in them. But when we moved into the house the book was sitting on the porch in a plastic wrapper, and Mom hadn’t thrown it out.

STAVROS. It wasn’t hard to find—G. Stavros, 515 Elderberry Circle. I knew exactly where that was, one of several roads that made up the newer, wealthy neighborhood high up along the ridge overlooking the ocean. It had been built since we moved away, an enclave of a few dozen houses that had views of both the ocean below and the flat lands to the east. In my opinion the views weren’t as nice as my grandmother’s, but if you wanted new construction, it was the best in town.

I changed into my gym clothes—baggy shorts from gym class at Blake, plus a sports bra and tank top. I stuffed the plastic bag containing the jacket into my backpack and threw my water bottle and iPod in, too, for authenticity’s sake. I needn’t have bothered, though: Mom was gone. “Went to the office,” said the note she’d left me.

The ride wasn’t an easy one, and I was sweating and breathing hard by the time I got to Elderberry Circle. The
houses here were even more spectacular than I expected. Front lawns were landscaped with rock gardens and flower beds and neatly trimmed trees. Driveways were paved with brick and stone, and front doors featured gleaming brass hardware.

Number 515 was the second from the top, a traditional redbrick mansion with black shutters and a covered front porch. But there were signs of neglect. The lawn was neatly trimmed, but the flower beds were overgrown, the few bushes growing out of control. Mounds of dirt were evidence that gophers had attacked the grass, and one of the windows on the lower floor had a cracked pane that had been fixed with clear tape. Several yellow sticky notes were also stuck to the front door.

Leaning my bike against the mailbox, I walked up the drive with a sense of dread. What was I thinking? Why would Amanda’s mother want to talk to me—or anyone—about her missing daughter? Wouldn’t I just add to her pain, coming here like this?