The Unquiet (23 page)

We huddle outside in a torrent of crystal-sharp sleet as the Kesslers’ salt-crusted car fishtails off down the street. Meg and I stayed behind while Tasha ran back to Bartons’ to discreetly fetch Lacy’s parents. Lacy pleaded with us to hide those printed-out e-mails. I buried them in my purse while Meg, half-panicked, deleted Lacy’s entire mailbox.

When Ma and Pa Kessler burst in, their state of shock lasted approximately five seconds. Then Reverend Kessler bundled a whimpering Lacy out to the car, blowing off my ambulance idea. Mrs. Kessler warned, rather than requested, “Do not say a word about this to
anyone
!” before flying out after her husband and daughter.

“All she cares about is what people think,” Tasha says now. “I bet she comes home and sews scarlet
A
s in Lacy’s underwear.”

Tears shimmer on her dark lashes. This surprises me;
Tasha’s the
first
one to jump all over Lacy about, well, whatever Lacy’s current drama happens to be.

“And she just now said that baby’s all she has left,” Tasha chokes out. “God, how could this happen?”

Meg’s tears fall freely. “It’s my fault. Remember? I fell on her that day.”

“That was ages ago,” I argue, hoping I’m right. “It would’ve happened before now.” When I move to hug her, Meg sidesteps closer to Tasha. Hurt, I add nonetheless, “Meg, these things happen.
You
didn’t do it.”

“Yes I did. I never should’ve cheered that day. I knew I was sick. I
knew
I was dizzy!”

“Stop!” Tasha snaps. “Rinn’s right. It was an
accident
.” Shivering in the next blast of wind, she motions to us. “C’mon, it’s freezing out here. Ma shut down the diner for the day. Let’s go raid the kitchen.”

At the Boxcar Diner, with the CLOSED sign on the door, surrounded by warmth and the smell of brewing coffee, I burst out, “I think it’s Annaliese.”

Tasha frowns. “More ghost stories. Yay.”

“Forget it,” Meg says darkly. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You started it. In the hall the other day?”

“Started what?” Tasha demands.

I point at Meg’s hands, playing with her ears as usual. “See?” I tell Tasha—and then I blurt out everything I’d told Nate the other night. “And I
heard
about that alcoholic teacher, and Lindsay McCormick’s cat.”

Tasha quips, “I heard she killed it herself. Probably ate it, too.”

I look at Meg. “If your ears made you dizzy and that’s why you blew that pyramid, what if Lacy’s migraine made her write that letter?”

“That’s stupid,” Meg says uneasily.

“You know something happened in there. You said so yourself!”

Tasha stares. “Wait.
What
happened?”

Meg ignores her, raging at me instead, “Yes, and now I’m sorry I said it! I should’ve known you’d blab. God, Rinn—is
no
secret safe with you?”

I flush. “Telling Cecilia about Lacy was wrong. But we have to tell Tasha this because
she
was there, at that séance. She has a right to know, in case—” I stop, afraid to jinx us by putting the idea into words.

Tasha gets it. “In case something happens to me? But I’m fine. So are you and Jared.”

“Jared left in the middle of it,” I inform her.

“You didn’t,” Meg says icily. “At least not until you ratted us out.”

Her wary, too-familiar expression unnerves me. “Whatever.” I fold my arms on the counter and rest my chin. I’m tired of defending myself.

“Listen, Rinn.” Meg pats my shoulder, a forgiving gesture. “You’re the one who lives in Annaliese’s house, right? If she wants to haunt someone so bad, why doesn’t she haunt you?”

“Because she drowned at school. Don’t people haunt the places where they die?” I think of Nana’s burnt cottage.
Does her ghost haunt that? That beach? Or is Nana simply … gone?

The coffee’s done. Tasha lines up three mugs. “In movies, maybe. If they die a violent death.”

“Or,” Meg adds softly, “if they have unfinished business.”

I watch Tasha swing the carafe, pouring out one, two, three cups of steaming coffee. Meg’s “unfinished business” lingers like the smell of burnt toast. She stares at the wall, her hands locked to her ears. Ice-cold cat claws tap the back of my neck.

Something’s wrong with her. It’s not just her ears.

“You guys want something to eat?” Tasha asks. I shake my head. “Meg?” When Meg remains mute, Tasha slams a hand on the counter. “Hey, are you deaf?”

Meg jumps. “What?”

Oh my God, that’s exactly what I’d do when I was listening to the Voices
.

The cat claws dance harder, faster.

“I
said
—” Tasha begins with enormous patience.

“Never mind!” Meg slides abruptly off the stool. “I’m going home.”

“Why?” Tasha and I ask together.

“I told you, my ears are
killing
me! I can’t even hear what you’re saying half the time.” Agitated, she bustles into her coat. “And you know what else? Dino’s dead, Lacy lost her baby, and Jared
dumped
me—and you guys are sitting around here talking about ghosts! GOD!” she screams as she slams out of the diner.

“Jared dumped her?” I repeat to Tasha.

“Pretty much. He won’t even tell her what he’s so mad about. Or
if
he’s mad.”

“Pig,” I say absently. I
must
talk to Jared the first chance I get. Thinking back, he did start avoiding her right after that séance. Is he embarrassed that she knows what a chicken he is?

Or is it something else?

Tasha ducks around the counter to claim Meg’s stool. “Hey, that ringing in her ears? I looked it up. It’s called tinnitus.”

I recognize the word. “Yeah, rockers get that, from listening to all that loud music.”

“So do old people when they start to go deaf. Swimmers get it, too.” She makes a face. “Nice to know I’ve got
that
to look forward to.”

“What can you do for it?”

“Depends on what’s causing it. She’s seeing some doctor tomorrow. I hope she gets that note so that stupid coach’ll let her back on the team, or we’ll
all
be listening to it till the end of the year.”

I stare at the row of untouched coffees. Wind rattles the diner windows and sleet sprays the glass like handfuls of rice. It’s almost dark; the yellow globes of the streetlights blink on all at once. “Do you ever wonder about her? Annaliese?”

Tasha hesitates. “Sometimes.”

“My mom won’t talk about her.”

“Mine, either.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Yeah, considering how she gets off on talking about everyone
else
.” A weak giggle, and then Tasha taps my shoulder. “Come home with me. I gotta show you something.”

At the Luxes’ house a block away from the diner, Tasha opens the door to a den—“Ma’s junk room,” she calls it—crammed with decades of memorabilia. “I swear she’s a hoarder in the making. She never throws
anything
out.”

While I’m wondering why she dragged me here—
not to help her clean, I hope
—she fishes around till she finds a big box marked
HS STUFF!
Inside are yearbooks, scrapbooks, notebooks, and photo albums. There’s even a cheerleader’s uniform. Shrink-wrapped, no less.

“You want to know about Annaliese?” The top half of Tasha disappears as she roots around in the box. She emerges with lint in her hair, and tosses me a scrapbook. “Check it out.”

Newspaper clippings, all in chronological order. The headlines alone tell Annaliese’s story, each in ten words or less:

DEATH OF LOCAL GIRL STUNS QUIET COMMUNITY

CORONER RULES GIBBONS’S DROWNING DEATH ACCIDENTAL

DOZENS TURN OUT FOR CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

ANNALIESE GIBBONS REMEMBERED AS “SHY AND SWEET”

SADLY, NO WITNESSES TO ANNALIESE’S LAST MOMENTS

“HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?” GRANDMOTHER DEMANDS ANSWERS

OFFICIALS AGREE: GIBBONS’S DEATH TRAGIC, NOT SUSPICIOUS

GRANDMOTHER OF DROWNING VICTIM THREATENS LAWSUIT

RIVER HILLS SCHOOL BOARD UNDER PRESSURE TO SHUT DOWN POOL

These stories were published the year Annaliese died. A later one announces the school board’s decision to drain the pool, blaming a “lack of funds to maintain the upkeep” and “a reluctance on the part of students to swim in the pool responsible for a classmate’s death.”

“Annaliese’s grandmother sued,” Tasha says flatly. “So goodbye, pool.”

I wave at the mountain of memorabilia. “I can’t believe she hung on to this stuff. My mom threw everything out, even her yearbooks.”

Tasha snorts. “She only keeps it so she can remember how popular she was, so she can throw
that
in my face, every chance she gets.”

I flip farther through the scrapbook, scanning later stories:

ANNALIESE GIBBONS: TEN YEARS LATER

SCHOOL BOARD TO VOTE ON FATE OF H.S. POOL

VANDALS STRIKE POOL TWICE IN TWO WEEKS

AFTER ANNALIESE: NEXT GENERATION WONDERS—IS POOL HAUNTED?

Then one last story published a few months ago: STATE OF THE ART MEDIA CENTER TO BE BUILT ON POOL SITE.

“This is some great stuff,” I murmur.

“Take it with you. Take the yearbooks, too.”

“Your mom won’t miss them?”

She waves expansively at the surrounding mess. “Are you kidding me?”

“I was just about to send the cadaver dogs after you,” Mom says as I stomp off snow and kick my boots into the hall closet.

“I went to Lacy’s with Meg and Tasha. Didn’t Nate tell you?”

“He did. You could’ve told me yourself, though.” Mom first eyes my socks, wet from the slush I dragged in from the foyer. Then she eyes my pile of junk. “What’s all that?”

“Stuff from Tasha.” Hugging it, I dodge past her and race up the steps.

“Wait!” she calls. “Don’t you want to talk about today?”

I pretend not to hear. No, I don’t want to talk about Dino. Nor do I want to tell her what happened at Lacy’s. Not because of Mrs. Kessler. I’m just not in the mood.

Mainly, I don’t want her to see what Tasha gave me. I have a funny feeling she won’t like me digging into her past. Before tonight, I never thought much about the fact that she threw out her high school stuff. True, she’s a neat freak. But don’t most people hang on to their yearbooks?

Too many bad memories? Like … maybe memories of my dad?

River Hills High is an anthill compared to my schools back in California. The skimpy yearbooks prove it. Mom, of course, looks flawless in every shot. What’s it like to wake up to perfection every morning? I wake up a greasy, bushy-headed mess.

Truthfully, I hardly think about my real dad. And because Mom got pregnant
after
she left town, I doubt I’ll find him in any of these books. All I know is that his parents were from Mexico, and that his first name was unpronounceable, so Mom called him “Jay” for short.

I wonder: Did Jay, like me, wake up a mess every morning? Did he eat Cocoa Puffs for breakfast? Did he love horses? Would he paint his room gray? Did I inherit his crooked tooth?

Was he mentally ill? Did I get that from him, too, like my teeth, my black hair?

Page after page, just in case, I study every boy who looks faintly Latino, but all the
J
names are ordinary, decidedly nonethnic: John, Joshua, James, and Joseph … as in Joseph Mancini, who looks hot in his senior picture, in a sexy Al Pacino–Hollywood Mafioso kind of way.