Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance (25 page)

A few people gasped, frightened. The floor
swiftly cleared off. 

"I guess the dance is over," Alex said,
sidling up to us with his arm around Theo. For once she didn't seem
to mind.

Although some people began to file out of the
gym, our group went over to where the woman was talking. I watched
as a lone purple balloon deflated and fell gracefully to the table
behind her.   

"What's going on?" I asked. The woman turned
to me, her face blotchy with conflicting emotions.

"I brought my ten year old, Susan, with me,"
she explained. "And she was right beside me the whole time. Then
suddenly, she was gone, and I can't find her. And when I looked in
the girl's bathroom, there was blood all over the floor. And they
won't call the police!" she jabbed her thumb accusingly at the
group of harried-looking teachers next to her. Their costumes made
them look ridiculous now.

"There's a protocol we have to follow," one of
the teachers started, but Henry cut her off.

"Let's look for her," Henry said decisively.
"She's got to be somewhere." Everyone else began to split up into
groups to search the school. The four of us, with a few adults,
headed off down past the main hall, lead by the woman who told us
her name was Lynn. She came to the girl's bathroom near the Science
hall and pushed open the door.

Theo and I peered inside. Blood was smeared
all over the tile floor, like someone had wiped it around with
their hands.

"This is bad," I whispered to Theo. Her face
was very pale, and she nodded silently.

"See what I mean?" Lynn said. "You
see."

"I think you should definitely call the
police," Henry told her. "Don't worry about what the teachers are
saying."

The woman nodded decisively, and walked off,
cell phone in her shaking hand. The rest of us, without a word,
continued down the hall to keep looking.

"Susan!" we called, her name echoing off the
walls, almost as if to answer us. In the night the school looked
strange, and I felt like we shouldn't be there.  

We stopped in the hallway after a few minutes.
Alex leaned against the wall. He looked pale against the purple of
his suit.

"What's taking the cops so long?" he asking no
one in particular, taking off his shoe and rubbing his foot. Henry
started popping quarters in the vending machine to get drinks. He
handed each of us a Coke and I thanked him. It felt like we had
been in the school for days.   

Ariel...

Someone was calling my name again. Putting the
pop down on a nearby drinking fountain, I left the others where
they were standing and discussing what to do next, and turned the
corner. A sharp pain stabbed my temple, as if something was forcing
its way through. Electricity danced its familiar pattern on the
surface of my skin.  

The little girl in the blue raincoat was
standing in front of me, about two yards away. I could feel reality
trying to fall away, my body starting to float, and in my
dissociation I clung to myself as hard as I could.

The little girl turned and walked silently
away. I remembered where I'd seen her — she was the little girl
that went missing a month ago. The knowledge that her name was
Alyssa entered my mind, and I pictured Claire watching the news the
night we had gone out to dinner. I could faintly see the hallway
through Alyssa's raincoat. The lights dimmed, everything taking on
a bluish hue, like we were underwater.  

I knew she was dead. But for some reason, I
wasn't frightened anymore. Tranquility settled over me. Calm in
knowing that what was happening was real.

I walked towards her slowly, and called her
name. She turned around. Her eyes were completely black, like those
of an insect.

"Everyone's been looking for you," I said. She
stared almost through me. I couldn't really tell if she knew I was
there or not, as if we were in two different but very close
parallel worlds, or I was looking at her through broken glass.
 

"What happened to you?" I asked.

As if in answer, Alyssa's small hands went to
the hood of her coat, and pulled it down. I stifled the gag in my
throat. Her neck was cleanly sliced from side to side. Even though
there was no blood, it was grotesque.

And then she was gone, and the blue of the
walls melted into the regular cream that I saw every day.
 

"Ariel, what are you doing?" Theo
called.

I turned around, and saw my three friends
waiting for me.

"Nothing," I called. "I'm coming
back." 

I jogged back to them. I didn't tell them
about seeing the girl. I didn't have any urge to; it was my own
personal gift.

We walked to the front of the building, where
the police were questioning the now-sobbing Lynn. Tears flowed
freely down her cheeks now, and she was having tremendous
difficulty speaking.  

When I was a little girl, burglars broke in to
the house across the street. The police came to the neighborhood,
and talked to Hugh about it, asking him if he had seen anything.
Jenna and I stood behind him the whole time, so excited that a real
life drama was taking place in front of our eyes.

It was less exciting when they grilled me
after Jenna left. Why had I let her go? Did I know if she was
involved in drugs? A hundred questions were aimed towards me, and I
couldn't answer them fast enough.

As we departed Hawthorne, treading over the
torn purple carpet and fallen paper bats on the floor, listening to
the woman sobbing and being taken off by a family friend without
her daughter, it was all I could think about.

Chapter 17

School felt like a crime scene. After my
parents received word of Susan's disappearance, I wasn't allowed to
walk to school anymore. I had a feeling that the time was coming,
but getting rid of the one big freedom I treasured was still a
blow.

The fact that I saw a ghost didn't surprise me
as much as perhaps it should have. Instead, I felt more relief than
anything. Even though it was entirely subjective, I felt like it
proved that I wasn't crazy, especially after hearing about Eleanor
from Corinne. I had inherited mommy's, well, grandma's little gift,
after it skipped a generation. But I didn't know what to do now. I
kept expecting her to pop up again, but I didn't see anything
unusual, for a change. But I knew with total certainty that what I
had seen was real.      

Hugh dropped me off Monday morning. I had
forgotten to set my alarm, and the bell was due to ring in a few
minutes. I wasn't late yet but I was close.

I walked up the stone steps and opened the
door to the vestibule, rubbing sleep from my eyes. When I took my
hand away, I gasped.

Jenna laughing. In front of me. And next to
her was Alyssa.

Their faces were printed on black and white
flyers that someone had taped to the entrance doors, and Susan's
face joined them. The word MISSING was typed in thick font below
each photo. Shaken, I opened the door and walked inside.

Lainey and Madison sat at a metal card table,
like they were at a bingo meet, in the front hall. Stacks of neat
flyers were piled in front of them. Their own missing girl
committee. My stomach did a somersault.

I walked over to the wall and ripped down one
of the Alyssa's flyers. I couldn't bear to do it with one of
Jenna's. I went up and shook the piece of paper in Lainey's face.
She leaned back in her seat, her chin doubling.

"What are you doing?" I barked.

"What does it look like?" she
asked, a condescending smile on her bow-shaped lips. "I assume your
eyes still work. We're
helping
."

"If I had any inkling that you had an ounce of
good intentions, I would thank you," I said. "But this is nothing
more than a ploy to get more attention to yourself. You don't need
it!"

"I'm just a concerned citizen, Ariel," she
said, her chocolate chip eyes round and innocent. "Even if Jenna
was a waste."

I had never had such a massive urge to punch
someone, especially when she said, "I haven't seen you do much for
her, and trying to get into Henry's pants doesn't
count."

I crumpled the flyer and tossed it in Lainey's
face. It bounced off her powdered forehead. Madison scoffed and
leaned back in her own seat, glaring at me as I stomped
away.

Despite the events at the dance, school kept
going like nothing had happened. A lot of people were talking about
it, and the dance in general, but the teachers seemed to stay away
from the topic, even with the gaudy flyers in every hallway. I
wondered if they had a meeting on how to deal with us. For damage
control, counselors wandered into first period, offering "someone
to talk to" in case we needed it.  

In gym class, we were starting tennis. It was
always the one sport that I kind of enjoyed. Claire and I used to
drive up to the court at the middle school during the summer and
play until the sun went down, drinking Kool-Aid mixed in water
bottles. I had even taken a few lessons.

Theo and I paired up, grabbing rackets out of
the metal bin.

"Why Alex?" I finally got the chance to
inquire, still curious about how that pairing had been
established.

"I honestly have no idea," she said,
shrugging. "He's just really into me. It's flattering. And he's not
as bad as he seems. After I left your house on Saturday, we talked
online for an hour. He has a sweet side; it's just buried deep,
deep below the douchey act and terrible jokes."  

We played against the other pairings in class.
It felt nice to get my body moving, almost like I was taking out my
stress on every swing, successful or not. I hoped the hour would
run out before we had to play Lainey.

But of course, it didn't, and we were pitted
against the torture twins. We made the slow march to their net.
They were stretching their shoulders out, using their rackets for
resistance. Lainey's eyes held a curious fixation as she looked at
me. I wondered what insults were brewing in her tiny mind. 
 

Theo served first, tossing the ball too high
in the air in her fervor. She swung clumsily and grazed the ball
with the edge of her racket. Her second try whizzed right into our
side of the net. This had been her experience the whole time, but
this was the only match where it really counted.

Lainey and Madison tittered with laughter. I
looked at Theo sympathetically. Her face was almost as red as her
hair.

"You serve first, Maddie," Lainey
commanded.

Madison tossed the ball up daintily and swung
her racket to meet it. Theo and I scrambled to the side of the
court and ended up rebounding it.

Despite the bad start, we held our own for the
duration. This seemed to make Lainey angry. Not only when I
returned her shots, but when she missed mine. Her eyebrows
puckered, and her hair was unraveling from the tight, slick
ponytail at the top of her head.

I had never seen Lainey sweat, but little
beads broke out across her tanned forehead. Her mascara was running
underneath her eyes, making her look worn out.  

The score had been tied the last few minutes.
Every time the ball whizzed over the net I prayed we could hit it
back and win.

Lainey got ready to serve. Her gaze locked
right on mine. Hate made her eyes hard. She tossed the yellow ball
up in the air and slammed it with all her strength, nailing me
directly in the nose. I felt the sickening crack resound in my
skull. My body fell backwards in slow motion. I expected to hit the
hard parquet wood floor, but instead I fell through, the jolt I
expected never coming.

I tumbled.

And then I stopped, and everything was black
and silent.

I felt warmth on my cheeks, and I could smell
the ocean. I opened my eyes and saw blue sky above me.

I could feel my limbs resting on a bed of
sand. On a beach. Before I had much time to contemplate this, Jenna
leaned over me. The necklace with her name on it dangled from
around her neck. The sun caught the tiny rhinestones and they
twinkled.

And then the sky was dark, raining. Large
droplets splotched my skin. I felt paralyzed, unable to move much.
The smell changed to something briny and complicated.

Jenna was still leaning over me, although now
the necklace was missing. Her face was as blank as it had been the
first time I saw her, like she was inspecting an alien. Curly hair
like brambles fell around her face. Seeing her gave me no solace.
Only fear.

I noticed with a chill that her eyes were
entirely black. No longer sky blue, it was as if the pupils had
taken over everything else. Who else had I seen with black
eyes...with I start I realized it was the little dead girl. That
meant...    

My vision flickered again, and we were on the
beach. I felt myself able to sit up, and began to do so. But as I
moved the vision again wavered. We were on the shore of a lake, the
muddy bank beneath me. My fingers sank into the muck. The green
water boiled.