Of Starlight (13 page)

The house had been locked all day. We were safe.

“She’s not going to attack in broad daylight,” said Megan.

“Why not? She’s
invisible.
”

“She’s going to attack you at night when you’re asleep. That’s what I would do. You have to fall asleep sometime, and she doesn’t sleep. Easy peasy.”

My gaze slid to the spare key hanging on the hook.

“I’m going to take this down,” I said, unhooking the key and pocketing it. “That’s how you snuck in that one time.”

“You sure that’s the only extra key?” she said.

“No, there’s another key, but it’s hidden.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, unless she saw me . . .” I bit my lower lip, suddenly uneasy. “You don’t . . . you don’t think she . . . ?”

Megan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I peeked out the windows at the front lawn, the flagstone. Undisturbed. I should check. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and reached for the door again. “Be right back.”

While Megan watched from the window, I darted out into the garden, looked both ways, and hoisted the flagstone on its end. An earthworm wriggled down in the moist soil, and a pack of earwigs scattered and vanished into crevices. One came to rest in a key-shaped indentation in the dirt.

Where it had been.

Gone.

The hidden key was gone.

Chapter 12

“Dad, can we
change the locks?” I leaned into the living room, where he was watching a football game. “Please?”

“You want to change the locks, sweetheart?” he said, distracted.

“Yeah . . . please?” I spoke in a scared whisper, fighting the shiver that tried to invade my body. Ashley had taken the hidden key. She must have been watching from the street when I grabbed it.

My dad waited until the play ended, grimacing in the process, before he paused it and looked up. “Why? What’s the matter?”

“Can we change the locks?”

At the moment, Megan was busy checking my bedroom for intruders.

“Is there a particular reason you want to change the locks?” he said.

I lowered my eyes, wondering if I should just admit to everything—finding the dark matter, using it to be invisible, murdering Ashley Lacroix. Maybe I would someday, but not yet.

“I lost my keys,” I said, “and, uh, I think this really creepy guy found them and followed me home.”

“Ah.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together, nodding grimly. “Where’d you lose them?”

“At school . . . in the bushes.”

He peered at me. “You lost them in the bushes?”

I nodded vigorously. “They fell out of my backpack.”

“Why didn’t you just pick them up?”

“I didn’t hear them fall out.”

“Then how’d you know you lost them in the bushes?” he said, eyebrow raised.

Heat rushed to my face. I’d just been cross-examined like a sucker. “I mean, I’m not
positive
that’s where I lost them,” I mumbled, trying to recover, “but I was standing near some bushes, and when I checked my backpack later, they were gone and the zipper was open, so I assumed they fell out.”

Now he did look concerned. “Did you check the lost and found?”

“They weren’t there.”

“And you think someone followed you home?”

I nodded, unable to look him in the eye. I hated lying to my dad.

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know . . . he was creepy.”

“A student or an adult?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said, thinking my shame came from losing my keys. “We’ll get you some replacements. Why don’t you take the spare key for now.”

“I already got it.” I showed him the spare key in my pocket. “Dad,
please
can we change the locks? I don’t ask you for anything ever, do I?”

“Is everything okay, sweetheart?”

“I’m just scared, Dad.”

He studied me, concern tight in his eyebrows. “You want me to call the cops on this guy?”

“No, no, it’s . . . it’s not like that. I would just feel safer if we changed the locks, that’s all.”

He nodded slowly. “It’s not that hard to do. I can pick up some new locks from Home Depot this weekend. How’s that?”

“No,
now
 . . . can we change them now? I’ll help you.”

“Okay. Now. We’ll change them now. Can I finish the game? I’m going to be right here, okay? No one’s going to break in while I’m here.”

“Yeah . . . I guess,” I croaked.

“Okay, what do
we know?” I said, propping a cork board up on my dad’s workbench in the garage—Megan’s and my temporary refuge while he changed the locks to the house. “What do we know about dark matter and about Ashley Lacroix? You have a timer tattooed into your skin and I have an invisible girl hunting me. We need to figure this out.”

Megan chewed the packaging off a stack of colored index cards and magic markers. “First off, who’s involved?” she said, getting down to business. “Who are the key players?”

“You and me, obviously . . . and Ashley. Then there’s Major Connor, Emory’s dad, and Emory too, I guess.” I counted the names off on my fingers.

“Don’t forget Sarah,” said Megan, writing each of the names in loopy bubble letters on pink index cards. “And Salamander.”

“Don’t put Salamander,” I said.

“She’s involved, isn’t she?”

“She’s a
snake.
”

“I’m putting Salamander.” She wrote Salamander on an index card and handed me the names, which I pinned up on the cork board, mine right next to Emory . . . so our cards were touching.

Megan rolled her eyes. “What about organizations?”

“Rod Connor’s people,” I said. “Air Force Space . . . whatever it was.”

“Air Force Space Command,” she said, writing on blue index cards now, “and Rincon Systems, their defense contractor.” She handed me the two cards so I could pin them up next to their corresponding players. “Now what do we know about Rincon Systems?” She pulled out her phone.

I snapped my fingers. “That thing, that book, that document Emory’s dad wrote . . .”

“Defending Earth in the Worst-Case Scenario,” she said. “Efficacy of Modern Weaponry against an Extra-Terrestrial Threat.”

“How do you remember all that?” I said.

“I pay attention.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I’m kidding. The tab’s still open on my phone. Now let me see what else I can find on Rincon Systems.”

While she looked them up, I studied our corkboard. Reluctantly, I pulled Emory’s name away from my own and pinned it next to his dad and his sister. It made more sense to group their family. Like this, you could easily trace the path of dark matter from Rincon Systems to Mr. Lacroix and then to Ashley, hopping from host to host like a virus. I shuddered. Finally, I took Emory’s card off entirely. He wasn’t really a player.

“Nothing else on Rincon Systems,” Megan announced behind me. “What was that place called where Rod Connor was stationed?”

I tried to remember. “Missile Systems or something, it was in LA—”

“Space and Missile Systems Center,” she said. “Thank you, Google. I’m looking that up. Okay, it took me to Los Angeles Air Force Base, now I’m clicking on the news tab . . .”

Her play by play trailed off, and I went back to the cork board.

Emory’s family was one group. Megan and I formed the second group. Through us, dark matter had reached Sarah Erskine and Salamander the snake. Rod Connor had come to us on his own, also because of dark matter. On the corkboard, there was no connection between the two groups other than the fact that John Lacroix and Rod Connor both reported to Air Force Space Command.

No connection at all.

Well, no connection aside from the obvious one: the fact that Megan and I had killed Ashley.

I felt my eyebrows pinch together, on the verge of a realization.

“Aww, that’s sad,” said Megan.

I blinked, coming out of a daze. I’d lost it. “What’s sad?”

“They’re no longer displaying Space Shuttle
Endeavour
at the California Science Center. It says here that NASA, jointly with AFSPC, moved it to a new, more secure location.”

“That’s weird. Where’d they move it?”

“Let me see.” She scrolled down on her touchscreen. “Looks like . . . Vandenberg.”

I whirled around. “Wait . . .
Vandenberg?
”

“Yeah, why?”

“Vandenberg Air Force Base,” I said excitedly, “Emory’s dad, Rincon Systems, I saw in his office that’s where they were sending a bunch of equipment . . . to
Vandenberg
.”

She gave me a strange look. “What are they going to do with a space shuttle?”

“I don’t know, Megan. Maybe
go into space.
Isn’t that where dark matter comes from?”

Her eyes widened. “Leona, Sarah’s journal . . . she said they were building a ship, remember? Maybe this was what she meant.”

“See what else you can find,” I said, turning back to the cork board to figure out what had been nagging me.

Something about the connections . . .

I found a spool of string on my dad’s workbench and connected my pin to Ashley’s pin.
Murder.
Next I pinned up another index card, labeled
dark matter
, which I also connected to Ashley’s pin. I stared at the diagram, my pulse suddenly booming in my ears, and put up the last piece of string. This one from dark matter to my pin.

A triangle.

On the corkboard, the connections couldn’t have been more obvious. At once, everything seemed to fall into place.

Dark matter had found Ashley.

Dark matter had found me.

I had killed Ashley.

“Megan, Megan!” I gasped. “I solved it, I figured it out!”

“What?” she said, running over.

“Look—” My finger shook from excitement. “Other than the fact that we killed Ashley, dark matter is the only thing that connects the two groups. First it found her, then it found us . . .
separately
. There’s no way that’s a coincidence. Which means us killing her can’t be a coincidence either. Look at that!” I grabbed her hands. “Megan, dark matter made us do it. It made us kill her. That’s the only way to explain it. Megan, we’re not guilty!” My words echoed into silence.

The realization made me giddy. If I wasn’t guilty, if dark matter had made me do it, then my conscience was clean, my soul was pure, and I could finally let myself fall in love with Emory.

Her eyes darted across the corkboard, brows low and skeptical.

Didn’t she see it? “Megan,” I started again.

“
Shh
.” She raised a finger and continued to study the diagram.

“Megan, listen to me—”

“You got it backward,” she whispered.

“
What?
Megan, don’t you get it? This means we’re off the hook.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said, finally facing me. “Dark matter didn’t find us until
after
we killed Ashley. Maybe there’s a connection between dark matter and her being out there that night—if it influenced her sleepwalking or something—
maybe
. But we’re still the ones who killed her, Leona. We’re still the ones who hid her body and didn’t call the cops. That’s still on us.”

“But . . . but think of how unlikely that is, Megan.” I clung desperately to my theory. “What are the chances of a random meteorite containing dark matter landing next to
us
, of all people, when we just happen to be the ones who killed the last girl who had it? Unless it chose us specifically because we were special or something. Unless it chose us to kill her.”

“No, unless it chose us
because
we killed her,” said Megan.

I drew back. “What . . . what do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s drawn to weakness,” she said. “Maybe it was drawn to Ashley because of her sleepwalking, because that was something it could exploit, and maybe it was drawn to us—to
you
—because of your guilty conscience. Because you were weak. You let it right in, didn’t you? You thought it was your salvation, and you let it manipulate you. Maybe that’s what’s going on, Leona.”

I turned away, feeling sick.

I knew she was right.

Huddled in bed
on Thursday night, I stared at the red digits of my alarm clock floating in the darkness—10:06 p.m.—as a choking terror closed around me.

Even with the locks changed, I didn’t feel safe. I would never feel safe. Because I had done something terrible, I had murdered, and now the terrible creature
was coming for me.

Because
I had killed Ashley.

Dark matter was preying on my guilt, like it had preyed on Ashley’s sleepwalking. The doom hung over me, suffocated me. I pulled my blankets up to my chin and gaped out at my dark bedroom, ears tuned to every tiny creak, every skitter, every rustle. Would I hear her if she tiptoed?

She had taken the hidden key.

The horror of it had only begun to dawn on me. Someone invisible was coming to murder me. But what if she never came? That would be even worse, wouldn’t it? I would spend the rest of my life in paranoia, hiding from her, wondering when she would strike. I pictured it now—me as a middle-aged entrepreneur in a big mansion, working late into the evening while the red-orange sun set outside my home office. I’d hear footsteps in the house, but no one there, floorboards creaking in an empty room. And I’d wonder. After all these years, was Ashley Lacroix finally coming to get me?

I rolled over, feeling sick. It was a terrible future. I should have followed her that night, I should have followed her footsteps and never let her out of hearing range. Now she could be anywhere—standing in the middle of the dark street outside my house, or in a park somewhere, or watching her brother through his sliding glass window. I shuddered, and suddenly I really wished he was here. I wished
someone
was here. Megan had gone home a few hours ago since it was a school night.

The furnace rumbled to life deep in the house, blowing warm air through the vents. The sound set me on edge. The whoosh of air masked all the night sounds, making me deaf to an intruder, and a fear surfaced in my brain. Ashley could have slipped inside the house while my dad was changing the locks, she could use the drone of the furnace to sneak up the hall, she could . . . she could be in my bedroom
right now.

I gasped and threw off the covers, my heart slamming. How would I know? Panic rose in my throat, and I dashed across the rug and slammed on the light switch. Blinding yellow light flooded the empty room. No furniture. Nowhere to hide. Frantic now, I skirted around the walls, groping ahead of me—hiding under my bed, kneeling by my clothes, standing in the closet . . .

No one.

I finished my search and straightened up, adrenaline prickling under my skin. I couldn’t do this. I’d never be able to fall asleep like this, like a sitting duck, knowing she could attack at any time. Maybe she’d spent the last week learning how to pick a lock, and now all she had to do was open the front door and walk right in and strangle me.

The furnace cut off, leaving an ominous silence.

I had to protect myself. I had to.

Even if it meant playing right into its hand.

I didn’t have a choice. Jaw clamped in determination, I dug around under my bed and pulled out a shoebox, tipping off the lid. I lifted out the contact lens case and held it up to eye level.

Dark matter.

Yes, Leona.

A feverish chill worked its way down to my bones. If the hunter was invisible, then the prey should be invisible too.

I stripped quickly and dipped my finger into the case. The familiar cool tingle spread up my finger, and when I raised my hand to my face . . . I didn’t appear to have a hand. At once, my breathing calmed. Maybe, just maybe, I could survive this.

While dark matter swallowed the rest of my body, I appraised my bedroom. She would come here first, check the bed, probably.

I gathered some dirty clothes and lay them in a zigzag on the mattress, then pulled the covers up to the top of the pillows, readjusting the lump to look convincing, like I was sleeping on my side. I tossed a hoodie over where my head ought to be.

Now fully invisible, I crept out into the hall and peered left and right. I chose the foyer to stake out, where I backed into the corner and pulled my knees to my chest. Tucked out of the way, I doubted she would accidentally wander into me.