Of Starlight (7 page)

“My thoughts exactly.” His dad caught my eye with a conspiratorial look and held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Pour a little for you?”

“Oh, uh—” I brushed my hair out of my eyes, having forgotten I was even in the room with these two charismatic men. “No thanks. I drove here.”

His fingers inched closer together, and his eyebrow nudged upward. “Just a sip?”

“Yeah . . . I probably shouldn’t,” I said, biting my lip.

He pouted, and the expression was so comical on his serious-looking face I laughed.

“Dad, this is Leona.” Emory put his palm on my lower back, unamused. “If you’re going to get her drunk, you should at least know her name.”

“John,” said his dad, taking my hand with a wink. He continued into the dining room and hollered, “I’ll set the table.”

“I was
just
about to do that,” said Emory’s mom, breezing in from the other door.

“Great minds think alike,” said his dad, and they met in the middle and gave each other a loud smooch.

“Get a room, you two,” Emory shouted, checking on the pizza. 

I edged closer to him and whispered, “I’m in love with your family.”

He smiled knowingly. “Just wait until Ashley turns on the charm.”

At the mention of her, I tensed up a little. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“She will,” he said.

Take a good look at them, Leona,
said a little voice in my head.

“Hi, Leona. So good to see you again,” his mom said, coming into the kitchen, greeting me like I was an old family friend. She was glowing. “You want something to drink? Wine? Beer? A cocktail? Juice? Milk? Coconut water? Seven-Up?”

“I’ll have whatever he’s having,” I said, poking Emory’s arm, using it as an excuse to touch him.

“That’ll be a triple shot of gin with an orange peel and a dash of lime,” said Emory.

“Okay, two underage hangovers,” she said. “You guys want a chaser with that?”

“Make that three of those, hun,” his dad shouted from the dining room, clinking silverware.

“I thought you were having the Pino Grigio, sweetums?” she called.

“He wants a man’s drink,” Emory muttered, tying an apron around his hips and pulling on an oven mitt. The sight made me giggle.

“In fact, hold the orange peel and lime,” called his dad. “I’ll have mine straight. Hear that, Emory?”

I was pretty sure they were joking, but not a hundred percent sure.

“Water’s fine,” I said quietly.

She nodded understandingly and, with a very teenager-like eyeroll, mouthed, “
Boys
.”

Suddenly, I got really sad. Seriously, how was this family so perfect? They were all so witty, and gorgeous, and loving, and welcoming, and happy . . . and I felt so inadequate around them.

I didn’t belong here, I didn’t deserve to be welcomed into this home. Even if Ashley was alive, I still felt guilty in her family’s presence.

Take a good look, Leona.

I stiffened at the voice in my head.

“Why are you showing me this?” I whispered.

Because this is what you stole from them.

My skin chilled. Even in the hot kitchen, I had to rub my shoulders to fend off a shiver.

Emory pulled out the pizza and talked me through slicing it, and then we carried the food to the table and sat down. Though I listened, the voice said nothing else. Slowly, I began to relax again.

Ashley sauntered in and sat down across from me, meeting no one’s eyes. I watched her carefully.

She looked normal enough.

What had really happened to her?

Emory’s hand found mine under the table, and his fingers clasped mine. My heart did a backflip before I realized everyone else around the table had also grabbed hands and had closed their eyes. I followed suit, holding his mom’s hand, feeling even more out of place. I must stick out like a sore thumb. We didn’t say grace in my house, and I had no idea what to do.

No one spoke.

The silence wore on.

Was I supposed to say something? Panicking, I peeked at Emory, but saw his eyes were still closed. So were his mom’s and dad’s.

My gaze flicked to Ashley, and an electric jolt pierced my heart.

Her eyes were wide open.

Staring at me.

I looked down at my plate, face burning under her gaze. While everyone else was reflecting with their eyes closed, she was staring at me. Why was she staring at me? Did she know? Did she know what I’d done to her? An icy cold sank into my skin.

Emory’s dad cleared his throat and spoke in a deep, emotional voice. “We’re so blessed to have our amazing daughter back, to have our family back together . . . We’re just . . . we’re so blessed to have her back . . .”

While he said grace, Ashley never blinked, never looked away.

Just stared at me.

I tried to close my eyes, tried to ignore her, but those stabbing blue eyes lurked in my periphery, lured my eyelids back open. My clammy fingers began to sweat in Emory’s hand, and my breath came fast and frantic. What was I supposed to do? Look at her? Make a face at her? Avoid eye contact?

“Amen,” said his dad.

“Amen,” murmured Emory and his mom. 

Emory gave my hand a squeeze and let go, and the others dug in, passing around pizza slices and helpings of salad and meatballs, bantering and making small talk with each other. Feeling sick, I peeked at Ashley again.

She slumped in her seat and looked down at her food as if nothing had ever happened. As if she hadn’t been staring creepily at me for the last minute.

“Ashley, eat something,” said her mom.

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered, squishing a piece of lettuce under her fork.

“But you haven’t eaten anything all day,” she said gently. “You must be starving.”

“Well, I’m
not
,” Ashley said, her voice dripping with attitude.

“Sweetie, you didn’t eat anything yesterday, either.”

“Mom, it’s okay.” Emory caught his mom’s eye and made a
cut-it-out
gesture across his neck. “If she’s hungry, she’ll eat.”

His mom nodded, her jaw tight.

Worried the attention would turn to me next, I forced myself to pick at my own pizza. Forks clinked on plates. We ate in tense silence.

Ashley pushed her food around her plate. She had everybody’s attention.

“Won’t you at least have a bite?” said her mom. “Emory and Leona made your favorite—”

“
Mom
,” Emory warned. “Quit pressuring her.”

“May I be excused?” said Ashley.

Emory’s dad shared a glance with his mom. He finished chewing, swallowed, and wiped his hands carefully on his napkin. “Sure, Ash. You want us to save you a piece?”

“No.” She stood up and stomped into the other room.

“Yeah, save her a piece,” Emory said to his dad, tossing his own napkin on the table. “I’ll go see what’s up.” He pushed past me and hurried after his sister, leaving me alone with his parents.

“Hun, don’t worry about it,” his dad whispered across the table. “It’s been three months. Give her time. She’s still adjusting.”

“You’re right,” said Emory’s mom, nodding. “I have to remember she’s not our little girl anymore. She ran away from home, and that’s a major thing for a teenager. She’s probably just acting out because we’re too stifling.” She laughed nervously. “God, I’m just so relieved she’s back.”

He grinned and tore into another slice of pizza.

“I think I should probably go,” I said, standing on shaky feet. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You want to take that gin for the road?” said Emory’s dad jovially.

I gave a feeble laugh and teetered toward the front door, in no mood to offer a retort. A terrifying suspicion had planted itself in my brain, and now I couldn’t get rid of it. The way Ashley had stared at me while he said grace . . . like she wasn’t exactly human.

Chapter 7

“I showed Emory
her body,” I told Megan when she picked me up before school the next day.

“Not sure what that means,” she said, pulling into the street.

“Ashley’s body. I made myself invisible and I led him to the spot where we dumped her.” I hung my head in my hands. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

The car continued to move for a few seconds, and I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. Then she slammed on the brakes, rocking us both forward. “Wait,” she said, “you did
what?
”

“I needed to show someone, Megan. It was eating me up inside . . . and I wanted to help him get closure.”

A car behind us honked. She didn’t budge. “So he knows?”

I nodded.

“And he knows we did it?”

“He doesn’t know we did it.”

“But he saw the body . . . ?” Her eyes widened. “You mean there
is
a body?”

“Right where we left it,” I said, breathing through my fingers. “It was right where we left it, Megan. All rotten and decayed.” I peered sideways at her. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t even know how to react,” she said.

“I’m going to say it was me,” I said quietly.

Another honk. Megan drove forward again, her eyebrows pinched together. “So last night . . . Ashley Lacroix?”

“Mm-hmm,” I said.

“You saw her?”

“Yep.”

“And you met her? You actually met her? It wasn’t a prank? Did you touch her? Was she real?”

“She didn’t eat.”

“What, like she’s a zombie?”

“No, not like she’s a zombie, Megan. We just made this pizza, and apparently it was her favorite, and she didn’t eat it, and I thought that was kind of weird. So did her parents.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing. She barely said anything. Just hi and, ‘You can come in if you want,’ or something like that. She kept looking at me funny.”

“You can come in if you want,” Megan repeated slowly. “Wonder what she meant by that . . . You can come in . . .
if
you want . . .”

I shook my head and exhaled loudly through my fingers. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” I said.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “You disturbed her remains—you’re never supposed to disturb the remains—and now you’ve unleashed her ghost, you idiot.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

“I know what happened,” said Megan. “I know exactly what happened. It’s a textbook bait and switch, Leona. It
was
Ashley, but then she woke up after we dumped her body and went and killed another girl and left her there so it would look like we did it.”

“That’s not a bait and switch,” I said.

“She switched the bodies,” she said. “Classic bait and switch.”

“I don’t care what it is, that’s not what happened.”

“What’s your theory, genius?”

“It’s not her,” I muttered. “But it’s like it
is
her. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe this means we’re off the hook,” said Megan, glancing hopefully at me. “I mean, we didn’t kill her, right? So maybe we can be normal again. Just normal kids. We’re just kids, Leona.”

“We still killed a girl.”

“Maybe we didn’t.”

“Yeah? Then who’s bloody hairs do I keep finding in my trunk, Megan? Who’s body was that rotting in the woods? We can’t pretend nothing happened. Something happened that night. There was a girl standing in the middle of the street, sleepwalking or whatever, and we hit her. We killed her. She was dead. And we didn’t call the police. We put her in my trunk and dumped her in the woods instead.”

“She was just standing there,” Megan mumbled.

Another possibility nagged at the back of my mind, one I hesitated to even voice. But we were running out of ideas. “There’s something else,” I said. “Ashley Lacroix might have been using dark matter.”

“Whoa . . .
really?
”

“There was something sticky on her diary,” I said. “That’s what Emory said. Before all this happened. Something
sticky
.”

Megan peered sideways at me. “Maybe she got syrup on it.”

“Now no one can find the diary.”

“You know, she could just be another hallucination. Like the other Ashley we saw.”

“Maybe,” I said, resting my head against the window. “But this one feels different. This Ashley feels real.”

“You think she’s going to be at school?” she asked.

“Doubt it.”

“That’d be weird, going back to school after everyone thought you were dead . . . your boyfriend’s dating another girl, people being all weird about it. I wouldn’t want to go back, either.”

I looked up. “Did she have a boyfriend?”

“Just saying. Hypothetically.”

“Emory’s not going to tell anyone,” I said. “Not until she’s ready. I wonder if he’ll even be at school today.” The red-tiled roofs of Santa Barbara High School loomed in the distance, and a nervous flutter passed through my stomach. Suddenly, the thought of seeing him gave me butterflies. I hadn’t said goodbye to him last night. And I’d meant to thank him for teaching me how to make a pizza. I closed my eyes, trying to go back to yesterday.

Megan pulled into the school parking lot, and the car engine shuddered to a stop. “I want to see the bones,” she announced.

“Huh? What?” I said, distracted.

“Ashley’s bones. I want to see them. You saw them, so I want to see them. Maybe there’s something we missed . . . a clue or something.”

“Actually, that’s a good idea.” Go see the corpse in broad daylight. Of course. I hadn’t looked closely with Emory. It had been pitch black. Maybe it
was
a different body. “You want to go after school?”

“After school,” she agreed.

I went looking
for Emory before second period with a skip to my step. Maybe Megan was right. Ashley was alive, so we hadn’t killed her. Could it really be that simple?

Maybe the murder had been erased.

Like,
actually
erased.

By the time I rounded the corner toward Emory’s first class, I was feeling positively giddy. I’d never killed anyone, it had never happened, the mistake had been undone.

I had been absolved of sins.

Was it dark matter?

In a way, it made complete sense. Dark matter had been drawn to my guilt. Only by wearing it had I been able to witness the pain I’d caused her family, and through that experience it had gotten me to confess—I’d led Emory to her body. I had even avenged Ashley’s murder by preventing a rape. Maybe I had finally learned my lesson and paid for it, and now the guilt was being washed away.

Maybe dark matter was God?

Yes, Leona.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you . . .”

Emory emerged from his classroom and fumbled in his letterman jacket, pulled out his aviators and a pack of cigarettes, and I barely resisted running to him.
Act cool.

Leaning over, he lit the cig and took a long drag.

Really? He was going to light up in broad daylight? Didn’t we have a tobacco-free campus?

He glanced my way. Suddenly giddy, I opened my mouth to say hi.

Before I could, he veered the other direction and yanked the jacket tight across his shoulders.

I froze, snubbed.
Huh?

He must not have seen me. His eyes had been hidden behind sunglasses, I couldn’t tell. I took a hesitant step forward, then reconsidered. Was he avoiding me? At the thought, my insides curled into a nervous little ball, followed by a rush of heat to my face.

I was new to this. I’d sort of dated a guy for a few months sophomore year, but he’d asked me out. And we were always more like friends. I’d never had to deal with actually really liking a guy before. What about last night? What about having me taste the pizza sauce? Didn’t that mean something?

Stupid. I was reading into things that weren’t there.

Feeling confused and hurt, I trudged back the way I’d come, seeking out Megan instead.

Wait.

I stopped again.

All I wanted to do was thank him for dinner. I was allowed to thank someone for dinner, wasn’t I? In fact, it would be impolite not to. I turned on my heels and ran to catch up with him.

“Emory!”

He ignored me and kept walking.

I fell into step beside him, feeling stupid now. “Hey, I wanted to thank you for dinner last night.”

He took another drag, and his jaw tightened as if he was chewing on something bitter.

“Okay, now you’re just being rude,” I said.

“What do you want, Leona?” he said.

“Ohhh-kay . . . you’re not being weird or anything.”

“I’m busy.”

Uh-oh. My gaze slid to the scuffed concrete, and I choked down a swallow. He wasn’t just brushing me off. He
hated
me. My eyes began to sting, only adding to my shame, and I wiped them angrily. “Did . . . did Ashley say something about me?”

His posture stiffened, but he kept walking, heading out into the parking lot. “You have fun last night?”

“Maybe.” I kept pace with him. “Yeah, I did actually.”

“Shouldn’t have invited you over,” he said.

My heart scampered back into its little cave. “What’s going on?” I said quietly. “You seem different.”

“Very perceptive.” He took another pull from the cigarette and tapped out the ashes. “Go back to class.”

“What did I do?” I whispered.

“It’s not you. It’s
her
.” We arrived at his convertible, and he flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground and reached for the door.

“Wait—” I grabbed his arm. “Emory, what did she say? What happened? Is she okay?”

“No,” he said, finally meeting my gaze. “She’s not okay. She’s definitely not okay.”

“What . . . what do you mean?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “She seems . . . I don’t know, it’s just not like her.”

I felt a twinge of fear. “You mean she’s acting weird?”

He stared at me another moment before he climbed into his car. “Go back to class, Leona.”

“A rotting corpse,
huh?” Megan stepped into the empty clearing between spiky clumps of chaparral, releasing a fistful of thorny stalks that whipped back and slapped my face.

I swatted my way into the clearing, and my jaw fell open. “It was here. I swear it was here.”

There was nothing here.

“I’m telling you, she got up,” said Megan.

“Megan, it was right here.”

“Sure, Leona.”

I charged through the leaves and dug through the surrounding brush, but came up short. No sign of a body. I stood, skin prickling. The cool, fusty scent of damp earth slipped in ragged breaths into my sore lungs. But scarcely a week ago I’d led Emory here. She’d been right here, right where we left her.

“This was the spot,” I said.

“Yeah, I remember,” said Megan. “We were both there.”

“Megan, I
saw
her. Her body. It was right here.”

“Maybe it was another hallucination.”

“It wasn’t.” Panting now, I circled the clearing in search of clues. We’d hiked back up Rattlesnake Canyon Trail after school. I’d been silent most of the way, replaying that terrible conversation I’d had with Emory over and over again in my head—divided between crazy speculations about Ashley and feeling hurt that he’d brushed me off.

But now the missing body took first priority.

It had been
right here
.

If the murder had been erased, then the body would be gone, right? That should have been good news, but right now it certainly didn’t feel like good news. If anything, it only made the whole thing feel more sinister.

What was it about Ashley that had bothered Emory so much?

He’d been so happy the other day.

“So . . . no body,” said Megan. “We’re definitely off the hook.”

A hint of decay lingered in the air. I flared my nostrils, drawing it deep into my lungs. Decomposing vegetation? Or a fouler smell? My eyes narrowed at something on the ground. Trampled grass.

“The ground’s all disturbed . . .
recently
disturbed.” I scanned the rest of the site, noticing other clues. Scuffs in the dirt, the cracked stalks of chaparral, and there, fluttering on a barbed branch a tiny yellow scrap of—I peered closer—police caution tape.

I whacked my forehead.
Duh!
“Megan, he went to the police. The police took the body, obviously! Look—” I plucked off the caution tape and thrust it under her nose.

She took it, and while she examined it, I knelt at a black, burnt-looking patch on the ground and took a sniff. Putrid fumes swept up into my sinuses, making me instantly dizzy. I recoiled and staggered backward into Megan, coughing. “Ew, ew . . .
there
.” I pointed. “She was laying right there.”

Megan leaned over me and took a hesitant sniff herself, and her nose scrunched up. She turned away and dragged the top of her shirt over her mouth.

“There’s no point,” I said. “If the police have already been here, they’ll have collected all the clues.”

“Leona?” Megan said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Are we going to go to jail?”

I chewed my lip, also realizing the significance. If the police had found the body, then how long before they found us?

“I don’t know,” I said.

“If they have the body, they’re going to find our fingerprints. They’re going to know we did it.”

“It’s been three months,” I said. “Maybe our prints have washed away by now.”

Maybe they haven’t.

“They’re going to find us,” said Megan.

“Look, it’s not Ashley, right? Ashley’s alive, and Ashley was the one people cared about, and now she’s back at home with her family where she belongs. Whoever this other girl was, no one’s going to make a fuss about her. No one even knew she was missing. They’re probably just going to store her body in a huge freezer somewhere and not even do anything.”

Megan glanced at me and whispered hoarsely, “Ashley’s really alive? You saw her?”

“I saw her. She’s alive.”

She nodded slowly.

Unless that wasn’t really Ashley.

On the hike back to the trailhead, we fell into a brooding silence, and my mind circled back to Emory and what he’d said at school.

She’s not okay
.

She’s definitely not okay.

What had he meant by that? Not okay, as in, she’d changed in the last three months? As in, she was an angsty teenager? Or not okay, as in, she didn’t even seem like his sister anymore?

She’d been playing with dark matter.

An imposter
.

One unnerving thought after another crept through my brain. By the time we reached Megan’s car, my entire body had become a trembling ball of nerves.

Two days ago, a girl had shown up out of thin air who should have been dead.