Translucent (17 page)

“You know, you’re a lot like her,” he whispered.

My body stiffened.

This was wrong. I couldn’t be here sobbing against his chest, drawing away his strength like a leech.

Sniffling, I pulled my head back to look him in the eye, to confess everything before I dug myself any deeper, before he got any closer, before it was too late.

Before I felt something more for him than I already did.

Our faces hovered inches apart. In his eyes I saw the scars from what I’d done, and knew that was why I was drawn obsessively to them. Knew it would always be that way.

Then I did something taboo.

I leaned forward, closing my eyes, and kissed him. My heart took off sprinting. My body knew full well how wrong it was, and I did it anyway. His mouth accepted mine and pushed back, gently at first, then harder, and his hand moved up my cheek and dug under my hair, sending a shiver of pleasure down my spine. I squeezed closer, my mouth moving against his impulsively, lips salty from tears.

This was so wrong.

As we made out, a terrible weight crushed down on me, even as I felt lighter than air.

I was in way too deep.

Show him what you did to her,
said the voice in my head.

Chapter 17

I cranked the
hot water as high as it would go and stood shivering in Megan’s bathroom while the water heated up. Every inch of my skin felt dirty. I had kissed him.

Was I
insane?

The one boy I absolutely couldn’t allow myself to get close to, and I was getting close to him. I was falling for him. No, more than that. I was obsessed with him . . . because I’d killed his sister, and my stupid, stupid body couldn’t tell the difference between morbid fascination and lust.

My guilty need to somehow make up for Ashley’s death had mutated into a weird, clingy desire to get close to him . . . into infatuation.

Now I
actually
wanted to get close to him.

I’d wanted to kiss him so bad.

Humid air blew out of the shower and fogged up the mirror, and steam billowed up from the faucet. I stepped into the shower, and the boiling water scalded me, made me wince. I relished it.

Hands trembling, I squeezed body wash onto a loofah and raked it across my stomach and arms, my legs, everywhere, scrubbing until the skin throbbed.

I had to get it off.

The dark matter, my guilt . . .
his touch
.

I wanted to scrub until I scratched off all my skin, because I couldn’t stand to be in it anymore, and when I got below the skin, I wanted to keep scrubbing and scraping and scratching until every dirty part of me ran in bloody clots down the drain.

I’d failed.

I’d gone over to his house to confess, and instead ended up making out with him for twenty minutes on his bed. Tangled in his arms I’d so easily forgotten who I was, who he was, what I’d done—until it was just his lips and my body and the aroused endorphins swirling through my brain. For once it was my heart pounding for the right reasons.

Until it all came rushing back.

Now that moment haunted me, that I could forget even for one second what I’d done, that I could feel giddiness and desire and longing for even one second. That one second made me dirty.

My hand clenched around the loofah, foam oozing between my fingers. I collapsed to the shower floor, still shivering. I wanted to die. My lungs heaved and shuddered as a whimper welled up inside me.
No!
I forced myself to hold it in. I didn’t deserve to cry. Emory deserved to cry, and Megan deserved to cry, and Ashley’s parents and her friends deserved to cry, but not me. I didn’t deserve to feel sadness. Only shame.

I couldn’t go on like this.

I had to tell him.

I’m the one who murdered your sister, Emory.

But after kissing him today, I couldn’t. My confession would only add salt to the wound, insult to injury. Knowing I was her murderer would humiliate him, devastate him. Or maybe my reasons were selfish. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to make him hate me like that when I was falling for him.

The whimper finally escaped, echoing around the bathroom. I clamped my palm over my mouth, not wanting Megan to hear. She didn’t know I’d gone over to his house, she didn’t know how close I’d come to confessing everything.

Emory had to know.

He had to know what we’d done to Ashley, or else he would never find closure, he would never stop mourning her disappearance. The tiniest fragment of hope would eat away at him for the rest of his life.

Maybe she’s still alive, maybe she ran away, maybe she’ll come back . . .

If I didn’t do something, he would go to his grave with that doubt.

To make him suffer like that was wrong. Dead wrong.

I had to tell him. Somehow, I had to tell him. And if I couldn’t do it in person, then I had to find another way. Maybe if I confessed anonymously, or gave him a clue that would eventually lead him to me . . .

Lead him to the body.

The idea popped into my head. Of course! I could make myself invisible and lead him to the body. He would never know it was me. I blinked against the hot water, my heart making heavy thumps.

I knew it was what I had to do.

Dark matter . . . this was the reason it had found me. This was why it wanted to be worn like a second skin, so I could lead him to her body, so I could lead him to closure. It was beautiful. A blissful calm washed over me.

I could even pretend to be her ghost.

Something banged outside the shower, jolting me.

I raised my head and peered through the glass. Water beaded and ran in rivulets, obscuring the view. No one out there.

It had sounded like a cabinet slamming.

I listened in rigid silence, ears tuned to every tiny noise above the rush of water—was that the floor creaking . . . or my imagination? I climbed to my feet, suffering a wave of heat-induced vertigo as blood drained from my head and my heart hammered to catch up. For a dizzying moment, a black shroud descended over my vision.

I rubbed the moisture away from the steamy glass and surveyed the bathroom—the tiled counter, the fogged mirror, my clothes discarded on the floor.

The sink.

The faucet was running in the sink.

Had I left the sink running? I shut off the shower, and a foggy silence filled my ears, a chorus of straggling drips. And the slosh of water pouring into the sink.

I hadn’t left it on.

That I would have remembered.

“Megan,” I whispered. “Megan, is that you?”

No answer.

I pushed open the shower door, and it swung open, wobbling on its hinges. Steam poured out of the open shower and whipped into eddies as it mixed with cold air, and a chilly backlash blew against my abs.

My eyes darted around the bathroom. “Megan, are you in here?”

The billowing steam settled down.

“Megan, this isn’t funny.” My voice quivered. “I know you’re in here.”

Dripping wet, I crossed the tile to the only door, bracing myself in case she startled me. I reached for the doorknob . . . and froze.

My breath faltered.

The doorknob was locked. Locked from the inside. So were the windows.

I shouted, “Megan, you out there?”

Silence. Just my own thundering pulse. Like I thought, she was in here with me—

“What’s up?” came her muffled reply from another room in the house.

It couldn’t be her.

I turned around slowly, unease creeping up my spine.

“Is . . . is anyone in here?” I breathed. “Hello?”

That was when I noticed the condensed pools of water on the tile, otherwise coated evenly with mist. Sets of two large pools . . . and five little ones.

Footprints.

Not my footprints.

Warm air brushed my cheek.

Suddenly, a tornado formed in the steam, as if someone had just passed right in front of me
.
I screamed, and my bare heel slipped on the wet tile, sending me crashing to the floor.

Terrified, I scanned the bathroom for movement, scrambling behind me for the doorknob.

But then I heard a squeaky sound, like skin dragging across wet glass. My eyes sought out the mirror, now completely fogged up. As I stared in horror, a word formed in the condensation, as if written by a ghost. Then another.

Help me

“Megan . . . Megan,” I
shouted. “
Megan!
”

Her footsteps came stomping toward the bathroom. “Leona!”

Help me
.

The message began to drip.

I stared at the mirror, stared at the empty space in front of it, and realized then I was naked. I lunged for my clothes and yanked them over my body. “Who’s . . . who’s in here?”

“Leona!” The door rattled next to me, still locked.

“There’s someone in here,” I called through the door, scooting up the wall and fumbling the knob with my elbow. The door unlatched, and she rushed in.

“What? What?” She followed my terrified gaze to the mirror. “Did you write that?”

I shook my head, gaze darting around. “There’s someone else in here . . . while I was showering . . . but the door was locked . . .”

“Block the door . . . block it!” She slammed the door shut and spun toward the mirror. “This time we’re catching the pervert.” Running forward, she flailed her arms through the air, moving them randomly in front of the mirror and over the counter, then along the walls. 

I tugged a towel off the rack so I could properly cover myself, then joined in the search. My hands probed the corners, the now-vacant shower stall, the cabinets, terrified that any moment my fingers would grasp invisible flesh.

We met in the middle, both empty-handed. Together, our gazes rose to the ceiling, the one place we hadn’t checked. Hanging onto the light, maybe, holding himself up like a gymnast . . .

“There’s no way,” said Megan.

I jumped up a few times and swung my hands around the light anyway.

Just empty space.

“Careful, don’t slip,” she said.

Panting from the effort, I scanned the bathroom again. “Do you think he left?”

“How? The door’s been shut—” Her eyes widened, and she pointed over my shoulder, grabbed my arm to turn me around. “Leona, look!”

The
Help me
had all but dripped away. But now another one was inching across the glass above the first, the letters broken and poorly formed, as if written left-handed.

I tiptoed forward, then reached hesitantly toward the mirror. This time, I knew I’d feel a body. But I didn’t. Where an arm should have been, where a body
had
to be, my hand passed through empty air—even as letters continued to form on the misted glass in front of me. Forming on their own.

Help me.

This couldn’t be possible.

Someone who couldn’t be seen
and
couldn’t be touched.

“You need help,” I whispered, reaching toward the words. “It needs help. Who are you?”

Megan cleared her throat loudly and addressed the mirror. “Are you human?”

The letters on the mirror deteriorated into scribbles, as if the writer was having trouble.

“We need a Ouija board,” she said, dashing out of the bathroom.

“Wait—” I scrambled after her. “Don’t leave me alone with it.” I paused in the doorway, though, then turned around and said, “Stay here. We’ll be right back.”

In the hallway, Megan yanked linens out of a closet, dug through a pile of board games, and came out with a box. We ran back to the bathroom and unpacked a board stamped with all the letters of the alphabet and a heart-shaped piece of wood—the planchette. With trembling hands, Megan placed it next to the sink as a sort of offering and backed away.

Nothing happened.

“Now what?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s supposed to move.”

“Aren’t we supposed to both touch it or something?”

“Duh, right,” she said. “I forgot.”

Together, we crept up to the board, but before we could touch anything, the planchette jiggled and tumbled to the floor. I snatched it up and put it back on the board, breathing too fast. “Grab the other side.”

She did. “Wait, we’re supposed to ask a question,” said Megan.

“Right, uh . . .” I swallowed hard and stared at the foggy words in the mirror. “Who are you?”

Under my fingers, the wood piece nudged to the side. We both shrieked and let go.

“Did you do that?” said Megan.

“No, of course not—”

Then the piece moved again all on its own, like someone had flicked it. Megan grabbed my arm. Something nudged the piece again, and in fits and starts, it inched across the board until it settled on a letter.

Megan leaned forward. “S,” she announced.

It moved to the next letter, and I read off an “A.” The wood piece slid again, stopping at three more letters.

“R . . . A . . . H,” said Megan.

“Sarah,” we said together.

Chapter 18

“The interment was
on Thursday,” said Megan, hanging up the phone after talking to her sister. “She’s buried in the columbarium over at Forest Glade Cemetery.”

I nodded, chewing my lip as my mind grappled for an explanation. “And she saw them do it? I mean, your sister, she saw them
inter
her or whatever?”

“That’s what she said.”

“What the hell?” I breathed.

Sarah—or Sarah’s ghost, or spirit, or whatever that thing was in Megan’s bathroom—had spelled out no other words on the Ouija board or in the mirror. Had she floated away through the walls? Or was she still here, watching us?

Help me
.

That was all. And her name.

The simplest message possible.

The whole episode left me deeply unnerved.

“What was her last name?” I said. “I don’t even know her last name.”

“Erskine,” said Megan.

“Erskine,” I repeated. “Sarah Erskine. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her.”

“Who else do we know named Sarah?”

“She’s
dead
, Megan.”

“Isn’t that the definition of a ghost?”

“It’s the dark matter . . . it’s screwing with us.” I glanced nervously around Megan’s bedroom. The place didn’t feel safe anymore. Something could be here right now sharing this very same space with us.

“The Ouija board moved,” said Megan.

“I know, and there were footprints and she wrote on the mirror and she turned on the faucet. I know she was real. There was something there, something that had physical substance. The steam even swirled around her.”

“What do you want to do, Leona?”

I looked up at her. “How far is Forest Glade Cemetery? How far of a drive?”

She shrugged. “Fifteen minutes. Why?”

I pushed myself to my feet. “Grab your keys.”

Bougainvillea clung in
thorny clumps to the fence around Forest Glade Cemetery, littering the dewy grass with magenta petals. We found a sparse section where the vines retreated from the chain links.

I wedged the toe of my running shoes into the fence and shimmied up to my hips, thorns scraping at my wrists. I hoisted my legs over one at a time, then dropped into a heap on the other side, where I leapt to my feet and brushed off. A cool adrenaline buzzed under my skin.

We hadn’t bothered with invisibility, though we’d brought the contact lens case in the car just in case.

This late at night, the cemetery was deserted. Gates closed at sunset.

The fence rattled, and Megan landed behind me.

Rows of decorated gravestones stretched away from us over grassy hills, dotted with dandelions and flowers, all shimmering under the full moon. Lanterns lined a cobblestone footpath.

“Why does everyone say graveyards are creepy?” I said. “This isn’t creepy. This is nice.”

“It’s the thought that’s creepy,” said Megan.

“What, that dead people are buried here? The earth has been around for four billion years. Every inch of ground has got dead people buried in it. What do you think soil is, huh?”

“Okay, Leona.”

My eyes settled on an open-air structure of white marble and Greek columns at the top a hill. “That must be the columbarium.”

“How do you know?” she said.

“It
looks
like a columbarium,” I said, starting up the path.

Sure enough, the building turned out to be a maze of marble walls, each face bearing hundreds of bronze plaques. Little niches for stashing dead bodies.

Megan edged closer to me. “Leona, how are we going to find her?”

“We’re going to check each one.” I shined my cell phone light at a random plaque, all corroded and black. Javier Something-or-other, couldn’t read his last name. I moved to the next plaque, also corroded. Hanging from a knob in the wall, a green urn held a few dried twigs, flowers long since dead.

“Why don’t we look for fresh flowers and a new plaque,” said Megan.

I stopped, ready to dust off a third plaque. “That’s . . . a much better idea.”

So we ventured deeper into the maze, panning our cell phone lights across the marble walls flanking us. The plaques at the top towered twelve feet above us, impossible to reach. Cheaper real estate probably.

At last, my light gleamed off a shiny bronze plaque, newly minted, nestled deep in a bushy wreath of fresh flowers and ribbons.
Hers
.

Sarah Erskine
.

I guess I hadn’t really believed she was here, because seeing her name sent a chill through my bones. She had left us a message an hour ago, yet here was her grave. Her body had been interred here for almost three days.

Wait . . . her
body?

I glanced side to side at the neighboring plaques, only a few inches apart. “No, no, no,” I said, backing away to survey the entire wall. “You couldn’t fit a body in these slots. No way.”

“No shit, Sherlock, she was cremated.”

I blinked, feeling stupid. “
Cremated?
”

“Yeah, when they burn your body until there’s just ashes—”

“I know what cremated means,” I snapped. “Why didn’t you tell me that
before
we made this stupid trip over here?”

“I didn’t see how it was relevant.” 

“Megan, she was cremated.” I gave her a pointed look. “Tell me that’s not relevant.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hold up, hold up, you’re not saying . . .”

I nodded.

“Wait, you think she’s . . .” she pointed vaguely into the distance, “you think she’s still . . .” 

“Still alive?” I said. “I’m just putting two and two together. There’s no coffin here, there’s no body, right? Just a bunch of ashes, which means no one saw them put a body in the ground. And thirty minutes ago we had someone invisible in our house claiming to be her. All I’m saying is something really screwed up is going on here, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

My phone rang, making us both jump.

I pulled it out.

One look at the caller ID made my throat seize up.

Emory Lacroix. He was calling me . . .
why
was he calling me? My skin broke out in hot flashes.

We’d exchanged numbers this afternoon. The memory surfaced out of a fog, as if it had happened in another life. At the time I’d been too lovesick—and maybe actually sick—to think straight.

“I . . . I need to take this,” I said turning away from my best friend. I swiped a trembling finger across the screen to accept the call and raised the phone to my cheek, mechanically answering, “Hello?” 

“Yo,” he said, chewing something on the other end. Crunchy cereal it sounded like. “I wake you up?”

I shook my head, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “No,” I whispered.

“Come over,” he said. “My parents are gone.”

My heart seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time.

“Right . . . right now?” I asked, horrified.

“Yes. Right now.”

“Do I get a choice?” I said.

“Unless you want me to make it for you,” he said, “which I’m doing right now. Get your butt in your car and drive over here. It’s a full moon, and I got steps in my backyard that go right down to the beach. It’s fucking beautiful right now.”

For a split-second, I felt happy little butterflies in my stomach, and then my insides twisted up into a tiny knot and crushed them out of existence, leaving only cold emptiness. My heart slammed against my sternum.

But I couldn’t say no.

Only he could judge me as worthy, only he could choose to show me mercy for what I’d done. He held my salvation, and as long as he held it, I would be his slave.

I would do anything for him.

“Cool,” I said, feeling hollow. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Dress warm,” he said, and hung up.

I lowered the phone, struggling to breathe against a horrible crushing in my chest. I was trapped.

I couldn’t bring myself to confess. Not tonight, not on a moonlit beach, not on the same day I kissed him. To do that would be unthinkable. But to see him again without telling him would only deepen my betrayal. I couldn’t do that either.

A hundred bronze plaques stared down at me in silent judgment, the ashes of the deceased. Right now, I would have traded places with them in a heartbeat.

I had to do it tonight.

Right now, before I got any closer to him and forever lost my chance at redemption.

His phone call had forced my hand.

I inhaled slowly, summoning the courage. I could do this. I had to do this. It
wanted
me to do this . . . the dark matter. It had been preparing me for this moment since that night I had gone down into the crater and found it.

I glanced at Megan.

She gaped at me, jaw suspended in disbelief. She’d seen the caller ID over my shoulder, she’d heard the entire conversation.

She knew I was about to see him.

“Take me home,” I said, no longer caring about her or Sarah Erskine or the message in the mirror.

Tonight, I would make myself invisible and lead Emory Lacroix to the decayed remains of his fifteen-year-old sister.

“Leona, that you?”
came my mom’s muffled voice from my parents’ bedroom, the door open a few inches.

I froze in the hallway, caught in the act. It was almost midnight, they should have been asleep.

I stepped up to their door, peered into the darkness. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I thought you were spending the night at Megan’s?”

“Yeah, I . . . I changed my mind. She just dropped me off.”

“Okay.” The mattress creaked as she turned over. “Would you mind closing our door?”

I pulled it halfway shut, but hesitated and leaned my forehead on the wood. After tonight, nothing would ever be the same again. “Mom?” I said, feeling like I needed to say goodbye to them.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Dad, you awake?”

“Mmm . . .”

“I love you.”

He mumbled something back to me.

“Leona, is everything okay?” asked my mom, tossing some more.

“Everything’s fine . . . everything’s going to be fine. I promise.” With that, I pulled the door shut. In the silence, a shiver slipped under my skin.

I was doing this tonight.

Back in my bedroom, I closed the door and backed against it, taking slow, deep breaths to calm my humming nerves. My heart felt excited and sick at the same time.

Time to get ready.

I set the contact lens case on the floor, fingers jittery, and uncapped it. The interior came into view. Nothing there.

They’ll find you, Leona.

I pushed the thought from my mind, kicked off my shoes, peeled off my socks. Every inch of me trembled. My icy fingers groped the button of my jeans, undid it, and lowered the zipper. I tugged them off and lay them on my bed, followed by my sweater, my shirt, my bra, my panties. A chill swirled around my naked skin, raising goosebumps. I let out another shiver. This one from sheer terror.

Tonight was going to be cold. I took a final shuddering breath and dipped my index finger into the contact case, into what felt like a dollop of honey, and raised it in front of me. Then I stretched it around my fingernail toward my knuckle, erasing the finger before my eyes. By now I was a pro at this.

After tonight, Emory would go to the police. Of course he would. They would reopen the investigation. They would find clues on the body—Megan’s and my DNA, a strand of my long hair, chips of lipstick-red paint from a Toyota Corolla embedded in her scalp. They would eventually find me.

I needed them to find me.

I needed
him
to find me.

I pulled the dark matter down my wrist like I was pulling on a glove, averting my eyes from the cross section of quivering meat.

There would be a trial, and I would plead guilty and go to jail and pay for my crimes. The sentence would be long . . . but not forever. Years . . . but not a whole lifetime. When I eventually got out, my body would still be young, I would have most of my twenties still ahead of me. And then, maybe then, after I had repented and confessed my sins and served my time, I would finally be able to forgive myself.

But not until Emory did first.

The dark matter spread over me on its own now, claiming my flesh inch by inch. I closed my eyes and let it happen, focusing on the tingle climbing my neck, unfurling across my torso, swallowing me whole. The sticky membrane clamped over my nose and mouth, and for a panicky few seconds, I choked on it. Then it expanded into my lungs and fused to my skin, became one with my body. It was now my skin.

No, Leona
, said the voice in my head.

You’re now my skin.