Call Me Grim (9 page)

I shiver like I always do when I see this painting. I just can’t understand how the artist managed to convey such raw, dark emotions using only fruit.

“Can I help you?” Ms. Weese’s smile is as bright as her non-cracked soul.

“Yeah. Do you keep newspapers from, like, forty years ago?”

“Well, I know we have current newspapers.” She tucks her bangs behind her ear. “But I don’t know about forty years ago. Are you looking for something in particular?”

“Yes. I’m trying to find the story of a boy from this school who disappeared forty years ago. Aaron Shepherd?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says and slowly nods. “I think I know what you’re talking about.”

“You do?” My stomach lurches. “Did you know him too?”

She looks too young to have known him forty years ago. But who am I to talk? I’m too young to have met him yesterday.

“No. My mom did. She tried to scare me with the story one Halloween, when I was about your age.” Ms. Weese smiles fondly. “Her big finale was that it was all true and she knew it was true because she knew him.” She chuckles. “But you’re in luck. We probably have a copy of that paper. Mr. Boyd kept any papers that mentioned the school by name, even for messed up stories like that.”

Mr. Boyd was the previous librarian. He passed away last summer. This woman, with her wispy blond hair and bohemian dress, took his place.

She waves for me to follow her into the deserted library. There are only a few days left of the school year, so most people have finished their book reports and research projects. The few that haven’t would probably rather be caught at prom dressed in drag than holding a book in the library.

She leads me to the back of the library. A table and four chairs block a tall, dark wood door. The librarian heaves the table away from the door and I set my book bag on one of the chairs.

“There’s just not enough space in this library,” she says as she withdraws a set of keys from her pocket.

The door jams when she tries to open it. She jiggles the handle a few times, mumbles something I can’t understand, then rams the door with her shoulder. A crack sounds when the door comes unglued from the jamb and swings into the cool, dark space. She reaches in and switches the overhead light on.

“Well, here you are. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere, but you’ll have to look for it. It shouldn’t be too hard to find. I’d help you look, but I can’t stay after today. I have an appointment.” Her eyes suddenly widen in comic surprise and she whispers, “You won’t steal anything, will you?”

“No. I just want to see the article. I won’t even take it out of the room. I promise.”

“All right. Just don’t tell anyone I left you in here alone, okay? And make sure you’re out by five. That’s when they lock the doors.” She graces me with her beaming smile. “Good luck,” she says as the heavy door drifts closed behind her.

“Okay then,” I mutter to myself. With the door closed, the rectangular room feels like a coffin.

I turn in a circle and read the bronze-plate markers above each chest of drawers.
The Baltimore Sun. The New York Times.
The chest labeled
The Carroll Falls Tribune
is at the far end, but the narrow room is so small it only takes me five steps to reach it.

The drawer marked 1960-79 is close to the floor. I stoop, lean back on my heels, and yank it open.

Dust and the dry scent of old paper waft out of the drawer. I sneeze, cover my nose and mouth with my hand, and cough. My vision clouds and tears spill down my cheeks. The next breath fills my lungs with another gust of old paper particles and dust.

The heavy, drowning-in-floral-perfume feeling I had in the computer lab hasn’t really gone away yet. I’d only wrestled it under control. But now it’s back, full force.

I turn my head away from the drawer and take three deep breaths through my mouth.
Asthma does not control me. I am the asthma master.
I hold the last breath and turn back to the drawer.

The newspaper on top of the pile is from December 10, 1979. I don’t bother to read anything else. It’s not what I’m looking for. This paper isn’t old enough. I lift it and several others out of the drawer, scan them over one by one, and then drop them to the floor beside me. Dust clouds the air and I peer through the plume—careful not to breathe it in—to the next newspaper in the stack.

Aaron stares up at me from the drawer. His black hair—tousled and unkempt last night —is smooth and parted to one side. The worn, older-than-his-years pinch is absent from his face and he’s smiling. I pull my eyes away from the photo and read the headline.

“Alleged Teen Murderer, Aaron Shepherd, Missing”

As much as I don’t want to, I gasp, and dust-peppered air fills my lungs. I stumble back, land on my butt, and kick the drawer closed, but it’s too late. My chest already feels like a boa constrictor has wrapped its coils around me. The next laborious breath rumbles with a deep wheeze.

My hands flutter over my pockets. My inhaler. Where is my inhaler?

It’s in my book bag.

My book bag is on the chair, outside the door. I scramble to my feet. Beads of stinging sweat drip into my eyes. The door is so far away.

Using the chests of newspapers as support, I stagger to the door. The knob slips in my slick palms and I wipe my hands on my shirt and try again. My chest is on fire. The wheezing crackles in my ears. My hands grip on the knob this time and it turns, but the door refuses to open.

It’s jammed. I shake the knob and jerk it as hard as I can, but the door won’t budge. Oh God, why won’t the door open? It feels like I’m breathing through a coffee straw. I need my inhaler.

The tips of my fingers transition from pale white to blue. I ball my hands into fists and pound on the door. I cry out for help, but I don’t have enough air in my lungs to make any sounds other than grunts and wheezes.

“Do you need this?” a calm voice says in my ear.

I swing around and meet Aaron’s cold, blue eyes. He smiles and holds something out to me.

My inhaler.

There’s a small part of me that almost doesn’t take the inhaler. That part of me wants to fling it across the room and run as far from Aaron as the cramped space will allow. But I can’t run, even if I really wanted to. I can’t breathe.

I glance at the inhaler, then back to his calm, collected face and rip the inhaler from his hand. Then he does something even more out of place than smile as I struggle for air.

He laughs at me. Jerk.

My breath rattles as I shake the silver canister, depress the plunger, and breathe in the life-saving medication. It stings the back of my throat, but I hold the medicine in for the count of sixty and let it out. The vise that grips my chest slowly loosens and air rushes in. The room spins, and I slide down the jammed door to the floor. Aaron crouches in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders. I flinch, but I’m too weak and woozy to do much else.

“Are you feeling better, now?” he asks.

I nod as I take another puff of my inhaler. The mist goes deeper this time. My fingertips tingle and my heart races, but I can breathe.

“You k-killed someone?” I stammer. It’s probably not the best time to say this, since I’m trapped in a coffin-shaped room with him, but it comes out anyway.

Aaron looks over his shoulder at the file cabinet behind him and then back at me with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw.

“That’s not important.” His features soften, but I’m sure his sympathy is fake. If I look closely, I know I’ll see an angry, cold monster under that mask. “Let’s not talk about my past right now, Libbi. It’s not 3:12 yet. You still have a few minutes before you’re supposed to die. So why don’t we make sure you stay alive, okay?”

I try to meet his eyes. I want to see the monster, the murderer underneath, but my bangs obscure my vision.

Aaron brushes the hair behind my ear. His soft, warm fingertips graze my cheek, and the line of skin where he touches me tingles. The cool hue of his eyes, which struck me as monstrous and cold only seconds ago, relaxes me now. As does his smile.

“What are you doing to me?” I want to sound angry, indignant at this violation of my emotions, but instead I sound like Max when he’s asking something stupid, like why dogs sniff each other’s butts.

“You feel better, right?” His hand drops to his lap. “I just relaxed you, that’s all. Like I said, we haven’t passed the time of your death yet. You can’t afford to be upset right now.”

“Let me guess…another one of your awesome superpowers?”

“Yes.” He gives me his big, you’re-such-a-smart-student grin.

“Do me a favor, Aaron.” Though my body remains loose and relaxed, I can hear the anger slowly creeping back into my voice. “Don’t you
ever
use that on me again. Got it?”

The goofball grin vanishes from his face.

“Look. I’m just trying to help you,” he says.

“Yeah? Well, thanks, but no thanks.”

He stands as I push myself up from the floor and holds both of his hands out to me. I guess he wants me to take them, but I don’t. Instead I level him with my gaze. Still feeling light-headed from the lack of oxygen and asthma medication, I tip slightly and lean against the closest file cabinet.

He reaches for me, probably to steady me, but I slap his hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, and his arm falls to his side.

He may be cute and he may have saved my life, twice, and maybe last night I felt sorry for him for a minute, but Grim Reaper business aside, I always knew there was something off about him. And now I know what it is.

“How many people did you kill, Aaron? I didn’t get to read the article.”

He takes a step back and his face turns paper-white. Other than the greenish-purple bruise I left on his chin yesterday, he looks like a ghost.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Hell yes, it matters!” The woozy effect of the medicine is wearing off and so is Aaron’s relaxation thing. I can breathe and now I need answers. “How many? Or was it so many you can’t remember? Maybe you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count on.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” His eyes flash with anger. “What matters is what’s happening right now. And right now it’s 3:13 and I’ve just saved your life. Again. So, have you made your decision?”

“No.” I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. “I won’t decide until I know what happened.”

“Look it up then.” He sweeps his hand wide, inviting me to go back to the evil, dust-filled file cabinet. “But if you haven’t made up your mind, then I have to go. I have someone important I need to see.”

“They can wait,” I assure him.

“No, Libbi. Abaddon cannot wait. He’s expecting your soul and I need to tell him why I haven’t brought you to him yet.” He grips my shoulders and locks me in his stare. “Drop this thing, okay? You only have twenty-four hours now. You’re wasting time searching for something you can’t change. Go home. Think about all the cool things you’ll be able to see and do as a Reaper and forget about all of this”—he tips his head toward the file cabinet behind him—“stuff.”

“Fat chance of that happening,” I say.

“Please, Libbi.” His eyebrows bunch together. “And please, keep all of this Reaper stuff to yourself, okay? It will be easier for you in the long run. Believe me.”

He faces the jammed door and without looking back at me, he walks through it. The last thing I see of him is the sole of his tennis shoe as it melts into the wood. I’m alone again.

“Wait,” I say, mostly to myself. I figure Aaron’s gone. “Don’t leave me stuck in here.”

“I’m not.” I hear his voice on the other side of the door. “Step back or the door will hit you.”

I take a big step back. Something solid thumps against the other side of the door and dust drifts down from the frame. With a loud pop, the door flings open and crashes against a chest of old newspapers.

Aaron turns away as I step out of the dark, coffin-like room and into the bright library.

“You’re welcome for saving your life, by the way,” he says over his shoulder as he heads to the front of the library and the exit.

Through the window in front of him, I see Mrs. Lutz closing the door to the computer lab across the hall.

“Wait!” I jog to catch up to him. “I have a question.”

He stops with one leg halfway through the solid wood of the library door and glances back at me.

“Make it quick, Libbi. I can’t be late.”

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Lutz’s face? It looks like her soul is broken or something.”

“That’s because her soul
is
broken.” He turns back to the door and his next words are so soft I hardly hear them. “Margie Lutz is marked.”

“Marked?” I say, but he doesn’t answer me. He’s already walked through the door and out of sight.

I slowly turn and weave through the bookshelves, back to the door at the back of the library. The door to the newspaper room has drifted closed on its own. The doorknob twists in my hand, but when I push against the door, it’s as stuck as it was when I was trapped inside. I don’t have enough energy to force it open, like Ms. Weese and Aaron did. Asthma attacks really knock me on my ass.

So instead of ramming the door, I gather my stuff and head home. It looks like I’ll be taking a trip to the community library in the morning.

I don’t care if Aaron wants me to forget his past. I need to know what happened. It might be important. If he’s a murderer, he’s probably not someone I can trust.

Max and Kyle rock on the porch swing with their heads together, like they’re sharing a big secret or a joke. The unintelligible low hum of Kyle’s voice drifts to me as I trudge up the front walkway to my house. Max giggles and says something back. It’s probably just my overactive imagination, but I could swear I heard the name Aaron.

As I top the steps, they both look up at me, eyes wide. Max’s slack jaw and pale cheeks make him look like I caught him stealing. Kyle looks less guilty, though he’s twirling one of his drumsticks about a mile a minute. The corners of his mouth dip down and for a brief moment his eyes are sharp, accusatory. Then he gives me his normal, best-friend smile and I relax.