Eternal (3 page)

Sensing no threat from him, I took in his dark, disheveled hair, his blousing shirt, suspenders, dark trousers and clumsy looking shoes.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

His lips parted. A question lurked in his eyes.

“Who are you?” I inquired again. “What do you want?”

He took one step closer, looking as if he might speak, and then he simply…
vanished
.

Gone.

Poof.

I blinked. Had I imagined him? Was he part of some dream? No. I was wide awake.

Another realization I didn’t want to consider crept over me like a clammy chill.

Was he a…a ghost?

I stared at the spot where he’d been. My whole body began to tremble. A ghost. I’d seen a ghost. When I could finally drag a breath into my lungs, I screamed.

Footsteps hammered up the staircase in time with my racing heart.

“Wren?”

My shoulders sagged with relief when my mother’s voice called from the hallway.

Ella appeared in my doorway, rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Drawing her robe together, Mom swept past her and hurried to my bedside. “What’s the matter, Wren? Did you have another bad dream?”

I’d been having nightmares since the accident. Mom always referred to them as bad dreams but they were real, terrifying, sweat-inducing nightmares. This had not been one of those. Not even close.

While Ella lingered in the doorway, Mom sat beside me and stroked my hair off my face. Even in my terror, I noticed how careful she was not to brush her palm over my scar.

My gaze moved from the spot where I’d seen the ghost to my mom. I wanted to tell her the truth. I really did. But something stopped me from uttering the words. I couldn’t confess what I’d seen. How could I be sure he was real? How could I be certain I hadn’t imagined the whole thing? Maybe I really
was
crazy. Or maybe this was my punishment for killing Kira. If that was the case, what good would it do to tell Mom? Why should I worry her even more than I already had? How much did I want to put my family through?

Dumbly, I nodded. “Yes. A nightmare.”

“Are you all right, now?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Sorry I woke you.” I snuggled down onto my side. I pulled my feather pillow closer and rested my cheek against the cool cotton.

Mom gave me a pat on the shoulder and stood. She padded toward the door, pulling Ella with her. “Back to bed, Ella.”

Their footsteps retreated down the hall and I resisted the urge to call out to them to come back. I flipped onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

The ghost had vanished but one thing was certain.

My house was haunted.

Two

Bleary-eyed, I rushed to get ready for my first day at school, taking extra care to cover my thick, red scar with concealer. I styled my hair so that it fell across my cheekbone. My efforts were in vain. I could hear the whispers already.

She’d be pretty if she didn’t have that scar.

What happened to her?

Oh, how sad!

They’d pity me.

They would never know the truth. I deserved this scar, this ugly face.

Mom had wanted to let us get settled in the new house for a few days before we started school but David thought it best if we didn’t miss anything.

Apparently, he’d forgotten what it was like to be a senior. Once you’d made it this far in your tenure as a student, teachers made sure you got that coveted sheepskin at the end of the year. Besides, making decent grades had always come easily to me and despite everything else, my average had never faltered.

Yawning, I dragged the sheet and quilts up to the pillows in a half-hearted effort to make up my bed. I hadn’t gone back to sleep after seeing the ghost. Instead, I’d tried to convince myself it was all a dream.

But if it wasn’t a dream…

What if my house really was haunted?

A foreboding chill crawled up my spine. Realizing I shared my space with a ghost was scary. At the same time, I found the idea wildly intriguing.

Since the accident I’d thought a lot about those souls I’d seen on the Other Side but I hadn’t given much thought to spirits who lingered here, watching us.

Intuitively, I realized thinking about him was the magic that had drawn him to me. It was as if he’d
heard
me trying to get a read on him.

“Wren!” Mom’s called from below. “You’ll miss the bus!”

I closed my eyes.

The bus.

I cringed. No self-respecting senior rode the bus, especially with a shiny new Jag sitting in the driveway. But even though the traffic here was nothing like driving in Atlanta, I still didn’t want to get behind the wheel.

Slinging my backpack over one shoulder, I hurried out my bedroom door, but slid to a stop when I noticed the attic door ajar. Chills raised the fine hairs on my arms. Yesterday, I couldn’t pull that door open with all my might. And yet, it stood open now.

I reached for the knob. What was I doing? Daylight evidently had no power over a ghost. I trembled with the knowledge that any second, I might see him again.

Oddly, it wasn’t fear that possessed me. It was fascination.

“Wren! Hurry!”

With a sigh of frustration, I released the temporary spell of curiosity that had come over me. There wasn’t time to explore the attic. Best not to dwell on the ghost who haunted my house.

For now at least.

Instead, I hurried down the stairs where Mom waited for me. “You don’t want to be late for your first day at the new school.”

I shrugged and muttered a good-bye before following Ella out the front door, past my parked, neglected Jaguar and down the long driveway to meet the school bus.

Was he up there, watching me?

Unable to resist the urge to look back, I turned and squinted at the fanlight. Sunlight glanced off the wavered panes making it impossible to tell if I saw a person—or a ghost—or even anything at all.

Disappointment sifted through me and I realized I
wanted
to see him again.

Air brakes hissed, shattering the country silence. Ella’s feet churned as she ran down the gravel drive. Tearing my gaze away from the fanlight, I followed her, noticing with chagrin that she had on the same goofy outfit she’d worn the day before.

Even though I quickened my pace and followed Bozo Jr. toward the waiting bus, I dreaded meeting new people. They would all quiz me about my scar. Those too polite to ask would stare and then turn away. Above all, I hated
sensing
their pity.

Because I didn’t deserve it.

Ella raced up the steps into the bus, wriggling down the aisle, eagerly looking for a girl her age. I climbed into the bus, grateful for the first time in my life that my little sister dressed like a clown. If all eyes riveted to her, no one would notice me—or my scar.

Unfortunately, a completely vacant seat did not exist. My heart sank as, amid curious stares, I made my way behind Ella toward the back of the bus. She enthusiastically slid into a seat beside a little girl and immediately began introducing herself and pointing out our “mansion.” Exasperated, I blew out a breath.

A blonde girl, seated near the back of the bus, chuckled and scooted toward the window. Her eyebrows raised in question. “Want to sit here?”

Smiling my thanks, I sank onto the spongy seat.

“My name’s Laura,” she said, brightly. “Are you Wren Darby?”

My gaze shot to hers. She already knew my name? I nodded. “How—”

“Oh, I know,” she said. Her genuine smile revealed braces. Dressed in a light pink hoodie and jeans and wearing minimal makeup, she possessed a simple, country-girl prettiness. She was a far cry from the stylishly arrogant Buckhead girls from my old school. “The teachers have already told us about you.”

My stomach plummeted straight down to my black Converse high-tops.

Laura bit her bottom lip and my extra sense told me she thought she’d offended me. “They just told us you were moving here from Atlanta and would be living in the old Polk house,” she said quietly.

This piqued my interest. “Old Polk house? Do you know who lived in it before me?”

“Old lady Polk lived there,” she said as if everyone was aware of that fact. “She was born in that house and she died in that house.”

I stared, trying to think of something to say. Thankfully, Laura liked to talk. Her delightful southern accent was different from the conglomeration of Atlanta accents where nearly everyone was a transplant from someplace else.

The tension melted out of my shoulders as Laura continued. “You didn’t know her?”

I shook my head. “No. I had no idea who owned the house before us.”

“She died about six months ago. I think she was over a hundred years old,” Laura explained.

“Did she live here…alone?” I asked, fishing for a clue as to my ghost’s identity.

Laura nodded and her bright blue eyes widened dramatically. “Old lady Polk didn’t come out of the house for anything. But back when my mom was a kid, she said she remembered Miss Polk being driven around town in a black Cadillac by a chauffeur.”

“A chauffeur?”

“She was old, even then. She never married and had bright red hair right up until the day she died.” Laura added the part about the hair as if it was the reason Miss Polk had never married.

“Did you ever see her?” I asked.

“I thought I did, once,” Laura said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “We came up here on a dare one Halloween and tried to peek in the windows but…I…got scared.”

“Halloween?” I arched an eyebrow hoping she’d tell me more.

She did. “You…uh…don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Your house is…haunted,” she whispered to me as if it was a secret.

Not wanting to get the reputation as the loony ghost girl in town, I tried my best to play it cool even though her declaration confirmed my suspicions. Still, I had no intention of telling her I’d seen the ghost just last night. “Haunted? Surely, that’s just an old tale.” Secretly, I hoped she would enlighten me without my having to ask.

“Probably,” she said. “But hey, I’m doing all the talking. Why’d you move here from Atlanta?”

Disappointment surged. I didn’t want to talk about myself and I didn’t know how to steer the conversation back to my house without seeming overly interested. “My stepdad took a job at the hospital in Columbia,” I explained, surreptitiously leaving out the fact that my mom blamed my dead friend for the unsightly scar on my face and none of us could live in Atlanta any longer because of me.

My answer seemed to satisfy her. Or so I thought.

To my horror, I watched her eyes narrow and then the blue washed dark with pity. “What happened?” she asked her gaze moving from my scar to my eyes and then back to the scar again.

I thought I’d done a better job with my makeup. I was wrong.

“She was in a wreck,” Ella suddenly announced. She twisted and peered over the back of her seat. “She was dead for four whole minutes!”

I shot the little cretin a hard look and then turned my back on her to face Laura.

Laura’s eyes rounded. “Really?”

By this time, I’d attracted the attention of the people in the eight or so seats surrounding us. My scar actually burned as my face flushed with a hot blush. Ella would die a slow and painful death when we got home. “I…I don’t really like to talk about it,” I said, hoping Laura was sympathetic enough to drop it.

She was.

Curious to see my new surroundings, I gazed out the windows at the now familiar zigzagging slate fences. Ancient trees stretched toward the bright blue sky, obscuring other houses every bit as old as mine.

A cemetery fronted by a thick hedgerow stretched across the gentle slope on my left. Beyond the hedge the crenellated tower of an old church reached toward the cobalt October sky.

A foreboding premonition, the details of which I couldn’t discern, seized me in a vice-grip.

I’d seen old churches before. I’d been in larger ones but for some reason, this particular church held some sort of psychic significance to me.

“That’s Saint John’s,” Laura chimed.

As the bus passed, I twisted to look at the weathered gray stones out the grimy back window.

“That church is haunted,” she said with authority.

I smiled indulgently as I turned back around in my seat. “I guess all these old houses have at least one ghost?”

“No. That one’s really haunted. They only have one or two services in that church a year.”

“Only two services? Why? It’s a beautiful building.”

“There’s a Bible inside that’s cursed.”

“A cursed Bible?”

Laura’s eyes widened as she nodded. “They say if you go in there and pick it up, you’ll drop dead on the spot.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Has somebody done it?”

She shrugged. “That’s just what they say.”

The bus took a sharp turn. I gripped the back of the seat in front of me to keep from sliding against Laura as my very open, cheery new school loomed into view.

My old school had been several stories high and surrounded by businesses and concrete. This campus sprawled lazily across a field that would have been bare if not for two scrawny maple saplings standing sentinel in front of the building. I had expected something older.

As the bus stopped out front, the brakes emitted a whoosh of air. All the students gathered their backpacks and hopped up to file off, even the elementary kids. Back home, the high school was in a different part of town than the elementary or middle school.

“Do you already have your schedule?” Laura asked helpfully.

“They told me to pick it up in the office.” I hefted my backpack onto one shoulder and craned to find my little sister in the throng. “Ella, do you want me to go with you?”

“No,” she shot back, chin lifting defiantly. “I can do it myself.”

Mom had already registered us and independent Ella would have no trouble asking for directions.

The high school office was near where the bus let us off. “Wren!” a jeans clad secretary greeted me warmly. “Come on inside. I’ve got your schedule all ready for you.”