Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance (21 page)

"Uh, yeah. That sucks," he muttered, glaring
at his phone like it was a personal sleight.  

I finally sent the text through and hoped
Corinne would find it acceptable. She could very well be passed out
in front of the TV again, so I wasn't too worried. She didn't
really have a drinking problem; it was more that she liked using up
my parents' stuff.  

We exited the shed the way we had come in and
stood on the lawn, four awkward teenagers that had no idea what we
were doing. The high, ancient birch trees growing around the fence
made us practically invisible.  

"Why does this feel like the lead
in to a news story?" Henry asked, and adopted a broadcaster voice.
"
Four teenagers arrested today for
abandoned house shenanigans. When asked for comment, they said,
'Ariel made us do it'.
" He grinned at me
and I bumped his shoulder with mine, happy to have him next to me
in the dark.  
 

"We'll be careful," I assured him. "No
shenanigans. Can you guys check the doors and see if any of them
are open?"

The boys trudged off and disappeared around
the side of the house. Meanwhile, Theo and I checked on the rows of
windows in the back. The place had seen its fair share of hard
partying, the evidence all over. Many of the panes had been broken
in, and black garbage bags and grocery sacks had been taped to the
frames inside.

"I've never done anything like this before,"
Theo whispered, sounding giddy. "Peering in windows, yes, but never
actually going in the houses. This is really exciting."

"All that means is that we both need to get
out more," I said, but I was smiling.
    

Graffiti in the shape of a devil's
face stood out on the wall.
Hell is closer
than you think
read the scrawl beneath.
There was a big broken window at the back of the building, near the
center, which had also been given the garbage bag treatment. The
boys came back around, faces hidden in shadow.

"Everything's locked up tight," Henry
reported.

"I think we can sneak in through here," I
said, gesturing towards the window. With careful fingers, I pulled
off the bag and the tape, exposing the hole into the
house.

"Not exactly trying hard to keep out
intruders, are they?" Henry asked.

"Well, maybe that means we're invited," I
said. "Who wants to go first?"

"Me!" Theo chirped, all of her earlier fear
replaced by eagerness. She scrambled up to the window, where Alex
gave her a boost up. When she was inside, she stuck her upturned
thumb out for confirmation. "Just be careful of the glass, you
guys."

Alex proceeded in next, his rotund behind
filling the window frame before he landed inside. He towered over
the rest of us short people at over six feet, and he was built like
a linebacker. We watched as the two of them walked further into the
house.  

Henry gestured for me to go next. "Ladies
first, to be cliché."

"I appreciate your cliché. It
makes you sound like a gentleman." I looked into the bleak
hole.
It's just a house. It can't hurt
me
, I thought.

I grasped the sides of the window, carefully
avoiding the broken glass still stuck inside the frame. I pulled
myself up, but lost my grip and fell, tumbling inside on my arm and
the side of my head. I saw stars as my skull thwacked the hard
floor. It happened so fast I was in shock.  

So much for the not getting hurt
theory.

Henry scrambled in beside me. My head was
throbbing, but I was vaguely aware as he leaned over me, assessing
the damage. 

"I'm so sorry," he said, although it had been
my fault. He gently grabbed my arm, inspecting it. "You ripped this
up pretty good."

I sat up slowly and looked myself over, more
aware of him touching me than I was of any pain.  Bits of
broken glass were lodged inside my flesh. Blood bloomed from the
cuts.

"You're bleeding," he said softly, his brow
knit.

"It doesn't hurt," I said in an equally soft
tone. With his face so close, I had the sudden, desperate urge to
kiss him.  

"Blood doesn't bother you?" he asked
skeptically, raising one full eyebrow.

I looked down at my arm, and picked out the
shards of glass quickly with my fingers, wincing only a little.
"Not really. I used to be the neighborhood tomboy. My tree climbing
was unparalleled."

My arm didn't hurt much, but my head was
killing me.

"You should go into medicine," he said
humorously.   

"Because of my tree climbing?" I asked,
confused.

"Well that would be a useful skill, but I
meant for your strong disposition," he explained. 

"Don't I need to not suck at math to go into
medicine?" I asked. Henry scoffed, shaking his head at
me.

"We should just leave," he insisted. "You need
to get that arm looked at. With all the dirt that's around this
place, you could get a nasty infection."

"I'm all right," I insisted. "We're doing
this."

I felt like I was finally going to get some
answers, and I would be damned before someone stopped me. I pulled
my purse strap up on my shoulder and stood, while he offered his
arm for support.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"All right, but don't say I didn't warn you
when they have to chop your arm off," he grumbled, shoving his
hands in his sweatshirt pockets.  

I stood and walked away from him, wanting to
put distance between us so the unrelenting urge to kiss him would
go away. It ached that I couldn't touch him. In my eagerness to get
away, I was glad he couldn't see the fat drop of blood roll down my
forehead and fall to the floor.

In the dark, I felt less self-conscious as I
blotted my bleeding head. From what I could tell, it wasn't too
bad, but the thin trickle didn't seem to be totally stopping,
either. Henry turned on one of his flashlights. He offered me the
other, but it was too hard to juggle everything in my
hands.

"Your head is bleeding, too?" he asked. I had
been trying to hide it by awkwardly holding the back of my hand to
my forehead, imitating Scarlet O'Hara.

"A little," I said meekly.

"Ariel, come on," he said in exasperation.
"You should really go to the hospital."

"I hate hospitals," I said, shivering. "No
thank you."

"You will be the death of me, I swear," he
muttered. "You drive me crazy sometimes."

His words stung me deeply.

"I didn't know I was so irritating," I
said.

"That's not what I meant," he said,
frowning. 

"Let's keep going," I said
flippantly. 

The light bobbed through the rooms,
illuminating now why our haunted house experience had been confined
to specific parts of the orphanage. I had once seen pictures of
Chernobyl, a city destroyed by a nuclear plant explosion. The
inside of the building reminded me of that.  

A lot of it was just as Mr. Warwick had
described in class. Huge gaping holes in the floor looked like a
giant had bashed his fist in. Stale air blew through the halls,
carrying with it the bitter stink of mold and rotten wood. More
than anything the house held sadness, like the feeling itself had
absorbed into the flowery wallpaper. The children there must have
had terribly unhappy lives.

The rooms were tiny, with short ceilings. In a
way, it reminded me of a neglected dollhouse. I imagined Alex would
have to duck through the doorways and wondered if he had during the
session. Speaking of which, he jogged up to us, with Theo close
behind.

"What's the hold up?" he asked at the same
time Theo said, "Oh my gosh, what happened?"

She took my arm and fussed over it as Henry
had. It looked much better to my eyes, scabs already starting to
form.  

"We're staying," I said, answering the
question before she asked it. "We've gone to too much trouble. And
I'm fine, nothing some antibiotic ointment and bandages won't
fix."

"She's being as stubborn as possible," Henry
told them. Then he turned to me. "What are we doing
now?"

"We need to find somewhere to hold the
séance," I said. "Preferably a table or a good flat expanse of
floor. We should split up."

"Uh, no, we shouldn't. That's
always when the bad stuff happens on
Scooby Doo
," Alex said, waving his
hands dismissively.

I rolled my eyes. "Theo and I can go
together..."

"You're going to think this is sexist of me,"
Henry interjected, "But I think maybe it should be one girl and one
guy together. Between your injuries and Theo's phobias" — she
wrinkled her nose at him — "it might be a good idea."

"Yeah, you need a strong man to protect you,"
Alex smarmed at Theo.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Theo asked, one
notch below yelling. "The one who was just whining about an old
cartoon?"

"God, I'm joking," he said, rolling his eyes.
"Lighten up, Morticia."

"Wow, that's a new one," Theo spat, her eyes
glowing with anger in the light from the flashlight. "Did you use
all two of your brain cells to come up with it?"

But we split up that way anyway. Maybe it
would be a good idea, I reasoned without a whole lot of reasons to
support it. I was on edge and in no mood to argue. I drove Henry
crazy? He drove me crazy every moment I was around him.

Henry gave Theo one of the flashlights and
Alex had an LED light on his phone. After they had departed, Henry
and I stood awkwardly across from each other, listening to the
fading sound of their bickering.

"Let's keep moving," I said, and we set
off.

"I thought I saw a table back in that room
full of cages," Henry offered.  

So we headed in that direction. We wound up
there after what seemed like ten minutes of getting lost. The house
was like a maze, with dead ends caused by decay. I took out a
little pink emergency flashlight I had in my backpack, and shone it
around the cages. On closer inspection in enhanced light, they
looked like they had all been purchased at the pet store. A few
still had price tags wound around the bars. But no
table.

Back in the room with the rocking chair and
the skeleton closet, Henry wandered over to the closet door,
smirking in anticipation as he nudged it open. But as I peered over
his shoulder we both saw it was empty.

"What the hell?" I asked, a chill going
through me.

He tilted his head, inspecting the back wall
of the closet. Then he leaned in and tapped the ceiling with his
fingers. Pushing his hand through the flaps he had discovered, he
stepped back as the obviously plastic skeletons dropped
down.

"All parlor tricks," he said softly, reaching
out and rubbing my shoulder. My heart leapt up into my throat. We
gazed into each other's eyes for a moment, and then parted, making
ourselves busy in different parts of the room.  

Having not had any luck we made our way into a
different skinny hallway. It was pitch black beyond where even the
strong beam of his flashlight couldn't penetrate.

"I'm not going any farther that way," he said.
"I don't like the looks of those ceiling beams." There were a few
hanging precariously low, as if they could drop any moment.
  

"Well, then, I'll go," I said, shuffling
around him.

He caught my arm to stop me from going
further. "It could be dangerous," he pleaded. "You never know if
the ceiling might collapse, and I bet there are weak spots in the
floor."

I stood in front of him, acutely aware that
our lips were merely inches apart. I wondered if I was the only
one. But as his eyes became heavy lidded, and his breathing sped
up, I realized my answer.  

"Theo was right, I can take care of myself," I
said gently, not taking my eyes off of his mouth.

"I don't want anything to happen to you," he
whispered, moving closer to me. "That's all I meant. I care about
you."

I could almost feel his lips on mine. 
    

"Heads up!" Alex yelled from the left. Henry
dropped my arm and we pulled away from each other, as if caught in
an embarrassing scene. Alex didn't seem to notice how flustered we
were.

Theo was on his heels. "We found the dining
room. Should be a good spot."

We followed them back down the hallway, and up
a short set of stairs. The remains of an old kitchen sat at the
top. I paused and looked inside. Gutted spaces where the old
appliances had been ripped out left bouquets of blackened
electrical wiring. The black and white tile on the floor was
cracked and peeling, sticking up in some sports.

"This way," Theo gestured, and Henry and I
followed them through a door into the dining room. A narrow room
that had probably once been grand, there were high-backed chairs
around an elongated mahogany table. Two dust-layered, silver
candelabras sat in the center of the tabletop. I brushed dust off
of the back of the chair standing at the end.