Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance (3 page)

I've lived in Hell my whole life. Despite the
unusual name, and the affinity of many of the residents to dress it
up like Halloween Town all year, Hell is your typical suburban
town. We were lucky so far to miss the brunt of the state's
economic troubles. Many towns nearby were in danger of becoming
ghost towns, but for Hell, ghosts were merely a bonus.

Cheerful rows of pastel houses and local
business passed me by, thriving on nearly every street. I passed a
jack-o-lantern painted on a mailbox and a plastic skull hanging out
on the front porch of a grandmother gardening in her sun hat. Both
typical sights. The town committee had succeeded in keeping away
the big name stores, at least for the time being. We had no Walmart
and only one lone fast food restaurant that was always busy at 3
AM, getting business from every truck driver and stoner for miles
around.  

My mind focused entirely on Jenna as I passed
the familiar landmarks. We'd been best friends ever since we fought
over a plastic pony ranch in kindergarten. Hardly a day went by
that we didn't talk to each other since. Being without her was like
being cut in half.

I hadn't heard a word from her since the night
she left. Her parents were convinced she ran away. Everyone else
seemed to believe that, too. Her mother apparently found
"suspicious" emails that confirmed the hypothesis, though no amount
of pleading with her allowed me to see them. With Jenna gone, her
mother, Rachael, had a good reason to hate me, and she seized it. I
don't think she'd ever liked me.

I didn't believe that Jenna would leave, but
the other options were even worse. Even though I thought I knew her
better than anyone, I wondered if I missed what seemed plain to
everyone around me.  

I turned onto the uphill dirt road I
remembered led to the orphanage. The bike tires stuck in the dirt
and pebbles, my legs straining to push the pedals. Unlike the main
road, only a few cars were parked here, all on the opposite side of
where the orphanage would be. As if everything tried to avoid the
prison-like structure. The sky was nearly obscured by towering
trees. I passed long driveways reaching back farther than I could
see, and wondered if houses lay beyond them. I made the only
movements in the still air.

I rounded the bend and the orphanage, imposing
iron fence first, came into view. I had no idea why I would dream
about a place I hadn't seen or even thought of in years. But I was
checking every lead, no matter how obscure. I've watched enough TV
to know that people's best breaththroughs appear to them in
dreams.

Parking my bike against the fence, I stood up
and assessed my obstacle. The bars were cool to the touch, despite
the persistent sun, as I ran my fingers across them. Odd that I
could imagine it in such detail, right down to the color of the
bars. From what I could remember, I'd never been this close to the
orphanage before in my life.

A large sign hooked to the fence with plastic
zipties read COMING IN OCTOBER — HELL'S ORPHANAGE, HAUNTED HOUSE
ATTRACTION. I vaguely remembered hearing about Hell's Orphanage
years ago. But the sign looked brand new. So much Halloween popped
up in Hell come October it would be a full-time job to keep track
of it all.

One detail in my dream had been wrong, I
realized as I trailed over to the gate. No funny copper symbol. I
fully expected the place to be locked up tight, and prepared myself
for a disappointing ride home. But when I pushed it, the gate swung
open with a lonely squeak. There wasn't even a lock, only a latch
that drooped down.  

I stood in place, debating my options.
Technically, I would be trespassing if I went on the property. But
the house looked pretty much abandoned at the moment, future
entertainment attraction or not. I didn't see any "no trespassing"
signs, either. I looked back and forth down the barren road,
reassuring myself that I was alone. The curiosity inside me won
out. If I could find even a little sign that Jenna had been
here...but something told me that was a highly unlikely
possibility. Still...

A cool breeze whooshed through the fence,
blowing my hair around my shoulders. I took the hair elastic I
always wore from around my wrist and whirled my dark hair into a
messy ponytail. Jenna helped me dye it black back in May. Claire
was suitably horrified, her dreams of blonde pageant hair atop my
naturally-brunette head destroyed. For a month I expected her to
sneak in my bedroom during the night with a pair of scissors.
  

Beer cans, old cigarette packs and dud
scratch-off tickets littered the lawn, among other trash. The grass
had given up on growing, leaving dry brown patches, looking like
they ached for rain. I walked across the ground speedily, not
wanting to dwell any longer than absolutely necessary, and up to
the building itself.

The orphanage loomed above me, taller than it
appeared on the street. Mottled gray stone walls frames four rows
high of thin, long windows. Broken glass hung in the frames like
teeth. It reminded me of the old factories around Detroit, rotting
skeletons of old steel, holding on while everything else around
them had crumbled into dust.

Rusty bars guarded the top windows. Long ago
they must have kept whoever lived inside imprisoned. The thought
made me shudder. I tried to imagine the place ever looking nice at
all, or grand, and I couldn't. It was a sorrowful building with
miserable secrets. It had never been anything but creepy, probably
giving a few turn of the century people the spooks as they passed
by in their horse-drawn carriages.  

I nudged something on the ground with my toe.
I looked down to see a black cat-shaped mask with no string. The
empty eye sockets stared back at me. I stepped on it and heard the
plastic crack.

Then, I hit an invisible wall and
I stopped walking. Nothing blocked my way, but I didn't want to go
further.
I shouldn't be
here
. The thought shouted in my head. I
saw no sign that Jenna or anyone else had been here in a long time.
The split staircase sagged towards the ground, as if trying to
assure me that all was well. Just a sad old house that I should
leave alone. Nothing to see here.  

Pushing through my fear, I made myself move
and peered around the staircase, where in my dream I remembered
seeing Jenna go inside. A set of padlocked doors sat there, to a
basement or lower floor. Everything had the look of being
forgotten. Still, I walked over and tugged on the padlock. It was
locked fast.

I banged my fist on one of the metal doors
anyway, and listened to the short echo, waiting for a response. The
doors, I noted in passing without putting much thought into it,
looked as though they were installed long after the house was
built.

"Jenna?" I called out meekly. No answer. Even
the insects had fallen silent. 

Sighing, I walked back across the lawn and
through the gate, closing myself off from the building. Shuffling
over to my bike and trying to shrug off the disappointment that
swiftly descended on me, I looked back up at the barred windows and
wondered.

I couldn't sleep that night. The first
day of school would arrive when I woke up. I knew it would be
incredibly strange walking the halls alone. I had never been
massively popular, never even been to a party, really, but our
small circle of friends had been more than enough. Now I didn't
even have that. When Jenna disappeared, many of them blamed me. I
knew the reasons why without them telling me. Some of them thought
I should have stopped her from leaving. Some of them thought I
wasn't a good enough reason for her to stick around.

At the end of last year, we were so
excited to no longer be freshman. Hawthorne High intimidated both
of us, although Jenna never showed it as much as I did. Tomorrow, I
would once again be at the mercy of the pack of popular girls that
ran there. And now a fresh target would be painted on my back in my
glumness.  

I had to admit that I didn't want to
move on. That's why I didn't want to celebrate my birthday. I
wanted to rewind the days, the months, and freeze time on the night
Jenna left. Even though she had been angry with me. Anything was
better than being left behind, not knowing.  

I lay on my bed with all of the lights
off, save for the old green lava lamp I plugged in for company. The
blue and green hue cast on the walls made my room look like an
aquarium. I've never had a TV in my room, but I contemplated
changing that as I drove myself crazy with questions in my
head.

Eventually, I drifted to sleep, ears filled
with silent thoughts. 

Chapter 3

Hugh drove me up to Hawthorne the next
morning. He had to get to his gallery early, so I arrived an hour
before school was due to start. Idling the car in front of the
stone steps, we sat for a moment in silence. I knew he practically
itched to give me a pep talk, and I braced myself to pretend to
agree with everything he said.  

"You'll do fine," he assured me simply,
leaving it at that. I felt almost let down. He had more faith in me
than I did. I stepped out of the car reluctantly, and watched his
Mazda drive off, wondering if I should have begged him to let me
ditch. Just one day, although I knew if I took the day, it would
turn into a week. Maybe longer.  

Three years ago, Hawthorne High had been
ripped down and rebuilt on its old foundation. I remember riding
past the construction site, watching the workers dangle
precariously from support beams inside. Now Hawthorne was as an
impressive structure, the jewel in the crown that showed the state
that Hell took academics seriously. More than a few seniors were
accepted into Ivy League schools every year.

Tugging at the hem of my shirt, I hoped my
choice was all right. The shirt was black with capped sleeves. I
wondered if I looked too depressed in the color, or rather lack of
color. I hadn't dressed in anything but pajamas and sweat clothes
for a while, and I had no idea about trends. Should I have worn the
blue striped one I debated, that was now lying on my bed?  I
contemplated picking up a magazine when Claire and I went school
supply shopping, but the grinning girl on the cover with her
laser-white teeth put me off.

I knew I was just putting off the inevitable.
I walked up the steps and opened the door, walking inside. A small
vestibule stood between me and the interior. HAWTHORNE HELLCATS
HAVE SPIRIT read a banner in the school colors of purple and
gold.

Last chance to run,
a voice in my head coaxed.
You can still get out of here.

I wrenched the glass door open instead. The
smell of school flew into my nostrils, familiar but not at all
comforting. Like canned spaghetti, with an undertone of evil. I
knew my way around now, so at least there was that. Hawthorne
architecture could be a maze to the uninitiated, as I discovered
last year. All the freshman and sophomore classes were conducted on
the bottom two levels, yet I found myself more than once wandering
around on the top floor, beneath towering seniors as they giggled
at my lack of direction.   

I pulled out my schedule and walked around,
finding my classes to kill time. Better that I know where to go
than get lost or be late. Subjects were divided into hallways, and
I soon recognized the orientation from memory. Being in school felt
as strange as I anticipated it would, but in a different way. I
felt like I was sleepwalking through the halls, like I wasn't
really there.

The only other people around were a few of the
office staff and a custodian. Most people spent their off time in
the commons, which was not only a cafeteria and activity center but
a hang out spot. But I didn't feel like going there right now. It
felt like if I did, I would set in motion the actual start of the
school year. I wanted to hold it off for the few minutes of freedom
that remained.   

Instead I went looking for the library.
Disappointment hit me when I saw it was still housed in a tiny,
pathetic corner room with no windows. Not that I had expected a
change. Well, I had hoped for one, but I assumed the worst. One
would think that with the seemingly bottomless wallets that funded
the school's rebuilding, they could have afforded a decent library.
But they had other concerns.

I peered in the window at the four rows of
ancient paperbacks, all probably donations from people cleaning out
their cluttered closets. Hugh told me that the town library was
under renovation now that Hawthorne was finished, but I didn't want
to get my hopes up about that, either. Considering how Hawthorne
had fared, renovating could mean emptying the nonfiction section
and installing a basketball court.

A local committee called the Thornhill Society
held the responsibility for the renovation projects. They'd only
sprung up last year, amidst a bunch of newspaper articles touting
what a fresh change they would bring to the town. To my eyes,
nothing needed to change, but apparently the adults thought
differently. Thornhill provided all of the funding, through
fundraising and their own benefaction, and no one was allowed to
forget it. All of the wealthiest local families were members, the
ones who lived in the gated community at the edge of Hell with
perfect lawns and obscenely huge houses. An inch at a time,
Thornhill owned a little more of the rest of us.