Possessions (23 page)

That was crazy. Too much even for Mandy.

“Hi, Mandy,” I said. “Happy birthday.”

“We bought you a present,” Julie said.

“You’re both wonderful,” she cooed. “Oh! It’s moving!”

Mandy and Julie dropped their gazes to the plastic triangle. It whirled and slid under their fingertips, then shot across the board and pointed to the number seven. I felt strange, as if I should know what that meant.

“Hmm.” Mandy cocked her head. “Number seven.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at Julie, as if waiting for a response. Julie jerked slightly, looking puzzled. Then both of them stared up at me.

Troy returned with two shot glasses filled to the brim with clear liquid. Kiyoko was with him.

He handed me a shot. “Vodka. My contribution. Grey Goose.” His smile was detached, pleasant, as if he were speaking to someone he didn’t know very well.

Which was true.

“Because it’s my favorite,” Mandy announced. “It’s moving again. M-E-M-M.”

I jerked. Tried to remember if I had told Julie about my mom’s nickname. No, I hadn’t. I hadn’t shared it with anyone here.

“Wow, I can feel it,” Julie said. “It’s going crazy! M-E-M-MY-M-E-M-M-Y. Memmy-Meemy? Eenie meenie?”

I sucked in my breath as the room fuzzed out.

“Memmy Memmy,” Mandy corrected. “Does that name mean something to you?” She sounded truly innocent as she looked up at me.

“Are you okay?” Julie asked me. “Lindsay?” She kept her fingertips on the triangle, obviously torn about whether to continue their “game.”

“Sure,” I said, reaching for Troy’s vodka shot. He gave it up and I threw it back. Beside him, Kiyoko’s skeletal face was bone-white, her forehead wrinkled.

I pushed my way past a couple of jocks talking to Ida and Claire. Claire smiled and handed me a lime-green Jell-O shot as I passed her, as if we were in a relay race. I slurped it down.

“Go, woman,” said one of the jocks, handing me another. I took it.

By the time I was halfway up the stairs, I realized I was massively wasted. I staggered outside onto the porch, trying to catch my breath.

Tears welled; I felt myself shaking and eased myself off the porch, stepping into the mud just as I remembered that it was there . . . and that I was wearing my flats.

If they were using her nickname to tease me, prank me . . . it was underhanded. It was . . .

“I miss you,” I whispered to the darkness. “I need you. I don’t know how to do any of this.” My throat burned, trying to keep fresh tears at bay.

I heard someone coming up behind me and slid in the mud for the shelter of the trees. Just as when I had eavesdropped on Mandy behind boulders, I slunk behind two pines growing closely together. I slid down until I was sitting in mud, my whole body trembling, the tears finally forcing their way out.

twenty-five

I don’t know
how long I sat in the darkness, out of it, crying.

“It’s just another trick, a mean trick,” I whispered. But I knew I had never, ever spoken that name aloud.

But in my dreams, during my nightmares . . . maybe Julie heard me.
They’d spent the break together, riding. Mandy had charisma. All queen bees did. She could be mean as hell to someone, then turn around and convince them she was their best friend. I’d even caught myself responding to her artificial sunshine.

So if she asked a few questions, now and then . . . collecting ammunition in the form of personal information and secrets . . . Julie might not have even realized it . . .

I hiccupped with tears. I felt stupid for hiding, but I cowered behind the tree trunks, embarrassed and angry and out of control.

Then someone called my name from the porch of the lake house. “Lindsay?” It was Kiyoko. “Lindsay, are you here?”

I peered around the tree. Kiyoko was alone. She was staring into the darkness, obviously unable to see me, as she navigated down the stairs and started heading toward the water.

I was just about to step into her field of vision when a wave of dizziness hit me and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I couldn’t see her.

I scanned the shadows, the shimmering blackness of the water. An owl hooted; the lake rippled. But I didn’t see Kiyoko anywhere.

After a few seconds, Mandy appeared in the doorway, the moon bleaching her face skull-white. Her eyes were black.

Alis and Lara sauntered from behind her, slipping their arms around her waist. And their eyes were black, too.

“Sweet bees,” she cooed in that schizo Southern accent I’d heard before, leaning over and kissing each one on the cheek.

“Is anyone here?” Mandy sang out in her Southern accent.

“
Dios
, we were so wrong about Kiyoko.” Alis’s accent was Hispanic. “She’s just fine.”

“Then where
is
she? We don’t have much time,” Lara said. Her accent sounded vaguely New-Yorkish, not normal for her.

I rested my chin against the tree, dizzy, sick, and bewildered. Was it a game? Were they on something?

Like whatever drug I must have been on in the attic?

“Don’t you fret. She won’t get away. We’ll find her,” Mandy said.

“That’s impossible,” Lara said. “There are too many of them.”

“Don’t be silly, sugar.” Mandy chucked her under the chin. “We’re doing very well. After all,
we’re
all here. That sweet little girl has my undying gratitude.”

Are they talking about Kiyoko
? I couldn’t make sense of it.

“Oh my Lord, it’s been so long,” Alis said.

Then Mandy turned. “Child,” she said, “you are a sight for sore eyes.”

“It took forever, didn’t it?” said a familiar voice. “This one was very strong-headed.”

And then Rose stepped from the doorway. The moonlight bleached her face . . . and cast her eye sockets into shadow.

I shivered in the cold night.

I had a terrible feeling.

Not Rose
, I begged.

Then she took another step forward. No color, just ebony.

“I am so blessed,” Mandy said, as she wrapped her arms around Rose and kissed her cheek. “Here you are, sweet as ever. All of you.”

“We weren’t sweet. We were wicked,” Lara said, grinning.

“We never were, honey. Ever,” Mandy retorted.

“I was.” Rose’s voice was low and sad.

“Ssh, don’t you talk like that.” Mandy trailed her fingertips along Rose’s cheek. Rose pressed her face against her hand and smiled.

They turned and walked back into the lake house. I watched it spin and tilt and blur as I sank to the ground, sick, shivering, and about to pass out. I leaned my forehead against the tree and sank, deep. . . .

“Lindsay.”

The sound of my name woke me up. Troy gazed down on me, his eyes a little bloodshot, his face pinched. “I saw you leave. You looked upset,” he said. He was slurring.

And you care because? Oh, please do not say that Mandy ordered you to look for me.

“Uh huh,” I replied, enunciating each word. “Mandy was trying to be funny with her Ouija board thingy. And it wasn’t funny.”
There, that came out well.
“She was out here. I think she’s crazy.”

“She’s drunk. Mandy also made her Jell-O-shots about five time stronger than usual,” he added, sounding angry. “My friends didn’t realize it, and they’re getting totally wasted. I could strangle her.”

Then Miles would kill you
, I thought.

“How’s Julie doing?” I asked, turning my head to the lake house.

“Spider’s cool. He’ll take care of her.” He bent down and touched my cheek. “But I think I should get you home.”

Then he did the most amazing thing. He picked me up, mud-covered skirt and all. I inhaled his smell, and felt the softness of his sweater in the cold, dark night. And I was so happy to see him, so very happy.

He carried me down to the lake. One arm was around my back, and the other one was under my knees. I laid my head on his chest and shut my eyes, willing away all the weirdness and the questions. Just breathing him in—the comfort of being taken care of.

There were three rowboats pulled up on the shore, each with LAKEWOOD painted on the side. They had to be the rowboats he and the other guys “borrowed” to come to our side of the lake. He gently set me down in the nearest one. He pushed off, sloshing into the water—his feet must have been frozen—and then he slid in and picked up a paddle.

Mandy’s going to be so pissed,
I thought, but I couldn’t help my sheer joy. Troy had picked me. Me.

I stared at his bulging arms as he pulled the oar deep into the cold, dark water. In that moment, I had no idea if he wanted to help me or harm me. He could be dangerous, after all. And here I was alone with him, on a tiny boat in the middle of a vast, icy lake.

I shivered.

“They were talking so strangely,” I told him.

“Who?”

“Mandy and her friends.”

“That’d be a first.” He huffed. “She really used to be nice, Lindsay. Something happened to her. Something bad.”

“What was it?” I asked.

There was a beat. “I don’t know.”

Liar
, I thought, as the boat glided on the black water. Oh God, I was so drunk. So dizzy. It had to have been the extras trong Jell-O shots; a little bit of vodka had never felled this party girl in the past.

“I keep thinking she’ll get over it,” he went on. “And be the way she was.” He sighed. “She was so sweet. So smart. Like you.”

I didn’t want to listen to him brooding about Mandy, even if I came out looking better than her. He was drunk, too. He might not even know what he was saying.

I drifted and laid my head on the slippery, cold edge of the boat. The water lapped against the hull. The moon shimmered like silver. And I knew, somehow, that if I gazed into the water, the face that looked back at me would not be my own.

I heard a splash and somewhere beyond our brave little boat on the wine-dark lake, an owl yodeled. Music wafted toward us, a slow song—a song that sounded kind of old-fashioned . . . someone was singing:

“
My love is like a red, red rose . . .
”

“Troy, do you hear that?” I asked.

But before he could answer, I drifted again. I heard myself calling for Memmy; I felt her kiss my cheek. Someone was making a promise to me, or a bargain: if I was good, if I helped . . .

If I helped?

“
Get Number Three ready. We’ ll do them all tonight.
”

“Lindsay, can you help me a little?” Troy murmured. I jerked awake. He was trying to keep the boat stable and pick me up at the same time. The boat was tied up to the NO TRESPASSING sign in the inlet below Jessel.

I stifled a giggle, because he was rocking back and forth like a circus clown; it just struck me as so funny; and I eased myself up, all boneless and goosey. I was drunk, and I let everything just wash over me, wash away, the hell with all of them.

“God, you’re sexy,” I blurted. Then my eyes bugged out and I said, “Whoops!” as Troy put one foot on shore and grabbed hold of the sign while he supported my forearm with the other.

He laughed, low in his chest like a rumble; then harder, almost silently. I smelled the alcohol on his breath and saw his white, white teeth.

I had no idea how he managed to drag me onto the bank; by then we were both laughing hysterically, our arms around each other like two drunken sailors. We started to hoot; then we shushed each other. I fell against his chest and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him.

“Oh,” I gasped, and he bent his head down toward me. And then he kissed me. His lips were incredibly soft and warm. My head exploded as I kissed him back, moaning softly, as if my soul were flying out of my body toward him. He eased his tongue into my mouth, gripping his arms as he pushed up against me, just a little. I could taste the alcohol, feel it tumbling through my veins and igniting me; my inhibitions evaporated and I pressed my body against his.

“Lindsay,” he whispered, “Oh God.”

The comet blazed until I had to catch my breath; then it was over, our first kiss, as we gazed at each other as if we’d just realized who we really were.

“That was. So nice,” he whispered, running his hand through my hair, trailing his fingertips down the side of my face.

But then a cold wind passed between us, and I thought of the days Troy had spent with Mandy after she’d come back. He had been her date tonight, but he’d left with me. He was her
boyfriend
, for God’s sake. And now he was making out with me. Was
this
the kind of person I had become?

A spot prickled between my shoulder blades and skittered toward the small of my back. Coldness wrapped around my chest and squeezed. Someone was watching us. I was sure of it, and I jumped away from him. With a puzzled frown, he reached for me, and I shook my head, crossing my arms over my chest.