He could stand in the pocket and face down a core of blitzing linebackers without a second thought, but he couldn’t face his own feelings. That’s what made Petula so easy for him to date. No depth required. He could tote her around like one of his sports trophies, more a prize for others to envy than for him to value. But being with Scarlet had changed him, or at least it had begun to.
He began thinking about all the things he should have told Scarlet but didn’t have the courage to say. Not so much about stopping her from trying to cross over — she was too stubborn for that — but other things. Things like how much he cared for her, how much he missed her. How much he needed her. Things she needed to hear from him.
Desperate, he reached out to her the only way he knew how, through music. They had exchanged songs and albums like love letters from their earliest days together, and even if she couldn’t hear him, she just might, he fantasized, be able to hear their music. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his iPod, loaded with bands she had turned him on to, most of them way cooler than anything he’d ever heard before. He gently pushed the speaker buds in each of her ears, and, recalling their first real date, scrolled to the track he was after — Artist>Death Cab For Cutie>Album>Plans>Song>I Will Follow You into the Dark — selected the song and hit play.
As the tinny sound bled from the headphones into the hospital room, the “if onlys” started swirling in his mind like a flock of diseased pigeons. Maybe he had made too much of Petula’s illness, or maybe his expression or tone of voice revealed an unconscious flicker of dormant affection for Petula, despite his true feelings for Scarlet. Maybe that’s what really set Scarlet off. But he was only trying to help Petula for Scarlet’s sake. How could she not know that? Was bringing back Petula Scarlet’s way of saving her sister and their troubled relationship?
Whatever Scarlet’s motivation, he needed her to return. And for Scarlet to come back, Petula needed to also. However out of sync they were before, Scarlet and Damen were now on the same page. They both wanted Petula back.
Chapter 9
Bird on the Wire
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue,
I hope you know it was never to you.
—Leonard Cohen
Live and learn, but really, Death is the best teacher.
When you’re faced with death you are forced to dig deep within yourself to understand who you really are and what you really feel. It rubs you raw, like a harsh facial peel, scrubbing away the mask of denial, excuses, and other gunk built up over a lifetime. What’s left is not always so pretty to look at, at least not at first. Scarlet was hoping that her near-death experience wasn’t going to become a life sentence.
Scarlet had no idea where she might find Charlotte, but felt herself drawn, almost like a homing pigeon, back to Hawthorne High. Back to Dead Ed. Why, she could not imagine. Everyone was gone as far as she knew. Graduated. What was the point of turning up in an empty classroom? She was compelled nonetheless and followed her gut back to school.
For a second, she thought about Petula as she floated in the building and how odd it must have felt to come back to a familiar place, but with all the familiar faces gone. And of Charlotte too. How scary was it to be in a new place, to be the new kid?
As she hovered down the long hallway, her worst fears were confirmed. The school appeared to be vacant, but before she could be completely discouraged, she heard voices in the distance. She zeroed in on the sounds and, sure enough, saw a light emitting from the last classroom. She approached it, stopping to eavesdrop just outside, and peered in the window.
“This must be it,” Scarlet thought. “Dead Ed.”
She looked through again, this time for a bit longer, hoping to spy Charlotte or anyone she recognized.
“Come in, come in, whoever you are,” Ms. Pierce said playfully.
Scarlet reached down tentatively for the polished brass doorknob and, with some effort, turned it until the latch released and she could pull the heavy door open.
Ms. Pierce was a gentle woman of indeterminate age: pleasant-looking with a few wrinkles and a firm but caring voice. Her hair was tied up in a bun held there by a number two pencil, and she was wearing a smart silk long-sleeve blouse with a conservatively cut wool skirt. She seemed from an era when a person might as easily look fifty years old as thirty. A time, it occurred to Scarlet, now long passed. She felt badly about not having an apple to leave on Ms. Pierce’s desk.
“Welcome. We’ve been expecting you, but … ,” Ms. Pierce stammered. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name, miss.”
“Um, Scarlet, Scarlet Kensington, ma’am,” she replied in an uncharacteristically respectful tone. “But I don’t think you’ve been expecting me.”
“Of course we have, Scarlet,” Ms. Pierce assured her, emphasizing Scarlet’s name so as to commit it to memory. “And there is your seat, the last open desk, at the back.”
Scarlet had a feeling she knew where this was going, but before she could object, Ms. Pierce handed her a textbook, took her by the arm, and led her halfway to the seat. Scarlet looked from side to side along the way and realized that there was not a soul in the room whom she recognized. This was not good. Rather than pipe up, however, Scarlet was determined to have a little patience and wait until class was over to approach Ms. Pierce with her dilemma. No point, she thought, in making the real dead kids feel like she was slumming it or something.
“Now class,” Ms. Pierce resumed, “as we are all here together at last, let’s review the orientation film one last time. You can follow along in your Deadiquette books.”
The lights dimmed and Scarlet watched the film out of the corner of one eye and scanned her classmates with the other. She definitely did not recognize these kids. Then Scarlet was startled by a tap on her shoulder.
“Hi, Scarlet,” a boy behind her said as she turned to look at him. “I’m Gary.”
Gary, or Green Gary as he was known to his friends on the Other Side, was a nice, outdoorsy-looking kid dressed in baggy burlap clothes and hemp sneakers. He appeared totally normal except that his lower torso was misshapen and almost completely twisted around, like an old tree trunk.
“Hi, Gary,” Scarlet whispered, trying hard to look him in the eye given his posture. “I’m looking for a girl named Charlotte Usher. Do you know her?”
“No,” Gary answered quietly, “but I haven’t been here as long as some of the others.”
“Hey, Lisa,” he whispered over to the next row. “Do you know some girl named Charlotte?”
Lipo Lisa was a totally groomed, moisturized, waxed, and buff girl. Even in the darkened classroom, she seemed to shine and sparkle. The kind of girl who could give Petula and the Wendys a run for their money, Scarlet thought, except she wasn’t a showhorse, she was a workhorse. Lisa was multitasking, watching the movie and doing book curls with her Deadiquette text, when Gary interrupted her workout.
“Never heard of her,” Lisa grunted, barely breaking her rhythm.
“Thanks anyway,” Scarlet said sarcastically. “Guess she’s too busy working her jelly to say much, huh?”
“She can’t say much,” Gary said. “She died during a botched liposuction procedure on her neck and her facial muscles are pretty much paralyzed.”
“She must have had her brain sucked out first,” Scarlet quipped.
“Lisa considers herself the wave of the future, a beauty martyr,” Gary said sincerely.
“Well, I hope she gets to meet the seventy-two plastic surgeons at some point, then,” Scarlet cracked.
She began idly checking out whatever names on toe tags she could read in the dim glow of the projector. There was Polly, Tilly, Bianca, and Andy, to name a few. Scarlet was just starting to imagine how each of these kids died, but didn’t need to, thanks to an unexpected whisper in her ear from Gary.
“There’s A.D.D. Andy, a skater who tried to five-oh it off a cement truck,” Gary informed her. “Only the cement churner turned on, and well, Andy was sidewalk.”
“Jackass,” Scarlet said devilishly.
“Yeah, he did get a lot of hits on YouTube though,” Gary said, trying to be positive.
“And Tilly over there?” Scarlet asked.
“If the lights were up you wouldn’t need to ask,” Gary said with a smile. “Tanning Tilly got fried in a tanning bed. A world-class UV addict. Too greedy with the bulbs.”
“That’s hot,” Scarlet mocked, her cutting sense of humor returning for the first time in a while. “She got a killer tan.”
“That is Blogging Bianca,” Gary said, pointing to a girl who had her fingers curved as if she was ready to type at any second. “Her blog was her life.”
“Whose isn’t?” Scarlet smirked, one of her pet peeves being the amount of valuable time people waste blogging and pushing mundane personal observations in their own little cyber sweatshops for mass consumption.
“Unfortunately, that’s what it cost her,” Gary explained. “She got a DVT, you know, a blood clot from not moving around enough. Too many snarky entries, too little stretching out.”
“Too much information.” Scarlet squirmed, pun totally intended. “Talk about logging out.”
“What about you, Gary. How did you … get here?” Scarlet asked.
“Oh, I was driving my hybrid and I lost control. I swerved to save a tree, and instead, I plowed into the side of a Target.”
“Bull’s-eye,” Scarlet said, stifling her giggle with her hand.
“Yeah, but the tree was unharmed, thank God,” Gary said, still reveling in his success.
“You look older than the others,” Scarlet said.
“Oh, actually, I’m the youngest here, I think,” Gary said. “I probably look older because I only ate organic, no preservatives.”
“Oh,” Scarlet replied, trying not to look too shocked at the fact that Gary looked as old as her dad. “Bet you never got carded.”
“No, and never will,” Gary said with a momentary twinge of sadness in his voice.
“And you?” a mocking voice called to Scarlet from the other side of the room. “How did you get here?”
“Don’t mind Paramour Polly,” Gary said. “She’s jealous of everyone. She died stealing her best friend’s boyfriend. They were making out on the train tracks and …”
“I can figure out the rest, thanks,” Scarlet said, cutting the conversation short. She had heard all she wanted or needed to.
After learning about her classmates, Scarlet directed her attention to the screen. The film continued with lessons from Billy and Butch on the proper use of “special abilities.” Scarlet actually found it fascinating, but kept reminding herself she was only auditing this class. This stuff was all superfluous since she wasn’t really dead.
The lights came up and Ms. Pierce dismissed everyone, but remained at her desk. Scarlet trailed the rest of the kids out of class and then stopped to talk with the teacher.
“Can I help you, Scarlet?” Ms. Pierce offered kindly.
“I hope so,” Scarlet said with total seriousness. “You see, I don’t belong here.”
“We all feel that way at first, dear,” Ms. Pierce. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used …” Scarlet stopped herself. “What I meant to say is, I’m not like the rest of you.”
“What do you mean, Scarlet?” the teacher asked a bit curiously.
“I’m not dead, ma’am,” Scarlet said. “Yet.”
Ms. Pierce was a bit skeptical of what Scarlet was telling her, but glancing down at her roll sheet, she could not find Scarlet’s name. She continued to listen, this time a bit more closely.
“Then why are you here?” Ms. Pierce said. “It is not exactly top of the list for teenagers.”
“I’m looking for someone who is dead,” Scarlet answered. “A girl named Charlotte Usher.”
“I’m sorry, she’s not in this class,” Ms. Pierce advised, looking over her attendance roster once again. “Honestly, I have no idea how you would find her.”
“I don’t understand much about how all this stuff works, but I know that she graduated.”
“Well, that’s the problem, Miss Kensington,” Ms. Pierce explained. “None of us here know where that is, but we are all waiting for an opportunity to be taken there.”
The tone of Ms. Pierce’s voice indicated to Scarlet that she had held out hope that the new student would be the one to lead them over.
“I’m sorry if I’ve created any confusion.”
“You’ve created much more than confusion,” Ms. Pierce said enigmatically. “Since there is nothing I can do for you now, why don’t you take a spare room for the night at Hawthorne Manor and perhaps we can sort this out tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Scarlet said, her voice cracking slightly from the strain.
Scarlet was getting really anxious about time, and what might be going on at the hospital, but without any other options, she decided that it would be interesting to be at Hawthorne Manor again, as a guest rather than a waitress in the café.
Scarlet arrived at Hawthorne Manor much like she would for work, but now she had special access to the actual dorm. It looked grand and beautiful, just as she remembered it had the first time. She walked in the huge wooden doors and through the marbled foyer, proud that she had helped to save such a place. No one was around, as far as she could tell.
She stepped toward the massive staircase and then up to the bedrooms, looking over her shoulder the whole way, alert to any uptight, resentful ghosts that might reside there these days. She noticed name plates on all the doors as she walked down the hall and then came to Charlotte’s old room, which, as luck would have it, appeared to be unoccupied. It was strange for her to walk through the door, since last time, she’d pretty much floated in the huge stained-glass window.
She ran her finger along the fireplace mantel and thought about Charlotte and everything that had happened. She thought about Damen as well and wondered if he’d still be hovering over Petula in the hospital room, or if maybe he’d found a minute to tear up over her, stroke her hand, and call her back from the brink too. Unexpectedly, however, Scarlet found herself thinking mostly about Petula and how she could save her. Just then, she heard a rapping at the bedroom door.