Ashes to Ashes (29 page)

And, of course, I think about Mary. Every girl with long blond hair makes my heart skip, but it's never her, thank God. Our spell worked. She's trapped in her house. But it makes me sad that we're all here having the time of our lives when Mary should be with us. Not Mary as she is now, but as she used to be. She should be alive. I wish she were alive.

My stomach growls. I need to get on that buffet while the getting's good. It was Mrs. Lind's genius idea to get our prom catered, and I insisted we do Antoine's. Balsamic glazed chicken breasts, roasted red potatoes, those green beans I love.

I head over to the buffet and see that it's been pretty well picked over. If I want to eat, I'd better get to it. I get a plate and a soda and am heading back to the table when Lil grabs me by the arm so hard, I almost drop my plate. Frantically, she says, “I think I broke the spell. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Reeve kissed
me and I kissed him back and something's wrong. I can feel it.”

“Shit,” I breathe. “Where is he now?”

“He overheard me saying all this stuff to Alex and he said—he said he wasn't going to bother me anymore and now he's just
gone
. I'm afraid he's going to do something crazy.” A sob escapes my throat.

“Calm down, Lil. I'll drive by her house and check that she's still there. You go find Reeve.”

The last thing I tell Lillia is that everything will be okay.

I hope Mary doesn't make a liar out of me.

I
RUN DOWN ALEX'S DRIVEWAY
and along the road, where the valets have parked the cars. My heart is pounding in my chest, but I don't stop running.

I finally spot Reeve's truck.
Please be inside it. Please.
But when I get closer, I see that he's not. It's empty. He's gone someplace by foot.

And then I spot his keys on the seat. I get in and tear down the roads. Where could he have gone? Maybe he went home? I check, even park the truck and run up to the house, but he's not there. His bedroom windows are all dark, his mom and dad are watching TV alone in the den.

He's nowhere, and I'm wasting time. I should go check on Mary's house. Kat might need me.

I'm halfway to Middlebury, speeding up the road that rides along the edge of the cliffs, when I nearly run over him.

He's wobbling along the edge, a bottle of liquor in each hand. I slam the brakes, and he stumbles. And a ways up the road there's Mary, sitting on the cliffs, watching him.

I lean across the cab and jerk the passenger door open. “Get in!”

“Cho, what the—”

“Just get in!” I scream.

He stares at me in shock, but he gets in. When I put my eyes back on the road, I see Mary there, standing in the middle of the street. Reeve still can't see her. I drive his truck up and onto the other side of the road, to pass her.

Reeve says, “What the hell is going on? What are you doing in my truck?”

“It's Mary. Mary Zane. Elizabeth!”

Reeve's eyes bulge. “What did you say?”

“She's been trying to hurt you, Reeve. Her spirit—she's—she's a ghost, Reeve. She's come back here for you.” We're speeding along. “We have to get off the island. She can't leave.”

His face is stark white. “Oh my God. I thought I was going insane. You've actually seen her? Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

I glance at the clock on my dashboard. The next ferry leaves in four minutes. We have to make it. We have to. “When you get to the mainland, don't come back until I call you.”

“I'm not going anywhere without you.”

“Reeve, don't argue with me! You aren't safe here.”

His jaw sets stubbornly. “I'm not leaving you.”

We pull into the ferry parking lot, and, thank goodness, the ferry's still there. There aren't any cars waiting to board, just us. We're pulling forward when I see her.

Standing in the parking lot, right in front of us, in that gauzy white dress, looking like an angel. Face twisted up and screaming for me to stop.

There's only one thing I can do. I hit the gas. The dockworkers shout and wave their hands at us. “No more cars!” they shout. This time I drive straight through Mary and up onto the ferry.

I spin around and look through my rear window. She's staring back at me. She doesn't move. She just watches Reeve and me and then disappears as the drawbridge is lifted and the ferry pulls away from the shore.

I
DRIVE A MILLION MILES
an hour to T-Town. Dad and Pat are back working in the garage, the hatch door lifted high. They see my headlights bounce up the driveway, and they wander out.

Dad flops a rag over his shoulder. “Kat? Why are you back so soon?”

I don't answer him. I just run as fast as I can to my room and grab Aunt Bette's books, the candles, the spices, and the salts, and the rest of the shit we used on Mary. I throw it all into my book bag. Just in case. I have no idea what we might
need, or if any of it will work if our spell is broken.

I glance at the clock on my way out. God, I really hope this is a false alarm.

When I'm back outside, I find Pat blocking my car door, arms folded. “What's going on?”

“Move, Pat!”

“Come on. Just tell me—”

“Move!” I push him out of the way, which isn't easy in heels and a prom dress. He tries to stand his ground, and we wrestle for a second, but then Pat must see that I am so not fucking around right now, because he steps back.

“Okay, okay.”

I jump into my car, put it in reverse, and hit the gas so fast, the tires spin smoke. Then I'm flying down the street, Dad and Pat left bewildered in my taillights. I drive, drive as fast as this piece-of-shit car will go, across Jar Island to Middlebury. The movie theater, Java Jones, all the tourists are colored streaks out my window.

A few minutes later I pull into Mary's driveway. Her house is as dark as the sky. I hike up my dress and tiptoe through the moonlit yard, on high alert, glancing around.

Is Mary here? Is she watching me right now? Or maybe Lillia was wrong. Maybe she didn't break the spell.

The crickets and my pounding heart are the only noises until,
far off in the distance, the ferry horn sounds. I stand underneath Mary's bedroom window and wait for her to come, like she did once before. When she doesn't, I get this feeling, this sick-ass feeling that someone's going to get hurt tonight.

Maybe Reeve.

Or maybe us. Me and Lillia. Mary knows what we've done, that we tried to cage her spirit. I hold tight to my bag. I've got to fix this, or we're all done for.

I walk through the front door. Though it's dark, I can see that Lillia's necklace is gone, the salt disturbed. Every door we bound shut upstairs has been opened wide.

I go into Mary's bedroom, fall to my knees, and unzip my bag. With trembling hands I set out the candles and start lighting them with my Zippo so I can see. And then I open one of the spell books and try to figure out what the fuck to do.

Then the moonlight disappears and an icy wind blows through the room. The candles flicker out, and I feel so, so, so cold, colder than the coldest winter day. I relight my Zippo to start over and I nearly scream when the glow falls on Mary, sitting on her windowsill, staring down at me with accusing eyes.

“If at first you don't succeed . . . quit and try something else?” she says.

My mouth drops open. The wick of the candle sends up twirls of gray smoke. I squeeze my hand tight around my lighter.

“You almost had me. I'll give you an A for effort.”

I fall to the floor and frantically flip through the book.

Mary makes a movement with her arm, and the spell book flies across the room, away from me. And then she holds up Lillia's necklace. “Too bad Lillia didn't keep up her end of the bargain.”

I quickly bring out the lighter and rub my thumb over the metal wheel a couple times. Finally the flint sparks into a flame. As soon as it does, I go flying backward and slam into the wall with the force of a truck. Then gravity pulls me down into a crumpled heap on the hardwood floor.

Mary hops down from the windowsill, and she lands on the floor in her bare feet. I slowly lift my head as much as I can, but my entire body is wrecked and throbbing. My lighter has slid across the floor and is now near where I have the spell book open. I crawl on my belly toward it, squinting my eyes to try to push away the pain. When I'm close, I reach my arm out as long as I can and try to grab it. My fingertips just graze the lighter. But as soon as I make contact, Mary raises her arm and lifts me right up off the floor again.

“Stop doing that! Why aren't you listening to me?” She flings me against the wall another time. I can hear the plaster crack, or maybe it's my bones.

I cough and gasp for breath, the wind entirely knocked out
of me. When I open my eyes, the whole room is a watery blur. I grit my teeth and try to get to my knees. I can't see where Mary is, but I plead with her anyway. “This isn't you, Mary. You're not like this.” Finally my vision sharpens and the spell book and my bag come back into focus across the room. I crawl toward it, gasping for breath. “Let us help you.”

Mary steps between me and the candles. “Lillia is still in love with Reeve. He's all she cares about. That's why the spell was broken, that's why she's on a ferry with him right now, saving him and leaving you to die right here, right now.” She spins around and lifts her arm. The rest of my stuff falls out of the bag. The salt and the lavender fly around the room, the candles roll in opposite directions. I keep crawling, but then I feel myself being lifted up again.

And then everything goes black.

I
JUMP OUT OF THE
truck and run out the exit to the next level so I can make sure Mary's gone. She is. Where did she go?

We're going to pull away from the dock soon. I have to get off this boat. I can't leave Kat to deal with Mary by herself.

Reeve comes up behind me. He's shaking his head, dazed. “I can't believe it.”

“Let's go up to the deck so we can talk,” I say.

We walk up to the deck, and people are staring at us in our formalwear. I say, “Go inside and get us some seats. I have to
go to the bathroom. I'll be right back.” Reeve nods, still looking like a scared kid. This might be the last time I see him. So I get on my tippy-toes and hug him tight. His face breaks into a relieved smile.

“That stuff you said to Alex. You didn't mean it, right?”

“Mary. She told me to stay away from you.”

“But how did—”

“I'll explain everything in one minute. Promise.”

He nods and goes inside, and I take off in the other direction. I push open the exit and fly down the stairs to the lowest level. I run down the length of the ferry, pushing people out of the way. It's too late. We're already pulling away.

I stand at the guardrail. We've barely left shore. I could make it. I could jump. It's not so high up from here. I start taking off my shoes before I can stop to really think about it.

I pull myself up to the railing, and my heart is pounding out of my chest. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. And then I hold my nose, and jump.

It feels like I'm falling forever before I hit the water. It smacks into me so hard it knocks the wind out of me. The water is freezing, and I swallow gallons of it, up my nose, down my throat. Water all around me. I forget everything I learned about swimming, and I'm just panicking, because this feels like drowning. I'm drowning. My dress is like a funeral shroud,
weighing me down, making every movement that much harder.

And then I'm fighting my way to the surface, and it just kicks in. The fight to live. I'm swimming. My body knows how.

I swim all the way to the dock. My arms burn, my throat burns, everything burns. I swim until I have nothing left. Two ferry workers spot me and fish me out of the water. “What the hell were you thinking?” one screams at me.

My whole body is shaking from cold and exhaustion. They go to get me a blanket, and I take off before they come back. I'm running out of the ferry parking lot, up the hill to Mary's house. My feet are bare and my dress is soaking wet and clinging to my body, but I don't care.

Hurry, hurry, hurry. Before it's too late.

My throat burns; my chest burns; every muscle in my body burns. But I have to keep going. I have to.

I don't stop running. I run up her driveway and to the front door. As soon I open the door, I hear Kat and Mary yelling, and then there's a thud, and it goes quiet. “Kat!” I scream. I take the stairs two at a time, tripping over my dress.

When I get upstairs, I push at Mary's bedroom door, but it won't open. “Kat!” I scream. I bang on the door as hard as I can. “Mary! Let me in!”

I'm screaming myself hoarse when I hear footsteps pounding up the stairs. I turn around, and there is Reeve, wild-eyed
and out of breath. I gasp. “What are you doing here?”

“I got them to turn the boat around—”

“Kat's inside,” I croak.

“Move,” he tells me, and then he throws himself against the door just as it opens.

Kat's in a heap on the floor, cradling her arm, and Mary's standing over her. Looking at us. At Reeve. “You're here,” she says.

In wonder he says, “It was you all along.”

N
OW I GET TO BE
the girl he can't stop staring at. “Look at me, Reeve.” Reeve has dropped his head, and I hold out my hand and jerk his chin up, painfully high. “I said look at me. I want to show you what Lillia gave me.” I dangle the necklace in front of him. “It's pretty, isn't it?”

Lillia makes a gaspy sound; she's crying, hunched over, trying to light a candle. Kat's got the book open in her lap, and she's muttering under her breath. They still think they can stop me. They think they can trap me here forever. With one flick of my hand I scatter their things across the room.