Bad Girls Don't Die (20 page)

“I’m really sorry,” I repeated.

Megan ignored my apology. “Grandma said she was a photographer?”

I nodded. “A good one. Award-winning, your grandma said.”

“Wow,” Megan said. And then her eyes lost their focus and she stared off in the distance. She hung the picture back in its corner and looked at it one last time. Then she glanced at me. “You’re into photography, right? Maybe sometime you could show me . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Of course.”

And I meant it. I mean, I totally owed it to her, but more than that . . . I just got this subtle vibe from Megan that I didn’t get from anybody else. That if I showed her my photos, she would understand. She would get them. The idea of having an intelligent conversation about photography was as oddly irresistible as the thought of listening to Carter insult my house with all his fancy architectural terms. Megan sighed. “I guess we’re ready to go,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Your grandmother told me to ask you about dresses, so if she asks, just say we talked about it.”

“What about dresses?”

I hesitated. “She said I should borrow one from you for the dance.”

“You don’t have a dress?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You should take one,” she said. “Then she won’t ask any questions.” She went to her closet and pushed the doors open.

I felt extraordinarily silly. “Megan, I don’t think any of your clothes . . .”

“Chill,” she said, scanning the racks of clothes. “It’s just for show. You don’t have to actually wear it, but you might as well.”

“If I’m even alive for the dance,” I said, only half joking.

She turned and looked at me solemnly. “You will be, Alexis,” she said. “I promise we’ll find a way to fix what’s happening.”

I sighed. The fact that she took it seriously made it seem so much harder. Half of me wanted someone to convince me that it was all in my head. Then I could pop a magic pill and go back to my normal life.

Except, what was my normal life? Could I go back to hanging out with the Doom Squad? Could I go back to hating Megan?

“What are you going to do with your hair?” she asked, reaching toward the back of the rack. “Have you thought about wearing it up?”

“No,” I said truthfully, because I hadn’t thought about my hair at all.

“Okay, don’t hate me for this,” Megan said, and turned around, holding out a dress . . . a
pink
dress.

When I say pink, I mean Pepto-Bismol pink. Easy-Bake Oven pink. Beauty-pageant pink. I took an involuntary step back, as if she were holding a snake. “Uh-uh. No way.”

“Come on, it would be adorable. You’d look like a punk-rock Barbie doll.”

“No,” I said. “Megan, no. People would think—”

“I thought you didn’t care what people thought about you.”

Crud. “I would look like a
strawberry
.”

“Not even,” she said. “I’m telling you, it would be the cutest thing ever.”

I looked at the dress. It was kind of 1960s looking, with a neckline that went in a straight line from the top of one shoulder to the other, and no sleeves. It flared a couple inches under the bust into a puffy skirt that went down to about knee-high. The fabric was kind of stiff, so it stuck out.

“Take it. You’re taking it. You have to,” she said. “Everyone will die.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “Just what I need.”

“What, for people to think you’re cute and have good fashion sense? That would be devastating. Oh, oh— I know what’s missing.” Her eyes swept over the room, searching for something. “Where’s my tiara?”

I couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine!” I said. “I’ll take the dress, but nothing else. No accessories.”

I’d only meant to make us safe from her grandmother, and now I was being talked into wearing a pink princess dress. I hadn’t worn pink clothing since fourth grade. We had to leave before she found the tiara.

“Yay,” Megan crowed, and she draped it over my arm. She took one last look around the room.

“Are you going Friday night?” The question kind of slipped out.

“Yeah. Kind of have to. School spirit, rah rah rah.”

“Who are you going with?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Myself.”

“You don’t have a date?”

“Who needs a date?” she asked. “He’d just try to dance and look stupid anyway.”

Who’s punk-rock now?

We didn’t even pause as we walked by the kitchen. Megan picked up her schoolbag from the front hall and shouted over her shoulder, “Bye, Grandma!”

“God keep you,” Mrs. Wiley called back as we walked out the door.

“Why did she say that?” I asked. Was she on to us?

Megan shrugged. “That’s what she always says.”

T
HE AFTERNOON LIGHT HAD BEGUN
to fade from pale white to gold, and the wind had picked up, sending whirlwinds of fallen leaves tumbling across the street. When we paused at stop signs, the leaves blew against the car and made faint scraping noises.

“We’ll go inside and look around a little,” Megan said, drumming along to the song on the radio, “and then maybe we’ll have something to work with.”

“Megan,” I said, hesitating.

She turned the radio down. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want this to sound weird, because you obviously know more about these things than I do, but my sister is seriously unpredictable right now. I don’t think we should mess with her.”

She drove on, not looking at me, not saying a word.

“It’s just that it could get . . . risky. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m here of my own free will,” she said. “Stop making up reasons to feel bad.”

She went on tapping lightly on the steering wheel, and I stared out the front window of the car, trying to ignore the fear that hovered over my thoughts like an approaching storm. Megan and I had reached a delicate balance—and I didn’t want to upset that balance by second-guessing her.

Neither of us said a word as she turned onto Whitley Street.

We parked across the street from my house. After turning the engine off, Megan gazed silently out the window, not moving, not even to take off her seat belt. The air in the car seemed to settle, and the only sounds were our breathing and the scratching and skittering of the leaves outside.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She sat straight up, her body rigid with stillness, like a tiger crouching in the grass. The sudden change in her behavior frightened me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

I didn’t even notice her hand move, but her seat belt clicked and went flying in violent release, scaring me out of my skin. I gave a shriek, which seemed to wake her up. Her lips pulled tight in a grim little line, revealing tension she didn’t want me to see. It was suddenly as if the house, and whatever was inside of it, were more than she’d bargained for.

But if she wasn’t going to admit it, I wasn’t going to challenge her. “Ready?”

She gulped in a breath of air and nodded resolutely. “Let’s go.”

The car doors unlocked with a soft click, and we stepped out onto the road. The wind hurried by us, moaning softly. The perfect fall day was cooling into a chilly twilight, and the sky seemed to glow soft brown. I shivered involuntarily.

Megan grabbed her bag from the trunk and faced the house.

“The dress?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Leave it for now.”

I closed the trunk. The noise seemed to get lost in the wind.

We must have looked like a solemn little procession, staring up at the house as we crossed the street and went up the front walk. I volunteered for the front position, and Megan followed a few steps behind me.

The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and hesitated for half a second before going inside.

“Is she here?” Megan whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Wow,” Megan said. I turned to see what she was looking at, but she was just studying the foyer. I tried to see it the way she was, the high ceiling plastered with cherubs and angels, the leaded-glass window over the front door, the sweeping staircase opening up in front of us, the ornate handrail with its carved roses and vines. . . .

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

As I reached the top of the steps and listened for sounds from Kasey’s room, I began to relax; although, as I learned earlier, it didn’t have to
sound
like she was home to mean she was. The door was open. I edged closer and sighed with relief; the room was empty. Even if Kasey
was
home, she definitely wasn’t in her bedroom.

Megan came more slowly up the stairs, looking back at the foyer and peering down the hall.

“I feel like I’ve seen this place before,” she said.

“There’s one in every scary movie,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you want to see my sister’s room?”

I went alone into Kasey’s room while Megan hovered a few feet behind me. The longer we were in the house, the quieter and more withdrawn she seemed to get.

Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary. I turned around to leave, but Megan wasn’t there. She’d wandered down the hall and stood just at the top of the stairs, studying the wallpaper, dragging her fingertips across it.

“Hey,” I said. “Maybe we should go outside for a minute.”

She turned to look at me, but instead of answering, she went ghostly white and seemed to freeze in place, staring over my shoulder down the hallway.

Not a good sign.

“Megan?”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t even move.

I took a step toward her.

“Wait,”
she said.

An order.

I obeyed. Too afraid even to move my head and follow her gaze behind me, I stared at her, trying to read her expression.

Nothing. Her face was blank.

“Sarah,” she said. “Sarah.”

“. . . Megan?”

“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”

“Megan, what are you saying?”

After a moment she seemed to wake up. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head furiously, but the name wouldn’t stop coming out of her mouth. Her whole body was stiff, her muscles so tense that the tendons showed in her arms.

“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”

“Megan!” I cried. “Quit it!”

But she couldn’t. It was like me, in the basement, with the story.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Megan!
Stop it!
”

She stopped, blinking a few times. Finally her gaze settled on me, and her glazed eyes seemed to clear.

“What happened here?” Megan gasped.

“Why do you keep saying that name?”

“In this house,” Megan said. “Something happened in this house.”

She collapsed.

Down the hall, Kasey’s door slammed shut all by itself.

Megan had fallen gracefully into a little heap in the corner. I knelt at her side and felt her wrist for a pulse. It was there—weak, but there.

“Come on,” I said, shaking her shoulder gently. “Wake up.”

Megan stirred; her eyelids fluttered open and then slid shut as if they were weighted. Her lips moved in an attempt to speak.

“Megan, come on, wake up. We have to get out of here.”

I grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her up to a sitting position.

She blinked. “Let’s go,” she whispered, color flooding her pale cheeks.

I helped her to her feet, and as we went down the steps, her hand gripped the banister as if it were a life preserver.

“What just happened?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“I’ll tell you outside,” I said, holding her by the arm as we crossed the foyer and hurried out of the house.

While Megan rested against the side of her car, my eyes searched the house, looking for any strange light or movement—Kasey’s face in a window. . . . But there was nothing.

After a minute, Megan raised her head and looked at me.

“I’m okay,” she said, trying the words out.

I didn’t ask if she was sure, but our eyes met, and hers darted away.

“I
am
,” she insisted. I waited for her to climb into the driver’s seat before I walked around to the passenger side.

Once we were safely in the car, she gripped the steering wheel in her hands and tightened her fists until the skin over her knuckles was white. She took a long, deep breath in and held it.

“Who’s Sarah?” I asked. The name seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

“What?”

“
Sarah.
You just kept saying that name . . . Don’t you remember?”

“No,” she said. “I really don’t. All I remember is feeling something evil.”

She leaned back against the seat, staring intently at the steering wheel.

“You know how I keep saying I’m doing this for me . . . ?” She hugged herself tightly. “Ever since I was a little girl, whenever I was around people—fortune-tellers, psychics—they’re all afraid of me.”

“Afraid how?”

“I just walk by their tents, and they come out and start yelling at me. Not the fake ones, but the real ones— the ones who aren’t just making stuff up.”

I didn’t want to ask what they yelled.

“They tell me
Sarah is here
and
Sarah is angry
and
Sarah hates you
. And they’re so scared; they just want me to go away. They get so upset.”