Brimstone (8 page)

“Let’s see.” She gazed at the ceiling, trying to recall. “I remember you turning chicken …”

“I did not!” There was a disbelieving pause. “Okay, I totally did. Please continue.”

“I climbed on the low board, and heard the hags cackling. And then I started to jump, and that’s all I remember.”

“So you don’t know what went wrong?”

Her forehead knotted, not with pain, but confusion, maybe.

“Coach Milner said I must have placed my foot wrong, not had it all the way on the board.”

“Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she? I mean, if you slipped, it could have been the equipment, and then the school would be in trouble.”

Her brows knit more tightly. “Did I slip?”

“I couldn’t really tell what happened.” I tried to reassure her. She seemed upset by the hole in her memory, and who could blame her? “It doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“I just had the strangest feeling …”

I waited a polite nanosecond, then prompted, “Did you remember something?”

She gave her head a very careful shake. “I don’t know. I have this memory of jumping into the air and seeing my
shadow underneath me, but it was moving in the wrong direction. I wonder if it’s some kind of distortion from banging my head.”

“Optical illusion, maybe?” I kept my voice neutral. “That’s not so strange.”

“That’s not the weird part. There was—or I imagined there was—a horrible smell. Like food gone bad. I thought, ‘No wonder Maggie doesn’t want to jump in there. It smells like a sewer.’ ” She worried at the memory a little longer, then let it slip away. “And that’s the last thing I remember.”

With a slightly determined smile, she changed the subject. “I didn’t do anything to help you get over your phobia, though. What do they call that? Aquaphobia?”

“I-don’t-wanna-die-ophobia.”

“Ow! Don’t make me laugh.”

“Sorry.”

We talked about random, unimportant things—gossip, school, homework, college—until her mother came back. Mrs. Foley looked better for the break, and I gave up her seat.

“Here’s my cell phone number.” I scribbled it on the pad by the phone. “Call me if you need anything or … well, anything.” I didn’t want to say “if anything weird happens,” because I wasn’t even sure what was normal anymore.

For instance. You could have blown me over when five minutes later I met Stanley Dozer in the hospital lobby. I actually said “Stanley?” though there was no mistaking his pale, gangly form for any other.

“Hi, Maggie.” He didn’t look very pleased to see me, which, considering he’d called me a bitch the last time we’d met, wasn’t really a shock.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Yanachek asked me to bring Karen her math homework.” He held up a folder and didn’t meet my eye.

“That’s nice of you.” Considering that you called
her
a dork, I added silently.

“Yeah, well. No one else wanted to do it.”

“You really try and spread sunshine and light wherever you go, don’t you, Stanley?” He looked at me blankly. I sighed. “I’ll take it up for you, so you don’t pain yourself.”

“No. I have to explain the problems. You’ll never understand it.”

“There are lots of things I’ll never understand,” I said as I strode past him. Then I paused. “Hey, Stanley. What did you mean when you said that everyone who picked on you was going to be sorry?”

He gave me a long, unreadable stare, then shrugged. “You know what I mean. I’ll join the space program, and they’ll end up like their kind always do: fat, divorced, and managing a Safeway.”

Yeah, well,
there
was a fate worse than death.

I watched him go, wondering if there was something different about him, or if it was his outburst yesterday that changed my viewpoint. I didn’t spend too much time on it, though. I had bigger fish to fry. It was time for some old-fashioned sleuthing. I was going to have to unleash my inner Nancy Drew.

m
aybe Nancy Drew isn’t the coolest role model. There are a lot more kick-ass heroines nowadays, like Buffy and that chick from
Alias
. But I had a retro fondness for the girl detective. I didn’t know what I’d find at the pool, but I knew I had to take a closer look. If Karen caught a whiff of icky weirdness, too, then it wasn’t just my freaky intuition.

The school was far from deserted when I pulled into the parking lot. The baseball and basketball teams had practice. There was a meeting of the decorating committee for the You-Know-What. There would be people still in the newspaper and yearbook offices. And of course, rehearsals for the musical would go until late.

I was worried the aquatics gym might be locked, or full of swimmers, but my timing was good. As I wove through the locker room, a bunch of dripping, broad-shouldered girls passed on the way to the showers, chattering about split times and fly strokes. I acted like I was supposed to be there, nodding to them and walking purposefully to the pool entrance.

I hung back against the wall until I saw the boys and their coach pass, leaving the gym empty. My rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as I ventured in. The high dive loomed at the end of the vaulted building, the low board squatting alongside like its own little henchman.

I forced myself to the lip of the diving pool and looked down. A wave of vertigo hit me, as if I were standing on the edge of a high building. If I fell, the water would swallow me, suck me under, as whatever lurked unseen in the depths captured me with fins and tentacles and dagger-like teeth.

Get a grip, Maggie
. Sweat prickled under my arms.
What would Nancy do?

She wouldn’t let her imagination defeat her, that’s for sure. Taking my camera from my bag, I inspected the safe end of the low board first, working up to the hard part. No greasy spots, no loose screws. When I could put it off no longer, I hung my camera around my neck and grabbed the handrail. Nothing left to do but walk the plank.

My palms left foggy prints on the metal as I edged toward the end of the railing and stopped. My next step would be over the water. I extended my foot …

And retreated.

My inner chicken was firmly in control.

“All right, Mags.” My voice rang in the empty gym. “Don’t be ridiculous. Suck it up and just do it.”

God. I sounded like my mother, gene-spliced with Coach Milner. But it had become a point of honor now.

Fists white-knuckled on the railing, I lowered myself to straddle the board. Then I scooted out, my center of gravity glued to the fiberglass. A ridiculous method of locomotion, but it worked. My feet dangled over twenty-one fathoms of water.

I reached the end with a thrill of satisfaction that quickly turned to disappointment. I’d risked my continued enjoyment of oxygen for nothing. But then I ran my finger over the textured surface and left a swath of lighter-blue behind.

A strange grimy blackness outlined the whorls of my fingerprints. It wasn’t slippery, like motor oil, though there
was
an oily sort of quality. But sooty, like the stuff that collects on the chimney glass of a hurricane lamp.

Could it have caused Karen to slip? I didn’t think so. I could vouch for the nonskid treatment of the board; my jeans had rasped with every scoot. Plus, no one else had fallen and the scum coated the board in a thin, complete layer.

After photographing several angles, I sat for a moment, getting the courage to unclamp my legs and move again. I knew I should appease my grandmother by looking at this with my, I don’t know, instinct, inner sight, third eye, whatever you want to call it. But I didn’t know how to begin. I’d been slamming shut the door of my skepticism for so long, I had no idea how to open it.

I sighed and gave up trying to make it happen. As soon as I did, I got a flash, clear as a bell: I had to get out of there. The sudden certainty of it made my stomach jump and twist.

I hurried, but not even the
Amityville Horror
moment could make me anything less than overcautious. I scooted backward the same way I’d gone out, and as soon as I was over dry land I swung off the board, grabbed my backpack, and fled.

The locker room was empty except for the drip of the showers and the musty smell of mildew and old sneakers, but the feeling didn’t abate. I ducked out, and the door had just closed behind me when I saw Halloran headed down the hall, wearing a face like thunder.

“Margaret Quinn!”

First of all, my name is not Margaret. Second of all, no one could hold a candle to my mother when it came to the Invocation of the Full Name. The mere threat of Mom bellowing “Magdalena Lorraine Quinn!” had always guaranteed my unwavering obedience. All other attempts at given-name intimidation fell far short by comparison, especially when attempted by ex-Jock assistant principals who couldn’t be bothered to get it right.

“What are you doing back here?” He might not know my name, but he did know that I didn’t darken the door of the gym unless my graduation credits demanded it.

“I left my swimsuit in the locker room. But the door is locked, so I couldn’t get it.”

Eyeing me suspiciously, he tested the door. It didn’t budge. No mojo there; I had heard it latch behind me. Unable to catch me out in a lie, he turned grumpy. “What are you doing at school so late?”

“I need to take some pictures of play practice.” Boy, those thespians were darned handy.

“Well, I’m headed that way myself. I’ll walk with you.”

The auditorium was in the opposite direction from my car. But if Halloran suspected I’d been taking pictures of the diving board he’d confiscate my camera in a second, on the remotest possibility of a lawsuit.

So I let him escort me to C Hall. He watched me all the way up to the auditorium doors, where I slipped in without saying thanks.

Rehearsal was in full swing; compared to that morning, it was a marvel of organization. On the stage was a simple but artistic set and in front of it Thespica danced in a blue gingham dress, singing about chicks and ducks. Honesty forces me to admit she seemed quite good, for someone singing about farm animals.

The drama teacher saw me. I held up my camera, then pointed at the stage. He nodded and went back to scribbling notes on a legal pad. I found a good angle and took some shots of the star, then of her “Granny” as she came onstage in a frumpy outfit that
my
granny wouldn’t be caught dead in. Though the same could be said of the farm, really.

When they stopped the action to work out a scene change, I slipped backstage, thinking I might grab a couple of pictures of the crew. Foolishly, I did not realize it would be pitch-dark there. The only lights were blue—either a blue bulb or a normal work light with some kind of blue plastic covering it.

“Hey,” said a guy in a black T-shirt, looking officious. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

“I wanted to get a look behind the scenes. At the unsung heroes, you know.” Yes, shameless flattery is my friend.

“Well … all right. But try and stay out of the way.”

“Thanks.” I edged toward the wall, where a blue light illuminated a stand with a script on it. Backstage was not as big as I thought. Set pieces and actors and crew were stuffed tightly in the available space.

I think the black clothes were supposed to make the stage crew inconspicuous, but I noticed Stanley Dozer almost immediately, despite the crowded darkness. Man, that boy kept turning up like a six-foot, five-inch bad penny.

Still more interesting, he looked nothing like the sour dweeb I’d seen earlier. I watched him bend to listen to something a girl in costume said, then he gave a muted laugh.

Stanley Dozer, you fickle son of a gun. I couldn’t judge if the girl returned his interest, but his infatuation was plain on his homely face.

“Dude.”

It took a moment to realize that someone was talking to me. I’m not the girliest girl ever, but no one has ever mistaken me for a guy before.

“Dude.” The guy at the prompting stand repeated it until I turned. “Your ass is glowing.”

“What?” Definitely not something I expected to hear in the normal run of things.

“Your ass is glowing. Dude, what did you sit in?”

I craned around to look. Sure enough, in the deep violet lamplight, the seat of my jeans glowed fluorescent blue.

Great. A radioactive butt. What a topper for the wedding cake of disaster that had been my day.

f
inally, all those
CSI
reruns were going to pay off. As soon as I got out to my Jeep, I stripped off my jeans and tucked them into a plastic grocery sack, tying off the top to preserve the evidence. Of course, this meant I had to drive home in my underwear, but I had a ratty old wool picnic blanket in the back of the car. I wrapped it around my waist, and headed home.

Beltline was the most direct road, but it was the main drag through Avalon, and always clogged with traffic. The street led past the most important places in town: the red brick downtown area, the university, my school, the hospital, and if
you kept going it would take you to the mall near the state highway bypass, the “new” high school (built only twenty years ago), and the treeless subdivisions where my dad refused to live. Going south you’d pass the Wal-Mart, the bars that catered to people who wanted to drink more than dance, and eventually the lumber mill and the paper plant, thankfully far enough away that it only stank when the wind was very strong from the southwest.