From Bad to Cursed (30 page)

My head was filled with sound, a watered-down version of what I’d experienced in Tashi’s garage.

Aralt didn’t love Lydia. He didn’t love anything. He was greedy, ravenous, selfish. And the chorus of smaller voices, fearful and sad, that I’d heard underneath it all—

The women who gifted themselves didn’t die painlessly.

They didn’t become a soft, glowing halo around the edges of their friends’ lives—

Their spirits existed, imprisoned by Aralt’s hunger, in a state of torment. Lonely and terrified.

“No!” I shouted, pulling at the layer that covered Lydia’s mouth. My fingers sank into its flesh, leaving oozing holes, but the thing didn’t seem to notice me.

All it cared about was Lydia.

When it had her in a tight cocoon, it began to pulse, like a beating heart.

Like it was feeding.

I kept bashing at it, but nothing I did made any difference.

“GET OFF!” I screamed, but I could barely hear my own voice above the cacophony in my mind. “GET OFF!”

Then, suddenly, the shadow was gone. The mix of voices, Aralt’s vicious roar with the cries of his prisoners…it all faded away.

I looked down at Lydia. Her body, pale and bent, lay on the floor like a broken mannequin. Her eyes were wide with terror, her mouth frozen midshriek.

I pressed my fingers to her neck, just under her ear.

No pulse. I shifted her body so she was flat on her back, then started chest compressions.

Count, press, wait, feel for a pulse. Count, press, wait, feel.

Then I was being pulled away.

“I have to save her!” I said, flailing. “Let me go! I have to save her!”

“You can’t save her, Lexi,” Kasey said, holding me tightly. “Look at her. She’s dead.”

She was right, of course. There wasn’t a whisper of life left in Lydia’s body. She was a shell. A corpse.

“Come on,” said Kasey. “Let’s get out of here.”

“No, wait,” I said, remembering the book.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kasey said. “The book is basically ashes.”

But…if the book was destroyed, where did that leave me?

Insane and dying, like the South McBride River girls?

I turned to Kasey in horror.

“I called Carter,” Kasey said. “I know you guys broke up, but…”

Outside, a pair of headlights swung into the parking lot. Carter vaulted out of the car and ran through the door of the salon. He glanced at Lydia, then grabbed my hand.

“Lex, what happened?”

“We can figure that out later,” Kasey said. “We have to get out of here.” She steered me toward the door. I stepped onto the asphalt, and the pain in my half-healed feet made my knees buckle.

Carter bent down and picked up my foot, looking at it like a blacksmith inspecting a horseshoe. The sole was a reddish-black mess of dirt, blood, and patches of sensitive pink skin.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he said.

“No, I’m too heavy.”

“Alexis,” he said. “Come on. For once, I’m asking you to trust me.”

I hesitated.

“That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?” He turned his face toward the night sky and let out a horrible laugh, like a gasp of pain. “Why are you the only person who’s allowed to be strong?”

I put my arms around his neck.

As if I weighed nothing at all, he lifted me off the ground and carried me away.

“W
E’VE HANDLED THE
police department, the coroner, the hospital, the EMTs, the fire department, the superintendent, the principal, and the relevant teachers.” Agent Hasan checked her notebook. “The students will have to figure out their own explanation. They always do, and it’s usually better than our story anyway.”

I nodded.

My parents stared at the kitchen counter.

“We’ve done quite a patch-up job on this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the paint peels and a few of the nails pop out,” Agent Hasan said. “But I think it’ll blow over.”

She looked at Mom and Dad. “May I speak to the girls alone for a minute?”

They slowly got up from their seats and walked out to the front porch.

Agent Hasan glanced from me to Kasey and back again.

“Normally, I’d have a lot of questions for you girls,” she said, “but seeing as how I’ve been ‘asked’ by my superior, who was ‘asked’ by
his
superior, who was ‘asked’ by the Senate subcommittee that handles our budget—not to ask you anything, I get to go home early today.”

She leaned toward us conspiratorially.

“Listen. I like you guys. I’m glad you have mysterious friends in high places who can get you out of this. But the fact is, you got lucky. Luckier than you can fathom. That book was responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred and fifty innocent women, and I’m happy it’s gone. Personally, I think you did the right thing. But listen to me.”

Her eyes bored into mine. “To the people I work for, doing the right thing means
nothing
. You follow orders, or you vanish. I don’t know
why
you got messed up in this stuff for a second time. Once you were in it, you took care of your business. I respect that.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I’m telling you—
there are no third chances
. Keep your noses clean.”

Kasey looked confused.

“It’s an expression,” Agent Hasan said, stacking her untouched paperwork and sliding it back in her briefcase. “Stay out of trouble.”

She walked herself to the door. We stayed seated; I’d been advised to avoid putting unnecessary weight on my bandaged feet, and Kasey had to protect her injured leg.

I wanted to stop her, to ask her what was next for me—what would the side effects be, of taking the oath to the book just as it was destroyed. I kept waiting to feel my mind start to loosen at the seams, but so far, I didn’t feel any less sane than a person would reasonably feel after what we’d been through. But I was afraid to ask, because—unlike Kasey—I didn’t think I was brave enough to go to a place like Harmony Valley for a year.

“Take care, girls.” And with a curt nod, she left.

Mom and Dad came back inside, not looking at each other or at us.

“I guess I’ll go finish up my homework,” Kasey said, easing herself out of the chair.

“Me too,” I said.

She disappeared down the hall while I was still hoisting my way to a standing position. This put me in the distinctly unfortunate position of being alone with my parents. It seemed like there was something I should say. I took a breath. “Alexis,” Dad said, his voice heavy with hurt and disappointment, “please. Just go to your room.”

* * *

The office was in disarray.

I wandered through the workroom, looking for Farrin, finally passing through the cylinder into the darkroom.

The lights were on, and Farrin was on the floor in the corner, labeling a box. She didn’t look up. “I wondered when you would come.”

I tried to hide my surprise when she looked at me. I’d never seen her look so bedraggled. Actually, I’d never seen her look less than perfect.

She looked at me as though she knew what I was thinking. “Well, what did you think was going to happen?” she asked. “Turns out I’m bankrupt. The people I thought I could count on have disappeared, and suddenly I find that I’m an old woman.”

“But you still have your talent,” I said. “They can’t take that away from you.”

She shrugged. “I’ve spent my whole life watching people with talent be overlooked in favor of people who had better connections, more money, the right friends. People like
me
.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. Not sorry that the book was gone. But that Farrin’s life was collapsing around her like a house of cards. “Will you tell Senator Draeger I said thank you?”

“I’ll try,” Farrin said. “She’s very busy these days. Her campaign finances are being audited. Things aren’t going terribly well for any of us. And I’m sorry about the contest. You know the magazine is folding.”

“I understand,” I said.

“You’re fortunate, Alexis,” she said, her voice a little wistful. “You’re young enough to start over.”

I nodded.

“Very tragic about your friend,” she said. “You were there…when it happened?”

I nodded again. She was watching me, her eyes burning.

Then I realized that her question was about more than whether I’d been there. There was something else she wanted to know.

I looked at her and saw that she was just a broken woman, alone and afraid.

She’d lost everything. I couldn’t let her lose Suzette too. Maybe I should have—but I couldn’t.

“It was…painless,” I said. “Very peaceful.”

She managed a quivering smile and then looked away, and I knew my lie hadn’t totally convinced her. “Go on, then. I have a whole life to put into boxes.”

T
HE DAY OF THE
funeral, it was ninety degrees in the shade. Mourners showed up in black tank tops and miniskirts.

Kasey and I stood alone under a tree, at the back of the crowd.

Mr. and Mrs. Small clutched each other at the edge of the grave site. Mrs. Small kept leaning like she was going to fall on top of the coffin. She’d probably been drinking, not that you could blame her.

Megan wasn’t there. She hadn’t even come back to school. She was grounded from talking on the phone, e-mail, texting, or any other form of human contact. She’d been enrolled at Sacred Heart Academy by Tuesday morning. Her grandmother had been threatening it for years.

There was no cheerleading squad at Sacred Heart, which was just as well, because I’d destroyed what was left of Megan’s knee. Mrs. Wiley told me so just before she hung up on me.

I watched Carter approach from the road, wearing a short-sleeved gray shirt and black pants.

We hadn’t seen each other at all since the night Lydia died. I was amazed that so much time had passed. There had just been other things to take care of.

He nodded to Kasey, who nodded back.

“Um…I’m going to go say hi to Adrienne,” Kasey said, limping away. Adrienne, cane in hand, stood by her mother’s wheelchair on the paved road at the edge of the lawn.

When she was gone, I turned to Carter. “How are you?”

“I’m all right. You?”

“Fine.”

We looked over the throngs of students. In death, Lydia was popular. Apparently a lot of people found her funny. Who knew? I’d never thought about it that way.

“It’s so weird,” I said. “Like half the people here, she was trying to kill.”

He shook his head. “She didn’t mean it,” he said. “The real Lydia.”

“Ha,” I said.

“Underneath all her attitude, she was just sad, Lex.” He gazed at the yellow-rose-covered casket.

I detected the dig and turned to him. “How can you defend her?”

Carter turned to me. “It wasn’t all her fault.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “She set up the whole thing. She planned all of it. She pretended that she didn’t mean to kill Tashi, but she knew all along that was what she was going to do. How is that not her fault?”

“Never mind.” He shrugged. “This is tough for you. I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Tell me,” I said. “I can take it.”

Carter stuck his hands in his pockets. “You knew better than to let something like this happen again.”

“
Let?
” I asked. “Are you kidding me?”

“Yes, let,” he said. “Why didn’t you ask for help as soon as you found out what was really happening?”

“And tell me,” I said, “who would I have asked?”

He stared. “Uh,
me
, maybe?”

“Oh,
right
.”

“See? You wouldn’t even consider it.”

“Because it’s a ridiculous idea!” I stared up at him. “If something happened to you—if you got hurt—”

“Or not me, I don’t care. Your parents? Anyone, Lex.”

“That’s not even fair.”

“It would never occur to you
not
to shut everyone out. You never for one second trusted me. Do you even know
how
to trust?”

I couldn’t tell if his words made me angry or sad, but tears tried to spring to my eyes. I forced them back and stared into the distance, willing myself to stay in control.

“I could have done something,” he said. “But you had to do it all alone.”

I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry, Carter.…I was trying to protect you.”

Carter’s hand came haltingly toward my face. His fingers ran up my cheek and touched the edge of my lips.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “Every time you try to protect me, you end up breaking my heart.”

I looked up at him, and before I knew what was happening, we were kissing again, urgently, terribly, like a pair of war-torn lovers about to leave for opposing armies.

“Carter…” I whispered.

“I need some time, Lex,” he said, taking a half step away. “I haven’t been feeling like myself lately, and…I have to figure some stuff out.”

I broke away and shaded my eyes. When I looked up again, he was gone.

A few leaves fluttered to the ground where he’d been standing.

Kasey came back to me, her face dewy with sweat. She linked her arm through mine. “Are you okay?”

My boyfriend needed “time.” My best friend was locked away from me. My parents would never trust me again. For all I knew, Aralt was still inside me somehow, still infecting me.

And Lydia was
dead
.

I didn’t even know what “okay” meant anymore.

At least I had my sister.

I rested my head on her shoulder, and we watched the service for a few minutes. The casket was painstakingly lowered into the ground, and a slow procession formed as people walked past the grave and dropped roses down on top of the coffin. Kasey and I ended up in line, and then suddenly we were looking down into the hole, at the earthen walls covered by a thin green cloth. A smell like a rainy summer day wafted up toward us.

Kasey tossed her rose, and then I went to let go of mine.

Something hit the back of my knee, making it buckle underneath me. If Kasey hadn’t been holding on to my arm, I would have fallen into the grave.

The people around me gasped, and Mrs. Small let out a fresh burst of choking sobs.

I practically hurled my rose into the hole, managing to pierce my thumb on the nub of a single thorn that the florist hadn’t lopped off.

“Come on,” Kasey whispered, tugging at my arm.

But before I moved, I glanced past Mrs. Small, off into the distance, where the older gravestones, gray with moss and mildew, dotted the hill.

And I stopped.

And stared.

At Lydia.

She stood under a tree, her body almost solid but somehow hazy, like a distant road on a hot day. She was probably a hundred feet away, but I could feel her eyes burning into mine across the distance, feel her anger like a thunderstorm gathering on the horizon.

“She needs to move on,” someone behind me in line said, and I looked at them bewilderedly until I realized that they meant
me
, that
I
needed to move on so the rest of the line could pay their tributes and then get into their air-conditioned cars and go home.

I ignored the murmurs and stared up the hill for a long minute.

Suddenly Lydia’s figure shook, and then she was rushing down the hill, toward the crowd of mourners, toward all of us. She disappeared among the people around me, and I cried out like a car was hurtling at me.

But she never emerged.

Then Kasey’s grip on my arm got firmer, and I looked down into her eyes, to see if there was a flash of recognition.

Nothing.

I was the only one who’d seen anything.

“Let’s go, Lexi,” Kasey said.

My body limp, I let her lead me back toward the car.

Mom was there waiting for us, wiping her eyes with her fingers and staring into the cloudless sky. Kasey climbed into the backseat, and I went around to open my door.

On the pavement in my path was a single yellow rose. I bent down and picked it up, once again stabbing my thumb on the nub of a single thorn.

“Those poor parents. This is so awful,” Mom said, sniffling back tears. “Thank God it’s over.”

As we drove out of the cemetery, I searched the hillside where Lydia had been standing.

She was gone.

But it wasn’t over.