Gravestone (26 page)

“You sure?”

“Are you even trying to put yourself in his class?” I laugh. “Please.”

“I know. But—but Jocelyn wasn’t like the rest of us.”

“Hey, Kelsey, look—just—she’s not here, okay? So you don’t have to bring her up.”

“She’s kind of here. The same way she’s kind of in our art class. Or anywhere you go.”

I feel the goose bumps on my skin and know that this girl is right. Kelsey might look younger than she is, but she knows. She knows, and she’s right.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay, really,” she says. “I understand.”

We keep walking and see the lit-up house and hear the loud music. I know that this is one of those moments, and this time I act.

“Hey, hold on,” I tell her.

She pauses, and this time when I look down I can see her face and her glasses lit up by the moonlight. But mostly I just see those bold eyes looking back at me.

“Look, Kelsey—I just—there’s things that I can’t change. Like my being from Chicago. Good or bad. Or like—well, like anything. It’s just—I don’t know how to say this—but there’s a lot—”

Then a car comes toward us like a possessed horse galloping through the night. We move off the street, and the car screeches to a halt just beyond us.

The driver’s window opens, and I hear a familiar voice.

“Chris? Is that you?”

The voice belongs to Poe.

58. The Truth, Finally

The timing of this is really spectacularly
not
good.

“Poe?”

I can’t believe it’s really her. I wouldn’t know if that’s her car, because I don’t know anything about Poe, except for the fact that she’s been hating and ignoring me (Thousand Island incident excluded).

“Chris—I need to see you.”

It’s dark out, but not that dark. She can see that Kelsey is standing right next to me.

“Look—whatever I’m interrupting, I’m sorry—I don’t mean to. I just—we have to talk, and we have to talk now.”

“Kelsey—have you guys …”

“Hi, Poe,” she says, answering my question.

“Yeah, hi. Look, I’m really sorry, but—Chris, you have to come with me.”

“What’s this about?”

“It’s about Jocelyn.”

I glance at Kelsey. Like I said, the timing of this is really amazingly awful.

“We were just going back to the party—”

“No, no party. I swear, Chris, you gotta get in my car and right now. You might never see me again.”

“It’s okay,” Kelsey says.

I’m about to say something else, but I see her blond hair nodding over toward Poe.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her.

“It’s fine. Really.”

She walks away, and I see her silhouette lit up by the stark headlights of Poe’s car. This would be the moment I say “Enough” and follow Kelsey back into the party.

But of course I don’t.

Of course I go toward the car and climb in.

I have no idea where we’re headed.

But I know I have to go there.

We’re taking a curve a bit too quickly, and I grab onto the handle above the door.

“Why don’t you slow down?”

“I just want to find a place to talk.”

We’re in the middle of dark, desolate woods.

“Where, exactly, do you want to talk?”

“Nobody can be around.”

“Poe …”

She slams on the brakes and we skid, then she gets control and pulls off on the side of the road next to a hill and a mountain of forest. I can hear the deathly quiet outside through the crack in the window.

“What’s going on?”

She turns to me, and I can barely make out her face. But I think there are tears in her eyes.

“I know. I know about it. I finally get it.”

“What?”

“What happened to Jocelyn. Do you know?”

“Yeah.”

“What? Tell me. Tell me everything.”

“Why—why now? What happened?”

She breathes out, and her breath is shaky, heavy. “I’ve been writing back and forth to Jocelyn.”

“Letters?”

“No—emails. And texts. And I—I believed just like everybody else that she moved. Like Rachel. Except Rachel really did move. I’ve seen her and talked to her on Skype. She’s there. But Jocelyn—the emails I got from her were strange. Weird. Just saying how you broke her heart, how she can never love again after what you did to her, how you hurt her.”

“Hurt her? Hurt her how?”

Poe curses and shakes her head. “It’s utter crap. Those emails and whoever was writing them. I should have come to you. I know—you tried. But something—I know something happened. Those emails weren’t from her. I know that now.”

“How?”

“I wanted to see how’d she react, so I brought up Stuart. I said how much I missed him and how her leaving reminded me of when he disappeared. Then I asked her what she thought had happened to him. This was the bait. And she took it, and that’s when I knew—it wasn’t Jocelyn.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I made her once promise to never—ever—bring up Stuart’s name with me. So if I was bringing it up, certainly she’d ask me why. She knew what I thought about his disappearance. She would have said something, even if she was trying to be polite or honor her promise. But instead she said that Stuart and his family moved unexpectedly—but—and here’s the
but—
she’s heard from him. You know. Heard from him, just like I’m hearing from her.”

“Joss is dead.”

The words feel cruel coming out of my mouth, but I don’t know how else to share them.

“How do you know that?”

“I was there. I saw it.” My mouth feels dry, the words taste like chalk.

“You saw her die?”

I nod and feel the world begin to spin and start to feel that falling, flying sensation.

Grief and fear are real.

They’re real and they’re like some dangerous mixture you make in chemistry class.

They’re real and they taste bitter and they feel awful.

“What happened?”

So almost three months after the fact, I tell Poe. I tell her everything I can remember, and I can still remember everything.

I don’t know how much time passes, but when I’m finished I smell Poe’s perfume and feel her embrace and find myself holding back tears while holding on to her.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t let you tell me,” she says, over and over and over again.

For a long time we hold each other in the darkness of that small car. I can feel someone trembling but can’t tell which of us it is. Probably both.

She finally pulls away from me. Her swollen, hurting eyes latch on to mine.

“We have to do something.”

This isn’t like some great idea from Poe. This is like a declaration.

“I tried.”

I tell her about my conversation with the sheriff, with Staunch, with the others at the school. Then I tell her about Jared. She’s the only one I’ve told about him.

“Do you trust him?”

“I don’t know who to trust. Besides the puppy Jocelyn left for me.”

“You can trust me.”

I nod.

“Do you believe that?”

“I think so.”

“Chris—there’s—there’s a lot more I can say, but not tonight. Okay? I already—I already feel watched. I don’t think we should stay here.”

The night that surrounds us seems to blow in the breeze like dark blankets hanging on hooks. It’s like any second someone might come and pull them off their hangers and shine the big, bad, bright lights on us.

“There’s one other thing,” I say.

“What?”

“I discovered some emails that belonged to my uncle.”

I share them with her as she starts up the car.

“Listen,” she says. “This—we need to get help.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out. This can’t keep happening.”

“Just—just be careful who you tell.”

“I’m not telling a soul,” Poe says. “Not yet. Not until I get a plan.”

“And what do I do?”

“I think you keep doing what you’re doing. Nothing. For the moment. Because if they—whoever they are—if they think that you’re following orders, they might get lazy and forget to watch you. And that’s when we act.”

“Act how?”

“All roads lead to that freaky pastor. So that’s where we start.”

59. Oh Yeah

Later that night, after Poe drops me off and tells me there will be lots more time to talk and then hugs me again like a dear old friend, I’m in my bed and I remember.

Kelsey.

I didn’t even say good night.

If she knew, she’d understand. Of course, she’d also be packing her bags and moving to Southern California.

I think of this deep into the night. It’s too late to call. I’ve never emailed her before.

She must so totally hate me.

I wonder what happened to Dan the Man, but that only amuses me a bit. He probably forgot that he started the evening with me.

Things were going so well with the chips and the salsa and the party. So normal.

I almost started to believe that things could be normal.

But they never will be.

Ever.

I stay up thinking about Kelsey and Poe and Jocelyn and this town and its secrets.

60. In Between

The lady in black begins walking. I watch her disappear down the long hall and through the doorway.

“Jocelyn.”

My voice echoes all around. I get up and run past the ticket counter and then enter the square tube that seems to go on for miles.

She’s there, standing, waiting for me in the middle of the empty Jetway.

“You’re still here.”

“Walk with me,” she says.

She’s not carrying any luggage or even a purse.

Because in dreams they don’t have to, get it?

“Don’t confuse this with a dream,” Jocelyn—the adult Jocelyn—tells me.

“Then what is this place?”

“I told you—it’s in between the two other places. That’s the easiest definition I can provide.”

“But I’m sleeping in my bed, right?”

“Technically, your body is. But what about your soul?”

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“In your dreams you experience things that are just off. Perhaps you’re doing something you’ve already done. Or you’re in a crowd of strangers naked. Something that you fear or you remember or you regret—those get mixed in with the subconscious and turn into dreams. But this isn’t a dream.”

She stops and looks at me. In her high heels, she’s the same height that I am.

She smiles and says, “Give me your hand.”

I do what she tells me, and she places the hand on her cheek. I can feel her face move gently as she talks.

“This—all of this—it’s real, Chris.”

“You’re older.”

“No. Not exactly.”

“Then—then what?”

“You can’t imagine how many surround you. But those whom you do see, you have to choose to trust or not.”

“Like Poe?”

“Like all of them.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. It’s not my place.”

“Because you’re like a figment of my imagination?”

She shakes her head.

“You’re in a tough place, and I cannot help you. This—this right here—this is not a help. This is just a passageway, a glimpse.”

I don’t get what she’s saying.

“There’s a reason you can see this, but of course I cannot say.”

We keep walking, and I can see the change of light and colors that show we’re close to the plane.

“You shouldn’t get on.”

“I don’t want to wake up,” I tell her. “Let me stay here. Let me get on that plane.”

God, is she beautiful.

So why did He have to take her? Why?

“This is just a shell,” she says. “One day you’ll understand. One day—I hope—you will see.”

Then she closes her eyes, and I see everything around me do the same.

And when I open mine again, I know exactly where I am.