Liv, Forever (11 page)

I hurried toward my dorm, my mind racing. Not really paying attention, I reached out to turn the doorknob but recoiled from a shocking pain. Confused, I tried again, this time watching myself. I gently placed my hand onto the metal. I noticed it felt different—softer, almost like clay except I couldn’t shape it. And when I moved my hand to turn the doorknob, it stung and seared my palm. Shaking my hand out, I stepped back from the dorm to check it out, suddenly imagining a high-tech security system involving electro-shock doorknobs that punish dormitory escapees. I wouldn’t have put it past Wickham Hall.

As I was backing up, I noticed how quiet it was. I looked down and saw I was stepping on dry fall leaves, but they weren’t crunching beneath my feet. I kicked my foot through them, but instead of fluttering up off the ground they barely trembled. And I felt a burning pain seep through my shoes.

Something was terribly wrong.

“Help! Somebody help me!”

Nothing. No response. So I cried louder, “Help! I’m stuck out here! Somebody come help! Please!”

I collapsed onto the ground. I swung my arms and felt stinging pain as they whipped right through the dead leaves.
Through
them. Not possible. I paused—calmed—tried to pick up a leaf. I focused intensely. I
had
to pick up that leaf. It would mean everything was normal. I managed
to manipulate it between my fingers, but touching it caused a burning sensation on my fingertips as if its orange-red color was actual fire. I moved it barely—almost imperceptibly. Then I dropped it and slumped over, my whole being exhausted and weakened as if I’d just carried a heavy piece of furniture up a flight of stairs.

“You fool,” a voice hissed from above. “Save your strength!”

I looked up at the massive dorm and caught a glimpse of a girl—up in the cupola, the tiny room atop the roof. Even from where I stood, I could tell she looked different, almost airy and grey.

“You! Up there? Can you help me?!” She just stared at me so I kept at her. “What are you doing? How did you get up there?” We’d been told the cupola was sealed off because of an accident many years before.

“Go away!” she yelled.

Before I could protest, she hurled herself from the cupola and came soaring down toward me. I lurched backward, stumbling, trying to avoid getting hit.
My God, this girl just committed suicide.
I looked away and winced, afraid to see the point of impact. I expected to hear a thud, a scream, the cracking of bones. All I could hear were birds chirping.

After a moment, I dared to look. She was as gruesome and bloody as I’d expected, but she was standing on her feet. Alert. She wore a black jumper over what was once a white blouse, with large, billowy sleeves—like out of a Mary Cassatt or Renoir portrait, except the large collar was caked with dried blood that had dripped from her
ears and nose and big blue eyes. As she walked toward me, I could see, like the other girl, she was not made of flesh.

I jumped to my feet and ran, not looking back. I ran straight to Malcolm’s dorm, trying to contain my desperate fear that this was
not
a Wickham Hall prank. As I approached his dorm, two crew team members were heading out for rowing practice. They ignored me, as usual. But that meant Malcolm would probably be getting ready for practice, too. I slinked in the door before it closed. I rushed to his room. I knew it was in the same spot in the building as Abigail’s—on the first floor, off the central common room. His door was cracked open, a light on. I slipped in.

He was shirtless, standing close to the mirror, staring into it intently. As I got closer, I saw he was tracing the lines that I’d drawn on him.

“Something terrible’s happened, Malcolm. Something’s wrong. It’s like I’m invisible.
Really
invisible. And there are girls, gruesome girls—one at the well. Another at my dorm. And …”

He wouldn’t look at me.

“
Malcolm.
” I walked up to him, stood right behind him, and gazed into the mirror.

I was not there.

Before I could scream, he turned and walked right
through
me. It hurt. It stung like brain freeze but all over my body. I realized it must be a dream. Of course! That’s why I’d seen the girl from my dream, because
this
was a dream. A nightmare. Just like the ones I’d had as a kid. I tried my wake-up technique—blinking my eyes. Nothing.
I shook my head vigorously. Wildly, even. Still nothing, except I felt dizzy. I collapsed on Malcolm’s bed.

“Am I …?” I couldn’t say it. You’re not supposed to be able to say those words. It’s against science. Against nature. “I can’t be because I’m here. Right, Malcolm?”

No response.

I could feel my head in my hands. I could even feel the hair on my head. And I was sitting on a bed, wasn’t I? For a moment I smiled—all this must prove I existed, I was alive—until Malcolm leaned down and reached through me, grabbing his backpack. Again, a burn ripped through me.

I started to panic. “Malcolm! You
can
hear me!” This time I yelled, certain that because he loved me, he would hear me. “You
have to
!”

I grabbed at his shoulders to shake him, but my hands whipped right through him—stinging, as if his body were made of flame. He slung on his backpack and left the room.

He couldn’t hear me or feel me or have any clue I wasn’t safely back in my dorm. But in my panic, I suddenly remembered I knew someone who possibly could.

THERE WAS A CHANCE
I’d find Gabe in the Pit eating breakfast, so I headed toward Main. As I crossed the quad, I searched for clues that might tell me what was happening, what I’d become. I walked on the earth. I felt lighter but was still affected by gravity. I could look down and see my legs, my body, my arms—I could even see the stars that Malcolm had drawn on my forearm—and it all looked pretty much normal. I put my hands together, and I could
feel myself. It wasn’t quite like before, but I could feel
something.
And at least it didn’t hurt.

Clearly nobody else could see me. They walked straight toward me. I kept moving out of the way, protectively, because of the pain I felt when I crossed with someone or something.

One thing I couldn’t feel was my heart. If the old me had been racing across campus, trying to figure out if I was dead or alive, my heart would’ve been pounding so hard I’d hear it in my ears, feel it in my temples. I felt nothing physically, but my emotions were rushing and raging and battling with my poor panicked brain.

I climbed the stairs to Main and approached its doors. I reached for the handle but couldn’t push or turn it. The more I tried, the more it burned and stung. I gave up. I could feel the physical world. I could walk on it, but I could not affect it, at least not easily. I waited until a Wicky bustled past, and I followed in her wake, rushing all the way back to the Pit. No Gabe. As I headed back out, I paused in the clearing in the center of the hall where Malcolm and I had danced. I closed my eyes and heard the waltz again. I felt him holding my waist. I wondered how he’d feel when he found out what had happened to me, whatever
had
happened. I wanted to cry, but there were no tears.

I was startled from my reverie when a Fifth Former swiped through my arm with her tray of empty dishes. I screamed from the pain. Of course she didn’t hear me. But then I screamed again, just because it felt good. Then I screamed
again
to see if anyone might hear me. I kept
screaming, looking in every direction to see if a head cocked or eyebrow raised. They didn’t.

I collapsed on the floor.

Out of habit, I imagined what I must look like from another angle, from above. I must look like a pathetic pile of a girl on the floor in the dining hall. No, I realized. I looked like nothing. I
was
nothing.

I DIDN’T KNOW GABE’S
schedule, so I wandered from the Science Center to the Mathematics Complex to the Language Arts Compound. I checked in at the Art Center. I knew he didn’t take studio art but thought he might be in drama or music. No luck. But there was Abigail on stage, rehearsing.

Pop quiz: How do you know you go to a school full of chilly, unfriendly people? When Abigail Steers is cast as Cordelia in
King Lear.
She’s the best they could find for Lear’s compassionate, loving daughter? Please. And yet there was the drama teacher coddling her and complimenting her performance.

I went to the Tuck Shop. No Gabe. But I had to pause when I saw the booth where Malcolm and I had shared the grilled cheese and milk shake. I sat in the booth. It wasn’t until then I realized I felt no hunger. No lightheadedness from not eating. And when I paused, time seemed to slip past me.

Finally, I went back to Main. I’d have to wait until our work-study period after classes. There was no way for me to get into the catacombs until someone opened the door, and I could follow them down. So I sat in one of those big leather chairs where Malcolm and his friends congregated. Time started to blur again. Students came and went in bursts of motion like Duchamp’s
Nude Descending Stairs.
Two hours seemed to pass in an instant, and suddenly the lobby was flooded with the lunchtime crowd.

Malcolm’s friend Kent plopped onto the chair next to mine. He kicked back and clicked away on his phone, his persistent smile now more of a grin. I moved to look over his shoulder and saw it was just Facebook. He was posting a status update:

feeling on top of the world. psyched 4 fall fest.

Another guy, Amos, walked up and sat next to him.

“Meeting today,” Kent said under his breath, certain that none of the passing students could hear. “Four
P.M.
Spread the word.”

Amos nodded and disappeared into the crowd. It was only then I noticed a blonde girl had approached, peering at me from across the room. She was translucent, but she had a perfect blow out. And she wasn’t bloody like the others. Her neck was bruised, but otherwise she looked almost normal, eerily blending in with the crowd. I realized it was because she wasn’t from the past—at least not the far past—she looked like someone you’d see on
Gossip Girl.

Her stare grew intense. I got up, backing away. My heart may not have been pounding, but I was no less frightened than I ever would have been. Luckily, a teacher
was approaching the door to the catacombs. I raced over, barely slipping through in time.

I followed the teacher down the stairs then lingered in the hallway, looking at the bricks. Name after name. Names I’d laughed at just a few days ago now frightened me. Standing in that hallway, looking at those names, I felt surrounded by some kind of conspiracy. What was this place? Who were these people?

It was close to our regular meeting time, so I retreated to the nook where Gabe had seen Lydia. I braced myself as I approached, thinking perhaps I might see her now. After all, I’d seen those other girls. But it was quiet and empty. I positioned myself in the shadows and waited.

I could hear his feet creeping down the spiral staircase. His fear was palpable as he reached the long winding corridor.

“Gabe,” I whispered.

Nothing.

“No! Gabe, you
have
to hear me! Tell me you hear me!”

He turned toward me and snapped, “Stop trying to freak me out!”

“You see me?!”

“I wish I didn’t.” He turned to walk away. He was still mad at me for not believing him and for liking Malcolm. “No, Gabe, stop! You have to listen to me. Something happened to me. I need help.”

He huffed. “I refuse to discuss that guy with you. All I can say is I told you so. And can you please get out of that corner? That’s where I see
her.
”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something happened to me. I don’t know what exactly. I was at the well. Everything went black. I saw terrible things, like I was falling into the well … and since then, I’m different. Nobody else can see me now. But I think I see those girls you see …”

“Don’t make fun of me!”

“I’m not! I
need
you,” I insisted as I got up and moved closer to him. As I did, his face drained of color. His eyes widened and he edged away from me—afraid—and started whimpering. Sobbing almost. Saying “no” again and again. And “not you.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“You disappeared.” His voice trembled. “I can only see you in that corner. Just like
her.
”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“It means … you’re dead.”

Hearing it out loud hit me in the face, as if saying it made it more real. I finally said the three words one is never meant to say: “I am dead.”

Now that I’d crossed out of the nook, Gabe couldn’t see how I wilted, shaking with fear and grief at hearing those words out loud. I’d never thought I’d have to
know
I was dead—I just thought I’d be gone one day.

But then Gabe lurched back. I turned and saw her. I knew immediately it was Lydia. She was just as he’d described, Smiths T-shirt and all. She had a wild, raging look in her eyes.

Gabe jumped to his feet. “Run, Liv! Come with me!” And I followed.