Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) (10 page)

“What’s new about that?” Alex joked.

“Bad news, guys,” Golem said as he turned to address us. “The Principal just informed me that we’re no longer allowed to have our Friday discussions.”

“Why?” I asked out loud.

“McPherson said I was supposed to be teaching chemistry, not biology or theory.” Golem had an obvious look of distaste of his face, like McPherson had flavored the air. He sat and pulled at the knees of his wrinkled khakis. “He’s under the impression that teaching students to think for themselves is a waste of time. So, that’s all there is to it. What the principal says goes, unfortunately.”

The class erupted in disappointed groans, all except for Harlow Briggs. She sat smirking like a pleased cat in her seat in the back corner. I had the immediate feeling that she had tattled on Golem. She caught me looking at her and the smirk dropped off of her pretty features, replaced by a cruel scowl.

Alex grumbled, thumping his textbook open. “They never let us have any fun around here.”

###

Accompanying Claire to Thornhill’s bake sale was the perfect cover for meeting up with Madison. From our table in the corner of the gymnasium, I watched the Thornhill moms flitting from station to station. They were easily identifiable by their unofficial uniforms of low-cut blouses, flowered skirts and pearls.

The commons was full of students and parents milling around tables piled with baked goods. Lainey’s mother, Deana, sidled over a few minutes after we arrived. She had the same bleached-out hair as her daughter, piled in a high, pageant hairdo. A mirthless smile was frozen on her red bow lips, and she wore a fur vest and skintight jeans.

“Cupcakes? How
cute
,” Deana said. “Messy, though, with that frosting.”

“We have napkins,” Claire said through her teeth. “What did you bring, Deana?”

“Caramel corn,” Deana said. “It’s always a hit. But I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

Her face said anything but as she went back to her table. It was hard to imagine them being friends, especially close friends. I wondered if there had been a boy involved in their split, but then I thought about the utter unattractiveness of Cliff Ford, with his orange spray-on tan and his chest hair, and I vetoed that speculation.

A few other women wandered past, each looking to take a chip out of Claire. She handled it impressively well, unfazed by their borderline rude comments. I got the feeling I was witnessing part of her initiation.

As soon as people discovered how good Claire’s red velvet cupcakes were, however, our table was mobbed. A little smile of satisfaction glued itself to her lips as the cupcakes flew off the plates. I kept checking my phone out of habit, nerves making my crossed knee bounce up and down.

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Claire asked suspiciously. I shook my head and stowed the phone back in my pocket.

Deana sidled back over to Claire, having realized that she was doing really well. “Claire, the ladies and I were talking. We’d love for you to help us out at the end of season mittens and coats drive in a few weeks.”

“Let me check my schedule and I’ll get back to you,” Claire said. “Managing a household along with a career gets busy, as I’m sure you remember back from when you had a job.”

I had to crush my arms to my ribs to stop from laughing.

Deana smiled that unsettling, emotion-free grin again. “You really should look into hiring some help.” She waved her manicured hands dramatically. “It has saved me a
ton
of headaches.”

“I’ll be sure to check into that,” Claire bluffed. She was too anal retentive to let anyone else clean her house. Even when I cleaned, she re-cleaned after I was done.

“Why didn’t you just tell her you’ll do it?” I asked after Deana had gone.

“Because I thought I would let her at least
think
I’m busy. Of course I’ll do it. I have to seem like I have some kind of life.”

I regarded her briefly. Since she’d been attending Thornhill’s meetings, she’d grown colder than ever. I could understand a little, considering how nasty they were to her. But then why attend at all? Was what they preached really that alluring?

Madison’s mother, Joan Taylor, came over to our table. She was one of the most casually dressed women there, in jeans with ripped knees and a Hawthorne Hellcat sweatshirt. It still shocked me how down to earth she was in comparison to her daughter.

“Red velvet? My favorite,” she said. “My weakness is your financial opportunity.”

She started digging through her wallet.

“Are you selling anything today?” I asked.

“No, I’m just sampling,” Madison’s mom said. “Thornhill kind of blacklisted me, unfortunately.”

Claire turned to me. “Ariel, can you get my purse out of the car? I need my wallet to make change.”

I sighed and lifted myself up. I only had a little bit of time until I was supposed to meet Madison. I didn’t want to give her extra seconds to change her mind and scurry off.

Out in the parking lot, I retrieved Claire’s purse. Movement from across the street caught my eye, and I squinted to look closer.

Alyssa Chapman was playing hopscotch by herself on the sidewalk. As always, she wore her blue raincoat. She couldn’t take it off now that she was dead. I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I crossed the street and went up to her.

I knew I was running on a tight schedule, but this was an important detour. I promised myself I would hurry.

Alyssa paid no
attention to me, hopping on one foot down the squares of the sidewalk. She was singing off-key to herself, and I recognized the song from a Disney movie.

“Hi, Alyssa,” I said softly.

She turned, her young face stricken with surprise. “You can see me?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember me?”

She regarded me for a moment, tilting her head from side to side. “Nope.”

Not much of a surprise. Jenna didn’t remember her time in Dark, either, and that’s where Alyssa had been up until Warwick destroyed the symbol keeping her there. I’d never spoken to her ghost in Limbo before. Dark and Limbo were two undead worlds close to ours—Limbo was sort of like Purgatory and Dark was like hell on earth.

Alyssa kicked an imaginary pebble on the ground. I squatted down to her level, hands on my knees. A little buzz of electricity emanated from her, the same as I felt from Jenna when I got too close.

“What are you doing out at night?” I asked her gently, hairs prickling along the back of my neck. It was still and quiet out in the gloom, without any wind to stir the trees.

“Mommy was talking about baking cookies.” Her front tooth was missing, leaving a wide gap. “She wouldn’t let me have one. Wherever she goes, I go with her, but she ignores me. She’s been giving me the silent treatment.”

My heart dropped in my chest for her. At least she had one person who could see her. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was better than her being completely invisible.

“Why won’t she talk to me?” Alyssa asked, her eyes wide and questioning. My throat started to close up and I swallowed hard as she spoke. “What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything, honey. Adults just get very busy sometimes and they don’t always have time for their kids. It doesn’t mean they don’t care.” I knew that from my own personal experience. “If she’s in the school, though, why didn’t you go with her? Why are you waiting out here?”

Her eyes flicked to Hawthorne and back to me, and I saw unmistakable fear inside them. She pulled the collar of her coat towards her chin, then twirled a strand of her hair.

“I can’t go inside. It’s not my school. Do I look like a turtle?”

I smiled a little at the random question. “Very turtle-esque.”

“I want to be a Ninja Turtle for Halloween. Do you think Mommy will say its okay? She thinks its boyish.”

“I’m sure your mom will think it’s fine. You just have to convince her how much cooler Ninja Turtles are than princesses. I’ll tell you what—Hawthorne is my school. There are a lot of kids there who aren’t students today. I don’t think anyone would mind.”

She shook her head vehemently, playing with the strand of her hair, twisting it tightly around one finger.

“No, I mean I really can’t go inside,” she insisted. “When I tried to get closer, I couldn’t move. There was like a big wall.” She mimed pressing against an invisible wall with her hands. “And I heard the spooky kids inside.”

“Spooky kids?”

“Yeah—yes.” She leaned closer to me, beckoning for me to lean forward as well. She cupped both hands around her mouth and whispered. “They keep calling me to play with them. They know my name, but I don’t know them. I don’t want to go; they’re so close now. They didn’t used to come here.”

“Don’t go with them if they scare you,” I said. “What are the spooky kids saying to you?”

She twisted her hair even tighter around her finger. If she’d been alive, it would have been throbbing purple with restricted blood flow.

“They said the Dark place is coming.”

The temperature dropped again and I glanced at my surroundings. Even though we were standing in the pool of a street lamp, shadows seemed to be drawing up around us. I heard a faint rustling, and watched as the shadows grew darker and thicker. Humanoid shapes began to form, more distinct and solid. Delayed fear rushed through me, making my skin even colder.

I took a step outside the circle towards them. The dark shapes drew back instantly with a hushing susurration: the sound of someone blowing out a match flame or taking a final breath.

When I glanced back towards Alyssa, she was gone.

###

“You’re late,” Madison cracked the instant I arrived in the locker room. She was more than a little annoyed at having to wait. I’d walked in on her pacing in between the lockers in her sweaty basketball jersey.

After I’d run back inside, I’d practically tossed Claire’s purse at her. She’d been at the center of cooing Thornhill mommies, so she hadn’t asked any questions. I chugged it as fast as I could to the gym without drawing attention to myself.

“Sorry, I got caught up,” I said. “I made it here as fast as I could.”

“I almost left without you,” she hissed. “I had to make all kinds of excuses for why I was sticking around.”

“Do you want me to leave now?” I’d never considered Madison a friend and I wasn’t about to put up with her crap. “It was your idea to meet up instead of talking over the phone.”

She breathed in deeply through her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, calming herself down. “I wanted to meet in person because I’m paranoid like my parents. They always tell me not to say important stuff over the phone, in case it’s bugged and someone’s taping you. Not to mention, text messages can be saved.”

“Are they international spies?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

“No, they’re just computer nerds,” Madison said, pushing up the red headband covering her hair.

“Okay,” I relaxed a little now that her confrontational tone had disappeared. “So, spill this ultra-important information.”

Madison grabbed the front of my shirt and despite my protest, pulled me along, doing a quick sweep to make sure we were definitely alone.

“That isn’t a leash,” I said angrily.

She dropped my shirt and rolled her eyes, taking up a seat on one of the benches. I sat down hesitantly beside her, already thinking this was a mistake.

“My parents talk at night when they don’t think I can hear them,” Madison began. “But I hide on the stairs and eavesdrop. They keep talking about how corrupt Thornhill is and that it frightens them. So, I’m freaked out, too.”

“Understandable. But why couldn’t you say that before?”

“Hold on, there’s more.” She tucked a lock of hair that had fallen in her face back behind one ear. “Lainey was gone the weekend of Jenna’s disappearance, like I said. But her father was home, and I think he might have had something to do with it.”

“Why is that?” I asked, forcing myself not to get too excited and scare her off with my morbid enthusiasm.

“Because he was home alone that whole weekend. And Mr. Ford is a night owl. He had to have seen someone driving up and dumping the body off. There’s no way he could have missed it. There are lights all along the shore; I mean, you saw them when you crashed her party.”

“Cliff Ford is one of the main members of Thornhill. That’s a direct link.” Now I couldn’t help but let my eagerness break through.

“I know. But it’s also a dangerous one. He holds a lot of influence in Hell. My parents would be blacklisted for life; Thornhill already keeps them out of most of the charity fund-raising. Mr. Ford helps with the local paper, and he’s been rejecting their ads for Topps for stupid reasons.”

“Your parents own Topps, as in the grocery store?”

“Yes, a little trio of local ones,” Madison explained. “We really don’t have that much money. I mean, we’re perfectly comfortable, but a lot of my clothes come from Plato’s Closet. I just spend enough time working on my image so that no one can tell. Harlow could tell the minute she saw me, though.”

I decided to share what I knew, too. I felt like she was letting her guard down enough that I could trust her. She had more to lose than me, after all. Thornhill already knew what I thought of them.