Of Starlight (11 page)

Chapter 11

“She’s not your
sister,” I blurted the moment Emory slid into the passenger seat of my Corolla, gunning it away from the curb before anyone invisible could slip into the car. Those terrible words had been bouncing around in my brain for the last ten minutes as I drove up and down State Street looking for him, and now I just wanted them out. It was a warm Saturday afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, which meant the downtown shopping district was swarming with people.

That way if she wanted to attack me, she’d have to cause a scene.

Emory’s gaze hovered in my periphery. I swallowed the lump in my throat and dug my hole a little deeper. “The real Ashley is dead. She died three months ago. This one is an imposter.” I focused on the road so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.

“Yeah, sometimes it feels that way.” Emory craned his neck to peer at the growing line of cars behind me. “Come on, you drive like my grandma. Can we get out of here?”

“Don’t rush me,” I said, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

“Want me to drive?”

“Are you even listening?” I said, stealing a glance at him. “I’m talking about your sister.”

“Yeah, she’s not herself. I noticed too.”

“No, it’s
not her
,” I said, more forcefully. “That thing that showed up in her bedroom is literally not even human, it’s some creature that made itself look like her . . . it’s dark matter.”

“Dark matter?” he said.

“Mm-hmm. That stuff your dad’s been collecting. It’s alive, and some of it got inside her and ate her soul or something. It can make things invisible, too. That’s what she did—what
it
did—it made itself invisible. That’s why you can’t find her. And now she’s trying to kill me.”

“Okay, Speedy Gonzales, let’s start from the beginning and try that again,” he said. “This time a little slower.”

I took a deep breath. And then I told him all about dark matter. I told him about the meteorite and how it felt wet and sticky, I told him about Major Rod Connor and his cleanup crew, I told him how dark matter made Megan and me invisible and how it spoke to me, and how a grad student named Sarah Erskine had found out how to see it before she promptly committed suicide, and how she’d later written
help me
in Megan’s bathroom mirror. I even told him that Ashley had appeared to me and told me to avenge her.

I also left out a lot.

I left out killing her and hiding the evidence.

I left out sneaking into his house while invisible so I could lead him to her corpse, pretending to be her ghost. I told him I’d overheard the stuff about her soul being eaten and needing to kill me at school, not in his house.

I lied, like always. A lie by omission.

But slowly, slowly I was inching toward the truth. Soon, I would be strong enough to confess.

After I finished, I peeked at him to see his reaction, my heart galloping like a racehorse.

“I knew it wasn’t her,” he whispered. “The body I found . . . they did the DNA test, they measured the bones, they even compared dental records . . .
that
was Ashley. I didn’t know what to believe. My dad thought the samples were contaminated, but I knew that was her body when I found her there. I knew she was dead. But I was willing to believe anything to have her back—that she’d gotten a second chance, that she’d been resurrected—
anything.
”

“So you believe me?” I said, feeling lighter already.

He looked up at me, his eyes anxious. “Have you gone to the police?”

“What are they going to do?” I said. “They’re not going to look for her, Emory. She shouldn’t even exist. They’ve had Ashley’s body for two weeks, so the case is closed as far as they’re concerned. They’re not going to look for a ghost.”

“You said she’s trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, and I’m dealing with it,” I said.

“This is bigger than you, Leona. We have to get help.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but what you’re going through is hard enough.” I adjusted my hands on the steering wheel, my palms sweaty on the grip. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me. I just wanted you to know she’s not your sister.”

“I know she’s not my sister,” he said. “My sister’s dead. So now there’s you, and you’re sitting right in front of me, and you’re telling me there’s something out there trying to kill you. At least call the police . . . for me.”

“Will you stop acting like I’m important to you?” I said. “I’m
not
.”

I felt his gaze burning the side of my face. “You’re not important to me, huh?” he said, his voice tight. “Is that what makes this easier for you? Pretending I don’t care about you?”

I detested the way his comment made my heart speed up. I brushed my hair aside and looked at him, and my cheeks heated under his stare. “That’s what you told her. You said, ‘
I don’t care about her
.’ That’s what you said, Emory . . . She told me you said that.”

I waited for him to deny it, but he didn’t.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Sometimes you lie to people thinking it’s the right thing to do.”

His words left me in a dumb stupor.

“Leona, call the police,” he growled.

“And tell them someone invisible is trying to kill me? They’re never going to believe me.”

They’re going to know I killed her.

“I’m going to tell my dad,” he said. “If they’re collecting this stuff, he has to know what it is. You need his help.”

“I
can’t
, Emory.”

“So you want to die?”

“I can’t let him help me. I can’t let
you
help me. I can’t let your mom help me . . . because I don’t deserve any of your help. Don’t ask why, you’re never going to understand. I mean, you will someday, but not now. And I’m not just saying this because I’m some stupid emo girl who hates herself. I’m serious. Whatever this is, I have to face it alone.” I pulled up to the curb alongside a throng of people. “Now go. I’ll be fine.”

He stared at me, his eyes hard. “When someone says that, fine is usually the last thing they’re going to be. But I get it, you’re not the kind of girl that I can ride in like a knight and save, and that scares the crap out of me because that’s all I want to do. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.” He unlatched the door and opened it a few inches. “Call me tonight so I know you’re okay.”

I nodded, feeling a rising unease. My secrets were spilling out and causing ripple effects. Soon they’d be able to see right through me.

“Say it,” he said, pushing the door open a little more. “Say you’ll call me.”

“I’ll call you,” I said, knowing it was a lie.

“It’s just you
she’s after?” said Megan, sitting me down on her bed. “Or is it both of us?”

I shook my head. “Just me. She didn’t say your name.”

“So why aren’t you already dead?” she said. “If I was invisible, I could off someone so fast. I’d make a knife invisible, and then I’d sneak up on them, and then
stab
,
stab
,
stab
 . . . dead.”

I shot her a glare.

“Seriously, why are you still alive?” she said.

“Because I was invisible too,” I spat. “I ran straight home and locked all the doors. Maybe she even got inside, I don’t know. She wouldn’t have known I was there. So now she’s biding her time and waiting to attack when I least expect it.”

“You’re not invisible now,” she said.

“Oh, did you just notice?” I said.

“Do you want my help or not?”

“No, I want you to sit by and do nothing while she hunts me down. What do you think?”

Megan rolled up her long sleeves and poked at something on her forearm. “Your attitude isn’t helping.”

“Sorry.” I bit my nails, eyes darting to the door and her windows. I’d gone straight to Megan’s house after talking to Emory, since I didn’t feel safe in mine. “She could be here right now,” I whispered.

Suddenly, goosebumps broke out on my skin.

I jumped up and jiggled the doorknob, still locked, then darted around the bedroom, swinging my arms through the air, reaching out and grasping handfuls of air.

“She’s not here,” said Megan. “We already checked.”

“The back of the closet!” I slid back the mirror and stared at the row of hanging garments, gently swinging. Why were they swinging? Heart pounding, I yanked out hangers and tossed them over my shoulder, scraping my nails along the back wall.

“Leona . . .
Leona!
Stop!
” She took me by the shoulders and hauled me, shaking, back to the bed.

Under the bed.

I dropped to the floor and swiped underneath the bed. But I couldn’t reach the back. If someone was lying flat against the wall . . .

“Leona . . . Leona . . .” She lifted me back into a sitting position and her face appeared in front of me. “There’s no one else in the room.”

“No one else in the room,” I repeated, nodding.

“We already checked twice, so unless she can walk through walls—”

My eyes widened. “Megan . . .
Megan
,” I grabbed her arm, “last time I wore dark matter, my hand passed right through a door. It only happened once, but what if . . . what if . . . ?” I swallowed the sticky feeling in my throat, unable to voice the thought. My eyes darted around again with renewed paranoia.

“Yeah, that’s happened to me before,” she said, studying her arm again. “Just little things, though. Like I’ll try to pick something up, and the first time it’s just air.”

“Why does it do that?” I said.

“You mean dark matter?”

“I mean, that’s what’s doing it, right? It’s making it so you can’t see us or touch us.”

“Huh.” Megan rubbed her arm and rolled her sleeves back down to her wrist, distracted.

I fell into morbid silence. If Ashley could walk through walls, then I was already dead. No, Megan was right. The fact that I was still alive meant Ashley probably couldn’t walk through walls. Otherwise, she would have been inside my house waiting for me this morning, and she would have killed me the moment I took off the dark matter.

A shudder worked itself out of me.

“What about school?” said Megan. “Are you still going to go? You can’t keep hiding forever.”

I moaned into my palms. “What am I going to tell my parents?”

“The truth, maybe? You think she’d attack you in broad daylight?”

“Around other people? I don’t know. I don’t know what it wants, if it’s trying to hide from people or not. Why would it? She could waltz right into a classroom and stab me in the chest. No one would know what happened. But I think being in crowds is a good idea, because she’d have to pass through people to get to me, which would give me some warning at least.”

“Here. You need this.” She detached a pocket pepper spray container from her keychain, colored an innocent bubblegum pink, and showed me how to work it. “Grip, flip up, press—”

“Megan!” I shielded my eyes.

“I’m just showing you,” she said, handing it to me.

I took it gratefully and slid it onto my own keychain. “This would have been useful with that rapist, you know . . . if we had made it invisible.”

“Yeah, should have thought of that. Don’t get caught with that at school, okay? It’s considered a weapon.”

I studied the pepper spray, feeling a twinge of unease. “I’m not going to have time to use this.”

Megan rubbed her arm through her sleeve. “What do you want to do, Leona?”

“There’s only one way to beat her,” I whispered. “Dark matter. I have to put it on and never take it off, so she can’t find me. But dark matter is what did this to her. That’s exactly what it wants. I mean, I slept with it on last night, Megan. I wore it for like eight hours, and I have no idea what that did to me. But It can’t be good. I think the longer you wear it, the more it gets into you and changes you.”

“Hmm.” Megan rolled her sleeve up again and rubbed her elbow.

“What?” I said. “Why do you keep checking your arm?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, scratching at something. “It’s still there.”

“What? What is?”

“The markings . . . from dark matter. They didn’t fade all the way this time.”

“Let me see.” I scooted forward.

She held her arm up to me, and at first I saw nothing. I pulled her closer, and then the light caught a row of symbols, a hint darker than her skin. Almost invisible. The symbols resembled Greek letters, made of curving lines and angles, so the whole sequence looked like an elaborate math formula.

An alien math formula.

“How long has it been?” I said. “They’re like bruises, so it takes a while, right?

“But I haven’t worn dark matter since . . . since we went to Tina’s party last weekend. A
week
ago. I thought they were gone, but I just noticed them again this morning.”

“You think they came back?”

“Or they’ve been there the whole time and I wasn’t looking closely.”

I tilted her wrist. “And it’s only here? Only on your arm?”

“No, it’s everywhere. I can feel it everywhere. It’s just visible on my arm. They’re changing too. Look.” She pointed at her elbow.

I looked. Sure enough, one of the symbols kept morphing, breaking apart and reforming into a different symbol each time. I watched for a few seconds, and the one next to it changed too.

“Megan, you need to get this checked out,” I said.

“Why?” she said, tugging her sleeve down to cover it. “You think it’s bad?”

“Get your mom to make you an appointment with a dermatologist,” I said. “Tell her you’ve been getting pimples lately, and you don’t want her to come. We’ll go in together. We need to get this checked out, Megan.”

Megan got the
appointment for 4:30 p.m. on Monday.

I decided to go to school after all. I’d spent the entire weekend locked inside either Megan’s or my bedroom or one of our cars, and frankly, the prospect of faking an illness and being home alone all day terrified me, even it was the safest thing to do.

I wanted to be around other people.