Projection (7 page)

“Then why was he asking about the anklet?”

“I don’t know,” Gretchen admitted. “But if it’s true that the anklet had some sort of power or special significance, then somebody might have wanted it badly enough to kill her for it.”

“Yeah, somebody named Michelle.”

Neither of them said anything as they thought through the implications of all of this.

“Do you believe me now?” Jessica asked.

Gretchen sighed. She could almost see the shimmering amber around her mother’s ankle, could almost hear her mother’s voice.
Things are going to start happening. Things you can’t even imagine
. Her mother wasn’t crazy; that much Gretchen knew for sure.

“I’m sorry,” Gretchen answered, purposely avoiding the question. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for springing it all on you like that.”

“You said you had an idea,” Gretchen reminded her. “Something about how we could both confirm our suspicions.”

“Yeah. I was thinking, the board told me that I don’t have
to make any decisions yet. They said there was something they needed to take care of before I could officially begin. Something they needed in order for the ritual to be complete. I’ll bet you they’re looking for the anklet. I’ll bet you they called your dad to ask him if he had it.”

“That would make sense. Especially if it’s the key to trading souls. If the anklet has the power, then you wouldn’t be able to do it without it.”

“But what if it doesn’t?” Jessica said. “What if it’s like the articles say—just a ritualistic symbol?”

“What does it matter? Either way, you need the anklet to trade souls.”

“No, that’s the thing,” Jessica said. “If it’s just a symbol, then you don’t need it. You can do it without it.”

“What are you saying, Jess?”

“I’m saying: We need to gather as much information as possible. Gretchen, you know things that I don’t know about your mother, things maybe even only you and the killer know. Michelle would never mention those things to
you
. But if she thought you were me … I’m saying we trade souls without a witness. And that way, I can find out things about Ariel that she’d never say to
you
. If it turns out Michelle wasn’t involved, no harm no foul. Same for Ariel.”

Gretchen frowned. She was a rule follower, and the quality she most hated and also most admired in Jessica was the ease with which she ignored rules.

“Jess, the papers say that Plotinus thought the witness was the most crucial part of the exchange, and now you’re saying we should just skip the whole witness thing. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I think that in ancient Rome it probably was crucial to have a witness, because if a woman got caught snooping
around where she wasn’t supposed to be, she could get her head cut off or something. But seriously, what could happen to us? So we snoop around a little and pretend to be each other. Who cares?”

“I don’t know,” Gretchen hedged. “And anyway, do you even know how to do it? It can’t be as simple as just kissing. People kiss all the time, and they don’t open their eyes and find that they’re in the other person’s body. Even if it’s not the anklet, there has to be something that makes it happen.”

“Let me worry about that,” Jessica answered. “I just need to know if you’re on board.”

Gretchen paused to think it over. All she wanted was to solve her mother’s murder and to have Jessica on her side to help her do it. If that meant she had to kiss Jessica in some weird, Oculus Society ritual, then so be it. “All right.” She sighed. “I’m in. What do we need to do?”

“I’ll need a couple of days to get everything together,” Jessica said. “And we can’t do it at either of our houses. It’s got to be somewhere totally private. Remember, we have to kiss. If anyone saw us …”

“So where, then?”

Jessica didn’t answer right away. “I know,” she said finally. “There’s a park I used to go to when I was little. It has a sandbox and a giant pirate ship. Did you ever go there?”

“Yeah, of course. But that’s totally out in the open.”

“I know, but there’s that play structure there. It’s like a teepee, and you can go inside of it. I used to play in there and pretend I was Pocahontas.”

“I know what you’re talking about. But is it enclosed?”

“Mostly. There’s an opening on one side where you enter, but the rest of it is solid. If we go there at night, when it’s dark, nobody will ever find us. It’s the perfect spot.”

“Okay then,” Gretchen agreed. “Should we say Friday night? Is that enough time?”

“Yeah, that should be good. It gets dark a little before nine, so let’s plan to meet there at nine fifteen. And Gretch, you should really read all of the papers I left you,” she suggested. “I think it will help you understand things a little bit better.”

“I will,” Gretchen promised. She let out a quick laugh. “It’s ironic, though, that you’re telling me to read something.”

“I know,” Jessica laughed. “I don’t think I’ve read that much since the time I found Michelle’s diary.”

“So I guess I’ll see you on Friday, then.”

“It’s a date. I mean … you know what I mean.”

Gretchen laughed. She couldn’t help herself. It felt good.

“Oh, and Gretch, do me a favor? Don’t eat any raw onions that day.”

Gretchen awoke on Friday
morning with an anxious pit in her stomach. She and Jessica hadn’t even spoken since their phone call the other day, and Gretchen was feeling more confused than ever. Of course, she knew it couldn’t be real. Just because the people in the Oculus Society thought it was real didn’t
make
it real. She just couldn’t imagine how her mom would have bought into this nonsense, even going so far as to wear the anklet. Was she just humoring Tina Holt, the way Gretchen was humoring Jessica? Or did she really believe it? Certainly her mom was no fool. She would have needed proof. She would have needed to have seen it for herself … Gretchen couldn’t help opening that door the tiniest bit and letting just the slightest crack of light shine on the idea that it might—somehow, impossibly—be true.

She took out the folded Wikipedia printout that Jessica had left with her and read it again for the hundredth time.

Gretchen stopped reading. No. It was ridiculous. This nonsense about The One and being able to project your soul were obviously just the ravings of a lunatic. She was tempted to call Jessica to tell her to forget the whole thing. And she would have, if it weren’t for that stupid anklet. Because no matter how many different ways she tried to spin it, the anklet proved one thing that she couldn’t deny: that her mother obviously believed in this stuff, or pretended to, anyway. Gretchen couldn’t help feeling that she’d be disloyal to her mom if she didn’t at least give it a chance.

Besides, Jessica was right. If people really believed that the anklet was the key, then, for the first time, they would have a real motive for why someone might have wanted to kill her mom. But unlike Jessica, Gretchen wasn’t convinced that Michelle was the culprit.

In the days since Jessica had filled her in on the true nature of the Oculus Society, Gretchen’s suspicions about Ariel Miller had only grown. What if, Gretchen wondered, Ariel somehow knew about the Oculus Society’s secret? What if Ariel
was secretly trying to destroy the Oculus Society? What if she knew about the anklet and wanted it to start a society of her own? Gretchen realized that a murderous plot of this magnitude would be a lot for a thirteen-year-old girl to carry out. Then again, thirteen-year-olds were capable of all sorts of terrible things. What about the thirteen-year-old who was caught trying to blow up a school bus filled with the kids who bullied him on a daily basis? Ariel was miserable about her social status at Delphi. As ridiculous as it might seem for Ariel to have committed a murder, Gretchen wouldn’t put it past her.

She took out her phone and composed another text to Ariel. Despite the threat that Ariel had made in her last text, Gretchen didn’t believe for one second that she would really call the police on her.

I know u h8 the Oculus Society. But enough to commit murder?

She hit the send button. Almost immediately, a text came back to her.

That’s it. U r going to be sorry that u ever started with me. Consider yourself warned.

Gretchen’s hands trembled just the slightest bit as she tossed the phone onto her desk.

The teepee was smaller
than Gretchen had remembered. In her mind, it was big enough for them to stand in, but in reality, it was barely even tall enough for her to sit inside of it without having to hunch over. Gretchen looked up; there was a small opening at the top of the teepee where the plastic folded over itself, just like how there’s a space at the bottom of a piece of paper when you roll it into a cone. Through the circle she could see a sliver of a constellation in the clear, night sky.

Jessica was late. It was already well past nine o’clock,
and the last vestiges of daylight had been replaced with a deep, lush blackness that enveloped Gretchen like one of her mother’s cashmere sweaters. If it hadn’t been for the full moon, she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.

Finally, she heard footsteps crunching in the wood chips beneath the play area. Jessica ducked inside the teepee, frowning.

“I remembered this being bigger,” she said, glancing around as she took a seat on the ground next to Gretchen.

“It’s definitely cozy in here,” Gretchen agreed. “But you’re right, I don’t think anyone will find us.” She sat on her hands so that Jessica wouldn’t see them shaking. She still couldn’t believe that her first kiss was going to be with Jessica and not with Nick Ford. If only she had seized upon the opportunity when it had presented itself that night at her party, instead of going inside to look for Ariel. She didn’t know why that would have changed anything, but somehow, she felt that if she’d only stayed outside, if things had been just the slightest bit different, her mother would still be alive.

“Are you ready for this?” Jessica asked. Her tone had become serious.

“I think so. Do you even know what we’re supposed to do?”

Jessica grinned. “Yup. Tina told me
everything
.”

Gretchen raised her eyebrows. “How? How did you get her to talk?”

“I just told her the truth,” Jessica said with a shrug. “I mean, the job was meant for you. I was plan B. So I was like, hey, I want to know what I’m getting into here if I’m taking on a responsibility that was supposed to be someone else’s. And I want to know exactly what I’m supposed to do, or I’m not doing it.”

“And she bought that?”

“Hell, yeah, she bought it. I made it sound like I was doing them a favor by agreeing to take your place. I think she really thought that I might turn them down. But do you want to hear something crazy?”

“What?”

“Tina’s never even done it. None of them have. Not your mom or anyone.”

Gretchen wasn’t exactly surprised to hear this, but still, she felt relief roll over her, like an extra layer of clothes on a cold day. She couldn’t believe that she even thought for a second that this might actually be real. Of course none of them had done it. And now she knew for sure that her mom didn’t really believe it could work. She was just pretending so that she wouldn’t upset everyone else. They probably all thought it was a big crock—her mom, Tina, Joan—but none of them wanted to admit it. The whole thing reminded Gretchen of when she and her friends used to play with a Ouija board at sleepovers. They all pushed it with their fingers, and they knew that everyone else did, too. But still, they pretended to believe that it was moving all by itself. It was just more fun that way.

Jessica continued. “Apparently, projection is only meant to be used when doing so will help right a wrong that’s been done to another woman. Something about a tool for keeping justice in the balance. I don’t know. Tina said they’ve only been guarding the secret, they’ve never actually had to use it.”

“Well, it seems like now would be a pretty good time for them to start,” Gretchen said indignantly. “I mean, I think my mom qualifies as a woman who’s been wronged, don’t you?”

Jessica flashed a sad smile. “Yes. And that’s exactly why I want to do this. We can’t wait for them to find the anklet. We need to get started
now
.”

Gretchen shivered in the night air. She wrapped her arms around herself as Jessica went on to explain what Tina had told her. That the Plotinus Ability was really just a form of intense meditation. That you had to clear your mind of everything until you had no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations in your body. The goal was to feel that you’d become one with everything around you, and once you achieved that, all you had to do was breathe yourself into where you wanted to go.

“And,” Jessica added, “you have to say something.”

“What, like a spell?”

“I guess it’s like a spell. Tina said that Plotinus thought of it more as ‘words that help to release the soul.’ But either way, it’s in Greek, and it’s a bitch to say. It took me forever to get it right.”

“And what about the anklet?” Gretchen asked.

“She seems to think it’s a necessary part of the equation,” Jessica admitted. “She said something about how the anklet has a calming, grounding effect on the body, and when combined with the words, it allows the soul to become free.” She shrugged. “I think it’s just a placebo effect. But I guess we’ll find out.”