Shadows (3 page)

The people kept on coming, distracting her from Mal, and the bell rang a few minutes later. Ms Reiber gave a first-day-of-school speech that was exactly like the one Eve had heard on the first day of every year of middle school. Boring. She’d hoped that in high school they wouldn’t find it necessary to talk about the importance of good attendance and how to evacuate in case of a fire – which presumably you knew by the time you were this old. Finally Ms Reiber started calling out names. She’d decided to seat the class alphabetically. Alphabetically, like they did in kindergarten. Eve rolled her eyes. You should get to sit where you wanted in homeroom at least. It wasn’t even a real class.

Except –
thank you again, T of Love
– Eve ended up in the desk behind Mal. Close enough to get a whiff of the musky wood-smoke scent of him. Close enough to reach out and touch the line on the back of his neck where his short black hair ended. If she wanted to, which she didn’t, because that would be weird.

Instead she leaned as close to him as she could. ‘I
will
find out,’ she promised.

After her first class, history, Eve swung by her locker to drop off the textbook the teacher had handed out. It was too heavy to lug around all day. And she wanted to check her lip gloss. Sometimes she nibbled on her lower lip when she was thinking, and she was sure she’d consumed the lip gloss she’d put on before school.

Yep. She had. Eve shook her head at her reflection, then pulled out a tube of Cotton Candy Lip Glaze.

‘Hey, Eve. Cool that we got assigned to do the history paper together, huh?’ Luke asked just as she started to apply the glaze.

Eve jumped in surprise – she hadn’t even heard him coming. She peered round the open locker door at him. They must have a different definition of ‘cool’ in Santa Cruz, California. She’d found out that was where Luke was from once they’d been paired up in history. She’d also found out his opinion of her favourite bag. He’d bugged her until she’d told him how much it had cost, then he’d declared it obscene to pay that kind of money just for something to carry your junk around in. He’d probably been kidding – the way he’d been kidding when he called her spoiled. Kidding in that way that is only half teasing and half what you really
think. She and Jess needed to come up with a word for
that
.

‘I guess. Though I’m not sure you really want a -partner with such deeply offensive accessory choices,’ Eve said.

Luke gave a snort of laughter. ‘I’m sure you have many fine qualities to compensate for your love of shopping. And you’re cute too. So that helps.’

‘Gee. Thanks. I feel so much better now,’ Eve drawled. At least working with him on the report would give her a chance to show him that she had some brains under all her long curly hair. And that she did occasionally use those brains to think about things that couldn’t be bought with a credit card. She wasn’t as shallow as he seemed to think. She wasn’t shallow at all. A love of purses did not a shallow person make.

Did it?

‘So what do you have next?’ Luke asked. Across the hall, Katy Emory was looking at Eve like she was the luckiest girl in the world to be talking to Luke. Would it matter to Katy if she knew Luke was probably the biggest flirt in the entire school?

Eve returned to her lip-gloss application. ‘Biology. Ms Whittier,’ she said, not bothering to look at Luke.

‘Cool. Me too. Can I borrow that?’ He reached
around her and plucked her lip glaze out of her fingers. She still held the wand. He held out his hand for it.

‘What? No,’ Eve said.

‘Come on, it’s my first day. I want to make a good impression. And clearly biology can’t be understood without lipstick,’ Luke joked.

‘Funny.’ Eve grabbed the lip glaze back. ‘This stuff is really good for you.’

Luke raised his eyebrows. They disappeared under his floppy blond hair. He didn’t have expressive dark brows like Mal.

‘It has green tea antioxidants,’ Eve continued. ‘And macadamia extract and aloe vera for healing.’

‘Oh. That’s different then,’ Luke said. ‘Carry on.’

He stood there and watched while she finished reapplying the lip gloss. What was he waiting for?

When she shut her locker and started down the hall to class, Luke fell into step beside her. ‘That stuff smells like vanilla,’ he commented. ‘Does it taste like vanilla too?’

Eve shot him a hard glance.
Flirting again. Like he does with everyone
, she reminded herself.
No crushing on the player.
She felt like ripping off the T-shirt of Love, just to be on the safe side. But stripping down to
her bra, with its lace and pearls, in front of him might give him the wrong impression.

‘Tell me when your birthday is and I’ll buy you a tube,’ Eve answered. ‘Then you’ll know.’

Eve stood in the quad at the end of the day, waiting for Jess so they could walk home together. A single leaf, yellow with deep, dark red around the tips, drifted down from one of the maples. That was just wrong. It was too early for the autumn leaf change to have started. Eve hated fall: just when the leaves had taken on these incredible, blazing colours, they died. It depressed her. Winter was different. Snow and icicles gave the bare trees a sparkling, shimmering new life.

Without knowing exactly why, Eve picked up the sad, lonely little leaf and put it in her pocket just as Jess hurried over. ‘Let’s stop off at Megan’s. She wasn’t at school. I want to make sure she’s OK,’ Jess told Eve. ‘Come with?’

‘Sure,’ Eve answered. ‘Have you talked to her since we’ve been back?’

‘We texted Saturday night,’ Jess said. ‘I told her we’d seen The Luke in The Flesh. She was still really tired, but she didn’t say anything about maybe having to skip school.’

‘She’d have to have been really tired to miss the first day,’ Eve commented. ‘That’s serious.’

‘Well, she’s a sophomore. Maybe it’s not such a big deal once you’re used to high school,’ Jess said.

Eve made a face, and Jess laughed. The first day of school was
always
a big deal, and they both knew it.

‘Maybe she has mono,’ Eve suggested.

‘The kissing disease? It’s possible,’ Jess agreed. ‘Megan does a lot of kissing.’

Eve giggled. Megan was a lively redhead, and that made her popular with boys. Well, that and her wild side. Megan was all about fun, fun, fun.

How much fun, fun, fun did she and Luke have before some other guy caught Megan’s attention? Eve wondered. Wait. Why was she even thinking about Luke?

‘Jess, am I shallow?’ Eve burst out.

‘What? Where did that come from?’ Jess asked.

‘I don’t know. I was just thinking. I do really like to shop. And I like make-up. And purses. I enjoy my purses. And I spend a ton of time thinking about my hair …’

‘What you’re saying is that you’re a girl,’ Jess replied as they turned onto Medway Lane, the street where Jess’s family and Megan’s both lived.

‘But, no. Think about it,’ Eve insisted. ‘What do I do that has any substance? I mean, you have cheerleading, which is actually a true sport. And you take flute lessons—’

‘Which I suck at,’ Jess interrupted.

‘You helped renovate slums in India,’ Eve said.

‘I told you, that was total luxury vacation volunteering. My parents just wanted to feel good about themselves while staying in five-star hotels,’ Jess said. She led the way up the long stone walkway to Megan’s Mediterranean-style house, then knocked on the door.

‘I don’t even do luxury volunteering,’ Eve said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I
am
shallow.’

But Jess wasn’t listening. ‘I bet Megan is waiting to pounce on us and ask us a million questions,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine missing the first day?’

But no one answered. Jess knocked again, louder.

Eve heard the sound of soft, shuffling footsteps inside the house.
Like someone walking through a big pile of dry, dead leaves
, Eve thought, touching the pocket where she’d put the first fall leaf. After a few moments the Christies’ front door swung open. Eve bit her bottom lip to keep back a little exclamation of shock.

Megan looked wrecked. There were dark circles
under her eyes, her usually curly red hair hung limp and clearly hadn’t been washed for several days, and Eve thought she was pale, although it was hard to tell with the layer of tan Megan had acquired over the summer. Eve’s cousin Ted had had mono last year, but he hadn’t looked anywhere near as bad as Megan did. There had to be something else wrong with her. Something … not good. Very not good.

‘Hi, Meggie!’ Jess said brightly, in full-on cheerleader mode. ‘You weren’t in school, so we came to give you the first-day scoop.’

Megan just stared, her face as expressionless as the ghost from the movie.

‘You want to hear everything about the first day of school, right?’ Eve asked. She wasn’t sure Megan could even understand her. Megan didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink.

Jess reached out and lightly touched Megan on the arm. ‘Are you—?’

Megan flinched away. ‘Don’t touch. Touching lets it in.’ Her eyes flicked wildly back and forth. ‘It’s in you already,’ she told Eve. ‘I can smell it. Can’t you smell it?’ Her voice got higher and shriller the more she spoke.

Eve wasn’t sure if it would be better to agree
with her or disagree. What would calm her down?

‘I don’t think I smell anything,’ Jess said, before Eve could decide. ‘So, of course, the new boys were the big news at school,’ she added in a rush, clearly hoping to distract Megan. ‘Which do you think is hotter – Luke or Mal? As you know, Eve usually goes for the blondies, but, weirdly, she claims—’ Jess stopped and pointed at Eve. ‘Luke! That’s why you were asking about being shallow!’ she cried. ‘You’re still thinking about his purse comment. I now have evidence. You like him. You wouldn’t be obsessing if you didn’t.’

‘I wasn’t obsessing,’ Eve replied automatically. She wrapped her arms around herself, realizing that standing close to Megan made her feel cold.

‘Yeah, she so was,’ Jess said, turning back to Megan. ‘You should have heard her.
All I do is shop. I have more make-up than Paris Hilton
.’ Eve noticed that Jess was still talking fast, as if words could build a safety net for Megan.

Megan’s eyelids fluttered, and for a second all Eve could see behind them was the whites of her eyes. Then her eyes snapped open wide, too wide. Megan clawed at her throat, her nails leaving streaks of blood. ‘I can’t get it out,’ she shrieked. ‘Get it out!’

Eve heard footsteps inside the house, footsteps
racing towards them. Megan’s mother appeared next to Megan in the doorway. ‘Sweetie, you were going to watch TV, remember?’

Megan’s expression had gone blank again. It was hard to believe she’d been speaking – screaming – just a few minutes before. Her mother gently turned her round and used one hand to start her towards their living room. Megan zombie-shuffled away.

Mrs Christie used her pinkie fingers to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘Megan … Megan isn’t feeling well. I was just upstairs in her room packing a bag for her. She … I need to take her to the hospital. Megan started—’

A piercing scream, a scream laced with pain, blasted out of the house. ‘You girls go on,’ Mrs Christie called over her shoulder as she bolted inside.

‘It’s in my blood. It’s in my bones. Get it out!’ Eve heard Megan shriek.

She and Jess exchanged a look as they stood on the doorstep. ‘Do we go in?’ Jess asked.

‘She said to leave,’ Eve said. They hesitated. Eve listened so hard it made her ears ache.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ Jess finally commented. ‘It seems like Mrs Christie’s got Megan calm again.’

Eve nodded. ‘Let’s go then.’ She reached for the front door. Mrs Christie had left it open.

Thunk!
The heavy oak door slammed shut.

Eve jumped back, surprised. It had almost taken her fingers off.

‘Nice, Eve. Are you trying to give Megan heart failure too?’ Jess said.

‘I didn’t touch it!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘I didn’t even touch it!’ She stared at the Christies’ front door, her heart still pounding.

‘You probably snagged it with your sleeve or something,’ Jess suggested. ‘You know how you are. If it can be tripped over, caught on or bumped into, you find a way.’

True. But Eve wasn’t convinced. If she’d somehow snagged the door, she would have felt a tug. A big tug. That door was solid, and it had
slammed
.

She hadn’t felt a thing.

Wind? No, the September day was hot and still. She tried to come up with another explanation. There had to be one. But what? She reached out and tentatively touched the door, half expecting it to jerk under her fingers.

There was no reasonable explanation. Eve shivered, despite the sun’s warmth beaming down on her.
You’re
just freaked by seeing Megan so … so un-Megan-like
, she told herself.
It was creepy, so now you’re feeling creeped out by everything.

But the door really had slammed by itself. All by itself.

‘I have the perfect title for our history paper,’ Luke said as he and Eve headed down the hall to their biology lab a week later. ‘“Gandhi: No Saint”.’

Eve blinked. She’d been momentarily distracted by trying to figure out what colour Luke’s eyes really were. They were an unusual green shade, flecked with gold. ‘You want to slam Gandhi?’ she asked.