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T
oday is Mattie’s birthday, and I haven’t gotten her a thing. I only remember when I see the special breakfast casserole on the kitchen table—the one my father reserves for birthdays or other special occasions. Eggs and bacon and cheese and potatoes. And butter. Lots and lots of butter. Normally, I live for this sort of thing, but these words keep sliding around my head:
anorectal malformation
. I Googled the term last night, but knowing the medical details didn’t help much. I want to know exactly what happened on October 19, 1998 and why my father has held on to it for so long. What’s so special about this Allison? And what’s his connection with the white-haired woman I saw in the cemetery?
Is
there any connection? Or am I just going crazy?

I don’t know how to broach this topic. Plus, Mattie has actually brushed her hair and is sitting at the table, looking hungry, so I don’t want to do anything to mess that up.

“So, what do you want to do for your big day, birthday girl?” My dad heaps a pile of casserole onto a plate and passes it to Mattie. The forced cheeriness in his voice seems to highlight how crappy this day actually is.

Mattie shrugs and then pushes a fork into the big melty cheesy mess in front of her. “I don’t know. Just hang out around here? I don’t really feel like going out.”

“That sounds great. Maybe we could rent
Mulan
tonight? Order pizza for dinner? Would you like that?”

“Dad, I haven’t liked
Mulan
since the second grade,” Mattie replies. There’s no resentment in her voice, like there would have been had I said it. It’s just a simple fact.

“Well, how about the first season of
Rumor Girl
? I’ve heard great things.” My father’s face is so earnest; it’s almost painful to look at.

“Um, you mean
Gossip Girl
? Sure. Yeah, okay.” My sister takes another glob of casserole into her mouth.

Could my father really be hiding some deep, dark secret? This man who wants to watch
Gossip Girl
with his teenage daughters? Is this just a facade so we won’t suspect what he’s
really
up to?

“I’m not feeling well,” I say. “I’m going to go lie down.” Passing by my sister, I squeeze her shoulder. “Happy birthday, Matt.”

She turns her head my way and gives me the most heartbreaking smile. “Thanks.”

Guilt follows me up the stairs and into my room. I really should give her something to acknowledge her birthday— but what?

I scan my belongings, wondering if there’s anything I have that she could possibly want. My closet door is ajar, and the box of my mother’s CDs is sticking out slightly.

With a tug, I heave the box into the middle of the room.

One by one, I pull the CDs out and spread them all over the floor. Pearl Jam. The Smashing Pumpkins. Veruca Salt. Nirvana. Liz Phair. Ani DiFranco. This is what I have left of my mother, the music she lived her life by.

This is what I have to give to my sister, who was so little when my mother died, who can no longer remember that my mother’s hair always smelled like violets or how the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled or how she cackled like a witch when she found something really hilarious.

I pick up the Smashing Pumpkins CD and hold it to my cheek. The plastic is cold from sitting in my drafty closet for so long. Then I put it back in the box. I go through this process with each CD, holding it close for just one more moment and then putting it away.

When I’ve loaded the CDs all back into the box, I push the flaps closed and carry it to my sister’s room. She hasn’t returned from breakfast yet, so I place the box on her unmade bed and leave the room.

I’ve attached a pink Post-it note. It says:

THIS IS WHO SHE WAS.

LOVE, V

I
lean back against my pillow, holding the tiny Sigmund Freud and wondering if it is personal enough to provide me with a link to Mr. Golden. It seems like the sort of thing someone would give you for a present. Maybe a family member? A former student? A girlfriend? I rub my thumb over the figure, thinking about what he might have witnessed in Mr. Golden’s room.

Yawning, I turn the little man over. That’s when I notice the markings on the bottom. It’s been engraved. The letters are so tiny; I have to squint to make out the message.

YOU HYPNOTIZE ME. N.P.

Hmmmm. N.P. Who could that be? Well, one thing’s clear—it’s a personal item, all right. I just hope he was stirred with enough emotion when he received it to leave an imprint.

When my head starts to pound and black floaty things swim before my eyes, I know he was. My room disappears, and I am swallowed by the blackness.

Mr. Golden stands before a white door decorated with an orange-and-brown wreath. He balls his right hand into a fist and raps on the door, then takes a step back to wait for an answer. The door opens, revealing a familiar, grief-stricken face. It is Amber Prescott’s father. His hair is mussed, and his eyes are rimmed red.

“Mr. Prescott?” Mr. Golden asks, his voice unsure. “I’m Mr. Golden, Amber’s teacher. I called earlier. I have the journal she kept in class. Thought you might want it?” He waves a notebook in the air halfheartedly. “Is this a bad time?”

“Uh, no,” Amber’s father replies, but his voice seems far away, like he’s speaking through a fog. “Come in. You can call me Trent.”

Mr. Golden steps into the entryway. I survey the scene in agony. I was here once before, briefly, to pick up Mattie from a sleepover. I remember, at the time, being impressed by the simple, elegant decor of the room, from the perfect eggshell paint color to the black suede couch and love seat. The focal point of the room was a painting of purple irises blowing in the wind.

Now, the beautiful painting is askew. Overturned on the coffee table is a single crystal glass in a puddle of brown liquid. The smell assures me that it’s something alcoholic. On the muted television, Seinfeld looks like he’s laughing.

“Would you care for a drink?”

“Ah, no. Can’t stay long. Is your wife around?”

Amber’s father eases into a black leather recliner, his eyes glued to the television set. “Back room. She won’t come out. Why don’t you take the journal to her? It might give her some comfort, to read Amber’s words.”

Mr. Golden stands there awkwardly for a second, and I’m sure he’s considering just tossing the notebook onto the coffee table and getting the hell out of here. That’s what I’d be thinking about, anyway. But he surprises me.

He turns and heads down the long hallway, where he must figure the “back room” is. Both walls are lined with pictures. In one, a little Amber stands next to a horse, proudly holding up her blue ribbon. In another, Amber looks to be about ten and sits with her arm hanging casually over her younger brother’s shoulder. In yet another, she is older, grinning in a crisp City High cheerleading outfit. She smiles the kind of smile only popular girls own the right to—kind of like, “The world is mine, and that’s how it should be.” This is the Amber I knew.

The door to the room at the end of the hall is slightly ajar. Mr. Golden holds out his hand and gently pushes it open. For a moment, all I can see is light flickering from votive candles scattered around the floor. Then I realize Amber’s mother is sitting in the middle of them, her arms wrapped around her knees. She rocks back and forth, back and forth.

“Nora?” Mr. Golden says, barely above a whisper. The disparity in the way he addresses Amber’s parents strikes me. Why would he call Amber’s father
Mr. Prescott
and her mother
Nora
? The intimacy in the way he said her name is unsettling.

She lifts her head for a moment and then, seeing who it is, lowers it again.

“Nora. I’m here for you.” Mr. Golden crouches on the floor next to her. “I’m here.” The tenderness in his voice is palpable. And then it hits me: Nora.

N.P.

Nora Prescott.

Amber’s mother must have given him the figurine.

It’s as if she doesn’t even hear him. She speaks, but it’s like she’s continuing a different conversation. Her words are barely recognizable, and that’s when I smell the liquor on her breath.

“I remember her first day of high school. She said she didn’t want to go back. She hated the way everyone pretended to be someone they weren’t. She didn’t know who to be.”

This doesn’t sound like the Amber I knew—the girl who plotted which date for homecoming would win her the most popularity, the girl who actually took a ruler to her skirts to see how short she could possibly go without getting busted for breaking the dress code. The Amber I knew was kind of a bitch.

“She was scared, and I made her go back anyway.”

The woman takes a sip from a drink I hadn’t realized she was holding, then sends it flying through the room. It crashes against the wall and shatters in a burst of ice cubes and jagged pieces of glass.

“I made her
go
.”

“She had to go to school, Nora. You most certainly didn’t make her steal Trent’s gun and do what she did. You didn’t make her do
that
.”

Amber’s mother turns and looks Mr. Golden in the eyes for the first time since he entered the room. “She knew about us. The day of Sophie’s funeral. She came back just in time to see you leaving. And the next day she shot herself with Trent’s gun. Because of us.”

My god. The thought that Amber had actually committed suicide never occurred to me. I was sure someone else pulled the trigger, the same someone who dragged the knife across Sophie’s wrists. But if Amber stole her father’s gun, doesn’t that mean she killed herself?

“Now, now, Nora. Are you sure she saw me leave? Maybe she was just overcome with sadness. I mean, her best friend had just committed suicide. She was coming home from the funeral.” Mr. Golden glances toward the doorway and then reaches over to push Mrs. Prescott’s hair out of her face. He sounds calm, reassuring.

What if Amber did come home after Sophie’s funeral and ran into Mr. Golden leaving her house? Did she confront him? Did she threaten to tell her father? And if Mr. Golden had access to Mr. Prescott’s wife, could he have had access to Mr. Prescott’s gun?

Mr. Golden reaches for Mrs. Prescott’s hand. She pushes it away and starts mumbling again. He sighs and gets up, leaving the notebook on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Nora,” he says, and then leaves the room without another word.

L
uckily, when I return, I find my body flopped safely on my bed. I sit up and wipe a bit of drool off my chin. Sliding is not the most glamorous way to get around, that’s for sure.

Beside me, my phone rings insistently. Rollins again. My fingers flex, wanting to answer. My gaze falls on the T-shirt he gave me. It lies crumpled on the floor, where I threw it after seeing him with Amber. All I’d have to do is slip it on—I could reassure myself that he had a good reason to meet her that night, that he’s not the killer.

I could slide right into his life and find out . . . everything. What he does all those hours he’s not at school or work. What he’s hiding from me at home. Why he never invites me over. I’m itching to know his secrets, but at the same time I wonder if sliding into him wouldn’t be like hacking his email or reading his diary. When I slid into him accidentally, it felt weird, but I knew it wasn’t my fault. But if I target him by using that same T-shirt, it would be different. It would be like spying.

I’d be doing it for the right reason—wouldn’t I? To clear Rollins’s name. If you invade someone’s privacy with good intentions, it’s not as bad. I close my eyes and remember how we used to be. I miss our silly conversations about who would win in a fight—Chuck Norris or Mr. T. I miss his sardonic smile. I miss the girl I am when I’m around him.

I have to fix things between us, and sliding into him is the only way I know how.

My decision made, I reach down, snag the blue material with my pinky, and pull it onto my lap. Easing back onto my pillows, I hug the fabric to my chin. I’m amazed at how quickly I’m taken away. I’m kind of getting good at this.

The smell is acrid, like rotting broccoli and urine. Water stains and cracks work their way down the walls. I’m lying on a mattress with blue flannel sheets, staring up at the ceiling.

A song I know is playing—“Thinking of You” by A Perfect Circle. For a month last year, Rollins was obsessed with this song, playing it on a continuous loop in his car. The drums are intense, beating through my brain.

I’m twirling something in my hands like a baton. Without even looking, I know what it is. A Sharpie. Rollins’s sword to tear the world apart. He stops twirling and uses the marker to match the drumbeat on his stomach.

His room is desolate, furnished with only a bed, a small chest of drawers, and a bookshelf packed with old paperbacks. Back when we used to hang out, we’d go to the used bookstore every weekend and buy bags and bags of books. One of his shelves is dedicated to Stephen King novels. I remember him saying his favorite was
The Dead Zone
.

His door swings open, and a guy in a red flannel shirt bursts in. It must be his uncle Ned.

“You didn’t do your shit today,” the guy says. It’s an accusation—of what, I have no idea.

Rollins sits up. “What shit?”

“It’s Saturday. Your turn to do the bath.”

Rollins swears. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“She’s
your
mother.” The man points at Rollins.

Sighing, Rollins stands up and pushes past the man. He walks down the hall and calls to a wiry woman in a wheelchair, who’s watching cartoons. Her hair is a tangled nest of snarls.

“Time for your bath,” Rollins says, his voice terse.

No wonder he’s never invited me to his house. From his surly uncle to his incapacitated mother, he has his hands full without worrying about what his friends think of his predicament. I start to worry I made the wrong decision in coming here.

Rollins pushes the woman down the hall and into the bathroom, which looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in years. Rollins turns the knob, releasing a gush of water into the tub. He carefully gauges the temperature—not too hot, not too cold.

He helps his mother undress, all the while staring up at the ceiling. She raises her hands, and he pulls off her shirt. She has to lean on him while he lowers her pants and underwear.

I feel that he’s turned himself off somehow. He’s on autopilot. He helps her into the tub, bearing her weight so she won’t slip and fall. He fills a Big Gulp cup and then dumps the water over her head, which makes her clap her hands in glee. When he lathers an old pink washcloth with soap and works it over her shoulders and breasts, I zone out.

Before long, the bath is over and Rollins’s mother has been toweled off and returned to her place in front of the television. Rollins lumbers back to his room, his fists clenching and unclenching as he passes his uncle, who’s cracking open a beer.

As he enters his room, I catch sight of something I’d missed earlier. Peeking out from underneath his bed— which could more accurately be called a cot—is a jumbled pile of photographs.

He walks closer, and in one of the pictures I’m able to make out the shape of a girl in a red bikini lying on a beach towel. Her black hair flares out around her face, and she wears giant red sunglasses. Sophie. What the—?

Apprehension pulses through me. I have to figure out why he has pictures of Sophie. Before I know it, I’m next to the bed and spreading the photographs across the floor.

A part of me realizes that I’m controlling Rollins, but mostly I’m concerned with the task at hand.

There are pictures of Sophie at school, of her in her cheerleading uniform, even in boxers and a T-shirt with her hair twisted into a french braid. Not only that—there are pictures of Amber Prescott, too.

One photograph in particular catches my eye. I grab it so I can examine it more closely. It’s a picture of Amber and Sophie at cheerleading practice. In the background, Samantha Phillips stands on top of the bleachers, a megaphone at her mouth. Rollins has drawn devil horns on top of her flaming red hair and a spiky tail curling by her side. In her hand that’s not holding the megaphone, he’s fashioned a pitchfork.

Why does Rollins have pictures of dead girls in his room?

I set the photo down and stand up, hoping to find a hint somewhere in the room. A door beckons to me. When I open it, the contents make me sad. Two pairs of jeans, neatly hung on hangers. And his leather jacket, his most prized possession.

There is literally nothing else in the closet.

Just then, I feel myself start to go.

No
, I tell myself. I hold on to Rollins with every fiber of my being. But, as easy as it was for me to slide into him, I’m unable to anchor myself in his body. I stagger backward and leave Rollins lying on his bed.

Hot water cascades over my shoulders and back, pounding out the tension I’ve felt since coming out of my latest slide. I tilt my head back and let the water run down my face, thinking about what I saw at Rollins’s house.

By sliding into Rollins, I’d been hoping to find the reason for his meeting with Amber on the night of her death. But all I turned up were more questions.

On the bright side, I was able to take control of Rollins. I think it has something to do with my focus. When I controlled Scotch, I was so angry and all I could think about was giving him the beating he so sorely deserved. When I was in Rollins, I was intent on finding out why he had those photographs.

My cell phone, which I set on the edge of the sink in case Zane called while I was showering, begins to ring the generic ring it makes when someone I don’t know calls. Squinting, I shut the water off and reach for a towel.

The number flashing on the display looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. Iowa City area code, so it’s not a telemarketer. I wrap the towel around my torso, tuck the end under my armpit, and pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Vee?”

Again, the pang of familiarity strikes, but I can’t place the voice that’s asking for me.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Samantha.”

Something like nostalgia hits me, and I wonder if I haven’t stepped out of the shower and into last year, when a phone call from Samantha wasn’t something unusual. For a minute, I’m speechless, and I just stand there with my mouth open like an idiot.

“Um. Samantha? Why are you calling me? Did you accidentally call the wrong sister? I can go get Mattie for you. It is her birthday, you know . . .”

“Yeah, well, that’s sort of why I’m calling.”

“Okay . . . so what do you want?”

“I’m organizing a little get-together at my place tonight. But it’s a surprise. I asked her if she wanted to come over and watch movies tonight, but she said she wanted to hang out with family . . .” The tone of Samantha’s voice makes me roll my eyes, like it’s so ridiculous Mattie would ever want to spend time with her family.

“Samantha. Two members of your squad are dead. Isn’t it a little . . . insensitive to be throwing a party tonight?”

“That’s exactly why we need some fun. I’m guessing Mattie’s been just lying around in bed the last couple of days. Am I right? She needs to get out and have some fun. I have her best interests at heart.”

“Uh-huh. Well, Mattie can do what she wants. Sorry if that spoils your plans.”

Samantha pauses.

“Vee, really. I’m trying to do something nice for Matt. I’m worried about her. With everything that’s happened in the past week . . . she needs her friends.”

I squelch the snide comment about what kind of a friend I think Samantha is and think of Mattie, shut up in her bedroom like a hermit. It actually would be good for her to get out of the house. Get out of her head. This might not be such a bad idea.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Come to the party. Convince her to go. I’ll come and pick you guys up and everything. I know you don’t drive . . .”

Her words trail off, and I know our minds are both back in the gym last year, when she watched Scotch drag my lifeless body into the boys’ locker room.

“On one condition,” I say.

“Anything,” she replies, and I swear she’s near tears.

“You can’t invite Scotch Becker.”

“Done.”

“Okay. You can pick us up at seven.”

My sister’s room is dark, with the soft notes of Pearl Jam’s “Black” wafting through the air, filling the room with an anguish so thick I feel I could touch it. My sister lies on the floor, wrapped in a pink blanket.

“Mattie?”

“Sssssssh, this is the best part,” she says, her eyes closed.

Eddie Vedder sings sadly about pictures washed in black. So many times I’ve listened to this song, envisioning a shroud over all the pictures of our dead mother. Samantha is right. I have to dig Mattie out of this hole.

“I love this song,” I say, tiptoeing to her computer and finding the pause button. “But don’t you think you should listen to something a little more upbeat on your birthday?”

When the music stops, my sister sits up indignantly. “Hey.”

“Yeah, I know. But I just got a call from Samantha. She wants us to come over tonight to watch movies or some crap. You up for it?”

Mattie narrows her eyes at me. “Since when does Samantha call you?”

I sigh. “We
did
used to be friends. Besides, she’s worried about you. Come on. It’ll be fun.” The word
fun
feels like it’s been coated in cyanide. I’m guessing Mattie’s too out of it to notice how bad I am at lying, though.

“Ugh. What time?”

“She’s going to pick us up at seven. That’ll give you a few more hours to roll around in your own filth.” I grin.

Mattie sticks out her tongue, and I take that as my dismissal.