Spookygirl - Paranormal Investigator (13 page)

“Three thousand people die from lightning strikes every year in Florida,” Charlene informed us as she rubbed sunscreen on the back of her neck.

“That sounds a little high,” I said.

“Look it up,” she huffed.

I shrugged. “Hey, the more people who get hit by lightning, the more business for my dad.”

Charlene sneered, but the rest of the goths looked interested, as if they hoped for more funerary anecdotes. Then Isobel glanced over the edge of the building at the central courtyard below and made an offended
hmm
sound, and all attention returned to her.

“Behold, the void,” she said flatly. “It assembles.”

I followed her gaze. In the courtyard, a herd of jocks and cheerleaders gathered around one of the long planters that ran along either side of the sundial. A series of pizza boxes sat on the planter’s ledge; the jocks were enthralled by the pizza, and the cheerleaders were enthralled by the jocks. I saw Cherry picking the pepperoni off her slice and feeding each piece to Jake Bartle by hand.

It was a school rule that everyone had to spend the lunch period in the cafeteria, (unless, of course, you found an unobtrusive place to hide). Like the dress code, that rule apparently didn’t apply to the jocks or the cheerleaders. They’d never get in trouble for skipping lunch and hanging out in the courtyard, but we were risking detention or worse.

“How’d they get the pizza?” I asked.

“One of them probably left campus to get it,” Derek said. “Or maybe they got it delivered right to the front office.”

“And that’s allowed?”

Isobel rolled her eyes. “For the void? Of course.”

I had to admit, as far as nicknames went, “the void” was a pretty good fit.

“I’m surprised Dead Dirk’s not following them around,” I said, squinting. “Then again, it can be hard to see ghosts when the sun’s this bright. It turns them kind of transparent.”

I’d assumed Tim had told the goths all about the ghost in the art wing, but judging by Isobel’s quick response, I was wrong.

“Dirk Reynolds?” she asked, uncharacteristically quietly. “He’s still here? You can see him?” The usual affectation was temporarily gone from her voice.

“I’ve only seen him in one of the art rooms,” I said, taking note of Isobel’s sudden interest. I hadn’t noticed
before, but now I realized I’d never spotted Dirk around the jocks anywhere else at school. Only in drawing class.

“And he’s there regularly?”

“Yeah. I see him a couple times a week.”

“Will you do me a favor?” Beneath her frilly black parasol, Isobel tilted her head. “Ask Dirk about the black rose, and tell me what he says.”

I was surprised by her request, but I nodded. “Sure. I can’t promise anything, though. He doesn’t like me.”

As I thought about Isobel’s cryptic question, I began to wonder if maybe there was a reason I’d only ever seen Dirk in the art room. A reason that had nothing to do with the jocks.

I didn’t get to ask Tim about Isobel’s request until we were on our way to drawing class, and he didn’t have any idea what it was about.

“I can’t imagine they would’ve been friends,” I mused. “A star athlete and the queen of the goths?”

“Isobel was a freshman when Dirk was a junior,” Tim said. “So I guess it could be possible. But can you imagine the two of them hanging out?”

“Nope. Maybe Dirk used to tease her or something. Maybe the black rose is some sort of code for something he did. She seemed interested in the fact that he’s always in the art wing.”

“Isobel’s a great artist,” Tim said. “Her stuff ends up in the state art fair every year. She has Advanced Portfolio first period—you can’t get into that class without advance approval from the teacher. And you know that mural in the hall by the gym?”

“That ugly Trojan?”

“Yep. That one.”

“It’s all crooked and out of proportion.”

“I know. She did that on purpose because she hates Palmetto so much. There was a contest last year to see who’d get to paint the mural. The winning design was guaranteed to be up for at least a year. So Isobel did this really great sketch—I mean, it was a Trojan with a sword and a football, so it was still stupid, but it looked professional. So she won, but when she painted the final mural, she pretended to have trouble with the proportions. She made all these, like, mistakes. On purpose. And it has to stay up because she won the contest. The art teachers all know what she did, but they won’t say anything because they’re all pissed that the sports programs get all the funding while the art programs keep getting cut. It was pretty brilliant.”

“Wow.” Clearly, I hadn’t given Isobel enough credit. Her trick with the mural was pretty ballsy. I could definitely get behind someone who hated Palmetto as much as she
did, even if she did seem a little too interested in one of its former star athletes.

Dirk was present during class that day, ghosting around near the portfolio racks. After twenty minutes of drawing a bowl of fruit with sepia-colored Conté sticks, I pretended I needed to check something in my portfolio and wandered over to the racks.

“Hey,” I whispered when I was close to Dirk. “You know Isobel? Tall girl, black hair, queen of the goths?”

Dirk gave me a strange, wary look. “Yeah. But her hair was brown when I knew her.”

Like I cared. “She wanted me to ask you about the black rose.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “Tell her it’s gone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out,” he said, and he vanished. Ghosts can be so damned cryptic.

It wasn’t much of a message to relay, but I shared it with Isobel on the roof during lunch the next day. It seemed to upset her. “Tell him I won’t accept that.”

“I will, but it would help if I knew what we’re talking about.”

Isobel sighed and glanced at her fellow goths. Then she stood up and tilted her head, indicating that I should follow her to the opposite end of the roof. The others
stared after us in awe, as though I’d been awarded a private audience with a celebrity.

“I can’t talk about this in front of them,” Isobel said when we were out of earshot. “I promised Dirk I’d never tell, but this has been bothering me since he…you know. Since he died.” She looked troubled. “He’s not here right now, is he?”

“I’ve never seen him anywhere but the art room. I’m starting to think he might be stuck there.”

She nodded. “I think I might know why. See, everyone thinks Dirk was dating that Cherry skank his junior year. She spread that around after he died because it got her a lot of attention. But really, he couldn’t stand her. And he was sort of involved with someone else.” Her expression was uncomfortable and almost embarrassed. “Me.”

I suppose I’d seen that coming, but hearing her admit it still surprised me a little.

“You? And part of the void?”

“He wasn’t like the others,” she said. “Not really. He did the football thing because he was good at it, but also, mostly, because his dad pushed him. His dad used to tell him he was stupid, and that football was the only way he’d get into college. Dirk wasn’t stupid.” Isobel’s voice grew defensive. “I mean, he wasn’t great at math and stuff, so his grades were crappy. But he didn’t deserve to be put down like that by his own dad. He had so much going for
him besides sports.” She paused, as though she needed to collect her thoughts. “I first met him in the art wing, in room 314.”

“That’s where my drawing class is,” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured it was the same room. This was back when I was a freshman. Mr. Connelly let me stay late one afternoon to finish a project. About twenty minutes after the last bell rang, Dirk came in and started setting up an easel across the room. He didn’t say anything, just got a canvas and some acrylics and started painting. He was doing this abstract thing with reds and purples and oranges. It was anger and frustration in big, bold blocks of color. Every so often Mr. Connelly would go over and give him advice—not that he really needed it. The painting was amazing.”

Isobel went on with her story. Mr. Connelly liked her work and wanted her to submit some pieces to the county’s annual exhibit, so she started staying late every day to get them done. Sometimes Dirk was there, sometimes he wasn’t. On the days he showed up, he usually painted; occasionally he sketched instead. He always worked in silence, until one day when he stepped back from his canvas and asked Isobel what she thought of his latest painting. After that, they started talking pretty regularly.

“Dirk had talent. He was the one who should’ve been submitting to exhibits and stuff,” Isobel said, “but his dad
wouldn’t let him. The jerk said it was a waste of time that should’ve gone into more football practice instead.” Since Dirk’s dad wouldn’t let him take art classes, Mr. Connelly let Dirk work in the art wing before or after school, depending on his football practice schedule, of course. Dirk’s dad thought he was spending that time either out on the field or in the gym’s weight room.

Because of all the pressure from his father, Dirk was almost ashamed of how much he enjoyed painting. He vented a lot to Isobel, and she vented back about how much she hated school. Their various miseries put them on a surprisingly compatible wavelength.

“It all had to be kind of secret because Dirk was terrified of his dad finding out. How stupid is that? A six-foot-four football player being scared of his worthless little jerk of a father who couldn’t just accept his son for who he was.” Dirk was so secretive about his art that his entire relationship with Isobel played out inside room 314. They never so much as got coffee or saw a movie together.

Despite that, I could tell from the pain in Isobel’s voice just how serious their connection had been. She loved him; I could hear it in the way she still tried to protect him from his dad’s judgment.

“The Black Rose was an oil painting Dirk had been working on. He said he was dedicating it to me. I didn’t
really have my look together back then, but I was already wearing a lot of black, and he knew I was thinking about dyeing my hair. The painting was gorgeous—it was this abstract, geometric rose done in black against a white background with all these sharp lines and jagged shapes. It kind of looked like stained glass without the color added in. I was going to keep harassing him until he agreed to put it in the county exhibition, but then he went to that stupid party and…

“What a dumbass thing to do.” Her voice softened, and she stared into the distance. “Drinking that much and then thinking he could drive home. But that’s how he acted around the other jocks. He turned into exactly what you’d expect, just another member of the void. I never even bothered trying to talk to him outside of the art room. But when he was painting, it was like he became a different person. I think that’s the only time he was able to be himself. That’s why I’m not surprised he’s still hanging around in room 314. It’s where he was happiest.” She was blinking rapidly, and she smiled almost apologetically. “I shouldn’t cry. I’ll smudge my stupid mascara.”

What she said also explained why Dirk had gotten mad when I’d ratted him out to the jocks. He was still trying to be one of them. He was afraid of being different.

After taking a few breaths and composing herself,
Isobel continued. “The painting was almost done when he died. The last time I saw him work on it was a few days before the accident, and it just needed the finishing touches. But I didn’t know where he put it. I left the art room before he did that day, and I don’t know if he left the painting there or took it with him. When he was working on a painting, he usually left the easel facing the corner by the supply closets so the paint could dry. Sometimes he left finished paintings in that space by Mr. Connelly’s desk, between the wall and the file cabinet. I checked as soon as I could after I heard about the accident. The painting wasn’t on an easel, so I figured it was dried, but it wasn’t by the file cabinet, either, and Mr. Connelly didn’t know where it was. So I thought, since you can still talk to Dirk…”

“You want the painting because it was supposed to be for you.”

“No.” She glanced down at her boots. “I want to submit it to this year’s art show under his name. I think that would be allowed, as long as Mr. Connelly signs off on it. Dirk was so stubborn about keeping his art private, but he was really good. I want the world to see at least one of his pieces.”

I shrugged. “Based on his reaction to your question, I’m not sure he’d want that.”

“I don’t care what he wants.” She shook her head,
suddenly aggravated. “I’m so damned mad at him still. He had all that talent, and he wasted it. He practically wasted his whole life being a member of the void. Now he’s gone, and his work deserves to be seen.” She looked pleadingly at me. “Ask him again. Or let me talk to him. Can you do that? Like, repeat what he says to me? Since I can’t hear him?”

That had always been my mom’s thing—reconnecting ghosts to their living loved ones, letting them communicate, helping them move on. Mom’s gift was more than just seeing spirits. She also wanted to help them. I wasn’t like that. If there was anything I’d inherited from my dad, it was the belief that dead people—corpses, not ghosts—were easier to deal with than their living counterparts. I didn’t want to deal with a bunch of personal drama.

Still, I found myself nodding. “We can try that. Let me talk to him again first, though.”

Not that I had any idea what I was going to say.

I arrived home that afternoon to find Sabrina Brightstar’s letter with a huge
RETURN TO SENDER
stamped on it. I was bummed but not surprised, since it wasn’t like Mom had been around to update her address book. I’d just have to do a little more in-depth sleuthing.

A search of the Internet white pages for Sabrina Brightstar or Mildred Schwartz brought up nothing, but I struck some very tacky gold when I did a more general search. Sabrina Brightstar had her very own website. It was horrendous—not that I’m an expert in web design, but wow. Animated graphics, blinking neon text, and one of those annoying embedded MIDI files that starts playing blippy electronic music as soon as the site loads. (Sabrina’s song of choice was an elevator-music version of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police.) It was the kind of disaster someone with no taste and a copy
of one of those web design books for dummies might’ve come up with circa 2003.