The Haunted (20 page)

“Hi,” I said, staring at him.

“Hi.”

“You’re going to need to get some more candles if you keep burning them like this.”

He put his book down to one side. “I don’t light them all the time. I just didn’t want you to be afraid of the dark.”

I sat on the marble slab next to him. There was less than an inch of space between us, but it felt like a mile. “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

Caspian wiggled his eyebrows at me. “You should be.”

No, what I should be afraid of is the fact that I’m falling in love with someone who’s dead.
“You should get out more,” I said instead. “Take a walk downtown. We could go together. Since no one can see you, then it would look like it’s just me walking around. I promise not to talk to you in public or anything.”

“Okay,” he said. “Now, close your eyes.”

I did as he asked, and saw shadows playing behind my eyelids. “What are you going to do to me… in your crypt… in the
dark
?” I teased.

“Stick around until November first and you just might find out,” he whispered. His voice was close, and instinctively I turned my head to follow it.

“Wait,” he said softly. “Mmmm, just hold still.”

I shivered at the tone of his voice. It was raw and edgy and unbelievably sexy. “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“You smell good. Like cookies. Just… let me…” His tone turned rueful. “Sorry. This is probably weird for you. But it’s like the colors. At certain times it’s like my senses are heightened. And I just… noticed.”

“It’s a perfume I made that reminded me of you,” I said. “I made it accidentally, but it’s a snickerdoodle scent. Like the ones I gave you.”

“I still have those,” he admitted.

I opened my eyes. “You still have them? Didn’t you eat them?”

“No. I mean, I ate the one in front of you, but I saved the rest.”

“Why did you do that?” I asked. “Acted like you ate them?”

He ducked his head and looked at the ground. “I didn’t want you to be upset if I refused them. And I was still acting… normal.”

“So you
pretended
to eat my cookies? What did you do, spit it out later?”

“I didn’t pretend to eat the cookie,” he said. “I really
did
eat it. But just the one. Eating is uncomfortable for me. Everything tastes like ashes.”

Something in the back of my brain snapped to full alert when he said those words, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

“So, you knew it would taste bad… but you ate it anyway?”

He nodded.

“And then you kept the rest of them?”

He looked up, straight into my eyes. “It was a gift from you. The first thing you ever gave me. Why wouldn’t I keep it?”

My heart did a little pitter-patter and lurched. I had to bite my lip to keep sudden tears at bay. His gesture was beyond words. “I’m glad you kept them,” I said. “And that you ate one in front of me. That was really sweet.” I could almost feel his exhale of relieved breath, and I glanced at him with curiosity. “Why did you invite me to go out for pizza, then? What were you going to do if I said yes?”

“Convince you to get it to go?” He shrugged. “Then tell you I wasn’t very hungry? I don’t know… I just wanted to do something normal with you.”

I understood that feeling. I leaned forward until we were face to face, almost nose to nose. “Next time we
will
do something normal. And you won’t have to pretend to eat, okay?”

“Okay. Now, close your eyes again.”

I closed them.

“Hand.”

I held out my hand and was rewarded with something dropped into it. “I hope you don’t mind another one,” Caspian said. “It’s sort of what I do.”

I looked down. Another necklace was resting in my palm. I held it up and saw a perfect four-leaf clover pressed between two small squares of glass. The edges were soldered shut with silver metal, and a black ribbon had been attached to a tiny O-ring.

“I know you already have two,” he said in a rush of words, “but I—”

“Caspian,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” The clover was
amazing
, each leaf gently rounded and vibrantly green. “But how did you find a four-leaf clover? And where do you get the supplies for the necklaces from?”

He glanced back at the boxes that held his stuff. “I have my soldering iron and supplies from before, when I helped my dad in his garage. The glass pieces are slides I, uh, borrowed from the school science lab. I found the four-leaf clover in the cemetery. I’m kind of good at finding them.”

After tying the necklace around my neck, I lifted it up and held on to it. “That’s funny. I found a four-leaf clover on Kristen’s stone the last time I was there.”

“I know,” he said. “I put it there. I was kind of watching over her when you were gone and thought she might like it.”

I dropped the necklace and stared at him. “You left that there? Because you were watching over her?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

Everything was making sense now. All the puzzle pieces were fitting together. The reason why he kept making these gorgeous necklaces for me… “Since you can’t touch me, you made something that could, didn’t you?” I said.

“Yes.”

My world slowed and I closed my eyes. “I am going to give you my heart now,” I whispered. “Please don’t break it again.”

M
AKING
P
ROMISES

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time.

—“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

I woke up on Thursday morning from dreams of white dresses and picket fences—the same dream I’d had about Caspian during school last year—and stretched lazily in bed, grinning at the ceiling. Life was grand.

But a ringing doorbell broke through my happy thoughts and echoed throughout the house. I counted the chimes going off six times before I finally rolled out of bed, calling for Mom to answer it.

There was no response, and as I stumbled down the stairs, I realized that the house must be empty. “I’m coming, I’m coming,”
I grumbled, hurrying toward the incessant ringing. “Give it a rest.”

I threw open the door and was shocked to find Ben standing there.

“Crap,” I muttered. “I completely forgot about our class today, Ben.”

He looked at me with hesitancy. “Does that mean you want me to leave?”

“No, no. Come drop your stuff off on the table.” Suddenly aware of the fact that I was still wearing the ratty T-shirt and gym shorts I’d thrown on last night, I glanced down at my bare feet. “I’m going to get changed. Be back down in ten.”

He followed me in and disappeared into the kitchen. I ran upstairs and quickly put on some capris and a tank top, then brushed my teeth. My hair was a wild mess, but I didn’t feel like fighting with my curls, so I just spritzed them with some water and threw one last hopeless look over my shoulder.

Tangled hair it was, then.

When I made it back downstairs, Ben had several papers spread out on the table in front of him and was making this weird humming noise in the back of his throat. “Stop that,” I ordered, coming to take a seat beside him.

He looked up at me. “Stop what?”

“That humming thing. It’s annoying.”

“Oh, sorry. I do that sometimes when I’m reading. Ready to get started?”

I rested my chin on my fists. “I guess. What’s on the schedule for today?”

“Reports. It’ll help with the memorization process. I’ve brought several books for you to use as reference material. So… go.”

“‘Go?’ What is this, a race or something?”

Ben tapped his fingers on the table. “You can either keep stalling, or get cracking.”

I groaned. “Can you help me with them? At least one of them?”

He shook his head. “This is where my tutorship ends. Do you have any more Funyuns? I’m going to need a snack to keep myself awake just sitting here.”

I got up and dragged myself over to the Ben Cabinet. It was in bad need of replenishment, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt. I moved a couple of bags of chips around, but I didn’t see any Funyuns. “Nope. Your choices are Doritos, cheese puffs, or pretzels.”

His tone was mournful. “I guess I’ll take Doritos.”

“Next time I’ll have some Funyuns,” I promised, grabbing the bag of Doritos. He had no problem digging into them, and I sat back down to get started on my report.

“If your crunching gets too loud, I’m banishing you to the living room,” I warned.

“Okay,” he said, through a mouthful of chips.

I picked up the nearest science book and cracked it open, groaning internally at the mountain of homework lying in front of me. Why couldn’t this be over already?

Ben just gave me a goofy smile and continued crunching.

Two hours later I snapped my book shut and gave in. “This is torture,” I said. Ben had a science book in his hands, and it looked like he was reading it.
For fun.

“Enjoying that?” I asked.

He looked up and wiggled in his seat like a crazed monkey. “There’s a fascinating section here on storm-cloud formations.”

“Are you kidding me? You actually
are
enjoying that?”

Ben nodded.

“Kristen used to be like that too,” I said. “But her subject was math. I always told her that there had to be something wrong with her brain to get so much pleasure out of reading a math book for fun.”

“She was going to get her degree in accounting, right? Become a CPA?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But how did you know that?”

“We shared a study hall once, and I saw her looking at college brochures. She wanted to go to DeVry or Northern Illinois. I told her to go to Cornell. Great science program there.”

I sat back and studied him. “I didn’t know that. Kristen never told me.”

“It was because of her brother. She said he was a whiz at numbers and wanted to study at Brown.”

I frowned at him.
He knows an awful lot about Kristen.
“Yeah. She—”

The phone rang and I reached for it, glad for the distraction. “Hello?”

“Abbey, I need you to check on something for me.”

I turned my back to Ben, but I could still feel the frown on my face. “Yeah, Mom. What is it?” Glancing out the window into the yard, I almost fell off my seat.

Caspian was standing next to the house.

Mom was prattling on about something, so I covered the receiver and turned back to Ben. “I’ll be… right back.” Without waiting for his response, I flew out the back door and gestured
for Caspian to follow me into the covering of trees we’d met under before.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed at him, the phone cradled next to my shoulder so that I could still sort of hear Mom but she couldn’t hear me.

Caspian looked at the house and then stepped closer to me. “I thought I’d come see you for a change. Did he do something to you?”

“What?
No
. Why?”

“You were frowning.”

Mom’s voice grew silent, and some part of me was vaguely aware that she was waiting for an answer from me. “Um, Mom,” I said. “Can you repeat that again?”

She said something about eggs and salad and waiting for me to go check, and I put the phone back against my shoulder.

“Ben’s fine,” I said to Caspian. “He just mentioned something about Kristen that surprised me, that’s all.”

Caspian’s face turned thunderous, and he took a step toward the house.

“No, no,” I told him. “Really, it’s okay.”
Ahhh, protective boyfriends
. The tiny part of me that wasn’t furiously trying to multitask was very much enjoying this.

“—and I can just check then.” Mom’s voice caught my attention again.

I held up one finger to Caspian and turned back to the phone. “What was that, Mom? Sorry, Ben and I are studying, and it’s hard to concentrate on two things at once.”
Make that three things.

“I said never mind about the egg salad,” Mom repeated. “I’m on my way home right now. Oh, and don’t forget to pack an overnight bag. We’re leaving tomorrow to spend an extra day at Aunt Cindy’s before the picnic. Bye.”

She hung up, and I stared down at the phone. Overnight bag? Extra day? When had that little detail been agreed upon?

But I knew by Mom’s tone that her mind was made up. If Dad wouldn’t let me skip the family picnic, there was no
way
he would let me bail on an overnight trip. I was doomed.

Sighing heavily, I put one hand to my head and rubbed my temple.

“Are you okay?” Caspian asked.

“Headache. Thanks to my mother.”

He looked sympathetic. “Why don’t you come take a walk with me? We can go downtown. What do you say?”

What did I say? I wasn’t going to get the chance to see him
again until after we got back from the picnic. Of
course
I wanted to spend the afternoon with him.

I hit the redial button, and it went to voice mail. “Hey, Mom, Ben and I are going to finish studying at his house. I’ll see you in a couple hours, and I’ll leave enough time to get my bag packed.”

“Okay,” I said, turning to Caspian. “I’m in. Let me just go talk to Ben and get him to cover. You can… follow me, I guess.”