Write Before Your Eyes (10 page)

“Jet’s cool.” But then the Fridge suddenly turned and reached with his meaty hands to rummage through the pile of CDs. Dylan and Gracie scrambled to scrunch their feet up onto the seat, Jen braked to avoid backing into a passing SUV, and the Fridge’s forehead smashed into the side of the driver’s seat. “Hey! Who are you, Dale Earnhardt Junior?” The Fridge buckled his seat belt without choosing a CD.

“Sorry.” Jen tossed her hair and turned to the Fridge with a giant smile. “So, where you wanna go?” Gracie could see Jen’s heart beating in that triangle at the base of her throat.

“Hang out at Matt’s, I guess.” The Fridge shrugged.

“The Fridge is a fabulous conversationalist,” Dylan whispered.

Jen gave the Fridge a suggestive smile. “Just one quick stop first,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Hey, keep your eyes on the road.”

“If the Fridge tries anything on Jen, I’m going to beat him to a bloody pulp,” Gracie said. But now she watched Jen put her hand on the Fridge’s enormous thigh in between shifting from third to fourth gear.

“What are you going to do,” Dylan asked, his eyes apparently also following Jen’s hand, “if Jen tries something on the Fridge?”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Jen screeched to a stop at the end of a dirt road close to the school. Fog floated through rows of dead cornstalks in the adjacent field. Above them loomed the silhouette of a half-dead and deformed oak tree, its naked branches spreading like inky capillaries through the darkening sky.

Jen cut the engine, silencing Jet’s anguish, and faced the Fridge. “Just for you, I got a new strawberry-flavored, glow-in-the-dark lip gloss. Want to try it out?”

Gracie gasped.
Is Jen out of her mind?
A squeak slipped out, and the Fridge’s head snapped around. “What was that?” His big, square face had gone slack with fear. Gracie held her breath and squeezed Dylan’s hand.

The Fridge scanned the backseat for a long moment, studying the pile of CDs and the jacket wadded in the corner on the other side of the invisible Dylan. Gracie knew she should be freaking out that he’d heard her. But all she could think about was Dylan seeing Jen’s puckered lips.

The Fridge turned back to Jen. “Did you hear that? What’d you come
here
for? You know about this tree, right?”

“No, what about it?” Jen pulled the cap from the lip gloss. She slid it over her lips, puckered, and smacked. Gracie gulped and covered her eyes.

“Stop!” The Fridge put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. “I heard something. This tree’s supposed to be haunted.”

“It is? I never heard that.”

“Yeah. A guy was hanged here a hundred years ago or something. Somebody told me his ghost is, like, still around, searching for revenge.”

Gracie craned her neck to look at the stark ebony branches arching above them. A cold tickle of fear snaked up her backbone. Was Dylan thinking the same thing she was?

“Come on, Sean!” Jen giggled, running her hands up his thighs. “It’s probably just an urban legend. Or, since this is Chesterville, it’s like, a
sub
urban legend. You can’t tell me you’re really scared.”

“But they did hang people around here,” the Fridge insisted.

A deep, hollow-sounding whisper came from the other side of the backseat.
“I’ve come to get my retribution.”

Wow, Dylan was good at disguising his voice. It must have been all those drama classes he’d taken as a kid. He was even sort of scaring Gracie.

The Fridge and Jen both froze. Gracie wondered if they knew the word
retribution.
Maybe Dylan should have said plain old
revenge.
Dylan’s fingers gripped Gracie’s.

“I’ve come to get my retribution.”
The voice sounded more sinister now.

The Fridge must have been good at guessing meaning from context, or else Gracie had grossly underestimated his working vocabulary, because he yelped, threw open the door, and roared with rage as he bumped his head leaping out of the car. A second later his heavy footsteps pounded down the road.

“Sean, wait!” Jen fumbled for the keys.

“Leave the car,”
said the deep, hollow voice.

Jen gave a little half-scream, half-gasp, but kept trying to start the car, only her hands were shaking too much to get the keys in the ignition.

Dylan grabbed Gracie’s hand. “Run!” he whispered.

Gracie’s heart flipped and fear jolted through her body. If that voice wasn’t Dylan’s, whose was it?

The jacket beside Dylan moved. The jacket itself slid to the floor and something furry emerged from underneath.

It wasn’t just a jacket. The Cheshire cat! Blood thundered through Gracie’s head like a runaway train. She grabbed the door handle, causing it to click loudly.

“Omigod, someone’s in the car!” Jen wrenched the front door open, dropped the keys on the ground, leaped out, and tore down the road after the Fridge.

Gracie’s door finally flew open and she fell out of the car onto the road. As she scrambled to her feet, she was vaguely aware of Jen’s glow-in-the-dark lips bobbing down the road as she ran away. She could no longer see any trace of the Fridge. She grabbed Dylan’s hand, and as they ran after Jen, she realized that he was no longer
quite
invisible: He looked like a hologram, faint but becoming more solid by the second. When she looked down at her own hand clasped in his, she sensed Dylan looking at her, and knew she was visible again too. They both quickly let go of the other’s hand.

Wait. Please, I’m trying to help you.
The Cheshire cat’s voice was pleading, and Gracie glanced back and saw him trotting down the road after them, his pace picking up, his eyes aglow. Gracie felt like cold water was running through her intestines and she thought for a moment she would wet her pants or throw up or both. She stopped and leaned on her knees, panting.

“Gracie!” Dylan grabbed her hand, trying to drag her down the road.

“Stop, we can’t get away from him.” Gracie turned and faced the cat. “What do you want?” she said, her chest still aching with every ragged breath, knowing very well what it was he wanted. She’d meant her voice to sound strong and confident, but it quivered like a scared little kid’s.

The cat, graceful in spite of its rotund size, slowed to a walk. Its tail twitched as rhythmically as the pendulum of a grandfather clock. The gleaming almond eyes floated toward them. The smile, Gracie now saw, was not cruel, but also not kind. It seemed…unpredictable. Inevitable. Like fate.

What are you afraid of?

The cat lay down, its paws facing straight ahead like the Sphinx’s, a few yards from Gracie.

“Who are you?” Gracie formed her hands into fists to stop the shaking.

“Gracie! Who are you talking to?” Dylan’s voice was fading as he backed away.

“Dylan, wait, we have to deal with him.”

“What, are you nuts?” His voice cracked with disbelief.

Did you know that was my voice that scared the others?

“That’s true,” said Gracie. “Thank you.” It came out all shaky, like “thank
you-ooo.
”

Would you mind giving me the journal that was sold to you by mistake?

Gracie felt a flush race up her chest and neck. It couldn’t have been a mistake. Her name was Gracie, named after Grace Slick, and that’s why she’d bought the journal in the first place. Everything had been meant to be. She met the cat’s glowing eyes and stood her ground. “I don’t understand. Who is it meant for?”

Who do you think?

“I don’t know. And why should I give it to you?” Gracie couldn’t believe these words had come out of her mouth. Only this afternoon she’d tried to throw the thing off the bus. But now she couldn’t let the cat have it. There was so much stuff she still needed to fix! Global warming. World peace. All the starving children. But mostly Dad’s job. She had to bring Dad back home.

Are you afraid to tell me you don’t have it?
The cat’s eyes were mesmerizing, pulsing with an otherworldly light.

“But I know where it is,” she shot back, clasping her fingers together to hide their shaking. “Only Dylan and I know where it is.” She turned and called to Dylan. “Right, Dylan?”

“I can’t say I know precisely where it is,” Dylan’s voice came faintly from behind a cornstalk a little way down the road. “That would be overstatement, actually.”

The cat’s tail suddenly lashed back and forth, though the cat continued to smile.
Do you truly believe you have the wisdom and the judgment to be the journal’s keeper?

Gracie felt her confidence and drive trickling away like a stream of cold water. She knew what the cat was saying was true. She remembered Miss Alice saying, “Not that one! She mustn’t take that one!” In spite of Ms. Campanella’s encouragement and all of Gracie’s hopes for magic, the cat was right. Her whole body felt heavy, leaden, as if she were on Jupiter, pinned to the ground by gravity three times as strong as Earth’s. She felt very, very small.

“We can take you to where it is,” she said in a small, tired voice. “Dylan?”

“What?”

“Come on, let’s take him.”

“Take who?”

“The cat, beanbrain!”

“Oh. Listen, you all go on ahead. I’ll catch you a little later.” Dylan’s voice, rapid and high, sounded like one of the Chipmunks’.

“Dylan!”

“Tell you what. I have the map right here in my pocket.” Dylan suggested. “Why don’t we just let him take it from here?”

Gracie was exasperated. “I need you to help me!”

Dylan’s eyes were pretty bugged out, but after a moment he followed Gracie back toward the Mustang, which was crouched below the dark twisted tree, both sets of doors open like dragonfly wings.

Thank you.

The cat preceded them on the road, padding silently, its tail still lashing.

Dylan walked close beside her, touching her elbow. “Where is he?”

“There. Ahead of us,” Gracie said.

“What does he look like?

“About the size of a tomcat. Big head, fat tail. Square teeth.” Gracie bent and picked up the car keys and Jen’s lip gloss from the ground. When she straightened up, she felt a little faint. “Somebody has to drive the car to where Jen is,” she said, holding out the keys to Dylan. “Then we’ll see if we can get her to drive us from there.”

“Me?” Dylan gulped audibly.

Gracie didn’t answer, just shut the door behind the cat, which was casually licking its front paws on the backseat, and got in front with Dylan. She suddenly felt very, very tired.

Dylan had trouble starting the car, and then it died before he could get it out of first gear. “I have no idea how to drive a stick,” he said. “You understand, I can barely drive an automatic. And I keep getting the willies thinking about that invisible cat in the backseat.”

“Dylan, don’t let me down.”

“All right, here goes.” Dylan backed into a stand of cornstalks, and the car died again. Then, in several bucking moves, he finally got them turned around. As they lurched down the dirt road, Gracie thought of something. Maybe she could ask the cat if she could just fix one thing before returning the journal. She had to get Dad back home.

“Mr. Cat?” she asked, working hard to control her voice. “I’ll give you the journal back, but I was wondering, could I make one entry before I do? There’s something really important that I’ve messed up, and I need to fix it.”

The cat looked up from licking its paws, and blinked once, thoughtfully.
Just one thing? And you’re sure you can fix this problem with one entry?

Gracie hesitated. She wasn’t sure at all. “Well, maybe two.” She could try something about global warming. Oh, but what about the starving kids? “Or three. Three will do it.”

That’s getting out of hand.

“Please?”

I’m afraid not.

Gracie’s mind had begun to whirl through possible scenarios. Maybe there was some way she and Dylan could get the journal back without giving it to the cat. But she couldn’t let the cat know she was considering that. “Well, I guess I understand. Who made the journal, anyway? And how does it work?”

What do you think?

Before Gracie could contemplate the matter further, they saw Jen walking beside the dirt road, her arms crossed over her chest, her glow-in-the-dark lower lip poking out in a pout. Dylan slowed the car, and it immediately shuddered and died.

“Jen!” Gracie yelled.

Jen stopped, stumbled back. “Hey! How did y’all get my car?”

“We were walking around after the game and saw it under a big tree,” Gracie lied.

“Did you guys see anybody around that tree? Anybody weird…or anything?”

“No,” Gracie and Dylan said together.

Jen hesitated. “Well, give me back my car! Move over!”

“One condition,” Gracie said. “You have to drop us off somewhere.”

Jen bent to look through the car window at Gracie. “What do you mean? Give me my freaking car.” Obviously, Jen could not see the cat either.

Dylan pressed on the accelerator. Thankfully, the car did not die again and he started to drive off.

“Wait! Okay, okay.”

“You have to agree, or we’ll leave you,” Dylan said.

“This is crazy,” said Jen. “But fine. I’ll drop you off.”

“And you have to wait for us.”

“No way, I’m not sitting around—”

Dylan started driving away again, so jerkily that Gracie thought her teeth might fall out.

“Fine! I’ll wait.”

Dylan jumped out of the driver’s seat and Gracie told him to navigate, which she knew he’d prefer to sitting next to the cat, and she got in the back.

“I thought you had a date with the Fridge,” Gracie said, as Jen slammed the car door.

“I did.” Jen accidentally hit the horn as she used her shirttail to wipe the lip gloss from her lips. “Let me know if you see him walking around here. I sorta lost him.”

“How do you lose a date as big as the Fridge?” Dylan asked innocently.

“Shut up! I don’t want to talk about it.” And Jen turned on “Nice to Know You” by Incubus full blast.

“I’m prone to car sickness,” Dylan said. “I must insist you drive within the speed limit.”

Jen responded by jamming the Mustang into fourth and peeling off down the road, leaving gray dust swirling through the cornstalks in the moonlight.

“Or not,” Dylan added weakly, grabbing the armrest.

Gracie’s head throbbed on the left side as if someone had poked it with a knitting needle, and her knees kept jumping involuntarily, the way they did when the doctor checked her reflexes. She tried not to look at the cat, but when she felt something warm and soft tickling her arm, she barely let her eyes slide over and almost screamed. The tip of the cat’s tail brushed her arm rhythmically, like her mom’s fingers when she used to tuck Gracie in. Gracie took a shaky breath and slid a few inches away on the seat.

There was no sign of the Fridge. He seemed to have vanished. Ten minutes later they jerked to a stop in an old residential neighborhood where all the houses were one story, built of white clapboard with green shutters. Dylan folded up the map.

“This is it. Cut the lights,” he told Jen.

“Hey, bite me, Brainy Boy. I’m getting pretty tired of you telling me what to do,” Jen replied. But she turned them off.