Just then I realized that I was, in fact, incredibly cold. My wet clothes, partially dried by a frigid wind, weren’t helping either. I felt chilled to the bone.
I tried to smile, but it wobbled a bit. I braced myself for whatever bizarre thing might happen next and walked to the door.
Mr. Kirby let me in and I stood in the foyer, completely confused. I watched as the stranger, without a word to anyone, mounted the stairs.
I watched him until he was out of sight then turned my attention back to Mr. Kirby. He was watching me, almost expectantly. I don’t know what he anticipated, but when I said nothing, he clapped his hands together and announced, “Well, now that everyone’s home, I’m going to bed.” And with that, he turned toward the main-level master suite.
Flipping off lights as he went, Mr. Kirby turned back when he reached the bedroom door. He said, almost as an afterthought, “Leah’s upstairs, but make yourself at home. If you’re hungry, there’s leftovers in the fridge or, if you don’t want those, raid the pantry or the freezer. You’re welcome to whatever you want.” All things considered, he smiled in a rather benign way and closed the door behind him.
More confused than ever, I stood staring at Mr. Kirby’s closed bedroom door for several minutes before I moved to climb the stairs. At the top, the first door I passed was the guest room. It was closed, but a light shone from underneath. I considered knocking on it, but decided I’d pushed my luck far enough for the night. I’d have to get the basic information on the stranger from Leah.
At the end of the hall, there was more light, this coming from beneath Leah’s door. I knocked gently then pushed it open.
Leah was lying across her bed watching television. She was already in her pajamas, hair in a ponytail, all traces of the makeup she’d labored over earlier gone. She smiled at me, albeit tentatively, as I closed the door behind me.
“How was the rest of the party?”
I had no idea how to even answer that, so I decided to answer a question with a question, something that I personally hated; it frustrated me to no end.
I felt a frown pinch the skin between my eyebrows so I purposely tried to relax those muscles. “Where did you go?”
“I was ready to go almost as soon as we got there,” she said, her expression conveying what her words did not. She had not enjoyed herself and she did not consider that a good time. I felt very small in her sight, remembering very clearly how she’d found me when she arrived. For years I’d wanted to attend a party like that, be one of those people, travel in those kinds of crowds. I was utterly ashamed and wondered what she must think of me.
She continued, “We waited for a while for you to come back with Stephen, but then Derek got there. He said you knew him and that he’d make sure you and Stephen left before twelve so you could get back here on time.”
Derek!
A millisecond after hearing the name, pieces began to fall into place. I remembered the dinner conversation where Mr. Kirby had mentioned that Derek, the “family felon” was coming. I also remembered that Leah hadn’t been too pleased about it. Again, my curiosity rushed to the surface, but now was not the time to start digging into that so I let it go. For now.
“I didn’t realize that you two had ever met,” she said, suspicion clear in every line of her face.
“Well, I’ve only seen him a few times,” I replied, hoping the vague answer would satisfy her. And it was technically true. I left out the fact that, until I’d glimpsed him at the mall, I had only seen him in my dreams.
“Hmm” was her only response. Then, “So, how was the rest of the party?”
“It pretty much sucked,” I said candidly. “The fire pit sort of went wild and burned some grass and benches and then got on the curtains of a cabana,” I explained, sticking to the basics.
Leah’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Shut up!”
“I’m serious.”
“So what happened? Did anybody get hurt? Did the fire trucks come?”
“No, it started raining and put the whole thing out.”
If possible, her eyes got even bigger. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s true.”
“Man,” she exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you know! Leave it to me to bail right before all the excitement,” she said regretfully.
“Be glad you did. It wasn’t worth staying for.”
She digested that for a few seconds before moving on to her next question, one I knew was coming. With a mischievous grin she asked, “So how’d it go with Stephen?”
I toyed with the idea of stretching the truth here and there, but I knew she’d either hear all about it at school or Ryan would tell her. So I decided I was better off telling her my side of the story, the real story.
And so I did. She was at turns shocked and irate, but always sympathetic to my plight. We stayed up talking for a while after that then watched some Letterman.
I was watching stupid pet tricks, my eyes prickling with fatigue, when it cut to commercial. I let my lids drop for just a second and then…
I was outside again, in the middle of the night, all alone.
I was walking through a field in the dark. Up ahead I could see a large structure looming against the horizon, backlit by the pale globe of the moon. It was a house, tall and narrow and deeply shadowed.
I moved toward it. Dead grass, black and crispy, crunched beneath my feet as I made my way through the field. Images floated in the inky shadows, people with dark eyes and pale skin. They drifted by, one by one, as I walked. To my right one particular face caught my eye and I stopped. It was a girl. And she looked familiar to me, but where had I seen her?
Needing a closer look, I took several steps toward her until her features became clear. She motioned with one slim hand, beckoning me to come forward, further into the shadows. Against my better judgment, I stepped closer still. My gasp was like a whisper in the darkness and the girl in the shadows smiled. I could see her clearly now and, but for the onyx of her eyes and the red of her hair, she looked just like me.
Fear rippled through me. I closed my eyes against her macabre face.
This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, I repeated in my head. When I opened my eyes again, she was gone, the shadows once again black and empty.
I resumed my walk toward the house. Gradually, the crunch of dead vegetation beneath my feet became a soggy squish. I looked down and saw that I was in water. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it, but there was a small pond right in the middle of the field.