Playlist for the Dead (13 page)

Worth taking a look, I figured, and booted it up. It made some noises that sounded vaguely familiar; I’d seen Hayden start up his computer before. And then, of course, came the log-in screen. Hayden’s user name came up right away—HaydenStevens, his Gmail user name, nothing fancy there—but I still needed to fill in the password. I had no idea what it was.

I typed in a few things, halfheartedly—Radiohead, the name of his pet gerbil from when he was a kid, lyrics from songs I knew he liked. Then it came to me: it had to be ArchmageGed. I typed it in, sure I’d nailed it.

Nothing.

Apparently it was only in the movies that you could just go in and figure out someone’s password. Especially if you’re a regular person like me and not some computer genius. I guessed Hayden would still be able to keep his secrets from me. Just like before.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I SPENT THE REST OF THE WEEKEND
alternating between trying to figure out Hayden’s password and setting up his games on the downstairs TV, both of which conveniently kept my mind off the possibility that I’d somehow turned into a rogue revenge warrior without remembering it. I kept the computer on next to me as I played; every time I thought of something new I’d type it in, holding my breath in anticipation, but I wasn’t having any luck. The games were a welcome distraction. Mom wasn’t super thrilled about it, but I guess she figured it was better than Mage Warfare, since at least I was out of my room. Rachel was annoyed I’d taken over the TV until I told her I’d teach her how to play Halo.

“It’s a first-person shooter game,” I told her. “Not usually my favorite, but everyone seems to love it.”

“It seems pretty dorky to me,” she said, but I could tell she was interested.

“Here, hold the controller like this. The left stick moves your avatar, and you can use the right one to look around.” I showed her how to do it and then set up a game where she and I could play against other people.

“How do I shoot stuff?” she asked.

I showed her the different weapons and we were good to go. It was fun to watch her get so into it; she liked the shoot-’em-up stuff better than I did. Except I couldn’t get her to stay on mission.

“You get that we’re playing as a team, right?”

Her avatar threw another grenade at mine, a quick-detonating one. In real life I’d have lost a leg, but maybe I’d still be alive. “Every man for himself, little brother,” she said.

“You’re not exactly a man,” I said.

“Neither are you,” she snapped back, and her avatar aimed his gun at me.

Time to bring this into the real world. I picked up one of the couch pillows and threw it at her controller. Or tried to, at least; I ended up hitting her in the elbow. It did the job, though, and her avatar missed his shot.

“Look, you actually did something useful,” I pointed out. “Even if it was by accident.” Her stray bullet had hit one of the enemy aliens.

But I’d started a war. I’d barely gotten the word “accident” out of my mouth before Rachel started pelting me with couch pillows. How had she grabbed them so fast? We started whaling on each other like we had when we were little, before Dad left, before Hayden, even. I took so many blows to the head my ears were ringing, though I’m pretty sure I got in a few good shots myself.

I don’t know how long we were fighting before we collapsed on the floor, out of breath and starving. After raiding the kitchen for Mom’s hidden stash of junk food, we settled back in to play another round. Cooperatively, this time, like we were supposed to in the first place.

We played for so long she ended up blowing off a date with Jimmy, which I would have felt bad about if we weren’t actually having a good time. We’d trashed the living room, but it was totally worth it. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done something fun together.

I knew video games weren’t going to solve my problems, though. They wouldn’t help me make new friends, they wouldn’t make Astrid decide she wanted to ditch Eric and hang out with me, and they wouldn’t answer the question of who’d beat up Jason and Trevor, a question that in some ways I was afraid to learn the answer to. But they kept my mind off of everything, and right now, that was all I could possibly want. Sitting in front of the TV had the added benefit of keeping me away from my computer; I was afraid the Archmage would come back, and I wasn’t quite ready to hear what he had to say.

But Monday had to come eventually, and with it came a note in homeroom telling me to go see Mr. Beaumont as soon as I had a free period. This couldn’t be good. I spent the morning ignoring my teachers in class and the stares of people in the hall who must have heard about Trevor and the rumors that I’d been involved. I could tell my teachers weren’t sure if enough time had passed to start calling me out for not paying attention, but they all opted against it, for which I was only somewhat grateful. Getting yelled at would have taken me out of my own head, where I contemplated the odds of my having gotten so blackout drunk that I could have no memory of taking a baseball bat to Trevor. I didn’t want to think about why Mr. Beaumont wanted to see me; I wasn’t ready to deal with him yet.

I was still stewing over the likely scenarios at lunch, while I waited in line for a slice of pizza that looked as if it had been microwaved twice, listening to the playlist on my iPod on random. My appetite wasn’t improved by the sight of Astrid sitting at my lunch table, waiting for me; the sight of her made my stomach drop, though in a good way. I took out my earbuds as soon as I saw her. She looked as pretty as ever; the streaks in her hair were different shades of green today, making her look almost like a sea creature and bringing out the green in her eyes. Her fingers drummed on the tray in front of her, and she jumped up as soon as I put my tray down.

“I know you don’t really want that pizza, am I right?” she asked.

I looked down at it. The cheese was an abnormal yellow, as if someone had drawn it with a Magic Marker. “Not really,” I admitted. “But it was the lesser of several evils.”

“You haven’t considered everything,” she said. “Come on, you look like you need to get out of here.”

She was right, but I’d never skipped school before. Kids in the college-prep classes I was taking never skipped school. And for all my online bravado I’d never done anything anyone would really consider bad, or at least I didn’t think I had. But things were different now. Missing a few classes wouldn’t kill me. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’ve got a plan. We just need to very, very casually wander out back.” She pointed to the doors that led straight out to the soccer field. There was usually a teacher stationed in front of them, but I didn’t see one now. “Mr. Cartwright’s out and they didn’t get a sub. He’s the lunch monitor today. There’ll never be an easier time for us to ditch. Let’s go!”

“As long as you’ve got a plan,” I said, but really, I didn’t care. I’d have followed her anywhere, plan or not. I stayed right behind her as she walked—no,
strolled
—right out the back doors of the cafeteria, like it was no thing, even though she was carrying the enormous overstuffed bronze backpack she’d had at the party.

Astrid started laughing as soon as we made it outside. “You were perfect!” she said. “Didn’t look back once. I was worried you’d go all Orpheus on me and turn around.”

“Orpheus?”

“It’s a Greek myth, where this guy’s wife ended up in Hell and he could only have her back if he didn’t look behind him as they left the underworld.”

“I never read that one. But it sounds like the story of Lot’s wife.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s from the Bible,” I said. “I learned about it in Hebrew school. God let Lot and his family leave Sodom and Gomorrah before he destroyed them, as long as they didn’t look back. But his wife turned around and got turned into a pillar of salt. Sounds almost like the same thing.”

“It’s funny how much overlap there is between all the different kinds of myths and religions,” she said. “I love all of it. I was obsessed with
Clash of the Titans
as a kid. I watched it whenever it came on cable. It really got me into Greek mythology.”

“I love that movie!” I said. “The original, not the remake. I tried to get Hayden to watch it—I thought since we were both so into fantasy that he’d love it too. But he thought the Claymation was cheesy.”

“It was,” she said. “That’s what made it so great!”

“I know,” I said, though I felt guilty, almost as if I was choosing Astrid over Hayden. Though I reminded myself that I didn’t really have a choice, not anymore.

The sky was bright blue and full of puffy clouds, not the kind that made me worry about rain but the pretty ones, the ones that seemed like they really could be made out of cotton. The brightness of the sun made it easy to see the path we were following, but occasionally there were low branches and weeds blocking us; Astrid would kick them out of the way so they didn’t trip me up. She seemed to know where she was going, which was great, because I was completely lost. And I was starting to get hungry—I almost wished I’d eaten that radioactive-looking pizza. “Are we almost there?”

“Almost.”

After we’d walked through the woods for about five more minutes I could see a field in front of us. It was a vast open space, with nothing but fields of corn and soybean as far ahead as I could see. In the middle of the field was a strange building that looked kind of like a barn. But not any barn I’d seen before—it wasn’t round, exactly, but it wasn’t square, either. Its wood was gray and faded; it didn’t look like it had ever been painted before. “Is that it?” I asked.

She nodded.

“What is it?”

“An octagonal barn,” she said. “It’s one of the few left in Iowa. It’s really old, and very cool.”

Okay, that explained the shape. “What’s so cool about it?”

“I’ll show you.” She grabbed my hand; her grip was firm, though her fingers felt almost delicate intertwined with mine. I hoped my palms weren’t all gross and damp. We started running together, across the field toward the barn. I could barely keep up with her, giant backpack and all; I was excited that we were holding hands, so it took me a minute to realize that if I didn’t speed up I was going to wipe out, and that would be totally embarrassing. I wondered what Eric would think if he saw us and then put the idea out of my head.

We stopped running just before the barn. It was warm for October; I was a little sweaty, and the air smelled faintly of cinnamon, a smell I normally associated with spring—I think Mom had said it was from some native plant. The doors to the barn were enormous slabs of wood, with X-shaped planks across them. A latch held them together but Astrid just walked up and opened it; it wasn’t even locked. She slid the doors apart and I could see the sunlight shining on the knotted wood floor. The barn was basically one big room that smelled like sawdust, with a rickety-looking staircase leading to a loft perched just under a very high ceiling. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Astrid asked, then led me upstairs.

Normally I wasn’t, but the stairs were really narrow and creaked as we climbed them, and the floor of the loft didn’t feel all that sturdy. I tried not to think of the prospect of it caving in and pitching us both to the ground, which I normally would, but somehow today I knew it wouldn’t happen. There was something about what was happening that felt so perfect that I felt almost certain that nothing could screw it up.

Astrid dropped her backpack and opened it up. I’d assumed it was full of books, since it looked so heavy, but she pulled out a patchwork quilt and laid it on the ground, then motioned for me to sit. “This is more comfortable than just the floor,” she said.

“No kidding.” I was impressed that she’d come prepared. She’d really put a lot of thought into this. “Does no one ever use this place?”

“I think sometimes people rent it out for parties, but no one uses it as a barn anymore,” she said. “It’s kind of sad. When I was a kid, there were people my dad knew living in the farmhouse down the road, and we’d go over there and play with the animals. Me and my dad would come up here and look out the window at all the fields. Now I come here when I need to be alone, which has been a lot lately.” She pointed, and I could see how sitting up here and gazing out at that expanse could be soothing, if you were sitting here with someone you liked, which I was. “We even carved our names into the wall—see? Still here.”

She pointed.
Alison and Richard were here
.

“Alison?” I asked.

She nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I brought you here. I wanted to explain.”

I was glad I hadn’t had to ask.

“Alison’s my real name,” she said. “Or it used to be. My dad died last fall, at the beginning of sophomore year.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, though it felt inadequate. I thought about the Elvis Costello song on the playlist. I hadn’t given much thought to what it might have been doing there; now I wondered whether it meant that Hayden had known all along.

“Thanks,” she said. “I know you of all people know that there’s not much else you can really say. But I wasn’t telling you so you’d feel sorry for me. I just wanted you to understand—he died really suddenly, in a car accident, and everything changed. I felt the loneliest I ever felt, and even though I had all these friends, and a boyfriend I’d been crazy about, it didn’t matter—it was like they were all strangers to me. I knew I’d never be the same person again, and it seemed really important to me that everyone else understood that, too. So I started calling myself Astrid, and I changed my hair and started dressing how I’d always really wanted to dress and acting how I’d really wanted to act and hanging out with who I really wanted to hang out with, because I realized that everything I’d been doing up to that point was bullshit. My old friends kind of freaked out, especially when I quit cheerleading.”