Apparition (13 page)

“Amelia! Hi! What’s up? We’ve just been shopping. Who’s your friend?”

They’re both grinning very aggressively, all teeth, looking from me to Kip and back again, eyebrows raised high. I’m embarrassed at their unsubtle interest.

“Ah, Morgan, Brittany, meet Kip. Kip Dyson. He’s a … family friend. Staying in town for a while.”

“Hello, ladies.” Flashing his baby blues. Shaking hands. The girls are all gaga. They might as well be wearing sandwich boards, they’re so easy to read.

“Well, Amelia, make sure you bring Kip to my party next Saturday.” Brittany turns to Kip, adding, “If you’re still in town.”

That winning smile. I fear she may be Kip’s type. The cheerleader type. I’m moving away from them, nodding, waving goodbye, saying, “We’ll see.” Kip takes a few extra steps to catch up with me.

“What? I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me about Brittany’s party.”

I give him a smirk. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. So congratulations, you’re now on the grade eleven girls’ hit list. Be very afraid.”

At the corner of the street that leads to the hospital, I turn and hold out an unsure hand for a shake. He takes it and begins to raise it to his mouth for a kiss, but I pull it away. It’s a reflex.

“Forget it,” I say, and turn away from him, heading up the street alone. Only I can’t resist one last look. He’s still watching me, and now he’s the one smirking.

“Okay, but we are
so
going to that party,” he calls.

J
oyce is downstairs making dinner on Thursday evening, and I’m upstairs, staring out my bedroom window. There was a dusting of snow on the field early this morning, but by noon it had melted away. Our first snow of the season. The two horses are huddled together at one end of the fenced paddock as if they’re whispering. I can see their breath in the air, like two friends complaining to each other.
You realize this means winter?

Jack phoned me two days ago, sounding weird. He said he’d had a dream that he woke up in the barn. He was lying on the ground in the dark and his back felt like it was on fire. He said I was leaning over him and he could see me crying, but the sound he heard was coming from someone else. Some guy who was wailing hard and then started shouting angrily. Jack said it sounded like someone was standing right behind him, yelling, “You’re dead! You’re dead!”

A chill went through me. “You dreamt this?”

“You tell me.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. He said he wanted the truth and he sounded desperate. Very upset. I felt a rush of remorse. I admitted that there was more to what had happened than I’d told him or Joyce or the police, and that I just didn’t think anyone would believe me. That’s when it really sank in, what a big lie I’d told about him. I said I was so sorry. I promised I’d visit him the next day and tell him everything.

Yesterday I had a spare period before my lunch break, giving me an hour to slip away and head for the hospital. When I arrived, I checked out the old man in the bed next to Jack’s to make sure he was asleep. His eyes were closed and his mouth was wide open, as if whatever he was seeing in his dream was giving him a fright. He looked about a hundred years old. Like he could die at any minute. I took a seat in the chair beside Jack’s bed and pulled it close so I could keep my voice low.

I started with Jack and his friends arguing at around two a.m. after the party. I told him how I followed him when he snuck back to the barn. How he was so pissed off about that and told me to go home, saying he was meeting someone. He looked shocked to hear that, which I was afraid of. I was hoping that if he started remembering a bit of what had happened that night, he’d be able to answer some questions for me too.

“You seemed to be sneaking off to the barn to meet some girl,” I told him. “That’s the crucial detail. Because Matthew told me he was going to meet a girl the night
he
died. And Paul Telford—that’s Hank Telford’s son—killed himself in the same barn in
1980
, after going on to his friends about some girl he’d just met. How I know that is a long story and I’ll explain some other time, but you see what I’m getting at, right? I think what happened to you is the same thing that happened to them, and some mystery girl holds the key. Except in your case, you survived.”

I explained that after he told me to get lost, I turned around and followed him again. By the time I got into the barn, though, he was already on the crossbeam, way up in the rafters and crying. Going on about some girl.

What I was saying really hit him then, and he started freaking out. “Holy cow! Are you kidding me? That’s friggin’ insane, man. That is definitely
not
me. Jesus, Ethan was right.
He was right
.”

Turns out Ethan had told Jack that he’d been possessed by an evil spirit, just like the guy in the movie
The Shining
. “Everybody knows that,” Ethan said.

I told him that he couldn’t breathe a word of this to Joyce or I’d kill him, but that maybe there was something to that evil spirit stuff. Then I said that I had to tell him the most important thing. “Jack, you didn’t slip. At least, that’s not what it looked like from where I was standing. You just let yourself fall backwards.” I decided to leave it at that. He didn’t need to know about the rope.

There was this stunned silence. “What? You mean on purpose?”

I nodded, but he continued to look dazed. I felt so sorry for him that I told him I was going to let him in on a secret he couldn’t tell anyone. “
Anyone
—okay?”

He nodded, his head a little cocked to the side so that his nose looked straight.

“I’ve teamed up with this guy Morris Dyson. He’s an expert in ghost sightings. And his son. We’re going to dig into the history of that barn. We’re going to try to figure out if it’s haunted, and if so, who’s haunting it.” Jack just sat there, then turned to look at the sky through the window. “And I promise I will tell you anything I find out. But you have to keep this to yourself. Promise?”

“Okay. Promise,” he mumbled.

I’m on my computer when Joyce calls Ethan and me to supper.
See you later, Matthew
, I say to my desktop photo, and I turn it off. Joyce has made spaghetti with meat sauce. It tastes pretty good, but she’s given me too much and I can’t finish it. Ethan, on the other hand, eats like a hog, blabbering about video games and blinking hard the way he does when he gets any kind of attention at all.

“You seem a little more energetic these days,” she comments, looking at me suspiciously. Like I must be up to something. “You’re … uh, feeling a little better lately?” She’s looking down and playing with the pasta on her fork, waiting for my answer.

I guess it’s true, I have been feeling better. Less miserable, I mean. I think it’s because of this huge distraction I’ve had ever since I met Morris. And because of seeing Matthew again, of course.

“Yeah, I guess.” I mean, there’s not much more I can say.

Ethan says, “Yeah, you were in a really lousy mood, man. Like, for ages. Everybody said so.” He looks at me with six inches of pasta hanging from his mouth, and he winces.
Yeah, well, your facial tic isn’t getting any better
, I want to say. But I never would. He can’t help it.

Then Joyce tells us that the renovation work will begin this weekend. The first job is to build a wheelchair ramp up to the door at the kitchen. The plan is to have Jack on a home visit over Christmas, so she’s hoping to have the house accessible and his new bedroom on the main floor set up by then. She says we’ll have to take things a month at a time after that, and see how he does in physiotherapy. You can tell she’s taking this very hard. She’s been a little different ever since his accident. But I honestly believe Jack is going to get better. I probably believe it more than I believe anything else in the world right now. I have to.

“Oh, before I forget, I’ve got a thing after school tomorrow. A study thing with a friend,” I say, hoping that’s as much information as Joyce needs.

“A study thing?” she says. “What’s that about?”

“Oh, a history test next week. A few of us are going to get together to study. And watch TV,” I add. I realize I was pushing my luck with the study line. Obvious crap. TV is easier for her to swallow.

“I’m getting a ride home. Should be back by eight.”

Ethan and I are running out the door and down the driveway on Friday morning, backpacks full of books, homework and gym clothes. The bus will be by at any minute, and it doesn’t wait for stragglers. All I can think about is my meeting with Morris and Kip after school in the Tim Hortons parking lot. Morris made an appointment for us to see Hank Telford, who’s staying at his daughter’s house in the first town south of here, at four-thirty. Morris told them he’s researching some local history on farms in the county. They agreed to help, as a favour to an old family friend.

Sitting on the school bus as it barrels down the country roads, I can almost forget where I am. As usual, my mind drifts to Matthew. Ever since I talked to him in the barn that day, I feel less damaged, less mortally wounded, by his absence. I don’t know if that’s normal.
Matthew, I’m trying to work up the nerve to go into the barn again. This weekend. That’s my goal. Just promise me you’ll still be there
.

“Hey, what’s up?”

What?
Oh, it’s just Peter. He’s in my math class. He’s also Jeremy’s cousin, so he knows Jack. He drops down into the seat beside me like a cannonball. I’m so not used to being befriended. There was a time when I felt I had a better chance of being beheaded. But I guess it was my fault, mostly. I didn’t want anyone to get to know me too well.

“How’s Jack?” Peter asks. Everyone at school knows about Jack’s fall, but Peter knows more about what happened than most, because of Jeremy being in the barn with Jack earlier that evening. I wonder
if Jeremy thinks Jack was possessed too, thanks to Ethan’s blabbing. I can’t tell from Peter’s expression.

“He’s doing well. Really well, considering. I think he’ll be good as new eventually.”

“Great. That’s great.” There’s an awkward pause, then he says, “Strange, eh? The accident and all? I mean, Jeremy says the barn is haunted.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know about that. Sounds like something a little kid might say. Like my brother Ethan. But it’s a good idea for everyone to stay clear of the place. Not because it’s haunted or anything dumb like that. It’s just pretty dangerous in there. Lots of rotten wood and junk lying around. Someone else could get hurt.”

When you’ve got secrets, you have to learn how to lie. I don’t like doing it but there’s a lot at stake. It’s not only because the barn is so dangerous. I don’t want kids trashing it either. I have to protect Matthew.

All through my classes, I work at concentrating. I’ve decided that trying to keep my grades up is a good distraction. I’m both excited and nervous for the school day to end, though. I’ve spent a lot of years looking away from the weird things I’ve seen, and now, for the first time, I’m actually taking a closer look. It’s hard to get used to.

And I hate to admit it but I’m also kind of looking forward to seeing Kip again. It’s only because he’s different from the other guys around here. That’s all. I run into Brittany in the hallway on my way out of school and she immediately reminds me about the get-together at her place tomorrow evening. “You’re going to bring your ‘family friend,’ right?” It’s definitely Kip she wants to see, not me.

Soon I’m standing at the corner of the Tim Hortons, keeping an eye out for Morris’s car. I catch sight of it pulling into the parking
lot. Morris and Kip wave and I wave back, then I run through the parking lot to them. I open the back door and jump in, pulling my school bag in beside me.

Morris says, “Howdy,” like an old cowpoke, with a quick glance at me in the rear-view mirror. Then his eyes are back on the road.

Kip turns around to face me from the front passenger seat. “Hey,” he says with a big smile. “And how are you?”

“Good, thanks. And you?”

“Great. I’m great.” He faces forward again. “We’re on an adventure!”

I guess he’s not getting out much.

Morris drives south out of town, past city hall, past the motels, past the cemetery and the golf course.

“By the way,” he says, meeting my eyes in the rear-view mirror again, “just to keep things simpler, I’d like to introduce you as Kip’s friend. Is that okay with you? It looks better if you’re there because of Kip rather than me, if you know what I mean.”

I’m not sure I do, but I say, “So I’m along because of Kip, not you?”

“Yeah, because you guys are friends.”

“Fine with me.” Kip winks at me like this is some kind of undercover assignment. “
Close
friends, right?”

I can see Morris roll his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Just friends is fine.”

Kip looks back at me, his eyebrows moving up and down suggestively, which makes me stick out my tongue at him like a bratty adolescent. He laughs. Why did I do that? How juvenile! I focus on the view from the side window, fighting to wipe the smile off my face.