Better Left Buried (9 page)

Harmony blew a strand of hair from in front of her face. “Really? You’re going to play stupid with me? What did I just walk in on with Jaxon?” An extended silence was all the answer she needed. The car passed and she tugged Brea along.

“I was going to tell you, I just—”

“Save it, all right? Just don’t.” Harmony cut across an overgrown lawn to the abandoned house that had been foreclosed on in early spring. The notices covering the front door were weathered, unreadable.

Harmony pulled
her student ID card from her wallet and forced it into the gap between the door and the jamb. She wiggled and pushed it until the lock gave. There had been plenty of nights before agreeing to stay with Adam that she’d refused to go home. This was one of the few places she didn’t mind staying. The lock popped and the door swung open.

“Get in.”

Brea shook her head. “I don’t want to. Do you know what’ll happen if we get caught trespassing?”

“We won’t get caug
ht. Get in before someone sees.” Harmony pulled Brea inside and locked the door behind them.

“What are we doing here?”

Harmony unbuttoned her jacket at the wrist and rolled up her sleeve. She peeled back the white medical tape holding the rectangle of gauze in place and showed Brea the cuts. “I need your help.”

“Jesus, Harmony.” Brea exami
ned the angry cuts that, while superficial, appeared menacing against Harmony’s pale skin. “So, you’re cutting now? What the hell?”

“I’m not cutting, Brea. Get serious.”

“Then why did you do that?”

“Honestly? I don’t think I did.” The events of the
previous night were hazy, the details about how and when she got cut less clear than others. “That’s why I need your help.” She set her backpack on the hardwood stairs and took out something wrapped in a square of flannel. She unrolled the bundle and handed Brea a small drinking glass from inside. “I read about this.”

“
Harm, those books are making you—”

“
They’re making me what? Nuts? Confused? What’s your label for me?” She’d had so many over the past seventeen years that none could hurt her, not even coming from Brea. “Something attacked me last night. Not some
one
. Some
thing
. It knocked the phone out of my hand when I tried to call for help, blew shit all around the kitchen. If Adam hadn’t come home when he did, it might’ve killed me.” She held out her arm to illustrate her point. “It cut over my goddamned scars. Why would
I
do that?” She unloaded a spirit board and set it on the table the former owners had left behind. “A voice said, ‘help me’. Over and over again. It just kept asking.”

“It?”

“
He.
Brea, if you don’t do this with me, if I don’t figure out what happened, it won’t let me go.
Please
?”

“
And this is your solution? You want to communicate with something you think tried to kill you?”

“Maybe it
did. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe
I
did this. Maybe I freaked and tried for an easy out. I don’t know, but I know that if I did cut myself, it wasn’t without a push.”

“
What does Adam think about this?”

Harmony
stared at the board in front of her. It was vintage, wooden, and intimidating in its careful detailing. This wasn’t a party game. It was the real thing.

“You haven’t told him, have you?”

“What am I supposed to say? That I think a ghost is trying to kill me? That I’m seeing things that aren’t there? Adam accepts my brand of crazy, Brea, and he loves me in spite of it, but that’s asking too much, even from him.”

Brea tuned in to
Harmony’s deepest fear without her having to say it. “You’re afraid he’ll send you back to Spring View.”

She refused to admit it.
“Please? Could be that nothing happens. Then I am crazy and I’ll admit it. But if I’m not then there’s something else going on here.”

Brea
set the glass on the center of the board and whether it was guilt, sympathy, or a combination of both, she agreed. “Fine. Let’s do this. Then at least you’ll know.” Harmony smiled. “But I want to go on record as saying I think this is a terrible idea.”

Brea ran her fingers over the smooth wood, her fingertips tracing the scorched letters burnt into it. A moon decorated the left hand corner, a sun the right, and the words “Yes” and “No” were under them. “Hello” and “Goodbye” were written across the bottom in a rough script that indicated the board was handmade. She’d never seen anything like it.

“Where did
you get this?” she asked.

Harmony cleaned the glass with her shirt.
“Remember that old house on McNamara?”

“The hoarder house?”

It was on her bus route
; a two-story Victorian with piles of junk so high you couldn’t see through the windows. Its paint was chipped, the porch was falling in, and there was a minivan full of trash with four flat tires parked in the driveway.

“The old woman who lived there died last summer. I guess she didn’t have any family because the town sent people over to clean the place out. They trashed everything. This,” she tapped the board, “was in a box in the dumpster.”

Somehow, the story didn’t make Brea feel any better about using it. Of all that Harmony had said, she’d focused in on dead old lady.

“So, what do we do?” Brea
asked, thankful for the light of day and unintimidating surroundings. The foreclosed house hadn’t yet fallen into disrepair and the family left behind enough of their belongings for her to feel safe, like a visitor in a home with a terrible housekeeper.

“Haven’t you ever done this before?”

Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“They smuggled one into camp, but I watched a movie
in the other room.”

“
Big surprise.” Harmony set the glass upside down in the middle of the board and placed two fingers on the edge. “Well?” She raised her eyebrows.

Brea
did the same, feeling more than a little sick to her stomach. “Now what?”

“
Now, we ask questions. Is there anyone here willing to talk to us?” A long minute passed without anything happening. “Can anyone hear me? I’m calling the person who asked me for help. Are you here?”

Brea tensed.
“Maybe it’s only at your place?”

“
He
.” Harmony corrected. “This can’t work if you’re playing statue.”

Brea relaxed and
the glass moved. “Harm—”

Harmony shushed her. “
You’re still pressing too hard.”

Brea concentrated on letting her arm go limp and the glass moved to “Hello”.

A cold breeze blew across the table
.

S
he shivered. “I don’t like this.”

“
Shh.
It’s fine.” It felt anything but. “Is this the man who contacted me last night? The one who asked for help?”

The glass moved to “Yes”.

Brea lifted her fingers, nervous that the answers were coming too quickly and easily. “Are you moving it?”

“No. I’m not moving anything. You have to focus.
Now come on.” Harmony scowled and Brea reluctantly resumed her position. “Can you tell me your name?”

The glass moved in a circle and settled on the letters T-O-M.

“Tom?” Brea asked.

The glass stopped on “Yes”.

She hadn’t meant to ask it a question.

“Can you tell me
your last name? Something I can use to find you?” Harmony asked.

1-9-9-6

“Nineteen ninety six? Is that a year?”

It stopped on “Yes” again.

Brea did the math. She would’ve been two. “Tom and 1996. That’s not much to go on.”

“What do you want
, Tom? How can I help you?”

The glass moved faster,
looping in circles, and stopped three times on the same number.

6-6-6

“Jesus!” Brea jumped out of the chair. “I’m done.”

“Sit down.” Harmony clenched her jaw. “You need to give it a chance. He’s probably just
repeating the last number of the year. It’s hard for them to be clear sometimes. It’s not what you think.”

“Your books tell you that?
No way, Harmony. No. Way.”

“I
’m telling you right now, Brea, I’ll do this alone if I have to, but worse things will happen.”

“Worse?
Triple sixes is the sign of the devil. What could be worse than that?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know. And you’ve communicated with him, whether you like it or not. You can’t just walk away from this.”

“Watch me.” Brea picked her books up off the stairs by the front door and screamed.

Harmony rushed into the room after her. The
look of anger on her face was replaced by one of absolute terror.

Papers scattered and Brea’s calculus book landed binding
-first on her foot. As much as it should have hurt through canvas sneakers, she barely felt it.

At the top of the stairs, in shadows cast by a mostly closed bedroom door
, was the misty outline of a man—black and willowy with tendril fingers.

“Harmony, do you see that?” She was convinced it was a hallucination brought on by fear.

Harmony opened her mouth to answer, but could only manage a nod. Her hands shook and the color drained from her face.

“Help me.”

A bitter wind descended and the whisper surrounded them, filling every inch of space.

Harmony crumbled, covering her ears
, screaming for the noise to stop.

“Help me.”

Brea reached out for her and what felt like a pocket of air threw her backward into the banister.

“Help me.”

“I’m trying,” Harmony screamed.

T
he glass on the spirit board flew across the kitchen and shattered against the wall.

“Brea, wait!” Harmony chased her through the double doors, her face bright red, her chest heaving. She bent over with her hands on her knees and went into a coughing fit trying to catch her breath.

A hush fell over the cafeteria
.

Brea’s heart
pounded, both from what they’d seen and the full sprint back to school which left her winded.

“Leave me alone!” Tears blurred her vision, but not enough that she couldn’t see all eyes were on her as she headed toward Jaxon.

“Brea, are you all right? What happened?” He met her halfway.

“
Please, take me out of here.”

Jaxon folded her into his arms, relieving anyone watching, including Harmony, of their doubts about what was going on between them.

Harmony marched up to them, her breathing still labored, and grabbed Brea’s sleeve. “Will you stop whatever this is and talk to me?”

Jaxon slapped her hand away. “
Why don’t you leave her alone?”

“I’m not doing anything
until she answers me.”

Brea couldn’t stop shaking no matter how tight Jaxon
held her. “Please,” she said. “I need to get out of here.”

“Pete, put my bag in my locker,” Jaxon said, quickly producing his car keys.
Pete confirmed with a nod. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere but here.”

He wrapped his arm around her and led her out the main doors without a moment’s hesitation or a word about consequences. He opened the Jeep’s passenger’s side door and helped her inside.

Principal Anderson
appeared as they drove away.

Jaxon pressed down on the accelerator.
“She’s going to call our parents, you know.”

“I know.” Brea wiped the tears from her cheeks, more than a little embarrassed
now that the dust was settling. She flipped down the vanity mirror and powdered her face. “Aren’t you the kind of girl who worries about that sort of thing?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She could tell he was only half-kidding, but the teasing took some of the pressure off.

“
I mean, here I thought you were the good girl. My parents won’t care, assuming either of them bothers to answer their phones, but yours—”

“My mother
won’t mind as long as I’m with you.” The truth spilled out before she’d even had a chance to filter it.

A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth then faded. “Do you want
to tell me what happened back there?”

“Not really.”
For the last couple of months she’d done everything she could to appear normal and knew it would all be undone with one sentence. If she was going to really let him in, to be able to be herself around him, she had to reveal her eccentricities slowly. “Turn here.”