Chasing Midnight (14 page)

“Can I help . . .
you
. . . ” Aly’s cheerful tone deteriorates at my entrance. Only a couple of feet away from me, she sits at the front desk, her homework spread out in front of her. The crusty look on her face makes it pretty clear how unenthused she is to see me.

“Um . . . Yes,” I say, my voice weak.

“Okay. What do you need?” she says diplomatically, placing her hands on top of the desk. Not a hint of smile anywhere on her face.

“I . . . ” But I don’t know what to say, exactly . . . I didn’t think that far ahead when I was driving here, and even though I know she isn’t my biggest fan, I didn’t expect her to be so hostile, either. “I’m sorry about today. About acting so weird at lunch,” I finally say.

She stares at me, her mouth hanging open a bit.

I continue. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

Still nothing. Then again, what is she supposed to say?
Thanks? It’s okay? Leave me alone?

The silence is killing me. KILL. ING. ME. “I was wonderi—” I start up once more, but stop at the sound of her voice cold and hard, cutting me off.

“I don’t know which Mackenzie Love to trust right now,” she says, the sharp edge in her voice throwing me off.

I flinch.
My
Aly doesn’t talk this way . . . at least not to me.

She goes on. “Because there are two different Mackenzie
Loves. Did you know that?” Her vacant blue eyes linger on mine, her lips as far away from a smile as possible. I gulp at the feeling of my insides coiling up. “There’s the one here right now standing in front of me, being civil, maybe even a little sincere,” she says. “And then there’s the self-absorbed one who humiliated me in ninth grade and who hasn’t talked to me since.”

“Whaaaat?”
I feel short of breath.

Ninth grade?

What happened in ninth grade? The only ninth grade I remember is the one from my unlucky life—the one where Aly and I found each other at lunch on the first day of school and have been best friends since.

But what about ninth grade in this life? What is Aly talking about?

I try tugging my mind backward, try drawing out of my head anything in there that might trigger a memory of whatever Aly’s referring to, since it seems my mind likes to randomly flash new memories at me whenever it wants to. It can’t be that hard to find, right? I mean, shouldn’t whatever awful thing she claims I did to her be floating near the surface if it had any significance?

You would think so.

But the more I try to dig, the only thing that comes up is the monotonous stuff from freshman year—like walking to school, raising my hand during class, dancing in a group at the stomp
. . .

Useless stuff.

“I . . . ” I start to protest, but then stop because a flash of something sparks in my mind—a fire pit, a swimming pool, a blonde head under water . . .

Suddenly it’s all there, staring straight at me. I see from above Aly emerging from the pool after sixty seconds, like she said she could. That’s what being on the swim team can do for you. But when she looks around with a smile on her face, nobody is left to congratulate her. And her towel has been
hidden too. We all watch her through the upstairs window, trying to keep quiet, to stop laughing at how easily we tricked her as she stands on the deck all alone, water streaming down her shivering body, looking around at the empty backyard. Until she finally gives up and goes home.

For a second I feel like I’m falling backward. I jerk forward and blink my eyes. I’m still here, in Vinyl Underground. Aly is still there in front of me, still watching me. And I feel a knot in my stomach growing heavier with every breath.

She doesn’t move. Just stares at me like before.

Except I see it now—in her eyes, which is when I realize I was wrong about her. All wrong. That look she gives me isn’t indifference like I thought it was.

No.

That look is much, much worse.

Aly Campbell
hates
me.

That’s what she’s saying with those hollowed-out eyes—
I hate you.

My cheeks are on fire. Tears flood my vision. “I’m sorry, Aly. Really, I am.”

She doesn’t say a word.

I race out the door as fast as I can, wondering if I naively offered my best friend up as a sacrifice to the Bird Lady too.

five

T
he clouds come without warning, their undersides
dark and ragged and tearing through the sky. Which is so strange because just minutes ago the sky was as clear and blue as summer. Yet the second I leave Vinyl Underground, the wind starts whipping around me, forcing me to jump into my car before getting blown over.

But before I even start up the car, I see in my rearview mirror a woman bundled up in a long brown overcoat, crossing the street behind me. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, either, despite the wind bearing down on her, trying to knock that stiff, black hair flat.

Bird Lady.

I jump out of the car and run across the street after her, determined to chase her down and tackle her, if I have to.

She pauses in front of a store window, and I think she might even turn around to greet me. But then she keeps going, as if the ushering in of a perfect storm is the ideal time for a leisurely stroll; either that, or she’s trying to avoid me. I blink, and before I know it, she has disappeared behind a narrow, green door at the top of a staircase.

A clap of thunder erupts behind me as big, fat raindrops fall from the sky, pelting me one at a time. I bolt across the street, taking shelter beneath a storefront overhang and then run up
the stairs after Bird Lady. Once through the door, I step into the overwhelming scent of hazelnuts and cinnamon.

I don’t know where to look first. The room I’ve found myself in is piled with wooden chests, velvet couches, embroidered chairs, gold-framed mirrors, hats, lamps, and costume jewelry draped across wire mannequins. The Bird Lady could be standing right in front of me and I’d probably never see her. The only thing missing here, I think, is a creepy, overfed cat.

I weave through the maze of antiques, careful not to bump into or tip anything over, and come to a stop in front of the checkout counter, looking for the ever-elusive Bird Lady. My distorted reflection on a wall of mirrors behind the counter follows my movement, each beveled plate of glass reflecting a different shade of muted light. It seems the wall is alive with a dozen veiled faces, all hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to awake.

“Hello?” I call, wondering where she is.

Above me, the faint tinkling of amber-colored beads dangle from arms of a brass chandelier, twirling and dancing in the dusty air.

I run my fingers along an old cash register on the counter. Six rows of black and red buttons—the manual kind probably requiring thirty calories each to depress—dot the front of the register, leaf etchings climbing up the sides. The thing is probably a hundred years old.

“Can I help you?”

I snap my hand back to my side, feeling it clench in surprise. The Bird Lady is behind me, a feather duster in her hand, her lips sparkling gold. She seems an apparition in here, as if born of dust and long-lost secrets.

“There you are!” I exclaim.

She lowers her metallic gray eyelids, blinking at me. “Excuse me?”

“Seriously? Don’t play dumb with me. Not after everything that’s happened.”

She purses her lips and shakes her head fiercely, as if I’m talking crazy. “Child, if you’re here to buy something, I’m happy to help you, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Are you for real?” I say, wondering why she’s playing dumb all of a sudden. I even lift up my charm and show it to her, hoping to jog her flighty memory. “Come on. Don’t tell me this thing doesn’t ring a bell. You have a lot of explaining—or should I say fixing—to do?”

She doesn’t answer. Only hums a tune under her breath while continuing to dust, every stroke seemingly bringing up more dust, as if she were creating it instead of the other way around.

Fine. I’ll play her little game. “Can I ask you a question, then?” I say, searching out her dark eyes ringed with a thin line of gold.

“Uh-
huh
. What would you like to know?” She’s staring past me now. Almost like she isn’t even paying attention to me at all. “There isn’t a whole lot to tell you about antiques. Most of the items you see here are pretty self-explanatory.”

“You’re really going to pretend we’re talking about antiques.”

“Uh-
huh
.”

I continue fingering my necklace, feeling the miniscule tick-tock movements coming from within. “How do I get out of this?” I ask. Beg.

She lifts her hand and clamps it on top of mine. “In time, child. In time.”

“I don’t want to wait for ‘in time.’ I want out
now.
I lost my best friend
and
my two brothers, you know. Not to mention my dad is an account executive from hell. Did you know that?”

She still looks past me. “You must be patient, Mackenzie Love. Everything will be clear in time.”

“But that’s the problem. How am I supposed to know ‘when it’s time’?”

Her voice practically hums, it’s so quiet. “You just will, child.”

“Well, thanks for being so helpful,” I say dryly, dropping my hands to my sides in frustration, ready to either cry or punch something.

She releases her hold on me and starts dusting again.

“Why didn’t you tell me what I’d have to give up?” I ask, feeling my eyes grow heavy and my mind start to fuzz over again. “That changes everything, you know. I wouldn’t have ever made the deal.”

“Are you so sure?”

My voice stutters as I try to defend myself. My actions. My feelings.

What kind of question is that? “Of course I’m sure! Losing my brothers and my best friend should have been clearly spelled out when I had to make a choice.”

“Ah . . . that buggy little word.
Choice.
It’s a tad overrated, don’t you think?” She shakes her head and turns away from me, still dusting everything in sight.

I feel myself deflating, that moment when you realize you just lost your argument. “It would’ve have been nice to know before I made the deal,” I say, almost under my breath. “That’s all.”

“That,
child,
is what you need to ask yourself.”

“What?”

“Knowing what you know now, would you have still tried to save Spencer?”

“No!” I turn away from her in defiance, rubbing at the tears settling into the corners of my eyes, and then spin back around, angry. “And, anyway, what happened to the idea of having it both ways? Isn’t that sort of how wishes are supposed to work? I mean, with all that fairy dust swirling around you, would it really be
that
hard to give me everything, just so I could be happy for once in my friggin’ life?”

She lets out a chuckle. “Being happy has nothing to do with fairy dust, child,” she says, delivering the words like daggers. “Happiness is a choice too.”

Something like a clap of thunder ricochets above me as the chandelier blinks in and out like a flickering candle.

I peek at the pitched roof above us, afraid it might come crashing down any second. “How can happiness be a choi—” I start to ask, but stop mid-sentence because all that seems to be left of Bird Lady is a flurry of dust swirling around where she once stood, her feather duster abandoned on top of a lamp shade.

When I step outside again, there’s not a cloud in sight. And the sky is once again as clear and blue as summer.

six

T
he damp air clings to my skin, bringing with it an
earthy aroma lingering from an earlier fog. The wind seems extra fierce today, whipping my hair into my face, though the breeze is refreshing. I’ve been running in the park for over an hour now, trying to clear my head. Whenever things got crappy or confusing in my old life, I’d run down to Piedmont Park, especially when Aly wasn’t around to vent to. Running has always been my escape, especially since the creek path paralleled my backyard, making it a straight shot here. I’ve always loved how the path through the park twists in and out of the trees, how the sound of birds mingling with the air snakes through my lungs, how silence in the park has a sound.