From Bad to Cursed (8 page)

And she gave us her card with a “strong suggestion” to call if there were any other incidents “of interest.” That was how she talked—using words that seemed harmless but were actually bursting with ominous meaning.

Before she left, I cornered her and asked what would happen if it wasn’t over—if Kasey wasn’t cured.

She didn’t want to answer me, I could tell. But finally, she said, “Whatever arises, we’ll contain it.”

Their kind of containing was what kept my sister at Harmony Valley for ten months, even though, technically, there was nothing wrong with her. Calling the number on that card might get my sister locked up for a lot longer than ten months.

Or worse than locked up.

“I’m sure it’ll be over soon. Mimi’ll get sick of them and move on to something better—” Pepper cut herself off and blushed. “You know what I mean.”

There was a time when I would have been insulted, but I nodded and gave her a distracted half-smile.

The thing is, I wasn’t offended.

I actually hoped she was right.

After lunch on Saturday, I went out to the great room to find Mom sitting at the island, looking over some work stuff. And—as always—Kasey had claimed the sofa, even though she was barely paying attention to the TV.

I leaned on the bar next to Mom. “Can I use the car later?”

She looked up. “Sorry, what?”

“I need to go take some pictures. For the contest.”

“Oh.” Mom hardly glanced away from her computer. “Sure, honey.”

I chose my words carefully. “I really want them to be good, you know? To make up for all of the old ones I don’t have anymore.”

Mom minimized her spreadsheet window, which meant she was really paying attention. Maybe using her sympathy to get what I wanted makes me a bad person. But I couldn’t worry about that. I had to figure out what was going on with my sister.

“Where will you go?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Out. I might call around and see if anybody can help me.”

Studying the back of my hand, I took a half step to the left—revealing to my mother’s eager eyes the sight of Kasey flopped on the couch.

“I know someone who can help you,” Mom said.

“How much farther?” Kasey asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on the light.”

We were trooping through the forest at Lakewood. The guest lot and picnic area were deserted—big surprise—and we slipped into the woods, ignoring the rusted
NO TRESPASSING
sign. I carried my camera and a couple of pieces of white poster board to bounce light off of. Kasey was lugging a pile of costumes and props. She kept falling behind and having to trot to catch up.

She let herself be talked into helping with minimal groanage, which surprised me. Only when I said we were going to Lakewood did she try to back out. But by then, Mom had latched on to the idea of us taking pictures together—just like old times—and ordered her to help.

I was kind of excited about the shoot, but my real motivation was to get my sister alone. I kept trying to think of ways to introduce the topic of Mimi, but I couldn’t come up with anything besides
Why on earth would Mimi Laird lower her exalted self to hang out with you?

“Here,” I said, as we reached a clearing. It looked similar to the one where we’d seen the creature the week before. My skin prickled with goose bumps, and I waited to see how Kasey would react. But she just seemed relieved to be able to drop the pile of clothes.

“What’s our theme?” she asked.

“Um…” I looked around. “Why don’t you grab the violin?”

She made a dissatisfied face. “It doesn’t have any strings.”

“Fine,” I said. “How about the wedding gown?”

Kasey looked horrified. “It’s ninety-five degrees!”

“Yes,” I said. “Definitely the wedding gown.”

I’d picked up the dress at the thrift store for ten dollars. It had a plain top with spaghetti straps and a full tulle skirt, like a tutu. Kasey pulled it over her head, and then I turned away so she could finish changing. I zipped it up and she looked around.

“You know,” I said, “that looks kind of like Pepper’s prom dress from last year.”

It was weak, but I was dying to start interrogating.

Kasey shot me a sideways look, which I ignored.

“Speaking of Pepper…what brought on this whole Mimi reunion? I didn’t think you guys got along.”

“We used to be best friends,” she said coolly. “What’s so weird about us talking?”

“I didn’t say it was weird,” I said. “But since you brought it up, what’s weird is that you broke her arm.”

“Are we going to actually take any pictures?” Kasey asked.

I raised the camera and checked the settings. “What’s weird is that you broke her arm
on purpose,
” I said. “As I recall.”

I braced myself for an explosion.

I got an unruffled gaze. “Well, I apologized,” Kasey said. “And she understood. So.”

Hey, sorry I broke your arm
? That was all it took to get back on Mimi’s good side?

Suddenly, Kasey started spinning, her arms outstretched, her face turned toward the sky. The skirt bloomed out like a flower. I quit talking and started taking pictures.

A minute later, she stopped to rest. It wasn’t a cool day, and the edges of her hairline glistened with sweat. She raised her arm and wiped her forehead. Without warning her, I took a picture, and she gave me a dirty look.

I looked back at the pile of props. “Just
try
the violin.”

She picked it up, her eyes still veiled with hurt. “You really think it’s that strange?” she asked. “That someone wants to be my friend?”

Okay, no. That’s not how I meant it. “No…I only think it’s strange that
Mimi Laird
wants to be friends with you.”

“Everyone seems to want me to get on with my life. To be happy.” Kasey’s voice was thoughtful, and she gently tucked the violin under her arm. “Everyone but you, Alexis. Even Pepper is nicer to me than you are. And she’s a senior. And popular.”

Unsure if that was supposed to be a jibe about my own unpopularity, I let it go.

I snapped a couple of pictures, which made Kasey turn away again.

“I do want you to be happy,” I said. “But not if…”
If it means you’re doing something bad. Something wrong. Something that would ruin everything for all of us.

She stood up straight—she was almost as tall as me now—and looked me right in the eye. “Not if it means hanging out with people you don’t like?” she asked. “Like Lydia?”

“Yes, in fact,” I said. “Like Lydia. You don’t know her, Kase.”

“No, Lexi,
you
don’t know her. She’s had a terrible year. Give her a break.”

“Excuse me!” I said. “What about
my
year?”

Kasey’s mouth fell open.

My mouth fell open, too. At first I couldn’t figure out where that had come from. But then it was like a door had been opened. “You think it was easy?” I asked. “Being home with Mom and Dad? Trying to pretend things were normal? Losing everything we owned? You got to move into a furnished town house, Kase. We had nothing. No clothes, no dishes—my camera, all my pic-tures—everything was
gone
.”

Kasey’s jaw relaxed, and she looked at me with—was it compassion?

Nope. Totally not compassion. Her face transformed. “Are you kidding me?” she hissed. “Excuse me, I was in a
mental institution
. I couldn’t wear clothes with
buttons
, Lexi, because they thought I might
choke
somebody!”

Then, in a burst of anger, she took the old violin ($4 at the thrift store) and swung it. I managed to snap a picture just as the brittle wood hit a tree trunk and cracked.

Kasey stared at it, shocked at what she’d done. Then she smashed it again, and again, until all that was left was the neck. I took almost a whole roll of film.

Panting, she dropped the violin and turned to me. “I’m sorry if you had a hard year,” she said. “But don’t I deserve a chance to be happy? Why can’t I have friends of my own?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Find out for yourself that Lydia’s a backstabbing, conniving gossip. But if she ever finds out what really happened to you, you’d better be ready to deal with the Lydia I know. Because not everyone is as forgiving and accepting as I am.”

Kasey sank down to the ground, the wedding dress puddled around her. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

I lifted my camera, but for once I couldn’t find a shot.

All I could see was a fourteen-year-old girl in pain.

Pain caused by me.

She’d lost everything, and now as fast as she could piece together a new life for herself, I was chipping away at it. She was my
sister
—why couldn’t I be supportive?

Was it really because I was afraid Lydia would hurt her? Or did it go deeper than that? Had I grown so smug in my new life that I wasn’t willing to let go of any of it to make room for Kasey? I couldn’t even share the stupid
sofa
.

“Kasey…I’m sorry,” I said.

So we’d seen something in the woods. So Lydia was reaching out to lonely freshmen. So (against all odds) Mimi had found forgiveness. What did that have to do with Kasey?

“I’m really, really sorry,” I said again, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes. “I made a stupid assumption. I got suspicious, and I thought—” Might as well confess, even if it made me sound evil. “I thought there might be something going on. Something like—like Sarah.”

Her shocked eyes darted up to meet mine, and she recoiled.

“But that was wrong,” I continued. “I know you wouldn’t get involved with that stuff again. You’re smarter than that.”

I hoped she’d stand up, forgive me. We could cry and hug and get the heck out of the woods before we both ended up covered in ticks.

I’d have settled for her storming away.

Worst case, she’d sit there and cry, too hurt to respond.

She didn’t do any of those things. She stared up at me, as surprised as a little fish, her eyebrows perfect arcs.

And when she spoke, her voice was a rush of confession and release.

“But what if I’m
not
, Lexi?” she asked. “What if I’m
not
smarter than that?”

I
PUT MY HAND OUT
and plunked to the ground.

They’d lock her up for years—maybe forever.

It would break our mother’s heart, clean down the center.

Kasey grabbed my hands and held on to them like we were in danger of being swept away. “It’s not like last time,” she said. “It’s not, I swear.”

Weighed down by the props, we went back toward the parking lot, leaning on each other like shipwrecked survivors. Kasey’s gown kept getting caught on sticks and roots, and by the time we made it back to the pavement, the bottom layer of tulle was a shredded mess.

We spent the next few minutes sitting in the motionless car, staring out the windshield at the decaying fountain in the middle of the lake. Finally I put my seat belt on and started the engine.

“Did you do anything to the car? Brakes, fuel line?” My voice was flat, heavy.

She scowled. “No.”

“Tires, power steering, axles?”

“No, Lexi!” she said, folding her arms across her chest and sinking into a deep pout.

As if she had
any
right. As if she hadn’t, eleven short months earlier, messed with the brakes in the car our dad was driving and sent him careening into a tree. As if it weren’t her fault that he has metal plates in his leg and will never again get through an airport security line without being patted down.

We came to the old
LAKEWOOD
sign at the entrance to the community.

I hit the brakes so hard that the tires squealed and the car filled with the unmistakable odor of burning rubber.

Kasey shrieked and slammed into her seat belt. “What are you doing?!?”

“Did that thing in the woods last week have something to do with this?”

She was as wide-eyed as a kitten. “What thing?”

“Come on. The
thing
in the
woods
!”

“Oh, that.” She sighed. “I don’t know.”

Un-freaking-real. I sat back against my seat.

“Lexi, there’s a car coming behind us.”

“He’ll go around,” I said.

“There’s not room to pass.”

“Fine!” I pulled onto the main road without even looking for traffic. Kasey squealed and bashed against the passenger seat. The other car passed us anyway.

There was no sound except the rumble of the engine and the tires on the road. Halfway home, it started to drizzle. Kasey leaned forward and looked up, as if she could see into the clouds. Miraculously, I made it all the way into the garage without losing my temper again.

“What now?” Kasey asked.

Our parents were out at Dad’s coworker’s wedding; they’d be gone for a few hours, at least. I unbuckled my seat belt and turned to face her. “We’re going to have a talk.”

“Where?”

“The kitchen.”

“Fine,” Kasey said, unbuckling and opening her car door. “But I have to change first.”

“Go ahead of me,” I said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Alexis, if I wanted to hurt you,” she said, stepping out into the garage, “I’d whack you with a shovel.” To prove it, she reached out toward the rack and poked one of the shovels with a single finger, setting it bobbing on its hooks. Then she opened the door to the house and disappeared down the hall.

She was right; if she meant to harm me, she’d had the chance. I went into my bedroom and put on a pair of pajama pants.

Kasey met me in the kitchen. We sat on opposite sides of the island. Outside, the wind howled resentfully down the narrow street, thrashing the poor saplings in the median.

“Now,” I said. “Get to the point.”

“I was at Adrienne’s last Friday,” she said. “Remember?”

Like that was a night that would just slip your mind. And then suddenly, horribly, I remembered how she’d tried to back out but I’d made her go.

She either didn’t think about that or was too polite to rub it in. “We were playing ‘truth or dare’ and I said
dare
, but they wanted me to do
truth
. And they asked me why I had to go to Harmony Valley.”

“So you told them,” I said, like a prosecutor on a TV show, “what we all, as a family, agreed to tell people. That you have a mild form of schizophrenia.”

“Yes, Lexi, I
did
.” Her eyes flashed. “But Lydia did a research paper on schizophrenia last year, and she asked me a bunch of questions that I couldn’t answer.”

“She accused you of lying? Typical Lydia.”

“No, she didn’t say it like that,” Kasey said. “She thought maybe I’d been misdiagnosed and I should get a second opinion. She wanted to help. But then…I messed up. She asked what medication I took, and I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say…so I said none.”

I knew it without even having to think. I’d know it in my sleep. Haldol. If anyone asked, Kasey was on Haldol.

“Then Adrienne said she was going to call her big brother, who’s in medical school, and she wouldn’t let me talk her out of it.” Kasey’s hands fluttered in the air in front of her. “So I had to tell her…tell them the truth.”

“No, you didn’t
have to,”
I said. “You could have told her to mind her own business, Kase. You could have said you wanted to go home. You could have called me. You could have left the room.”

Her face fell. “But Lexi,” she said. “They were
nice
to me.”

She hung her head and studied the countertop.

I sighed. “Then what?”

“Lydia didn’t really believe it at first.”

“You had a chance to take it back?” I asked, but I’d lost the will to play the angry lawyer.

“Not really. Tashi believes in ghosts, and they all talked about it for a while, and then we talked about how depressing it was to be—to be social rejects.” She took a shaky breath. “And then Adrienne said she’d found this book that promised to make you prettier and more popular.”

“Found it where?”

Kasey shrugged. “I thought it was like a party game. I tried to talk them out of it, but they didn’t listen. I wasn’t going to do it—but they said we should all—”

“You weren’t going to do what?” I asked.

She was on the verge of tears. “Did you know people put notes in my locker? They called me
psycho.
Once, when I went to the bathroom, someone put a—a dead cockroach in my purse. And Mimi got everyone to throw the ball at me in dodgeball—even people on my own team.”

“Just finish your sentence,” I said. “You should all…”

“They said we should start a club,” she said. “Based on the book. Really, it was Adrienne’s idea.”

“What’s the book about?”

She looked stricken. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s not in English. Adrienne thinks it’s Norwegian.”

“Oh,
Kase
, seriously?”

“Then the pizzas got there, and we ate, and Barney ran away. And then…well, you know that part. The next day, we started the Sunshine Club to try to improve ourselves.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “So it’s just a book?”

I was on the edge of being massively relieved. A book of advice didn’t seem so bad. In fact, if Kasey was that hypersensitive—that just playing around with antiques made her nervous—I could rest a little easier at night.

“Well, yeah.” She traced the grout in the tile counter- top with her pinkie finger. “I mean, it’s actually more of a…”

“What was that? You’re mumbling.”

Her eyes flashed up defiantly. “It’s a
dwelling
.”

My neck muscles seemed to go slack, and I found myself staring up at the recessed lights in the ceiling. A dwelling. As in, someone—or some
thing
—lived inside of it.

“Right,” I said. Because nothing that has anything to do with Kasey can ever be easy. “And whose dwelling is it?”

She turned to gaze out the window. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“Kasey,” I said. But she wouldn’t look at me. I reached over the countertop and shook her shoulder roughly. “Hey.”

She peeked over at me, biting her lip. “His name is Aralt.”

I made a little pocket with my hands and breathed into it, trying to clear my thoughts.

“His name is Aralt,” I repeated.

Her reply was practically a squeak. “Yes.”

“Unreal.” I sighed and turned away.

“Not all ghosts are bad, Lexi—Megan’s mom was good.” She bit her knuckle.

I didn’t even acknowledge that. “So the book is written in Norwegian, but somehow you guys convinced Aralt to come out and give you makeovers.” And when I thought about it, Kasey had been getting steadily prettier as the days went on. Doing her hair, wearing makeup, accessorizing.

She nodded. “But it’s more than that. I mean, Adrienne doesn’t even need her cane anymore!”

“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

“And at school, people want to be around us. We got four new members this week.”

“But
how
, Kasey? What did you do to get Aralt to help you? If you don’t speak the same language—”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he understands English,” she said. “He seems really smart.”

Like he was some dreamy foreign exchange student.

This situation was quickly spiraling beyond my ability to control myself. I reached for the phone.

“What are you doing?”

The sound of Kasey’s voice caught me. It wasn’t a lack of fear—she sounded plenty scared. But there was a note of something else. Like she was issuing a challenge.

I faced her. “You mean, am I calling Agent Hasan?”

She blinked.

“No,” I said. “I’m calling Megan.”

Five minutes later, there was a loud knock at the door. Kasey jumped back in her seat. Then the doorbell rang about ten times in a row.

“Alexis! Are you there? Open up!”

I pulled open the door. “Hey.”

Megan came in, pushing up the sleeves of her jacket. She was out of breath. “I had to totally lie to Grandma. Are you serious about this? We have to call Agent Hasan. Where’s your sister?” Her face tensed as she caught sight of Kasey.

“We’re talking,” I said.

Megan glanced from me to my sister and back.

“I don’t think we need to call. Yet.” That earned me a
you’ve got to be kidding
look, but I pointed toward the kitchen. “Come sit down.”

Megan didn’t make a move. She beckoned me closer. “Alexis, what are you doing?”

“Gathering information,” I said.

She spoke like a kindergarten teacher. “And are you a hundred-percent sure information-gathering is the best thing to do right now?”

“No. I’m zero-percent sure,” I said. “But if we tell on her, they’ll be here tonight. And we might never see her again.”

“You don’t know that that’s how they work.” She cast another glance over my shoulder.

“No, I don’t know anything about how they work,” I said. “That’s what scares me.”

Megan sighed and looked at my sister, who was resting her head on her folded arms.

“Please,” I said. “A little more time. What happened to ‘There are ghosts everywhere’?”

“Lex, don’t
even
.” Megan narrowed her eyes and reached into her pocket for her phone. “The number’s loaded in here. All I have to do is hit ‘send.’”

“If it comes to that,” I said, “fine.”

Megan walked past me and took a seat across from Kasey, leaving the phone on the counter, fingers poised over it.

We went through the story again. Megan grilled where I’d merely skimmed.

“Have you ever
seen
Aralt?”

Kasey shook her head. “No. I don’t think you see him.”

Megan leaned forward. “How do you know it’s a him?”

She shrugged. “We just know he is.”

“But who
is
he?”

Kasey blinked. “He’s Aralt.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “But where’s he from? How old is he? Is he a ghost?”

“He’s from the book,” Kasey said. “That’s all I know.”

“Does he talk to you? What does he say? How do you know what to do, if it’s not in English?”

“It’s not like he talks out loud.” Kasey bit down on her lip. “I guess it’s more like…a feeling.”

Megan leaned forward, the tips of her fingers pressing into the countertop. “What does he make you feel?”

“I don’t know.” My sister leaned back. “I guess, like, you feel what
he
feels. If you try hard to look pretty or do something good, he likes it.”

“And what if he doesn’t like something?”

Kasey scrunched her nose. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that having a supernatural boyfriend might not always be sunshine and puppy dogs. “Um…I guess he’d be sad?”

“Not angry?”

“Not like Sarah?” I interjected.

“Uh-uh,” Kasey said. “No. Not at all like Sarah.”

Megan gave her a cool look. “So what’s he after
?
”

“Nothing,” Kasey said.

“Ohhh, cool, so you guys get to be beautiful and smart and popular, and that’s all he needs to be happy?”

“I guess so.”

“
Wrong
,” Megan said. “That’s not how it works. And when does it end?”

“At graduation,” Kasey said.

“And when is that? Next week, next year, never?”

My sister blinked at her hands, clueless.

“Do you remember any of the words from the book?” I asked.

Kasey shook her head.

“And that thing in the woods?” I asked. “Was that him?”

Megan raised an eyebrow. “What thing in the woods?”