Made You Up (12 page)

“Charlie’s playing her violin again,” I said. The music floated out of the house like a bird on a breeze. The
1812 Overture
. I had to throw my weight against the passenger door to get it open.

“The smile was better,” I said again as I closed the door behind me, the words sounding less awkward now. “I think people would like you if you did it more.”

“What’s the point, though?” said Miles. “So, Monday.”

“Monday.”

“Should I be here?”

“Do you want to be here?”

He looked like a cat eyeing its prey. “Seven o’clock. After that I’m leaving without you. Do you work tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Guess I’ll see you there. And Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I won’t tell anyone. In case you were wondering.”

I knew what he meant. And I knew he was telling the truth. There was something in his voice that said he understood. I believed him.

I fished Erwin out of the truck bed. Then I propped
the halves up against the garage door and headed inside as Miles drove down the street. My head spun with everything that had happened. Celia’s revenge. Erwin. The increasingly plausible idea that Blue Eyes was not a hallucination at all, and never had been.

My mother let me get ten steps inside the front door before bombarding me with questions.

“Who was that?”

“What happened to your bike?”

“Did you forget you have work tonight?”

And my personal favorite, “Do we need to have
the talk
?”

I cringed. I did not need to think of Miles in that way. I was plenty confused about him as it was.

“No, we do not need to have the talk, Mom. I understand how boy and girl parts work. Yes, I have to go to Finnegan’s. No, I don’t know what happened to Erwin.”

“Who was that in the truck?” She waved her empty coffee mug around. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or excited—her zealotry managed to cover pretty much all the emotional bases.

“That was Miles.”

I
giggled a little when I found out the librarian I’d accused of being a Communist five years ago still worked at the library. I giggled a little more when Tucker and I walked in and she glared at me.

“She remembers me,” I whispered to Tucker, grinning.

Tucker snorted and pulled me to a section of the library in the back, where several aging computers sat in a line against the wall. We took the two open computers at the end.

“I can’t believe they don’t have these records online,” Tucker said, clicking incessantly at his yellowed mouse. The old computer wheezed as it started up. “I don’t even think these are connected to the Internet. I don’t think they have Ethernet ports. Oh God, what if they don’t have
network cards
?”

“You make it sound like the nineties were hell,” I said.

“They probably were. Our childish naiveté saved us.”

The computers blinked to life and allowed us to access the newspaper archives from the desktop. The catalog seemed recently updated, despite looking like a victim of 1990s pattern choice.

“Okay, so I’m thinking there must have been something to spark this scoreboard legend,” Tucker said. “Look for anything that says anything about East Shoal or the scoreboard itself.”

I didn’t mind scouring old newspaper articles—they were still forms of history, just slightly more recent than I was used to. Twenty minutes later, I found the first clue, one that I’d already seen before.

“‘Scarlet Fletcher, captain of the East Shoal cheerleading squad, helps introduce “Scarlet’s Scoreboard,” a commemoration of the charity and goodwill her father, Randall Fletcher, has shown toward the school.’”

I turned my screen toward Tucker. He frowned. “I thought the scoreboard was older than that. This was twenty years ago.”

In the picture, Scarlet beamed and flashed a set of white teeth. Her face wasn’t obscured here; she looked vaguely familiar. There was another picture at the bottom of the article. Scarlet stood beneath the scoreboard with a boy
with dark hair, wearing a football captain’s uniform. His smile was strained.

“He’s hot,” I said absentmindedly.

“Sure, if you like the classical look,” Tucker mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Are you jealous, Mr. Soggy Potato Salad?”

“Jealous? When I’ve got this?” Tucker whipped off his glasses, bit the tip of the earpiece, and squinted at me. I laughed.

The librarian sprang out from behind a bookcase and shushed me. I clapped a hand over my mouth.

We returned our attention to our search. “Hey, here’s something,” Tucker said. “Not about the scoreboard, but it mentions Scarlet again.” He turned his screen to me.

“‘Though only numbering 151, East Shoal’s graduating class of 1992 includes several remarkable names, including Scarlet Fletcher, daughter of politician Randall Fletcher, and the class valedictorian, Juniper Richter, who tested top in the nation in both math and language comprehension. . . .’” I let my voice fade away. “Is that . . . ?”

“It’s Miles’s mom, yeah.”

“They went to school together? That means she was there when the scoreboard went up—maybe she could tell you something about it.”

Tucker rubbed his neck. “That’s . . . probably not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“She’s, ah, in a mental hospital up in Goshen.”

“A . . . a mental hospital?” I paused. “Why?”

Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know anything else. She calls Finnegan’s sometimes when he’s there. One time I redialed after he’d hung up, and an orderly answered.” He waved his hand around. “And now you see why I don’t mind eavesdropping on people’s personal lives.”

I sank back in my chair. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

I nodded. That was why I’d trusted Miles when he’d said he wouldn’t tell anyone. He knew what it meant to hide a secret like that.

I dove back into the articles, trying to shove thoughts of Miles and his mother and Blue Eyes to the back of my mind. I had a strange, intense desire to see him.

My eyes began to glaze over and my legs went numb right about the same time I found it. I was well into ’97 when the headline reached right off the screen and smacked me in the face.

M
EMORIAL
S
COREBOARD
F
ALLS
, C
RUSHES
D
ONOR’S
D
AUGHTER

“You’re kidding me,” I whispered. “I think I just found your story, Tucker.”

“What?”

“Scarlet died in ninety-seven,” I said. “The scoreboard fell on her when she went back for the class reunion. And . . . Jesus, McCoy was the one who tried to lift it off of her. He was electrocuted. Scarlet died in the hospital a few hours later from sustained injuries, and they hung the scoreboard back up.”

I showed him the article. His eyes widened as he read.

“McCoy went to school with Scarlet,” Tucker said. “McCoy tried to save her and couldn’t. Now he worships the scoreboard because . . . why? It
killed
somebody.” He sat back, raked his hands through his neatly combed hair, and stared at me. “How messed up is this guy?”

“It didn’t just kill
somebody
,” I said. “It killed
Scarlet
. He’s made it like . . . like a monument. A memorial for her.”

A memorial for a dead woman.

There was definitely something strange going on. I just didn’t know what it was.

I
sat in the copse on the hill behind Red Witch Bridge that night, trying, for a little while, to forget what I’d learned in the library. Not the part about Scarlet, even though that was interesting. It was the information about Miles—about his mother—that had kept me from falling asleep.

The night was quiet aside from the breeze ruffling the leaves and the whisper of the stream. Most cars didn’t come down this road at night because of the bridge. People said it was because they didn’t trust the bridge’s integrity, but the real reason was the witch.

A long time ago, back in the days when people still got pressed to death, a witch lived on this side of the river. Not the misunderstood kind of witch who only wants to heal with her chants and herbal remedies, but the creepy kind
who cuts off crow heads and eats children and small pets.

So the witch was fine—or so the story goes—most of the time because everyone else lived on the other side of the river and didn’t bother her. But then they built the bridge, and people started coming onto her land, and she got pissed. She would wait by the bridge at night and kill those unlucky enough to cross after dark.

Eventually she got pressed to death or something. But even now, when a car drove across the bridge at night, you could hear the witch scream. She was called the Red Witch because she was coated with the blood of her victims.

I was probably the only teenager in the state who wasn’t scared of the witch. Not because I was extra fearless or anything, but because I knew where the legend came from.

Two sets of headlights appeared around the bend in the road. I scooted farther behind my tree, cracking twigs and fallen leaves, even though I knew they wouldn’t see me. The cars pulled off on the shoulder. Doors opened and closed. Voices floated to me, words scrambled. A girl’s high-pitched giggle, a boy’s low murmur. Teenagers come to play with the witch. The headlights threw their long-legged shadows across the pavement.

There were five of them: four in the first car, one in the second. All with their shoulders huddled up around their ears in the chilly autumn air. The first four seemed to be reasoning with the fifth. The girl giggled again.

The fifth person broke away from the group and started across the bridge. His steps echoed against the old wood. Brave guy. Usually it took more persuasion. The others wouldn’t be able to see him when he reached my side because of the trees, but if he walked up the hill, the moonlight would let me see him.

He crossed the bridge and stood in the darkness, looking around. Then he started up the hill.

“Miles?”

I stood and stepped out of the trees. I should have known. I didn’t want to freak him out or anything, but he still stopped in his tracks and stared at me.

“Alex? What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?”

“No, I asked first, and since you are literally chilling here behind these trees, and no one does that at Red Witch Bridge at night, your answer is infinitely more important than mine.”

“Well, you do it when you’re the witch.”

He stared at me. “You’re the witch.”

“I’m the witch.” I shrugged.

“You sit out here at night and scare people?”

“No,” I said. “I sit out here at night and watch people scare themselves. It’s fun. What are you doing here?”

Miles motioned over his shoulder. “Cliff, Ria, and some others pooled their money to pay me to walk the bridge at night.

I didn’t bother to tell them I don’t believe in urban legends.”

“Maybe they figured if the legend was true, the witch would get you out of their way.”

“Richter! Find anything?” I recognized Cliff’s voice.

Miles looked back and sighed.

“Want to mess with them?” I asked.

I pulled him down the hill with me and we stood at the other end of the bridge, in the darkness of the trees where the others couldn’t see us. “Okay, all you have to do is yell at the top of your lungs.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. Like you’re being attacked.”

Miles took a deep breath and yelled. Cliff and the others jumped, but didn’t move. Miles’s voice died out.

“Come on, Richter, we know you’re trying to—”

I screamed. A good ear-shattering, chainsaw-killer, bloody-murder scream. Cliff stumbled backward, fell over, and had to scramble to his feet again. Ria screeched. The other two fled to their car, followed by Cliff and Ria, and peeled away. Miles and I stood there for another few moments, silent and waiting. The cold bit at my cheeks.

“Do you do this all the time?” Miles asked finally.

“No. Just today.” I smiled.

He stared at me.

“What?” I said.

“Why are you here?”

“I told you—I’m the witch.”

“
How
are you the witch?”

I sighed and swung my arms back and forth, wondering if I should tell him. He had that look on his face again, like he understood what was going on in my head.

Around us, the wind rustling the trees sounded like thousands of voices.

“Psithurism,” Miles said, looking up at the forest around us.

“What?”

“Psithurism. It’s a low whispering sound, like wind in leaves.”

I sighed again. The wind blew his mint-soap-and-pastries scent toward me.

“I had a bad week a while back,” I said finally, “when I was at Hillpark. I snuck out of the house at night because, y’know, I thought that Communists were kidnapping me. Came down here screaming my head off. Apparently I scared some potheads. My parents found me sleeping under the bridge the next morning. They were mortified.”

“Because you slept under a bridge? ‘Mortified’ isn’t the word I’d use.”

“I was naked.”

“Oh.”

“They were angry, too. At least, my mother was. Dad was worried.”

“Were you okay? The potheads didn’t do anything to you?”

“No, I scared the crap out of those guys.”

“That wasn’t that long ago, then. How’d the story get around so fast?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. People communicate surprisingly well when they’re scared—they just don’t communicate the right things.”

The breeze ruffled the leaves over our heads. Psithurism. I’d have to remember that. I desperately wanted to ask Miles about his mom, but I knew this wasn’t the time. I sat down in the middle of the gravel road and patted a spot next to me.

“Cars rarely come down this way,” I said.

Miles sat down. He folded his long legs and balanced his arms on his knees, bunching his bomber jacket up around his ears. The breeze had mussed his hair; I balled my hands in my lap to keep from reaching over and putting it back in place.

“I didn’t see you at Finnegan’s tonight,” I said.

“I didn’t get a shift at the store today. Went home after school.”

Didn’t get a shift. Like he wanted one.

“I don’t understand you,” I said, the realization hitting me at the same time I said it.

Miles leaned back on his hands. “Okay.”

“‘Okay’?”

He shrugged. “I don’t understand you, either, so I guess we’re even. But I don’t understand most people.”

“That’s weird.”

“How so?”

“People aren’t hard to understand, except you. And you’re so smart, I figured you had everyone on your puppet strings.”

He snorted. “Puppet strings. Never heard it described like that before.”

“I want to know what you do when you’re not at school or work or running jobs. Where do you even live?”

“Why does it matter?”

I sighed again. He made me sigh a lot. “You’re an enigma. You walk around doing stuff to people for money, and everyone’s afraid to look you in the eye, and I’m pretty sure you’re part of a mafia. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who has a place to live. You’re just there. You exist. You are where you are and you have no home.”

The moonlight reflected off his glasses and lit up his eyes.

“I live a couple streets away from here,” he said. “The Lakeview Trail subdivision.”

Lakeview Trail was one of those half-and-half subdivisions— half pretty new houses like Downing Heights, half run-down hovels with crumbling sidewalks, like mine. I had a good feeling
which side of the subdivision Miles belonged to.

“I’m not home most of the time. When I am, I try to sleep.”

“But you don’t.” He was always tired. Always sleeping through first period. Always falling asleep over his meal at Finnegan’s.

He nodded. “Most of the time I think about things. Write stuff down. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“I guess.” I became aware that we were staring at each other. And had been for a while. I noticed and looked away, but Miles didn’t. “It’s rude to stare at people.”

“Is it?” He sounded serious. “Tell me if I’m doing something weird. Sometimes I can’t tell.”

“What is up with you lately? Why are you being so nice?”

“I didn’t realize I was.” His face remained completely neutral. Except for that infuriating eyebrow.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to ask. “So you don’t think it’s creepy? My schizophrenia?”

“That would be stupid.”

I laughed. I fell back into the gravel and laughed, my voice carrying up through the trees and into the sky. His response made me feel free. That was what I came down to Red Witch Bridge to feel anyway, but I’d never expected any help from Miles.

In a weird way, it felt like he belonged here. He belonged in the land of phoenixes and witches, the place
where things were too fantastic to be real.

He leaned over and looked down at me. He seemed more confused than anything.

I pushed myself back up. He kept staring at me. I realized I wanted to kiss him.

I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the way he looked at me like I was the only thing he wanted to look at.

How did one go about it? Ask him if I could? Or maybe quick and unexpected would be better. He made a pretty easy target, sitting there, docile for once, and kind of sleepy.

I really needed Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball. But I could guess what kind of answer it would give me.
Ask again later.
So freaking noncommittal.

No, none of that. Decision: Outright questioning.

Just say it
, said the voice.
Ask him. Blurt it out. What can he say?

He can laugh in my face.

Let him. It’ll be a douche move on his part. You’re only being honest.

I don’t know.

Do you really think after all this, he’d brush you off like that?

Maybe.

Maybe he likes you, too. Maybe that’s why he stares so much.

Maybe.

Screw it. I was chickening out. Quick and unexpected— GO!

I leaned forward and kissed him. I don’t think he caught on until it was too late.

He froze up as soon as I touched him. Of course—he didn’t like to be touched. I should have asked. I should have asked,
I should have asked . . . .
But then, like a building wave, I felt the heat pouring off of him. His fingertips brushed my neck. My heart tried to strangle me and I jumped away from him.

A band of moonlight lit up his eyes like fluorescent bulbs.

“Sorry,” I said, standing and hurrying back up to the copse to find my baseball bat, trying to figure out what I’d been thinking.

He was still sitting there when I stumbled back into the street.

“So, um.” My jaw tingled, lungs contracted, throat tightened. “I’ll see you on Monday, I guess.”

He didn’t say anything.

I barely kept myself from sprinting through Red Witch Bridge. The wind thundered in the trees, and when I finally looked back, Miles stood at the door to his truck, outlined by moonlight, staring right back at me.