One Hundred Candles [2] (7 page)

My curiosity piqued, I followed them. So did Noah. Feeling him right behind me reminded me of the way he’d kept his hand placed on my lower back during the party. Again, I had to remind myself that we never had a romantic relationship. Besides, if his mom and Shane kept things going, Noah and I would essentially be family one day. We wouldn’t be related by blood, but still. If things went wrong with us, it would be too awkward. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Matthew was going through the video he loaded onto the monitor.

“Explain to me why you were filming the empty cafeteria when I clearly told you to tape the hallways in between classes,” Bliss said.

“I did the hallway stuff earlier,” Matthew explained. “I thought I’d get a few shots of those new vending machines.”

Bliss was slightly placated. “Oh. Well, I guess that shows initiative.”

“There! Do you see it? Right there!” Matthew paused the screen and was pointing to an object on the cafeteria floor.

“What is that?” Bliss asked. “It looks like a—”

Matthew hit a button and the object began to move slowly across the back wall of the cafeteria. “See? At first, I didn’t even notice it. But it kept, you know, gliding.”

It was exactly like the security tape, showing a transparent white dog moving without feet. A quick glance at Noah told me he was thinking the same thing I was: this was no coincidence.

Bliss frowned. “That’s a poodle.”

“A ghost poodle!” Matthew turned to me. “You know all about ghosts, right, Charlotte?” His excited voice was attracting looks from the other boys in the class.

“Shh,” I warned him. “We don’t know if it’s real.”

“But I was there. It
is
real. I saw it!” He seemed thrilled. “We have documentation of a ghost poodle. This is awesome!”

Bliss looked like she was trying to remember something. “The party.” She turned to me and Noah, dropping her voice a little. “Didn’t one of the guys tell a story about his grandmother’s poodle? About how after it died, it came back to scratch him from under the table?”

“It was Harris,” I said. “Harris told the story.”

“Do you think that his story is somehow connected to this?” Noah asked.

“No.” Bliss looked over her shoulder at the image on the screen. “I think the story
is
this.” She twisted a ring on her finger nervously. “Gwyn said freaky things would start happening after all one hundred candles had been lit. What if this is the beginning?”

“She said we would be joined by a hundred spirits,” Noah said softly.

Matthew had already drawn quite a crowd around his workstation. Soon the entire school would know about the afternoon apparition in the cafeteria. I wished Avery was here. She had a knack for damage control, whereas I tended to freeze.

“We can’t let this get out,” I told Noah and Bliss. “Once this story starts, it’s going to be impossible to rein it back in.”

Most of the boys in class were absolutely giddy as they watched the video over and over again. Some of them had pulled out their phones and were texting.

“I think it’s too late,” Noah said. “The ghost has escaped.”

seven

It didn’t take long for news of the “ghost poodle” to spread throughout the school. The cafeteria footage was discovered Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday morning, everyone had seen a copy, thanks to the AV freshmen posting it on a blog and calling it the Demon Dog of Lincoln High. The video fueled rumors about the New Year’s Eve party, which produced fantastic—and false—stories about what had happened during our peculiar game. The latest version involved more than fifty seniors wearing black cloaks, chanting in Latin and passing around a goblet filled with goat’s blood. Harris, who had told the ghost dog story originally, was particularly offended.

“I’ve known some of these people my whole life,” he said, referring to a group of classmates he’d overheard in the hall way. “I thought they knew me. Suddenly, they think I’m a devil-worshiping freak.”

I understood how he felt, having spent most of my school years deflecting and defusing out-of-control rumors about myself and my family. It was never easy to be judged harshly by a misinformed jury of your peers, especially when their judgments felt so viciously final.

I’d been through worse. The stories I was hearing didn’t accuse any one person of any one thing, although I heard my own name mentioned more than a few times. There was a sense of excited anticipation about what might happen next. People were actively trying to find out what stories had been shared around the candlelight, and everyone seemed to be on the lookout for continued weirdness. More than a few people had taken random pictures of the cafeteria corners and nearby stairwells with the hopes that they would catch an image of something. So far, they hadn’t had any luck.

But the paranormal pandemonium had just begun, and I wondered if time would prove that the “demon dog” was a semi-isolated incident or the start of something really strange. Noah and I had kept the security-camera footage to ourselves. I had passed along a copy to Shane so he could debunk it, and I was hoping he would have a clear theory for me later in the day.

“Do you think this is connected to you?” I asked Harris, hoping he wasn’t as easily convinced as everyone else. We had stopped in front of my history class before the bell rang.

Harris shook his head. “No way. Someone is playing a prank, I know it.” His gaze wandered beyond the door, into the classroom. “Still, it’s creepy. I saw the video, and it does remind me of my grandmother’s dog. How could someone come up with something so accurate in so little time?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. The security camera had captured the dog within twenty-four hours of Harris telling his story. If it was a projection—and I suspected it was—how could someone plan and implement it that quickly? They would need immediate access to equipment and video of a poodle. It didn’t seem possible to pull it off so fast.

The bell rang, Harris handed me my books and that was that. The teacher was late, so the classroom was buzzing with conversation. I pretended to take notes while I eavesdropped on the people around me.

“Some freshman girl heard footsteps behind her in the hallway. When she turned around, no one was there.”

“I heard the bathroom sinks in the east wing keep turning on by themselves.”

“One of the seniors saw a shadow moving through the library.”

None of these happenings sounded paranormal to me. It was a big school and footsteps echoed. Someone probably forgot to turn off the sink in the bathroom, and when somebody else entered, they saw that it was on and jumped to the conclusion that it had turned on by itself. A shadow in the library probably was a shadow—made by a person nearby.

As the excited conversations continued, I looked around and spotted Gwyn sitting a few rows over. She was hunched over her desk, scribbling in a red notebook. I wondered if she was having the same kind of rumor-control problems that Harris had mentioned. Everyone knew that the game had taken place at Gwyn’s house, a house she claimed was haunted. She seemed to sense that I was staring at her, because she suddenly looked over in my direction. I smiled, hoping I appeared sympathetic. Gwyn frowned and went back to writing, this time moving her arm to shield her paper.

I really wanted to talk with Gwyn about the story she’d told on New Year’s Eve. Had she heard the same voice I had heard in Ohio?

Thank you for pushing back the curtain.

It was an impossible coincidence.

The teacher walked into the room and ordered us to take out our books. I ripped a sheet of paper from my notebook and quickly scrawled a note.
Gwyn—can we talk later? Before end of day. Important.
Then I folded it, leaned over and flung it onto her desk. I watched as she unfolded the paper, then looked up at me, her expression puzzled.

Please?
I mouthed.

She nodded yes.

Good, I thought. Maybe Gwyn had an idea about what this curtain was. Maybe the voice was not at all like the one I had heard. Maybe she had heard wrong, or embellished the story. I wanted a little clarity, something to convince me that our stories were actually totally different. Deep down, I was most afraid that this could be real. If a hundred spirits were going to invade the school, and if one of those spirits happened to be the same one that had spoken to Gwyn, then something bad was hurtling toward us. I felt my sling and the way it hugged my chest. It had taken only seconds for “the Watcher”—whatever it was—to inflict this kind of damage. I wanted to be prepared if it found me again.

While the teacher droned on about our next test, my mind wandered back to Harris. I was glad that he wasn’t buying into the school’s enthusiasm over the unexplained video clip. Too many people were accepting it as definitive proof of the paranormal, and it bothered me that a few seconds of footage had suddenly converted the entire school into staunch believers that Lincoln High was haunted. I hoped Shane would review the tape I’d given him. I’d asked Dad first, but he was swamped with a caseload that was growing by the hour.

“We’re getting calls about everything from full-bodied apparitions to UFO sightings,” he complained. “It’s getting more and more difficult to weed out genuine cases of unexplained energy from the nut-job fantasies.”

I told both my parents about the video and my skepticism, but I had been careful not to mention the hundred-candles game at Gwyn’s house. Not only did I want to avoid their disappointment, but I was afraid they would use it as an excuse to fight, and I was determined not to be the cause of any more of their heated disagreements.

While my parents were determining their future cases, I was trying to determine my relationship with Harris. He still walked me to and from class each day, but I wondered if he would stop once my sling came off. Our New Year’s kiss was as far as things had gone. Harris was not openly affectionate with me at school. He would sometimes put his arm around my shoulder or give me a light kiss on the cheek, but that was all. I was confused, so I turned to my best friend for advice.

“Do you think he really likes me?” I asked Avery after school. I had tried to track down Gwyn between classes and, later, in the parking lot, but I couldn’t find her. Our dark discussion would have to wait a little longer.

Avery and I were sitting on the floor of her room going over our notes for a history test the next day. “He said he owed me for dragging me to that party, but it’s more than that, right?”

She folded her notebook in half. “Of course Harris likes you. He follows you around everywhere.”

“I know. But he hasn’t asked me out or anything.”

“We’ve only been back to school for a week. Give him some more time.”

“I guess.” I flipped through my own history notes, looking for the tiny stars I usually doodled next to something that indicated a potential test question. I couldn’t concentrate, though. “What’s the story with Gwyn?” I asked. “She seems to know him pretty well.”

“We’re not going to get much studying done, are we?” Avery asked with a smile.

“Sorry. I’m just trying to figure him out.”

I didn’t know why I was having so much trouble clarifying my feelings for Harris. Except for the hundred-candles fiasco, New Year’s Eve had been great. Gazing at the stars with Harris had been, by far, the most romantic moment of my life. In fact, it had been the
only
romantic moment of my life.

Avery tapped her pen against her history book. “Harris and Gwyn’s older brother are best friends,” she said. “Greg graduated last year. I think Harris has known Gwyn forever, but she’s his best friend’s little sister, you know?”

“Who else has he dated?” I asked.

“Let’s see. There was a girl his freshman year, but she moved out of state. He dated a couple girls sophomore year, but nothing serious as far as I know. I’m not sure about last year.” She paused. “There was a rumor that he got busted at homecoming for making out with some girl in the parking lot.”

This got my attention. “Wait. You mean this past homecoming? As in just a few months ago?”

Avery furrowed her brow. “I think it was him. I’m not sure. I’ve kind of been out of the loop lately.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Harris likes you, it’s obvious. I say go for it.”

Any questions I had about how Harris felt about me vanished on Friday. I had stopped by the office before second period to get my schedule straightened out once and for all. It was taking a while because one of the secretaries had lost her keys and apparently everyone had to stop what they were doing and join in the frantic search.

“I just need one thing changed on my schedule,” I said. “I already cleared it through guidance. It will only take a minute.”

“I put them right here,” the secretary said. She patted the desk. “I know I did.”

Gwyn emerged from the copy room with her arms wrapped around a stack of papers. She stopped when she saw me, only for a second, then continued to her chair at the end of the counter. “Did you check the trash?” she asked out loud. “Maybe they got knocked in.”

The secretary leaned over, rifled through the trash and smiled. “There they are!” She retrieved a big silver hoop laden with a hundred keys. “Thanks, Gwyn. I have no idea how that happened.” She turned to me. “Now, what do you need?”

Finally, my schedule was fixed. I thought about trying to speak to Gwyn, but she was no longer at her seat behind the counter. I walked to study hall, relieved but annoyed that the process had taken so long, when I saw Harris. He was digging through his locker and didn’t see me until I was right next to him.

“Overslept?” I joked.

He looked startled. “Charlotte!” His semishocked expression gave way to a smile. “I’m glad you found me.”

“Have you been running?” His face was red and he was breathing fast.

“Yeah, kinda. I had to help my dad this morning.” Harris’s dad owned a landscaping company, and Harris was always running emergency deliveries for him. It seemed strange, though, that he’d have to do something for him on a school day.

He shut his locker. “Sorry I wasn’t there this morning to help you out.”

“I managed. You sure you’re okay?” He seemed scattered, not at all his usual, composed self.

He took my good hand in his. “Better than okay. In fact, I wanted to ask you something. What are you doing next Saturday? Because I thought we could go out.”

“Out where?” I cringed a little as soon as I said it, knowing I sounded stupid.

Harris laughed. “I don’t know. Dinner, maybe a movie?”

I was thrilled. “That sounds great.” I hoped I didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. Harris helped me with my books while my thoughts swirled. Should I ask him what time, or would that seem too eager? I would need something to wear, but Avery would help me with that.

“Next Saturday, then,” he said.

I could hardly wait.