Starcrossed (7 page)

seen him twice, but she could tell he thought less frequently about

his looks than everyone around him did. His eyes, as pretty as they

were, looked out, rather than back at himself.

She dunked her head underwater and screamed, just to get it all

out without scaring her father. When she came back up she felt a

little better, but was still disappointed in herself. One of the

terrible side effects of feeling like she somehow already knew Lucas

was that she was starting to idealize him, making him more perfect

than was humanly possible. Which was uncomfortable because she

also still wanted to kill him.

She pulled the rubber plug out with her toes and watched the water

creep slowly down the sides of the bathtub until the last of it

sucked down the drain. Then she sat naked in the empty tub, staring

at her white, wrinkled feet until her butt hurt. Eventually, she

knew, she would have to leave the dark bathroom and try to act

normal.

She got dressed and went downstairs to check on her dad, finding

him just walking through the front door. He had run out to buy ice

cream for dinner—and not just any ice cream, but the good stuff

from the gelato place that Helen had banned him from when the

doctor told him to watch his diet.

“To bring down your core temperature,” he said innocently, shaking

the rain out of his hair.

“Is that your story?” she asked him, her hands on her hips.

“Yup. And I’m sticking to it.”

She decided to let it go. There would be plenty of time to worry

about his cholesterol in the morning. After so many days with so

little food, rich gelato was probably not the best idea, but it did go

down easily. They sat on the floor of the living room with their beloved

Red Sox on television, passing the pint and spoon back and

forth as they cussed out the Yankees. Neither of them answered the

phone, which continued ringing periodically, and Jerry didn’t push

Helen to explain what had happened. Claire’s mom would never

have let her get off this easy. Sometimes there were advantages to

being raised by a single dad.

Helen had to change her sheets before she went to bed. The

stains from the night before had not disappeared as she had hoped,

but tonight she had bigger things to worry about than sleepwalking.

For one thing, she could hear someone or something moving

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around on the widow’s walk. It was different from the sounds she

had heard the night before. This time there were actual footsteps

directly above her instead of just amorphous whispers coming

from all sides. Helen didn’t know what would be worse—going up

there and finding a gang of intruding monsters or finding nothing

at all. For a moment Helen wondered if she was starting to crack

up. She decided not to go up to check. She’d seen enough ghosts

already that day.

The next morning, Helen went to see Dr. Cunningham. After a few

minutes of flashing a penlight in her eyes and thumping her on the

chest, Dr. Cunningham told her father that there didn’t seem to be

any permanent damage done. Then he yelled at Helen and told her

she was far too fair to be walking around without a hat on. She

didn’t know how it had happened, but after one trip to the doctor

her meltdown had been brushed off as nothing more than the carelessness

of not keeping her head covered. At least the checkup got

her out of school for the day.

When she got home, Helen opened her computer and spent a few

frustrating hours online trying to find some information on the

three women who were plaguing her. Every search she did overwhelmed

her with so many possibilities that her task seemed hopeless,

and she couldn’t narrow it down because she didn’t have any

real context for what it was she had seen. Were they ghosts? Demons?

Or just her own personal manifestations of crazy? It was entirely

possible that she had hallucinated the whole thing, and now

that she didn’t feel so enraged she was almost starting to think

maybe she had had heatstroke. Almost.

Claire came over in the afternoon to deliver some bad news. “The

whole school thinks you’re on your way to an institution as we

speak,” she said as soon as they sat down in the family room. “You

should’ve come in today.”

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“Why?” Helen asked with a grimace. “It doesn’t matter when I

come back, no one’s ever going to forget this.”

“True. It was pretty bad,” Claire said. She paused for a moment

before speaking in a rush. “You scared the crap of me, you know.”

“Sorry,” Helen apologized with a weak smile. “So, was he in

school today?” For some reason she felt like she just had to know,

but she couldn’t bring herself to say his name out loud.

“Yeah. He asked me about you. Well, he didn’t actually talk to

me, but Jason did. He’s a jackass, by the way.” Claire started talking

with increasing heat. “Get this. So he comes up to me at lunch,

right? And he starts asking me all these questions about you. Like,

how long have I known you, where are you from, did I ever meet

your mom before she skipped town . . .”

“My mom? That’s weird,” Helen interrupted.

“And I start answering him with my usual flair for clever repartee,”

Claire said, a bit too innocently.

“Translation: you insulted him.”

“Whatever. Then that chump had the huevos to call me ‘little

girl’! Can you believe it?”

“Imagine. You, described as ‘little,’” Helen said in a droll voice.

“So what did you tell him?”

“The truth. That we’ve been friends since birth and neither of us

really remembers your mom, and that she didn’t leave any pictures

or anything, but that your dad’s always going on about how she

was this incredible beauty and how she was so smart and talented

and everything, and blah-blah-blah. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist

to figure out that your mom had to be hot. I mean, look at your

dad and then look at you,” Claire said with a knowing glint in her

eyes.

Helen winced at the compliment. “Is that it? Lucas didn’t say

anything else?” Helen’s hands were curled up into fists. She found

it hard to so much as say his name without wanting to punch

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someone in the head. Obviously, she either still had heatstroke or

she really was going out of her mind.

“Hasn’t said a thing. But I did hear a rumor that Zach was talking

trash about you and Lucas shut him down hard.”

“Really?” Helen said, perking up. “Shut him down in what way?”

“He wouldn’t let anyone say anything bad about you, is all. You

know how Zach and Gretchen are. But Lucas wouldn’t hear it. He

kept saying you felt like you had a really bad fever when he . . . did

that thing that he did. What would you call that, anyway? A backassed

bear hug?”

Helen groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“It’s all right,” Claire said, patting her back consolingly. “He’s not

going around telling everyone you’re monkey-butt crazy, so at least

you brutalized a seriously sweet guy.” Helen groaned louder and

tried to crawl into the sofa while Claire had a nice, long laugh at

her expense.

That night, Helen had another nightmare about the dry land.

When she woke she was so tired and sore that for a moment she almost

believed that she had been walking for days, just like she had

dreamed. She had always been good at ignoring strange things

about herself, and she tried to convince herself that this was no different,

but her hands shook as she bundled up her dirty sheets and

took them to the laundry room.

Helen washed the grit off in the shower and tried to focus on

school, though that was no comfort, either. As soon as she walked

into Nantucket High, it was going to be open season on the freak,

and the freak knew it.

It was still raining out, so she had to get a ride with Claire and

her mother. Helen put a hand over her tummy, afraid of a cramp

before she even got out of the car. She had never really understood

why she got cramps; she just knew that sometimes when she did

something that made people stare at her she was seized with a

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crippling spasm in her stomach that was so intense it made her

stop whatever it was that she was doing.

“Relax,” Claire said as they opened their doors to get out. “All you

have to do is make it through today and then you have the whole

weekend to . . .” she trailed off, thinking. “Nope. Sorry, Len, I tried

to be optimistic, but this’ll still suck on Monday.” Claire started

laughing, and the sound cheered Helen up a bit—until they got inside

the school.

It was worse than she’d imagined. A group of underclassman

girls literally gasped and huddled up to gossip as soon as they saw

Helen come through the front doors. A senior boy with a leather

fetish leered at Helen and called her “hellcat” just as he was

passing by. When she turned to stare back at him in astonishment

he mouthed the words “call me” before continuing on.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Helen whispered. Claire put a hand

on her back and pushed her forward.

Every time someone’s eyes landed on her and widened with recognition

she got closer and closer to a panic attack. Was she going

to have to suffer through the rest of junior year like this? Helen

tried to melt into Claire’s shadow and realized that if it was cover

she was after, she was going to have to find some bigger friends.

“Quit stepping on the backs of my feet!” Claire complained. “Why

don’t you just go hide out with Hergie while I get your stuff out of

your locker?”

Gratefully, Helen ducked into homeroom and tried to blend in

with her desk. Mr. Hergeshimer asked if she was feeling better,

and then ignored her completely as soon as she answered that she

was feeling fine. She could have kissed him for that.

Matt just waved and sat down without a word. Helen guessed

correctly that he had been threatened by Claire to act like he’d forgotten

the whole thing, but he kept trying to stop himself from

glancing over at her, so Helen knew he was still really worried. She

caught his eye and smiled warmly, and after that he seemed a little

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less preoccupied. Zach turned his head and looked out the window

as soon as he took his seat, making a big show of not looking at

her.

She made it through the rest of the morning without incident,

right up until lunch. As she walked to the cafeteria she realized too

late that she was going to pass by Lucas’s locker. She was about to

turn and go another way, which was ridiculous because that would

mean she would have to literally go around the entire school, when

she was spotted.

Gretchen and Zach noticed her as she stood wavering indecisively

in the middle of the hall. They were at their lockers, which just so

happened to be right next to Lucas’s and Jason’s. Some of the fuzz

fell off of Helen’s memory and she recalled Gretchen’s and Zach’s

petrified faces floating around in the background as she tried to

choke Lucas. It made alphabetical sense for their lockers to be together,

Brant—B, Clifford—C, Delos—D, but Helen blamed her terrible

luck for the fact that all of the most popular people in her

grade had been firsthand witnesses to her moment of utter

humiliation.

She had no choice—she was just going to have to walk past them.

Gretchen and Zach didn’t say a word and their faces didn’t show

any expression at all as Helen hurried by with her shoulders practically

in her ears. At least Lucas wasn’t there, she thought, ducking

into the cafeteria.

“Stand up straight! You’re going to give yourself scoliosis,” Claire

scolded when Helen got to their table.

“Sorry. I just had to go by his locker,” Helen explained quietly.

Matt made a disgusted sound.

“You can calm down, Lennie,” he snapped. “None of them are

here today.”

“Supposedly they all took the day off because the aunt and the

eldest Delos kid finally got to the island this morning,” Claire said.

“Oh yeah, great,” Helen mused. “There’s another one.”

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“Hector. He’s a senior,” Claire added helpfully, although she

could have no idea that saying his name didn’t help Helen at all. In

fact, for some inexplicable reason, it ticked her off.

“No news on him yet. Zach will probably call me with an update

this weekend,” Matt said with a shrug. “He always knows where

everyone is and what they’re doing.”

The rest of the day dragged by, although there was some relief in

knowing that she wasn’t going to bump into the Delos kids or the

wraiths that seemed to appear whenever they did. She even started

to enjoy herself during track practice as she ran through the fog

and splashed in muddy puddles with Claire. Coach Tar didn’t say a

thing about Helen’s pathetically slow run time when she came in,

although Helen knew she wouldn’t be able to get away with that for

much longer. She had an athletic scholarship to win, and Coach

Tar was not about to forget it.