THE SHADOWED ONYX: A DIAMOND ESTATES NOVEL (4 page)

She reached back into the box for the magazine cutouts of the prom dresses Joy had dreamed of wearing as she clung to Austin’s arm. They had fantasized about being prom king and queen. Could have been a real possibility. But not anymore.

Nor would she need the stacks of wedding dress pictures she’d cut from
Bride
magazine in secret. She hadn’t admitted even to Melanie that she daydreamed about marrying Austin and had every single detail of her future wedding recorded in her purple notebook. Where was that journal?

Joy shifted some trinkets and papers around in the box. Ah. There it was, stuffed full of notes, business cards, wedding pictures she liked and hoped to replicate with Austin. And … on the very back page … Joy had written her vows. She flipped to the end of the book.

Yeah. Loving and losing was way worse than never loving at all. Whoever had said the opposite had obviously never been betrayed. Joy put it all back in the box, secured the lid, and then made another promise. At least seven days this time.

That’s it. She needed answers. Joy grabbed her keys and texted Raven:

Y
OU HOME
?

J
oy sat on a pillow in the center of Raven’s candle-lit bedroom. A spicy aroma from the burning incense filled Joy’s nostrils. Why had she agreed to do this again?
Never
had only lasted three days. But sometimes the quest for knowledge beat out wisdom. “Um. What, exactly, do we hope happens here tonight?”

Lucas plopped down to the ground, crossed his skinny legs, and gave his signature grin—the same sneer he’d had since he moved to their sleepy Nebraska town of Ogallala in the middle of Joy’s second-grade year at Progress Elementary. The big city had been evident in everything Lucas did and said—still was, actually. He’d never quite figured out how to fit in among the Ogallala natives. Or maybe he never tried.

Luc cupped his hand over the incense as though to capture its essence. Or was he simply warming his hands? Maybe Joy was taking her creeped-out qualms a little too far.

Laying his hands on his knees, Lucas closed his eyes, every movement he made was a measured step. “We are reaching out to the spirit who tried to talk to you two the other night.” His voice droned in monotone. “It has something to say, so we’re going to listen.” He shrugged like it was the most natural thing.

A chill ran down Joy’s spine like someone hammered a scale on a xylophone.

He opened the Ouija board and placed it in the center of their human triangle. The glass piece in place, he settled his hands in position and waited, peering from behind a wall of black, greasy bangs.

Raven reached her fingers to the board and laid them beside Luc’s then scooted one hand a bit more until it barely touched his pinkie.

Joy cracked her knuckles and settled her hands in place.
Just get it over with
.

“Spirit friend, we know you’re here with us, and we believe you’d like to talk to us.” Luc’s voice held no emotion, not even a single inflection. “We’d like to know who you are. Will you please tell us?”

The candle flame danced in his eyes. If he started chanting, Joy was out of there.

She felt movement as her arm was pulled along the board until the glass stopped over a letter. It couldn’t be real. But it
felt
real.

M

Here we go again
. Joy lifted some of the weight off her fingertips. She sure didn’t want to be the cause of where the planchette moved. She glanced at Raven who stared at Lucas, as usual. When he was around, no one else existed. Not even a dead person. Joy’s stomach churned. Never again would she care about a boy that much. Ever. Even if it meant not having a marriage like Mom and Dad. She’d rather be alone her whole life than risk the possibility of losing someone again.

Lucas cleared his throat. “Do you feel that?” He spoke in even tones and looked at Raven. “There’s, like, a low rumble, a hum maybe, in the room.”

Yeah. Probably the furnace, you idiot
.

“I do feel it.” Raven closed her eyes and lifted her face.

Oh please. What did she want? A ghostly kiss on the cheek? In better times, Joy would have giggled at the thought of playing a trick on her. But not today … maybe never. Just too much effort.

The triangle continued its path on the board. Why hadn’t she stayed home? That would have been so much smarter than her chosen alternative. She’d leave if her legs weren’t superglued to the floor.

E

“See, Luc? That’s what it said last time.
Me
. What is it trying to tell us?”

“Shh.” Lucas shook his head. “It’s not finished yet.” He closed his eyes. “Are you still identifying yourself to us?”

With force Joy hadn’t been expecting, the glass eye slid to the
Yes
.

What had just happened? It sure felt spontaneous…. It had to be Lucas or Raven making that thing move. It had to be. But it just didn’t seem like it. Joy’s eyes flew open, and she searched her friends for a clue to the truth.

Raven chewed on her lower lip. Was
she
nervous? Joy had kind of counted on her being the strong one.

“Okay. It’s getting irritated. Feels interrupted.” Lucas sat up straighter. “We’re listening, spirit. Tell us who you are.”

Back to the normal speed of death, their hands eased along until they revealed another letter.

L

What if it was actually real? Pastor Joel talked about the spirit world sometimes. It made sense that if God existed like she’d always believed, the dark side would, too. Joy watched in fascination as her hands were drawn to the next letter.

A

It paused for only a few seconds and dropped to the letter below.

N

Wait just a second. Was this some kind of sick joke? Joy looked from Raven to Lucas. Were they in on this together? How undeniably cruel to make that thing spell out … “Come on—”

“Shh,” Lucas hissed, his eyes trained on the space above his gnawed fingernails.

I

Joy would never speak to them again. Simple as that. But then why didn’t she just leave? Why let them finish out their ruse at her expense?

Lucas nodded at Raven and lifted his hands. He reached across the table and lifted Joy’s fingers as Raven removed hers. Game over?

The planchette trembled and inched forward.

All. By. Itself.

Acid churned in the pit of Joy’s stomach. Everything she ever believed about life, death, God, and heaven crumbled into purgatory as a game claimed her faith.

E

“I’m going to throw up.” Joy scrambled through Raven’s bedroom door and dove for the toilet in the hallway bathroom. Holding her hair back, she waited for the contents of her stomach to make a reappearance. It tried to empty, heave after heave. Guess it would have to have something in it before it could expel anything. Had Joy really not eaten all day long? Come to think of it, had she even had a drop to drink? Her cracked lips screamed that she hadn’t. A shrink would say she was trying to kill herself.

Was she trying to follow in her best friend’s footsteps?

She sat back against the bathtub, the cool porcelain soothing her skin through her T-shirt. Her head thundered like a parade marched through.

“You okay?” Raven’s muffled voice called out from the bedroom.

Took her long enough to bother asking. Joy’s entire life, or whatever was left of it, had just been turned upside down, and Raven casually checked on her after an entire ten minutes had gone by? From the other room? Yeah, real concerned. She was probably in there making out with her boyfriend. Melanie would have been in the bathroom at Joy’s side the whole time she was sick, holding up her hair and pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. That’s what best friends did.

Wait a minute. Joy’s head whipped from side to side. Was Melanie there with her? Had she been by her side ever since … since her death? Maybe she’d listened to all of Joy’s conversations, counted the tears that fell, watched her sleep. Could Joy talk to Mel—like actually converse with her? Joy shook her head. Too much.

Placing her palms on the side of the tub behind her, Joy forced her body to unfold from its crouch. Her knees wobbled as she shuffled to the sink then flipped on the faucet. She let the cool water run between her fingers and over her wrists for at least a full minute. Leaning over the basin, she splashed some water on her face and let it drip off, stripping dried tears with it. Yanking a black, rose-embroidered towel from the hook beside the mirror, she pressed it into her eyes.

“Joy? You okay in there?” Raven’s voice came through the door a little louder than the first time.

Hadn’t Joy answered her? “Yeah. I’ll just be a minute.” Joy blotted her face dry, hung the hand towel back on its hook, then made her way back to the bedroom. Act casual.
Never let them see you sweat
.

Lucas lay kicked back on the bed, his size-twelve Vans rumpling the covers.

Raven sat cross-legged on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut. Candle flames still flickered in the circle around her.

What was that smell? A floral note mingled with scrambled eggs … or more like rotten eggs. Joy opened her mouth to ask Raven, but the scent was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Probably just her imagination. Looked like she really was losing it after all.

“You okay, Joy?” Raven’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

Um … seriously? Joy stood rooted in position. She didn’t know what to do, who to talk to, how to recover. How could she possibly be okay? Didn’t they get it at all? “I have to know. Did all of that really happen? For real?”

Raven opened her eyes and held Joy’s gaze. “Yes. That actually happened. For real.” She smiled softly, like it was no big deal. Like a parent soothing a child afraid of clowns at a circus. This was far more serious than that.

“You’re telling me that I just heard from my dead best friend?” Joy shot her glance from Raven to Lucas. “From beyond the grave?”

Lucas bobbed his head a single time. “Yes.” He rolled onto his side, balled the pillow under his cheek, and yawned.

One fog lifted and another settled as a shiver ran from the top of Joy’s head through the ends of her toes. No matter what, she couldn’t let anything like this happen again. Joy had seen the movies. She knew what became of people like her who messed with this stuff. It never ended well. “Okay, I’m out of here. I can’t handle this. Not that I even believe it.”

Raven peered through her thick lashes, her eyes laced with something that looked like compassion. “You believe it. I can tell you do. You wouldn’t be so terrified if you thought it was all fake.”

Raven had her there. Joy shrugged. “Fine, but I’m out. I don’t believe in this stuff—I mean, I guess I know it happened. But I can’t embrace it…. It’s not … I don’t think it’s right. It’s not like, God’s plan.”

Eyebrow cocked, Raven waited.

The instant they’d left her lips, Joy’s words had sounded absurd even to her. God’s plan? What of the past couple of weeks was His doing? At the funeral the pastor had said nothing happens that doesn’t pass through God’s hand first. Well, if that were true … if He could have stopped Melanie from taking those pills, but didn’t…. Unthinkable. Was that the kind of God she wanted to follow?

And on top of it all, now Joy had to deal with the fact her dead best friend could speak to her from the other side. If it had actually happened, then what did it all say about heaven and the afterlife? About everything she’d ever believed in? About her own eternal fate?

Too many questions. Not a single answer.

“I have to go.” Joy scooped her purse, keys, and cell phone from Raven’s bed then jerked the arm of her hoodie from under Lucas’s sleeping body.

He twitched and let out a snore.

Raven opened the door for Joy then grabbed her wrist until Joy looked her in the eyes. “Don’t worry about anything. I know this is tough to accept, but we can help you through it. Luc and I.” Raven stretched an arm across the bed and shook Lucas’s body. “Right, babe?”

He grunted what might have been interpreted as an agreement of some kind. Whatever. Not feeling all that reassured.

Raven reached out and patted Joy’s back. “You have some thinking to do first, then when you’re ready, we’ll teach you. There’s no hurry. We’re not going anywhere.”

That’s what Joy was afraid of.

P
eople didn’t usually cut homeroom—why would they? No lectures. No assignments. No homework.

Well, most people didn’t share their homeroom periods with Austin. Besides, there was a first time for everything. And after last night, Joy couldn’t take sitting in that classroom for one minute. Joy pulled the hood of her black, threadbare hoodie over her head, stepped out of the stream of students, and ducked into the locker room. Thankfully, Mr. Cavanaugh never took attendance. If Joy skipped class and arrived at practice early, she could be dressed and on the court stretching before everyone showed up.