Tonya Hurley_Ghostgirl_02 (13 page)

“Damen is sitting in that room, waiting,” Scarlet said anxiously. “Waiting for her … for me, to come back.”

“Then you better get going,” Maddy hinted.

“Scarlet, is all this really because of Petula?” Charlotte asked. “Or Damen?”

“No, well, I don’t know, maybe,” Scarlet fudged, not really knowing the answer herself. “He hasn’t been home much since he started school, and now all of a sudden, when Petula is so sick, he pops up.”

“It does make you wonder,” Maddy intervened.

“He says it’s because he wanted to take me to Homecoming,” Scarlet explained, a bit defensively.

“Homecoming?” Charlotte mused aloud, trying hard to keep her mind from slipping into all the old delusions once again.

“We just haven’t been connecting like we used to,” Scarlet complained, seeming more vulnerable to Charlotte than she had before. “It’s like we’re in different worlds.”

Charlotte knew all about being in different worlds, firsthand. She couldn’t help but think that maybe it truly was she whom Damen had fallen for, but she immediately felt guilty for even letting the thought cross her mind. Maddy stayed quiet, gathering information and listening carefully to both girls spill their guts.

“Does he call you?” Charlotte asked curiously.

“Yes, he does, but it’s not enough, you know?”

“Does he know how you feel?”

“No. And I don’t really know how he feels,” Scarlet said, clearly frustrated.

“Love is a battlefield,” Maddy butted in, unable to restrain herself.

Damen’s sympathy for Petula was really irksome to Scarlet, and the fact that they were experiencing a growing communication breakdown was making him much harder to read. Scarlet wanted to believe her main reason for seeking Charlotte was to help Petula, not something she was especially anxious to admit, but Charlotte was on to something. Restoring Petula, saving her life, would put Damen’s focus back on Scarlet completely. That was something she was reluctant to do, especially in front of Maddy.

“Honestly,” Scarlet said unconvincingly, “I think I just want Petula back so that she can make my life hell again.”

Charlotte smiled. She could see right through Scarlet’s defense mechanisms, directly to her heart.

“This really is so weird, right?” Scarlet said, taking in her surroundings as well as the friendly face in front of her. “Me being here.”

It was weird, but totally welcome. Charlotte liked being sucked back into all the gossip at Hawthorne, even under these difficult circumstances. She hadn’t felt this good since she’d crossed over. They’d caught up almost completely without ever addressing the most obvious topic of discussion: How, exactly, was Charlotte going to help her?

Maddy, acting like the voice of reason, elbowed into the warm and fuzzy scene again.

“She’s just wasting her time here, Charlotte,” Maddy warned. “You can’t help her.”

“You don’t know that,” Charlotte replied in a surprisingly clipped tone. “Maybe she’s here for a reason. Maybe this is my reunion.”

Maddy just rolled her eyes. Charlotte knew better also but allowed herself a selfish moment under the circumstances.

“If she stays here any longer, it might be,” Maddy said, reminding her coldly that time was not on Scarlet’s side.

Scarlet was glad to see Charlotte still had the backbone she’d grown the night of the Fall Ball, but Maddy did have a point. Although there was almost nothing she’d rather do than stay and talk with Charlotte, there was still one thing that took precedence, the reason she’d come. Good point or not, however, Scarlet was getting the distinct impression that Maddy was trying to get rid of her and that it had nothing to do with searching for Petula.

“I think she should go,” Maddy said emphatically to Charlotte, then glanced over to address Scarlet directly. “Nothing personal, Scarlet, but Petula isn’t here yet, and you don’t belong here either. Yet.”

“You said she’s in a coma?” Charlotte asked, ignoring Maddy.

“Yeah.”

“Well, if she’s not quite dead,” Charlotte considered, “maybe she’s somewhere off-campus, you know, in an intake office, like at … the hospital?”

“That’s nonsense,” Maddy decried. “Dying is not like being on deck in a kickball game.”

“Actually,” Charlotte said, “it kind of is.”

Maddy was totally perplexed, but the look of recognition on Scarlet’s face was instant. Dead Ed, the orientation film, the whole Billy and Butch/special abilities kickball metaphor thing. Funny, she thought, that Maddy wouldn’t have gotten that too. Everyone had to watch the film. Repeatedly.

“We need to get off campus,” Charlotte continued.

“Great. How?” Scarlet asked, eager to just get up and go.

“Charlotte, you can’t just head back to the living world,” Maddy warned urgently. “You have a job now, responsibilities at the phone bank.”

“You mean I might miss one of those calls I never get,” Charlotte said sarcastically, but nevertheless understanding that the consequences of venturing off into the unknown could be very dangerous. “I’m sure you can handle them for me.”

Charlotte’s annoyance at Maddy taking her call the other day at work had been festering, and this was as good a time as any for Charlotte to let her know.

“I don’t want you to do anything that could hurt you,” Scarlet said, feeling guilt and hope in equal measure at the thought of finally having a solution. “Just point the way, and I’ll go on my own.”

“No. Our job is to help troubled teens, isn’t it?” Charlotte said confidently, looking at Maddy. “You are a troubled teen and I am going to help you.”

“Don’t you remember all those conversations we had about good deeds?” Maddy scowled, grabbing Charlotte by her scrawny shoulders in a last-ditch effort to talk sense into her. “How pointless they are? What a waste of time they turn out to be?”

“I also told you that I would do anything for Scarlet,” Charlotte said firmly, staring straight into Maddy’s eyes. “Scarlet needs me to go.”

“And I need you to stay,” Maddy slipped.

The “need” bit was a little jarring for Charlotte to process, and off-putting too. Normally she would have been charmed by Maddy’s admitting her vulnerability, her apparent jealousy over Scarlet’s visit, like that, but that’s not how it came out. It wasn’t “need” in the sense of “want” that Maddy was expressing; rather it seemed to be need in the sense of must.

“And I need you to mind your own business,” Scarlet jabbed.

Charlotte was increasingly pissed that Maddy was sticking her nose in, but she had been a really good friend since they’d arrived, and it was totally understandable that Maddy would feel threatened by her relationship with Scarlet.

“Why don’t you come with?” Charlotte suggested. “We could use your help.”

“Sorry, Charlotte,” Maddy said, “but I’m not going to jeopardize everything by leaving, and you shouldn’t either.”

Scarlet just frowned knowingly. Maddy didn’t appear to her to be someone who would make a sacrifice for any reason.

“No one ever said we can’t leave,” Charlotte shot back. “Technically, anyway.”

Just then, the phone in their apartment rang, and Maddy, using her phone bank skills, jumped to get it.

Maddy turned her back to the girls and nodded a few times, but neither Charlotte nor Scarlet could hear a word she was saying. The girls only knew the chat had ended when Maddy put down the receiver, a much cheerier expression plastered across her face than before.

“Hey, Charlotte, can I borrow you for a minute?” Maddy asked, grabbing her by her waif-like wrist and leading her to another corner of the room.

“You know, at first I thought this might have been a bad idea, with all your work-load and stuff,” Maddy chirped, “but I know how unhappy you’ve been, and going back might, you know, make sense for you,” Maddy continued. “I mean, Scarlet’s perfect, popular sister is lying there, vulnerable and empty, and you are probably the only one who can help her right now.”

“So you’re really going to help me?” Charlotte asked.

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Maddy affirmed, turning and beaming at Scarlet.

Chapter 13

Shadow of Doubt

Behind every cloud is another cloud.

—Judy Garland

Never trust a person who says trust me.

Trust is not a given. In any relationship, it is the hardest thing to earn and the easiest to lose. In fact, the only words harsher than “I don’t love you anymore” are “I don’t trust you anymore.” The former has everything to do with someone else. There is nothing you can do about a change of heart. The latter has everything to do with you.

Charlotte, Scarlet, and Maddy arrived at the fenced-in perimeter of the campus as first light fought to break through the overcast sky above them. Up close, the barrier was a bit higher than they expected, but not particularly formidable. There were no guards to avoid or checkpoints to navigate; just a lone video camera like the two at the office.

Charlotte made a kind of climbing motion with her hands, and Scarlet and Maddy caught her drift. Getting up, and even over, was the easy part, Charlotte thought. The backside was a different matter. It was impossible to see much past the fence, even from their apartment. Also, none of them had come in this way, so what really lay on the other side was, at the very least, unknown. At worst, well, nobody wanted to speculate.

“We’re off to see Petula … ,” Charlotte sang nervously.

“I hope you’re not betting on a friggin’ yellow brick road to lead us there,” Maddy said ominously.

Charlotte turned to them, pressed her bony finger to her lips in the universal sign for “shut up,” and began climbing stealthily. Scarlet and Maddy followed. The climb down was a lot farther than up, and before long, the dank environs of the campus gave way to the even danker and drearier forest that descended beneath them.

There was no obvious path through mist and the mucky undergrowth, but there was just enough turf wear and light for the girls to see the way.

“Doesn’t look like anyone has come this way … ,” Charlotte noted, and paused at the thought of how best to describe the undefined path. “… Lately.”

“That’s an understatement,” Maddy interjected snidely, surveying the little-traveled wood before them.

Scarlet took the lead, stomping over the damp carpet of leaves and dirt. It was invigorating, thrilling even, for Charlotte to be out there with her friends. She imagined that this was what it might be like to go off to college or start an actual life filled with expectations and hope.

At first, the girls all shared a sense of excitement, even Maddy, as they drifted through the forest, blazing a path directly through the Unknown, all three of them together with no one around to tell them what to do or how to do it. It felt like sneaking out in the middle of the night when your parents had gone to bed and having the whole world — and the whole night — to explore.

Scarlet trudged forward, thinking what an amazing game of hide-and-seek she and Petula could’ve played here as kids. Come to think of it, maybe that is exactly what they were doing now. The stakes were higher though, and the enormity of what they were trying to do began to hit her too.

They trod carefully through the thicket, which sprouted thorns like pimples on an oily face. The little pricks on their legs and arms were getting irritating, and it was getting harder to see. They couldn’t really be sure whether they were lost or not.

“This really sucks,” Maddy whined to Charlotte so that Scarlet could hear. “Maybe we should turn around.”

“Not me,” Scarlet retorted, fending off the doubt creeping through her own brain as well. “You can if you want.”

“We don’t know where we’re going,” Maddy argued, “or if we can get back.”

“I have my own problems.” Scarlet grimaced impatiently, reminding Maddy both of her mission and the fact that she wasn’t planning on returning anyway. “Besides, you invited yourself.”

“I came to help you guys, but if you don’t want me here …”

“Stop,” Charlotte said, nipping the squabble in the bud. “Let’s not fight.”

Charlotte was playing uniter for Scarlet’s sake but was increasingly of a divided mind about this expedition too, and becoming more conflicted with each footstep. There was something about this wasteland surrounding them that was gradually draining her enthusiasm and souring her mood.

It was more than just the physical difficulty of the journey. Her psyche was growing evermore fragile as well, her confidence was shrinking like a cheap sweater in a hot dryer. As unhappy as she’d been lately, this little adventure was proof that things could always get worse. She’d been missing Scarlet and was nostalgic for the good old days of being the resident ghost at Hawthorne High, but maybe it was the idea of Scarlet, of their friendship, that she’d been missing more than the actual person. Perhaps she’d romanticized their relationship to the point where it bore absolutely no resemblance to reality.

She and Maddy were risking a lot to help Scarlet, and Scarlet didn’t seem too appreciative. In fact, she had barely looked back to check on them. The other interns’ reunions didn’t have nearly this kind of downside either. Maybe Charlotte had just gotten sucked in again by all the Damen and Petula talk and made a bad choice.

Maddy reached from behind and put her hand gently on Charlotte’s shoulder, as if she’d read her mind.

Scarlet felt herself weakening too, both mind and body, as their progress became slower and slower. She could tell her companions felt the same, and felt them wordlessly blaming her for their plight with each painful stride. The wood had been thickening ever since they left campus, unlike their skins, which were getting thinner by the step. It wasn’t that any of these girls was particularly sensitive, it’s that their nerves had become almost unbearably frayed, rubbed raw by both the harsh landscape and each other. In fact, the girls had barley spoken a word among them since their stressful tiff earlier, and Scarlet was starting to feel like the odd soul out in this spectral threesome.