Uncertainty (30 page)

Something inside Dexter waited patiently for me. Deep in the dark, hidden in shadows. I couldn't see it because I was too blinded by what I
could
see. It waited patiently, biding its time, until I found it. Or it found me.

One particular night, I heard the fluttering of wings behind my head in the dream. But there were no birds in the room. I woke up.

I heard thudding, and for a moment, I thought I was back at home, a long time ago, listening to a ghost pound frantically for help. A ghost I hadn't put a name on because I didn't want to face the truth. But who else would it be?

But then I realized I was still in Corinne's guest room. Corinne always fell asleep to the sound of the TV, and I could hear it blaring through the wall. But that wasn't what had woken me.

Shadows fluttered outside the wooden blinds. Carefully, I threw off the blanket and stood up, creeping over to the window. I pulled the cord on the blinds and yanked it up.

I shrieked, unable to stop myself. A huge black crow was bashing itself senseless against the window, sooty feathers flying everywhere. I dropped the blind, watching the shadow swoop a few more times and the resulting bang of the bird's body. Then it dropped to the sill.

It had followed me here.

My parents made a surprise visit the next day. I had only seen my mother one other time since Hugh dropped me off. He came out twice a week to bring me the make up work that Theo had gathered, and to update me on things back home. And to see me, I knew, but I still harbored some resentment at being ditched out of town.

The pair of them sat down on Corinne's overstuffed emerald green couch. All of the throw pillows on it were mismatched, the seams starting to fall apart and little fluffs of white stuffing poking out. I made myself comfortable across from them as Corinne went into the kitchen and puttered around, making tea.

Claire picked up an orange candy dish in the shape of a butterfly off of the chipped coffee table. She set it down with a look of distaste. Her purse was balanced on her lap.

"Why are you both here?" I asked, looking back and forth between them.

"We wanted to see you," Claire said. "We've missed you and we wanted to make sure you were adjusting okay."

"Oh yeah, I'm dandy," I said, rolling my eyes. "Is that all you wanted, because if so then you can go." I started to stand up from the chair. I knew I was being a brat, but I couldn't stop it.

"We're also here to discuss you coming back home," Hugh said gently. His words made me pause. Corinne came out with the tea in mismatching mugs, and put one down each for my parents.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, thinking I had misheard him.

Hugh cleared his throat, not making any move towards the tea. He was much more of a coffee man. "There's no sign of Warwick anywhere near Hell. Odds are he was gone a long time ago. Robert wasn't a patient man; if he was going to come back, he would have done it already."

"Police cars have cruised through our neighborhood every day, and they haven't seen one hint of anything amiss," Claire supplied.

"And the school sent us a letter this week. If we don't physically have you back in school, they'll take you out for this school year."

It was a lot to take in at one time, especially after living such a mundane existence for the past month and a half. I'd wanted to go home the entire time, but the prospect also scared me.

"When?"

"We can pack up your stuff right now," Claire said. "We just want you home. To get back to normal life."

"She's just going back, just like that?" Corinne asked, coming in late to the conversation.

"We figured you were probably starting to feel crowded," Claire said. Her voice was unmistakably like a snotty older sister.

"No, not at all," Corinne said, and I felt a rush of affection for my weird aunt. "I'm going to miss her. She's been good company, never causes any trouble. You should let her have a little more space."

I wanted to reach up and kiss her, but I knew that would make her uncomfortable and twitchy. I bit my cheek instead.

"Well, maybe you can visit more often," Claire said. She must have really meant that she wanted me back. "C'mon, Ariel, let's get you packed."

It felt like years had passed when I came home. I could feel the weight the instant I came back to Hell, settling on my shoulders with disquieting familiarity. The Halloween decorations were up in their full glory, and for the first time I realized how ridiculous it was. Still, I felt a sense of nostalgia for Hell.

The ground was covered with piles of fallen leaves, the sky an azure blue. It was still quite warm though, for autumn, but that was just a pleasant addition.

As soon as she saw us pulling up in the driveway, Theo ran over. She was jumping up and down with excitement to see me. I undid my seatbelt clumsily and scrambled out to meet her, as we threw our arms around each other.

I was apprehensive when I finally took my suitcase down to my room. The basement smelled musty and closed up. It didn't look like my parents had been down there much at all, except Claire to do laundry. A fine layer of dust had settled on everything, and I got the creepy feeling that this was how it would look if I'd died suddenly. That morbid imagination again.

I slowly opened the door. The air seemed to shimmer inside, like a heat wave. Jenna was laying on my bed, her arm slung over her eyes.

"Jenna?" I asked cautiously.

"Ariel?" she croaked in a weak voice. She sat up on her elbows. "Welcome back."

"Hi, Jenna. Are you okay?"

Her skin and even her clothes were washed out, paint with too much water mixed in. She looked very weak.

"I'm just really tired," Jenna said. "I need to start running more again, I think I'm out of shape. And there's so much fog in here, it's making it hard to breath..."

That's what I had worried about, but at least it hadn't swallowed her up.

"I'm back now," I said, coming over and sitting on the side of the bed. She looked more otherworldly than before, her skin ashen like that of a corpse, with no blood running through to make it flush. Her eyes were still blue, but the lenses were cloudy. She still made no move to get up.

"When you left, I didn't know what to do," Jenna said somberly.

"I know. I'm sorry, Claire and Hugh just didn't give me much time, they rushed me out of the house..."

"It's okay," Jenna said. "I've been losing track of time, though. I have no idea what day it is. Is it still summer?"

"No. It's October," I told her.

"Wasn't it just June?" Jenna asked. To her maybe it would always be June.

I felt helpless. But at least I was back, and she hadn't disappeared.

I went back to school the next day. Because of keeping up on my work, I wasn't behind in any way but socially. I barely remembered my teacher's names and I was worried I'd go to the wrong classrooms. Theo picked me up, seamlessly falling into our old routine.

"Welcome back," Alex said calmly as I walked in. "Long time no see." He'd cut his hair and grown out a bit of blonde stubble.

"I never thought I'd say I was glad to be at Hawthorne. Not like I'm going to say it today. But I think this is the closest I'll ever get," I said.

Alex patted me on the back. He leaned close to my ear. "I know you might not want to hear it, considering your complicated history, but your boy wanted me to give you the message that he's happy you're back, too."

Within a short period of time, it was like I'd never left. I'd thought it might be awkward, but it was easy to slip back into a routine. A lot of people I'd barely talked to before said hi to me in classes, as though they'd personally missed me.

I could hear my name as a topic in other people's conversations, and for the first time I knew I really heard it and wasn't just paranoid. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were watching me in the Commons at lunch, and I bowed my head and ate my lunch.

"Maybe you should consider a disguise for school," Alex said humorously. "Some dark glasses, blonde wig."

My teachers seemed bemused that I was back, but I was just glad that it didn't seem to be a big deal. And I had kept all of my grades up, even math, so there wasn't anything they could say against me there.

In chemistry, I was still seated back next to Madison. I was surprised they hadn't found anyone else to fill the space, that Madison hadn't personally requested a change of lab partner. She seemed shocked to see me, her buggy eyes popping out, and her pencil falling out of her hand. Her reaction was almost comical.

"I thought you had pulled out," she said. She acted very inconvenienced to take her purse and her books and all of her other crap off of my seat.

"No such luck," I muttered. "I was just on vacation."

Henry came up to me after school. I'd seen him throughout the few classes that we had together, even though we sat in opposite parts of the classroom. From what I gathered, he had stared at me all the way through each of them, but that was what everyone appeared to be doing. Like Warwick was going to randomly run in with a butcher knife and attack me.

"So are you back to school from now on?" Henry asked, walking beside me down the hall. I noticed that he was back into wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and he looked more like his old self.

"Yep. Unless my parents have other plans that they haven't let me in on," I said.

"I know I'm disobeying your rules and talking to you," Henry said. "But I was wondering if I could push my luck and ask you to go for a drive with me?"

"Why?" I asked, eying him cautiously.

"I just wanted to talk about a few things."

"More talking?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Henry said, smirking. "Aren't girls supposed to want to talk it out? Anyway, I just figured, since this is the first chance we've had to chat since Warwick did whatever he did to get out, we should compare notes."

"Okay. I guess," I said gingerly. I let Theo know that I was going to go with Henry. She didn't seem to like the idea, looking at him cautiously and asking me several times if I really was sure I wanted to do that.

I'd never been in Henry's car before. The cherry red BMW coupe still looked brand new. I could have pulled out all kinds of metaphors for that but I kept my mouth shut. The interior was not so spotless. Scribbled song lyrics were tacked to the roof, and he had jammed books and paperwork on the floor of the driver's side.

"Sorry," he mumbled, tossing the stuff into the back.

"How crazy are your parents to let you drive this thing?" I asked.

"Well, you already know how crazy my dad is," Henry mumbled. "Apart from that, it's all a status symbol. It's a freaking car. And I'll get a new one next birthday."

"That it is," I said softly. I hated the idea of Henry's dad hurting him. I found myself checking him out for new bruises, hoping he wouldn't notice or get embarrassed as we sped down the road.

"When is your birthday, anyway?" I asked, realizing I'd never found it out before. Or his middle name, or his favorite color, or other mundane details like that. In all the time I'd thought I was madly in love with him, I'd bypassed the little things.

"April 17th," he said. "I can't wait until I turn seventeen, then one more year to official adulthood."

"Two for me. I'm a baby, I only turned sixteen in September."

"Happy late birthday," he said, smiling gently. But his eyes were still sad.

"At least it won't be too long until you get away from your dad," I mumbled after a minute.

As the coupe stopped at a red light, Henry turned towards me. "Don't worry. He's kept his hands off me. I think Warwick getting out worried him. He knew that Warwick held the gun to both of us."

"You've been okay though, right? Careful?" I asked. I didn't want to show that I cared about him, to live by the words I'd told him. But the truth was, I did care, and no matter what I did it wasn't going to stop.

"Aren't I always?" Henry asked, starting to drive again.

"I wouldn't know," I shrugged. "You seem to like to court danger."

"You and me both, dear," Henry said. Heat slithered through my belly again, reminding me again how we'd kissed at Lainey's party. I'd never had a boy touch me like that before, seem to want me as much as he wanted me.

"So let's get to talking," I said, trying to distract myself.

"Did Warwick try to contact you in any way?" Henry asked. "Send you an email, text, carrier pigeon, anything?"

"No. You?"

"Nothing. But it seems like everyone thought he was coming back to Hell. I wonder why?"

"He lived here his whole life," I said. "Where else would he go? To my knowledge he doesn't have any living family. He always came to our house for holiday dinners. One year he and Hugh barbequed a turkey and almost caught the grill on fire."

"So let's think like a criminal. If I had just gotten out of jail, I would be heading as far away as possible," Henry said.

We were driving down a tree-lined street with rows of tidy lawns. People were out raking leaves and piling them into their ditches to burn. Little plumes trailed up from the ditches, scenting the air.