Untethered (20 page)

“You’re gorgeous.” He laughs. The sound of it cuts sunshine into the fog. “You don’t believe me?”

Pffft. Pfft. The balloon is getting bigger and bigger. Something’s wrong. Suddenly, the good feeling turns to pain and my ribs ache so much I pull away. “I ... I ...”

The sound of the waves turns to a low growl, like a huge predator ready to pounce. The sky changes from gentle grey to angry black.

Kevin grabs my purse from the ground and rummages through it. He finds a small, silver mirror and wipes his thumb across the glass to get the lint off. “Here.” He pushes it towards me. “See for yourself.”

I take the mirror from him and hold it delicately between my fingers. I tip it to my face and look inside.

The face that peers back at me is not my own.

It’s Cassie’s.

I wake up with a start and can still feel the cool mist of the shadows in the air.

Become her.

Hatred and jealousy and anger urge me on.
But it’s evil
, I tell myself.

And yet ... I want it so bad. So, so bad.

And now I know how.

Twenty-Four

October: Keep Your Friends Close. And Keep your Ex-Friends Closer

In the morning I’m determined. Any doubts and any moral dilemmas are gone. I spent the night going astral, letting the shadows soothe me. Seduce me. Sway me.

Let’s just say I’ve come to terms with being evil. I am going to possess Cassie. Become her. Simple as that.

As I brush the nasty taste from my mouth with Colgate, I outline my plan:
To Do: make friends with Cassie again.
(The plan won’t work otherwise.)

That’s my goal for today.
Forget the fighting. Bring on the blood sisters.

On the way to school, Sam tells me he heard from Bryce and Kevin and everyone else that Tori got detention. Not only that, her parents are so fed up with her having problems at school that they took her car away.

“You’re kidding!” Tori would rather die than live without her car.

But sure enough, when Sam and I get to St. Anthony’s, the school bus is just belching out its load of students. There, coming out of the yellow bus, is Tori Thompson. She looks mortified.

“Wooo hooo!” I yell, waving my arms. My fear of Tori is overcome by the desire to rub it in. “Have a nice ride?”

Tori’s face turns purple and she screams, “I’ll kill you!”

“Well, I know it won’t be by running me over since you’re no longer driving your car!” Sam and I walk up the front steps, laughing out loud.

When we open the front doors, I feel a smack on my shoulder. A girl who’s never said a word to me before gives me a big smile and says, “Way to go! Tori needed it.”

“Nice one!” another girl whispers as she walks past. I move in a daze as other people congratulate me and give me the thumbs up.

I feel everyone staring at me — in a good way. It’s weird. So weird.

Now that I’ve made my decision to go ahead with my possession plan, everything seems to be a cinch. I’ve never felt so at ease at St. Anthony’s as I do walking through the hallways after school. It’s like by just deciding to become Cassie, I’ve already taken on some of her persona, and people respond. I can’t believe people are liking me for me.

Mimi Wilder and her friends ask me to sit with them at lunch. I say yes.

If you ignore the chain of red eruptions on her face, Mimi’s actually good-looking. She’s got friendly eyes and funky yellow glasses. Her hair is shiny brown and always pulled back into a pony tail.

While we eat, I go from entering the conversation to receding into my thoughts, working out my plan.

“Don’t you think so, Sylvie?” Mimi asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Huh?”

“Cassie and Kevin look like Hollywood stars together. The Perfects.”

I almost choke on my cheeseburger.

But she continues, oblivious. “I can hardly believe you’re sitting here with us instead of them. It’s so cool that you ...”

I stop listening.

From where I’m sitting I get a clear view of Cassie. She’s practically on Kevin’s lap they’re sitting so close.

The knife she’s stuck in my back is killing me.

I stare at her until she feels my gaze and looks up.
Enjoy. Because he won’t be yours for long. I’m coming to get him.

In Art, Mrs. Stilke hushes everyone at the beginning of class and says, “I have an announcement to make.”

We all wait.

“Like I said, I entered all of your designs in the yearbook cover contest. And we have a winner right here in this class.” Her kohl-lined eyes snap over to me. “Congratulations, Sylvie.”

There’s a moment of silence when everyone turns and stares at me. I feel my cheeks blaze. “I knew it!” Nelson yells and starts clapping. The rest of the class joins in.

Nelson hooks me around the shoulders in a half-hug, and for the slightest second I close my eyes and feel his closeness and think
I could get used to this.

After class, Melissa Scott turns to Nelson and says in a smooth voice, “The girls’ basketball team is having a dinner at Infusino’s tomorrow night. We’re supposed to bring a date. Wanna come with me?”

I pretend to be busy stuffing my backpack, but my hands are shaking too much to do it gracefully. I drop a stack of papers to the floor.

Nelson squats down to help me pick them up. He hasn’t answered Melissa yet, and he looks to me like I should tell him what to say.

Right then, Mrs. Stilke calls out from behind her desk, “Oh, Sylvie! Kevin Phillips has been making such progress thanks to you. He told me he’d love it if you continued helping him the rest of the year. That the two of you make a good team.”

Nelson stands without having picked up one single sheet of paper off the floor. He turns to Melissa. “What time do I pick you up?”

I’m walking down the hall, telling myself Melissa and Nelson don’t matter because Kevin’s who I really want when
wham!
something hard and pointy smacks me in the ribs and sends me skidding into a row of lockers, my books flying. It’s Tori, with the corner of her English book pointed at me like a gun. She’s grinning, her eyes wild.

Then a booming voice and a suffocating body odor come from right behind her. “Looking to get detention another Saturday, Miss Thompson?” asks Mr. Walker.

“No,” Tori says tightly.

“Then move along. And don’t let me see you pull something like that again.” Mr. Walker motions down the hallway. Tori narrows her eyes at me, but starts moving. I breathe a sigh of relief and Mr. Walker returns to his classroom.

I’m just finishing picking up my books from Tori’s attack when Cassie walks up to deposit her books in our locker. She makes a point not to look at me.

Here we go
.

“Cass,” I start. She still doesn’t look. So I say it again and move right next to her. She throws her books in the locker with unnecessary force.

“Look,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m enjoying not being your friend.”

But she doesn’t look like she’s enjoying it. And she has to be my friend. In order for my plan to work. “You mean it?”

“You make me so mad.”

“I’m sorry. I am. I haven’t exactly been all sunshine to be around.”

Cassie sniffs then finally looks at me. “You can say that again.”

“Do I have to?”

A ray of autumn light from the window at the end of the hall shines directly onto Cassie’s head. Her hair reminds me of the pans of watercolor Mrs. Stilke got for the class. Something between red ochre and burnt sienna. I feel desire scratch at my insides. Such gorgeous hair. I want it.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said ... some stuff.” Hatred flares inside of me as I picture her screaming, “
Psycho!”

“Me neither.”

Kids bang into us as they pass us, jostling to get out of the building. But it’s almost like Cassie and I are in a bubble. Just the two of us.

Cassie shakes her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we’ve even been fighting. I miss you. You’ve always been there for me. Even if my parents weren’t there, you always were. I guess you’re the only person who really knows me.”

I have to say it: “And you know me. I’ve always liked Kevin. Always.”

She at least has the sense to look ashamed. “I know. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t plan it, Sylvie, really. You should know that. ”

“So asking you to break up with him ...?”
Here’s your chance, Cass. Just leave him alone and I won’t go through with it.

“Won’t happen.” She says, looking both sorry and stubborn at the same time.

I had planned on lying. On telling her that her being with Kevin doesn’t matter. Just to get her back to being my friend. But the words won’t come out of my mouth.

We stand in silence. Finally, Cassie says, “So now what?”

Ah ... I don’t have to lie after all. I hold up my index finger. “Let’s go back to being friends. Blood sisters forever, right?”

She holds up her finger and hooks it around mine. My heart speeds up. “Forever and ever, Sylvie.”

We let go, then give each other a hug.

Objective number one: completed.

Objective number two: get her to astral project.

We walk out the front doors together, the sunshine making me squint. I glance at her gorgeous face, her filled-out body, and feel instantly ugly. That’s when I know that no matter what kind of bull she comes out with about the inside counting, she would never really change bodies with me. I can’t do this nicely. I’ll have to steal.

Huh. Me the body thief. I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I smile at that and Cassie says, “What?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Absolutely nothing.”

Twenty-Five

October: Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law (Or ... if I get it, it’s mine)

Fate is on my side. My dad has to travel for work over the weekend, and so Sam and I stay home.

Perfect. I invite Cassie to stay over as a way to ‘renew’ our friendship. She hesitates, as she’s supposed to go out with Kevin, but in the end she tells me our friendship is worth more to her.

Yeah. Right. But she won’t stop seeing him.

Mom proposes taking us all to Chicago on Saturday, so we can spend ‘quality time together.’

“I’ve signed the divorce papers,” she says. “So I won’t have you often on the weekends.”

Even though I was expecting it, her signing those things, I have a weird feeling in my chest. Like someone’s been digging there. Like its half empty. My family is falling apart for real.

But Chicago is a cool idea. Cassie comes over Friday night, a bright smile on her face.

“I love this! It’s been too long since we’ve had a sleepover,” she says, punching her pillow and flipping around on the air mattress. She turns round and round on it, like a kid in a bouncy castle.

“I’ve got a secret,” I tell her, turning away from Twitter.

She stops hopping and throws herself flat onto her back. “Yeah?”

“I can astral project.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Which means?”

“I can leave my body. You know, like Kevin’s step-mom.”

She rolls her eyes. “Kevin says his step-mom has mental problems.”

“You think I do?”

“No, that’s not—”

I cut her off. “I already told you this, Cass. Three years ago. Remember?
Truth or Dare?
”

“Yeah,” she says slowly. “But ...”

“But what?”

“I thought it was just a —” she waves her hands, searching for the word “—euphemism for blacking out.”

Oh. My. God. She really didn’t believe me. It feels like the bottom just dropped out beneath me.

It’s hard to keep the anger and sense of betrayal out of my voice. “It wasn’t a euphemism. It was true. And still is. Only now I can control it better.”

She still doesn’t look like she’s ready to believe me so I suggest a test. “Take a piece of paper and write anything you want on it. Something I won’t guess. Then go put it downstairs on the table.”

Cassie laughs but agrees to do it. When she comes up, I relax and go astral. I’m downstairs and back within seconds, so fast now with the shadows’ help.

“
Sally sells seashells by the seashore
?” I tease when I’m back inside myself. “That’s original.”

“No way.” Cassie turns pale.

“Yes way. And if you still have doubts, I can do it again.”

We set up the test three more times, putting a new paper somewhere else each time. I tell her all about going astral — how everything looks, how weightless I feel. Cassie keeps swearing under her breath in amazement. “This is so damn cool.”

“Wanna learn?”

“Anybody can learn?”

“Yeah. Sure. It just takes some major concentration.”

“I don’t know ... is it scary?”

“It can be freaky because it’s something you’ve never done, not scary, though. Anyways, it’s so worth it. Like being invisible. Or having wings. You could go anywhere, you know. Rome, the North Pole ...”

I don’t look like I’m convincing her. “Or you could just stay on our street,” I say. “Check out how your parents are doing without you home.”

That gets her. “What?”

“Cass, if you learn how to do this thing, you wouldn’t necessarily have to be home to make sure your mom’s okay.”

She’s silent for a long time. Then she looks at me and says, “So how does it work?”

I teach her to relax. To concentrate on slipping out of her body. The whole time, excitement percolates in my stomach, excitement and the strangest kind of detachment. Like I’m preparing an assignment for Chemistry class, not a plan that goes against every moral code I know. It feels just like the separation that happens when I project – there’s a warm tingly sensation and a squeeze and then I’m weightless. Only this time I’m weightless of my ideas of what is right and what is wrong, I’m weightless of every emotion besides anger.

Anger and revenge are my anchors. They keep me grounded to my plan.