Kendare Blake: Girl of Nightmares

“Let’s go,” I say.

The mall is bright and smells like lotion. Every store we pass by must sell the stuff. Carmel met us at the entrance, alone. Katie bugged out the minute she heard we were coming.

“Does it bother you that your best friend dislikes me so much?” Thomas asks, his mouth stuffed so full of Cinnabon that he’s barely understandable.

“She doesn’t dislike you. You just never take the chance to get to know her. You both make her feel unwelcome.”

“That’s not true,” Thomas objects.

“It’s sort of true,” I mutter from just behind them. And it is. When it’s just me and Carmel and her friends, it’s fine. I can mingle if I have to. But when the three of us are together, it feels like a closed club. I sort of like that, and I don’t even feel guilty about it. The three of us together is safe.

“See?” Carmel says. She slows down a step or two so I can catch up and walk beside them. Thomas says something else about Katie and I hear Nat’s name come up too, but I’m not really listening. Their couples stuff is none of my business. I drop back to my regular spot just behind. The mall is too crowded to walk three-across without bobbing and weaving through people.

A multitude of voices call Carmel’s name, and I look up from my cinnamon roll to see Amanda Schneider, Heidi Trico, and a different Katie something-or-other waving their arms. Derek Pimms and Nate Bergstrom are with them too; guys that Thomas would call the next wave of the Trojan Army. I can almost hear him thinking it now, hear him gritting his teeth as we walk over.

“Hey, Carmel,” Heidi says. “What’s up?”

Carmel shrugs. “Cinnabon. And wandering around. Dropping hints for birthday gifts that some people are too dense to pick up on.” She nudges Thomas affectionately. I wish she wouldn’t have. At least not in present company, because it makes Thomas turn red as a beet, which makes Derek and Nate grin like jackasses. The other girls just glance first his way, then mine, smiling without showing their teeth. Thomas shuffles his feet. He never looks Derek or Nate in the eye, so I compensate by staring them down. I feel like an idiot, but I do it. Carmel just talks and laughs, at ease and seemingly oblivious to the whole thing.

And then something shifts. The athame. It’s secure, in its sheath, fastened with two straps around my ankle. But I just felt it move, the way it does sometimes when I’m hunting. And this was no small movement; it was an unmistakable twist.

I pivot in the direction it moved, feeling more than half-crazy. There is no dead thing haunting the mall. It’s too busy, too bright, and too lotion-y. But the knife doesn’t lie, so I search through the passing faces, faces that stare blankly on their way to American Eagle or laugh and smile with friends. All clearly alive in varying degrees. I pivot again and the knife jerks.

“What?” I mutter, and look ahead, at the window display of the store across from us.

It’s Anna’s dress.

I blink my eyes hard twice. But it’s her dress. White and simple. Beautiful. I walk toward it, and the mall has gone quiet. What am I seeing? Not just a dress that’s similar to hers. It’s her dress. I know it even before the leg of the mannequin steps down off of the pedestal.

She moves jerkily on plastic legs. Her hair is hanging down her shoulders, limp and loose like a synthetic wig. I don’t look at her face. Not even when my fingers are against the glass of the display and her mannequin-legs bend, rustling the white fabric.

“Cas!”

I jerk, and the noise of the mall hits my eardrums like a slamming door. Thomas and Carmel are on either side of me, concerned looks on their faces. My whole head is cloudy, like I just woke up. As I blink up at the glass, the mannequin stands like it always stood, posed and dressed in a white dress that doesn’t really look anything like Anna’s at all.

I glance back at Amanda, Derek, and the others. They look as shell-shocked as Thomas and Carmel right now. But by tomorrow they’ll be laughing hysterically as they tell everyone else they know. I pull my fingers away from the window awkwardly. After what they just saw, I can’t say that I blame them.

“Are you okay?” Carmel asks. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I thought I saw something, but it was nothing.”

She drops her eyes and looks quickly right and left. “You were shouting.”

I look at Thomas, who nods.

“I guess I got a little loud. The acoustics in here suck; you can’t really hear yourself.”

I see the look they give each other, and don’t try to convince them. How could I? They see the white dress in the window and they know what it means. They know what it was that I thought I saw.

The day after my epic nervous breakdown at the mall I spend my free period outside on the edge of the quad, sitting under a tree and talking to Gideon. There are other students out too, occupying the ground that’s not shady, sacked out on the new spring grass with their heads on their backpacks or their friends’ laps. Occasionally they look my way, say something, and everybody laughs. It occurs to me that I used to do a better job of blending. Maybe I shouldn’t come back next year.

“Theseus, is everything all right? You sound distracted.”

I laugh. “You sound like my mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry.” I hesitate, which is stupid. It’s the reason I called him in the first place. I wanted to talk about it. I need to hear that Anna is gone. That she can’t come back. And I need to hear it in an authoritative British voice.

“Have you ever heard of anyone coming back, after they’ve crossed over?” I say finally.

Gideon’s pause is appropriately thoughtful. “Never,” he says. “It simply isn’t possible. At least not within the realm of sane probability.”

I squint. Since when do we live in the realm of sane probability? “But if I can propel them from one plane to another using the athame, couldn’t there be some other thing that could get them back?” The pause this time is longer, but he’s not really taking it seriously. If he were, I’d hear the jostling of a ladder or the rustle of turning book pages. “I mean, come on, it’s not that far-fetched a thought. A to B to G maybe, but—”

“I’m afraid it’s more like A to B to pi.” He takes a breath. “I know who you’re thinking of, Theseus, but it just isn’t possible. We can’t bring her back.”

My eyes clench shut. “What if she already is back?”

There’s wariness in his voice when he asks, “What do you mean?”

I hope a laugh will put him at ease, so I twist my mouth into a smile. “I don’t know what I mean. I didn’t call to freak you out. I just—I guess I just think about her a lot.”

He sighs. “I know you must. She was—she was extraordinary. But now she’s where she belongs. Listen to me, Theseus,” he says, and I can almost feel his wizened fingers on my shoulders. “You have to let this go.”

“I know.” And I do. Part of me wants to tell him about the way the athame moved, and about the things I’ve thought I’ve seen and heard. But he’s right, and I’d only sound nuts.

“Listen, don’t worry about me, all right?” I say, and stand up. “Dammit,” I mutter, feeling the wet backside of my jeans.

“What?” Gideon asks, concerned.

“Oh, nothing. I’ve got a huge wet spot on my ass from sitting under this tree. I swear the ground around here never dries up.” He laughs, and we hang up. On my way back into the school, Dan Hill hits me in the arm.

“Hey,” he says. “Did you get the history notes from yesterday? Can I borrow them during study hall?”