B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

I waited, my hands behind my back. Finally, he looked up. A smile tugged the crags of his face into youthful buoyancy. His wild hair stuck out at all conceivable angles, and that damn red pilot’s scarf danced in the wind like a flame behind him.

“Puck,” I said. “Or Robin?”

Puck walked up onto the beach, smiling all the while. It kindled something inside me, where the great black hollow now lived. The one that had been for Zack. An ounce of happiness. Of approval, and caring.

Puck shook his head.

“Puck then?”

He nodded.

I looked him up and down. Then I held my hands above my head like a ballerina and revolved slowly.

“What do you think?”

The old man bowed and took one of my hands. He kissed the back of my hand like a knight, and I laughed and rolled my eyes. Puck stood up again, straight as a fence post, and smirked. Then he touched his fingers to his lips and made a bright loud smacking sound, just like an Italian chef complementing his own food.

“Thank you,” I said, and curtsied.

Puck stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. He must have been thinking extra hard, or feeling extra strong, because I could pick up dribs and drabs of his thoughts. I held tight to him, for a moment, enjoying the moment. I never thought I’d see him again. Puck had been there, when I was at my loneliest and most confused. When my world had ended, Puck had taught me a new one.

He was ecstatic to see me alive. It poured off of him like a waterfall.

“I have something for you,” I said. From the front pocket of my cardigan, I removed a little oval silver locket on a silver chain. I held it out to him. “Open it.”

Puck’s face smoothed out, the smile disappearing. His eyes grew wide, and wet, and he mouthed the words thank you. I waved my hand, biting hard into my lower lip.

He took the locket in his long slender fingers, and turned it over. He popped it open and gazed down into each half. One was a picture of me about six months ago, taken by Morgan. It was a candid shot, me looking to my right, the green grass of the park behind me. I couldn’t remember what I was looking at, but it was without a doubt my favorite picture of me. The other picture was a baby picture of me, wearing a tiny sundress, digging a hole at the beach. A bright pink bow the size of a Frisbee had been clipped into my hair. My mom, naturally, trying to turn me into a doll.

Puck held his hand over his mouth. Though he did not shudder or sob, trails of silver tears slid down his cheeks. I watched him bite hard into his hand and turn away from me, and for a split second I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.

“I’m sorry! Oh Puck, I just thought…I just wanted to say thank you. For everything you’ve done for me, and for my friends. I’d be dead without you. Morgan and Zack would be dead without you. You’re a hero. And if you ever regretted making the decision you made, the same decision I made, just remember—we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t become a phantom, all those years ago. Just, thanks. Thank you.”

I watched Puck’s shoulders, watched the side of his face. He dabbed at his eyes with the scarf, closed the locket, and slipped it over his head. He turned to me and tucked the locket away down the front of his button-up. A small timid smile curved his lips.

Thank you.

I reeled. I heard him that time, as clear as a bell, floating in my thoughts.

I grinned at him and curtsied again.

She told you?

The feeling of hearing his voice in my mind was strange. I touched my temple and shook my head a little to clear it.

“About your first daughter. About Lucy? Yeah, Ophelia told me.”

Puck nodded.

“You didn’t lose her this time,” I said. I touched his arm. “You never will.”

Puck touched the locket on his chest, then looked up at the roiling grey clouds overhead. I let him pull himself together, and I watched the grey horizon across the ocean for a long time. Finally, I heard a rustling sound, and I turned toward him. His hand was held out, and a perfect white shell sat in the center of his palm. I looked up at him, smiled, and took it.

“So how did I do, Puck? Bagged my Mors, didn’t die, saved all of my friends. And did it all while staying incredibly fashionable. How did I do?”

Puck looked up at me, gravely, and held one hand up.

He made the see-saw motion.

I leaned down, scooped up a handful of wet sand, and hurled it as hard as I could. But he was already running down the beach, dancing and leaping and booking as fast as he could.

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this.”

I ran after him, intent on putting a sand-clod right in his stupid grinning face.

Epilogue

Winter Informal, or, One More Secret

The next week passed, because it had to. I don’t think I had any part in it passing, and if I had, I imagined the world would have ground to a halt. I spent those first days as a husk. I ate, though I wasn’t hungry, something I was getting used to. I slept, a lot, in fact, though I was never tired. I went to class, and I did my homework.

I suffered the pity of Morgan, Daphne, Sara, and Wanda with aplomb, I feel. I would have preferred just never talking about him ever again, but they made me. Morgan, I told the truth about what happened. The other girls I gave them what they wanted to hear—he broke up with me, because of my disappearances. He couldn’t handle them, emotionally, and so he thought it better that we end it. Better for him, better for me. I don’t know what he was telling people. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

I told Ms. Crane the same thing. I turned her attention to my break-up, and away from my shoddy story about being attacked by Abraham. Talking to her helped, even if it was half lies. Gradually I began to come back to life, even if it felt like I’d had something torn out of me, an organ I would never replace. Something vital. Something good.

That’s why, when Sara told us that David Ebersbach had asked her to Winter Formal, I didn’t immediately end her life. And, to her credit, she told us in a low, sad, very frightened voice, like she’d just told a tiger that she tasted really great.

“I don’t care,” I told her, in the quad during lunch. “Stop tiptoeing around me, guys. Just don’t ask me to go dress shopping with you.”

They’d all laughed at that, nervously, like they had to. Whatever. Better a fear-laugh than that dead terrified silence, like I was made of porcelain and their words were stones. Like I might just lose my mind and start biting people.

When the conversation came around to everyone’s dance plans, I groaned and buried myself in my turkey sandwich. But I listened to them talk, because, well, it was better than thinking. Better than living in the place in my brain where Zack and I go to Winter Formal and look dazzling and stun the world.

Morgan hadn’t been attracting the boys like she used to, which she readily admitted. Gorgeous, leggy, blonde volleyball star Morgan had been put on the shelf, maybe permanently. I hadn’t seen her since that day without a ponytail or a baseball hat, and she lived perpetually in sweat shirts. Still, I don’t think it was just that. Her sunken eyes were her most distinguishing feature now. I wondered if they would ever go away. If maybe I hadn’t broken both the people I loved most.

And Wanda…she still hadn’t recovered from her attack at Benny’s party. She was even twitchier, if that was possible. Even more sullen, drawn in, and terrified. Daphne just hadn’t decided which boy to take.

“Well, to hell with it,” Daphne said, suddenly, as we pondered our miserable states. “No dance.”

“What?” Sara asked, annoyed. I didn’t blame her.