Apparition (3 page)

Matthew is dead
.

Detective Grierson is holding a pen and a notebook. He’s got the pen touching the page like he’s waiting to write something. After a moment he asks me again. “Can you tell me what you remember about Matthew on Saturday night?”

I try to remember. His eyes. His smile. I try to think.

“I believe he drove you home. Is that right? Picked you up on Industrial Road?”

I nod.

“Can you tell me anything you remember about him that night? Anything at all?”

He waits for me. “He looked good,” I say finally.

“Really?” the detective says. “He looked good? What do you mean by that, exactly?”

How can I tell this stranger what I mean? “I don’t know.” I look over at Joyce.

“Okay.” He looks at Joyce too, then back at me. “Anything else? Did he say where he was going? Did he say what his plans were?” He writes something in his notebook.

I remember what Matthew told me. “He said he was meeting a girl. That’s all he said.”

Grierson nods. “That’s very helpful, Amelia. Who was she? Did he say? Or can you guess?”

I stare at the table until I forget the question.

He tries again. “Do you know anyone he might date who lives out that way? On 12th Line?” He pauses. “Has he ever mentioned anyone he knows out there? A friend, an acquaintance? Someone he could possibly have been heading out to visit?”

I remember the farmer. “A farmer. With an old barn.”

“Anyone else?”

He keeps looking at me like he’s got all day. Finally I manage to shake my head. He writes something else down.

“Did Matthew have any troubles that you know of? Any enemies? Any run-ins or conflicts with anyone in the last while?”

I think hard about nothing and then shake my head.

“Did Matthew use alcohol or drugs?”

I’m still shaking my head.

“One last thing,” he says after a long silence. “Do the letters
D-O-T
mean anything to you? His mother found them carved into Matthew’s desk, and she’s pretty sure the carving was recent. Could it stand for something? Be some kind of code?”

“Dot? You mean like dot-com?” I’m trying to think.
Dot. Period
. “Not really.”

Matthew is dead. Period. The end
.

T
his morning, my grandmother tells me she wants me to see Dr. Krantz again.

Dr. Krantz is the psychiatrist she made me see every week for a whole year after my mother died. It was to deal with how I was missing Mom, my hallucinations and that. I tell her I really don’t need to see Dr. Krantz, and she says that in that case she wants to see me eating more and going back to school. I manage to swallow a few spoonfuls of cereal and get dressed. Not wanting to go to school is hardly a sign of mental illness, I tell her as I leave the house.

On my way to school, I talk to Matthew.
I realize that people die, Matthew. I’ve always known that. My father died in a car accident when I was four. And even when you know for a long time that someone is going to die—like I did with my mom—it still feels sudden. But this? I was expecting to be hit by an asteroid someday more than I was expecting this
.

When I arrive at school, there are several police cars parked in the lot. I guess they’re investigating. Everyone in school—everyone in town—is in a freakin’ panic. That’s what Ethan says. After all, a
murdering psychopath is on the loose in Grey County. The police are refusing to confirm that Matthew’s death is a murder, at least until the coroner’s report is in, but everyone else has figured it out. People say he was cornered in a dark barn by a pitchfork-waving maniac. I haven’t really thought about that part. I can’t.

Jack says that the old farmer who owns the barn is a suspect, mainly because he lives alone, and because he has an artificial eye that’s pretty creepy. He hasn’t exactly acted guilty, though. I heard he was more flipped out by Matthew’s death than anyone. Morgan’s friend Brad has an uncle who’s a cop, and he told Morgan that the old guy was shaking and unable to talk even two days later, it gave him such a bad fright. He’s been staying with his daughter and her family ever since. The police must be afraid he’ll die of a heart attack before they can get to the bottom of this.

I enter the school’s front doors, tracking my way through the crowded hallway with eyes down, weaving between running shoes and baby-doll flats and ankle boots. As I stand at my locker, trying to remember my combination, an arm slips around my shoulders. It’s Morgan, giving me a tight squeeze, which feels nice. But she holds me a little too long, and that makes me feel like crying again.

I don’t have much to say and neither does she, and that’s good. Then she walks me to class. The kids in the hallway seem to be in a state of hysterics or something. They’re all talking louder and faster than usual, and a lot of them are looking at me. Kids I hardly know are grabbing my arm and saying they’re sorry. It’s funny, in a way, how before Matthew I felt invisible at this school. It’s as if he made me easier to see.

Everywhere people are hugging, rocking in each other’s arms. A few girls are crying. It’s like one big emotional meltdown, and it’s happening all around me. Was Matthew more popular than I
realized? Are they feeling sorry for him? Or are they afraid they might be next? This is crazy.
Are you seeing this, Matthew?

My first class is history, and my regular place has an empty seat beside it. I think about sitting down, but I can’t. Then Brittany calls my name from across the room, and when I look up she gives me a little wave. She points to an empty seat near her. I walk over, feeling eyes following me. The attention is embarrassing, but it’s better than sitting in my old seat. Even Brittany looks like she feels sorry for me.

I get through the class by focusing hard on every word the teacher says.
Every. Single. Word
. This could help my grades.

Later, as I try to get through the hall to my next class, I run into Jack. He seems surprised to see me. He gets me in a headlock to amuse his football friends, but he lets me go pretty quickly. I know he’s worried about me. Jack is like that. He looks at me now like he’s taking a reading.

“I’m okay,” I tell him.

With Ethan it’s different. I catch his eye from a distance in the cafeteria and he looks guilty. It’s because, for him, this is exciting. He’s sitting with his posse at the far end of the table and doing most of the talking. Even from across the room I can see him twitching. He’s been doing that weird thing with his face ever since Mom died, especially when he’s excited or nervous. It’s a flinch, like a nurse just jabbed him with a needle. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s doing it. But he must know, deep down. Joyce talked to the family doctor, but I think they figured it would go away on its own if we ignored it. That’s hard, though. It gets on my nerves, like a constant reminder that something’s wrong with our family.

The principal announced over the PA system that Matthew’s funeral would be Thursday morning at eleven a.m. and that everyone from
school was free to attend, with a letter of permission from a parent or guardian. Joyce wrote me a note. Jack insisted I get a ride over with him and his friend Jeremy, who has his own car.

Matthew’s family’s church is on the east side of town, down the road with the Pizza Hut on the corner. It’s a white frame building with a pointy roof and a big front porch. The double doors are open when we get there, and there are dozens of kids standing around in the parking lot and on the steps. You can hear the organ playing inside.

We wade through the crowd and take a seat near the back. The dark wooden casket is already at the front, with small stands of arranged flowers on either side. I can see Matthew’s parents, together with his uncles and aunts and cousins, sitting in the front pews. Their heads are bowed low. Even though he never said anything about his parents that sounded appealing to me, I feel sorry for them. Matthew was their only child. And the sad organ music only makes everything seem worse.

Just before the service begins, my grandmother walks in with two of her horse-loving girlfriends and squeezes in behind us. I feel her lightly touch my back. The small church is packed now.
So this is what your funeral looks like
. The pastor talks for a long time, mostly about how we don’t know God’s plan for us and we can’t always understand why he lets some things happen. He talks about heaven and how perfect it is there, and he says that Matthew is looking down on us right now. He says that someday we will join him, and on that day we’ll understand why Matthew’s life ended the way it did. It reminds me of what Matthew used to say about my mother. How she was happy in heaven. Part of me felt so comforted hearing him say that. The other part of me thought,
Actually, she’s hanging out in the back garden
.

During the sermon, Mrs. Sorenson’s shoulders begin to shake. And then Mr. Sorenson’s shoulders begin to shake. They are both
leaning far forward in their seats. There is the sound of sniffling from all corners of the church, and the sniffles turn into sobs. But now I’m sitting beside Matthew in the library and he’s doodling on the back of a handout, drawing a picture of a tree. There are birds nesting in the tree. He draws lines in the trunk, making it look strong and real. I grab his pen and draw a noose hanging from one of the branches, just for fun. I’m smirking. Matthew rolls his eyes and pulls the pen from my hand, changing the noose into a tire swing. Now I’m swinging back and forth under the tree, looking up into the branches, looking at the little birds.

Something’s happening at the front of the church. A bunch of men are taking up positions around the casket, lifting it off its platform and beginning a slow procession down the aisle. I watch as the casket comes toward me and then goes by. Hard to believe anything is in it. People begin filing out by rows; ours will be one of the last to leave. The church takes forever to empty. I want to say something to Matthew’s mother as she shuffles past, but what?

Outside, a crowd surrounds the Sorensons, and on the fringes of the circle there’s a television crew pointing their camera this way and that. I’m stuck on the steps with Jack until my grandmother comes up and pulls me by the arm toward her car.

“You don’t want to go to the cemetery, Amelia. Come with us.”

My grandmother’s car gets stuck in a small traffic jam leaving the church parking lot. Rita, her friend, is riding shotgun, and I’m sitting in the back seat, staring out at the crowd huddled at the church steps.

As our car inches toward the exit, I notice a man standing on the sidewalk. His hair is charcoal grey, and a bit long and messy, like an old rock musician’s. He’s wearing a brown trench coat, his hands pushed deep in its pockets. His face looks sad and tired. He watches
me watching him from the back window as we drive by. He takes his right hand out of his pocket, and for a second it looks like he might wave. And as we drive down the street, he’s still looking at me. As if I’m the one he came to see.

I
’m lying on my bed, door closed, curtains drawn, light out. It must be about four o’clock in the afternoon. But it could be four in the morning. Either way it feels the same.

I’m calm and still, flat on my back, legs straight and close, with my hands folded on my chest. The tears are overflowing at the outside corners of my eyes and trickling like little creeks straight toward my ears. I’m wondering whether they’ll actually go into my ears, but so far they haven’t. I feel the cool lines of their paths.

Ethan arrives home from school with his usual steel-band entrance. “Amelia! Amelia!” he calls at the top of his voice, barrelling down the front hallway. I hear Joyce tell him to hush up. “Amelia?” He’s whispering loudly and knocking at my bedroom door.

“What do you want?” I snap.

Having his sister best friends with a gruesome murder victim is the most exciting thing that’s happened to him in ages. He opens the door a crack, letting some light cut across my bed.

“You’re in for a surprise. Everybody’s already talking about it. The report.” He must mean the coroner’s report. “Why are you just lying there? That’s how people lie in their coffins, you know.”

“I don’t care.” I don’t want to hear details of how Matthew died.

“But he wasn’t murdered! The police are saying he wasn’t murdered.”

“What do you mean?” I sit up. “It was an accident?” That’s unimaginable.

“No, not an accident. Everybody knows that. He did it to himself. On purpose. He committed
su-i-cide
.” He draws out the word as long as he can.

“That’s a lie!”

“They say he threw himself at the pitchfork or whatever it was. He hurled himself at it. He set it up so it was pointing straight at him, and he ran into it. Full speed!” He says it like he’s talking about a superhero.

“That’s impossible. Matthew would never kill himself! He would never, ever,
ever
kill himself!” I’m yelling now, and looking for something to throw. “Get
out
!”

“Okay, okay.” Ethan closes the door but I can hear him muttering, “Just thought you’d want to know.
Sorrr-y!
”

Matthew would never do that. That much I know.
Do you hear what they’re saying, Matthew? How did you let this happen? How could you be so stupid? What kind of ridiculous trouble did you get yourself into? Suicide? Anybody but you
.

The sun’s going down. I have a lot of math homework and that’s all I’m going to think about right now. I sit in my room at my desk and sharpen a pencil with my steel sharpener. Where did I get this thing? It’s so old. Must have been Mom’s. Yes, that’s why I kept it. Just a little
thing that she used for years. That she held in her hand. I flip through the pages of my notebook, looking up my math assignment. I think I can do these questions. I know this stuff pretty well.

About an hour later, my grandmother raps gently on my door. She says there’s someone on the phone—my history teacher. That’s strange, but I pull myself up from my desk and take the phone from her hand.