Bad Girls Don't Die (26 page)

“What
is
your list?” I asked. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

“You are not meant to understand,” she replied.

Her gaze fell on me like a heavy coat weighing me down. I felt as if my feet were rooted to the ground. She turned and walked up to Mary’s door, ringing the doorbell in quick bursts.

I couldn’t even move.

But as she disappeared inside, the leaden feeling dissolved, and I dashed home and into the kitchen. I looked in the trash and found an empty packet of lemonade mix.

My heart stopped pounding quite so hard. Maybe Kasey was just going to do what I’d done—ask Mary about the names.

I went to the sink to get a glass of water, and that’s when I noticed the grains on the counter. For a second I thought they were sugar crystals, but then I flipped the light on to see that they had the faintest cloudy green tint.

I opened the cabinet under the sink.

The first thing I saw was a box of ant poison sitting slightly askew.

I poured a little into the sink.

Tiny green grains, no bigger than sand.

I didn’t bother to close the front door behind me. I tore back to Mary’s house, pounded on the door, and pulled it open without being invited. I heard Mary exclaim from the living room and found my sister pouring the second of two glasses of lemonade.

“Kasey,” I said. “Stop.”

“She’s not causing any trouble,” Mary said. “It’s really all right.”

Kasey looked at me. “You heard Mary,” she said. “I’m not causing any trouble.”

She stared straight into my eyes, but her glare didn’t seem to lock on to me the way it had outside. I didn’t get the same heavy, captive feeling.

“Go home,” I said.

Neither of us spoke. After a long few seconds, Mary cleared her throat and stood up. “Alexis, dear, I’m so glad you came back . . . You forgot your sweater.”

She hung it over my arm and then retreated, sensing that her gesture hadn’t eased the tension.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” I said. “My sister has to go home.”

Kasey cocked her head.

I took a step forward.

And Kasey took a step back.

. . . Huh.

“Go,” I said.
“Now.”

Kasey took another step backward, then turned to Mary and glowered as intensely as a lion watching its prey.

I began to move closer, and Kasey took off at a full run, down the hall and out into the night.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Mary, trying to sound casual, dumping the lemonade back into the pitcher and setting everything on the tray. “She’s just way behind in her schoolwork and our parents will get really mad if she doesn’t . . .”

Mary was watching me, wide-eyed.

“Mary,” I said, turning to face her. “Do me a favor? Promise me you won’t let Kasey back in tonight. Or tomorrow. Not until I tell you it’s safe. No matter what she says.”

She didn’t seem to hear me. She pulled her shawl a little snugger over her shoulders and shuffled toward a window. She checked the lock, and then shuffled to the next window and checked that lock.

“Um . . . are you okay?” I asked.

She faced me, and I noticed a shudder in her hands and a faint quiver in her voice. “Alexis,” she said, “the last time someone looked at me like that was . . .”

My whole body went stiff with fear.

“Nineteen ninety-six,” she whispered.

I sat on my bed with the photo.

Mildred. Patience.

These girls . . . they were in my dream.

They were the ones who had chased the little girl in my story. They’d thrown rocks at her until she’d fallen from the tree.

But if these girls weren’t just minor characters in a story I’d made up . . . if they’d really existed . . .

I shifted my weight, and the books I’d stacked on the pillow tipped over. The Sawamura paperback fell open. Someone had written something on the inside cover.

Just like Megan, I thought, leaning in to read it.

SHARA C. WILEY, 989 WHITLEY STREET, SURREY CA. SEPTEMBER 20, 1996.

My breath caught in my throat.

Shara had owned that book. And the only reason she would own that book was if there were already something in the house—something evil.

Looking at the neat handwriting, I thought of the whispers that first night, eight years ago . . . and how they had invited me outside to play. Wasn’t that what Kasey had said to me the other night, when she came into my room?
Come play.

I’d been starting to wonder why the ghost chose Kasey and not me.

But something
had
reached out to me.

And I might have been lured to my death the very first night we lived here, if I hadn’t grabbed on to the necklace—which had belonged to Shara.

When we were inside Mary’s house, near my sweater—in the pocket of which I’d left the charm— Kasey wasn’t able to control me.

“Shara?” I whispered, taking the half-heart out of my pocket and holding it tightly in my fist.

Nothing happened.

But by that point I was completely, one-hundred percent sure . . .

My charm wasn’t evil. It was good.

Shara was protecting me.

But from whom?

My hands shook so badly I could hardly get the microfiche slide to sit in the negative frame. I placed the slide inside and set the timer for five minutes, then hit the EXPOSE button. The light popped on.

Only about four articles at a time shone through onto the notebook paper I’d laid flat on the enlarger, and the print was so small that I had to lean in close to read anything smaller than a headline. Nothing. I shifted the negative tray so a different set of articles was in the light. Four more duds. And another four. And then on my fourth try I found it—“WILEY DEATH HAUNTS COMMUNITY.” Ha. If only they’d known. I skimmed the text, but it was nothing new—mainly a human interest piece on the continuing concern of the neighbors, a week after the fact. But at the bottom was a featurette, a miniarticle in its own little box.

I tucked my trembling hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and leaned in close to read. “THE UNHAPPY HOME ON WHITLEY STREET,” said a line of bold text inside the box.

SURREY—It’s been less than a week since the October 15 suicide at 989 Whitley Street, but many neighbors are anxious to put the incident behind them. Most residents regard the death of young mother Shara Wiley as a tragic reminder that no matter how well you think you know your neighbors, there’s always something under the surface.

Several local residents declined to be interviewed for this story, but Francine Besser, 89, of Dennison Avenue, a resident of downtown Surrey in the late ’teens and early 1920s, recalls another tragedy that occurred in the Edwardian-erafour-bedroom house, constructed in 1897 by prominent local merchant Robert Forsythe and his wife Victoria.

Robert and Victoria. The parents from my story. It was like the final depressing piece of a puzzle.

“It was really quite something to my mother’s generation,” Mrs. Besser recalls. “Mr. Forsythe even built indoor plumbing before the city provided it— you know, Surrey was just a little country town back then. They were the wealthiest family in the county.”

Local records show that the Forsythes, in mourning over the death of their eleven-year-old daughter, Sarah,

. . . Sarah

were killed in a fire that destroyed Robert’s warehouse on the west side of town (near what is now the site of St. Viviana Church) in late 1902. Evidence found at the scene led police to conclude that the fire was a result of arson, likely committed by Mrs. Forsythe, whose madness was attributed to her grief, but may well have originated with the lead pipes used in the house’s plumbing, which may also have contributed to their daughter’s recorded behavioral and health issues.

I remembered the hazy, hypnotized feeling of the story pouring out of me, as if I were just a conduit.

It wasn’t
my
story at all—it was a true story.

The house’s story.

Back in my room, I picked up the photo, studying the girls’ unsmiling faces, and noticed for the first time that the white border that rimmed the edge of the picture ended abruptly on the right side. A portion of it was missing.

I flipped it over to look at the list of names. Underneath the list was a black scribble—something had been crossed out. I leaned in closer.

Was that an
S
. . . ? And the second letter could have been an
A
. The third was an
R
.

. . . Sarah.

Someone had wanted to forget she ever existed. They scratched off her name and cut her out of the picture. I studied the edge of the image. Nothing was left that would indicate she’d been in the photo. . . .

Except the small elbow of an arm.

And half the face of the doll it clutched.

It was the same doll from my story, my dream.

Is that what Mr. Sawamura was talking about when he said
power center
?

Something Sarah had loved so much that she’d held it close even as she fell to her death . . . ?

The doll. What if it was in the house somewhere? And it was taking control of my sister? And what if it had taken control of Shara and sent her into the murderous spiral that ended in her own death?

Kasey’s list. The names. Those were the girls responsible for Sarah’s death—and their daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters.

It was a hit list.

I thought about what Kasey had been saying the other day, when I heard her talking to her dolls—
She’s new. Think of what she’s been through.

So now I knew what Sarah’s power center was. I knew
what
she was using to force my sister to help her carry out her vengeance. . . .

I just didn’t have the faintest clue
where
it was.

Or how to get it away from Kasey without . . . you know . . . dying.

I
FELT THE DAY’S EVENTS CAKED
on my skin like a greasy film of badness. I desperately needed a shower. I was so worn out that I didn’t hang up my clothes as I took them off. I just left them on the floor next to my bed.

I let the hot water pour over me and closed my eyes in the steam. I spent a few extra minutes just standing there, pretending everything was fine. No ghosts, no guilt, no crazy sister, no breaking Carter’s heart. It was nice.

When I got out, I put on my pajamas and combed my hair, then went down to the kitchen to get something to eat. I stood in the dark with my back to the counter, eating a granola bar. When I finished, I dropped the wrapper in the trash, swept the crumbs into the sink, and looked around the room.

The front door opened, and I almost said something, expecting it to be Mom.

But it was Kasey.

Only it wasn’t Kasey. She moved with a grace I’d never seen in my sister, with a poise that I had to assume was
Sarah’s
poise,
Sarah’s
grace. She didn’t see me as she ascended the steps toward the second floor.

I thought she’d been in her room all night. . . .

I didn’t have time to think because just then the garage door rattled open and Mom pulled up the driveway. I pretended to be going through the fridge when she came inside.

“Oh hi, Alexis,” she said.

I closed the refrigerator door and followed her upstairs. When she was safely in her room, I sighed and went across the hall to my own room.

The blue numbers on the clock glowed 12:06. I flipped the light switch.

Nothing happened.

“Isn’t this nice,” said Kasey’s voice from the corner of the room. She moved out of the shadows and came toward me. She cast a glance at the door, and it shut by itself. “Just the two of us together.”

I stood frozen in place.

“Do you know what time it is?”

I did. It was 12:06.

“It’s decision time,” she said.

Past midnight.

October 15.

“I feel . . . different,” she said, spreading her fingers wide and studying them. “I feel like today is going to be a big day.”

The blue moonlight shone on her through the windows, the panes of the window frame drawing a grid on the side of her body.

“You should too,” she whispered. “Because it’s your
last
day.”

“Kasey . . . you made up your mind?”

Even in the dim light I could see the green eyes burning.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. Her voice was thin and rasping. “Kasey is gone.”

White-hot fear poured through me.

“I know who you are,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “And I know you’re evil. My little sister might be fooled, but I’m not. And I’m not going to let you have her.”

She raised her eyebrows, like she hadn’t expected me to make this connection.

“Let her go,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself, but my shaking breaths broadcast how afraid I really was.

Kasey narrowed her eyes and spoke in her regular Kasey voice. “You think you’re so smart, Lexi.”