Blur (Blur Trilogy) (3 page)

CHAPTER
SIX

He woke up disoriented, his thoughts in a fog. As far as he could tell he was l
yi
ng on one of the stiff couches in the lobb
y.
His dad, along with some adults he didn’t recognize, were staring down at him.

The ceiling lights glared above him. He had to blink and look awa
y.

“Dan?” There was both concern and relief in his father’s voice. “Are
yo
u oka
y?
”

Daniel blinked again. It was all coming back to him no
w—e
ntering the church, approaching the casket, seeing Emil
y . . . 
.

She spoke to
yo
u. She called
yo
u b
y
name.

“Are
yo
u oka
y?
” his father repeated.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Um, is she . . . ?”

“Who?”

“Emil
y.
Is she . . .” Man, this was going to sound weird. “Is she reall
y
dead?”

His dad nodded somberl
y.
“We can talk about this more at home, alright?”

“So she . . . ?”

“Yes.”

The vision of Emil
y
in the casket, the sight of the water pouring from her mouth, the gurgling sound of her voice, the firm grip of her hand on his arm, all of it had seemed so
real
.

How could an
y
of that have happened if she were dead?

But it couldn’t have been real either. Emil
y
had drowned and she was dead, and dead people don’t open their e
ye
s, don’t sit up in their coffins, don’t talk to
yo
u, and the
y
certainl
y
don’t reach over and grab
yo
ur arm.

You’re just seeing things. That’s all it is. Your mind is pla
yi
ng tricks on
yo
u.

But it’d seemed just as real as this conversation he was having with his dad.

He was still dizz
y
and it took a little effort to sit up. A couple of people who were standing beside his dad eased awa
y.
Then the others did as well, until it was onl
y
Daniel and his father.

“You fainted,” his dad told him, as if he were anticipating a question that, in truth, Daniel hadn’t even been intending to ask.

“I’ve never fainted before.”

“Was it the headache?”

“I don’t know.”

Daniel’s dad helped him to his feet, and amid the stares and anxious glances of some of his classmates, the
y
left the church.

“I guess it was the shock,” his dad said, “
yo
u know, of seeing her like that.”

“I guess it was.”

On the drive home, Daniel tried to shake what’d happened from his mind, tried to convince himself that he had not seen what he had, that he had not heard Emil
y
tell him that Trevor was in the car, that a dead girl had not asked him to find her glasses.

Now that he thought about it, in the photos at the front of the church she’d been wearing a pair of glasses, and in school when he’d seen her, she’d had them on then as well.

He didn’t know if it was t
yp
ical to put people’s glasses on them when the
y
were l
yi
ng in their caskets. It seemed like an odd thing to do, but it was possible that it happened, if ma
yb
e someone wore glasses all the time and the funeral home staff was tr
yi
ng to make them look as normal as possible.

But in this case, no one would have found Emil
y’
s glasses an
yw
a
y.
After all, she drowned, and it seemed prett
y
unlikel
y
that she would have somehow been able to keep her glasses on while the currents in the lake dragged her down and carried her into that inlet where her bod
y
was found.

The
y
arrived home and Daniel headed to his room.

He’d never known what to believe about ghosts. On the one hand, the supernatural or the paranormal, whatever term
yo
u wanted to use, wasn’t something he could easil
y
accept. He believed science would eventuall
y
wrap its arms around those things and come up with an explanation that made sense.

On the other hand, lots of people reall
y
did see unexplainable things, and there was no discounting what the
y
experience
d—v
isions, hauntings, strange noises in the night, doors or windows slamming on their own. Patches of freezing air where nothing cold should be.

Before toda
y,
he could barel
y
imagine what that was like.

But was it Emil
y’
s ghost he had seen?

He reall
y
couldn’t come up with an
y
other explanation.

Daniel removed his tie, the onl
y
one he owned, and hung it in his closet.

But even if it had been Emil
y’
s ghost, wh
y
would it ask him to find her glasses? Daniel had seen his share of scar
y
movies and heard his share of ghost stories around campfire
s—e
speciall
y
from his friend K
yl
e.

According to what people said, ghosts, if the
y
were real at all, were sometimes harmles
s—b
enevolent eve
n—b
ringing help to the living. Sometimes the
y
were seeking justice or a place to find their final rest, or the opportunit
y
to finall
y
slip out of limbo and into eternit
y.
But sometimes the
y
were vengeful or just plain evil.

The stories K
yl
e liked to tell were usuall
y
about the vengeful ghosts or poltergeists who wanted nothing more than to terrif
y
or harm people who were still alive.

Or kill them.

Sometimes the
y
wanted that.

Daniel reassured himself that all those things were just made up, that in real life ghosts didn’t exist.

But as he took his shirt off, a thin cold shiver slithered down his spine.

He stared at his arm.

Clawlike marks, swollen and red and shaped in the form of a hand, encircled his forearm in the place where the dead girl had grabbed his arm during her funeral.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Daniel did not sleep well.

It wasn’t just the disquieting feeling of being at the funeral, or the fact that his arm hurt; it was mainl
y
that image of Emil
y
staring at him, moving, sitting up. It wouldn’t leave him alone, even in his dreams. She kept rising in her casket and speaking to him.

Trevor was in the car. Trevor shouldn’t have been in the car.

Find m
y
glasses.

Please, Daniel.

In his dream she called him b
y
name, over and over.

Please, Daniel.

Daniel . . .

The photos from the front of the church came to life, and he saw her as if she were moving from one to another, morphing and changing and merging, picture b
y
pictur
e—t
he cabin to the beach to the studio photo with her do
g—w
ith glimpses of her walking through the halls of school in between.

Finall
y,
when he did roll out of bed, he felt like he needed a few more hours of sleep.

The marks were still on his arm.

Still sore.

He chose a long-sleeved sweatshirt so no one would see them.

He wasn’t sure how he’d cover them up during football practice, but ma
yb
e using his arm warmers would take care of i
t—a
s long as no one noticed an
yt
hing in the locker room while he was changing.

Just like usual, his dad was in the kitchen scrolling through the news feeds on his iPad as he finished his coffee, with a cop
y
of the local paper that he’d alread
y
read folded up next to his empt
y
cereal bowl. He wore his sheriff’s uniform. Radio. Flashlight. Handcuffs. Gun. Read
y
for the da
y.

“Feeling better this morning, Dan?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He didn’t realize he’d turned his wounded arm awa
y
from his dad until after he’d done it.

Man, he hoped he wasn’t going to be self-conscious about that at school too, or it was going to be a reall
y
long da
y.

“What time will
yo
u be home from football practice tonight?”

“We’re reviewing game films of the Pioneers afterward, so it might not be until six thirt
y
or so. K
yl
e’s coming over at eight to stud
y
for our histor
y
test tomorrow.”

His father finished his coffee. “You want me to pick up something for supper on the wa
y
home?”

“I’ll throw some fajitas together.” When his mom moved out, Daniel and his dad had split up the cooking responsibilities, and his specialt
y
was homemade tortillas, so his father didn’t argue at all about the idea of fajitas.

“That’ll work.” He rose and gentl
y
patted Daniel’s shoulder. “He
y,
bud, I know there’s been a lot going on this week, a lot of reall
y
intense stuff. Hang in there.”

“I will.”

Things had been prett
y
good between the two of them since the da
y
last spring when Daniel’s mom had said things no woman should ever sa
y
to her husband, and then walked out the door.

The separation had reall
y
affected his dad. He didn’t smile so much these da
ys
. He worked hard, he was a good dad, he was there when Daniel needed him. But his heav
yh
eartedness had weighed on them both, and Daniel wasn’t sure how to help lift him out of it.

The divorce still wasn’t final. Daniel’s mom talked to him occasionall
y
on the phone and told him how much she still wanted to be part of his life, but since she still hadn’t come back to Beldon from the Twin Cities, where she was living with her sister, not even come back once, her words didn’t mean much to him. It was clear to ever
yo
ne that she wasn’t returning, at least not for good.

Outside, a thin la
ye
r of frost covered ever
yt
hing, and Daniel had to scrape his car before backing down the drivewa
y.

On the wa
y
to school, he tried to put Emil
y’
s death and the funeral out of his mind, but had a hard time dismissing what’d happened there at the front of the church. It had to have been more than a hallucination. He’d seen her ghost, he’d heard it speak, and he bore the proof of the encounter on his arm.

But what was he going to do about an
y
of that, apart from hiding the hand-shaped, swollen mark and tr
yi
ng to forget what’d happened?

That reall
y
was the question.

And he didn’t have an
y
clue as to the answer.

But one thing he was prett
y
sure about: it wasn’t something he was ever going to be able to forget.

Daniel found his t
yp
ical parking spot on the edge of the lot near a quiet grove of pines where he sometimes saw deer in the mornings, especiall
y
in the winter, when it was just barel
y
getting light when he drove up. The football stadium la
y
to the left, near a farmer’s cornfield bordering the school.

After grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder, he headed toward the building.

Beldon High School was relativel
y
large, considering how man
y
people lived in town. About a decade ago someone had decided that busing students in from the region would be cheaper than building or remodeling smaller high schools throughout the area, and the
y’
d been doing it ever since. Daniel’s class was the smallest, but even it had a couple hundred kids. There were more than enough students at the school for some of them to slip through the cracks.

Just like Emil
y
did.

He found his friend K
yl
e Goessel pulling to a stop in his twent
y-ye
ar-old midnight black Mustang.

K
yl
e climbed out and tossed the door shut. “What’s going on, Dan?”

“He
y.
”

“You oka
y?
I heard about what happened at the funeral.”

“I’m good.” The
y
started toward the school and Daniel said, “So
yo
u weren’t there?”

“I got there after
yo
u left.”

Ever since K
yl
e and his famil
y
had moved to town five
ye
ars ago, he and Daniel had been friends, even though the
y
were prett
y
much total opposites in a lot of areas.

Daniel was into sports. K
yl
e was all about his electric guitar, comic books, and working at Rizzo’s, their favorite local pizza place.

K
yl
e, English. Daniel, math.

Daniel, classic rock. K
yl
e, indie bands.

This morning, K
yl
e’s shoulder-length, dirt
y
blond hair was still a little tangl
y
damp from his shower, and he spread his hand across it to tame it.

K
yl
e was taller than Daniel, but lank
y
and a little uncoordinate
d—u
nless he was running. It was sort of strange. His limbs all seemed to move at different speeds as he loped through the school halls, but when he took off sprinting, he was fluid. Smooth. The kid could run, but even though the cross-countr
y
and track coaches were after him to join their teams, he refused, for reasons he’d never full
y
explained to Daniel.

In a wa
y,
it was like this other gu
y
in their class, Jacob Lawhead, who stuttered when he talked, but when he sang, his stuttering completel
y
disappeared.

Some people said it was all just in his head, but ultimatel
y,
what did that reall
y
matter? It didn’t make it an
y
less real. Whenever someone sa
ys
something is just in
yo
ur head, the
y
should leave out the word
just
, because whatever happens in
yo
ur head also happens in
yo
ur bod
y.
There’s no other wa
y
around it.

Some kid must have pressed the wrong button on his ke
y
fob, because as the
y
approached the school, a car alarm started blaring. K
yl
e mumbled, “I’m reall
y
glad someone invented those things. What a brilliant idea that turned out to b
e—I
mean, how man
y
crimes have car alarms helped deter? Tons, I’m sure.”

The
y
passed through the front doors and into the hallwa
y
that paralleled the office and led toward the science wing.

K
yl
e had his phone out, with the calculator app open.

“Not this morning, K
yl
e.”

“Just do one.”

“I’m not reall
y
in th
e—”

K
yl
e was alread
y
tapping at the ke
ys
. “1489 times 783 divided b
y
4.4.”

“264,974.318,” Daniel replied without missing a beat.

K
yl
e shook his head. “Man, I have no idea how
yo
u do that.”

“It’s the same as when
yo
u pla
y
guitar.”

“How’s it the same?”

“You read the music,
yo
u translate it without even thinking about it, and
yo
u know exactl
y
what to d
o—w
hich strings to press down, when to do it, all that. When I look at a sheet of music, I’m completel
y
lost. I guess I could eventuall
y
translate which note is which, just like
yo
u could do the longhand in math, but onl
y
if I worked at it for a while. For
yo
u, music comes naturall
y.
”

“And for
yo
u, math does.”

“Prett
y
much.”

K
yl
e slipped his phone into his pocket. “He
y,
I need to grab something from m
y
locker. Come on.”

The
y
cut through the hall, navigating through the crowd of students heading to their lockers or their first-hour classes.

Five minutes until the bell.

Nicole Marten walked past on the wa
y
to their English classroom. “Hi, K
yl
e. He
y,
Daniel.”

“He
y,
” the
y
replied.

When she was gone, K
yl
e gave Daniel a look.

“What?”

“Dude, she’s
so
into
yo
u. You should ask her to homecoming.”

Daniel stared at him blankl
y.
It’d never occurred to him that Nicole might like him in that wa
y.
“She likes me?”

K
yl
e shook his head. “For being the class jock,
yo
u are staggeringl
y
clueless when it comes to girls. No offense.”

“None taken.” The
y
arrived at the locker. Daniel leaned a hand against the wall. “I was kinda thinking about asking that new girl, Stac
y.
”

“Yeah.” K
yl
e was digging through his things. “You keep telling me about her. When am I gonna meet her?”

Normall
y,
when a new kid comes to school ever
yo
ne talks about her, but no one seemed to be mentioning Stac
y.
Daniel wasn’t sure wh
y—
p
robabl
y
because the
y
were preoccupied with ever
yt
hing that was going on with Emil
y’
s death.

“I’ll introduce
yo
u.”

“The dance i
s—”
K
yl
e began.

“Saturda
y.
Yeah, I know.”

“You’re cutting it close, amigo. I mean, if
yo
u’re gonna ask an
yo
ne.”

“You taking Mia?”

K
yl
e nodded. He’d been going out with Mia Young since the beginning of summe
r—t
he longest he’d ever dated an
yo
ne. “You know it.”

He finished rooting through his locker, closed it, and said to Daniel, “Well, just don’t discount Nicole. She’s cool. And from what Mia tells me, she doesn’t have a date
ye
t.” As the
y
left for English, K
yl
e indicated toward a locker near the end of the hall. “That was Emil
y’
s.”

“How do
yo
u know?”

“I saw her sometimes, here in the hall, getting her things. I heard the
y
cleared it all out.” He paused. “I wonder what the
y
found.”

Thinking about what might have been in Emil
y’
s locker brought back memories of the funeral, and that was something Daniel did not want at all right now.

The place on his arm where she’d grabbed him began to itch terribl
y,
but he resisted the urge to scratch it, and, merging with a group of other students, he and K
yl
e filed into their English classroom.