Midnight Games (11 page)

And then I heard a sound. A soft creak. The creak of the attic stairs.

I sucked in a deep breath and held it. And listened.

Yes. Footsteps on the attic stairs. Another creak.

In the dim, gray light from the hall, I saw Jamie creep into my room. Her face was hidden in shadow. I pretended to be asleep but kept my eyes open just a crack, open enough to watch her.

She hesitated in the doorway. Stood perfectly still. Making sure I wasn't awake, I guessed.

Then she made her way to the couch. I had my school clothes there, laid out for tomorrow morning. A skirt, long-sleeved top, tights.

I lifted my head off the pillow to see better.

Jamie carried something in her hand. Squinting hard, I recognized one of the small bowls. I watched her reach into the bowl. She began to sprinkle powder over my clothes. And as her fingers moved back and forth, she chanted softly, murmuring words in that strange language.

What was she chanting? What was she
doing
?

An ancient spell?

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move.

I watched in icy horror as my cousin emptied the bowl of powder over my clothes. And I listened to her strange, soft song in that raspy, whispered voice.

Not her voice. Not Jamie's voice at all.

Staring in horrified disbelief, I squeezed the edge of the blanket till my hands ached. And when she finally tiptoed from the room, I sat up with one thought in my mind:

I've got to get out of this house!

26

I waited until I was sure Jamie had
gone downstairs. Then I crept across the room and clicked my bedroom door shut.

My hand trembled as I grabbed my cell phone off the floor. And pushed in a number. “Dad, it's me,” I whispered.

“Huh? Dana? You woke me up. What time is it?”

“Dad, I know it's the middle of the night. But you have to come get me. Now.”

“Dana? What? What are you saying?”

“You've got to take me away from here,” I pleaded. “There's something
sick
going on. And—”

“Dana, are you high on something? Are you drunk? Why are you calling me so late?”

“Just listen to me, Dad. Please. For once.
Just listen to me. I need you to listen. It's Jamie. She—”

“What about Jamie? Speak up. I can barely hear you.”

“I can't speak up. She'll hear me. Dad, I'm frightened. Seriously frightened. Jamie is using some kind of magic. I don't know what she's up to. I saw her sprinkle my clothes with powder. I think she's trying to poison me or something. Dad—”

“Dana, you're talking crazy,” he said. “Listen to what you're saying. You're not making sense. Have you been drinking?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it isn't,” I insisted, my voice breaking with emotion. “You've
got
to believe me. She's doing something to me and—”

“Calm down. Just calm down. Take a breath, okay? Get some sleep, Dana. You'll feel a lot better in the morning.”

“No. You've
got
to come get me, Dad.”

“Look. I'm in Atlanta. I can't just drop everything.”

“Dad, please—”

“Tell you what. I'll try to come next weekend. I think I can clear my schedule. But get
yourself together. I mean it. You're talking like a crazy person.”

“Dad—?”

He hung up.

I didn't sleep all night. I thought about packing up my stuff and running away. But where could I go?

In the morning, I left the skirt and top on the couch. I put on a different outfit, a loose-fitting black turtleneck over green cords. I grabbed my backpack and crept downstairs.

I heard voices in the kitchen. I poked my head through the doorway. Jamie sat at the kitchen table, finishing a bowl of cereal. Her mom stood at the kitchen counter, a white mug of coffee in her hand.

“No breakfast for me,” I said. “I'm going right to school.”

“No. I'm sorry,” Aunt Audra said. When she turned to me, I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. “I'm sorry, Dana. I can't let you go to school.”

My mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

Jamie set down her cereal bowl. She glared at me icily.

“I'm taking you to a doctor,” Aunt Audra said. “Before she died, I promised your mother I'd take good care of you, Dana. And now I'm going to see that you get the help you need.”

“Huh? Help?”

What was she talking about?

“Your father called me early this morning,” she said. “He's very worried about you too.”

My heart leaped to my throat. My knees started to buckle. I grabbed the door frame to keep myself up.

Jamie's eyes burned into mine. Her jaw was set tight. She spoke through clenched teeth. “Why did you say those horrible things about me to your dad, Dana?”

“Jamie, listen—”

“I've been so nice to you,” she said. “Why did you tell him I'm trying to poison you?” Jamie's eyes grew colder. She raised her butter knife in her fist.

“I'm terribly hurt,” she said. “You shouldn't have done that, Dana. You really shouldn't have . . . . ”

27

With a gasp, I dropped the backpack,
spun away, and started for the stairs.

“Don't go far,” Aunt Audra called. “I'm calling Dr. Wilbur as soon as his office opens.”

I hurtled up to my room and slammed the door behind me. I paced furiously back and forth in the tiny room, trying to decide on a plan.

What should I do?

After a few minutes I heard the front door slam. From my tiny attic window I saw Jamie trotting toward school, backpack bouncing on her back.

I waited till she was out of sight. Then I took a deep breath, trying to force my heart to stop pounding, and sneaked downstairs to her bedroom.

Her nightshirt was tossed over the bed. A pile of jeans littered the floor in front of the closet. The black candles had been removed. I saw spots of black candle wax on the carpet.

I glanced around. Shoved to the other side of the bed, I saw the big spell book. The old book we had used to try to call up Cindy from the grave.

The book was open to two pages of tiny type. I dropped down to the floor and raised the book to my lap.

I squinted at the narrow columns of type, trying to find what Jamie had been chanting last night. It didn't take long. At the top of the right-hand page, I found what I was looking for.

A spell to fog a person's mind.

I ran a trembling finger over the ancient words.

Yes. A spell to make a person feel faint. To make their minds go blank.

Had Jamie been using this spell on me?

A hundred thoughts shot through my mind at once—all of them horrifying. I pieced together an insane story—just crazy enough to be true.

Jamie used the spell on me to make me go faint. Then she murdered those two girls. She made it look as if I was the murderer. And I was left with no excuse, except that I'd blacked out.

Why?

That was the unanswered question. Why kill her own friends? Why try to put the blame on me? Why would Jamie do that?

A big piece of the puzzle was missing. But I was too terrified to stick around and find it.

I slammed the book shut and jumped to my feet. I had to get out of the house. Had to find someone who would believe me, who would help me.

I stepped out into the hall.

“Dana?” I heard Aunt Audra call from downstairs. “I reached Dr. Wilbur. I'm driving you there in half an hour. Why don't you come down and have some breakfast?”

No! No way.

I pulled on my parka and sneaked out the front door. I took off running, down the driveway and then along the sidewalk. I crossed the street and kept running.

Gasping for breath, my chest aching, I
stopped a few blocks later. I realized where I was running. I was running to Nate's house. He was the only one who could help me. He
had
to help me.

I knocked on his front door and waited. No answer. I rang the bell. No one. I peeked into the front window but couldn't see anyone. The garage door was open. The car was gone.

He must be on his way to school, I decided. So I took off once again, running hard, not thinking, unable to think about anything but finding Nate and begging him to help me escape.

A few minutes later I spotted him in the student parking lot behind the high school. He was climbing out of his mother's blue Accord.

“Thank goodness!” I cried breathlessly.

But then I saw that he wasn't alone. Standing between two cars, he was talking to someone.

I moved closer, keeping low, hiding behind the parked cars. And I recognized Jamie. She was shaking her head, wiping away tears.

I knew she was telling him about me.

Nate slid his arm around Jamie's shoulders. I could see he was comforting her. And then I heard him say, “Dana trusts me. Maybe I can trick her or something. You know. Help get her to the mental hospital.”

28

Around four o'clock that afternoon,
I saw Jamie lift the garage door and disappear into her sculpture studio. The door slid down noisily behind her.

I watched from the side of the garden shed. I'd wandered aimlessly all day, trying to make a plan. Trying to decide what to do, where to go. Trying to make sense of everything.

I'm not crazy.

I told myself that a hundred times. I don't belong in a mental hospital. I didn't imagine the spellbook. And I didn't imagine Jamie sneaking into my room and spreading powder on my clothes.

Because of my dear cousin, everyone thought I was a murderer. And everyone thought I was insane. And Aunt Audra and my
father probably planned to lock me away in some kind of hospital.

I realized I had no choice. I had to confront Jamie. I had to force her to tell me the truth. And so I waited in the cold, waited by the side of the shed. Waited till she went into her studio.

And now, I took a deep breath and stepped up to the garage door. I slid it open slowly, as quietly as possible, hoping to surprise her.

A blast of warm air greeted me. Jamie had her back to me. She stood at the open door of a huge, flaming pottery kiln, as big as a furnace. I watched her lean toward the kiln, lowering a piece of pottery into the blazing heat.

I let go of the garage door and took a few steps into the studio. A long, well-lit worktable filled the center of the room. A potter's wheel stood at the far end. I glimpsed shelves of red clay pottery—vases and bowls and heads and—

Whoa.

My eyes stopped at the pedestals in front of the worktable. Slender, stone pedestals holding three sculpted heads.

Heads of girls . . .

“Ohhh.” I raised my hands to my mouth to stifle the sound of my shocked cry.

I recognized two of the clay heads: Ada and Whitney. Was the third head Candy?

Did Jamie sculpt all three dead girls? And paint them to look so lifelike?

I looked to the back wall. Jamie was still leaning into the open kiln.

I couldn't take my eyes off the sculpted heads. I moved as if in a daze. Hardly realizing what I was doing, I crept up to the pedestals. I reached out a trembling hand. I touched the sculpture of Ada. Touched her cheek.

And opened my mouth in a wail of horror.

The heads . . . they weren't clay. They weren't sculpted.

These were the real heads of the murdered girls!

29

Jamie spun away from the kiln at the
sound of my scream. Her eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed at me coldly.

She moved quickly to the worktable. She picked up a black remote controller and clicked it twice. Behind me, I heard the garage door sliding shut.

“You're locked in,” Jamie said, tossing down the controller and moving toward me. “I see you are admiring my art gallery.”

“Jamie . . . I—I . . .
why
?” I stammered.

The eyes of the three dead girls stared at me blankly.

“Pretty heads, aren't they?” Jamie said. “And look, Dana—I have an empty pedestal. Whose head do you think should go on it? Yours, maybe?”

I took a step back. I glanced frantically around the garage. No side door. The window was open, but too small to fit through. No way to escape.

I turned back to my cousin. “What have you
done
?” I cried. “Why are these heads—”

My breath caught in my throat.

As I gaped at her, Jamie's face changed. Her eyes darkened. Her cheeks sagged. Her features transformed until she wasn't Jamie anymore.

I realized I was staring at the face I'd seen late last night in Jamie's room. An older woman's face, with icy black eyes and a cruel, tight-lipped smile.

“Jamie isn't here,” she said in a dry whisper. “Don't you recognize me, Dana? Don't you know who I am?”

And in that instant, I did recognize her. I recognized her from the photos in my file.

Angelica Fear.

A chill tightened the back of my neck. I stood staring at her, frozen in horror. “I . . . don't understand,” I choked out. “How . . . ? Where is Jamie?”

She shrugged. “A year ago, Jamie fell onto my grave in front of the Fear Mansion. So
lucky for me. I always knew I could come back to life. I could be immortal.”

I pointed. “You . . . you . . . ” My teeth were chattering. I couldn't talk.

“I took her body,” she said in her low, hoarse whisper. “I'm alive again after a hundred years!”

She reached under her collar and pulled out a jeweled pendant. The amulet! “I have the real one, Dana,” she whispered. “The one that has made me immortal.” She waved it in front of my face.

“But . . . you killed these girls!” I finally found my voice. Anger was quickly overtaking my fear. “Why, Angelica? Why are you killing the Collingsworth Prize finalists?”

She let the amulet fall to her throat. Her dark eyes flashed. “Are you making a joke, Cousin Dana? The idiotic prize doesn't mean a thing to me. I plan to kill everyone who looted my home. Everyone who broke into the Fear Mansion last year and found my secret room. They took what is mine—and they will all pay for it with their lives.”