Out of Time (3 page)

The next day at school, Sasha was walking in
the hallway with Mandy, en route to their next class, when Simon
strode up next to them on Sasha’s unattended side.

“Are you excited for class today?” he asked,
hinting at their class in the attic. He repositioned the shoulder
strap of the bag that he had over one arm.

“I’m more interested on what is behind the
door.” Mandy replied.

“I wish they had Brit lit more than twice a
week.” Sasha said. “It’s one of my most favorite subjects. Really I
like any sort of British history.” In all reality, Sasha had always
been drawn to British history. Plenty of places in England were
rumored to be haunted. She wished she could go there, but with the
economy the way it was and since the death of her father, her
mother had been struggling to make ends meet. The real estate
market was just now swinging back up.

“Why is that?” Kendra asked, coming up from
behind. Mandy rolled her eyes.

Sasha was more vocal. “Thanks for
evesdropping.” she muttered, angry and condescending.

“Not like
anything
you talk about is
ever really that much of a secret.” the cheerleader said with a
huff.

“Except the missing girl, apparently.” Mandy
said, noting the lack of information she was able to find.

“Besides that.” Kendra smirked as the rest of
the group continued on to their next class, which they had all
together.

“Anyway...” Sasha said, trying to lead them
out of a cat fight. “I find American history to be pretty void of
any culture. Mostly everything has European roots, and with
immigration it’s a cluster of everyone else’s culture. I like to
read about the source.”

“What about Native Americans?” Mandy offered.
“They are full of their own culture.”

“But what has changed in thousands of years?”
Sasha asked, her tone serious.

“Casinos...?” Kendra said. Sasha just made a
mental note of how intellectually shallow Kendra was to stereotype
a race.

Mandy agreed with Sasha. “You have a
point.”

“It’s nothing like the Crusades, the fabulous
tales of Kind Arthur and Robin Hood...the
scandalous
monarchy.” Sasha said, excitement creeping into her voice.

Simon stopped at the bottom of a flight of
stairs leading upwards. “Well here we are.” he said.

“The attic.” Sasha said in almost a
whisper.

“You girls wanna go in first?” Simon asked,
waving his hand up the stairs. He said this with a tinge of sarcasm
to his voice, as if it was meant to scare them.

“I’m not afraid of a room.” Sasha said as she
lightly pushed Simon out of the way. As soon as she got to the top
of the stairs and opened the door to the room she was hit with a
flood of emotions and something more. She stopped dead in her
tracks, noticing figures walking in front of the door on the other
side of the attic. This must be the door Simon was talking
about.

“What’s wrong?” Mandy asked as she walked up
and noticed her friend’s face had turned ashen white. She’d been
with Sasha long enough to know something paranormal was happening.
It didn’t happen very often. The last time was when they had
visited a nursing home to go caroling. As soon as she had entered
that nursing home, Sasha remembered a dream she had that depicted
the very same building. Sasha later found out that her great
grandmother was supposed to live there before she died
unexpectedly.

“Something.” Sasha answered hesitantly. Mandy
was the only one that knew her secret and she didn’t want to let
on. The conversation would have to wait until later.

“What do you mean ‘something’?” Simon
wondered as he came up from behind them.

“Nevermind.” Sasha told him, though through a
barely audible whisper, she turned to Mandy and said, “I’ll tell
you later.”

Kendra walked past Sasha, more like pushed
past as Sasha was still blocking the door. “They did an excellent
job with the remodel in here.” They all walked into the
classroom.

“Yea they did.” Simon said, looking around
quickly, before asking, “Wanna open the door?”

“No.” Sasha said solidly. “Not now.
Later.”

“Hype-killer.” Simon said jokingly.

Mandy looked up at the clock in the
classroom. “Class is going to start soon. We can talk about it
later. It’s not like we have to mess with it right this minute.
It’s not going anywhere.” Since this was still the first week of
classes, all the desks were unclaimed.

“I call the seat in the back corner!” Kendra
exclaimed, running towards the desk.

“Go for it.” Mandy said, nonchalantly. Mandy
didn’t really care where she sat, but knew something was wrong with
Sasha so she left the seating arrangements up to her.

“I’m taking the seat up front, closest to the
exit.” Sasha said, wanting to be as far away from the attic door
and the ghostly figures as possible.

“Why?” Simon wondered, taking a seat in
between the front and back. The middle was safe. Far enough from
the front where all the “goody-goody’s” were, but close enough that
the teacher didn’t think you’d be a slacker for sitting in the back
and call you out.

“I like being in the front sometimes.” Sasha
commented. Mandy took her lead and found a spot behind her. It was
easier to pass notes that way.

“Oh...kay.” Simon stated, raising his
eyebrows in consternation.

Sasha joined up with Mandy as they headed
into the cafeteria. The clattering of plates and utensils was
almost musical if it wasn’t overcome with talking and eating. Being
frugal, Sasha’s mother never gave her money for a school lunch, so
she always had a packed one. Mandy didn’t want Sasha to feel bad,
so she packed one as well. It was probably healthier anyway.

As they said down on the picnic-table styled
seating, Mandy plopped the contents of her brown bag onto the
table. She turned to Sasha and asked, “So now that we are ‘alone’,
what happened in there?”

“I know I tried to not make a big deal out of
it, but it seriously creeped me out.” Sasha said with a long deep
breath.

“Did you feel something?” Mandy asked.
Sometimes Sasha had uneasy feelings, ominous sensations that
something bad was going to happen or had happened.

“I
saw
something.” Sasha said under
her breath.

“You did?” Mandy wondered, almost excitedly,
as Sasha began to rummage through her lunch bag. “Have you ever
seen things before?”

“No. That’s why it took me off-guard. You are
the only one who knows about my ‘other’ sense and I didn’t want
anyone to freak out — especially Kendra. The last thing I need is
for her to go around telling the whole school I’m nuts.” Sasha
said, taking a bite of the sandwich she’d made.

“What did you
see
, then?” Mandy
asked.

“People.” Sasha said, describing her
encounter in more detail. “Almost as if they were shadows. They
were hovering around that door. It looked as though they were
lost.”

“Did you recognize any of them?” Mandy
asked.

“Some of them were older, and some younger.
Weird clothes. I was wondered if anyone could have been Betsy, but
I didn’t know how she looks.” Sasha explained. Mandy finished off
her lunch quickly. Chips, a sandwich, and an apple didn’t take long
to eat. She had a bottle of water with her that she could take
throughout the school, so she wasn’t keen on downing it all at
once. Sasha was almost done with her lunch as Mandy said,

“We could go through the yearbooks now if you
want. We still have a bit more time of lunch. We could go over to
the library.”

“That’s a good idea.” Sasha commented. “I’m
sort of afraid of what I’ll find out, but excited at the same
time.”

“It’s a new experience for you.” Mandy said
sympathetically. “I can understand that.”

No, Mandy couldn’t ever really understand.
She’d never had to live with what Sasha had for so many years since
the accident. That’s when everything started up.

“They were scared.” Sasha said, remembering
the flood of emotions from the classroom. “I could feel it.”

“Let’s just go to the library.” Mandy
dismissed Sasha. “Refocus yourself.”

“Yea.” Sasha said, knowing that Mandy still
believed her and she just wanted her to calm down.

As Sasha and Mandy sat down in the library,
Indian-style on the floor, they browsed through a small stack of
yearbooks. For some of her years in high school, Betsy had
apparently missed the class photo sessions and was just listed
under “photo unavailable”.

“Okay, so I’ve got last year’s yearbook. I
don’t remember what her last name was.” Mandy said, flipping open
the book and shuffling through the pages.

“Frankle. I remember you reading it from the
news article online.” Sasha offered. Realization struck Mandy and
she nodded.

“Oh yea. Let me see...” Mandy started. She
shuffled through some more pages until she found what she was
looking for and stopped. “Here she is.”

“Woah.” Sasha said breathlessly, and her
heart raced.

“You recognize her?” Mandy asked.

“Totally.” Sasha said, a slight shiver
drawing up through her spine. “Even though the people I saw were
pretty faint, I remember the face. It was like she turned to look
at me. Almost straight through me.”

“So why do you think they were lost...or
looked lost?” Mandy inquired. Sasha just threw up her hands
lightly.

“I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know if all
of them even disappeared from here. Some looked old. I’m not just
talking facial appearances. Their clothes looked old. Like they
were out of our time.”

“What do you mean, ‘out of our time’?” Mandy
wondered. Sometimes Sasha gave cryptic explanations.

“Like they were from the early 1900s.
Victorian-style clothes.” Sasha said in remembrance.

“That’s about when our school was built.
They’ve obviously added on since then. I know the attic would be at
least that old.” Mandy noted.

“It’s so weird. I wonder if they could see
me.” Sasha said, her mind foggy with all of the details of the past
few hours.

“Now I know why you wanted to sit up in the
front.” Mandy chuckled and Sasha turned to face her.

“With my back being that close to them,
that’s
exactlty
why I was up near the front.” Sasha
shuddered as Mandy laughed.

“You are like
never
near the front.”
Mandy said.

“Which is why Simon was surprised.” Sasha
recollected.

“Should we tell him?” Mandy asked
tentatively. She hung out with Simon a lot and she wasn’t very good
at keeping secrets, especially from her friends.

“No.” Sasha stated.

“What are you going to do then?” Mandy
wondered.

“I’m going to see what’s on the other side of
the door.” Sasha said, getting up off of the floor and taking some
of the yearbooks with her to put back. Mandy got up soon after.

“Alone?” Mandy asked, her face twisted in
puzzlement. Why would Sasha exclude her?

“I mean, you guys can come with if you want.
I’m not going to tell him about what I’ve seen. Like I said, I
don’t want to freak people out.” Sasha said as she inserted the
yearbooks back on the library shelf, making sure they were in the
right chronological order.

Sasha worked in a library the previous year
as her mom demanded she make some money to help with the bills. It
was boring work, but it did create a bit of OCD when it came to
visiting libraries. The Dewey Decimal System was a hard one to
forget and it did come in handy when she was looking for topics for
research projects as she could just buzz directly to the correct
section. Still, she was glad her mom let her quit once she got more
clients.

“It could just be nothing, right?” Mandy
inquired.

“Oh there is something going on, all right.
What that
something
is — totally beyond me.” Sasha told her
as she finished putting the last book into place.