Translucent (14 page)

A loose floorboard squeaked under my weight. Cringing, I let off, only to yield another agonized creak. I froze in the middle of his room.

Emory’s back flexed. He turned slowly.

And stared right at me.

For a moment, I forgot I was invisible, and wondered how I could possibly explain my way out of this. My body certainly seemed to think it was standing right in front of him wearing nothing at all.

But then his gaze flicked side to side, up and down, searching the wall behind me. He couldn’t see me.

But then he did the worst thing possible. He leaned over his desk and turned off Mozart, bathing us in silence. Acoustic, soundproof walls. Not a whisper, not a creak.

Just my own deafening pulse.

By then I realized I wasn’t breathing.

I took a minuscule breath, only a sip, but even that caught a little. A tiny gasp.

His gaze darted back to me, and my limbs went rigid.

He took slow steps toward me, and my heart began to pound like a huge drum. He would hear my heartbeat . . . floating in midair. He would
sense
me. He was so close now he could reach out and touch me. My weight shifted away from him, and my ankle cracked.

A crack like a whip.

I could have sworn it echoed.

He halted midstride, eyes alert. They seemed to focus on my face like he knew there was something there, like maybe if he looked hard enough, he would see it. His throat moved up and down in an effortful swallow.

Then he whispered, “Ashley?”

His eyes were
bright . . . hopeful.

A soreness spread through my heart and pooled in my belly. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

He thought I was her ghost.

Ashley’s ghost.

His eyes brimmed with tears, and his voice cracked. “Ashley, is that you?”

I desperately wanted to answer back, wanted to say yes. I wanted it to be true . . . for
him
.

He reached a hand toward me, hesitated.

I saw the anguish in his eyes, the desperate longing, and I couldn’t resist.

I reached out too.

I shouldn’t have, but I did.

An ominous calm washed over me as I extended my ghost hand toward his. Our fingers touched before I was ready.

He flinched back, and his eyes widened. He staggered backward, tripped on his heel, and crashed into his computer chair. “No!” he shouted. “No, no, no!”

The horror in his voice snapped me out of my daze, and I ran for it, adrenaline doing my thinking for me. My footsteps pounded the floor, boards creaking and groaning. Screw it all. I flung open the door, and the force banged it into the dresser, sending a shudder through the walls.

I didn’t care.

I flew down the stairs and leapt over a barking, snarling dog, yanked open the front door, and sprinted off into the night.

Chapter 14

“What the hell?”
I said, gritting my teeth as I dug my fingernails into Sarah’s leather-bound journal, still infuriatingly invisible. “Why can’t we get it off?”

“It must have fused with the pages,” said Megan.

“This is so stupid,” I said, whacking my hair away from my face. “How are we supposed to read it if it’s invisible?”

“Maybe that’s the point,” she said.

“If I could just break the surface,” I muttered, sliding my finger along the spine. But there was nothing to break.

“Maybe you have to
be
invisible to read it,” Megan offered. “Maybe if we put the stuff back on—”

“That’s not how it works,” I snapped. “Invisible things can’t be seen, period.”

While I struggled with the journal, Megan lay the apparatus diagonally across her floor. Then stared at it blankly.

It was Monday afternoon, I was back at her house, and we’d decided to take a serious look at our spoils from the UCSB break-in.

I hadn’t told Megan about my stint into Emory’s house. She wouldn’t approve. Plus, I didn’t want to give her any ideas about peeping on naked guys. She’d be all over that.

If she wasn’t already.

“How does this thing work?” she said.

“Did you try turning in on?”

“There’s a switch. I’m flipping it. Nothing’s happening.”

I sighed and threw down the invisible journal—then thought better of it and instead leaned it carefully against her nightstand where I could find it again—and scooted over to the apparatus. “Okay, let’s see . . . the laser . . . follow the wires.” My fingers traced the wires to a tiny toggle switch screwed into the two-by-four—which Megan was flipping in vain—and then back to a battery container, which was empty.

Four AA batteries.

“You thought it ran on fairy dust?” I said.

“Shut up. I thought it was solar powered or something.”

We pillaged two batteries from her clock radio, two from her TV remote, and slotted them in place. At last, the laser turned on, throwing a red smudge on the wall.

“Turn off the lights. I’ll get the windows.” I yanked the cord to lower the blinds, plunging her bedroom into darkness.

The smudge grew larger, easier to see. A smooth blob, which meant no interference. Nothing invisible.

I reached for the journal and dipped the corner into the beam, where I’d seen Sarah do it. Magnified on the wall, a frayed corner came into view, its outline rippling in the laser light.

Interference.

“Still works,” said Megan.

“I know, I was worried everything got bent out of alignment in your car.”

Megan lay down on her stomach to get a closer look, propped up on her elbows. “So all those squiggly, blurry lines . . . is that actually the stuff? Are we actually seeing it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It looks like a kaleidoscope.”

“Hang on—” I propped the journal up on the two-by-four, so the edge remained in the beam. Without the jitters of my hand, the projected squiggles froze in whatever position they were in. No more movement. I scooted up next to Megan to get a better look.

Even unmoving, the arrangement of squiggles and shadow mesmerized me. I found myself leaning closer, my eyes straining to peer through the image, as if searching for a 3D shape in one of those geometric patterns. It stirred something in me.

And this was just a shadow.

Just interference.

A way of looking at it that wasn’t really looking at it.

Just a cheap laser pointer projected on a plaster wall. What would you see if you
could
look directly at it?

“Could we use this to read Sarah’s journal?” said Megan.

“Huh, I wonder . . .”

“That way we wouldn’t have to take the stuff off.”

“Yeah, but it only lets you see outlines,” I said. “And the beam’s way too narrow, there’d be no way to make out letters.”

But now that she’d mentioned it, my brain continued to toy with the idea. 

Look closer, Leona
.

I leaned closer, and my hair cast a shadow near the edge of the blob.

Megan shoved my arm. “Move, you’re blocking it.”

Closer
 . . .

“I just want to see,” I said.

“Stop blocking it!”

But the sight pulled me closer still, until my nose was inches from the plaster.
Can you see it, Leona?
The blurry lines filled my vision, quivering like living things.

“It’s still moving,” I whispered.

“What? Let me see.” Her head appeared next to mine. “Where?”

“It shouldn’t be moving, should it?”

“What do you mean? It’s not moving.”

“The pattern’s still moving,” I breathed, entranced. On the wall, the furry red caterpillars began to wriggle and writhe, join together and split apart. “Please tell me you’re seeing this.”

Can you see it now, Leona?

“Whoa,” said Megan. “It
is
moving. It looks alive.”

“But nothing’s moving,” I stammered. “The laser, the journal, the lenses, none of that’s moving.”

“Is that . . .” she glanced sideways at me. “Is that bad?”

“I . . . I think it’s trying to communicate with me.” I touched the wall, hypnotized by the projection. “What are you?” I whispered.

For a moment, the pattern coalesced into shapes, symbols—like the symbols I had seen on Megan’s arm—before melting back into wobbly lines.

Can you see me, Leona?

I can see you.

I reeled back, startled.

That voice, the voice in my head . . . it didn’t belong to me. I touched my temples, my head swimming.

I realized then.

The voice belonged to
it
.

And it had been in my head the entire time.

“What . . . what do you want?” I whispered, peering cross-eyed at my nose.

Go to her room, Leona.

It had spoken
to me.

The dark matter had spoken to me. It had formed a thought inside my head, which I had mistaken as my own. That was deeply unsettling. As I tried to fall asleep that night, its terrifying instructions cycled through my brain.

Go to her room
.

Why? What would I find there?

I clicked on my cell phone to get the time. 11:40 p.m. My parents would be asleep.

I could go right now.

Go to her room, Leona
.

“Shut up,” I hissed into the darkness, yanking the covers over my face and turning over. I buried my face in my pillow, exhaling hot breath into my cocoon.

But my eyelids opened against the fabric.

Just take a peek. In and out. I could ride my bike, take the side roads. No one would be out driving on a Monday night.

An itchy sweat clung to my skin, the need to scratch everywhere. Only one thing would numb the itch . . . wearing it again.

“I’m not doing it,” I muttered into my pillow, but already, my resolve was crumbling.

I needed to see what was in her bedroom.

Otherwise it would haunt me.

I threw off my covers and lunged for the contact lens case, twisted off the cap, and reached inside.

The back door
of the Lacroix residence opened into a dark laundry room with a gentle screech. Invisible once again, I slipped inside and pressed the door shut behind me, then paused to catch my breath. My bike lay up the street, hidden behind a hedge.

If anybody had been watching, they would have seen a bicycle riding itself. I darted through the kitchen and dining room and tiptoed past the sleeping Golden Retriever to the stairs.

The fourth one squeaked.

The dog’s ears flapped, and he began to stir.

I dashed the rest of the way up the stairs, tore across the landing, and backed into the darkness of the hallway, nerves buzzing with adrenaline. From downstairs came the
clack
clack
clack
of claws on hardwood floor. But no barking.

I let out my breath and crept up the hall.

Back in their house.

I shouldn’t be here. This was wrong to be here.

But if I didn’t check, if I didn’t peek, it would nag at my subconscious.

Ashley’s bedroom door lurked at the end of the hallway, menacingly dark. Like the back of a cave. For a long time, I stood very still in the hallway and stared at that door.

It stared back at me.

Just one peek . . .

I crept forward, my toes sinking into carpet, and trailed my palm down the wood to the knob, ice cold.
Her bedroom.
My breathing came faster.

Could I really just open it?

My hand refused to twist the knob, as if frozen.

Then I heard something I shouldn’t have. A shuffling, scratching sound.

Coming from inside her bedroom.

An icy finger drew down my spine. No, no, no . . . it must have been coming from outside. I pressed my ear to the door to listen. Only muffled silence, and my breathing relaxed—

Then I heard it again.

Scratch
 . . .
scratch
 . . .
scratch . . .

Like a fingernail on wood.

Coming from just on the other side of the door, from inside Ashley’s bedroom.

I jerked away, took a fearful step back.

But I couldn’t run. If I ran now, the unsolved mystery would haunt me. So I willed myself forward, seized the doorknob with a sweaty palm, and twisted it until it clicked. Heart hammering, I pushed the door open.

The scratching sound cut off abruptly.

Blackness. The faint outline of a window, blinds drawn. A bedside clock displayed 12:59 a.m. September 22. As my eyes adjusted, the hulking shape of a bunk bed came into view, a dresser, shelves, a beanbag chair.

I was in Ashley Lacroix’s bedroom. The bedroom of the girl I’d murdered. Suddenly, my insides felt like lead.

Why was I here?

The bedroom still looked lived in, as if she had just gone to sleep over at a friend’s house. Because they couldn’t let go.

Movement flashed off to the side. My head jerked. Just blackness, a boxy shadow. I backed away, straining to see details. A metallic clang split the air, followed by a scuffle, jolting me senseless.

Terrified, I fumbled for the light switch, then shielded my eyes against the blinding glare. When I saw the source of the noise, I blinked.

A cage.

Peering out at me from inside the cage, quivering with fear, was a mouse.

Ashley had a pet mouse. Her parents were still feeding it.

I wrestled my
bike out from behind the hedge and took off pedaling into the night, needing desperately to burn off my frustration. There had been nothing in Ashley’s bedroom. Nothing but loss and sadness and guilt. Stuffed animals, more pictures of her and her friends, a calendar still open to July with not a single day crossed off.

Because she had been murdered on the first.

What was I supposed to see in there?

“Huh?” I said out loud. “What did you want me to see?”

My brain remained silent. The stuff that coated my skin had no answer.

Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing.

The wind whistled through my hair. I took the curves fast, sticking to the neighborhoods without streetlamps. Wasn’t worried about cars. Their headlights would give them away with ample time to disembark and hide my bike, so my mind wandered.

I stopped paying attention.

The pedals dug into the bare soles of my feet, whipping around faster and faster. I leaned hard around the next curve and flew through the stop sign.

And almost hit him.

The homeless guy pushing a shopping cart across the street.

I yanked the bike sideways, clenched the breaks, and flew over the handlebars, barely missing him. My palm flew out to cushion my landing, and I tucked in my head, rolling over my shoulder. No helmet, no clothes, just my bare skin on asphalt. Skin ripped off my hip, my elbow, my knee, leaving white-hot streaks of pain. I rolled into a heap, moaning. But nothing broken.

I climbed to my feet, wincing. I checked my wounds, but they were invisible. Did the stuff soak in or something? That had to have taken off the top layer of skin and some.

The homeless guy!

I spun around, covering myself.

But he wasn’t looking at me. I was invisible. He was looking at my bike, which had skidded some distance away, scratching his wiry beard.

Tonight he would see something impossible.

I grabbed the bike and rode like hell.

Smashing into her
with my car and killing her was the first thing I did to Ashley Lacroix, but not the last. That first part was an accident, I recognized that. I may have been reckless—exceeding the speed limit, violating the six month probationary period by driving Megan, smoking weed—but my intent had never been to kill.

Killing her was not what haunted me.

It was what I did
after
killing her that haunted me.