Crush

From the far corner of the room, Kirsty began to scream.

But it only lasted for a few seconds before she fell silent.

Jonathan looked in her direction.

The Reapers covered her. They did not lift her from the carpet, the mistake they’d made with Jonathan. No. They covered her like a filmy cocoon, pinning her to the wall. Her face was a mask of terror. Mouth wide. Eyes pushed closed. Unmoving. Shaded darkly by the bodies of her phantoms.

17

Jonathan sat at Perky’s staring at the empty chair on the other side of the table. He stirred his coffee absently, looked out the window at the sun-drenched day. People walked along the mall, holding bags of clothes and electronics and toys and kitchenware. They all seemed so happy, so content with their places in the world.

Jonathan wondered what that felt like. Maybe one day he’d know.

“So, dude,” David said, dropping his butt into the empty chair. He set his cup of coffee on the table and leaned forward. “You want to run all of this by me again?”

“What’s left to tell?” Jonathan asked. “Kirsty was “Yeah. Duh. Got that part of the story. Kirsty was freak salad. That’s all LAC—loud and clear. I just can’t quite deal with all of this yet.”

“You and me both,” Jonathan said.

“I just don’t know how to feel,” David said. “It’s like, I really liked her. Right? Then she turns out to be totally not what I thought, but I miss who I thought she was. It’s like missing a mask or something. Totally weird.”

“WITE,” Jonathan said.

“Huh?”

“Weird in the extreme,” he explained.

David smiled halfheartedly. He looked out the window and then turned from the glass.

“Man,” David said. He shook his head and peered into his coffee cup. When he gazed up, he looked supremely serious. “I’m really sorry about everything that happened. I mean, everything with Kirsty. I was acting like a total tool.”

“It wasn’t your fault. She manipulated us both.”

Jonathan left it at that. What he knew—and what he didn’t want David to know—was that Kirsty only used David to get closer to Jonathan. She knew he wasn’t interested in her, not at first. But by turning Jonathan against David, making him think his friend was a killer, they would come together against him. And that’s what happened…at least for a while. Kirsty wanted Jonathan isolated, alone. She could have just killed David, but that wouldn’t have brought her any closer to Jonathan. If anything, it would have driven him farther away. No. She needed David as a scapegoat, needed to use him and hurt him. She probably would have killed him if Jonathan hadn’t stopped her.

Another good reason for Jonathan to feel nothing but relief that she was gone.

“So, what happens now?” David asked.

“Now?” Jonathan asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, are you all magical like she thought or what?”

Jonathan laughed and lifted his coffee for a sip. He let the liquid sit on his tongue and shook his head. “No. I’m not all magical. The only reason those things went after her instead of me is because I dropped her picture in the goblet when I was trying to take mine out. She worked the magic. I just got lucky.”

“Damn,” David said. “But like, have you tried anything? Like a spell? I mean, did you find her stash of sorceress gear? Did she have books wrapped in human skin?”

“I only found one book,” Jonathan said. “It was her diary. Weird-ass stuff.”

“Like what?”

“She called herself Adrian. It was a name she liked. She hated being called Kirsty. She was going through this great transformation, and when she finished she was going to emerge as Adrian. It was like a slam against her father, because he hated the name. Adrian was his sister’s name, and she was a full-on whack job.”

“But didn’t she already kill her father?”

“Like you said, freak salad.”

“Did you keep it?”

“The diary?” Jonathan asked. “Hell no. I mean, it connected her to the murders. She had these entries with the names of everyone that died. You’ve seen the news. The cops know she was involved. They may not believe she actually had ghosts killing people, but they know she was responsible.”

“They haven’t talked to you at all?”

“Yeah, they did,” Jonathan said. “But it was just to see if I was alive. They found my name in her diary and my picture at her house, but I think they’re done with me. No one saw me at her place except you. They probably have my fingerprints, but what are they going to check them against?”

“So it’s over?”

“Yeah, David. It’s over.”

Life could go on. And it seemed to be getting better. Emma was out of the hospital now. Jonathan called her, totally surprising himself with the gesture. It was nice to hear her sounding so awake and happy. She didn’t remember a thing about what happened to her in the library stairwell, and Jonathan figured that was for the best. Emma didn’t sound particularly upset at all. She called herself a klutz and laughed. They chatted for over an hour. Before hanging up, she promised to buy him that coffee next Monday after school.

“Are you sure you aren’t magical?” David asked.

“What?”

“I don’t know, you look different,” his friend said. “You look bigger or something.”

Jonathan laughed and drank his coffee. “I’m not magical.”

But, of course, that was a lie. He’d found a second journal in Kirsty’s room. In it were a dozen spells. They were generally very simple. A few ingredients for potions, a few rituals, a few words to speak. Jonathan had spent the last week toying with them, always surprised when they worked. And there was so much more to learn.

Kirsty may not have had many books on magic, but they were out there. Lots of them.

He made a mental note to stop the body-transformation spell for a couple of weeks. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

“No magic here,” Jonathan said. “You’ll just have to deal with me the way I am.”

EPILOGUE

As the last words of the tale passed out of her mouth, Daphne staggered slightly, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. It was always draining to be a vehicle for the bone stories, but she never really remembered what it felt like until it happened again, so there was no way to brace herself.

Each time the possibility of freedom was so electrifying, and the story, no matter how horrible, so engrossing, it was easy to lose yourself in it, confuse yourself with the characters, even if they weren’t you. For a while, Daphne had even wondered if she was somehow Kirsty, before realizing what a monster the girl had become.

She kept her eyes closed a while, to get her bearings, but she could hear the others talking. They all felt distant, as if they were in the next room and not right beside her.

“A happy ending for a change,” Shirley’s high-pitched voice intoned.

“Unless you’re one of the dead,” Anne muttered back.

Daphne wanted to say something witty in response, but bits of the story clung doggedly to her mind. Why? She always wondered why certain stories appeared to each of them. Even if it wasn’t theirs, could they still mean something? Were they reminders? Clues? Warnings?

Still feeling secluded in her own head, she opened her eyes to see Shirley shrug and nervously pick at one fingernail with another. “Well, I didn’t really like anyone who was killed, did you? In a way, that makes it okay that they died.”