carries herself, like she’s never had to kneel down in her life. I can tell because of the way the crowd is flitting away like birds from a prowling cat. Just the same, she doesn’t seem haughty or entitled like many of these girls do. I show her my schedule and she notes that we have the same fourth period biology class and — even better — the same lunch hour. When she leaves me at the door of my second period, she turns back and winks at me over her shoulder.
Queen bees are just a part of the job. Sometimes that’s hard to remember.
At lunch, Carmel flags me down, but I don’t go over right away. I’m not here to date anyone, and I don’t want to give her the wrong idea. Still, she’s pretty hot, and I have to remind myself that all that popularity and ease has probably made her unbelievably boring. She’s too much of the daylight for me. Truth be told, so is everyone. What do you expect? I move around a lot, and spend too many late nights killing stuff. Who’s going to put up with that?
I scan the rest of the lunchroom, making a note of all the different groups and wondering which one would be most likely to lead me to Anna. The goth kids would know the story best, but they’re also the hardest to ditch. If they got the idea that I was serious about killing their ghost, I’d probably wind up doing it with a gang of black- eyeliner-wearing, crucifix-carrying, Buffy the Vampire Slayer wannabes twittering around behind me.
“Theseus!”
Shit, I forgot to tell Carmel to call me Cas. The last thing I need is for the “Theseus” thing to get around and stick. I make my way to her table, seeing eyes growing wider as I do. Ten or so other girls probably just developed instantaneous crushes on me, because they see that Carmel likes me. Or so the sociologist in my brain says.
“Hey, Carmel.”
“Hey. How are you finding SWC?”
I make a mental note never to refer to it as “SWC.”
“Not bad, thanks to your tour this morning. And by the way, most people just call me Cas.”
“Caz?”
“Yeah. But softer on the
“Usually we do the Pizza Hut pizza bar over there.” She gestures vaguely with her head, and I turn and glance vaguely in that direction. “So, Cas, why did you move to Thunder Bay?”
“Scenery,” I say, and smile. “Honestly, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” she says. The thought occurs to me again that Carmel Jones knows exactly how to get what she wants. But she’s also given me the opportunity to be completely frank. My mouth actually moves to form the words,
“Carmel,” one of them says. Without looking I know that he either is, or was until very recently, Carmel’s boyfriend. The way that he says her name sticks to his cheeks. From the way that Carmel reacts, with a lifting of her chin and an arch of her eyebrow, I figure that he’s more of the ex type.
“You coming out tonight?” he asks, completely ignoring me. I watch him with amusement. There’s a blue light special on territorial jocks in aisle four.
“What’s tonight?” I ask.
“The annual Edge of the World party.” Carmel rolls her eyes skyward. “Something we’ve been doing forever, on the night of the first day of school.”
Well, forever, or at least since
“Sounds cool,” I say. The Neanderthal behind me can no longer be ignored, so I put my hand out and introduce myself.
Only the dickiest of dicks would refuse to shake my hand. And I have just met the dickiest of dicks. He nods his head at me and says, “What’s up.” He doesn’t introduce himself back, but Carmel does.
“This is Mike Andover.” She gestures to the others. “And Chase Putnam, and Simon Parry, and Will Rosenberg.”
They all nod at me like total assholes except for Will Rosenberg, who shakes my hand. He’s the only one who doesn’t seem like a complete douche. He wears his letter jacket loose and with his shoulders hunched like he’s sort of ashamed of it. Or at least ashamed of its present company.
“So, are you coming, or what?”
“I don’t know,” Carmel replies. She sounds annoyed. “I’ll have to see.”
“We’ll be at the falls around ten,” he says. “Let me know if you need a ride.” When he leaves, Carmel sighs.
“What are they talking about? The falls?” I ask, feigning interest.
“The party is at Kakabeka Falls. Every year it moves around, to keep the cops off. Last year it was at Trowbridge Falls, but everybody freaked out when—” She pauses.
“When what?”
“Nothing. Just a bunch of ghost stories.”
Could I be this lucky? Usually I’m a week in before there’s a convenient segue into haunting talk. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to bring up.
“I love ghost stories. In fact, I’m dying for a good ghost story.” I move to sit down across from her and lean forward on my elbows. “And I do need someone to show me around the Thunder Bay nightlife.”
She looks directly into my eyes. “We can take my car. Where do you live?”
Someone is following me. The sensation is so acute that I can actually feel my eyes try to slip through my skull and part the hair on the back of my head. I’m too proud to turn around — I’ve been through too much scary shit to be put off by any human attacker. There’s also the slight chance that I’m just being paranoid. But I don’t think so. There’s something back there, and it’s something that’s still breathing, which makes me uneasy. The dead have simple motives: hate, pain, and confusion. They kill you because it’s the only thing they have left to do. The living have needs, and whoever is following me wants something of me or mine. That makes me nervous.
Stubbornly, I stare ahead, taking extra long pauses and being sure to wait for the walk signals at every intersection. In my head I’m thinking that I’m an idiot for putting off buying a new car, and wondering where I could hang out for a few hours to regroup and avoid being followed home. I stop and strip my leather backpack from my shoulder and dig around inside until my hand is clutching the sheath that holds my athame. This is pissing me off.
I’m passing by a cemetery, some sad, Presbyterian thing that isn’t well-kept, the grave markers adorned with lifeless flowers and ribbons torn by the wind and stained dark with mud. Near me, one of the headstones lies on the ground, fallen down dead just like the person buried underneath it. For all its sadness, it’s also quiet, and unchanging, and it calms me a little. There’s a woman standing in the center, an old widow, staring down at her husband’s grave marker. Her wool coat hangs stiff on her shoulders and there’s a thin handkerchief tied beneath her chin. I’m so caught up in whoever was following me that it takes me a minute to realize that she’s wearing a wool coat in August.
There’s a hitch in my throat. She turns her head at the noise and I can see, even from here, that she doesn’t have any eyes. Just a set of gray stones where her eyes used to be, and yet we stare at each other, unblinking. The wrinkles in her cheeks are so deep they could have been drawn in black marker. She must have a story. Some disturbing tale of woe that gave her stones for eyes and brings her back to stare at what I now suspect is her own body. But right now I’m being followed. I don’t have time for this.
I flip open my backpack and pull my knife out by the handle, showing just a flash of the blade. The old woman draws her lips back and opens her teeth in a silent hiss. Then she backs away, sinking slowly into the ground as she does, and the effect is something like watching someone wave from an escalator. I feel no fear, just a bleak embarrassment that it took me so long to notice she was dead. She might have tried to give me a scare had she gotten close enough, but she’s not the kind of ghost that kills. If I had been anyone else, I might not have even noticed her. But I’m tuned in to these things.
“Me too.”
I jump at the voice, right at my shoulder. There’s a kid standing beside me, been standing there for god knows how long. He’s got ragged black hair and black-rimmed glasses, a skinny, lanky body hidden under clothes that don’t fit right. I feel like I recognize him from school. He nods toward the cemetery.
