The Ghost and the Goth

an extended drive-by might be enough.

Alona’s foot increased its frantic rhythm and then stopped suddenly. “Nothing,” she said after a long moment. “Never mind.” But her gaze was fixed on one house in particular. It looked pretty much like all the others. Except all the curtains were pulled tight, a piece of weathered-looking plywood covered one of the upstairs windows, the bushes by the front door and under the huge picture windows were scraggly and overgrown, and the trash cans were tipped over at the foot of the driveway, spilling out little black microwave meal trays and lots of glass bottles. Looking closer, I could see two deep parallel lines, tread marks, in the front lawn, like someone had badly miscalculated the driveway’s location.

“This was a bad idea,” she said shortly. “Let’s just go back to school.”

I hit the brakes and stared at her. “You dragged me all the way over here, which is going to make me really late and only piss off Brewster even more, just to look at some random house—”

“Not some random house,” she snapped. “My house. Home sweet home.”

I froze. Her house? I’d had no clue where she was leading me when we’d started our little road trip, but this was the last thing I would have expected. The base of a broken vodka bottle rolled back and forth in the gutter, capturing my attention like a pocket watch in an old-fashioned hypnotist’s routine.

She couldn’t have lived here. I mean, yeah, I could picture it. Nice neighborhood, a clearly expensive house, but something was obviously wrong on the inside. This did not match the Alona Dare I knew. And that, I realized, had been her point.

“Nice, right?” she asked with no small amount of bitterness. “We’re aiming for the whole white-trash-meets- skid-row look. I mean, it could use some sprucing up. Clearly, we’re missing an opportunity with the car in the garage instead of on blocks in the yard.”

As if she’d commanded it, the dented-up garage door on the house rose. Alona stiffened.

A barefoot blond woman in a barely tied, pink silky robe stumbled out, one hand raised against the light, the other dragging a plastic garbage bag, its contents clanking. The resemblance between the woman and the girl sitting next to me was unmistakable. But it was like looking at old Elvis and young Elvis. You could still see the framework of the beautiful woman she’d once been, beneath the puffiness of extra weight, the rays of wrinkles around her eyes, and the general air of being beaten down by life.

“What are you staring at?” the woman shouted at us. Rather, at me, as I was the only one she could see.

She tottered down the driveway toward us, faster now. The bag dragged behind her, seemingly forgotten in her hand. The broken glass from the trash can gleamed brightly on the ground at the foot of the drive, but it didn’t look like it was going to stop her. “Stop staring at me!”

“Um, Alona—”

“Just shut up and get us out of here,” she said, her voice tight.

I pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, and the Dodge’s tires protested a bit at the sudden change in course. “Do you want to talk about—”

“No.”

“You want to go back?” I asked.

“No.”

I hesitated. “You know, if there’s something holding you here, it might be—”

“I said no!”

I held my hands up. “Okay, okay. Back to school, then.” I turned out onto the main street in her former subdivision.

She forced a laugh. “Now you can go back and tell all your little friends about how fucked up Alona Dare really is … was. I’m sure it’ll be the thrill of their pathetic lives.” She turned away from me, flipping her hair over her shoulder, but not before I caught a glimpse of her eyes, shinier than normal.

I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, everyone I know, myself included, has a pretty fucked-up life, so I doubt they’d be interested.”

“You can say that again,” she said, but her tone lacked its usual venom. She stayed quiet the rest of the way back to school.

* * *

By the time we reached the parking lot again, I was forty-five minutes late for first hour. In other words, right on time for the start of second hour. Brewster might already be outside looking for people skipping. I was running out of time.

I pulled into my same parking space in the last row. “You doing okay?” I asked Alona.

She turned suddenly, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you being nice to me?” she asked. “Do you feel sorry for me?” Her voice held a dangerous note.

Like that would be such a horrible thing? But even I knew better than to say that out loud.

“Just because you know … stuff about me now, that doesn’t make us friends,” she added.

“I never thought it would,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. How did she do it? Make me want to comfort her one minute and dump her out of the car in the next.

She eyed me carefully. “Then what do you want?”

This is it, Killian. Make it count. “Look, we … I only have a few weeks of school left. With Miller out of the way, I might have a shot at finishing. I just need to graduate and get out of here.”

She frowned. “And go where?”

“Some place less crowded. Fewer people means fewer gho … spirits.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You got the other gho … spirits to back off yesterday, to leave me alone.”

“Until that thing … showed up.” She shuddered. Then she glanced at me. “Sorry.”

I lifted a shoulder. “Like I said, everybody’s got their problems.”

“So …” She cocked her head to one side. “You want me to be, like, your bodyguard.”

I grimaced. “A humiliating but accurate description.”

“Uh-huh. What do I get in return?”

“I teach you everything I know about this place and how it works.”

“You can make the light come for me?”

“No, I told you, it doesn’t work like that. That’s all you and your … issues,” I said, avoiding her gaze. “But I think I can teach you how to stop disappearing before—”

“I’m gone for good?” she asked. “No bright light, no nonvirgin mojitos, no shoe stores,” she murmured softly.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” She shoved her hair back, tucking it behind her ears, and turned toward me in her seat. “Let’s say I believe you. How does it work?”

And here it was, the worst part. Who said God did not have a sense of humor? “You have to be nice.”

She made a face. “Right.”

“I’m serious.” Distantly, I heard the bell ring, signaling the end of first hour. I couldn’t wait any longer, not without jeopardizing what my mother had done to get me back into school. I got out of the car, my keys and cell phone in hand, and started across the parking lot for school, hoping Alona would follow.

She scrambled out of the car after me. “Be nice?” she hissed. “You said this had nothing to do with heaven or hell or sin or—”

“No, I said I don’t explain it in those terms. Too many pitfalls, too many shades of gray when you look at all the religions.”

“But,‘Be nice’?” She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s totally the whole ‘Do unto others’ thing.”

“Yeah, but it’s also a basic scientific principle,” I pointed out. “Ask any of the science club kids, they’ll tell you. While you’re here, you’re primarily a form of energy. Being positive allows more energy to flow through you, helping you stay here. Negative energy, like when you say all those clever and nasty things about people, drains you, eating away at your ability to be here. In simple terms, it’s like a battery. Being nice helps you recharge.”

She stopped abruptly.

Looking back over my shoulder, I found her standing there, her arms folded across her chest. “I’m a