Chapter Eight

…In solitude, where we are least alone.
~Lord Byron

“WHAT WAS IT?” I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from reaching out to him again.

What drove him to return to the beach, to look for George again and again? I wanted to shake him, make him see the accident wasn’t his fault. His brother was gone, but life went on.

His bewitching sable eyelashes fluttered as he blinked rapidly, coming back to the present. I heard him swallow. “We’re running out of time. Can I bring you back here? Will you come with me?”

I’d been so wrapped up in his recollections and waiting to hear about the rest of that awful night that it took me a moment to realize what he was asking. “Me? Why?”

“Why not you?” He crossed his arms over his chest the same way I had and dug the toe of his shoe in the sand.

“I don’t know.” My jaw tightened with resolve, and I stood a little straighter. “Maybe you’d rather bring Tiffany or Haley or some other cheerleader?”

“What?” A sly, catlike grin spread slowly across his face. “No! I wouldn’t rather bring them. Or anyone else. Just you.”

Not exactly the answer I’d been looking for, but relief filled me anyway. I’d lifted his mood. Maybe on another trip, he’d tell me more. Whatever he’d seen when he’d washed up on the beach still disturbed him deeply.

Geoff backed away. “You can bring your sketch pad. Draw me, draw the beach, whatever. If you don’t want to, I’ll understand. But I really, really need you to come here with me again. Right now, though —” he sighed, glancing at the sun “—we’ve got to get you home.”

Following him back to the golf cart, I stole one last sweeping view of the beach. Would I ever find it as beautiful as I had before he’d told me about the tragedy?

At school the next day, I braced for the worst as I waited by the lockers. Any moment now, I expected Geoff to show up with a cheerleader Barbie on his arm. I couldn’t face that without my friend. And she was late.

I wasn’t foolish enough to think yesterday had changed anything. To him, I was probably still an outcast who hung out with geeks, and back at school, Geoff would pretend I didn’t exist.

Chelsea who?

The story of my life.

If my dad had gotten one thing right in his life, it was his occupation. What other career tolerates madness more than art or music?

As a kid, I knew my dad was good at being a graphic artist, because he always had clients. When I was nine, he came home one evening to tell me Oprah Winfrey had hired him and invited us to watch her tape her show. Man, I was stoked! He said I couldn’t tell Mom where we were going because he wanted it to be a surprise. I packed my little suitcase and climbed into his car. We went all the way to Chicago before I learned the truth. Oprah’s security guards turned us away at the door. We weren’t expected at all. Nobody there had ever heard of Reed Rodgers.

That was the exact moment I woke up and realized the man I’d idolized was full of crap, delusional, sick in the head…and I was a fool.

For a fleeting moment, standing on the beach with Geoff, I’d wondered if I was being that naïve little girl again.

I could’ve told Geoff I wouldn’t go back to Bandunchuch with him. He was seeing other girls—girls who might not approve of him hanging out with me. But the sadness in his eyes tugged at my heartstrings. The attention he’d paid me—and my art—made me ignore my sense of self-protection.

Giving up on Stella, I dialed her locker combination from memory and opened it to get my textbook for first period. A folded slip of paper drifted out to fall at my feet. When I bent to pick it up, I saw the name Vincent scrawled across it.

I grinned before I could stop myself.

Putting the note in my jeans pocket, I got my book, exchanged my full sketchpad for a new one, and headed for class.

I took my seat in the room and immediately opened the note. Geoff’s handwriting flowed across the paper with loops and curls that would’ve taken me hours if I’d attempted the same.

Meet me last period.
The football field.
They’re watching.
N.B.

WTF? What…or who…was N.B.?

And who were “they” and why were they watching?

I flipped the paper over, suddenly doubting. It was definitely addressed to me by Geoff. No one else at school knew the nickname he’d given me, not even Stella.

The teacher began scrawling a formula on the whiteboard, and everyone opened their books. I hid behind my text, staring at the cryptic message. I couldn’t take notes—couldn’t even open my sketchpad, had no desire to draw. During the last ten minutes of class, the teacher gave us time to start our homework. I used the chance to borrow one of the class computers. Following a sick hunch, I did a brief Internet search on Lord Byron. By the end of first period, my temples throbbed, and I longed to do nothing more than curl into a ball.

My mom and I could recognize the signs of mental illness with expertise. The paranoia—they’re watching—a classic symptom.

According to the author I’d found on the net, “N. B.” stood for George Gordon Noel Byron, the way the poet often signed his name. Geoff’s concern for Lewis’s family and the Gullah community struck me as eerily similar to the poet, too. Wasn’t it ironic that the British-born poet lost his life when he’d traveled to Greece to help that country fight the Turks for their independence?

Geoff thought he was…or maybe wanted to be…Lord Byron?

I needed to talk to someone. If only Stella was here!

No, not even her. I liked Stella, but she had a big mouth. She’d been quick to share Geoff’s problems: Hashtag freak! I couldn’t tell her, or anyone else, he was losing it.

Or was I the one losing it?

I walked between classes like a zombie, barely minding what I was doing. Keeping my head down to avoid seeing Geoff, I steered through student traffic and managed to get to Stella’s locker without a collision. When I opened the door to throw my text in, I started in shock.

The locker was an empty shell.

No books. No notebooks. Nothing. Cleaned out. Even her goofy picture magnets had been removed.

Freaking thieves! Exactly the reason I hadn’t trusted the so-called security of a school-assigned lock at my last school. They had our books, my sketchpad, everything.

After a deep steadying breath, I marched to the office to report the crime.

The school secretary took my name and asked me to sit while she called the dean. I found a chair amid a forest of leafy potted plants, and my butt barely touched the seat when the bell for second period rang just above my head. Ouch! I could probably add hearing aids to my future. Prepared for a wait, I opened my new sketchpad and closed my eyes, pencil in hand. Nothing in the office felt art-worthy, so I searched through my current stormy emotions for inspiration.

Black night and a starless sky over an empty beach. My pencil lead shaded heavily over the blank page, bringing the scene to life. Instead of a dark landscape, however, a face popped into my mind’s eye. A pair of eyeballs, round as marbles and the irises dead white. I’d seen her before. My pencil flew to work, adding animation to the corpselike, hideous turned-inside-out face. All I heard was the sound of waves, smacking the shore. And then the smell…God, the stinking, fishy reek of her, like chum left to rot in a Dumpster in the middle of an August heat wave. Bile lodged at the back of my throat…

“Chelsea! Chelsea!” An angry female voice rose above the tide.

I snapped up from the sketch I’d been drawing to see the secretary standing over me, frowning.

“The dean said you’re to go in now. They want to talk to you.”

“Okay.” They? I closed my sketchpad and rose, holding my queasy stomach. As I left, the secretary eyed my bag as if contained something more sinister than paper and books.

Inside the office, Dean Washington sat behind his desk. Two black women stood at his elbow. One of the women, pretty in an orange sundress and about my mom’s age, dabbed at her eyes with tissue, while the other, hair threaded with silver, pored over something on the desk. I recognized my old sketchpad.

“Hey! That’s mine!” A spike of anger made me rush toward them.

The dean came out of his chair. He rounded the desk and blocked my path. “Have a seat, Miss Rodgers.”

I scanned the table. All of my textbooks, notebooks, and Stella’s lay in neat piles. “That’s our stuff! Why did you take it out of Stella’s locker?”

The three faces stared at me, but I was only really interested in the woman thumbing through my art. That was private. Off limits.

The dean grabbed my elbow with a stern hand. “Please take a seat. We only want to ask you some questions. We saw your name in the books we collected. I assume you’re sharing a locker with Miss Pellman?”

I nodded slowly, allowing him to guide me to the nearest chair. I flopped down and hugged my backpack. Would he take that next?

“Mrs. Roush, my secretary, is calling your parents to let them know about this meeting,” he began, sitting on the edge of the desk, arms folded over his chest.

God, I could just imagine what would happen if they got hold of my dad, the conversation that would follow. My stomach sank. Would he argue? “Schools are the training ground of our militaristic government, brainwashing our children and sending them into society to do the bidding of the current administration!” Would he cuss them out? Tell them some complete and utter bullshit about himself they’d believe? Maybe they’d finally realize I wasn’t HHI Academy material.

“In the meantime, I want to ask you some questions. You don’t have to answer them, by your legal rights, but I want you to know your friend is at risk until we learn the truth. She could be in danger.”

“Who? Stella? Is this about her?” I glanced from face to face, belatedly sensing the tension in the room.

“This is Stella’s mother, Annabelle Pellman, and her aunt Eugenia.”

The younger woman, Stella’s mother, sniffled and glanced at the dean. “These books belong to this girl? What are they doing in my daughter’s locker? Doesn’t the school provide lockers for every student?”

The dean didn’t answer, merely stared at me as if waiting to see how I’d react.

“I’m new,” I told the women. “Stella offered to let me use her locker until I felt like using my own. We have a few of the same classes. What’s wrong with Stella? Why is she in danger?”

Her mother sank into an empty seat and buried her nose in the tissue again. “She wasn’t in her room this morning when I went to wake her up. I don’t know where she went!”

Stella’s aunt leaned over one of my drawings, chewing her lip as she scowled at what she saw.

Whatever.

I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about this. Stella didn’t say she wouldn’t be at school today. I think the last thing she said online last night was ‘See ya tomorrow.’”

The dean’s eyes flicked to Stella’s mother and then back to me. “Yes. That’s what Mrs. Pellman said she found on Stella’s computer.”

She’d read our chat. I recoiled, feeling slightly ill and exposed. The conversation had been harmless, as far as I recalled. Nothing too revealing. I’d talked about hanging out with Geoff at Flint’s for dinner, but I’d left out all the details since I wasn’t sure of my own feelings on the matter.

They were wasting time with me. I tensed with worry. “So nobody knows where she could’ve gone? Have you called the police?”

“Of course I did!” Mrs. Pellman lowered her tissue, and her frantic eyes swam with tears. “She’s very careful not to miss any school. She even goes to school on days she’s sick. The police are checking the highways, but she didn’t take her car.”

“Chelsea,” the dean said evenly, “did Stella have a boyfriend? There was a text on her phone…”

“Her phone? You mean she didn’t take her phone with her?” Not good.

Mrs. Pellman shook her head and began gnawing on a fingernail.

“It was by her bed, on the nightstand.” This came from Stella’s Aunt Eugenia. “The last text was from a number with no contact name. It said something about goin’ to the homecoming dance.”

“No. She didn’t have a boyfriend, and she never mentioned anyone else texting.”

“The time was well after midnight when the two of them talked,” the dean said.

I imagined how excited Stella would’ve been to tell me the news if a guy had asked her. We’d planned on going together—me bringing my camera—to cover the dance for the yearbook, but I would’ve been happy for her if she’d found a date.

“What’s with all these drawings? You doin’ a project or somethin’?” The older woman held a sketch at arm’s length.

“No, ma’am. I’m planning to apply for an art scholarship. It’s just stuff I think up.”

“Girl, these Boo Hag drawings are downright freaky. I’d burn them if I were you!” She flipped through the pages more delicately, as if they were contaminated. “I know you young people think the haints are just superstition, but you’re invitin’ evil with this.”

“Boo what?” Her critical sneer rankled me. I folded my arms, ready to defend my best expressionistic work.

The dean went back to his chair. “Boo Hags. That’s what they called some witches here in the hoodoo stories. They were skinjackers, right?” Settling into his chair, he looked at Stella’s aunt for confirmation.

She nodded and handed my artwork to me.

The page was open to an especially gruesome woman I’d drawn walking along the porch of a shack. Her body, covered in bloody rags, had no flesh, and her veins stood out against her muscles and bones.

Okay, so it was gross. Sue me! Nobody was supposed to see it outside of the Margaret Tanner Scholarship Committee, and they would understand artistic intent had nothing to do with my psychological health.

“It ain’t right. It’s dangerous,” she continued to argue. “In the old days, people only whispered about the Boo Hag…about how she came at night to borrow a sleeping body’s skin. Sometimes when you’d see folks in town acting strangely, it made you wonder: was it the person you knew? Or was it a Boo Hag in disguise? It’s just damn wrong to make fun of the old ways, if you ask me.” She jabbed the air angrily to emphasize her point.

My creatures had a name? “Look, they’re just art. How could I intentionally draw something I’ve never seen?”

Or had I? The images of the lighthouse and my copycat sketch flashed in my mind.

“Eugenia, this isn’t helping us find my daughter.” Mrs. Pellman shifted in her seat.

The dean offered me an embarrassed little smile. “Miss Rodgers, you may go back to class now, and take your books. If you think of anything helpful—anything at all about where Stella went or whom she might be with—would you please let me know?”

I nodded. My hands felt cold and clammy as I filled my backpack.

Outside the dean’s office, the secretary spoke my name as I reached the exit door. She crossed the room to hand me a yellow slip of paper. “Here’s a tardy excuse, and your mother just called. She won’t be here until lunch.”

Great. Social suicide. Could she have picked a worse time to show up?

Excuse in hand, I shuffled toward my second-period class. The custodian had left a trashcan in the hallway. I suddenly never wanted to see my gory-lady, or “Boo Hag,” drawings again. Maybe Stella’s aunt had a point. Who wanted to see such disgusting subject matter, anyway?

Before I could change my mind, I dropped my old sketchpad in the trash. Done!

The halls were clear. A door shut at the far end, but no one came out. With my position on the yearbook, I could skip class if I chose. It would be easy, and I certainly didn’t feel like going. But the emptiness of the corridor unnerved me. My back tingled with anxious energy. Not the best condition for me to go to a boring, stupid class, but wandering alone, while my best friend was missing, hardly appealed to me either.

I stopped outside my classroom door to get a drink from the water fountain. Inside the room, Mr. Zimmerman droned on endlessly. Another drink couldn’t hurt.

A hand wrapped around my wrist on the fountain and jerked me back.

I choked down a mouthful of water and croaked, “Hey!”

Another hand covered my mouth, and I felt the tightening of arms around me like steel bands. As I struggled for release, my captor pulled me against him and dragged me into the janitor’s closet. The door closed, surrounding me in darkness.