Chapter Six

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,
which I should first break through,
and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

THE NEXT MORNING, I drained my lifesaving Venti mocha latte and tossed the cup in the trash at the school entrance. Inside, the hallway thinned out in time for the bell. And no sign of Geoff.

Stella frowned at me like I was wearing my bra on my head, so I scowled at her too.

“I didn’t sleep last night. Don’t ask,” I muttered as I grabbed the book for my first class and ducked into the room.

On top of being scared to death at bedtime, I’d had to clean up the mess in the bathtub since Rose didn’t arrive at the house until the next morning. I’d also stayed up to talk with Mom in my bedroom, sharing about the weird things that had been happening with the sand. I also swore on everything I owned that Geoff and I hadn’t been doing anything kinky in the bathroom. I think she bought it.

My courage failed, though, when I considered telling her about the eerie voice and the person in George’s bedroom. Living with my dad for sixteen years made me second-guess myself constantly, afraid of saying something that would make people doubt my sanity. His condition was genetic, and I would always be afraid of inheriting the illness. Mom had gotten her tubes tied just to be certain. She wouldn’t take the risk with another child.

Under no circumstances, no matter how many pranks were played, would I share what I thought I’d seen in the river with Mom.

After waiting impatiently for Geoff at breakfast, Dorothy informed me she’d be driving me back and forth to school for a while. When I asked why, she merely said Geoff had gone to stay with his mother.

Twenty ounces of espresso, milk, chocolate, sugar, and caffeine later—I wanted to kill something.

The something had a name: Geoff Ramsey.

How could he abandon me when I was being terrorized in his house?

I needed him, at least as a friend, now that things had gotten truly weird in Antonia. I knew he didn’t like his dad much, didn’t like living under his roof, or having to be my wheels to school, but we’d been doing okay together. At least for the last couple of days.

Maybe I’d only imagined it—like everything else—but I’d thought we were a little more than okay. My stomach did back-flips when I remembered the way he’d stared deep into my eyes the night before, the velvety-soft sound of his accent as he’d spoken my name for the first time and reassured me.

My anger-fueled momentum and caffeine-generated energy ran out by lunchtime, leaving my body operating with no help from my sleeping brain. Catering delivered lunch to school every day, but Dorothy had stuffed me on fruit and waffles for breakfast. I still couldn’t eat another bite. Pushing my tray of burger and salad aside, I slumped over the table to rest my head on my arm.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Stella said, dropping into the seat across from me. Her tray clapped hard on the table, making my utensils clatter.

“Need. Sleep.” I covered a yawn big enough to park a car inside.

“Sleep is for the classroom. In here, you talk. So let’s talk, girl.” Her cool fingers combed a scraggly lock of hair from my cheek.

I cracked my eyes open. “I’ll text you tonight.”

She nudged my shoulder when my eyes closed again. “What’s going on? Party too hard this weekend? Or did you and Geoff stay up all night…together?”

“Spare me.” I lifted my head just enough to wipe drool from the corner of my mouth before anyone noticed and returned to my resting place.

“Huh.” Stella unwrapped her burger. “Well, it doesn’t take a genius to see he didn’t get much sleep either, and two plus two equals fore-play.”

I swung my foot in the general vicinity of her leg and missed, whacking my knee into the steel support. Pain lanced through my leg, and I grunted. “Nice try. I know he’s not here today, and I’m still sleeping.”

“Okay. Then who’s that by Tiffany Bensimon, and why does he keep looking over here?” She took a bite of veggie burger.

I sat up and followed her gaze. I hadn’t seen Geoff in the cafeteria the week before, so I had no idea where he usually sat. There were hundreds of students in the room wearing the cookie-cutter prepster uniforms, and Geoff was very talented at not being noticed.

When I found him today, though, he stood out from the crowd like a celebrity. He was sitting at the rowdiest, loudest table—the football players’ table, right between Tiffany and platinum blonde Haley Strauss. Tiffany lifted a spoon to his mouth and gingerly shared a bite of whatever she was eating. Geoff repaid her with a smile and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened and she shot up, swatting his shoulder. Their playful laughter carried across the room, and if he’d ever looked my way, he certainly wasn’t thinking about me now.

My previous anger fizzled into misery and understanding. His disloyalty made perfect sense.

And I’d thought my mom was a sucker! Apparently, her naïveté had nothing on mine.

Under the table, my hands became fists. Geoff had returned to the land of the beautiful people.

Who could blame him for enjoying himself? I certainly couldn’t. Still, it baffled my brain how he’d made the one-eighty from outcast to pimp in a weekend.

The betrayal I felt from his moving out of the house burrowed deeper in my chest, as if a barbed wire twisted around my heart. As for the lack of sleep Stella mentioned, Geoff’s hair was messier than usual, and when he turned around to talk to Haley, his eyes had dark circles beneath them.

“There’s something different about him today,” Stella said, echoing my thoughts. “He was a jock before George died, so maybe he’s finally got his shit back together. He used to be so talented—a real film buff—but after the accident, he started fights with everyone. He failed classes, too, and even earned a few months in a residential treatment facility.”

I swallowed thickly, vacillating between sympathy for him and resentment for myself.

Stella glanced at me and nodded. “It’s true. When he came back to school last year, he didn’t have anything to do with the popular kids. He spent more time in his own world. Nobody knew where he went after school and weekends. He was simply gone. I guess now he’s spending his time with you, huh?” She moved as if to stand. “If you won’t tell me why you didn’t get any sleep last night, I’ll ask Geoff—”

Panic choked me. I caught her arm to stop her from getting up. “Keep your skinny butt in that chair.”

“Hey, Stella.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Two members of the nerd herd, Stephen Wolfe and Mark something, slid into the empty chairs beside us with their trays. I’d seen them at one of the non-jock tables last week, eating lunch with textbooks in hand, a popularity death sentence at my old school.

As the new girl and an outcast, I figured nerds at our table were better than no one at all. Besides, Stephen was kind of cute. Perfect hair. Pearly smile. Nice shoulders, for a boy who wasn’t in football.

“What’s up?” Stella said and began a conversation with Mark about art class. I relaxed, glad for anything that kept her from talking to Geoff.

“So—” Stephen swirled his tea with a straw “—I saw you trying out for cheerleader last week. Did you make the team?”

“Hell, no!” I laughed.

“No? Great. We wanted to ask you something.” He leaned closer, and I smelled the metallic aroma of cologne. “Stella told us—the yearbook staff—that you were into photography.”

“I take pictures a little. For art.” I glanced over my shoulder and around the room, seeing who might be watching our exchange. No one was looking, especially not Geoff, who had Tiffany practically in his lap. Disappointed and tired, I slouched in my chair.

Wonder if anyone would notice if I melted and evaporated into a big loser cloud to hang above the cafeteria?

“See, the reason I’m asking is we need someone who’s not in athletics to be a staff photographer.” Again, he flashed a bright smile. “Would you be interested?”

I hesitated—brain lag. There were eighty-five different athletic and extra-curricular programs at Hilton Head Collegiate Academy, and I wasn’t in a single one.

Welcome to the herd.

Stella turned back to me and added, “You’d get out of a lot of classes. Excused, of course.”

As long as I kept myself occupied, there’d be less time to think about my problems.

I sighed. “Sure. Why not?”

“You’ll be glad you did.” Stella smiled.

“Oh, by the way—” Stephen boldly touched my shoulder and flicked a lock of hair with his fingertip “—a minute ago, I could see your blue streak from a mile away. You might want to think about coloring it back. It’s not code, and they’re kinda touchy about the rules here.”

After school, I waited until Stella disappeared into the library restroom, and then I pounced on the first empty computer. The questions I needed answered had nothing to do with dead authors, and I couldn’t risk my friend seeing what I really wanted to find out. We had an hour to research before the public library closed, so there was no time to waste.

My fingers flew over the keyboard, and in a flash, I’d pulled up three books on the history of the community, local ghost stories, and the plantation estate Antonia.

I hit the print button, then cleared the screen for a new search. With my eyes closed, I forced myself to unlock my memory. Reliving the frightening song I’d heard the night before, each haunting word ground like rusty metal in my head.

Roll the chariot along.

I typed in the words I remembered the most. My search of the library catalog resulted in a book of African American spiritual songs. When I went to the web, I found the same thing—sites listing Roll the Chariot Along as the title of a sea shanty with African American origins. The images that came up included men dressed like pirates and You Tube videos of no-name bands playing in dark pubs. “Nelson’s blood”—ew!—was a term for rum, according to one site.

Even if I was going crazy, I couldn’t have made that crap up.

Spirits lifted, I smiled when I saw Stella coming back.

I hurried to snatch the call numbers off the library printer. “Got mine,” I whispered, waving the sheet at her. I stuck out my tongue and headed for the stacks.

As one of the conditions for joining the yearbook staff as photographer, my grade point average needed to remain stellar. With my friend’s help, I figured I had a pretty good chance at a decent grade in Lit. I was more confident about my other classes now, too. After meeting my fellow yearbook staffers, it became crystal clear why Stella had aligned herself with the stars of the herd. Co-editor Stephen, son of a Beaufort County lawyer, was entertaining the idea of attending Dartmouth next year. Mark, the other yearbook co-editor, had to choose between attending Princeton or Yale. Poor thing! My tough math and science classes would no longer be a problem, the guys promised, because everyone on the staff took care of everyone else. I suddenly had an entire network of brainiac tutors.

Moving up and down the aisles, I scanned the numbers until I found the correct shelves. I snagged one book on Lowcountry ghosts, another on the histories of South Carolina plantations, and the songbook. Then I headed to the dead British author area. The library had many titles on both Frankenstein and my author. I went for the biggest books, grabbing two off the shelf for Stella’s benefit.

If I was lucky, I could make it to the circulation desk ahead of her and get the books safely into my tote bag before she ever noticed them. Halfway down the Shelley row, however, I spied the cover of a book on Lord Byron. I stopped. No one was around. Licking my lips, I set my stack of books on the open end of a shelf and plucked out the Byron.

What was the big deal about the poet anyway? Thumbing through, I saw paintings of the man. For a guy from the eighteen hundreds, he wasn’t bad-looking. His little moustache reminded me of Ryan Gosling. Young George Gordon must’ve been a major player, because the book had several chapters devoted to the women in his life.

Hearing voices, I snapped the book shut with a guilty start. My cheeks went hot as I returned Byron to his spot, certain I would die if anyone caught me looking up an author who wasn’t even mine.

The familiar jingle of chains shot an electric charge through me. The sound grew louder as it approached my aisle. I stepped back from the Byron shelf just as Geoff rounded the corner.

His eyes went wide. He froze, blocking my way.

“Uh, hi,” I mumbled. Lame, lame, lame! My face flamed hotter. All the things I’d planned to say to him that morning whooshed out of my head.

“Hey. What’s up?” His gaze flicked to the shelves, and he frowned.

“Um, research,” I said, grabbing the books I’d discarded. I put my back to the Byron titles and showed him the top book in my arms, a Shelley biography. “Stella’s helping me.”

Did that sound whiny? I bit my lip.

He bent to examine the other books in my arms, and I twisted away protectively.

“Ghosts? Is that for a class?” His expression remained blank.

Geoff’s curiosity sparked my hostility toward him again. My defense mechanism engaged, and I snapped, “Forget about me. What are you doing here?”

He blinked. “Good scores. Apartment. Remember?”

“Um—skipping class. Credits. Failure. Remember?”

“Ben’s got it covered.” A smile slid over his lips. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, then back. “Are you worried about me?”

Calm down! I flexed my fingers beneath the hefty books. Too late, my mouth opened, and I popped off. “Really, what are you doing here, Geoff? I thought you already knew everything there was to know about your author.”

“Touché.” His smile vanished, and he crossed his arms with a glance behind him. “Actually, I’m here helping someone else.”

“Oh.” I juggled the books in my arms, struggling to hide the displeasure I felt.

“John Keats. ‘Snuffed out by an article,’” he quoted distractedly and reached to grab a book above my shoulder. I stepped aside, but immediately regretted moving when I realized the Byron books were right under his nose. If he saw them, though, he didn’t mention it. He tucked the Keats book under his arm.

Weird. I doubted he needed a book on that Keats guy, either.

“Is Stella taking you home?”

I nodded. “Since you’re here, does that mean you’re ungrounded now?” I cringed inwardly. Why did I have to sound so hurt?

Geoff’s face hardened. “Yeah. At least at Carol’s.”

“Just what you wanted, huh?”

He frowned. “What I wanted? I assumed it was what you wanted. Your mum told my dad—” Some movement at the end of the aisle cut him off. I followed his gaze, but he moved, blocking the way. “Listen, my friends are having a thing Wednesday night. You should come.”

He looked down at me, and even through the fringe of his hair, I felt the magnetic intensity of his stare.

My head spun in confusion. Could this be happening?

“I’m not sure I like your friends. And I’m pretty sure it’s mutual.”

He smiled. “You haven’t met my real friends, and why would it matter if they liked you or not?”

I wet my lips, unable to find a suitable answer.

He backed away, not breaking eye contact. “Right after school Wednesday. Our boat dock. Bring your art stuff…and leave your camera at home.”

I had a dozen questions. Was he taking me to the Old Place Anita had mentioned? I followed him until we came out of the aisles, where Tiffany waited for him at a round study table. When she saw me, her blue eyes narrowed.

Geoff left me without another glance and drifted past Tiffany’s table, leaving her to traipse after him to the circulation desk.

Back at the computers, I found Stella with an article on Walt Whitman pulled up on her screen. I dropped into the next chair and hid my books beneath the table.

She tapped a ballpoint on her knee as she pinned me under her unhappy glare. “Did you get what you needed?”

“I think so, yeah.” I smiled, faking innocence.

“Uh-huh.” Her eyes followed Geoff and Tiffany as they left the building. She exhaled loudly, stirring her bangs. “Looks like it’s on again.”

“What’s on?”

“Those two.”

My stomach dipped to a new low. “You mean they used to go out?”

“Yeah.” She returned to her keyboard and sent the article to print. “They were going out before Geoff’s accident. Last year, Tiffany went out with a couple other guys, but Geoff…I don’t think he saw anyone after the accident. But the year before that—those two were the hottest couple in sophomore class.”

Geoff and Tiffany were on my mind long after Stella brought me home. Where did I fit into that equation?

All I knew was that one plus one did not equal three. Guys like Geoff had girlfriends like Tiffany. Not like me.

After the library incident earlier that afternoon, I went outside to paint in hopes that I would think about Geoff less than I would inside the Amityville family home.

With one of the sketches I’d made of Anita taped to the corner of my canvas, I set up my easel on the porch to paint a portrait. I figured the fumes from the paint wouldn’t bother anyone outside. As the face of the basket weaver smiled at me from my sketch, my head filled with Geoff and the afternoon we’d spent running around together.

I prepped the surface of the canvas with a quick, light charcoal outline and squeezed out some acrylic paint onto my palette. The heat and humidity had made me sticky already. I paused to pull my hair back in a ponytail, when Mr. Ramsey’s car suddenly pulled up in the drive.

Mom and Ben got out, Ben carrying a Styrofoam box of leftovers. Mom never could finish a meal.

I waved at them with my paintbrush and then mixed the jade color I needed for Anita’s shade trees. With tiny, choppy strokes, I laid down the first layer on the canvas.

“Hi, honey.” When Mom reached me on the porch, she gave my cheek a peck. I felt her looking over my shoulder. “Oh, that’s going to be nice! Have you eaten?”

“Yep. Dorothy’s famous cheesy mac casserole.”

The smell of greasy, deep fried fish invaded my nostrils as Ben joined us with the food box. “Hi, Chelsea. Hey, is that the old woman on the highway?”

“Yeah.” I added a tiny amount of brown for value on the underside of the trees. “Geoff knows her. He introduced us.”

“Here, Ben. I’ll put the food in the fridge.” Mom took the box from him and went in the front door, leaving us alone on the porch.

Mr. Ramsey came close, inspecting my work. “That’s quite a drawing. You have a great eye.”

“Thank you.” I lifted my brush from the canvas and turned to smile at him.

My smile fell when I made the startling discovery that his stare was on me, not my work. I squirmed inside. Being the focus of those keen eyes behind the glasses made me want to be somewhere else. Calculating and ever mindful, his gaze felt as if it were appraising me—looking for flaws in my design.

With his hands shoved in his khaki pockets, he rocked on his heels. “You know, I wish Geoff had something to keep him busy, too. It’s good to have hobbies.”

His attitude toward art was nothing new. Most people called it a hobby, though it was so much more to me. Avoiding his piercing stare, I returned to my palette, drawing some black into the mix. “Well, your son writes, doesn’t he? Maybe he’ll follow in your footsteps.”

“He’s not serious about writing. Just reads his brother’s old journals and dabbles at videos. He’s never serious about anything…or anyone.”

The bitterness in his voice turned my stomach. I couldn’t imagine how hurt and surprised I would be to hear my mom—either of my parents—say something so negative about me.

“Geoff has football now. You must be proud he made kicker.”

He chuckled and moved to sit on the steps. “Proud? My dear, it’s a known fact that in the American South coaches always put the foreign students as kicker. Why do you think so many coaches and administrators host exchange students?”

He had a point. I lifted my brush from the canvas, mid-stroke. “But it does take talent. And determination.” The need to defend Geoff swelled like a wave within. “He knows all sorts of things about literature. He’s much smarter than me. Take this research project for Advanced Lit, for example—I’m starting from scratch, and like you said, Geoff is already an expert.”

“Any good writer knows it’s all in the research.”

Ben mentioning research gave me a chance to change subjects. I didn’t want to sound like I was gushing about Geoff.

I put my brush on the easel tray. “I almost forgot. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a favor. Well, on top of everything else you’ve done for Mom and me. You used to teach Romantic Era literature, right?” When he nodded and sat a little straighter, I continued. “So I have to interview an authority for my project. My author is Mary Shelley, and I was wondering if you’d mind being my authority. Do you think you could answer a few questions about her for me? I know it’s stupid—”

“Not stupid at all.” He smiled. “I’d be delighted to. Mary was married to a wonderful poet named Percy Bysshe Shelley. Did you know Mary Shelley’s stepsister Claire was the mother of one of Lord Byron’s children?”

Why did that not surprise me? The guy was a horndog. With our authors having so much in common, Geoff and I needed to compare notes.

“I haven’t started reading about her yet. Give me some time to study a little, and then I’ll have some good questions for you.”

Ben laughed. “You sounded exactly like your mother just now.”

Something in his tone made me glance away, avoiding the delight on his face. An acid taste formed on my tongue. Was I reading too much between the lines, imaging an attraction between the author and my mom? I focused on the swirls of colors on my palette and tried to rein in my fresh resentment. What they felt for each other was none of my business.

I heard the door open. Mom came outside.

Resuming my painting, I hoped they’d both leave me alone.

Ramsey cleared his throat. “I want you to know, Chelsea, that Geoff won’t be bothering you anymore.”

I took my eyes off the painting to frown at him. “‘Bothering’? He hasn’t been bothering me.”

Mom casually leaned against the railing by her client.

“You don’t have to defend my son to me. I know what he’s capable of, and that’s why he’s staying with his mother.” Ben stretched his legs on the steps and flexed his ankles.

My gut twisted. “But he didn’t do anything.”

“Chelsea,” Mom said softly, folding her hands delicately in front of her, “the things you told me about weren’t accidents.”

Oh, my God. They blamed Geoff.

I slapped the paintbrush down. “He didn’t put the sand in the tub or—”

Ramsey scoffed, “Who else would do something like that? Rose? Dorothy?”

Ben took Mom’s outstretched hand to help pull him up from the steps, and they exchanged a smile that looked too smarmy to me.

I stared at the palette, wondering how much trouble I’d be in if I tossed it at the guy’s head.

“Ben! What’s that?” my mom gasped.

He held his arms out before him. Crimson smears covered his hands and the pockets of his pants. He twisted at the waist, checking out his backside. The blood-colored paint marks were all over his butt.

“Bloody hell!”

Bloody indeed. I clamped my lips together to keep from laughing.

He sniffed his fingers. “Acrylic.”

Both of them looked at me.

“How did you…why did you do this?” His eyebrows scrunched together as he stared at me.

“I’ve been right here the whole time. I don’t know how it happened.”

The step where he’d been sitting was clean. A prickle of unease ran up my spine. First the sand, then the mirror, now this.

Ramsey’s mouth turned down at the corners. He shot Mom a murderous look. “Your daughter—”

“Chelsea, honey! Why would you do that?”

Really? Now my own mother?

A mix of fear and injustice made my heart beat faster. “Mom, he came over by my easel. I didn’t see him touch my stuff, but he must have. I promise I didn’t do anything to him!”

Maybe I wasn’t the most thoughtful person like my mother wanted me to be, but I’d never been destructive. She’d raised me to be frugal. Good paint wasn’t cheap. How could I ignore that?

Ramsey swiped his hands down his pants, but the paint didn’t budge. “Shit. Goddamned kids!”

I sure as hell wouldn’t waste good paint on Ben Ramsey.

My mom touched his sleeve. “I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you a new pair of pants. I don’t know—”

“Don’t you? This behavior is Geoffrey’s influence!” he snapped and then stalked to the door. At the threshold, he stopped and turned to me. Taking a deep breath, his expression relaxed. “I’m not angry at you, Chelsea.”

“No, but I am.” Mom opened the door for him. When he went inside, she paused in the doorway and mouthed, “You’re grounded.”

The door closed with a hard thunk.

I smirked. Hard to ground someone who doesn’t get to drive.

Then it hit me.

Wednesday. The thing with Geoff.