Spooked. Part 1

Spooked.

By Tracy Sharp.

For Jeanie, with love.

Once upon a time, there was a dark, dark forest...

With special thanks to my mother Jeannine, my sister Joan, my best friend and love of my life, Jeff.

Chapter One.

I didn't mean to steal his secret. Back then, when it all began. But that's what I did.

I'd been standing in a toy store with my father, looking at cars for my brother's birthday when the man came up beside us. He stood next to me, and when I looked up at his face, he gave me a smile and a wink before looking back at the cars. Something in him seemed sad to me, and I watched him for a moment, wondering why.

Something strange happened then. An odd, faint, buzzing sound came into my head, and his skin changed from pale white to gray. He looked down at me again, his brows furrowed. In my head I heard him crying, though he wasn't actually crying at all.

A vision came to me, of him as a boy jumping into a swimming pool, holding a tiny girl in his arms, the colors of a beach ball floating near them seeming too bright in the harsh sunshine.

It wasn't a secret that she'd drown. The secret was that she'd been pestering him to play with her, following him around as she always had, beach ball almost too big for her to carry. Annoyed, he'd tossed the beach ball into the water so she wouldn't be able to reach it. She'd stood in front of him, red-faced and wailing, little hands curled into tight fists.

He'd gone through the sliding gla.s.s doors to get away from the sound. He went into the living room to tell his mother, but she wasn't out of the shower yet.

The phone rang. His buddy Joe was on the phone, telling him about the monster truck show coming to town the next weekend. They started making plans. Joe's dad would take them.

And he forgot all about Lindy.

The secret was that he'd tossed that ball into the pool, and she'd gone to the edge to try to reach it.

n.o.body had ever known that he'd tossed the ball into the water, and the guilt had made him sick, clawing at him, day after day. Year after year.

The buzzing in my head became deafening, and a black, filmy substance billowed out of his nose and mouth, floating away from him, toward the store lights.

I stared at him and he stared at me, his skin becoming rosy, glowing. He looked healthy. Better than healthy. He looked wonderful. He smiled the most serene, joyful smile I'd ever seen.

My father had witnessed the astonishing exchange between the stranger and me. Alarmed, he pulled me by the hand from the store as I watched the man and he watched me, a look of awe and complete adoration on his face.

That was the beginning of the most fantastic thing that ever happened to me.

It was also the worst thing to ever happen to me, because it was the day my father sent me away.

I didn't understand why I was being sent away. My mother hugged me fiercely, making tiny keening sounds as her tears soaked my neck.

We drove for a long time. Day turned into night. Finally, we came to a road that led up to a little house on a hilltop. Houses congregated at the bottom of the hill, but this little house stood alone, apart from the others. I could see water below the hill. The ocean.

"This is where I grew up," my father said, taking my suitcases from the back of the car and placing them on the pebbled ground. He knelt before me, looking me in the eyes while his own watered. "We have to hide you before they take you from us." He brushed curls from my eyes. "Someday you'll understand. It's the only way to keep you safe, love."

I was to stay with an aunt whom I'd only met one time before. My father's sister. When I met her, at the wedding of a cousin, I sensed that the rest of the family didn't quite like her. She made them nervous, because she was different from them.

She was frightening to me, because she seemed rather cold. She didn't hug me the way my mother and father had, every day of my four years, right until I was sent to live with her. But she was fair and funny, and other than hugs, she gave me what I needed.

When I was feeling blue, or in a dark mood, she'd mostly let me be. But many times she'd do or say things to make me laugh. She'd sing funny songs, or do a crazy jig. Usually her antics worked for a little while. Sometimes they didn't.

One day while I sat on the gra.s.s on the hill overlooking the ocean, she came out and began brushing my long, dark tangles. My hair was far down my back by then, and so wild that I hated brushing it myself. She was gentle, using a wide-tooth comb to get through the knots without hurting me.

She sang a song I'd never heard before, her voice high and reedy and lilting in the wind. The sound was so gorgeous that I closed my eyes and let it sweep me away. When she finished, my hair was braided down my back and she kissed me gently on the top of my head.

"Lorelei, you're a special girl. Sometimes even laughter won't make us feel better, so you just need to ride the sadness out until it pa.s.ses. We're each put on this earth for a reason. This world can be a wonderful place, but there are dark things that walk through it. You need to be careful. Bad people will want to steal you and use you for your talent."

I turned and looked at her round blue eyes.

"I'll keep you safe for as long as I can," she said. "And you can always come here to be safe. Always. But if you're found out, you need to run. Run and hide and don't trust a soul." She lifted my chin and looked into my eyes, her own growing dark with urgency. "No matter what happens to me, don't stop. Don't turn back. Just go. Do you understand?"

I nodded my head. "Yes."

She smiled. "Good. That's my girl."

My nine-year-old mind couldn't quite imagine what kind of bad people Aunt Delia was talking about. But on the day of my sixteenth birthday, something terrible happened, which led me on the road to finding out.

Aunt Delia had mostly kept me away from other people. She trained me to block my mind when others were near, so I wouldn't steal their secrets. If anyone found out what I was-what I could do-the bad people would come looking for me.

So I was very good at blocking people now.

Delia had home-schooled me for many years. I begged her to allow me to go to high school at an actual school-a physical building with teachers and other kids. I wanted to be normal. I needed to be normal.

She finally agreed, under the condition that I never look into anyone. Ever. For any reason. She'd tested me, repeatedly, on her close friend Wentworth, an older gentleman equally as odd as she. The only secrets that I could steal from Wentworth were strange, funny little things, like he pretended not to like spinach, but he actually liked it very much.

And that when he was a child he prayed each night for a pet giraffe, but had to settle for a kitten that he'd named Sally. And the secret that he actually loved Sally so much that when she grew old and finally died at the age of twenty-three, he'd gone into a deep depression and had sobbed for months. He'd kept a tuft of her fur, gathered from the quilt at the foot of his bed where she'd slept with him for her entire life, in a baggie under his pillow.

I liked Wentworth. He made me happy. He was genuinely sweet, and I was glad nothing terrible had ever happened to him. He'd led a perfectly regular, normal life, which is, I think, why he was so odd.

So I went to an actual school for ninth and tenth grades, but only the first part of eleventh grade, because that is when they found me.

October 30th. The day before Halloween and the night that is affectionately known as Devil's Night. It was also the day before my sixteenth birthday. I heard kids in my cla.s.ses gleefully making plans to wreak havoc in their neighborhoods. I ignored these conversations as best I could, because these plans were to be kept secret from the adults and the good kids in school. I didn't really know whether I was a good kid or not. Soon I found out.

I was walking to my social sciences cla.s.s when a Goth outcast named Kerry sprang an invitation on me.

She appeared next to me out of nowhere. "Devil's Night," she said, a strange light in her black-lined eyes.

"Yeah. So I've heard," I said, marveling at her perfect, blood red mouth.

A girlish giggle floated toward us and I looked up to see Eliza Ford gliding down the hall with two of her equally hot friends. They were all different shades of blonde, and all gorgeous-though Eliza was the prettiest, which was why she was the leader of the Pretty Pack. That's what I called them in my head, anyway. Eliza was tall and curvy, and had a flawless face. She was something to behold. All of the guys were in love with her, and I think some of the girls, too.

I dropped my eyes, trying not to let envy get the best of me.

"Take a picture," Kerry said to them, her tone laced with sarcasm.

I looked up in time to see the Pretty Pack smirk at her in unison.

"Uh, no, thanks," Eliza said.

Kerry scowled at them as they sashayed by.

Their giggles echoed down the hall, their golden tresses swinging as they looked over their shoulders at us.

I will never, ever be as beautiful as they are, I thought.

Kerry turned back to me, her face looking like she'd just seen something foul. "Let's do something."

I frowned at her. "Do something. What do you mean? Like, together?"

"Yeah. Why not? You're an oddball like me. Let's do something wicked that n.o.body will ever forget."

"Gee, thanks." I gave her a little grin.

"Face it, Lorelei. You are a little creepy."

I gave her a sidelong look.

"In the most delightful way," she said. "Some of my favorite bands are led by s.e.xy, creepy girls. They're way more interesting than the Barbies that just a.s.saulted our eyes with 'pretty' overkill."

I laughed, snorting a little. "The pretty nightmare."

Kerry chuckled. "Right. Now you're getting it."

I considered it. She had never been a close friend, but her suggestion had a delicious air of secrecy about it.

Secrets, which I was supposed to avoid like the plague.

But I wasn't stealing a secret if I were part of that secret, now was I?

No, I wasn't.

"What do you suggest?" I asked her.

"Frenchy Pointe," she said, her smile completely devious.

"What about it?"

"You just know that some kids will be parking there tomorrow night, after the Halloween dance."

Right. The Halloween dance that I wasn't going to. No date.

"Eliza goes parking with that Neanderthal jock boyfriend of hers, like every night. Let's scare the c.r.a.p out of them."

I pulled a face. "What, like jump out at them when they're getting jiggy with it?"

She tilted her head back and cackled. "No, you dork! Although, that would be funny. Set it up to look like somebody was murdered." She turned and scanned the s.p.a.ce around us, making sure that n.o.body within earshot was listening. "I know exactly how to do it. I can get a mannequin. Make it look like a dead body. It'll be so boss. But we'd have to sneak out tonight to set it up. Long after curfew."

Kerry was taking a big chance sneaking out after curfew, as she lived at an all-girl's home.

"You'll get into a ton of trouble if you get caught, you know," I warned her.

She shrugged. "Yeah. So? I live for trouble. Anyway, don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. Don't get caught or your aunt will keep you home until you're finished college."

I stared at her, shocked that she knew anything about my life.

She grinned and b.u.mped into me lightly. "Come on. Everyone knows about your overprotective aunt. It's cool. She cares about you. Better than what I've got. n.o.body gives a c.r.a.p about me. So don't sweat it, okay? Just come out with me tonight. With what I've got in mind," she grinned wickedly, "we'll wreck this town."

It was silly. It was stupid.

It was deliciously secretive.

I grinned. "Okay. Let's do it."

Sneaking out wasn't tough for me. I'd never done it before so I'd never given Delia a reason to worry that I might try it. Truth was I was a sickeningly good kid. A dream kid. Never got into trouble of any kind. Got outstanding grades. And she slept like the dead. I could get out and back in again and she wouldn't have a clue.

I walked down the long hill toward the road where Kerry and a guy friend of hers waited for me in a beat-up old Camaro. Cool car but I wasn't crazy about the gold color.

The windows were rolled down and Kerry's pale white face smiled out at me. "Hey chicky. Get in the back with Irene."

Irene? I didn't know anyone named Irene.

"Cool car," I said through the open window.

The guy at the wheel cracked a grin. He had an open, sweet face. I'd seen him around school. "Thanks. It's a work in progress."

I opened the back door and was startled to see a mannequin dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt, and a worn jean jacket with a frayed collar and holes in the elbows.

"Irene?" I slid in next to the mannequin. She wore a dark, shoulder-length blonde wig.

Kerry shrugged and turned in her seat to look back at me. "Yeah. Why not? n.o.body ever names their daughter Irene now. Seemed like a good, not overly-used name."