Coldhearted (9781311888433) (16 page)

Jules nodded fiercely. “I have a vault,” she
said, tapping her temple. “It’s full of secrets. Don’t worry. I
won’t tell.” She smiled. “Besides I lost the combination,” she
joked.

Edie wasn’t smiling. “I’m serious,
Jules.”

“
Okay, okay, go
ahead.”

Edie told her about
the-you’re-going-crazy-page that’d been inside her notebook.

“
Can I see it?” Jules asked,
intrigued.

“
No, I threw it
away.”

Jules groaned. “Well, no big deal, except for
the very likely possibility it was a ghost, a poltergeist,
actually,” she corrected. Jules’s eyes went wide and she grabbed
Edie’s arms. “The voice you’ve been hearing! It’s a mischievous
ghost!”

“
So I’m not going
crazy?”

Jules shook her head. “When did all of this
start?”

Edie told her about Lockhart Manor, as
succinctly as she could, given time restraints.

Jules slapped her hands to her face, and then
lowered them to speak. “There’s some bad juju coming from that
place, Edie. GPS tried to investigate it, you know, considering
it’s all locked up and abandoned, but every time we got near it,
our car would break down, or someone got really sick on the way,
and we’d have to turn around, or all of our equipment would fail.
Everyone wants to stay clear of it like it’s the Bermuda Triangle
of haunts, you know? They’re afraid once we pass the threshold, we
won’t be able to come back. I’ve been tempted to go by myself, but
always chickened out. But you, you, Edie, went inside! And guess
what? When you left, something, nay someone followed you out!”

Edie’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, please,
no.”

“
It’s called an attachment,”
Jules said, ignoring Edie’s obvious anguish. “A ghost has attached
him or herself to you. It’s here,” she said, twirling a finger in
front of Edie’s face.

Edie took a step back. “It’s in front of
me?”

“
Well, not really,” Jules
said. “It’s around you, attached to you. I mean, it’s entirely
possible that it can detach, and even travel, but it’s still bound
to you, don’t you see? I don’t think it can survive too long away
from you.”

“
Survive?” Edie furrowed her
brow. “It’s a ghost. It’s dead. Right?”

“
Dead and powerful,” Jules
confirmed and clarified. “And if you really are a witch, it’s going
to keep sticking to you like glue.”

“
I’m not a witch,” Edie
assured her.

“
How do you
know?”

“
Because I feel completely
and utterly powerless,” Edie said with conviction.

“
The ghost is making you
feel this way. If you acknowledge his or her presence, then you
take his or her power away.”

“
How do you know all of
this? Are you making all of this up?” Edie asked, sensing Jules’s
advice was too good to be true.

Jules held up her hands in a halt motion.
“I’m not intentionally misleading you, but I am theorizing…or
hypothesizing, whichever the correct one is before you’ve proven
your idea. I should’ve paid more attention in science class,” she
commented to herself, then grimaced and lowered her hands when Edie
narrowed her eyes at her—and emitted a small growl for dramatic
effect. “Sorry, I’ve never dealt with an actual attachment before,
but I do know some stuff. Hey, I know what: definitely come this
Saturday to Grimsby Sanatorium. We can draw out your ghost and
maybe the other ghosts can tell us what’s going on. You know
because they’re in the limbo network and all. And if you are a
witch that’s even better because we’ll get some real, hard evidence
of the supernatural! It’ll be awesome,” she assured Edie.

Edie blew out an exasperated breath. “It’s
not awesome, Jules. I’m being haunted, if that’s indeed what’s
going on. I’m not entirely sure my problem is a ghost—or a
poltergeist, whatever—after all.”

Jules seemed offended. “Then how else do you
explain what you’ve been going through?”

“
Insanity?” Edie
offered.

Jules waved a dismissive hand. “Edie, we’re
all a little bit insane, but that doesn’t mean we should be
committed. Insanity is just another word for foolishness, and as
teenagers, aren’t we just the most foolish bunch around?” she said
with a crooked smile.

Edie chuckled. “Maybe.”

“
Definitely,” Jules
corrected. “Look, I’m not going to pressure you, but if you want
answers, I think you should join us this Saturday. GPS has never
had the best of luck capturing indisputable supernatural phenomena,
but I think with you there, we’ll get tons of activity.”

“
What if something bad
happens? What if someone gets hurt?”

Jules clasped Edie’s hand. “It won’t. Trust
me.”

“
I’ll think about it,” Edie
said, not making any promises.

Thankfully, Jules didn’t pressure her, and
they said their goodbyes, parting ways.

Edie went to economics, then to American
government, not really paying attention, thinking over and over
again, and replaying in my mind, what she and Jules had
discussed.

Can she be right? Is there a ghost attached
to me?

For the most part, it made sense, yet Edie
still couldn’t believe it to be true. Why her?

Why had she been able to enter Lockhart Manor
when Jules and her ghost-hunting friends never could?

****

Just as Edie entered
Spanish, the last class of her day, her cell phone buzzed. It was
Diana. She’d gotten back to her about Ravenna, who Edie noticed
wasn’t seated, and Rochelle was absent, having been expelled. Diana
had sent a text that read:
meet me @ girls’
room near lobby
. Edie avoided the stares of
her classmates, told Mrs. Bellamy that she didn’t feel well, and
then swept out of the classroom, heading toward the girls’ restroom
down the hall.

“
Hello?” she called out,
when she entered. “Diana?”

Diana popped her head out of a stall, and
then Madelyn came out of the next one. Diana left the stall and
pulled Edie near the tampon dispenser.

“
What’s going on? What’d you
find out about Ravenna?” Edie asked.

“
She’s in the hospital but
it’s just whiplash,” Madelyn informed. “She’ll be released in a few
hours.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

Diana added, “Ravenna claimed when she was
driving back to school, a man wearing a long, black leather coat
and a hood covering his face just ‘appeared out of thin air’ right
in front of her car. She swerved to avoid him and went into a
ditch. She’s blaming you, of course, saying that because you’re a
witch, you conjured him up to kill her.” Diana shook her head in
disbelief.

Madelyn nodded in agreement with her friend.
“Ravenna’s just making up the whole ‘a man appeared out of thin
air’ bit. She probably wasn’t paying attention, putting on her
makeup or something, and ran into a ditch. She’s probably whining
to all the doctors, having them run tests, so people can treat her
like a queen. She’s so used to playing second fiddle to Rochelle
that she’s just lapping up all this attention.”

“
But why would she make up a
story like that?” Edie asked. “I mean, doesn’t that make her look
crazy? She could’ve just said ‘a man walked out in front of her,’
but no, she said that he ‘appeared out of thin air’.”

Diana furrowed her brow. “What? Like a
ghost?”

Edie hands flew to her mouth, and then she
quickly lowered them.

“
What?” Madelyn asked,
looking concerned.

“
N-nothing,” Edie
stammered.

She still didn’t want to tell them what’d
been happening to her or what’d been possibly happening to her.
Mason knew some things, but not all, and she wanted to keep it that
way.

“
I’d like to see Ravenna,”
Edie continued. “Do you know where she lives?”

Diana and Madelyn looked at her as if she
really were crazy.

“
Seriously?” Diana said,
giving Edie a chance to change her mind.

Edie nodded, determined.

“
Well, her family owns a
restaurant on Main Street called Fabrizio’s,” Madelyn informed.
“They live in the apartment above. Are you like really, really sure
you want to go there?” she asked, giving Edie another chance to
back out like Diana had done.

Edie had to know what Ravenna had seen even
if she had to threaten to turn her into a toad to get the
information out of her.

Edie nodded again. “She doesn’t scare
me.”

“
Then we’ll go with you,”
Diana said, nudging Madelyn.

“
Uh, yeah, okay,” Madelyn
agreed, unsure, but loyal to Diana. “What are friends for? Into the
lions’ den!” she cheered.

“
Uh, no, that’s okay,
really,” Edie said.

Diana waved her hand. “It’s done. We’re going
with you. We’ll meet you there after school, okay?”

Edie gave them a false smile. “Sure,
okay.”

Diana and Madelyn didn’t notice Edie’s
deception.

They said their goodbyes and parted ways, but
Edie remained in the restroom, hidden in a stall. She really didn’t
want Diana and Madelyn to go with her because she wanted to
interrogate Ravenna on her own. She was sure Ravenna hadn’t
imagined the man in the coat and hood. And Edie knew that she
hadn’t conjured him up to scare Ravenna, making her go off the
road.

Edie may not have liked her, but she didn’t
want her dead.

Although it seemed that someone else did.

Chapter 12

Mason arrived and gave Edie a kiss on the
cheek.

He’d learned from Diana about Edie’s plan to
see Ravenna after school. She hadn’t tried to hide it from him, but
she hadn’t announced it, either.

And she couldn’t tell him no. He was her
boyfriend, after all.

Mason sniffed. “Man, that food smells
good.”

Edie nodded in agreement, standing with him
in front of Fabrizio’s.

“
Maybe after you’re done
talking to Rave, we can get a bite to eat.” He smiled, showing off
his dimples. “It’ll be our first date.”

Edie just smiled back. She was sure that
Ravenna would ruin her appetite. But Edie had to talk to her, to
find out what she’d seen, or who she’d seen.

Mason checked the time on his phone. “Where
are Di and Maddie?”

Edie shrugged and looked around. “They were
supposed to be here by now—oh, there they are.”

A modern, turquoise hatchback came to a stop
along the curb behind Mason’s truck; he’d parked behind Edie. Diana
got out of the driver’s side and Madelyn followed from the
passenger’s. They greeted Edie with a smile.

“
Awesome,” Diana said, “you
waited.”

Madelyn observed Mason, his arm around Edie’s
waist. “It’s official, then?” she asked Edie with a smile.

Edie smiled back. “It’s official.”

“
Rochelle’s gonna freak,”
Diana said, and then lifted her shoulder into a half shrug. “But it
doesn’t take much for her,” she commented dryly.

Mason kissed Edie’s cheek. “Rochelle can
freak all she wants. I don’t know why she even bothers. It’s not
like we were in love or anything.”

Madelyn shrugged. “It’s Ro being Ro. If she
acted any different, we’d think her brain had been altered by an
alien probe or something.”

“
Do you believe in aliens?”
Edie asked, curious.

Madelyn shrugged again. “Anything’s possible,
right?”

Edie just nodded, and then said, “Well, let’s
get going.”

Mrs. Gallo showed them up to Ravenna’s room.
“She’ll be so glad to see her friends,” she said, smiling,
oblivious.

She knocked on Ravenna’s bedroom door with a
huge sign that read:

DO NOT DISTURB: GENIUS AT WORK.

Yeah, right.

There was a faint moan, and then Ravenna
asked, “Who’s there?” in a weak, but overly fabricated voice.

“
It’s me,” Mrs. Gallo
announced, opening her door. “Your friends are here to see
you.”

“
Friends?” she repeated,
obviously confused by the plural form of the noun.

Mrs. Gallo stood aside, so they could enter.
Ravenna’s bedroom was small, but cozy-looking, decorated in
different shades of red, from pale pink to dark burgundy. She was
lying in bed with a rose-printed comforter over her and a foam
brace around her neck, reading a fashion magazine.

She glared at the four of them, then Mrs.
Gallo, and stated in a strong voice, “Those aren’t my friends. I
only have one friend. You know that, mom.”

Mrs. Gallo advanced and fluffed Ravenna’s
pillows. “Well, your classmates, then, and it would do you good to
have more friends. They obviously care about you, coming all this
way to see you.”

Ravenna flared her nostrils. “I don’t want to
see them.” She narrowed her eyes but only at Edie. “Go away.”

“
Be nice, Ravenna,” Mrs.
Gallo admonished, putting her hands on her hips.

Ravenna pouted, tugging on her brace. “But my
neck, mom, they’ll aggravate it.”

Mason stepped forward and gave Ravenna a
sweet smile, dimples exploding with charm. “We came to see you,
Rave.” He sat gingerly on her bed. “How are you, huh? Need
anything? We miss you.”

Ravenna didn’t know what to say. Edie took
the opportunity to thank Mrs. Gallo, who then promptly left, needed
elsewhere. When Edie closed the door, and turned back toward
Ravenna, she was looking all dreamy-eyed at Mason.

Diana advanced and snapped her fingers in
front of Ravenna’s face.