Ephemeral (The Countenance) (9 page)

“Want some company?”

My heart gives an unsettled lurch as I turn around.

It’s just Flynn—probably here to inaugurate me into his unholy harem.

“Sure.” I continue a slow plod down shore.

“Try not to sound so enthused.” His hair shines like silver under the illuminated fog. He wears an impish smile as if acknowledging on some level he’s cuttingly attractive. I can see why the girls are quick to fall to their knees.

“Sorry. I’m not exactly the life of the party tonight.”

“No, I get it. I hate when I’m into someone and the feeling’s not reciprocated.”

A pang of embarrassment rips through me.

Am I really that obvious? I dart a glance back at the crowd and see Wes on the chair next to Fletch again.

“From what I hear, that would be an anomaly for you.” I try to play it off. “Everyone worships at your altar.” I’m beginning to think it’s no coincidence the only boy drawn to me is Ephemeral’s resident vagina jockey. I seem to attract them wherever I go. And if Casper’s right, the powers that be likely placed him here. If they would have paired me with Wes—given me Mom and Lacey, Jen too, I would have happily gone along with whatever universe they wanted. Ephemeral doesn’t really seem that bad.

The forest blinks through my mind, the zombie, the boy with a face of a god, and I retract the thought.

“I get shot down.” He pushes his shoulder into mine playfully. “In fact, I think it’s happening now. You’re deflecting my efforts.”

God, he even sounds like Tucker, and I mean that in the worst possible way. There must be some man-tramp law that stipulates you make every girl feel like she belongs on a pedestal.

“Yes, as in you,” he confirms, picking up my hand. “You’re openly rejecting me.”

“That’s because I hear you’re on a mission to bed every girl on campus.”

“Rumors.” His teeth flash when he says it. “
Kiss
—I’m on a mission to
kiss
every girl on campus.”

I look back at the bonfire. Both Fletch and Wes are fixed in this direction, probably watching to see if I’ll reprise my Rycroft ways.

Flynn glances back. “I’m not opposed to riling someone up with jealousy either,” he says, pulling me in by the waist.

“Yes, but will you hate me in the morning?” I bite down a laugh.

There are probably more egregious sins than kissing Flynn Masterson beneath a star-laden sky. At least he’s a willing participant, unlike Wes, and I doubt Flynn finds any sisterly qualities in me, at least not at the moment.

“I’ll recover quickly.” He darts a smile before diving in.

Flynn’s kiss is alive with the unabashed lust he doles out for girls by the bowlful.

It makes me realize how strong Wesley’s feelings are for me.

The kiss we shared last night was layered with a passion far more viral than this display of empty animalistic craving.

Wesley’s kiss held strong to the residue of our love, and it proved every bit of him a liar.         

7

To Die For

The damp morning fog presses against the window, washing the backdrop of Ephemeral out of existence as I stare glassy-eyed from my room. The school itself is the only visible structure, the towers spear into the air like a castle in the sky. They point upward as if praising God, succumbing to his glory while holding all of its secrets from us like a poker hand.  

It’s as though all of this, the mist, the fairytale setting of the forest, and the gothic relic of the school proper is trying to tell us something, affirm the fact there’s more going on than we can see or believe.

“Everything looks like a dream,” I say, sitting on the fat ledge of the windowsill.

“Get used to it.” Casper runs her fingers through her short hair, spiking it up before patting it back down into submission. “Fall hits hard around here, then, winter. Don’t get me started on the snow. It’s like being buried alive in a freezer for months.” She comes over and sighs into the window, traces a heart into the glass then erases it as if she were disappointed in all the world had to offer.

“We didn’t get much snow in Cider Plains. I’d love to see more of it.” Not that I’ll stick around. Once I convince Wes and Fletch who they really are, I’m sure we’ll catch the first flight back home. I feel horrible looking forward to something like snow when I know Lacey and Mom are probably grieving my absence. “You ever miss your family?”

“I hardly remember them.” She picks up the brush and sweeps it through her shorn locks. “Isn’t that terrible?”

“You have Flynn, though.”

“He’s not my real brother. He was assigned.” She grabs a gold barrette off the vanity and clips it by her temple.

I cringe when she says “assigned.” It sounds completely insane.

“Anytime something doesn’t sit right with you, get it on paper. I have a ton of notes—theories I’ve jotted down over the years. But make sure you hide them. You can’t trust anybody. I wouldn’t put it past them to riffle through our things when we’re not here.”

Riffle through our stuff? Shit. She’s beyond psychotic. This is exactly what I was afraid of. I was way too eager to follow her down the psycho path, and now Wes thinks I’m in need of mental repair. Of course, he might be right, but I’ll never admit it.  

I give a dull smile into her paranoia.

“I sleep with earplugs.” She points up at the speakers overhead. “That’s how they brainwash us,” she whispers before bursting into a deranged laugh.

Oh my, God—this is all a joke. I’ve spilled my guts and now the entire school is going to flog me with my insanity.

Obviously I’ve hit my head. Obviously I’m Laken Anderson, not Laken Stewart. There is no Cider Plains, no other family other than Fletch and ditzy Jen.

A sharp pang of grief rips through me as I try to dissolve Lacey out of existence.

“Hey, it’s okay.” She comes over and wraps her arm over my shoulders, enwreathing me with the clean scent of her perfume. “Get yourself together and I’ll meet you at Ridley Hall. It’s to the right of the English building. They’re passing out schedules, and they’ll probably try to get you to sign up for fifty stupid things to keep you busy until graduation. I’ve got kitchen duty, so I gotta run.”

“What’s with the kitchen duty?”

She gives a hard sigh. “I let Kresley talk me into some seriously stupid shit and landed myself as the scullery maid to the tune of seventeen weeks. Miss a day, add two,” she sings sarcastically.

“What was so scullery maid worthy?” I say it low like trying to lure a tiger into a steel jaw trap.

“Let’s just say Kres and I were on a little male expedition at Melville and ran into Ms. Paxton.”

“I thought Wes lived at Henderson.”

“He does.” Casper sways her hip with a devilish grin. “I gotta go. I have a quick errand to run before I start sloshing oatmeal.” Her eyes enlarge with anticipation. “I might just crack the case, of the not-so-grim reaper, wide open.” She bears into me with a wild grimace that suggests her sanity has long since left the building. “It’s all happening. I swear I’m going to prove to everyone that this whole place is made of pure bullshit. We’re lucid, and in a few short hours, everyone else will be, too.”

Something tells me I may not want to pair myself socially with Casper just yet. Right about now her track record of lucidity could go either way. Personally, I’m rooting for her sanity to win out, so waiting a few short hours may prove to be treacherous.

“Tell me what you know,” I demand. I’m not in the mood to shit around.

“Not yet.” She snatches her purse off the bed. “Later, maybe if you’re good. Keep pissing off Kres—you’re impressing the hell out of me.”

“She mention anything last night? You know, about her and Wes?”

“As in the status of their relationship?” She presses her feet in a pair of shoes that remind me of the wedges my mother wore to the diner. She would let me borrow them if I was on the schedule without her. It felt like walking on marshmallows, warm and secure in her well-worn shoes. Just the memory of Mom brings back her sodden temper, her weak will to keep away from the liquor cabinet. I’m not sure what I miss more at this point, Mom or her shoes.

“He wants a break.” She averts her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m guessing he didn’t have the balls to officially end it with her. I could see why though—it’s like giving a cat a bath, you have to do it slowly, or you might lose both your eyes in the process.”

“The break was probably her idea.” I’d like to think Wes wants nothing more to do with her. I’d like to think it’s impossible that’d he’d even consider extending their relationship, but then again, he did let her touch him last night, indulge in a peck on the lips. 

She shakes her head. “That’s one thing about Kresley, she’s a straight shooter. She might be a royal bitch, but she tells the truth just like a bullet. See you down there.” She shuts the door then pokes back in. “Ridley,” she shouts before slamming the door with finality.

Kresley may know how to tell the truth, but so did that kiss Wesley seared over my lips.

It occurs to me after she takes off that I forgot to mention the creature I encountered in the forest, more importantly the mysterious boy who saved me.

I do a quick change and try to follow Casper out the door, but she’s already shot through the main hall and onto the brick road that unfurls in ten different directions.

The wind picks up, tosses my hair into the sticky lip gloss I made the mistake of applying, and holds it there as punishment for committing the magenta-based beauty offense.  

I try to wipe it off with the back of my hand, but it doesn’t budge, just creates a honeyed layer over my skin.

The landscape looks barren, save for a few spare students, none of them being my fair-haired roommate. I try to decipher which way Casper might have went to run the errand that will supposedly launch a thousand CSI investigations.

I spot her shock of blond hair near the forest’s edge.

She pauses a moment before cinching the wool coat around her waist. She darts into the necrotic woods like a distance runner at the starting block. Casper believes she’s on her way to winning the race of a lifetime, two lifetimes to be exact.

“Casper!” The wind extinguishes my voice before it leaves my lips. “No.” I jog forward. “Don’t go in there,” I whisper, breaking into a full-blown sprint.

A vision comes to me. Twisted arms and legs, rags of clothing dangling off an entire herd of zombie-like creatures all lunging toward her small, frail body.

“Casper!” I scream as she evaporates into the woods with finality. The fog filters in. It comes in spurts, thick as cotton candy.

I cut across the lawn and race down the hill toward the black of the forest. I can feel its gravitational pull drawing me in, daring me to go over—begging me to come. It lulls me into its mysterious shadows the way the ocean drinks down its victim moments before they drown.

I halt just shy of the base and wander in slow past the first few trees. Their gnarled branches extend like fingers inviting me in.

Evergreens as regal as soldiers stand erect, an entire infantry on patrol. They hold their weapons like secrets. But I already know about the monsters who wander these woods with their rotting flesh—their stench to match.

The wind whispers my name like a choir, and I step out of the box trap of the forest.

How could I go in when I know full well what lurks among those branches? What if my mysterious savior is busy sharpening his switchblades and neglects to come to my aid just when I’m in need of delivering a good pithing? Can I really thrash the brains out of a flesh-eating monster to save Casper?

A high-pitched scream bursts from the bowels of the thicket. It sends a series of goose bumps racing over my body so violent I’m half convinced my flesh has harnessed the power to consume itself.

Another scream—its primal distress rattles through my bones.

That’s her.

I snatch a branch off the ground the length of a javelin and take a deep breath.

It’s time to thrash some zombies.