Ethereal Page 15

  A hard thump comes from below. I can hear my mother muffling something through the door.

  “Just a minute.” I shout. “I have to go.” I hop back down into the closet.

  “I’m leaving.” Logan whispers, hitching his thumb behind him.

  I don’t ask questions, just throw a whole mess of clothes up there and pretend the butterfly room never existed.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Lost

  I wait until well after dinner, when my mom and Tad retire to their bedroom to do whatever freaky things it is they do back there, before barricading myself in my room. I not only take the routine precautions of locking the door, I slide the dresser against it to ensure no one will dare try and pound their way in. Next, I turn on the shower and let the water run in the event someone should come bang away, they might hear the water and figure I’m indisposed.

  I don’t know what excites me so much about having a secret passage in my bedroom. My room is easily a hundred times the size of the tiny space embellished with butterflies, so it must be the secrecy of it all. I climb in just barely able to pull myself up on the shelf. I definitely need more upper body strength. Maybe this could be a weight room or something? I could do yoga or palates. Then again the lack of fresh air and circulation might become an issue, already it’s so dank and muggy up here.

  I flick on the light and drag up a spare throw pillow I plucked from off my bed and take a seat on it. Even the floor is unique, made of some kind of soft black vinyl, speckled with silver flecks. It feels like I’m sitting on stars, like I have the entire galaxy at my feet.

  I pick on a loose thread on the side of the pillow. I’m getting so sleepy. It’s been such a long day.

  I shift and lie down. It’s so easy to relax up here. I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

  When I wake up I have this weird feeling in my brain like someone opened my skull and poured in a can of soda. Carbonated—it feels carbonated.

  The light is off, which panics me into reaching for the pull cord and thankfully it illuminates the cozy room once again. I turn to leave out the crawl space and the exit is blocked.

  Shit! I’ve been sealed in, probably by Tad.

  I fudge it a little and it slides right open, but the façade is back on.

  “What the?” I push it out and it falls to the floor with a whimper. Besides, I pushed a five hundred pound dresser over the door and…wait—the water’s off.

  I head out of the closet, and immediately notice the furniture’s been reconfigured. A brass bed sits where my bed was last, but it’s not mine, and neither is the dresser or the rug or the desk—or the girl sitting at the desk!

  I slap my hand over my mouth.

  Don’t panic—I plead with myself as I step back into the closet. She’s got her ear-buds in and she’s spinning a pencil between her fingers.

  It must be Chloe. It is Chloe. I recognize her from the pictures, the dreams. That must mean…oh God no. I can’t time travel. I don’t know the rules. What if I’m stuck here forever? Technically I already am here, safely tucked in L.A. And if it’s over two years ago so is dad. I could catch a flight and go home and save him. I could be my own long lost twin or something.

  I peek back out into the room. Her cell must have gone off because she picks it up and starts speaking into it.

  Wait a minute…if she’s talking, why can’t I hear her? Oh my gosh. I’m broken.

  A rush of panic flushes through me. I try to will myself to hear. Logan said all the gifts could be learned, but I had to believe—no doubt allowed. I can do this. I can hear Chloe.

  I peer back out in the room at her. Great she’s laughing.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and repeat, I can hear her right now. Over and over again until something pops in the atmosphere and I hear a cackle come from outside the door.

  “You think I care what kind of car you drive? You could ride a bike and I wouldn’t care.” She purrs into the phone. “Get white.”

  White? As in truck?

  “Tell him to get black, silver’s way too close.”

  She’s bossing them both around. I shake my head in disbelief.

  “I can’t. I have practice. But I’ll take a rain check. If I make tryouts I’ll let you buy me something nice.” She laughs again. “And if you make varsity, I’ll buy you something nice.” She laughs. “Me? I’m partial to jewels. Family jewels.” The sound of her chortling makes me wish I were deaf again.

  She was joking. She threw in some stupid double entendre, and he gave her his grandmother’s pendant. And where did she put it? Her dumb diary.

  I go to climb back on the chair and there isn’t one.

  No chair!

  Chloe passes right by me and I straighten stiff as a board against the frame of her closet—er, my closet. Whatever.

  I hear the bathroom door shut. Impulsively, I dash out and snatch the chair from beneath her desk, which is ten times as heavy as the one I own, probably because her mother insists on buying something of quality and not succumbing to the ultra thrifty ways of her miserly new husband.

  A silver sparkle catches my eye and I pause on my way back to the closet. A round filigree pendant with a cut blue stone in the middle sits off to the side of her notebook.

  He’s already given it to her. I reach over and pick it up. It’s so heavy.

  The toilet flushes.

  I tuck the pendant in my jeans, and hightail it back to the closet with the chair. It takes me less than ten seconds to hop back in the hole and into the butterfly room.

  Now what?

  I start plucking at the butterflies while tears of frustration burn behind my lids.

  Maybe I just need to sleep?

  Chapter Forty

  Found

  My eyes flutter open. There’s a hand on my shoulder shaking me, and for a minute I think it’s mom, and that I’m in my own bed.

  “Five more minutes.” As the words slip out of my mouth I can sense the stifled acoustic of my own voice smothering in the tiny space.

  I bolt up and scoot back. I hit the wall so hard it feels like the pins holding up the butterflies have pressed through my flesh, and I let out a yelp.

  “Shh!” She brings her finger up over her mouth as her eyes narrow in on me, hard. “Who are you?”

  She doesn’t seem at all alarmed—annoyed, yes, alarmed, no.

  “Skyla.”

  “Skyla.” She turns her head to get a better look at me as her expression dims. “And you’re from the past or the future?” She looks down as though she’s about to cry.

  “How did you know?” I soften a bit. At least I don’t think she’s going to call the cops or kill me for sport.

  “Doesn’t matter.” She fills her lungs with a hopeless breath. “Which one?” She seems more than curious, like it matters on a larger scale than I can comprehend.

  “Future.”

  She gives a hard blink. Chloe isn’t at all harsh and bitchy like I had imagined her. In fact she’s, I hate to say it—pretty nice.

  “So I guess something happens to me.” She puts her fingers in her mouth and starts chewing her nails.

  “Oh you shouldn’t do that it’s a hotbed of germs, plus guys hate it.” Wait a minute why am I giving her advice on guys? She’s dating my hot boyfriend as we speak.

  “Stop. I’m probably dead anyway. What did you come for?”

  I take that back, slight bitch.

  “I didn’t come for anything. This is my room now, and I just found out about this, this…” I wave my hands around. “Whatever you call it.”

  “Oh.” She takes it better than I thought. “So you don’t know how to use it.”

  “Time travel? Are you…” I squint my eyes at her.

  “I’m an angel.” She nods. “And it’s no coincidence you’re in my room. I bet you have my friends, my…” She lets the thought dangle not wanting to complete it. “Not that it’s important. Look, you wouldn’t be here unless you wanted something. What is it?” S
he snaps.

  I shake my head incredulously. Then a light goes off in my brain. I dig into my pocket and pull out the pendant.

  “I want this.”

  “You bitch!” She snatches it back.

  “I wasn’t trying to steal it. You flushed the toilet, and I needed to get back up here and plus…” I bite down on my bottom lip.

  “Plus what?” Her lips blacken unnaturally.

  “Plus…” I close my eyes a second. I really pray I’m not going to regret this. “Logan is searching for it.”

  Her head picks up a notch as though she just noticed me, as though everything I had said before was blather and now I had finally said the one thing she wanted to hear, or was afraid to.

  “Well I’m not giving it to you.” She presses it against her chest. “How do I know you’re going to give it to him?”

  “I swear.” I cross my heart and hold out my fingers.

  “I’ll hold onto it, thank you very much.”

  “Keep it in your diary.” It speeds out of me. I can’t believe this—it was my freaking stupid idea.

  “My diary? Who puts jewelry in their diary? What am I suppose to do? Notch out a hole like some common criminal?” She looks at me incredulous.

  “Yes!” I touch my nose and point at her simultaneously. “And when you do that, be sure and put your diary in this room.”

  She shakes her head vigorously.

  “Why?”

  “Brielle knows all about this room. I don’t want her reading it. And I don’t want you or anybody else reading it either.” She pulls back and inspects me.

  “Michelle will. She’s the one who’s going to end up with it if you don’t hide it up here where no one will find it. She’ll give it to Logan and he’ll read it too.” I’m not making any promises. I might read it. I will read it.

  Her head shoots back an inch with surprise.

  “Logan can’t read it.”

  “Personally, I don’t understand why you just don’t burn the darn thing, and leave the pendant on the floor.”

  A choking sound gets locked in her throat. She clutches softly at her neck and tears well up in her eyes.

  “It’s all that will be left of me. All my thoughts, all my dreams—ideas, a detailed list of people I hate.” She ticks her head to the side and shrugs. “No.” It comes out firm. “I can’t destroy it, but you have to swear to me you won’t read a word or I will come back and I will haunt you, and you will wish very badly that we never had this conversation.” Her finger sticks in my chest matching the intensity of the pins in my back.

  “Done.”

  She inhales sharply before bringing her hands to her hips. Reaching behind her she plucks at the smallest turquoise butterfly nestled in a bed of red makeshift flowers and plucks at it until a tiny door opens. Its pitch black in there, looks like it’s flocked or lined with felt. A few books and a small box lie stacked on top of one another causing me to look away quickly, because I don’t want to snoop. Plus, I can always snoop later when she’s not around.

  “It’ll be in here. I’ll put the pendant in the diary, and remember you can’t read a word.”

  “OK. So how do I get back?” I rub my sweaty palms down over my jeans.

  “Easy. I’ll send you.” A manufactured grin spreads wide across her face. She makes a fist and pulls back. I see it coming, and I still don’t believe she going to hit me, then…

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mine

  My eyes flutter open and I think I’m in bed, but the mattress is hard as a rock and I remember exactly where I am as I sit straight up.

  The passage door is open. I look down and I see my chair and recognize my clothes and hear the shower water running. I’m so emotional I feel like sobbing.

  The tiny turquoise butterfly catches my attention. I gently pull the knob like I saw Chloe do and the door pops right open. It’s there. A fat book with bloated pages sits on top of the wooden jewelry box along with the same stack of books as I saw earlier. I hold the book to my chest and close the door to the secret compartment.

  Out in my room, safe on my bed, I keep it curled to my chest for a good long while as silent tears stream their way down my cheek. What must she have thought when I left? Did knowing she was going to die take the fight out of her? What if I told her she was going to be tortured? Or that they would bury her body in a shallow grave at the bottom of Devil’s Peak? Would it have made a difference? Or what if she knew I was in love with her boyfriend? I wonder if she thought I was pretty?

  OK, that last thought was completely uncalled for. I wipe the tears from my eyes and start in on the diary. It opens to the dead middle and there’s something wrong. I shag the book out over my bed. She glued the pages along the periphery of the entire text. The only way I’d be able to read this is if I had an X-Acto knife—very clever.

  A small portion near the bottom is taped up and I can feel the pendant underneath. I tear it out from the thin veil of wrapping and caress it in between my fingers. Heavy— the stone is soft as butter. I bring it up to my lips and rub it over them until I can feel it, even when it’s not there. It’s beautiful. It must mean something though. What kind of value could it have that Logan is willing to move heaven and earth to get it? Just because it was his grandmother’s? I don’t think so. I get the feeling it’s something more.

  ***

  I have to go to cheer practice. I have to.

  I love that there is one thing in my life that neither my mother nor Tad can give me grief over.

  Michelle, Emily and Lexy are fashionably late, so I hightail it over to the football field and flag down Logan.

  He comes over pulling off his helmet, beads of sweat dripping down the sides of his face. He squints into a smile and leans in to kiss me.

  Logan Oliver is hot—literally and physically.

  “Something spectacular happened last night.” OK, that was a little more dramatic than I intended, but still.

  “You found another room?” He teases.

  “No. Is there one?”

  He runs his fingers through the back of my hair. “No.” He whispers with a little laugh. “Actually I don’t have any idea. What was so spectacular?”

  “Time travel!” I beam up at him.

  The coach whistles over to Logan.

  “I gotta go. Don’t ever joke like that, Kay? If you come in contact with someone, it could change things.” He leans in and kisses me briefly. “You could hasten someone’s death if you’re not careful.”

  I watch as he runs back to the field.

  I don’t know if I killed her, but I’m sure I took the fight out of her.

  ***

  I wait until mom and Tad go to bed. I place the dresser back over my door, and turn on the shower. I climb into the butterfly room and arrange the four pillows I’ve dragged up here. Clutching at Chloe’s diary, I try my hardest to fall asleep. It’s funny how sleep doesn’t come when you want it—how it wants to hang out far too long when you no longer need it.

  I can feel the passage of time. My lids flutter as I struggle to open them. I take in a deep breath of stifling air and sit up. The cover is back over the opening! I’m back.

  I open the door to the passage extra careful not to scare her into having a heart attack or inspire her to throw a ninja star at me or something equally stupid, but deadly.

  I can’t make out any noise, so I take a second to convince myself that I can hear. My ears fill with the sound of rushing water, then stabilize. I hop down and move to the edge of the closet. I see her out there with her ear-buds in, threading a pencil through her fingers.

  Same day. I think.

  She picks up her cell and plucks out an ear-bud.

  The diary in my hand starts to shiver. It warms beneath my fingers then evaporates into nothing.

  I did it. Chloe will never know I was here, and she can fight for her life. But what if she survives? I’ll be somewhere else. I might even still be on Paragon. Surely there’s another cursed
house that no one wants to touch with a ten-foot pole that Tad can get at cost, right? But what if there’s not, and I never see Logan again?

  “You think I care what kind of car you drive? You could ride a bike and I wouldn’t care.” She purrs into the phone. “Get white.”