Eight

EIGHT

I fall asleep faster than I ever imagined, especially since my sleep cycles have been dictated by pills for the last eight months. I go off them for a while, only to give up after a week of restless sleep endangers my deadlines.

After Anton died, I'd taken a month off work. That's hard when I run my own business. It's also hard when my staff are support workers hired through a co-op, which provides self-employed coders with a pool of people who handle the nontechnical parts of the business. That's a huge help, but it also means I don't have a dedicated PA who would understand what I'm going through, explain the situation to clients, and rearrange my deadlines. Nor do I have coders working under me whom I could off-load some of my work on. So a month was all I could take, which then meant I had a month of work to catch up on. Since then, I've reduced my workload, knowing that lack of decent sleep means I put in full days but only manage half the work.

Dr. Cirillo had asked us to forgo sleep aids. I was nervous about going cold turkey, so I'd weaned off them last week. Tonight I expected to be staring at the ceiling. Or curled up, hugging a tear-drenched pillow and wishing it was Anton, thinking of all the nights I'd rolled away from him—the man was a hot-water bottle when he slept—and wishing I'd cuddled close each and every night, no matter how warm it got.

Instead, I go to bed hugging a pillow, and my mind drifts to that semi-dream state where it becomes Anton, radiating imaginary heat, and I snuggle in and fall asleep… only to tumble back twenty-two years, part of my mind still spinning there from reliving that high-school memory at the welcoming séance.

When the dream starts, March break has just ended, and my family had enjoyed a few days in Vancouver, which was easy and safe travel for me. I'd spent the rest of the week studying. I was eyeing two of the country's top software-engineering programs, which meant I needed to nudge my grades up.

I'd made two good friends at school—Patrice and Heather—but both had gone south with their families for a little sun and sand, so I immersed myself in schoolwork, and by the time Monday comes, I'm dying to talk to anyone under the age of forty.

My bus drops me off at school just before first period, so I don't get more than a "Hey!" from Patrice, shouted across the crowded hall. Neither of my friends are in my morning classes. We might all be considered geeks, but we're different strains of the variety. I'm the computer geek, Heather is the art geek, and Patrice is all about drama, mostly the theatrical kind, but sometimes the personal kind, too.

Mom once called Patrice "high-strung." I gave her shit for that. No one calls boys high-strung. They're volatile or energetic. Mom accepted the criticism and apologized. I got what she meant, though. Patrice gives off an energy, and sometimes it's raucous and exhilarating and other times, it feels like nervous tension.

Heather is the opposite, focused and even-tempered, always assessing a situation to see how it can be improved. I'd once made the mistake of joking that she had a coder's personality—analytical and logical. I'd meant it as a compliment, but it stung because Heather gets a lot of feedback that her art is too perfect, too constrained. She longs for a little of Patrice's drama or my recklessness.

When I find them at lunch, they're at our usual table, sitting side by side, leaning together in rapt conversation. I slow. While they welcomed me into their friendship last term, I respect that they were best friends long before I came along.

Patrice sees me and perks up, waving me over with an expression that has me quickening my pace. Whatever they're discussing, it's something they're eager to share. Gossip? Good news? Either promises a little excitement in a dull school day.

I slide in across the table and take out my water bottle and enzyme pills.

"Heather was telling me what she did on break," Patrice says.

"You were in Cuba, right?" I say. "Did you do a lot of sightseeing?"

Heather makes a face. "No. I was hoping to see the art and the architecture, but we weren't supposed to leave our resort except on guided trips, and when we took one, it was really uncomfortable, like we were rich tourists who needed to be guided past the areas where real people live." She inhales. "I didn't like it."

At the time, I didn't quite understand her point. I was a sheltered white girl from an upper-middle-class family. But even at that age, Heather would have seen and felt the economic disparity.

"Which is not what we were talking about," Patrice prompts.

"Yes. So because we barely left the resort, I got to know a couple girls our age. Cousins. From Cambridge."

"Massachusetts?" Patrice says.

Heather and I exchange a smile, like older siblings rolling their eyes at a younger one.

"It's Cuba," I say, and yep, that's a little rude, but at sixteen, I could be insufferable. Okay, at thirty-eight I can also be insufferable, but as a teen I had an excuse.

"Oh, right," Patrice says. "Duh." Her tone suggests she doesn't understand, but she's not saying so. I won't call her on it by explain ing that Americans can't visit Cuba. She can look it up later. The internet makes that a lot easier than it was when we were little and had to pull out an encyclopedia.

"Cambridge in England," Heather says. "One night, they ask me to slip out and meet them for something fun. I'm thinking skinny-dipping. Maybe meeting up with some of the boys."

" For skinny-dipping?" I waggle my brows.

Heather's cheeks pink, and Patrice's grin says she already knows what Heather did—and it's good. I lean forward, ready for the big reveal. Was it skinny-dipping with boys? I'd totally do that. Hell, if that was on the table, I'd be trying to talk my parents into a Cuban vacation myself.

Let's just say that at sixteen, my dating experience sorely underserved my curiosity. I wasn't sure whether I wanted a boyfriend. That seemed like a lot of work. But if I could go to a foreign country and have a safe hookup, I'd be writing my parents a thousand-word essay on why Cuba would be an important cultural experience for me. I am all about culture.

So when Heather leans in my way, I really am thinking something happened with a boy. Or maybe a girl. I'm never quite sure where Heather's interests lie, or whether she's decided, which is her business unless she wants to tell me. Either way, sex is sex, and if Heather got some, her glowing eyes tell me it was a positive experience, which is the important thing.

"A séance," she whispers.

I nod, my mind racing. Was there something sexy about the séance? I've read a couple of novels where magic led to some steamy situations, including one with a ritual that turned into an orgy.

By no stretch of the imagination can I imagine Heather participating in a magical sex orgy, though. Even I'd be out of there—too much, too soon, and not my style. Maybe everyone got naked for the séance?

When I don't react, waiting for the rest, she says, "We had a séance."

"Uh-huh."

"We summoned the dead, Nic."

"Okay."

Still waiting for the rest of the story.

As they both stare at me like I'm a little thick, I realize this is the story. A séance.

Is that not something kids do in Edmonton? They sure did where I grew up. I'd been twelve when my parents first agreed to let me attend a sleepover, and there'd been a séance. I'd known there would be, because girls always talked about having them, and I'd felt I was missing out on that experience even more than the actual sleepover part.

That first time, we'd started by watching The Craft, and then we summoned the spirits… and I'd realized séances weren't actually all that exciting.

We didn't summon actual spirits, obviously. There was a Ouija board and a candle and a whole lot of giggling. The planchette moved—because Alice Lee was guiding it—and someone felt a cold chill and someone heard a whisper, and I'd been sorely disappointed. I could see through all of these "signs" without even trying.

I soon discovered that most of the girls realized it was a game. A delicious and forbidden game that was even more fun because some girls did believe. That sounds cruel, as if we were mocking our friends. But it felt more like putting on a performance for them. Even if they shrieked and swore they had nightmares, they couldn't wait for the next sleepover and never so much as hinted for us to stop.

I say "us" because after that first one, my problem-solving-oriented brain had a new challenge. I wanted to be in on the game, and I wanted to do better than the others. I wanted to create the signs even the other actors in this drama wouldn't see.

I came up with ways to move the planchette without anyone holding it, ways to tug at a blanket so someone swore they'd felt a touch. No one ever knew it was me, and they loved that. Someone else was playing the game. Someone else was mastering it.

So when Heather says she participated in a séance, I'm confused by their excitement. They're practically vibrating. I could understand that reaction at twelve, but at sixteen?

"We contacted the dead, " Heather repeats.

So she really believes they did, which means she must not have played those games in middle school. I'm about to explain what she actually experienced—how it's done—when I bite my tongue. Yep, I could be insufferable and a bit of a know-it-all, but I was learning that sometimes people don't want to hear how their sausage is made.

So how do I play this? Patrice is the drama kid. I suck at fake enthusiasm. I try, because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but my mother told me years ago to tone down my Christmas-gift gushing because it was obvious that if I seemed really excited, I hated it.

I opt for a neutral diversion, one that allows me to focus on facts rather than an emotional response. "What did you do at this séance?"

Heather explains, and I'm glad I asked because I don't remember when I've seen her glow like this. It reminds me of those childhood séances, when the girls who'd been the most scared had the best stories to tell afterward, as if that was the point. They'd had the strongest experiences, and they came away with the best stories.

"And then the next night," she says, "we were doing it again when this woman came along. We freaked out, thinking we'd be in trouble for leaving the building at night, but she was really cool. One of the cousins said she was high on something."

"Drugs?" Patrice says.

Another shared look between Heather and me.

"Yes, drugs," Heather says patiently. "Anyway, she talked to us, and then the next day, she gave us something and said if we wanted to do a proper séance, we should use it."

"What was it?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Some kind of mushroom. She said if we made a tea of it, we'd be able to see across the veil into the world of the dead."

"So you took it?" Patrice says, her eyes bugging.

"Of course not. I liked the cousins, but I didn't know them well enough to drink weird mushroom tea around them. I brought mine home."

"You—you brought drugs on a plane?" I say.

Now I'm the one getting the eye roll. "They're just mushrooms," she says.

I bite my tongue. Hard.

"Anyway, the cousins used theirs in a tea before our séance that night, and it didn't affect the one, but the other one had this incredible experience. She says she saw—"

Someone yanks my ponytail, jerking my head back. I turn to glare up at a blond guy. Cody, with his buddy Mike right beside him. Anton is about ten feet away, pausing to talk to someone before joining his friends.

"Hey, Red," Cody says. "Got a question for you."

"And the answer hasn't changed," I say, because he asks this question at least once a week, as if it's the most hilarious—and original—thing ever. As if guys haven't been asking me it since I was in a training bra.

My friends cast me sympathetic looks. They don't say anything. Like my daily CF therapy, this is just something to get through, a lesson most teen girls learn, even if we later realize we shouldn't have needed to.

"Does that red go all the way down?" Cody says with a leer, his gaze lasering in on my crotch.

"And, once again, the answer is…" I nod to my friends, who say in unison, "You're never going to find out, asshole."

"I don't want to. That's why I asked."

"Hey!"

Anton has caught up and he gives Cody a shove, paired with an apologetic look at me.

Part of me wants to give Anton credit for that, and part wishes he'd react more strongly. But guys never did. At worst, they laughed along. At best, they did this show of protest.

The boys move on, Anton herding them away. And I move on, too. That's what you do when boys remind you that the only thing you're good for is fucking, and you personally fail to even interest them that way. You accept it as part of teen-girl life, as unpleasant but predictable as menstrual cramps.

I lean over the table. "So the one cousin had an experience."

"Janica?"

The voice startles me far more than the ponytail yank. I knew the yank was coming because even asleep, I recognized this as a memory, like a play I'd seen before and could predict every line of. But this isn't part of the script.

I glance over my shoulder. Anton's there, one corner of his mouth quirked in a half smile, a little self-conscious.

He bends down, voice lowered to a whisper. "I'm really sorry about that. You're right. He's an asshole. He has no idea how to treat girls." His face is right in front of mine now, that tentative smile hovering on his lips. "But I do."

He leans in closer, and my eyes half shut, my lips parting, the adult me seeing past teen Anton to my Anton, my face rising for a kiss as he leans in, hands braced on the back of my chair—

Anton yanks my chair backward, and it hits the floor with a slam loud enough that I bolt upright in bed, gasping.

I lie there, catching my breath, coverlet bunched in one shaking hand.

Then the door rattles.

I turn fast, tangling in the bedsheets, heart jammed in my throat. Across the room, I can just make out the closed door. Everything is still and silent—

The door rattles again, enough to make me jump.

I clutch the covers and curse at myself. It's a rattling door. Someone's there, trying to get my attention. In my dream, Anton yanked my chair over, which never happened. What I remember is that crash. Is that what I heard in real life, and my brain did something weird with it? Was the "crash" just a knock at the door?

I take a deep breath. "Hello?"

No answer. I slide one foot from bed. My bare toes touch down on the cool hardwood—

Another rattle has me yanking my foot back into bed as I twist to watch the door.

"Is someone there?" I say. "If you're goofing around, this isn't funny.…"

I trail off as I stare at the door. My door is shut. Yes, that should be obvious, but why is it shut? I always sleep with it open—old habit from childhood, when my parents wanted to hear me if I had trouble breathing. Eventually they realized that if something happened, it wouldn't be that sudden, but by then, I couldn't sleep with it shut. Last night, I'd left it about half open.

Again, I remember the dream. The crash of my chair didn't sound like a knock. It sounded like a door slamming shut.

The door rattles again, and my gaze swivels to my window, which is open, because I wanted the night air. Open window plus spring breeze equals a slamming door that turned into an overturned chair in my dream. And now that breeze is rattling the closed door.

I get up, shut the window, and the rattling stops. Then I crawl back in bed, firmly shut my eyes, and focus on getting back to sleep.