Chapter 7

My summer school class is reading Flowers for Algernon. If you've never read it, I'll give you a brief synopsis. Charlie is a mentally handicapped man, who has only ever wanted to be smart. After an experimental surgery, his IQ goes from a 68 to surpass genius level. All his life, he looked up to those with superior intellect, and now that he's smarter than them, he realizing that those geniuses aren't the intellectual gods he thought they were. They are just men, pretending to know everything.

I really have no idea what I'm doing. I've learned this by interviewing for teaching positions. I have a passion, but am unprepared. And can we talk about private school teaching salaries? I think being a garbage-woman would be more profitable. Writing sure isn't making me any money.

But I still like witches. I like witches so much, that in another life, I am convinced I could be a witch. I want to paint my nails black, wear flowery, silky shirts, long, chunky necklaces, and dance in a graveyard to Stevie Nicks songs. Speaking of witches, I found a witch show on Netflix! Witches of East End. Check it out. And I don't mean to give a spoiler, but I think you know that Cass is a witch, even if she won't admit it.

And I don't like doing this. Putting a rough draft out for the world to read. It's scary because I know rough drafts are unusually crap. Oh, well. No guts, no glory. On to chapter 7. . .  

Chapter 7

          I twist away from him, push open the door, and roll out of the car and onto the rough asphalt of the parking lot to avoid his touch. He doesn’t let it stop him though. Faster than physics allow, he’s out of the car, too. As he rounds the hood, he asks, “What kind of automobile is this?” He grimaces at the purple pimpmobile.  

            “It’s a classic Cadillac, a collector’s item” I say, feeling defensive over the car I hate. “I bet you’ve never even seen a modern vehicle. You’re probably a thousand years old.”

            He raises a single white-blond eyebrow at me. “I am not as old as you might think. I have seen classic cars before, and this . . . this thing is hideous.”

            He leans down, his hands outstretched, like he’s trying to help me up, but instead it forces me to roll out of the way again. “No touching!” I yell. The hem of my shirt rucks up, and the gravel of the parking lot digs into the skin of my back. I rest there for a moment, my eyes close, my mind reeling. I should be sleeping or blow-drying my hair. Hell, I’d rather be applying makeup. But I’m lying in a parking lot, after a night of ghost hunting, arguing with a Reaper.

Reiner’s voice rouses me from my pity party. “Why do not you want me touch you, Cassandra? Is it because you are afraid of your inevitable death or because you are frightened because you want the heat of my hands on you?” His eyes are steady, straight forward. He’s not flirting with me, but asking a question.

“Shut up,” I say because I honestly don’t know the answer. I turn over onto my stomach and push myself off the ground. “What are you doing here?”

“I want to help.”

“No thanks.”

He frowns down at me as he shifts the gold sickle attached to his belt. “You need me Cassandra. The sooner you realize that, the better.”

The rising sun behind him is blinding, so I have to squint my eyes to look at him. How is he the Reaper? At first glance, he’s just a tall, skinny boy, but on closer inspection, there is an eeriness in his grey eyes and pale skin. He doesn’t belong in the bright light of day, but in the dark, among the dead.

 “I have to go,” I say. “And I don’t want help, especially from a Reaper.” I step around him, keeping my hand on the knife strapped to my back, ready to fend him off if necessary. I reach for the car door and open it. Just as I am about to slip inside, I think of something.

“Wait. Do you know where Brittany is?” I ask. I turn back to him, but I’m talking to an empty parking lot. “Some help you are!” I yell at no one.

I crank the car’s engine, and after a delay and some praying from me, it starts up. I drive through the cobbled streets of downtown St. Augustine and only have to slam on the breaks once when I almost plow through a ghost using the crosswalk. I should go right home, but the ghost encounters and the Reaper trying to touch me makes me want to forget school all together.

I turn down a narrow lane that leads to away from the freeway and toward Vilano Beach and take the long route home through Green Cove Springs. I roll the windows down as I drive onto Highway 16, a two-lane road that meanders beside Black Creek. As the car travels over one of the bridges, I look across the inlet waterway, back toward St. Augustine, even though I can’t see it through the thick forest that separate it from Ravines.

I hope I never have to go back there, never have the deal with ghosts, or the Reaper.

I pull into our driveway, and when I open the front door, I’m engulfed by the smell of sweet dough. Like every morning, Anna sits in her highchair in the kitchen. 

After graduating high school at seventeen, and just one summer term at University of Miami, my sister, Jenny came home for summer break pregnant. You’d think getting knocked up would knock her from grace, but no, somehow she’d been elevated.

At twenty, she remains number one daughter, became the world’s best single mother, and one of the youngest people in Florida to ever graduate with a nursing degree. She may be nominated for sainthood soon. Since she is mediocre in dealing with the dead and so perfect at being normal, she pretty much never has to participate in ghost fighting.

The phone is stuck to Mom’s ear as she bustles around kitchen, splattering waffle batter all over the counter as she talks with her hands. I take my seat and am presented with a stack of warm and fluffy waffles. The dollop of whipped cream oozes down the sides toward the strawberries. The sight and smell is so beautiful I almost want to cry.

“Did you walk?” Mom asks once she hangs up the phone. “I’ve been here for ten minutes. I thought you had to hurry home because of school.”

“Did you put up the enchantments?” I ask, avoiding her question.

“Sure did,” she says, and turns back to her Purple Ladies catalog. “I’m on standby the whole day in case Hernandez comes back and tries to dropkick the mayor or anything. But the Indians are resting peacefully with the big eagle in the sky.”

After devouring two helpings of waffles, I decide I’ll have to run seven miles tonight to make up for the calorie intake. I head upstairs to shower and dress. The water dripping from the showerhead turns cold right after I lather my head with shampoo. Mom must have started the dishwasher.

My teeth are chattering by the time I finish in the bathroom. I pause at the mirror and brush my hair. I move on to makeup by applying Chap-stick. Mom won’t be proud, but at least it’s something. Before I leave my room, I strap on my watch and my knife.

“Mom!” I yell down the stairs. “I’m ready for school.” There’s no answer.

I grab my backpack and run into the kitchen, but Mom and Anna are gone. “Mom!” 

Still in her scrubs and perfectly curled brown hair, Jenny emerges from her room. She has just gotten home from her nightshift at the hospital. “Why are you screaming? People are trying to sleep,” Jenny says.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She and Anna went to the park.”

 “She forgot to take me to school. I need a ride.”

“Didn’t you just turn eighteen?” she asks. “Can’t you drive yourself?”

“She took the pimpmobile,” I say.

She mumbles something under her breath as she walks back into her room. I’m afraid she’ll go back to bed and leave me, but she returns a moment later and tosses me a set of car keys. “Happy Birthday, by the way. Since I’ve got the Camaro now, you can have Casper.”

Casper is a white station wagon mom drove the first year she was married to dad, but like a good little ghost car, it refuses to die.

“Thanks,” I say, tucking the keys in my pocket. As I shoulder my backpack, I’m overcome by a rush of exhaustion. I glance back at my room, wanting to crawl into bed, put the covers over my head, and forget all about high school. I yawn and stretch.

“Did mom have you out ghost hunting all night?” she asks.

“How did you guess?”

“You look like crap.” She scrunches up her nose like I stink.

“Hey!” I exclaim. “That’s mean.” I smooth my hair down, trying to look presentable.

“Necromancy is mean. I wish you weren’t any good at it. Maybe then mom would leave you alone.” She steps closer to me and whispers, even though we are the only ones in the house. “I found a spell to reverse it.”

“A spell? We’re not witches,” I say.

“Yes, we are,” she replied. “Necromancy is a form of witchcraft. Haven’t you notices all the candles, ceremonial bowls, the chanting, and the bat wings in the pantry?”

“We’re not witches.”

“Whatever,” Jenny says, shaking her head. “But if you can ever come to term with reality and want to use your witch powers to remove your necromancy, Mom keeps the real Grimoire under her bed, the one with all the non-ghost stuff. There’s a spell on the last page of the book that swears it can strip away your powers.”

Could there really be a way to undo it? I could move away from Ravines. I could go to college. I could be normal.

“But it’s risky,” she adds, grabbing me by the shoulders and forcing me to look at her. “Crap. I never should have said anything. Stripping your powers is cutting a part of yourself away. If you do it wrong, it could kill you.”

For a second, the sickle under the thick ghost bead bracelet on my wrist, stings, making my eyes water and causing me to fidget. I’m going to die anyway. Isn’t that what Reiner had implied? Mom has always said I’m more powerful than anyone else in our family. I could do it. If I could find the spell, then I could take the dead out of my life. It would be worth the risk.

“Stop,” Jenny says, shaking me. “Stop thinking about it.”

“I’m not,” I say. “There’s no way out for me.” The Mark won’t stop burning. I look down at my wrist to see smoke coming from the sickle. If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to cry from the pain. “I need to get to school,” I say.

            “Okay,” she says, but then she grabs me and pulls me into a hug. My mark stops stinging. We’re not an affectionate family, so I’m stunned into stillness at first. I lean into her, letting everything sink in. The apocalypse is coming, and I’ll be in the thick of it, with the Reaper at my side, fighting the dead. But I’m not certain if he’ll be fighting with me or against me. In the vision I had of him when he gave me my Reaper’s mark, I saw us in Purgatory together. I wasn’t there against my will.

I was happy with him. What if I screwed everything up and switched sides? I close my eyes, and the words of the prophecy float onto an imagined page of my Grimoire of the Dead.

“With the Reaper’s Mark, she will gather the dead. For in Purgatory, the army will be bred. The Reaper she will love. The Reaper she will hate. The world’s balance hangs on love’s fate.”

We had always believe that the Marked girl was going to save the world, but with the new part of the prophecy that had been revealed and the vision I had of the Reaper, I knew what the Marked girl would really do. I wasn’t going to save the world.

I was going to destroy it.

“Are you crying?” Jenny asks, pulling back from me.

This is the second time in the last few hours that someone has asked me this question. I turn away from her as I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “No. I just got some mascara in my eyes. Bye!” I blurt out and jog down the hall.

“Cass, wait!” Jenny calls after me. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m late for school.” I don’t look back as I dash down the stairs and out of the house. I can’t think about all this necromancy stuff right now. I’ve got a first day at a new high school to look forward to. All the being ignored in the hallway! All the people talking about me behind my back! All the fun of not knowing where to sit in the cafeteria!

In the detached garage outside our house, I find Casper with a sheet draped over him like a funeral shroud. I pull off the cloth, stirring up years’ worth of dust and toss it into the corner. Casper is just as I remember him, white, peeling paint, the faint smell of oil, and cracked brown leather seats with cigarette burns in them. Mom swears the previous owner must have been a smoker, but I know the truth.

I stick the key in the engine, and with a little coaxing and taping on the gas pedal, I get the car to start. I’m proud that I only stall once while making the drive to school. I arrive just as the tardy bell rings. I dash out of the car, through the rain, and up the school’s steps. When I reach the inside hall, I realize I don’t know where to go.

“Girl, what are you doing just standing in the hallway? Don’t you know we’re late?” I turn to see Ruby towering over me. “Please tell me you have some fabulous outfit hanging in your locker and you’re planning to change into?”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I ask, looking down to my black tank top and jean shorts. Then I take in Ruby’s attire, leather pants and a pink sequined halter top and feel underdressed.

The bell rings overhead. “Looks like we missed homeroom,” I say. A second later, students fill the halls and I fight to keep sight of Ruby.

“What’s your first class?” she yells over the crowd.

“English.”

“Me, too!”

She grabs my hand, and pulls me behind her as she pushes through the masses. I spot Blake at his locker with about ten swooning girls standing around him. He raises a dark eyebrow at me and gives me the cockiest smile I’ve ever seen. Then just to really irritate me, he winks.

I flip him off, but he only chuckles. When the girls realize I’m there, they all stop drooling over Blake and start talking about me behind their hands. I’m used to the gossip. I try to ignore them, but catch a few words. Witch. Crazy. Loser.

While the girls are distracted by badmouthing me, Blake breaks away from them and comes toward me. “Cass, wait up,” he says. “Let me walk to you class.”

“No thanks,” I say. I grab Ruby’s hand and drag her away from him.

“Um, who was that? I’d let him walk me anywhere.”

“That was Blake Harrington, a cocky, jerk.”

Ruby sighs, and then turns her head so she can wave at him as I pull her into a classroom. “I have a particular weakness for cocky jerks.”

“So do I,” I say as I slide into the seat near the back of the room.

I sit through the rest of my classes, half-listening to teacher drone on about lesson plans and syllabuses. Algebra, my most feared subject comes next. Our teacher is in his late thirties, forty at the most. His body has retained its youth and he has the appearance of a former surfer. His dark hair is streaked with blond and his eyes show lines of extreme sun exposure. He seems nice enough until he opens his mouth.

“My name is Mr. Calvin Search. I know most of you expect me to be a pushover, but I take math very seriously. Algebra is a fundamental step in your education.”

He goes on for the entire period, lecturing us on the beauty and importance of math, making me feel guilty because I don’t get excited when I see a fraction. I know I should be paying closer attention, but I tune him out. My life has much more pressing problems.

After an eternity of an hour, the final bell rings. As I’m leaving the classroom, Mr. Search stops me. “Cassandra, right?” he asks.

“Cass,” I say, correcting him.

“Except for your hair, you look like your mother did in high school.” He smiles at me with such a catching grin that I thank him for his compliment. “If you have any questions about the homework, please let me know.”

“I will. Thanks,” I say, leaving as the school’s dismissal bell rings.

I’m about to head to the parking lot, but the school’s pa system crackles on, and calls me to the front office. As I walk to the front, I go over my day, trying to think if I’ve broken any rules, even though I know I haven’t. Guilt is a natural reaction to being called to the front office.

I’m shocked when I don’t find an angry principal waiting for me, but a repentant looking Mr. Moore. “Cass, I need to speak with to you,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been so rude to you yesterday.” I start to make an uncouth comment, but I stop myself when he looks down at his feet for a long time before continuing. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask when he starts crying. I awkwardly pat him on the back.

“Brittany didn’t come home yesterday like I thought she would. She hasn’t answered her phone or responded to texts today. It’s not like her she always calls back. I talked to Blake, and he gave me the name of the hotel where she told him she was staying. I called it. They had her reservation, but no record of her ever checking in. She never showed up, and I don’t know where she is. Do you really think she’s dead?”

I’m about to answer, but then I hear another man’s voice. “Cassandra, think. You are Marked. You are not just seeing the dead. There is more to your abilities now. Think.” I spin around because I recognize it. Reiner looks the same as he always does, but seeing him gives me a little jolt of fear. And excitement.

I glance around when I remember we’re not alone. I can’t have everything in the front office confirm to the rest of the school that I am in fact a crazy person. Mr. Moore is in mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. The lady at the front desk is on the phone, her eyes in mid-roll. The guy waiting to see the vice principle, is in mid-nose scratch.

“Why is everyone frozen?” I ask.

His mouth turns up at one corner. “I am a Reaper. I can do anything I want to the living or the dead.” He’s so smug that I fight slapping the smirk off his face.

“Well, what do you want?” I ask. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“Think, Cassandra,” he says again. “Think. She’s not dead and you know it.”

The Reaper waves his hand in front of my face, and everything falls into place as I’m thrown into another vision.

He runs a lean finger from my jaw, down my neck, staying there. “You look lovely, but something is missing.” He leans closer. He smells of dried sweat and something sweet and musty. Something in his voice is so familiar, but I can’t place it. “Where’s your necklace? I told you to always wear it. It was my way of laying claim to you.”

I strain to remember the afternoon before everything went so wrong. I was fiddling with the locket as I always did when I was nervous. “I accidentally broke the chain and put it in my purse. I gave it to you.”

“Oh, how unfortunate. I had to throw the purse into the ditch on our way out of town.”

“Why?”

“Years from now, if they ever find your body, I don’t want anything near you that will help identify you.”

I come out of the vision and realize what every dream has meant, what Brittany’s pink skin and red blood mean.

Reiner is gone, and I’m surprised by the pang of disappointment. I look around the room. Everyone is in motion again, and Mr. Moore stares at me, waiting for an answer. “I was confused. I’ve never had dreams like this before. I think she might still be alive. I think she’s trying to get me to help her.”

“Can you come down to the police station with me and tell them everything you’ve seen?” he asks.

“People think my family is nuts. I don’t think my talking to them will do any good.”

“Please. Something you say can lead to finding her.”

I sigh. “Okay,” I say, even though it won’t help find Brittany, but only bring on more scorn for me and my family.

In Casper, I follow him to the small downtown police station, a brick box of a building with offices in the front, and holding cells in the back. I meet him in the lobby, where the air conditioner is struggling, so the room is filled with dusty box fans and a small oscillating fan on the receptionist’s desk. When Mr. Moore stops to ask if Sheriff Michaels is in, I lean into the cool stream of air the fan puts off.

While the receptionist checks to see if the sheriff is available, I notice that Mr. Moore has the pink purse I found tucked under his arm. We sit in plastic orange chairs in the reception area. After thirty minutes of waiting, a short, man with reddish blond, receding hair and a mustache to match comes into the waiting room. His police uniform still has the creases in the pants, and his sheriff’s badge gleams, like he spent all day polishing it.

“What is it, Tom?” Sheriff Michaels asks, addressing Mr. Moore.

“Brittany still isn’t home. You need to start looking for her.”

“Remember when she was missing for a few weeks last summer? My entire police department combed the woods while she was in the Keys on a party boat. Came home hung over, and with a new tattoo, but she was fine. Cost the city thousands of dollars and wasted a lot of man hours.”

Mr. Moore moves forward, his fist clinched so tight I’m afraid he’s about to punch the sheriff. Sheriff Michaels looks like he might strike, too, so I step in between the men.

“I found her purse,” I say, almost having to shout to draw their attention away from each other. “If she took a vacation, I doubt she’d toss her purse out the window on the way to town.”

“Where’d this come from?” the sheriff asks, concerned for the first time.

“The drainage ditch between my grandparents’ and the Harington’s property.”

Sheriff Michaels studies me for a moment, “You’re Judy’s daughter.” There’s disgust in his voice, as though he caught a whiff of something dead. “I don’t work with witches.”

“I’m not a witch.” I fight the urge to take a swipe at him with my knife because I hate to be referred to as a witch.

“The last time I worked with someone in your family, it was a big mess.”

“Brittany isn’t dead. This has nothing to do with the ghost stuff.” I say. 

He sighs. “I’ll make a few calls, Tom. That’s all. I’ll see if anyone in the surrounding counties has picked her up. Give me the purse. I’ll hold it in the evidence locker for you.”

Sheriff Michaels puts out his hand for the purse, but Mr. Moore clutches the bag to his chest. After a moment, Mr. Moore looks like he is about to relinquished it, but instead drops the purse, causing the necklace to fall the floor.

Mr. Moore rubs the thin gold chain between his thumb and forefingers, and asks, “What is this?”

“The necklace was in the ditch next to the purse. It belongs to her,” I explain.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“If you don’t recognize the necklace, maybe this isn’t Brittany’s purse,” the sheriff says.

“It’s hers,” I say, causing them to look at me. “I dreamed about it. I saw her wearing it.”

Sheriff Michaels, a man at least three times older than me, rolls his eyes. “I’ll say it once again. I can’t rely on information from witches.”

            Every time anyone made fun of me or talking about me behind their back, every time the kids in the lunch room ignored me, every time no one would pick me for a partner, rushes through my mind. The pain, the humiliation, the embarrassment hits me all at once.

            I ball my hands into fists as the lights overhead dim and brighten. “I’m not a witch,” I say, my voice low.

            “What did you say?” Sheriff Michaels asks, but he’s not looking at me. Instead his wide eyes study the lights above him.

            “I’m not a witch!” I yell, my voice swelling to an extreme decibel that I didn’t know I was capable of. Everything around me warms, but it’s not the heat of the Reaper. It’s me. My body buzzes as my Reaper Mark burns, but it doesn’t hurt. It fills me with power. I smile as I feel a darkness opening up inside me, like the moonlight flower that only blooms at night.

            “What are you doing?” Sheriff Michaels asks. I hadn’t noticed it until now, but the windows in the lobby have blown open. A wet wind swirls around us. Black clouds roll across the sky toward the police station, and it’s almost as if the air is funneling toward me.

            “Nothing,” I say above the roar of the rain that has started pouring outside. “It’s hurricane season. I’m not doing anything.”

            “Sure you’re not,” Sheriff Michaels says, rolling his eyes at me again. His annoyance at me, sends me over the edge. I want everyone to leave. I want to be alone. Solitary is all I know. It protects me from score and ridicule.

            I close my eyes, and wish I could be anywhere but here, but instead of feeling small, I feel the warmth slide through my veins again. The florescent lights overhead dim, but then they burst, sending a shower of sparks and glass around us.