White Is for Magic

  “Okay,” he says. “How about I drop by here after hockey practice?”

  “What time?”

  “Eight-thirty?”

  “How about nine?” I say. “I’m working on this group project for bio.”

  “Okay,” he smiles. “It’s a date.”

  We spend the next five minutes or so kissing goodbye on the couch, trying to ignore the squeaking sounds of the vinyl as our bodies rub and twist against it. It feels so nice to be this close to him, enfolded in his arms, lip to lip, breath to breath—like normal. Like normal when normal has seemed so far away. I lay my head against his chest and think how great it would be if we could stay like this all night.

  But we can’t, which is why Chad leaves a few moments later. I walk him to the door, reminding him about our date for tomorrow night, and then retreat back to the room, relieved that everything is finally back the way it should be between us.

  Drea and Amber are still in bed when I wake up the following morning. I roll over to glance at the bouquet of wildflowers Chad gave me—now in a vase with the pine needles I grabbed last night. I smile at it, at the thought of him coming by to surprise me like that.

  I pull on my pair of fuzzy peach slippers and stumble out to the pantry for the requisite cup of instant coffee—barely drinkable but it does the trick. It’s absolutely morgue silent. All the doors of the other rooms are closed, as if everyone’s decided to sleep in, as if classes are cancelled for the day. I pop a couple slices of bread into the toaster and look out the window toward the parking lot. But everything appears normal—no devastating blizzards to render us all housebound. So where is everybody?

  I decide to use their laziness to my full advantage. I gulp down my toast and coffee, grab my shower supplies, and am the first person into the bathroom, making me also one of the few who will actually get to shower with hot water this morning—a rare and delicious treat.

  Back in the room, I suit up into my Hillcrest uniform, dab a bit of patchouli oil behind my ears and at the front of my neck, and grab up my books. Drea and Amber are still asleep, the covers pulled up over their ears like they don’t want to be disturbed. But instead of honoring their silent request, I snap the window shades open, allowing a surprisingly bright November sun to shine into the room.

  “Rise and shine,” I say.

  Still, no deal—they both look about as rise-and-shining as flatbread. So maybe I’ll have to resort to force. I trot right over to their bunks and shake each of them.

  “Get up,” I say. “You’re going to be late.” I take another look at my watch; it’s 7:45, just a half-hour before the first period attendance bell.

  “Mental health day,” Amber slurs, rolling over to avoid me.

  “I’m not going either,” Drea says, following suit.

  “Fine.” I don’t have time to argue unless I want to be late as well. I zip up my coat, pass through the lobby, and make my way out the front door.

  That’s when I see it. The banner. About twenty feet in length, stretched out across the two cypress trees in front of our dorm, as though just waiting for me.

  A swarm of students stands around it. They shake their heads and cover their mouths—Cory and some friend of his, Keegan, Emma, all the girls from our dorm, Mr. Lecklider, Mr. Gunther, Mrs. Halligan, one of the school custodians. Even Donna Tillings. She’s dressed in black—from the bowl-like hat with the net that comes down to cover her face to the thick black stockings and square-toed shoes. She looks like she’s crying, a smallish bouquet of wildflowers clutched in her hands. They all just stand there, looking at the message and then at me, waiting for my reaction.

  But how can I react when I don’t even know what to do, when my mind won’t accept what it says or what this means? I slowly begin my descent down the dorm stairs, focusing on their faces instead of the words, as though this isn’t real, as though the message will change when I reach the bottom.

  But it doesn’t. I look at it once more, the words stringing together, the message becoming clear:

  IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK, STACEY BROWN, YOU’LL BE BEGGING TO DIE!

  I feel a knot in my throat, cutting off my breath. A razor edge slowly slices down my spine. I take a few steps closer toward the banner, my legs, like twigs, ready to snap off beneath me.

  “Stacey?”

  It’s him, the guy from the woods, the one who gave me the crystal. He approaches me from the back of the crowd, a shimmery pearl-colored stripe drawn down the side of his face and those slate-blue eyes, like melted candle wax, burning right into my own.

  He uncurls my fist and places a wad of folded paper in the center of my palm—the MASH game. I look down at it, but now it’s an origami snake. He closes my hand around it and looks at me for some response. But I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. And I want to be sick. There’s a cold and sticky feeling all around me, in my mouth, clogging up my throat.

  He leans into my ear and whispers. “I know how you’ll be spending your anniversary.”

  I open my mouth to scream. Feel myself sit up. Feel the vomit spew out my mouth.

  “Stacey!” Drea shouts, rushing out from her bed covers.

  “What happened?” Amber jumps down from the top bunk.

  But I don’t even need to say anything. The answer is dripping down the dresser mirror in the form of A.B.C. bean burrito mixed with long-grain wild rice—the cafeteria’s idea of authentic Mexican cuisine. It slides down over the reflection of my face, right in front of me.

  I wipe my mouth, flip the bed covers away, and head for the door. Amber and Drea yell out after me, but I have to see for myself. I turn the knob of the main door and run outside into the frosty November morning.

  But it’s just like normal. No banner. No swarm of students collected around it. Just me—even though it felt so real.

  “What’s going on?” Drea asks. She and Amber are standing beside me now on the top step—Drea, tying the belt of her robe; Amber, fully outfitted in adult-size Wonder Woman pajamas.

  “What do you think’s going on?” Amber asks her. “Didn’t you catch the exorcist spew on the mirror? She’s wigging again. Nightmares, right?”

  I nod.

  “Lucky for us our beds aren’t in front of yours,” Amber says.

  “Very funny,” I say.

  “Oh, come on,” Amber says, picking a wedge. “We have to look on the bright side of the situation.”

  “What’s going on?” says a voice from behind us. “Are you girls all right?”

  It’s Keegan. She’s standing in the doorway. “I thought I heard an elephant stampede through the common room.”

  “Is that your way of telling us we need to lose a few?” Amber cinches her gold belt.

  “It’s my way of asking what’s going on,” she says.

  “Just getting some air,” Drea says.

  “Yup,” Amber agrees. “A little H-2-O for the old windpipes. Don’t tell me I didn’t learn a couple things in physics class last year.”

  “Don’t you mean Bio-I?” Drea corrects.

  “Whatever,” Amber says. “They’re practically the same class.”

  “We should go back in,” I say.

  I brush past Keegan only to find more nosy spectators: Trish Cabone, snot-rag Emma, and some of the other girls on the floor.

  “Is everything okay?” Trish asks. She’s pulling at her curlicues to give them height, failing to notice the one flat pillow impression on the back of her head.

  “Fine,” I say. “Just checking the temperature.”

  It’s a ridiculous lie that actually seems to work. Except for Trish and Emma, all the other girls, including Keegan, return to their rooms to savor the few last minutes of sleep before classes.

  “We missed you at the chapel service last night,” Trish says, not budging from h
er spot just inches from my face.

  I nod an acknowledgment.

  “But they’re keeping the chapel open all week,” she continues. “You know, just in case you wanted to stop by, in case you needed some place to go.” She looks back and forth between Drea and me.

  “Right now I need to get ready for school,” I say. “I can’t afford any more detentions.”

  Emma smiles at us between nose blows, perhaps sensing her roommate’s gift of grief giving.

  Amber, Drea, and I are just about to file back into our room when I hear a male voice behind me. I whirl around to find Cory and one of his clone friends. Sneakers in hand, Cory hugs Emma goodbye while the clone-friend gives Trish a smooch on the cheek.

  “Geek boy?” Amber shouts.

  Cory stops and looks back at us. “You didn’t see anything, okay?”

  “The hell we didn’t.” Drea folds her arms across her chest.

  “For your information, we slept on the floor,” the clone-friend says. “We were just cramming for an English exam together.”

  “Where do I know you from?” Amber asks him.

  “I don’t know,” clone-boy smiles, his left eye twitching. “I’ve been known to get around.” He scratches at the scruff of honey-blond hair on his head and winks at Amber, shooting her with an imaginary pistol.

  “Wait.” Amber takes a step toward him. “You’re the guy from the mailroom. The one who asked me how I’d be spending the anniversary.”

  “I really don’t remember that.” He cocks his head to the side, feigning bewilderment.

  “You guys should really get going,” Trish says, gesturing for Cory and Clone-y to leave. “Our RD is gonna come out here any second.”

  “Fine,” the clone says. “We’re leaving.” He looks up at us. “It was nice to finally meet you ladies.”

  “What do you mean ‘finally’?” I ask.

  “It’s just that I’ve heard so much about all of you.”

  “Let me guess,” Amber sighs, “you’re one of the ghost groupies’ newest recruits.”

  “Ghost groupies?”

  “Yeah,” Amber nods. “That’s what I like to call the people around here who can’t get any live action, so they go looking for the dead.”

  “Who says I can’t get live action?” clone-boy asks, glancing at Trish.

  “If the casket fits,” Amber says.

  “Let’s go,” Drea says, tugging at Amber’s arm.

  Amber pulls away. “What’s your name?”

  “Hmm,” clone-boy says, rubbing at his frizzhead. “That’s a tough one.”

  At that, he and Cory start laughing—stupid, illogical, private-joke laughter, like an instant replay of yesterday in computer class. Trish laughs along as well, but she’s still trying to scoot them out.

  “Incidentally,” Clone says when he can finally contain himself, “how are you girls spending your anniversary?”

  “Keegan!” Drea shouts, causing them to boot it out the door once and for all.

  Keegan emerges from her room. “What? What is it?” she asks.

  Emma looks at us, her face at least five shades paler than a few moments ago. She conceals her obvious nervousness with a handful of tissues.

  “Nothing,” I say, figuring I’m no one to squeal about boyfriends stopping by at the wrong time.

  Keegan doesn’t say anything else and neither do we. We just go back into our room and lock the door behind us.

  “So gross,” Amber says, referring to the puke on the mirror. She moves toward it for a closer look. “Did you have Mallowmars last night?”

  “Let’s not analyze the heave,” Drea says. “Let’s just get it out of here. Stacey, do you need some Windex?”

  But I’m too busy focusing on what’s sitting on my bed—a handheld tape player and an envelope.

  “Stacey?” Drea repeats.

  The envelope has my name typed on the front, but it wasn’t mailed, and there’s no return address.

  “What’s that?” Drea asks. “How did that get in here?”

  I take the envelope with trembling fingers, the vibrations prickling over my skin—just as real and cold and permeating as the last time.

  “Are you okay?” Drea asks.

  I shake my head but rip the letter open anyway. There’s something folded up inside. I take it out—an origami snake.

  “That’s weird,” Amber says.

  The origami snake pressed in my palm, I feel a cold, burning sensation drift up my arms, making my hands tremble. “I dreamt it,” I say. “I felt it—folding paper. In the common room, the last letter . . . I folded paper.”

  “What do you mean?” Drea wraps an arm around my shoulder.

  I shake my head. I know I’m not making any sense.

  “Look,” Amber says, picking up the tape player. “There’s a cassette inside. Should we play it?”

  My head is spinning so fast that I don’t even answer. I unfold the flaps of paper, doing my best to concentrate on the action, to sense the message inside. At the same moment Amber pushes the play button and static-filled music filters into the room.

  “Oh my god,” I say, recognizing the tune.

  “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,” a child’s voice sings from the player. “All dressed in black, black, black. She has all buttons, buttons, buttons straight down her back, back, back. She cannot read, read, read. She cannot write, write, write. That’s why she smokes, smokes, smokes, her father’s pipe, pipe, pipe . . .”

  “Shut it off!” I shout. “Now!”

  Drea complies.

  “It’s the real version,” Amber says.

  “Who’s doing this?” My hand trembles over my mouth.

  Drea plucks the half-unfolded origami snake from my hand and helps me sit down on the bed. “It’s going to be all right.” She pushes my hair back off my face, pausing a moment at the shorter chunk at the side where I cut.

  “How do you know?” I snap.

  She takes a deep breath and finishes unfolding, until the once tiny origami snake is now a full-blown letter with tears and creases.

  “What is it?” I ask. “What does it say?”

  Drea cups a hand over her mouth, allowing the letter to drop to her lap.

  I pick it up. The words stare up at me from the middle of the page:

  IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK, STACEY BROWN, YOU’LL BE BEGGING TO DIE!

  My chest feels like it’s about to cave, as if my whole core might collapse in just one breath. Drea pats my back, whispering over and over again how everything will be okay.

  “We’ll deal,” Amber says. She pries the letter from my hands, tosses it out of sight, and then shimmies over to the open window to stick her head out. “I don’t see anything.” She closes it back up and locks it.

  “Why wasn’t it locked in the first place?” I ask.

  “I’m pretty sure it was,” Amber says. “Not like that matters. If someone wants to get in, they will.”

  “Maybe they didn’t break in through the window,” Drea says. “Maybe it was somebody who lives here. I didn’t lock the door on the way out.”

  “Well, then, why was the window open?” Amber asks. “It wasn’t open before.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I say. “It doesn’t make sense that someone would be keeping such close tabs on us that they would know it the moment we all stepped out of the room. That they would be able to open the window, climb in, leave stuff, and then climb out before any of us came back. Plus, how would whoever it is know which bed is mine?”

  “I don’t know, Stacey,” Amber says, glancing toward my night table. “If the crystal and bowl of dried herb thingies didn’t tip them off, maybe it was the shrine of candles, those weird cone pieces, or that Bunson burner mechanism you
have there.”

  “The cone pieces are incense,” I say. “And that’s a clay burner for lighting them.”

  “A serious must-have,” Amber says.

  “Okay, so maybe it isn’t so hard to tell which bed is mine.”

  “Well, there’s certainly no mistaking which bed is mine.” Amber grabs the bright pink boa hanging from her headboard. She drapes it over her shoulders and then turns to gaze over at Drea’s bed. “Your bed is looking a bit stark lately, Dray. Is that what happens in a drought?”

  “Better a drought than your monsoon of a reputation,” Drea says.

  “Can we just stop with the jokes for five minutes?” I ask.

  “Who’s joking?” Amber asks.

  “That’s not Maura’s voice on the tape, is it?” Drea asks, deciding to ignore Amber.

  I shake my head.

  “I didn’t think so,” she says. “It sounds too much like an actual recording. Like an actual children’s CD that you could go out and buy.”

  “Yeah,” Amber agrees, “but taped off another cassette or CD or something because of the static and the music in the background.” She pushes the Eject button and pops the tape out.

  “What is it?” I ask, noticing how her lips have twisted up like she just failed a test.

  Amber angles the cassette toward me, the words on the label staring back at me: I’M WATCHING YOU.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Drea says. She’s shaking her head, pressing her fingers into her temples, wanting more than anything, I think, to believe that herself.

  “It means I’m being watched.”

  “Wasn’t ‘I’m watching you’ Donovan’s catch phrase last year?” Amber asks.

  “Exactly,” Drea says. “And look at the lettering. It’s also like last year—the uppercase red. It could just be some copycat prankster. You know? One of the ghost groupies . . .”

  “Could be,” Amber says. “Though ‘I’m watching you’ is pretty EOE.”

  “EOE?” I ask.

  “Yeah, you know, an equal opportunity expression. It’s pretty generic. It could just be a coincidence. Especially since I’m so done calling this a prank.”