White Is for Magic

  “Hands?”

  He nods. “Encircling your neck.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I think someone is going to try and strangle you.”

  “Then what’s with the noose?”

  Jacob shakes his head. “It’s like someone’s trying to scare you. It’s, like, either you pursue them, or they’ll come after you.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it’s someone you already know.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because when it happens, when the two of you come face-to-face, it’s like you aren’t afraid of the person—at least not at first. It’s like you’re almost expecting him.”

  “Him? So it’s a guy?”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t be sure. The hands look pretty strong, but I haven’t been able to see much detail about them yet.”

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  “I can see the hands constrict, and I can see you . . . choking.”

  I try to swallow the image, but it won’t get past my throat. I let out a gasp and then cover my mouth to try and hold it all in.

  “Are you all right?” Jacob asks. He touches my shoulder. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “No. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.” I shake my head, trying to get the image of it—of someone’s hands encircling my neck, putting me to death—out of my head. But instead the image presses against my chest. I do my best to look up at the full moon and breathe its energy in, but instead I feel like the air is blocked, like I’m coming apart and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Jacob’s hand slips across my shoulders, until it wraps around me. “I know you’ll be okay,” he says quietly, firmly. “Because I’m going to help you.”

  A part of me wants to wipe his hand away, but I don’t. Because there’s a bigger part—a weaker part, maybe—that needs comfort right now. I keep my focus away from him so I don’t reveal too much, even though I know I’m being so pathetically transparent. “I don’t even know you,” I say, wiping at my eyes. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Why you started dreaming about me in the first place. You didn’t even know me. When I was having nightmares about Drea and Maura, it was different. I knew them. They were important people in my life.”

  Jacob nestles me in closer, so close I can feel his chest now, moving in and out with each breath. And I can smell him. He smells like lemongrass incense—a smell I want to breathe right into my skin. I close my eyes, trying my hardest to get hold of my emotions, to breathe the tension out. We sit there for several seconds without saying a word.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, regaining a bit of strength. I sit back up and look into his face, so close to mine, his squarish chin just inches from my forehead.

  “It’s okay,” he says. He lays a hand over my coat pocket and feels the crystal inside, sensing somehow that I’d be carrying it. “We’re connected in some way. Why else would I be dreaming about your future? How else would I know you’ve been having nightmares about Maura, and about Veronica Leeman? Haven’t you considered that?”

  I suppose I have. I suppose it’s the connection he’s talking about that has me all jangled up whenever I’m around him. I tug my coat away from his hand and focus down into my lap, doing my best to suppress the blush I feel crawling across my cheeks. I hate myself for feeling this way—now, of all times, when my life is at stake, when I’m having serious boyfriend issues. I take a deep breath to stifle the confusion and frustration I feel storming up inside my chest, in my mouth, and behind my eyes.

  “How do you know what I dream about?” I ask.

  “I just know,” he says. “I can’t explain it. I just feel things. I see things—sometimes while I’m sleeping, sometimes not.”

  I nod and look away, too emotionally spent to ask him more about it. And besides, I know exactly what he’s talking about—how he and I are so completely alike in this way.

  “Say something,” he says.

  “Like what?” I swallow, looking back at him. At his eyes.

  “Like you believe me, like you believe I can help you.”

  “I can’t be sure of anything right now,” I say.

  “What can I say or do to make you sure?” he asks.

  I think about it a moment, and the question becomes obvious. “How am I supposed to know you’re really from Colorado, that you really came all the way here to try and help me?”

  Without hesitation, Jacob pulls a wallet from his pocket and shows me a couple forms of picture ID—a driver’s license from Vail, Colorado, along with a school ID card with his name and address.

  “Okay, so if you really came all this way, just for me, then why did it take over two months to come out and contact me . . . I mean, if I was in so much danger . . .”

  “Because I was afraid,” he answers.

  “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

  “Of this. Of you not believing me. I wanted to watch for a while.” He pauses. “And I wanted to dream about you more.”

  “You were watching me?” I ask, remembering the words written on the cassette tape left in our room.

  “Look,” he says, “I know you don’t trust me. And with all the freaks around this campus, I’m not even sure I can give you a reason why you should, but I have no reason to lie. With or without my help, someone is going to try and hurt you. And if we don’t do anything about it, I think they might succeed.”

  I glance down at the noose, still gripped in my hand. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Not even Chad?” he asks.

  “Leave him out of this.”

  “I can’t,” he says, biting his lip, staring down at my own.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t.” He turns away, leaving me hungry for more.

  I’m tempted to ask him again, but I don’t. Because maybe I’m just not ready to know . . . and maybe I already know.

  “I should go,” I say.

  “No,” he says, touching my arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me either. We sit in silence, both of us knowing we should say our goodnights but neither of us making a move. After several awkward moments, Jacob sits up and leans into me, his face so close I can smell his skin, that lemongrass scent. I do my best to look away—I blink. I look up at the moon. I even try reminding myself of the horrific reality of the noose still clutched in my hand. But nothing works. Jacob’s pale-blue eyes stare right into me, almost paralyzing me in place. He leans in a little closer, and I feel my lips part.

  “Stacey?” says a voice.

  It’s Chad.

  My heart clenches. I press my eyes closed in disbelief, at how unbelievably stupid I am, and then turn around to face him.

  Chad glances back and forth between me and Jacob.

  “Chad,” I say, standing up. “It’s not—” But I can’t even finish the thought. Chad looks so completely confused—his face scrunched up like he doesn’t understand. He looks away, as if the picture of Jacob and me, here, like this, hurts too much—as if I’ve hurt him too much this time.

  “I can explain,” I tell him, thinking how unbelievably trite that sounds.

  Jacob gets up and stands beside me. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he says. “It’s been a bad night.”

  “Apparently, just for some people.” Chad takes one last look at me before turning and walking away, making me feel even worse.

  “I’m sorry,” Jacob says. “Do you want me to go talk to him?”

  “No,” I say. “I will.”

  I just hope Chad is willing to listen.

  I try my best to catch up to Chad—I circle t
he dorm, run down the path that leads toward the center of campus, and even scour the parking lot area. But he’s nowhere in sight.

  I end up going back inside the dorm, where I find Drea and Amber, wide awake and waiting for me.

  “Where have you been?” Amber asks.

  “It’s a long story,” I say, moving toward the phone receiver. I pick it up, dial Chad’s number, but get voicemail right away. “Chad, it’s me. Please call me back. I need to talk to you. Please . . .” I click the phone off, shaking my head that I didn’t say more, that I really don’t know what to say.

  “Chad’s on his way here,” Drea says.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I called him. When I woke up and saw you weren’t here, or anywhere around here for that matter, I thought you might have sneaked out with him somewhere. So I called him to be sure.”

  “I wasn’t meeting Chad,” I say.

  “I know,” Drea says. “That’s why he freaked. You can’t just take off in the middle of the night, Stacey. Not with everything that’s going on.”

  “So uncool,” Amber says, untwisting her legs from the lotus position.

  “Which is why Chad’s coming over,” Drea says. “We were all really worried about you.”

  “Well, he’s not coming now,” I say, flopping down on my bed.

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  I tell her and Amber what happened—how I had another nightmare, which prompted me to meet Jacob; how I found the noose; and how Chad spotted me and Jacob sitting on the bench together and got all jealous about it.

  Amber jumps up and nabs the noose from me. She sticks a leg into the loop part and pulls it up like some sort of string bikini. “Maybe you and witch-boy were planning something kinky.”

  “It’s a freaking noose, Amber,” I shout.

  “I’ve heard of weirder fetishes,” she says.

  “So what did Chad see exactly?” Drea asks.

  “He just saw us talking,” I say.

  “Oh, please,” Amber says. “I can tell when you’re lying, Stacey—your lips get all puckery. It totally had to be more than just that! Dish, please.”

  “What?” I say, looking away. “Fine—he may have thought we were gonna kiss.”

  “You kissed witch-boy?” Amber says. “Details, please.”

  “I didn’t kiss anyone,” I say. “Can we please get back to my life being at stake here?”

  “Was it magically delicious?” Amber persists.

  I slump back on my bed and bury my face in a pillow. If it weren’t a Saturday I think I just might resort to taking a trip to the school shrink today. That’s how desperate I feel.

  “So,” Amber begins in an effort to redeem herself, “Jacob said he had a nightmare about you being throttled to death—hands clamping around your neck, thumbs digging into your throat, blocking off all the air, sending you to the land of complete and utter oblivion.”

  “Thanks for the thorough recap,” I say.

  “So, obviously that’s why someone left you a noose,” she says. “For choking.”

  I look up at her. She’s got the loop part of the noose crowning her head now, the handles dangling over her shoulders like braids. “It isn’t a toy,” I say.

  “Actually,” she says, “it is.”

  Drea gives Amber the evil-eye blink and then focuses back on me. “Why a jump rope?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, sitting back up, “but in my nightmare, Maura was jumping rope.”

  “So it’s a clue,” Drea says. “About what’s going to happen.”

  “Either that,” Amber says, “or someone can see into your dreams and therefore knows Maura’s jumping rope in them. A witch-boy, perhaps.” She arches her eyebrows up and down.

  “Don’t you think that’s a little obvious?” I ask. “Why would someone tell me he can see into my dreams and then leave me a key prop from one of them? It’s a dead giveaway.”

  “Nice choice of words,” Amber says.

  “I saw the origami snake in my nightmare,” I say.

  “Did it say anything?” Drea asks.

  “When was the last time a paper snake spoke to you?” Amber asks.

  “No,” Drea says, rolling her eyes. “I mean, did she unfold it? Was there a message inside?”

  I shake my head. “I was too busy looking for Maura. But there was lots of origami—like a whole collection.”

  “So what you’re telling me,” Amber begins, “is that this psycho stalker folds pretty squares of colored paper in his spare time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s so random.”

  “But it does tell us something,” Drea says. “At least now we can eliminate people as suspects. I mean, how many origami artists do we know?”

  “What if he’s a closet origami artist?” Amber asks. She folds her history quiz up into a paper airplane and shoots it at Drea’s head.

  “I saw the letter M, too,” I say. “Maura drew it on the ground in red crayon. She used to do that from time to time—color on the pavement with crayons and then wait for the wax to melt in the sun, so it would get all blurry.”

  “It’s like she’s trying to tell you something,” Drea says.

  “But what?” I ask.

  “I think we should call campus police,” Drea says.

  “Are you kidding?” I gasp. “Do you have any idea how much they hate me? Do you know how many times I’ve called them this year? Between stupid prank notes tacked up on our door, to all those bogus phone calls, to the time someone left that cardboard knife on my desk during English?”

  “Let’s not forget the ketchup-blood mural someone so lovingly painted in your honor,” Amber says.

  “Or those funeral-supply catalogs you started getting in the mail,” Drea says.

  “Exactly,” I say. “A jump-rope-turned-noose is just another thing campus police can add to their list about me. A list that’s probably entitled ‘the top hundred-and-two reasons why Stacey Brown should have transferred schools last year.’” I click the phone back on and try Chad’s number again, but he’s still not answering.

  “He must be really upset,” Drea says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Nothing that a little schnookie won’t cure,” Amber says, puckering up.

  “I don’t know,” Drea says. “It really hurts when someone you care about betrays you like that.”

  “I didn’t betray him.”

  Drea reaches into the fridge for a bar of chocolate. She takes a bite and looks away. I know she must be thinking otherwise. And maybe she’s right. I mean, who am I really kidding here? I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. First I betray my best friend, and now I’m betraying my boyfriend. And all the while what I should really be focusing on is the fact that my life is at stake and that I have less than a week before I could wind up dead.

  Completely riddled with guilt, I try calling Chad a bunch more times but he never picks up. So I end up waiting it out until seven, when all us prisoners are allowed to walk freely about campus and actually visit other dorms. But when I get to Chad’s, he isn’t there. I check the hockey rink, the gym, the pool, the cafeteria, and every last corner of the library. No luck.

  My last resort—the Hangman. I peel the door open, a sudden gust of mochaccino fumes hitting me in the face, and look around at the individual tables. The place is pretty packed—kids opting for café fare over the cafeteria’s scrambled egg surprise—but Chad is nowhere in sight.

  I decide to try and swallow a bit of my guilt with a cheese danish. I order myself one, along with a cup of Colombian brew, and take a seat in the corner of the stage section. This might actually be the perfect spot for me this morning—a place where I can be by myself and think, where I d
on’t have to worry about bumping into anyone important.

  That’s when I notice Trish and Emma coming out of the bathroom. They take a seat with Cory, sitting in the back of the audience section, typing away on a laptop. I can’t believe I didn’t notice him before. I scoot my chair back against the stage curtain, hoping they don’t see me. But they do. First Trish, who graciously waves in my direction, and then the others. They point, talk amongst themselves, and then start laughing, like this is middle school.

  Cory closes up his laptop and makes his way over to my table. He takes a seat across from me. “So, come here often?” He’s giggling at his lame little line, the gap between his two front teeth stuffed up with what looks like lemon jelly.

  “Hysterical,” I say.

  “Thanks.” He glances back at Trish and Emma, staring at us over mugs of frothy java drinks.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “What?” he says. “I can’t just come over here and wish you a pleasant day?”

  I ignore him by taking a bite of pastry and reading the little jingle printed on the side of my coffee cup—something about morning perks in Central Park.

  “How long do you think you’ll be able to keep that down?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know? Before you purge the splurge? Toss the caloric cookies? Don’t think I haven’t heard about your little vomit attacks. You know they have eating disorder clinics for stuff like that.”

  “Go away,” I say.

  “Actually,” he leans in closer, “Veronica Leeman doesn’t want me to. She tells me I should stick pretty close to you, keep an eye on you.”

  “Is this from your so-called séance?”

  “I prefer to call it a communion with souls. Care to attend our communion tomorrow night? Veronica’s been asking for you.”

  “Don’t you have some tables to wipe?” I ask.

  “Why?” He gets up from the table, the jam between his two front teeth bulging out even further now, like a giant booger. “I don’t work here.”

  “What do you mean? You worked here a couple days ago.”

  “Nope.” He smiles. “I wouldn’t work in a place like this. Sort of creepy, don’t you think? Haunted with old souls . . . You know, legend has it some girl hung herself in here.”