“Dear God.” Jen sighed. “Any other girl has a sleepover and she gets to have chips and cookies and popcorn. Not me. Sorry about this, guys.”
“I don’t mind. It looks good, actually.” I wasn’t just being nice. It was much fancier than anything I got at home, especially arrayed on the teak serving tray.
Davina grinned. “I love the radish roses.”
“Nobody likes radish roses,” Jen said. “Radishes are disgusting.”
“I didn’t say they were delicious. But they are adorable.”
We ate, and I listened while they talked about people from school. Apparently Nicole Johnson tried to make a move on Mr. Love, and got shot down. That won’t end well, I thought.
“Are you serious?” Davina asked. “I mean, he’s fine and all, but he’s at least twenty-five. Something is seriously wrong with him, if he wants to date a high school girl.”
I offered, “Date might be the wrong word.”
“You mean like a professional cherry-popper? We had one in my old school, kept a score card and everything. Asshole.” Davina made a face.
Around six, Jen put in the romantic comedy, which was much funnier and more entertaining than I expected. Note to self: Don’t judge modern movies prematurely. As the movie ended, my phone buzzed with a text.
“Is that your man?” Davina asked.
I checked. “Yep.”
“Oooh, what’d he say? Is he sexting you?” At home, Jen was much more chill than she seemed at school. She unwound enough to try to steal my phone.
I held it away from her and read out loud, “‘Is it too needy to check in and see how you’re doing? If so, this is a mis-text. If not…’”
“Funny and hot,” Davina said.
I smiled as I typed back, It’s not. And I’m good. Thanks.
He replied immediately. See you tomorrow night?
Yeah. What time?
Pick you up at seven.
When I put away my phone, both of them were smirking at me.
“What?” I demanded.
“You should see your face.” But Davina’s expression softened like she thought whatever she’d seen me reveal about Kian was a good thing.
“We are not talking about her man all night,” Jen cut in.
And I was grateful. “Cool. Let’s watch the time-traveling T. rex instead.”
That was bad SF at its best. I laughed until my stomach hurt, and so did the other two. I shouldn’t have been startled to find that they weren’t so different from me, but I’d started thinking of the people at school as a separate species, so it was tough to shift my thinking. Halfway through the movie, Jen broke out her secret stash and added vodka to our OJ.
Things got blurry after that. They told stories about Brittany, and I cried along with Davina and Jen; I regretted so much that I never got to know the girl who would strip down to her undies and steal a rose on a dare or drive twenty miles to buy a case of beer because she’d promised to make Davina’s first party the best one ever. Jen told me how when Cameron was sick—and there was nobody at his house—Brit went over and made chicken soup and then cleaned up the vomit when he couldn’t keep it down. How could such a nice girl do what she did to me?
And how could I do that to her? If I did.
People can be monsters, too.
It was half past midnight when Davina drunkenly suggested we try the Bloody Mary mirror thing. For a few seconds, I froze, and the giddiness dissipated almost instantly. Jen was already heading for the bathroom with some candles.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
In my head, I heard Kian say, Sometimes you call things. And then they don’t leave. I remembered the girl in my bathroom mirror, and I wondered how to stop this. Circumstances might’ve thrown me together with Jen and Davina, but I liked them. As of yet, I didn’t trust them as I did Vi, but it would come, in time, if they didn’t turn on me or stab me in the back.
Provided they don’t die horribly.
Jen stopped in the doorway. “Why not? It’s kind of a sleepover tradition, along with light as a feather, stiff as a board, right, D?”
The other girl nodded. “Are you scared or something?”
“Obviously.” It seemed better to tell the truth. And if they’d seen a quarter of what I had, if they knew what I knew, they’d be petrified, too.
“It’s just an urban legend.” Jen tried to reassure me.
Davina wrapped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me to the bathroom. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
Before I could say another word, she snapped off the lights and Jen lit the candles. The tiny flames cast spooky, flickering shadows on the dark tile walls. In normal circumstances, Jen’s bathroom seemed modern and elegant, done in black and white with red accents, but right then, the room looked like something out of an asylum with three faces seeming disembodied in the mirror. Jen lifted her candle, so that the scent of cinnamon wafted up; she leaned forward until her nose nearly touched the glass. I recoiled, but Davina was behind me. She put her hands on my shoulders, like that would settle me down.
“Bloody Mary,” Jen chanted, and Davina chimed in.
I didn’t say a word; I couldn’t. Fear crept up my spine on caterpillar feet as the other two whispered. They were smiling until the glass darkened. Our images distorted, warped sideways, and then it was like the creature in the mirror wiped us out of existence. She was a wraith of a thing in a ragged white nightdress, her face all bones and eye sockets, with a mop of tangled dark stringing down her cheeks like damp seaweed. The dead girl on the other side pressed her fingertips to the glass in front of the candle, and the flame winked out. When she smiled, it was like staring into an open grave. Jen shrieked and stumbled, dropping the other candle; it rolled across the floor and went out, bathing the room in shadows.
“Shit.” Davina scrambled for the door, unsteady on her feet.
I shoved Jen after her, then I grabbed a towel from the rack behind me. Quickly, I covered the mirror and turned on the overhead light. It took all my courage to stand my ground, but I counted to ten and waited, listening. The silence was broken only by the gasps and whimpers coming from Jen’s bedroom. My hands shook as I reached up to pull the towel down; my muscles locked in anticipation of the need to fight or flee, but when I looked in the mirror, it was clear. I leaned forward, touched the surface, and nothing happened.
“What’s with you two?” I asked, going back to the bedroom.
Jen eyed me like I was crazy. “Didn’t you see…?”
“What?”
“The thing … and the candle.” Davina paced, breathing too fast, and if she kept it up, she’d hyperventilate.
“See, that’s what happens when you suck down that much vodka and then play with matches.” I couldn’t afford to have them ask too many questions, so I grabbed Jen’s arm and tugged her back into the bathroom, now illuminated by plenty of overhead light. “See? Nothing.”
“You really didn’t see anything?” she asked.
“Just some shadows.” Hopefully, this lie wouldn’t drive her into counseling.
“Huh.”
Davina came up behind us, tipping her head in puzzlement. “So … it was like a shared hallucination?”
“What else could it have been?” Innocent expression, as I tried to slow my heartbeat and stop shaking. I had no idea what might’ve happened if I had been wrong about covering the mirror; my best guess was that it interrupted the connection to the other side.
But if the nightmare has a link to Jen’s mirror now … damn.
“I don’t know.” Jen looked at Davina, who shrugged.
We talked a little more after that, but the others were subdued, and we stayed together to brush our teeth. Later, Jen gave us some bedding, so Davina and I could make up the futons. I settled down, but as I lay there, I was afraid to shut my eyes. The ragged edge of disaster loomed closer and closer, as if my life was constructed on a fault line, and there were aftershocks const
antly shifting me toward the precipice. Jen’s steady breathing filled the room pretty fast, but a glance at Davina told me she was wide awake, and she didn’t look like she’d be sleeping anytime soon.
“Edie?”
“What?”
“You were lying, I know you were. I’m not asking why, but you did something in there. And you expected something to happen.”
I didn’t deny it. Instead I whispered, “Remember me saying it was a bad idea?”
“Yeah. So you’ve had weird stuff go down before.”
“I’m really tired.” I dodged the question. “If you don’t mind?”
“No, it’s fine. But … thanks.” That was the last word she said before she turned over and snuggled in.
It took much longer for me to relax. Around 2:00 a.m., I rolled off the futon and went to the window. Darkness wreathed the streets, so there was only the streetlamp casting a golden circle on the pavement. I was increasingly apprehensive about reflections, so I wasn’t thinking at all about the old man with the bag. And then he was there, outside on the sidewalk, gazing up at me. The two creepy children stood on either side, their eyes cast upward, all black and unblinking. Their silent attention seemed ominous, as if they were marking the house somehow. A shiver of dread went through me when I realized the boy’s shirt and the girl’s pinafore were stained with blood.
Silently, I shook my head. Whatever they wanted, I had to keep them from getting it. I blinked, once, twice, hoping they were the hallucination I’d claimed when Davina and Jen summoned Bloody Mary. In that split second when my lashes swept down and up again, the little girl-thing scratched against the windowpane, standing on nothing at all.
She spoke in the tinkling voice of an old doll, one with a cracked porcelain face and dead, unblinking eyes, “Let me in. This won’t take long.”
YOUR FRIENDSHIP IS KILLING ME
The glass between us frosted, such a thin barrier of protection, but when I mouthed the word no, she disappeared. Davina stirred on her futon and I ran back to mine, half afraid of what else might creep out of the dark and of the monsters my unconscious mind might create. You need other people to believe for your nightmares to be made real. But that didn’t comfort me much.
I didn’t sleep. Each tick of the clock, I wanted to call Kian. I didn’t. Be brave. Be strong. They need your permission to come in. Right?
If they didn’t, then life would get ugly, fast.
Early the next morning, Jen’s mom fed us a healthy breakfast of egg whites, fruit, and yogurt, and then I got the hell out before they noticed how haggard I looked. Davina’s mom was picking her up later, so I hugged Jen and then Davina, thanked everyone and ran for it. But I stopped on the sidewalk beneath the streetlight, staring at the dark imprint of man-size footprints that seemed to be burned into the cement. Of the two children who accompanied the bag man, there was no sign. But I read dire portents in the shape of his shoes:
This is mine now and I will return.
Nausea born of foreboding rose to the back of my throat, but I choked it down and started walking. Soon I broke into an uncontrollable run, wishing I could scream as well, but people were already staring since I had on jeans, not sweats or spandex, and I was carrying a backpack. All told, I hoped they’d conclude I was late, not crazy, but truthfully, if I had on a hoodie, they’d probably suspect me of antisocial crimes.
My body was covered in cold sweat by the time I got on the T; luckily, there was guy singing to his shoe, so that took precedence in the weirdness hierarchy. I got off at the usual stop and went home. My parents had papers spread all over the table, yellow legal sheets covered in complicated equations, along with rough sketches of how something or other could actually be built.
“Did you get your funding?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet. It’ll be a while,” my dad answered.
“Was it fun at Julie’s?” Mom wanted to know.
“Jen. And it was different. We watched movies, ate healthy food.” And called up something monstrous in the mirror. You know. The usual. Since my mom lacked all appreciation of whimsy, I didn’t joke about it. She’d take me seriously and assume I was experimenting with psychedelics, and then I’d get a lecture about the importance of sticking with natural recreational drugs.
Dad protested, “My food is healthy.”
“But you never make me radish roses.”
“Oh, fancy. I don’t do fancy.” He seemed appeased.
After a little more conversation, I escaped on the homework excuse. Nobody but my parents would believe I planned to study at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday, which was why it was kind of nice having professors in the house. They saw nothing weird about it.
After retreating to my room, I researched the bag man. In Latin American countries, he was known as “the old man with the sack” and he abducted children. Sometimes he ate them and left only the bones. Other times, he cut off their heads and stuck them in the bag, savoring the brains and making grotesque bowls out of their little skulls.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
And he’s stalking you. What the hell.
To take my mind off it and to make the lie a little bit true, I did my Intro to Japanese worksheet. That turned out to be a gateway assignment, as nerd habits died hard, and I couldn’t stop until I worked my way through the list. Schoolwork might be the only thing keeping me sane at this point since I could block off the threatening terror and confusion and sheer helplessness I felt in regard to the rest of my life. I had just finished up my last project when Vi popped up on Skype.
I answered the video call request with a smile that faded when I saw her expression. She looked like sickness, death, or sorrow, maybe some horrendous combination of the three. “What’s wrong?”
“Edie, is this … you?”
“I don’t—”
“This link, just a sec, I have it on my tablet.” She put it front of her laptop and touched the play icon on the screen.
The moment it loaded and I saw the first few seconds, I knew. The grungy room, normally used to store chairs and things for PTA meetings and parent days, was empty, as everything had been moved to the cafeteria, extra chairs for the winter festival. Each year, there was a theme with booths and decorations, and it was kind of like an open house. This was the first time I’d seen the video, though I knew it had been uploaded.
Title: Dog girl in training
Description: This girl is a dog. And she knows it. Watch her act like one. It’s hilarious! Pls like and subscribe, more awesome vids to come.
I couldn’t speak to answer her as memories scoured me raw. It took two of them to get the job done. While Brittany distracted me by being nice, friendly even—she apologized for all the harassment before—Cameron had spiked my water, just some roofies, no big deal. I drank it just before last period. When I stumbled out of class, they were all waiting. Sick and dizzy, I knew, I knew I had to get away but I didn’t have the strength or coordination.
So they took me.
To the bare room with the dingy floor and gray cement block walls in the basement. They could’ve done anything to me down there. Cameron put a black spiked dog collar on me and had me crawl around on the floor. He led me by the leash and said, “Bark for me, there’s a good girl. Bark, Eat-it. Bark.”
It was all there, on shaky camera phone. Me, on all fours, me barking, me leashed, collared, and crying, begging for them to let me go. I heard the echoed laughter all over again through my laptop. A hard shudder rocked through me when Cam dropped the dish of dog food in front of me. The fat version of me was weeping, red-faced, snotty tears, as I lowered my chin to the brown goo and lapped it up. The laughter got louder and louder.
Vi stopped the video. “Edie?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s me.”
With some logical corner of my mind, I was calculating. It was more than six months from the time this video was posted until the time I met Vi. A hard-core diet could, theoretically, produce results similar t
o what Kian had with his future-tech shaping gloves. Given how upset I was, it seemed unlikely that Vi would question my makeover.
“Such assholes. And what the hell, why would anyone send me this?”
I sucked in a breath, fighting for composure. Tears stood in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. Shame was a hot coal trying to burn its way out of my chest. Every day at school since the last before winter break, I went to class and people followed me, barking. They put dog biscuits on my desk. Someone tied a leash to my locker. Every. Single. Day.
I had told the school counselor how I felt … not that I was suicidal, but that things were just getting to be too much, and she said something like, “Some people just have trouble socially, Edith. Maybe if you…” Then she listed all the ways I could stop being the dog girl: if I worked out or bought makeup or went to a salon. I took her words to mean the problems were my fault, and that was what broke me.
As to why anyone would e-mail that to Vi, I had some ideas. “To remind me who I was. And to let you know, too. It’d be awful if you didn’t realize you were hanging around with the Beantown dog girl.” Somehow I didn’t burst into tears, though the humiliation hadn’t lessened; there was still a raw stripe inside me. From what Kian told me, this was in character for Dwyer & Fell, an underhanded tactic to destroy my current contentment and drive me away from my optimum timeline. I remembered him saying, The opposition interfered, drove her over the edge. Dwyer & Fell might think if they drove a wedge between me and Vi, it would weaken my support network. Kian had also said, If they shift the equilibrium enough, your fate changes and you cease to be a factor in play. So any way they could make my life worse, they were likely to give it a try.
Though I tried to fight the wave of memory, I remembered what Cameron had said, as he dumped me behind the school. I had fallen hard, scraping my palms and knees. He stood over me, looking like this was the most fun he ever had. More tears trickled down my cheeks.