In the distance a woman shouts my name.
“Looks like you’ve just been found.” He offers a reserved smile and holds my gaze a little longer than necessary before turning away.
There’s something intoxicating about this stranger, this earthly savior of mine, and a part of me wants to discover everything about him.
“Wait.” I catch him by the elbow. “What was that thing?”
He doesn’t say a word, just gazes at me perplexed and sorrowful.
“Laken?” The female voice spikes with agitation.
“I’d better go.” He takes a full step back. “Nice to meet you.”
“You saved me,” I say. He walks off into the fog until he disappears like an apparition. “Hey—what’s your name?” I shout after him, but he’s already vanished.
“Laken?” A raven-haired woman dressed in a power suit and heels snatches me by the wrist. “You need to keep out of the woods.” The words stream out of her like a death rattle. “Do you understand?” Her hair is slicked back in a knot, reflecting blue highlights as she moves. Her face is unearthly pale, her skin thin as paper, and I can see a track of blue veins around her eyes.
“Who are you?” I pull my hand back.
“It’s me, Laken—Ms. Paxton.” She offers a short-lived smile. “You need to get back to campus.” Her chest rises violently as she struggles to catch her breath. “Never venture outside of the academy.”
She guides me out of the oppressive forest onto a red brick path that rolls out toward a monolithic series of ivy-covered buildings. The landscape opens up in a fog-kissed world. Relief as wide as the ocean fills me as I escape those woods. I glance back into the curtain of darkness—the evergreens stand tall as a mountain, black as iron, and a shiver of fear grips me.
“Your uncle requested you meet up with your brother tonight.”
“My brother?” Fletcher died over a year ago, along with Wes, the only boy I ever loved. They drank their way into oblivion before taking a fatal swim in the lake.
“Yes, your brother.” It strangles out of her. “Do you think this is funny?”
“No.” I rub my arms. “I—”
She shoves a yellow student card at me. “You dropped this on your little jaunt in the woods.”
Laken Anderson—right face, wrong name. Issue date September 4th. Junior, Ephemeral Academy.
“Ephemeral.” I test the word out on my tongue. I stare at the student card, confused as to what it might mean.
“You’re a resident in Austen House.” Her lips twist with pride as if she procured the living quarters for me herself. “I realize how overwhelming your first day must be. Your sister is the dorm mother. She’s been waiting to orient you all afternoon.”
“My sister?” I have two. Jen is studying abroad her second year of college, and Lacey. The epicenter of Lacey’s world is plundering all my free time to help plan for her epic tenth birthday party. I love Lacey. I couldn’t love her more if I had her myself.
“Jen—your sister, Jen.” Ms. Paxton nods in frustration. Her eyes widen with horror as she circles over me with an epiphany. “I have to go.” She darts down the road in the opposite direction.
“Wait!” I call out as she evaporates in the evening shadows.
I don’t have a brother anymore.
I don’t have an uncle.
My mother is a drunk, and my sister, Jen, left the country first chance she got. I’m from Cider Plains, Kansas. I live in a dilapidated bungalow that belonged to my grandmother, which is haunted by her pissed-off ghost and the curse she bestowed upon us before she hung herself from the rafters.
My last name is Stewart, not Anderson. After I shot through the windshield, a tall radiant being declared it was not my time. He placed a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt over my face and submerged me back onto the planet.
I know for a fact I died on July 13th, the day before my cheating boyfriend’s seventeenth birthday. According to this I.D., two calendar months have dissolved without my knowledge. Here I am—same body, different name.
All I really want to know is what the hell is going on.
2
Remember
It was easy to find Austen House. Every one of these haunted establishments has its moniker framed right out front in large gilded letters. I step through the dark glossy door and land before a pretty blonde situated in the entry behind a vast mahogany desk. She turns to the side, laughing into her cell, completely unaware of my presence.
I take in the sights—try to decipher the murmurs of the girls seated on a sofa in the distance. The interior drips with chandeliers, brass posts on the stairwell, cloistered walls paneled in dark wood with a heavy gloss veneer.
The blonde wraps her finger around her hair like a habit. She hoists one leg up on the desk, exposing a sable riding boot with three gold buckles running down the side. They look expensive, soft as butter, and I resist the urge to touch them and confirm my theory. A paisley silk scarf in bold blues and reds is wrapped tight around her neck like a noose. It gives her a polished touch I’ve never seen on anyone outside of a magazine. She twirls her milky hair, giggles into the receiver while expertly ignoring my presence. It makes me question whether or not I’m really here, if I had become invisible at some point between the forest and the entry.
“Hello?” I try to control my panting, still out of breath from the long walk over. “Um, I’m looking for my sister, Jen.” I feel ridiculous even saying it. Unless I’ve just materialized on a cruise ship, sailing the Mediterranean, I doubt a family reunion is in the works. Jen is safely tucked away on a semester at sea, sipping margaritas and testing out her broken Spanglish on unsuspecting crewmen.
A waterfall of platinum hair falls over her left eye, so straight and glossy you could see your reflection in it if you wanted.
“I have to go.” She sighs into the phone and gives her seat a hard swivel.
“You can finish. Really, it’s okay, I’ll just—”
“Shut up, Laken.” Her hair vibrates like guitar strings plucked by skillful fingers. I could lose myself staring into the hair of this stranger who somehow knows my name.
I sway on my feet still dizzy from appearing in the forest from out of thin air.
“Late as usual.” She gets up and motions for me to follow.
I’m pretty sure I should be insulted—that this banter should register on some intimate familial level, but it doesn’t. Although, oddly, her frustration with me feels genuine, like she’s known me for years and this is her automatic response when she sees me.
I’ve never seen anyone like her before who holds such razor-sharp beauty in real life. It’s jarring and makes me want to run to a mirror and catalog all of my flaws as though each one were an evil trait all their own.
“Hey, um…” A breath gets caught in my throat. “How did you know my name?”
She turns to inspect me and gives a disbelieving blink. “Look, I’m a little pissed right now. I couldn’t get the classes I wanted, and I only have one with Blaine. Turns out Trinity U is a nightmare to navigate—so I’m not up for your twisted bullshit.” She moves on ahead. “And would you hurry? I want to leave already.” She leads us down the dark paneled entry with molded wood patterned like a chocolate bar.
A trail of perfume bleeds behind her, sweet honeysuckle with a touch of ginger. I take it in, solid as a memory. It makes me trust her, makes me want to follow her just about anywhere to inhale the familiar scent of a warm spring day on the plains.
She’s wearing a short-cabled dress that stops mid-thigh. It looks provocative with her boots well past her knees. My own wardrobe is comprised mainly of jeans and sweatshirts, and most all of those are hand-me-downs, the rest are thrift store treasures. I glance down at the inky corduroys I’m wearing, the black pointed shoes on my feet. I have no recollection of these, and it alarms me.
“So, what’s your name?” I ask. Should I feel the need to abuse it, I’ll need to know it.
She pauses to gawk at me wit
h an incredulous look. “Jenevieve.” It rolls harsh off her tongue and she bears her teeth as she says it. “Look, I don’t know what the heck you’re up to, or if you’re just trying to make me throw you off the balcony, but since it’s your first day, I’m going to tell you kindly to knock this shit off.” She pauses just shy of an enormous staircase, taking me in with her stone blue eyes. “Where the hell were you—and why do you have a forest growing out of your ear?” She plucks a sprig of pine needles from my hair. “I talked to Jones. He wants to get together with the three of us, Saturday.”
“Jones?” If she hadn’t referenced him as a male, I would have assumed we were blocking out a precious chunk of weekend to scan the carpet for the residue of all things illegal.
“I’ll drive,” she says, leading me up the vast sweeping stairwell. As we near the top, it affords me an eagle-eye view of the facility—a large room sits below along with a roaring fireplace the size of a single-car garage. A smattering of girls sit nestled with their laptops on L shaped couches. One of them convulses into her keyboard with an intensity that borders on intimacy. It looks sexual the way she strokes the keys, biting down a secretive smile.
Upstairs, Austen House is dark, heavily lined with navy embossed wallpaper that presses out in repetitive rows of paisley and diamonds. My mind warps the images until all I see are faces, devilish grimaces staring back at me, each one locked in a silent scream.
“Fletcher almost killed me the last time we drove together.” She flips her hair over her shoulder like a white silk scarf. “Fair warning, don’t get in a moving vehicle with him at the helm.”
“Fletcher?” Dear God. This is some warped dream—nightmare—easily this is a nightmare because it started out with a hostile corpse. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Jenevieve turned around and took a bite right out of my neck.
“Yes, Fletcher.” She looks simultaneously surprised and horrified at my ability to maintain stupid. “Our brother.” She’s so expressly pissed it looks as if she’s about to swallow her tongue. “Jones wanted me to tell you to find Fletch tonight and, you know, meet people so you won’t be such a loner—or do stupid things like you did at Rycroft.”
“Fletcher’s our brother?” That happens to be my brother’s name, or at least it was while he was living. And Jenevieve is my sister’s formal name, although, this imposter is clearly the wrong Jen. My sister has dark hair and electric blue eyes. We hardly look related unlike this faux relative who stands before me befuddled. In fact, nuJen and I share the same nose, the same pale eyes, maybe even look more like sisters than the one I share a genetic bond with, sans the supermodel jackpot I’ve yet to cash in on.
“Our brother…” I pause, still not over the fact she knew Fletcher’s name. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a feeling I’m about to meet yet another Stewart family knockoff.
Fake Jen opens the door to my new room. It’s clean and dull with the same satanic wallpaper from the hall peeking out from behind the bookshelves. Two twin mattresses are pushed against opposing walls with a mahogany desk next to each.
Three statuesque girls welcome me by way of hard looks and scoffs that suggest I reek of excrement or rotting corpses. Come to think of it, both are a possibility.
“Kresley Fisher, Grayson Evans.” Jen points at two girls lying side by side on a navy quilt with white flowers embroidered in dizzying patterns, their feet sunk in ditches over the pillow.
The dark-haired one, Kresley, shoots a look of venom at me with her sharp almond eyes as though I were solely responsible for the slaughter of a thousand baby whales. She’s beautiful in a hypnotic kind of way. Her toxic brand of beauty is mixed with equal parts of viciousness and vixen with a dash of entitlement thrown in for good measure. The haughty look in her eye assures me there will be no friendship brewing here in the near or distant future. Judging people is my fatal flaw, but when you bat a thousand, it’s a little hard to stop.
The other girl, Grayson, has long hair much like my own with the exception it’s devoid of any color that I could accurately put my finger on. In fact, there isn’t a single hue found in all of nature that holds that brindle, velum, ash disaster. A dark line of roots erects itself from her scalp a clear inch, contrasting itself so harshly it looks artful in its own way. She crimps her lips, taking me in. She holds a sharper beauty than Kresley, looking less menacing in general, but you can tell the venomous nature is one in the same. It lingers to her like a patina that coats her from the inside. You can see her malevolence plain as the beauty on her face.
“This is your roommate, Casper Masterson.” Jen flicks a finger toward the girl at the desk, painting her fingernails a dark glossy crimson—dragon’s blood red.
I give a wry smile. I used to sit for hours and watch Wes, my long-dead boyfriend, run his brushes over canvas. I would give names to the colors he mixed onto the palate. It was spellbinding, watching him stir through a rainbow of his own invention. For Christmas, I was going to make a set of brushes for him with my own hair. The art supply store in town said they would do it, but Christmas came and went without Wes. He had been in the ground three full months before that day. I miss Wes with an aching passion. Maybe they’ll have a fake version of him here, too. But there could never be another Wes. When he died he took all of the color out of the world with him.
“Hello,” Casper offers, but doesn’t look up from her long methodical strokes. It sounds sarcastic, like a threat. Her short bleached hair spikes at the top, a contrast to her delicate features and soft round lips.
Life can’t be easy with a name like Casper. I suppose Kresley and Grayson aren’t too far off on the moniker punching bag—neither am I come to think of it.
“Be nice to Laken,” Jen reprimands before turning to me. “I get off at ten. I’m staying at Lowery’s if you need me.” She arches her brows before leaving as though speaking some silent sisterly language that said, try to get along.
I think both faux Jen and I know that getting along with these girls is doubtful.
I exhale a huge breath I hadn’t notice I was holding and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like crap and death rolled into one—ironic because if you throw a reanimated cadaver into the mix it’s a frightfully accurate description.
“Which bed is mine?” I ask Casper, the girl busying herself with dragon’s blood. What the hell am I saying, which bed is mine? I need to get home, to the right state, the right universe—but deep inside I’m certain if I just shut my eyes I’ll magically turn up there anyway.
“Other bed,” she grunts.
I assume she means the one farthest from her person, which makes me want to evict the two girls lounging on it with their feet molesting my new pillow. Although I doubt they’d listen, and the last thing I need today is an ass kicking. Even though I’m partially tempted to administer one myself, the idea is more exhausting than it is exhilarating at the moment. All I really want to do is sleep—see if I can wake up in a state I actually belong in.
“Do you guys have a phone I can borrow?” I ask no one in particular. I need to tell my mother I had the misfortune of a drive-by drugging or a hammer to the back of the head because clearly I’m suffering from psychological turmoil. Nevertheless, the words, “Laken phone home” reverberate in the back of my mind.
“Nope,” Kresley says it bored without looking up. Her dark hair creates a curtain over her features, but I can see the curve of a wicked smile flexing at my expense.
She stretches her long golden limbs like a cat and sears me with a sideways glance as if my presence alone offended her. “Don’t ever let me wear heather grey,” she seethes to her bedmate.
“I know, right?” The plastic-haired Grayson rolls over to pick up a brush off the floor, and a round orb of flesh spills out the side of her tank top.
Holy shit.
I have never seen a body like that before. Not that I make a habit of inspecting other women’s wares, but this is something that falls under the category of a fa
ctual oddity, or “Quick, get Guinness on the phone.” Her boobs expand over her chest like planets, painfully large and perfectly round like someone tucked a pair of volleyballs under her skin for safekeeping. For a brief second I think they may be tumors.
“Hate that color,” Grayson gags. “It’s pathetic. Makes people look like they crawled out of a convent.”
“I’m thinking about wearing orange this fall.” Kresley sits up and spins her long dark hair into a sloppy bun before shagging it out, exposing a waterfall of rich dark curls. “Like maybe a coat or a sweater.”
“Me, too.” Grayson rakes the brush through her creamy locks. “We should mix it with those red suede boots.”
Kresley scoffs at her with profane disapproval. You would think she had suggested they gut road kill and add it to their oatmeal for breakfast.
“Orange driving moccasins,” they say in unison before exploding in a fit of laughter.
I take them in with their perfect pouts, their flawless skin—their aggressive monstrous attitudes that rival that of the creature in the forest.
Dear God—I think they’re mocking me.
Who the hell has an entire conversation solely based on the color of their upcoming fall wardrobe? Who the hell has an upcoming fall wardrobe?
“So, um…” I clear my throat. “I think I need to find my brother. Fletcher?” It comes out pleading. I’m not sure why I’ve suddenly accepted this mission, but I know for damn sure I’m not sequestering myself in a room full of girls who bear an uncanny inward resemblance to the beast from the woods. I’d mention him, but in truth, I’m half afraid they’ll all start morphing into zombies. Nightmares are fickle that way.
Besides, if I linger here too much longer, I might be moved to do something heroic like venture into the closet and hang them all by way of sweaters in their least favorite colors. Murder doesn’t feel so illogical or illegal in this strange new world I’ve conjured up.
I’m probably in a coma somewhere. It’s never a good thing when you go through a windshield and end up in Connecticut on the other side. I bet if I think about it long enough, I’ll start controlling things, like catching their hair on fire, spontaneously dying their skin blue, or tangling up their underwire bras—and that will be a bigger problem for some than others.