Elegy (8 page)

A slight hitch in one of her snores made me pause, midstride. But when the jackhammer-like chorus started back up, I continued to tiptoe across the room. There, draped over an armchair, I found what I needed.

I wasted no time changing into the black dress, struggling only momentarily with the back zipper. After placing the floppy hat on Jillian’s vanity, I took my discarded clothes to the closet, where the rest of my wardrobe was secretly stored. I shoved my jeans and top into a bag of dirty clothes—which Jillian begrudgingly washed with hers each week—and dug around for the pair of black heels that Gaby’s brother Felix had given me as I was leaving New Orleans. I stood and slipped into them unceremoniously, trying not to think about the fact that the shoes probably cost more than my mother’s mortgage payment.

Next, I sat on the bench in front of the vanity and squinted at my dim reflection. As much as I hated to admit it, Jillian was right: I needed to do something about my face, which didn’t look a day over eighteen. Probably because it wasn’t, and hadn’t been for over a decade.

Breathing a quick prayer for good luck, I tried to re-create the makeover that Gaby had given me in New Orleans. After an additional swipe of blood-red lipstick, I smoothed my hair into a low ponytail and put on the floppy hat. With just the slightest catch in my throat, I slipped on Gaby’s huge pair of Fendi sunglasses—the ones I’d handed to Jillian the minute we left Louisiana. Then I leaned back to assess my handiwork.

I couldn’t believe how transformed I actually looked. The dress, the ponytail, the lipstick—combined, they made me look at least five years older. Best of all, the hat and sunglasses obscured my face so well that I could pass as any random woman in her midtwenties. One of Serena’s friends from work, maybe.

Satisfied, I snuck out of Jillian’s room as quietly as I’d snuck in and made my slow, stealthy way back outside. As I crossed the back porch and prepared to descend to the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the gazebo and faltered. I hated to leave Joshua there alone, to wake up in a few hours and find me gone. But if I woke him up now, he might insist that he come with me after all. So, with a guilty heart, I took the last few steps to the driveway and began my long, lonely walk.

I’d seen this place at dawn, many times. Yet today, it seemed different. More watchful, more
alive
, if that was possible.

Just outside the cemetery gates, I paused to inspect the changes. Every other time I’d seen my graveyard, it looked a little dilapidated and ignored—a burial place for people who couldn’t afford better. Now, the rusted gates had been polished up and adorned with a new sign that announced the name of the cemetery in wrought iron curlicues. All along the front fence line, someone had planted a thick row of irises, which bloomed in bright purples and pinks and yellows. Even the gnarled trees seemed more welcoming with rustic wooden birdhouses nailed to their trunks.

My cemetery actually looked
cheerful
. More like a pretty little park than a place where the poor buried their dead. But somehow, the differences made me more ill at ease than ever. Maybe because I just couldn’t imagine a living person—or even a team of living people—spending any significant time in this place. Especially when you considered all the secrets and souls that lay deep beneath its soil.

Still, the irises presented me with a solution. I made my way over to a particularly thick clump, knelt as best I could in the black dress, and plucked a few of the more vibrantly flowered stems. I laid them across the crook of one arm, careful to keep the petals off the fabric of my sleeve, and stood. Then, with just a slight falter in my steps, I entered the graveyard.

I walked slowly down the main cemetery corridor, pulling my heels up whenever they sank a little too deeply into the unpaved path. When I’d covered the overpriced shoes with a sufficient amount of grime, I yanked them off and continued barefoot. Old habits died hard, I supposed.

As I passed a freshly dug grave, in front of which someone had placed a few rows of white plastic chairs, I tried not to look at it. I would deal with
that
problem later.

Finally, I’d gone far enough into the cemetery that I could stop at my first destination. Funny that I remembered the location of
this
headstone, even though I’d only visited it once. I dropped a single yellow iris on the grave and said a quick prayer before turning away. That small tribute was the most Eli Rowland deserved, and probably the most he’d received since being buried here almost forty years ago.

Now that my respects to Eli’s grave were paid, I made my way over to the headstones I really wanted to visit. Or head
stone
, as the quick glance at my own was mostly obligatory. I dropped a purple flower on the small mound of my grave and then turned to the most important slab in this entire cemetery.

I was happy to see that my father’s grave still looked well tended. If the mowed plot and cleanly swept marker were any indication, then my mother visited pretty regularly. A pot of slightly wilted flowers sat on top of the headstone, so I added two irises to the bunch. For lack of anything else to do, I rearranged them, moving the freshest flowers to the front and plucking out any stems that were brittle or brown.

Pleased with the new bouquet, I let my fingers trace down the headstone until they found the carved indentation of three words.
TODD ALLEN ASHLEY
—I outlined each letter with my index finger, trying not to think about the fact that this memorial was the only physical reminder of him I had left. Done outlining, I placed my hand flat against the stone to block out the date of his death.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said aloud, and I could hear the longing in my own voice.

“Hi, Amelia.”

The unexpected response made me jerk my head back so fast I felt a muscle in my neck wrench. I hardly noticed the pain, though; I couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the person standing behind my father’s headstone.

I’d half expected this meeting; half hoped for it, too, although I didn’t think the odds of it happening were very likely, given the tragic events of Saturday night. Still, I couldn’t help but ask the million-dollar question:

“Serena—is that you?”

Chapter
TWELVE

S
erena had only been dead five days—not long enough to look so alert. More importantly, the
demons
themselves had killed her. She should be a mindless, shadowy slave in their wraith army right now.

Yet there she stood, not four feet away, smiling down at me with perfect awareness, as though she were still alive. She wore the same suit that I’d seen her in on Saturday morning—a shame that she hadn’t had the chance to change into something more comfortable and eternity appropriate. But she must have loosened her ponytail sometime before she died, because her corn-silk hair now floated in pretty waves around her shoulders. When the early sunlight hit it at the right angle, it glowed.

Almost like a halo.

“Hi, Amelia,” she repeated, in a voice that was simultaneously familiar and otherworldly. It had a sweet, lilting quality that spread through me like warm honey. The sound of her voice made me feel happy. Giddy, even. I couldn’t understand the feeling, couldn’t understand how she looked exactly the same and yet totally different, until something clicked in my mind.

“The light took you,” I breathed, “instead of the darkness.”

In lieu of an answer, Serena flashed me a mysterious, close-lipped smile and took a step closer to my father’s grave.

“How, Serena?” I blurted out, too impatient to wait for her to speak. “How could you be with the light now, if the darkness killed you? I don’t understand how.”

Again, she didn’t answer my question. Instead, Serena folded her hands and leaned casually on top of the headstone. With a thoughtful frown, she cocked her head to one side and stared at me for a moment. Then the enigmatic smile returned, and she shook her head.

“You know what your problem always was, Amelia?” she mused. “You never knew how to relax. Even as a kid, you were so freaking straitlaced.”

“W-what?” I stuttered.

Now
this
, I didn’t expect. Maybe an explanation for how she stood here, in the living world; maybe an apology for
killing
me. But not this.

Serena went on with a widening grin, untroubled by my distress.

“God, do you remember when we were eleven and you let me cheat off your math exam? Our parents didn’t even have a clue, but you basically went nuts with guilt and told them in less than a
day
. Little Miss Good Girl, to the rescue.”

I remembered now. She’d begged me for days to let her cheat, and I’d caved. Even though I eventually tattled, the guilt burned acidic in me long afterward. Because ultimately, I’d betrayed my mother
and
my best friend. It was one of the few dark memories in our bright history, yet Serena was laughing like it was our best.

“Or how about the time we smoked that entire pack of clove cigarettes with my cousins behind my dad’s pool shed when we were fifteen? You were the only one who threw up, and then you insisted on taking about nine showers and staying over so your parents wouldn’t smell the smoke on you.”

Again, she spoke of one of our darkest moments. Another situation in which she’d pressured me to do something I hadn’t wanted to do . . . another situation in which I showed weakness, in one form or another.

“Why are you bringing these things up?” I asked softly.

Hearing her snicker cruelly about these memories—which were few and far between, when compared to all the good things we’d shared—I had the urge to show her how strong I’d become. But God help me, my eyes started to sting. This woman had been my
best
friend. Now, during our first meeting since my death, she seemed intent on rehashing the worst of what was once
us
.

If that was how she wanted things to be, then I certainly wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I narrowed my eyes and kept them from watering by sheer force of will.

Serena still wore that cold smile. She unfolded her hands and let them rest over my father’s headstone, her long, slender fingers almost brushing the carved scrollwork near the top of his stone. Then, without warning, her face fell and she sighed heavily.

“I’m saying these things, Amelia, because you’re my bestie.”

Serena’s tone was sincere, but it made me scowl at her. The last time she’d called me “bestie,” she’d shoved me over the guardrail of a suspension bridge. That kind of thing could really take the shine out of a word.

“What are you talking about?”

This time, my question sounded colder, angrier. Not like the timid little girl in Serena’s memories. She must have noticed the shift in me, because her expression hardened, too. When she spoke again, her tone was clipped. No-nonsense, like we were discussing a business proposal.

“I’m talking about the choice you’ve been asked to make, Amelia—I’m here to help you make it.”

I had to give credit to the newly dead version of my old friend: she was just full of surprises. Not only had she shown up here, away from the dark place where I assumed she’d be trapped, but she also knew about the demons’ ultimatum. Those two facts—her freedom and her knowledge—seemed like they should be mutually exclusive.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said icily, folding my arms across my chest. “How would
you
choose, if it were your decision?”

Serena lurched forward so quickly, her grip on my father’s tombstone was the only thing that kept her from pitching over the stone and onto the grave.

“If I were you,” she whispered harshly, “I’d march my skinny ass back to that bridge and
beg
them to take you in.”

I automatically recoiled and spat out a curse word, low and soft. Then I forced myself to stop shaking and looked her right in her suddenly demented blue eyes.

“And why would
your
crazy ass do that, if you were me?”

Still leaning precariously over the stone, she shook her head sadly. “You just don’t get it, do you, bestie? If you don’t turn yourself over, then you’ll have to fight them. And we both know that you’re not strong enough.”

“I am strong enough,” I growled, suddenly angrier than I’d been in my entire life.

“You’re weak, Amelia Ashley,” Serena insisted in a singsong voice. “Weak, weak, weak.”

I rose then, pushing myself up from the grave until I stood slightly above her. And for the first time that morning, something other than confidence flickered in Serena’s eyes. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a glimmer of fear as she finally leaned back across the headstone.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Serena.” I kept my voice even and low, but in my core, my emotions boiled. “You always underestimated me—always mistook morality and kindness for weakness. That was
your
fatal flaw, not mine.”

She raised one pretty blond eyebrow. “Oh, really? Are we forgetting the night of your eighteenth birthday?”

I bristled. “You mean the night you murdered me, Serena? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget that.”

“You mean the night you screwed things up for
yourself
. You should have gotten the hell off that bridge. You knew something was wrong: you saw it, before anyone else did. But you stayed to look for me.” She shrugged, flashing me a condescending smirk. “Weak.”

I felt that strange, floating sensation people get right before the bottom drops out from beneath them. “How . . . how do you know that? You were possessed that night.”

Serena lifted one shoulder in another, half shrug. “I know it now. And it’s enough reason for you to do the right thing and turn yourself in.”

Despite how much her words angered me, despite the hot swell of indignation in my stomach, my eyes began to sting again. Especially when the image of an eight-year-old Serena, flashing me a gap-toothed smile, rose unbidden in my mind.

“Don’t you understand, Serena?” I pleaded, sounding so fervent that I surprised myself. “Turning myself over to the dark could
never
be the right choice, because it wouldn’t really save anyone. The demons never stop killing people, never stop acquiring souls. There would be more murders after I gave in—maybe even ones that
I’d
commit. I can’t do that to myself. And I can’t let your death be so . . . so pointless.”

Serena’s smile made my skin crawl. There was something terribly wrong about that smile: it pulled hard at her cheeks, stretching her lips so far that too many of her teeth showed. Instead of looking like some angelic vision, lit up by the morning sun, she looked malevolent.

Demonic.

“Oh, bestie,” she hissed, still wearing that ghastly smile, “my death wasn’t pointless. My death was miraculous.”

Before I could ask what she meant by that, a thread of black smoke began to weave its way around her shoulders and through her beautiful hair. It moved across her like a caress, so intimate and foul I nearly gagged.

“You’re not light,” I choked. “You’re dark. They
did
get you.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but her nasty grin actually widened. Serena gave me one shiver-inducing wink. Then, in a voice that sounded like it rose from a rotted corpse, she rasped, “The choice, Amelia: make it soon. Or someone else joins me in paradise.”

As she hissed out the last “ssss,” the smoke enveloped Serena and she vanished, leaving nothing but a trace of handprint-shaped black ice where she’d gripped my father’s gravestone.