Followers Page 14

  Willow jumped at the sound of my laptop lid closing. “Are you okay?” she asked. She was lying on her bed, barely visible in the shadowy candlelight that dimly lit up our dorm room. Until the entire MacHale electrical system was investigated, the school had cut the electricity on campus as a precaution, making us entirely dependent on the candles that we weren’t supposed to have in our dorms. Even worse was that we were being forced to remain in our rooms, making the accident seem even more surreal and scary. No one knew what was going on. People’s battery power had obviously dwindled; only a few people were actively Facebooking and Tweeting. My own phone battery was on red, dangerously close to dying out entirely.

  “Yeah … just jumpy.”

  She nodded. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Like, now …” She watched me closely, and I squirmed under her gaze.

  “I don’t know. Hang out, I guess. Wait for news. Have you heard from Tad?” Tad was one of the few juniors on campus who had a car, and he’d driven Eric to the hospital. I imagined Eric leaning over Skye’s bed. I guess that she’d finally gotten his attention.

  “No. He and Eric are still at the hospital. You know, people have been asking me about you.”

  My skin prickled. “What do you mean?”

  “Just … what you’re like, who you’re friends with, what you do … It’s weird, I never really thought of you as the mysterious type or anything, but when I thought about it, I realized that I don’t know very much about you at all.”

  My breath came in shallow spurts. I knew she wasn’t accusing me. She was just making an observation. But I couldn’t help but feel there was something dark below the surface. “Do you have any questions for me?” I asked. Do you think I did it?

  Willow shook her head. “Not really. I don’t really believe in gossip. I’m just saying that you should be careful.”

  “Okay.” I lifted the lid of my laptop. The battery icon in the upper right hand of the screen had just turned red, a sure sign that my power was about to die. I shut my laptop again, more gently this time.

  Willow turned to face me. She scrunched her nose. “What do you think about dying?”

  “What?!” I exclaimed. Then I noticed that she was toying with a box of hair color. “Oh. You mean hair dye. I feel like I’ve already done enough damage.” I squinted at myself in the mirror, the flickering candlelight on my reflection only making my orange hair more garish.

  “I mean, we might as well, right? Nothing left to lose. It’ll give us something to do.”

  “Right. Something to do,” I echoed. I had a strange sensation that Willow was trying to keep an eye on me. But who would do that? Was she taking it on herself because she thought I might be a serial killer, or had someone else told her that I needed to be watched?

  She held up the hair-dye box again. “What do you think?”

  “I guess it’s fine.”

  “Good!” She began gathering supplies as I tried to ignore the hammering in my heart.

  “Come on,” Willow urged. As we turned the corner to the communal bathroom, Sabrina Stokes, a sophomore on stage crew, gave me the side eye.

  “You guys look like you’re having a spa party,” she said suspiciously, referencing the common practice of communal makeovers during procrastination-fueled evenings. “Don’t you think that’s a little insensitive? I mean, Skye just died.”

  “What?” The hair-dye box Willow had asked me to carry thunked to the floor.

  “I just heard from Jenny. Her mom works at Forsyth General.”

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice as my brain raced to process the information. Despite the horror of the scene, I’d been convinced she’d pull through, that she be back at school in a few days, relishing in all the attention that came with a near-death experience. It’d be her finest moment.

  “But I guess you knew that already, didn’t you?” Sabrina asked, her voice laced with suspicion. Before I could respond, she continued padding down the hall.

  I stared at the box of hair dye on the floor.

  Dead. How was that possible? I felt like I should cry or scream, but I couldn’t. It was too surreal.

  Willow turned toward me, shock stamped on her face.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. My voice was oddly stilted, as if my brain needed to reboot in between each word.

  “I don’t know.” Willow reached down and picked up the box of hair dye. “I guess … let’s just do this. I mean, we don’t really know yet. Maybe Jenny doesn’t have all the information. And I think it’s good to do something.”

  “Okay.” I wanted to go back to my room and check to see if anyone had Tweeted or texted, but I also didn’t want to be alone.

  Willow and I didn’t talk as she dyed my hair, and I don’t think she noticed the tears dripping from my face while my head was dunked in the sink. But when we were done, I felt a tiny bit better. At least I wasn’t alone.

  As I entered the doorway I noticed her discreetly pull her phone out of her pocket, the light from the screen creating a rectangle on her black jeans.

  I walked over to my desk to check on my laptop. The sleep-indicator light on my laptop was still blinking on and off, like a lighthouse beacon. I was surprised it still had power. I jostled the mouse track pad as the screen reopened back on my Twitter feed. Only a few Tweets had shown up on my feed since the last time I checked; it was clear that most people were out of battery power.

  Except for Hamlet’s Ghost.

  Hamlet’s Ghost @hamletsghost

  Seems the “sky writing” is clear: We need another Ophelia u/s for #machalehamlet. Seems to me it should go to @alleyesonbree. But do you agree?

  My hands turned clammy.

  “So, um, I’m supposed to head to a party now…. Do you want to come with me?” Willow asked from her side of the room.

  “A party? Tonight?”

  Willow nodded, but her gaze darted around the room and she wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “Sure, I guess so?” Was she actually extending a real invitation or an invite out of pity? And why was she acting so weird? I felt like an awkward younger sister she’d been forced to babysit. “But I’m also fine staying by myself.”

  “No,” Willow said vehemently. “You need to come. Seriously.”

  “Okay, I guess … I mean, if that’s what everyone is doing.” At least I’d be able to hear what had really happened to Skye. “But what about the lockdown thing?”

  “There are ways to get around that,” she said mysteriously.

  Normally, I’d be thrilled to be invited to a secret MacHale party. But not tonight. Not with Skye’s body lying cold and still in some hospital bed. Or worse, the morgue. I winced as terrible images flooded my mind.

  “Actually, I think I’ll stay. I’m not in the mood.”

  Willow stopped mid-brush and shook her head. “No, you have to come. What are you going to do here, by yourself?”

  “Just …” I sighed. “Okay. Fine.”

  “Good.” Willow was moving quickly and nervously, knocking her cosmetics against one another.

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked.

  “Yeah. Great. Let’s go!” She said in a high voice as she stared at me intently.

  To avoid her weird gaze, I glanced at my reflection. The shade Willow had chosen brought out the caramel color around the iris of my eyes that my mom had always sworn was there, but I had never seen myself. I was wearing a fleece and jeans, just like I’d been for the last week, the uniform of the just-trying-to-blend-in MacHale kids on break. I didn’t look like Ophelia anymore. But I no longer looked unhinged, the way I had with my post-audition orange hair.

  “By the way, people will probably be upset about Skye so just … be cool.”

  “What do you mean?” I bristled. Wasn’t I just as upset as anyone?

  “Just … I know you want to be Ophelia and I know you like Eric, but just keep that stuff on the DL.”


  “I don’t talk about that stuff!”

  “Right.” Willow puffed her cheeks out as she exhaled. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t. It’s just … Don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes, I feel like you just …” She trailed off.

  “Sometimes I just what?” I pressed.

  “You just play up the victim thing. I mean, I know today sucked. But it’s like everything is all about you. I mean, that’s even your Twitter handle, right? I’m just saying, some things aren’t all about Bree.”

  “I know that,” I said quietly.

  “Good.” Willow opened the door to the corridor, glancing left and right before stepping over the threshold. “And I do believe you,” she added meaningfully.

  “Believe me about what?” I asked. But she didn’t respond. Instead, she turned down the hallway, heading to the basement steps.

  I’d been to the basement exactly once, on the new-resident tour on the first day of fall semester. Occasionally used as a multipurpose gathering room, the basement was overlooked by the Rockefeller girls in favor of hanging out in the parlor, which had a flat-screen TV and plenty of floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a picturesque view of Daniels Pond. The basement smelled weird; had a carpet that our tour guide had told us we should always wear shoes on, without specifying why; and didn’t have any WiFi. When it was used at all, it tended to be by seniors desperately trying to write their theses without distraction. But just like everything else at MacHale, the basement held secrets, too.

  Willow flicked on the lights and grabbed the edge of the carpet, yanking it to the side of the room. A few objects I hoped were dust motes and not insects flew up my nose and caused me to sneeze. Underneath the carpet were filthy wooden floorboards surrounding a large metal grate. She leaned down and pulled on the grate, which lifted up easily.

  “That looks like a death trap,” I joked. I cringed when I heard the words in my ears.

  Willow blinked her large Bambi-like eyes at me. “Bree,” she said, her voice gently chiding, as though I were a toddler who’d broken free of her mother’s hand to run ahead. “Do not get weird. I’m on your side. And you don’t need to be afraid of this. It used to be part of the heating system or something, but they got rid of that years ago. Now it’s just a straight drop into the tunnels,” she said, as if she were describing something as straightforward as a shortcut to the dining hall.

  “They don’t show this on the brochure,” I said nervously as I gazed into the darkness of the hole in front of me. “You are going first, right?”

  “Of course. I promise you have nothing to worry about. It’s like a trapdoor. We’ve done it a lot of times. And it’s not, like, a drop drop. No one’s ever gotten hurt.”

  “So what do you do about all this?” I gestured to the disarray surrounding us.

  She shrugged and wiped a dark smudge from her cheek. “Well, that depends. During the school year, we usually pay Robert to cover for us and say he’s, like, exterminating or whatever,” she said, naming the groundskeeper who constantly roamed the campus. I’d occasionally seen him muttering to himself while standing near the pond, and I’d always steered clear. “Anyway, we can’t do that today because he’s on break, so we’ll just leave it and hope no one sees it while we’re gone.” Willow edged herself off the side and into the opening. Seconds later, I heard a soft thud.

  “Come on!” she called, her voice faint and echoey.

  I perched on the edge and dangled my legs into the darkness. I felt like I did when I was a kid and learning how to swim, when my mom had pushed me into the water. I remembered sputtering, trying to breathe, feeling the liquid all around me. I’d finally kicked my way to the surface when I felt two strong hands underneath my armpits.

  “What were you doing?” Dad had yelled angrily.

  “She needed to get out of her head,” Mom had replied. “See, she’s fine when she doesn’t think.”

  I hadn’t been fine. As soon as my father had hoisted me back up onto the pool deck, I’d burst into tears and hadn’t stopped crying for hours.

  “Bree, come on!” Willow called from the darkness.

  Don’t think. I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed myself over the edge.

  I landed on my knees with a thud.

  “Ow.” I winced as I stood up, realizing that I’d landed on the same knee that I’d skinned in the woods the other night.

  Willow reached to grab my hand and pulled me to my feet. I blinked in the semi-darkness. Mismatched pieces of furniture were jumbled everywhere, and a large cage surrounded a boiler in the center of the room. I cringed and backed away. It reminded me too much of the costume cage.

  Willow seemed oblivious. “Every building on campus is connected. “Which, of course, they don’t want us to know. Unless you know how to work the system.”

  “How did you learn about this?” My heart stopped pounding. When Willow had mentioned an underground tunnel, I’d imagined a pitch-black maze, a sort of corollary to the creepy cemetery on the other side of campus. But this just seemed like long-forgotten storage space. Farther down the corridor, I could see dusty graduation gowns hanging from metal clothing racks.

  “I found out about it from Heather McKay…. She was a senior when I was a freshman. But it’s not like everyone goes down to the tunnels. It’s sort of, like, a specific group.”

  “Like a secret society?” I asked.

  “No. Not like a secret society,” Willow said coldly.

  “Sorry.” I knew we were both on edge, but I also couldn’t understand why she was being so mean all of a sudden. I weighed my options. It’d be better to go to the party than hang out in the room by myself. Especially if I was already feeling weird and antsy.

  I took off behind Willow. Five steps later, I found myself engulfed in a swath of shapeless black fabric. I twisted, getting more and more caught until my shin banged against something hard. I heard the clank of metal.

  “Help!” I called. And then I felt the fabric whoosh over my head. I felt a blast of musty basement air against my face.

  I blinked in the candlelight. I was standing in the middle of a rack of shapeless black graduation gowns. Those had been my captors.

  Twenty yards away from us, the hallway came to a T-shaped intersection. A couch and a few chairs were scattered in the area, illuminated by a few pillar candles precariously placed on the cracked concrete floor. I squinted. I could see Tad and Chad, as well as a few girls from the Hamlet cast. They all gazed at me curiously, and I realized each of them was holding a small votive candle.

  “Hey guys. I brought Bree,” Willow said unnecessarily.

  I perched next to Vivy Brownslee, a Forsyth student who played Getrude in the play.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “So are you happy now?” she whispered back as she scooted away from me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Skye.” She jerked her candle forward, illuminating an eight-by-ten photograph of Skye; a blown-up picture of her Twitter avatar. The photo was angled so it seemed her gaze was directly at me. “Everyone says that means you’ll be the understudy and get to play Ophelia during matinees. Seems lucky.”

  “Luck or …” Tristan said as he joined our conversation. His dark eyes flashed. “How do you feel about Skye?” he asked calmly. Chad and Tad hulked behind him, making me feel like I was on a trial without a jury. I looked around, only to be confronted by a dozen pairs of angry eyes.

  “I’m devastated, of course. What do you think?”

  “You know she’s dead,” Tristan said.

  I nodded. “I heard.”

  “So we decided to have a vigil for her. We thought it was a good way for us to start the healing process,” Tristan explained. I glared mutinously at him. What was he talking about, “healing process”? That wasn’t the way Tristan talked. And he sounded like I was the one who’d killed her. Anger bubbled inside me, threatening to explode.

  “You’d know a lot about healing rituals, wouldn’t you, Hamlet’s Gh
ost?”

  “Not now, Bree. Remember what we talked about?” Willow asked, a plaintive note in her voice.

  “I know what we talked about. And I’m talking about the fact that Tristan is clearly the one Tweeting … and maybe even killing.”

  Tad lunged toward me.

  “Tad. Dude. Lighten up. I’ve got her under control.” Tristan sprang between us.

  “What’s going on?” I glanced from Tristan to Vivy to Willow. No one would look at me. And then, slowly and horribly, everything dawned on me. People thought I was the murderer. People thought that I was Tweeting from the Hamlet’s Ghost account. People thought I killed Skye.

  “You don’t … I’m not …” I gasped. “Guys, please. Believe me.”

  “So I guess the real question is, who do you think did it?” Tristan asked calmly.

  It felt like the room’s temperature had suddenly dropped ten degrees. He also didn’t think it was an accident. “Did it? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, accidents like that don’t just happen, right?” Tristan said. “Skye wasn’t an idiot. Not like Andi. And I think it’s pretty easy to connect the dots.”

  “Connect the dots to who? To me?” I exploded. “Do you think I killed Skye?”

  The room had quieted. I could hear the hiss of the radiator in the far-off corner. The lights flickered on the wall. Everyone’s head swiveled toward me. No one seemed to be breathing except me, my sharp gasps matching the staccato beat of my heart.

  “Seriously?” I exploded. “You think I killed Skye Henderson?”

  I saw a few shadows nodding yes, but I couldn’t make out individual faces.

  “I didn’t say that,” Tristan said calmly. “But I know that someone did. And I’m going to find out who.”