Light as a Feather Read online

  I uncrossed my arms and stepped in between Mischa and Violet. “We’re not mad, Violet. Really. We’re just confused.”

  “Let’s go, ladies! I want to see you out on that track!” Coach Stirling’s booming voice entered the locker room, and seconds later she appeared around the corner of a row of blue lockers. “Portnoy! Brady! Suit up. Let’s go.”

  Violet glared at both of us, and while Coach Stirling was still present to give her cover, she darted out the locker-room doors and onto the track.

  Mischa set her tote bag down on the bench and pulled out her gym suit. “Why are you being nice to her? She knows something,” she said, her eyes squinted. “I can tell that girl knows more than she’s willing to admit.”

  I hadn’t told Mischa or Candace about Violet’s visions. Mischa was already so furious that it didn’t seem wise to inform her now. She’d freak out that I hadn’t told her sooner. Besides, I could use the secret Violet had shared with me as a basis upon which to build more trust. “She’s not going to tell us anything if she thinks we’re mad at her.”

  “This is not a matter of catching more flies with honey,” Mischa snapped at me. “Olivia is dead!”

  On the track, it was a perfect autumn day, the air scented with dry leaves and the sun still warm on my bare arms and legs as Mischa and I broke into a run to catch up to Violet, who was already at least one lap ahead of us.

  “You can’t run forever, Violet,” Mischa warned her from behind.

  Violet slowed to a jog and then a walk to allow us to fall into step with her. She looked straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with us, and pulled her earbuds out of her ears, letting them swing on long white cords to her knees.

  “Why weren’t you answering your phone all weekend?” Mischa demanded.

  “What would you have wanted me to say?” Violet said, her voice high-pitched and wild. “I didn’t know all those things were going to happen. It was a total coincidence, but as soon as I heard about it, I knew you guys were going to think I had something to do with it.”

  “Uh, yeah. Of course,” I said as gently as possible, not wanting to upset her more. “Violet, how could we not? You predicted every detail of it.”

  “I didn’t predict it,” Violet insisted.

  “Well, then what would you call it?” Mischa asked. “You knew what was going to happen, how it was going to happen, and exactly when it was going to happen. We’re not paranoid, Violet. That’s too many coincidences to be believed.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Violet agreed sarcastically. Sarcasm was new from her. Her tone was so surprisingly biting, it didn’t even sound like her. “I saw into the future at Olivia’s birthday party and predicted this horrible accident right down to every last detail. Listen to yourself, Mischa. You sound psycho.”

  Mischa was quiet for a moment.

  “I mean, if I really could see the future, I’d be working for the CIA to prevent terrorist attacks. And I’d play the lottery every night, and live in a castle with all my winnings. I mean, come on,” Violet reasoned, gaining confidence in her voice. “Am I right, McKenna?”

  She was right: It was ludicrous of us to suggest that she had magical powers. But at the same time, I felt certain that there was something not quite right about Violet. Somehow, she must have known that by confiding in me about her abilities—in the specific context of how it related to her knowledge of my sister’s death—I wouldn’t tell the others. She was providing me with the perfect opportunity to take her side. For the moment, even if it enraged Mischa, that was what I needed to do. “You’re right,” I admitted quietly. “But Violet, you have to admit this is all really weird.”

  “Yes, it’s weird,” Violet agreed. “Just try to understand how I feel. Olivia was my friend too.”

  She inserted her earbuds again and ran off ahead of us on the track.

  CHAPTER 7

  AFTER SCHOOL, I SAW MR. DEAN having a conversation with Violet in the hallway as I collected my books. With Olivia gone and Candace in the hospital, I was reduced back down to my sophomore routine of walking home alone. Violet was nodding slowly, listening to every word Mr. Dean told her. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was talking to her about Student Government. The election had been postponed because of Olivia’s unexpected death, but only by one week. Voting had been rescheduled for the following Monday, so I had little choice but to get my posters in order once I got home that afternoon.

  The next morning, I walked to school early, hoping with every step of the two-mile walk that no one from school, particularly Trey (who I hadn’t seen at all the day before), would drive past and see me carrying my giant rolled poster boards. At school, I hung my posters with little loops of masking tape by myself, finding myself hanging them always a few inches from those belonging to Michael Walton, which I guessed was sort of a subconscious strategy. By the time I got back up to the hallway where my locker was located, kids were already starting to stream in through the hallways, and I noticed something incredible at the far end of the hall.

  Violet was hanging up a poster above the drinking fountain, and Tracy Hartford seemed to be holding a few more pieces of poster board, assisting her.

  I walked toward them as if in a trance. Sure enough, the poster that Violet was hanging up announced that she was running for class president. The poster featured a picture of her smiling face, with VIOLET SIMMONS FOR JUNIOR CLASS PRESIDENT neatly written in block letters drawn in red felt marker ink, colored in carefully. It was somehow far more stylish, even though simplistic, than my own posters, on which I had tried to obscure my lack of artistic inspiration with tons of glitter.

  “What’s this?” I asked as Violet smoothed the poster against the wall with her palm to flatten it there.

  “Oh hi, McKenna. Mr. Dean asked me yesterday if I would consider running for class president since the election is so close at hand,” Violet said innocently.

  “She’d be a natural,” Tracy said, smiling at Violet, as if anyone had asked her for her opinion.

  “Really,” I said, sure that I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding the doubt in my voice.

  “Well, I was class secretary at my old school,” Violet said, tucking her hair back behind one ear. This was the first time I’d heard about Violet’s involvement with Student Government at her old school in Illinois. “And, I mean, if Tracy’s a shoo-in for class secretary here, it would be dumb for me to run against her. So if she’s secretary and you’re treasurer, we could have so much fun if I win.”

  “Is anyone else running?” I asked her rather impolitely. I was just so surprised that Olivia hadn’t even been dead a whole week, and already Violet was running for her office. It was a cold, cold move, but I could see that Violet was already trying to innocently spin her ruthless ambition into a charitable service for the rest of her classmates.

  Violet and Tracy exchanged uncomfortable looks, and Tracy rolled her eyes. “Well, of course Michael Walton wants to run for class president, but he was nominated for vice president, and it’s too late to change the nomination.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Mr. Dean was the only teacher on staff who cared much about the Student Government, so he could have easily repealed any of the rules if it suited his fancy. “How did you convince him to let you run? You already missed the nomination period.”

  I’d had to collect five signatures to be allowed to run, which I’d obtained from Candace, Isaac, Pete, Mischa, and Matt at lunchtime on the Friday before the meeting. There had to be a reason why so many loopholes were being created for Violet, although it was an easy guess that her big blue eyes and long eyelashes were probably all it took to get Mr. Dean to make exceptions for her. The other possibility was that Violet was influencing Mr. Dean some other, more sinister way.

  “No one other than Olivia sought the nomination,” Violet said matter-of-factly, “so I was allowed to turn in my signatures this morning.”

  Just then, down the hall, Mr. Dean stepped out of his history classroom and nodded a
t all of us. He raised his hand in a friendly wave.

  “Well,” I said, still so confused about what was going on with Violet but getting an even stronger sense that the girl was just dangerous, “it would be cool if we were all on Student Government together.” As I returned to my locker to gather my books for my morning classes, it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to have to try very hard to become closer friends with Violet to gather information about her. Even though the thought of collaborating with her on Student Government projects all year sickened me, she seemed to be genuinely excited about the possibility of Tracy and me becoming her new best friends.

  At lunchtime, it was noticed immediately by everyone at our table that Violet was sitting two tables away, across from Tracy Hartford. Mischa was fuming. “Who does she think she is? Did you see her posters? Does she think she can just pick up Olivia’s life where Olivia left off?”

  Matt put a hand on Mischa’s back to calm her down. “She’s just running for office. It’s not a big deal.”

  Nothing could calm Mischa down as she glared across the cafeteria. “It is a big deal, and it’s more than just running for office.”

  My focus on appearing unconcerned about Violet was interrupted by a boy wearing a green army jacket near the vending machines. It was, without a doubt, Trey, although how I hadn’t noticed him earlier in the day, I didn’t know. His back was to me as I watched him slide a wrinkled dollar bill into the vending machine with his right hand and punch a button to request a can of soda. The machine spat out the can as requested, and Trey took it with him as he trudged away, back down the stairs that led to the locker rooms.

  I found myself wondering again if Violet had seen Trey in her vision of Olivia’s death. She’d seen enough to know that Olivia hadn’t been driving at the time of the crash. Had she known that Trey would survive?

  Once again, I wondered what Trey had been doing in Green Bay on Friday. But now, just like everything else surrounding the accident, the coincidence that he’d come across Olivia while her car refused to start seemed awfully suspicious.

  And Trey was the last person I wanted to suspect of aiding Violet.

  On my long walk home, I paused about half a mile into my journey to change out of my stylish wedge oxfords and into my running shoes. A fat blister, watery and pink, was forming on the back of my left ankle. As I rounded my corner and passed the empty lot, I became overwhelmed with the hunch that something was wrong at home. I couldn’t say what it was, exactly. It wasn’t like a premonition or a vision of danger. It was just a slow suspicion, not so unlike how I’d sensed the blister forming on my foot half an hour earlier.

  When I entered my house, it was oddly quiet. I stepped into the kitchen and opened the fridge as was my habit, before I realized that I hadn’t heard Moxie shake her collar. Her days of meeting me at the door were long over since her arthritis had gotten so bad, but typically as soon as I got home I could hear her rising from whichever corner of the house she had been dozing in and shake out her fur and collar, jingling her dog tags.

  But that day: no jingling. I slowly closed the door of the fridge, starting to feel terrible. I had no reason to cry just yet, but I knew already that the tears would come. First I checked the dining room, where Moxie sometimes liked to lie down next to the radiator. Then, I peeked into Mom’s room, really hoping to see a lump of black-and-white fur at the foot of the bed, where the dog often liked to snooze.

  “Moxie?” I called down the hall, not knowing where else she might be. Moxie had her spots throughout the house, her favorite places to stretch out and rest, but I didn’t find her in any of them. Finally, having already checked all her usual places, I stepped into my own bedroom. Moxie was curled into a ball on my bed with her head resting on my pillow, a position in which she used to sleep when she was still a puppy. Jennie and I had received Moxie as a gift from our parents when we turned three because Jennie was obsessed with puppies and had been asking for one. I sat down on the edge of my bed, not wanting to startle the dog if she was sleeping, but I already knew that she wasn’t. I gently touched Moxie’s soft head, and my fear was confirmed. She wasn’t breathing, her chest wasn’t rising, her nostrils weren’t flaring in their little expand-contract pattern as they did when she was deeply asleep, dreaming about chasing creatures in the yard.

  I can’t believe this is happening, I thought.

  I leaned forward and rested my head on hers, wanting that moment never to end, for Moxie to never be farther away from me than she was right there, on my bed. It wasn’t possible for me to know at what time she’d passed away, but presumably she’d climbed up on my bed and drifted off to eternity at some point in the afternoon after my mom had left for Sheboygan. I thought about texting Mom to let her know, but couldn’t find any words that wouldn’t be too unbearably heartbreaking. It was entirely possible that this news was going to upset Mom so much that she wouldn’t be able to drive home. So instead, after I kissed Moxie’s head a few times and stroked her fur, I went to the garage by myself and decided to try to bury Moxie before Mom got home. It would be hard enough for her to accept Moxie’s passing without having to see her immobile, not breathing.

  In the backyard, I began digging a hole near the fence, where Moxie loved to dig holes, herself. After five minutes, my hands were becoming chafed from the handle of the shovel, and I was sweating. I paused for a moment to catch my breath, looking down at my progress, which was a hole little more than five inches deep. Behind me, I heard our gate open and close, and I saw Trey approaching me when I looked over my shoulder, carrying a shovel from his own garage. He was no longer wearing the bright blue brace on his left arm, and without saying a word he began digging where I was digging. I wiped sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my hoodie and wondered if his left arm was healed enough for him to be using it, but didn’t dare ask.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what are we digging for?” Trey asked a few minutes later when he paused to catch his breath.

  “My dog died,” I said as calmly as I could, not wanting to cry in front of him. I felt my nose threatening to drip as I suppressed my tears. The injuries on his face distracted me momentarily from my heartache over Moxie; the swelling had gone down but had been replaced by dark purple bruising along his cheekbone and around his lip and jaw. Trey didn’t press me for more information; he just kept digging until we were both standing in front of a pretty sizable hole, about three feet deep.

  “Do you think this is big enough?” he asked me. I nodded.

  “Where is she?” Trey asked, looking past me, toward the house. I realized he was offering to go inside and retrieve her so that I wouldn’t have to. I wasn’t sure if he knew the layout of our house, but then remembered that all of the houses on our block were basically carbon copies. “She’s on my bed,” I managed to say without my voice cracking.

  Trey went into the house while I stared ahead into space, daydreaming, watching my breath escape my mouth in barely visible white puffs as the day turned into evening and the warm sun disappeared over the horizon. I smelled fire and assumed that one of our neighbors was lighting their fireplace for the first time that autumn. The fireflies that had swarmed the yard just a few evenings ago were gone for the season. I swallowed hard; the thought that Moxie wouldn’t live to see another summer and bark at fireflies ever again made my chest hurt. Trey returned a few minutes later, carrying Moxie’s body effortlessly, as if she were weightless. I appreciated the care with which he gently set her down in the hole we’d dug, and arranged her paws as if he were trying to make her comfortable. I was on the edge of breaking into a tsunami of tears, knowing that it was strange to be so much more deeply saddened by the death of a dog than I was by the death of one of my own friends. Even assuring myself that Moxie was finally out of the constant nagging pain of her arthritis, and that maybe she was, at that very moment, looking down at me from heaven next to Jennie, didn’t comfort me much.

  “I’ll cover her,” Trey said finally, observing
that I hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d stepped back from the hole. Putting dirt on top of her was something I just couldn’t bring myself to do, I realized. I wasn’t sure if I would have found the necessary strength if Trey hadn’t been there, or if having him there provided me with an opportunity to be overwhelmed by my sorrow. But either way, I turned my back and quietly cried as Trey filled the hole again with dirt from the small mountain we’d made.

  “You can turn around now,” he announced a few minutes later, when there was a soft mound of gray dirt over where the hole had previously been.

  We both turned as we heard my mom’s car pull into the driveway, and the engine shut off. She stepped out of the car, still full of energy from an enjoyable day of teaching on campus, and waved at us over the top of the fence.

  “Hey, kids, what’s going on?” she asked, stepping through the gate. Immediately, her smile fell when she saw us standing awkwardly in the yard with our shovels, the pile of dirt visible behind us. “What is this?”

  “Mom,” I started, “it’s Moxie—”

  My mom put her hand up to silence me, already knowing what I was about to say. She looked down at the ground near her feet to avoid looking up at us. “All right,” she said abruptly, as if she simply couldn’t stand to hear me say the rest. “All right.”

  “It was very peaceful, Mom,” I blurted out, wanting to ease her pain in some way, but knowing that for Mom, Moxie’s death was the equivalent of one of the few remaining pieces of Jennie that she had left to cherish being ripped away from her. She was already on her way into the house, shaking her head, and I imagined that she would disappear into her room and not emerge until morning, as she sometimes did during the second week of October, the anniversary of Jennie’s death.