Prism Read online

  Faye Kellerman

  Prism

  Aliza Kellerman

  To the Biloon family:

  Ron, Jeremy, Ruthie, and Marcia—alehah Hashalom.

  May her spirit be in a better universe.

  —F.K.

  To my parents, my friends, and my siblings—

  the best friends of all.

  —A.K.

  Special thanks to Carrie Feron for starting the process.

  A very special thanks to Rosemary Brosnan,

  whose help and guidance were invaluable.

  —F.K. & A.K.

  Contents

  1

  I always half-believed that Fridays could make me fly. On…

  2

  Wednesday through Sunday: five glorious days without school even if…

  3

  “He didn’t get out?” Zeke was in a panic. “What…

  4

  Screams are like strings. Sometimes they’re thick and fat, sturdy…

  5

  This morning’s wake-up song was something by Metallica.

  6

  We were almost at school. Maria had turned perky again.

  7

  Once, in a dream, I couldn’t dial my own telephone…

  8

  I woke up shaky and disconcerted and I did lousy…

  9

  It was a defining moment.

  10

  The Nathaniel Hawthorne Library was housed in an old-fashioned building…

  11

  I never thought I’d find the mustiness and the dustiness…

  12

  Although it took me an hour to walk home from…

  13

  “So what the hell do I do?” Joy yelped.

  14

  When I got home, Jace was planted on the couch,…

  15

  “Hey,” Iggy said.

  16

  We left Rix Plac without saying another word to anyone.

  17

  For as long as I can remember, my perfect way…

  18

  When I was little, I used to rub my hands…

  19

  In a bad situation, it’s sometimes safer to depend on…

  20

  “Why are they chasing us?” I asked Ozzy. I was…

  21

  Zeke and I pulled apart when Joy approached us. She…

  22

  “…yes…a few second-degree burns, some gashes and cuts, and a…

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  I always half-believed that Fridays could make me fly. On days like this—with the air as crisp as a potato chip and the sky as clear as crystal—I felt featherlight as the three o’clock bell rang out, the most liberating sound on the planet. With my messenger bag strapped over my shoulder, I held my arms straight out at my sides and twirled like an Olympic skater, shrieking, “Thank God!”

  “Say it again, sweets,” Maria chimed in.

  “Thank!” I roared, “God!”

  She pulled one of my braids—a ratty purple thing—and her expression turned indecipherable. “Quick! Name five things more stupid than our upcoming class trip next week!”

  I tapped my shoe on the ground and looked back at the clean outline of Buchanan High School. “Male models, neopunk music, buttered-popcorn-flavored jelly beans, and the outfit I’m currently wearing.”

  “That’s only four!” she chirped as we walked leisurely away from school.

  “Okay! Okay, let’s see—”

  “How about Zeke Anderson? He’s pretty stupid.” Maria was the only girl—the only person—I knew who could tuck her shirt into her pants and wear suspenders ironically. She had recently hacked off her own hair, perhaps in a manic fit.

  I’m kidding, though. Maria’s not really manic.

  “Ah, the Zekester,” I said in a deep, jock voice. I then contorted my hand into the “rock on” symbol.

  “No, Kaida!” Maria was disapproving. “Swimmies don’t say rock on. They go like this.”

  She pulled out her hand to give me a high five and I smacked mine into her palm. I said, “Speaking of Monsieur Anderson, guess who’s in my van for the class trip?”

  “No!” she squealed, and pushed on the bag on my back.

  I stumbled forward. “Maria!”

  “Just kidding. Is Zeke really in your van?”

  “Would I lie about this?” I was muttering to myself. “He’s so…”

  The word I was looking for was ridiculous. Zeke Anderson was nothing but ridiculous. He was overachieving to the point of annoyance, the stereotypical high-school queen bee, except for the addition of a Y chromosome. And next Wednesday, starting at nine in the morning, I’d be stuck with him and the constant witticisms emanating from his wide, white-toothed grin for hours on end. Zeke Anderson: proof positive that a person can be too perfect.

  Growl.

  “Dreamy!” Maria crooned in falsetto.

  “Who’s in your van?” I had hopes of her being grouped with someone as equally hilarious as Zeke.

  She hesitated and gave me the pity smile. “Both Stephen and Iggy are in my van.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. She patted my head and I swatted her hand away. “You got Stephen…Stephen!” I was growling again. “And you got Iggy? How’d you get both of them?”

  “The good fairy must like me.”

  “Meaning the good fairy hates me? What’d I do to her to merit Zeke Anderson?”

  “There are worse things than Zeke the Geek.” Maria squeezed my hand. “Come on. Who else is in your van? You had to get a few okay people.”

  “The only other person is Tallon.” I pulled a pack of M&Ms out of my skirt. I love skirts with pockets.

  “Tallon…Tallon…As in Joy Tallon? You mean she’s the only other person in your van?”

  “Yes, and yes. Why? How many people are in your van?”

  “Like twelve. I guess there were an odd number of students and that’s why you have the small van. Well, cheer up, sugar. Joy’s kind of nice. Her only vice is that her breath is awful.”

  “That’s because she smokes like three packs a day.” Joy Tallon was smart. But it was the kind of intelligence that leads to boredom, isolation, and eventually sadness. She was fourteen and a sophomore. She was also pretty, but faded pretty, like her edges had been rubbed away. It just made her all the more tragic.

  “How do you think the trip will be?” Maria clearly wanted to change the conversation for my benefit.

  “Maria,” I said skeptically.

  “Yes, Kaida?” she replied with the innocence of a sock-hopper.

  “Maria, dear. Darling. My best friend in this whole universe. We have been discussing this all month! This trip is going to be awful. It’s going to suck. It will not be”—I cleared my throat and spoke an octave lower, to mimic Principal Warwick—“an educational experience that will broaden horizons.”

  Maria stared into the distance as we passed the local grocery store. We were about ten minutes from our houses. “I never did understand that figure of speech. You know, broaden your horizon. Isn’t everyone’s horizon more or less the same? How do you broaden it? By looking through 3-D glasses?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a horizon in the Serengeti is different from a horizon in the city.” I thought about that. “I need to go to the drugstore. I want to pick up some Benadryl before the trip.”

  “Benadryl?”

  “You know, in case there’s pollen or a dog or something.”

  “Sure.”

  We walked a few minutes in silence, enjoying the freedom that only a weekend can bring. Although Maria and I lived just an hour away from the lights and glam of Hollywe
ird, California, St. Denis could have been Anywhere, USA—a combination of old-town charm and ugly strip malls. Today we chose the old-town route where cars still parked on the diagonal. The stores that lined the avenue were one story and faced with brick. Not made of brick because St. Denis was still on the California fault line and subject to earthquakes.

  When we entered the Olde Chemist Shoppe—better known as a drugstore—a little bell sang out.

  Maria snarled in an attempt to be frightening. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be worried about a stupid dog causing you allergies. I’d be worried about the bats. I’ve heard they carry rabies.”

  “Excuse me?” The woman at the drugstore counter was young and blond…a few years older than us, and looked peeved.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Where’s your non-script allergy medicine?”

  “You mean nonprescription?” She raised her thin eyebrows. They were brown. Meaning her blond hair was fake. But then again, who am I—of the purple locks—to judge?

  “Exactly.” I smiled to make her feel simultaneously good and impolite.

  “Exactamundo,” Maria said. I tilted my head to the side. The lady looked at us as if we were mutants. We were teenagers. Close enough.

  “Aisle seven,” she said.

  “Thanks a bunch!” I saluted and Maria waved. She gave us a half grin. Most people are genuine at their cores once you get past the façade.

  “Benadryl, Benadryl, it’s not my friend-a-drill,” Maria sing-sang as I looked through the stacks of plastic bottles.

  “Why’s that?” I grabbed a bottle of Benadryl and walked back to the register manned by the bleached-blond cashier. It was a good dye job. I’ll give her credit for that.

  Maria said, “Once I took two tablets before a test because my eyes were really watery.”

  “So?” I handed the bottle to the cashier and she rang me up.

  “Six-fifty-two.”

  I handed her a ten.

  “So?” Maria was aghast. “Don’t you ever read the side effects? It makes you sleepy. I could barely concentrate on my own first name let alone the themes in The Scarlet Letter!”

  “Awful book.” I shook my head and grabbed my change and medicine.

  “You’re telling me. Maybe it wasn’t the Benadryl that knocked me out, after all. You should pop one of those on the van ride over.” She held the door open, and we continued on our journey home.

  “I won’t need one. With Zeke as a companion—”

  “That’s right! Zeke! I almost forgot.”

  “In all honesty, I’m kind of freaked about the whole thing.” I tipped the pack of M&Ms into my mouth and finished them off. “I get a bit paranoid in the dark.”

  “No way!”

  “For serious. Remember when Iggy asked me out to the movies?”

  “The disastrous date. I do recall that. You refused to explain why.”

  I sighed deeply. “There was a blackout in the theater. We’re sitting in total darkness and then all of a sudden we hear, ‘Everyone, stay calm, stay calm!’ Of course, I wasn’t calm at all. It was weird to hear people talk without seeing their faces. Meanwhile Iggy was trying to turn it into a romantic moment. He started whispering stuff in my ear—not even romantic stuff, just ordinary mundane talk. Like ‘My mom’s cooking pasta for dinner tonight.’ The whole thing was creepy and embarrassing.”

  I could tell Maria had actually been interested in the story, because she hadn’t interrupted once.

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe all that talk of his mom’s pasta scarred you for life. Can you still eat linguini?”

  “Har-de-har-har.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not saying that experience is what made me afraid of the dark. I’m using it as an example to show you just how afraid of the dark I am.”

  “It does get pretty dark down there in the caverns,” she said. “I understand your anxiousness, Hutchenson.”

  “Not a drop of natural light.” I said this more to myself than to Maria.

  “That’ll teach you to get over your fears really quick.” She grabbed my bottle of Benadryl out of the plastic bag and shook it like a castanet.

  “I don’t want to go into the caves.” When I had fears, I did everything in my power to avoid what caused them. Conquer and vanquish were words best reserved for faded, historic battles.

  “Who are you?” She snorted. “What have you done with the real Kaida? You know who I’m talking about. The girl who wears tie-dyed shirts with no shame. The young lass with the purple hair who actually makes polite conversation with homeless men? The Kaida who—”

  “Thank you, thank you. Your flattery is much too kind. I’m not scared of our classmates and I’m not scared of homeless men.”

  “Yet you’re scared of caves.” She chucked my chin and made a turn onto my street. “Well, then Carlsbad could indeed be—to quote the estimable Principal Warwick—an educational experience for you.”

  “Maria. Maria!”

  “I’m just saying. Stalagmites and whatnot. It could be all right. Hey!”

  “What?”

  “You could bring your flute. I could bring my violin. C’mon! How sweet would it be to say we jammed in a cave?”

  “Can you really call what we do ‘jamming’?” We stopped in front of my house, and I extracted my key, which was hidden under my headband.

  “Can and will,” Maria answered.

  I unlocked my door. The lock clicked and pinged. I love the noise of home, more harmonious than anything I could play on the flute. “My irrational fear of the dark will be the most heart-stopping thing during the whole experience. It’s going to be an atomic bore. And on top of that”—I opened the door—“I’m going to be spending a bucketful of time with Zeke and Tallon.”

  Maria slid her backpack off her shoulders and held her arms open. I fell into them, resting my head on her muscular shoulder. Maria was fond of lifting my brother’s weights. So much so that she bought her own set of ten-pounders. “I’ll come over tomorrow and make sure you’re not packing anything so shredded and tattered that it’ll disintegrate on your body.”

  “You’re a good friend.” I smiled, left her embrace, and shut my door.

  It was only in my room that I could have safe darkness. It was there, in my own space, where I controlled everything. In my own universe, I could make darkness comfortable, something soft and enveloping, like a king-size flannel blanket. Something you looked forward to after a hard day.

  But in a cave darkness was black and suffocating, a force that pressed and constricted your body, crunching your bones and deflating your lungs. And no matter how hard you screamed, it kept on…squeezing tighter…sharper…harder…on and on…until you felt as if you were nothing at all.

  2

  Wednesday through Sunday: five glorious days without school even if it meant being stuck in a van with Zeke Anderson and Joy Tallon. So far, they were okay.

  “I like your hair,” Zeke said.

  I couldn’t tell whether or not he was being facetious. I gave him a close-lipped smile. “Thanks.”

  “Was it always that way?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I don’t mean the color, I mean the style.”

  I looked out the window. There was nothing but an expanse of brown, tan, and beige spangled with small bursts of dark green.

  “You mean long?”

  “Long and, like, you know…” his voice faded just like civilization had done a few hours ago. The terrain was endless and desolate, and occasionally a wind-whipped dust devil swirled across the roadside. It was enough to make a person hallucinate.

  Poor Mr. Addison—one of my favorite teachers—was stuck driving solo because Mr. Lahte, his codriver, had come down with the flu. The trip from our town was around ten hours of straight driving, but we had made a few stops along the roads. Our last oasis had been a general store somewhere near the Arizona/California border. I had purchased some Coyote Cream because my s
kin felt as dry as parchment. And now we were driving past nowhere and nothingness. We were scheduled to stop for the night somewhere near the New Mexico border, but we still had a few hours to go.

  Zeke’s eyes were swimming-pool blue, custom designed to match his swim team status. He was tall and so long limbed that he verged on gangly. He was cute, not in the way mothers commented on, but in the way teenage girls commented on. He had a pretty girlfriend named Leslie Barker. She was thin but for two adorable rolls of fat on either side of her hips.

  At the moment, Zeke’s aqua eyes were vacant, roaming around my face.

  “My hair wasn’t always long,” I answered. “When I was younger, it was short and shiny. Now it’s a giant mess.”

  “It’s not—”

  I waved him off. “Yes, it is a giant mess. I like it like that…sort of.”

  His eyes wandered from my face into the rearview mirror, where we could both see Joy Tallon sleeping, sprawling over three seats. There were two rows in back, and she occupied the row right behind the driver. She was wearing white K-Swiss shoes with brown stripes.

  Zeke leaned over and knocked her feet lightly, but she remained asleep. I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over her seat. She was turned over on her side and there was a red splotch on her face where her fist had indented her cheek as she slept.

  “I’m not blind over here, Kaida!” Mr. Addison called from the driver’s seat. “Get down and put your seat belt on!”

  “But you’re going about seven miles per hour!”

  “It’s twenty-five, FYI, and even if we were going seven miles per hour, you’d still need to buckle up.” The wind buffeted the car. Mr. Addison swerved to overcompensate. “Seat belt on now!”

  I slumped back in my row and clanked my seat belt shut. As I heard its closing click, I also heard the metallic slide of another seat belt opening.

  Joy sat upright, her head appearing in front of Zeke and me like we had conjured it up magically.

  “Ms. Tallon!”

  “What?” she croaked groggily. It sounded like “whote.”

  “Your seat belt!” Mr. Addison shouted back. He was a nice guy in his mid-forties. He had muttonchops that he should’ve shaved off a long time ago and wore a different hat each day to cover his bald head. In honor of the ride to the caves, he had on a Stetson cowboy hat. His age was revealed by the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. I liked these kinds of wrinkles. They meant he had smiled and laughed a lot.