Brimstone Read online

  8

  maybe Nancy Drew isn’t the coolest role model. There are a lot more kick-ass heroines nowadays, like Buffy and that chick from Alias. But I had a retro fondness for the girl detective. I didn’t know what I’d find at the pool, but I knew I had to take a closer look. If Karen caught a whiff of icky weirdness, too, then it wasn’t just my freaky intuition.

  The school was far from deserted when I pulled into the parking lot. The baseball and basketball teams had practice. There was a meeting of the decorating committee for the You-Know-What. There would be people still in the newspaper and yearbook offices. And of course, rehearsals for the musical would go until late.

  I was worried the aquatics gym might be locked, or full of swimmers, but my timing was good. As I wove through the locker room, a bunch of dripping, broad-shouldered girls passed on the way to the showers, chattering about split times and fly strokes. I acted like I was supposed to be there, nodding to them and walking purposefully to the pool entrance.

  I hung back against the wall until I saw the boys and their coach pass, leaving the gym empty. My rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as I ventured in. The high dive loomed at the end of the vaulted building, the low board squatting alongside like its own little henchman.

  I forced myself to the lip of the diving pool and looked down. A wave of vertigo hit me, as if I were standing on the edge of a high building. If I fell, the water would swallow me, suck me under, as whatever lurked unseen in the depths captured me with fins and tentacles and dagger-like teeth.

  Get a grip, Maggie. Sweat prickled under my arms. What would Nancy do?

  She wouldn’t let her imagination defeat her, that’s for sure. Taking my camera from my bag, I inspected the safe end of the low board first, working up to the hard part. No greasy spots, no loose screws. When I could put it off no longer, I hung my camera around my neck and grabbed the handrail. Nothing left to do but walk the plank.

  My palms left foggy prints on the metal as I edged toward the end of the railing and stopped. My next step would be over the water. I extended my foot …

  And retreated.

  My inner chicken was firmly in control.

  “All right, Mags.” My voice rang in the empty gym. “Don’t be ridiculous. Suck it up and just do it.”

  God. I sounded like my mother, gene-spliced with Coach Milner. But it had become a point of honor now.

  Fists white-knuckled on the railing, I lowered myself to straddle the board. Then I scooted out, my center of gravity glued to the fiberglass. A ridiculous method of locomotion, but it worked. My feet dangled over twenty-one fathoms of water.

  I reached the end with a thrill of satisfaction that quickly turned to disappointment. I’d risked my continued enjoyment of oxygen for nothing. But then I ran my finger over the textured surface and left a swath of lighter-blue behind.

  A strange grimy blackness outlined the whorls of my fingerprints. It wasn’t slippery, like motor oil, though there was an oily sort of quality. But sooty, like the stuff that collects on the chimney glass of a hurricane lamp.

  Could it have caused Karen to slip? I didn’t think so. I could vouch for the nonskid treatment of the board; my jeans had rasped with every scoot. Plus, no one else had fallen and the scum coated the board in a thin, complete layer.

  After photographing several angles, I sat for a moment, getting the courage to unclamp my legs and move again. I knew I should appease my grandmother by looking at this with my, I don’t know, instinct, inner sight, third eye, whatever you want to call it. But I didn’t know how to begin. I’d been slamming shut the door of my skepticism for so long, I had no idea how to open it.

  I sighed and gave up trying to make it happen. As soon as I did, I got a flash, clear as a bell: I had to get out of there. The sudden certainty of it made my stomach jump and twist.

  I hurried, but not even the Amityville Horror moment could make me anything less than overcautious. I scooted backward the same way I’d gone out, and as soon as I was over dry land I swung off the board, grabbed my backpack, and fled.

  The locker room was empty except for the drip of the showers and the musty smell of mildew and old sneakers, but the feeling didn’t abate. I ducked out, and the door had just closed behind me when I saw Halloran headed down the hall, wearing a face like thunder.

  “Margaret Quinn!”

  First of all, my name is not Margaret. Second of all, no one could hold a candle to my mother when it came to the Invocation of the Full Name. The mere threat of Mom bellowing “Magdalena Lorraine Quinn!” had always guaranteed my unwavering obedience. All other attempts at given-name intimidation fell far short by comparison, especially when attempted by ex-Jock assistant principals who couldn’t be bothered to get it right.

  “What are you doing back here?” He might not know my name, but he did know that I didn’t darken the door of the gym unless my graduation credits demanded it.

  “I left my swimsuit in the locker room. But the door is locked, so I couldn’t get it.”

  Eyeing me suspiciously, he tested the door. It didn’t budge. No mojo there; I had heard it latch behind me. Unable to catch me out in a lie, he turned grumpy. “What are you doing at school so late?”

  “I need to take some pictures of play practice.” Boy, those thespians were darned handy.

  “Well, I’m headed that way myself. I’ll walk with you.”

  The auditorium was in the opposite direction from my car. But if Halloran suspected I’d been taking pictures of the diving board he’d confiscate my camera in a second, on the remotest possibility of a lawsuit.

  So I let him escort me to C Hall. He watched me all the way up to the auditorium doors, where I slipped in without saying thanks.

  Rehearsal was in full swing; compared to that morning, it was a marvel of organization. On the stage was a simple but artistic set and in front of it Thespica danced in a blue gingham dress, singing about chicks and ducks. Honesty forces me to admit she seemed quite good, for someone singing about farm animals.

  The drama teacher saw me. I held up my camera, then pointed at the stage. He nodded and went back to scribbling notes on a legal pad. I found a good angle and took some shots of the star, then of her “Granny” as she came onstage in a frumpy outfit that my granny wouldn’t be caught dead in. Though the same could be said of the farm, really.

  When they stopped the action to work out a scene change, I slipped backstage, thinking I might grab a couple of pictures of the crew. Foolishly, I did not realize it would be pitch-dark there. The only lights were blue—either a blue bulb or a normal work light with some kind of blue plastic covering it.

  “Hey,” said a guy in a black T-shirt, looking officious. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

  “I wanted to get a look behind the scenes. At the unsung heroes, you know.” Yes, shameless flattery is my friend.

  “Well … all right. But try and stay out of the way.”

  “Thanks.” I edged toward the wall, where a blue light illuminated a stand with a script on it. Backstage was not as big as I thought. Set pieces and actors and crew were stuffed tightly in the available space.

  I think the black clothes were supposed to make the stage crew inconspicuous, but I noticed Stanley Dozer almost immediately, despite the crowded darkness. Man, that boy kept turning up like a six-foot, five-inch bad penny.

  Still more interesting, he looked nothing like the sour dweeb I’d seen earlier. I watched him bend to listen to something a girl in costume said, then he gave a muted laugh.

  Stanley Dozer, you fickle son of a gun. I couldn’t judge if the girl returned his interest, but his infatuation was plain on his homely face.

  “Dude.”

  It took a moment to realize that someone was talking to me. I’m not the girliest girl ever, but no one has ever mistaken me for a guy before.

  “Dude.” The guy at the prompting stand repeated it until I turned. “Your ass is glowing.”

  “What?” Definite
ly not something I expected to hear in the normal run of things.

  “Your ass is glowing. Dude, what did you sit in?”

  I craned around to look. Sure enough, in the deep violet lamplight, the seat of my jeans glowed fluorescent blue.

  Great. A radioactive butt. What a topper for the wedding cake of disaster that had been my day.

  9

  finally, all those CSI reruns were going to pay off. As soon as I got out to my Jeep, I stripped off my jeans and tucked them into a plastic grocery sack, tying off the top to preserve the evidence. Of course, this meant I had to drive home in my underwear, but I had a ratty old wool picnic blanket in the back of the car. I wrapped it around my waist, and headed home.

  Beltline was the most direct road, but it was the main drag through Avalon, and always clogged with traffic. The street led past the most important places in town: the red brick downtown area, the university, my school, the hospital, and if you kept going it would take you to the mall near the state highway bypass, the “new” high school (built only twenty years ago), and the treeless subdivisions where my dad refused to live. Going south you’d pass the Wal-Mart, the bars that catered to people who wanted to drink more than dance, and eventually the lumber mill and the paper plant, thankfully far enough away that it only stank when the wind was very strong from the southwest.

  The upshot of this arrangement was that Beltline was the last road you’d want to take when you were bottomless in a topless Jeep.

  The back way home wound through a residential area, between a park and the west side of the university campus. There was exactly one traffic light on the route. I was stopped there, mulling over the glow-in-the-dark spooge, when I heard my name.

  “Maggie?” Justin MacCallum was loitering on the corner, wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt and athletic shorts. His short hair stood up in damp spikes, which emphasized the clean, chiseled planes of his face. And the rest of him … Wow. Michelangelo could have sculpted those thighs.

  He smiled as though I hadn’t been in a total snit the last time he’d seen me. “I thought that was you.”

  “What are you doing here?” Not the most intelligent question, but at least I managed to drag my gaze up to his face.

  “I was running in the park.”

  “Running from what?” The light turned green and the car behind me honked. With a gesture to Justin, I pulled through the intersection and into the tree-shaded parking lot.

  I turned in the seat as he jogged over. “Actually, I have a question for you.”

  He looked surprised. But then, so was I. The words had sort of popped out of my mouth. My thoughts were going in a bizarre direction, and I would have rejected the idea completely, except maybe I still had my Nancy Drew thing going on, and good detectives don’t eliminate things without examining them from all angles.

  “Okay, shoot,” he said, with a crooked sort of smile.

  The afternoon was warm and humid, and the wool blanket was extremely itchy, but I tried not to scratch. “Is there really such a thing as ectoplasm?”

  “Ectoplasm?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “You know how in Ghostbusters, when the ghosts leave behind that slime when they touch something?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because you’re the one getting a degree in weirdology.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, mulled over a few responses, and finally settled on, “Do you think you’ve seen a ghost?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” I’d begun thinking about phantoms when Karen told me about the shadow, even before I found the fluorescent soot. “I’m considering all possibilities.”

  Justin seemed intrigued; he leaned on the roll bar of the Jeep and I couldn’t help thinking that he smelled awfully good for such a sweaty guy. “Okay. The way I understand it, ectoplasm is—supposedly—an ethereal substance that manifests when a spirit is present, like while a medium is channeling at a séance.”

  “So it’s sort of like a psychic snail trail?”

  His brows twitched in suppressed laughter. “I haven’t heard it described in quite that way.”

  I thought about taking issue with his amusement, but stayed focused. “But does the stuff actually exist?”

  “There was a lot of research done when that kind of spiritualism was popular at the turn of the twentieth century. But there are so many frauds, it’s hard to say.”

  I pursed my lips, dissatisfied with the nonanswer. “What about you? Do you think it exists?”

  “I keep an open mind.” He smiled at my frustrated sound. “I have some books.” A pause, while he seemed to mull something over. “That’s my dorm there. Drive over and I’ll get them for you.”

  “Sorry. I can’t. I’m not wearing any pants.” Now there was a phrase I never thought I’d say out loud.

  “Oh.” He glanced down, then quickly back to my face. “I just thought that was a very ugly skirt.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed my phone from the drink holder. “What’s your number? In case I have more questions.”

  He rattled it off and I punched SAVE.

  “What if I want to get in touch with you?” he asked.

  “About my alleged psychic powers?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then think about me real hard, and I’ll know to give you a call.” I flashed a sunny smile, put the Jeep in gear, and drove away. For the first time that day, I felt as if I’d gotten the upper hand in a human interaction.

  I dreamed of blue fire that night, burning in a big, beaten metal bowl, with engravings scrolling around the edges. There was liquid in the brazier, too. It didn’t quench the fire, but made the clean blue flame hiss and spit and throw out thick black smoke. As the darkness rose, it didn’t drift aimlessly, but pulled into the center and coalesced into a shapeless mass.

  I watched, both repulsed and fascinated as the thing built itself from soot and shadow. It seethed above the flames with sentient awareness. Though it had no eyes, I knew the moment it looked back at me. Somehow, on some strange dream plane, it saw me. More than that, it recognized me.

  A shock of fear and revulsion jolted me awake. My eyes opened but I lay frozen, afraid to move in case some thing was there, in the room with me. I heard nothing but the blood pounding in my ears, saw nothing in the stripes of moonlight that fell through the curtains. I forced myself to turn my head, to search the darkness, but I was alone.

  Just a dream. I repeated it like a mantra.

  Then I whispered it like a prayer.

  I woke in a lousy mood. I had washed underwear and shirts the night before, but my last marginally clean pair of jeans had been bagged and tagged. I found a casual skirt and put it on with a sunny yellow T-shirt and a pair of Converse. Mom’s reaction when I reached the kitchen was predictable.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  I got my coffee cup out of the dishwasher as I answered. “No. I just put it on to annoy you.”

  “If you would go to bed at a decent hour, you wouldn’t be so grumpy in the morning.” She frowned at my extra-tall travel mug. “You wouldn’t need to drink so much coffee, either.”

  “It’s my drug of choice, Mom. Be grateful.”

  She sighed. “I know. I just thank God you turned out as well as you did.”

  I cast her a grumpy look on my way to the door. “It’s nice to know you think I could have turned out worse.”

  Her voice followed me out. “You need to eat some breakfast!”

  I scored an excellent parking spot at school, and was downing the last of my coffee when a shadow fell across me.

  “Cheese and Crackers!” I screeched and mopped at the splashes on my skirt. “What is it with you and sneaking up on people?”

  Bobby Baywatch smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m a little jumpy.”

  “I noticed.” His hair had pale highlights from the sun, which might have looked girly on some
one else. With his tan and his lifeguard physique, though, it worked.

  “Can I help you carry anything?”

  “Let me get out of the car, first.”

  I loved my Wrangler. My trusty steed was safari brown—mostly—and bore the scars of a long and useful life. But it was impossible to exit with any grace. It figured I would be wearing a skirt.

  Once I’d lost my dignity but gained my feet, I handed him my books then grabbed my backpack and the plastic bag of jeans. He ignored my attempts to reclaim the heavy stack of texts, and started walking toward school. “Hey, Sir Lancelot.” I trotted after him. “Isn’t there a Jessica looking for you somewhere?”

  He shortened his stride; considerate of him not to make me run to keep up. “There might be, but that’s her business. I’m friends with Brandon and Jeff. I don’t … None of the girls is …”

  “Your girlfriend?” I felt sorry for any girl who was, since he couldn’t even say the word.

  “Right.”

  “My mistake. Three guys, three girls. You always look paired off like tasty packs of snack cakes.”

  “Well, we’re not.”

  We passed the tennis courts and the gym, and curiosity got the better of me. “So are you stalking me, or what?”

  He stopped, and I did, too, since he had my books. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened in the locker room yesterday.”

  The day had been so jam-packed with wackitude that it took me a moment to realize what he meant. As soon as I did, my heart twisted in dread. I could literally feel the blood drain from my face, like someone had pulled a plug. “The picture? She actually sent it out?”

  “No.” His quick reassurance didn’t make me stop wishing for a bathroom to hide in. “She just showed it to the gang.”

  “Oh, just to the six people who hate me the most. Great. I hope you had a good laugh.” The blood had rushed back to my head, making my ears burn.

  “Well, I didn’t laugh.”