The Dead Boyfriend Read online

  She searched until she found the silver bird amulet. Then she carefully lifted it off the floor and tucked it into her pocket.

  Reverend Preller suddenly reappeared. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral ceremony began. He kept blinking rapidly, and one cheek twitched. He adjusted the sleeves of his brown jacket and kept clearing his throat nervously as he stepped up to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. The roar of screams and cries drowned him out. He tapped the microphone a few times. “Ladies and gentlemen, please.”

  The room quieted. He cleared his throat again. Played nervously with the knot on his necktie. His cheek twitched some more. “We’ve had an unfortunate incident,” he said.

  Those words caused everyone to start talking again.

  An unfortunate incident?

  Preller’s face reddened. He cleared his throat again. “I need to make this last announcement,” he pleaded. “The … burial will be held as scheduled. All are invited to Shadyside Oaks Cemetery. The family has requested that I tell you there will be no reception afterward. They request that they be allowed to deal with this devastating loss in privacy.”

  “But he isn’t dead!” someone shouted.

  This caused another roar of voices. I realized I was pressing my hands over my ears. I have to get out of here. I can’t take anymore.

  Julie and Miranda were talking heatedly to Preller, both gesturing and motioning to the coffin. I decided I would talk to them later.

  I started up the side aisle toward the back of the chapel. My chest felt heavy. It was hard to breathe. I needed fresh air. I needed to go somewhere and think. I needed to escape.

  I was halfway up the aisle when I realized Deena Fear was watching me. I stopped and turned toward her. She mouthed some words I couldn’t understand. She seemed to be pleading with me. Her expression was intense.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. But the voices ringing off the walls and low rafters were deafening. I couldn’t hear her.

  I gave her a quick wave. I didn’t want to talk with her. I had to escape. I turned away and trotted up the rest of the aisle. I pushed open the doors with both hands and stepped into the sunlight.

  The sudden brightness made me shield my eyes with one hand. I took a deep breath of the warm air. I saw a group of children laughing and chasing each other in a playground across the street.

  A sob escaped my throat. I wanted to be there playing with them. I wanted to be a child again.

  I took another breath and made my way down the concrete chapel steps. A young man in blue sweats and a red-and-blue Red Sox cap jogged past me, leading a small brown dog on a leash.

  The sunlight felt warm on my face. I left my car at the curb and wandered around for a while. I was dazed, Diary. In shock. Everyone at the funeral must have felt as upset and off-balance and totally weirded out as I did.

  After walking in circles around North Hills, I must have gotten back in my car. I must have driven home. I don’t remember the drive at all.

  The next thing I knew I was in my driveway. And then walking into the kitchen through the back door. I grabbed onto the kitchen counter. I felt dizzy and nauseous.

  “Mom? Dad?” I called out. But, of course, they were at work.

  I suddenly realized I hadn’t eaten all day. Maybe some food in my stomach would help calm me. I was on my way to the kitchen when my phone beeped.

  I picked it up and gazed at the screen. A text message. I didn’t recognize the phone number. I lowered my eyes to the message and read:

  It’s me. Deena. They didn’t bury him. It’s not too late.

  19.

  I stared into the glare of my phone screen. I read the message again. I knew what Deena meant. I didn’t have to puzzle over it.

  I pictured her standing so tensely in the chapel aisle, the bird amulet raised in front of her as she chanted, chanted, and concentrated. And made the corpse move. Made Blade sit up. Made him turn and point at me. Stare at me with those terrifying glass eyes.

  And I knew what she wanted now. She wanted to finish bringing Blade back to life. She wanted to finish what she started in the chapel. But why? Why did she want to bring Blade back?

  To find out who killed him? Did she believe if she brought him back, he would name his murderer? Namely me.

  The thought made me shudder. The phone slipped from my hand and dropped onto the kitchen floor. And as I fumbled to pick it up, it beeped again.

  And there was another text from Deena:

  It’s urgent. Come to my house NOW.

  And then another text:

  Don’t think about it. U don’t have a choice.

  I set the phone down on the kitchen counter. I didn’t want to hold it. I didn’t want to read any more messages from Deena Fear.

  “She’s crazy,” I murmured out loud. I opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of orange juice, tilted it to my mouth, and gulped it down. When I finished, I was breathing hard, my chest heaving.

  I loved Blade. At least, I thought I loved him. But I didn’t want him back. I didn’t want him alive again. Alive to tell everyone that I was a murderer, that I went into an insane rage and stabbed him, stabbed him, stabbed him.

  I knew if Blade came back … If Deena really could bring him to life again … my life would be over.

  How could I stop her from doing this? I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know how to stop her. But I definitely didn’t want to help her.

  I grabbed a container of tuna salad from the fridge and began forking it into my mouth. I was starving. I felt as if I had a vast canyon inside me. It wasn’t normal. I never get ravenous like this.

  Nothing was normal now. Nothing.

  People would be talking about the funeral forever. The corpse who sat up in his coffin. It would be on the news. It would be all over town … everywhere. A major news story—and a horrifying memory for everyone who was there.

  I stared at Deena’s text on my phone. I wanted to take the phone and heave it as far as I could out the back door. I wanted to be by myself. I didn’t want anyone to reach me.

  I jumped as the phone rang. Deena. She wasn’t going to leave me alone. She wasn’t going to give me a chance.

  I let it ring for a long while till I couldn’t stand it any longer. I swung it off the counter and pressed it to my ear. “Deena—leave me alone!” I cried.

  Silence at the other end. Then: “Huh? Caitlyn? Is that you?”

  “Julie?” I swallowed. “Oh, hi. I … thought it was a wrong number.”

  “Caitlyn, are you okay? You left the chapel without telling us. Miranda and I—”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I had to get out of there. It was all so weird and—”

  “It was so freaky, Caitlyn,” Julie said breathlessly. “When Blade’s body started to move, I … I thought I was in a horror movie. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “I couldn’t even scream,” Julie said. “I just held on to Miranda and watched. Everyone was screaming and fainting and crying and—”

  “It was too horrible,” I said. “Like a bad dream.”

  “No one could believe it,” Julie said. “That minister … He was a total nerd, wasn’t he? He tried to explain it. He said the floor was tilted and the coffin moved—not the body. He was trying to reassure everyone, I guess.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. My stomach growled. I opened the fridge and looked for something else to eat.

  “We’re not stupid. We saw what happened, Caitlyn. Right? It wasn’t the coffin tilting. Blade sat up. He was dead but he sat up and he tried to talk.” Her voice cracked. I heard her coughing.

  He tried to talk and tell everyone that I killed him.

  “Julie? Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No, I’m not okay. I’ll never be able to get it out of my mind. I’ll always see him sitting up in the coffin, straining and struggling. I’ll always see those weird green eyes. His hand slowly raising.
I’ll never be able to forget it. I … I think I’m going crazy, Caitlyn. Do you really think Deena Fear made him sit up?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. She’s a Fear, right? That family is supposed to know about all kinds of magic. Dark, frightening magic. You’ve heard the stories, too. We all have. How some of them had strange powers. I mean … that amulet she held…”

  “And she was chanting something. Oh my God, Caitlyn. Do you really think she made him sit up?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe she did. It’s too frightening to talk about, Julie. We have to try to get past it somehow.” Those words sounded phony, even as I said them.

  Why didn’t I tell Julie about the urgent texts from Deena, how Deena said it wasn’t too late? I don’t know. Maybe I thought if I didn’t tell anyone about Deena, she would go away. The whole thing would go away.

  “They didn’t bury him, Caitlyn,” Julie said. “The body is still in the chapel. Blade’s parents wouldn’t let them bury him. They were totally messed up. They were screaming and crying. It was horrible.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “They wouldn’t leave the coffin. They grabbed Blade’s body and began to shake it. They said it might come alive again. They said he wasn’t really dead. They saw him sit up. Everyone saw him. And they wouldn’t let him be buried in case he moved again.”

  “Oh, wow. Oh, wow.”

  “There was a doctor there, remember? You saw him. He revived Deena Fear when she fainted? Well … he managed to get Blade’s parents to step aside. It wasn’t easy. Finally, he examined the body.

  “And what did the doctor say?” I asked.

  “He said Blade was dead. Not breathing. The parents both started screaming for him to go away. And then that minister Preller started shouting for everyone to leave. He threatened to call the police if everyone didn’t leave the chapel right away.”

  “Oh, wow. Then what happened?”

  “It got way ugly. Blade’s parents grabbed the sides of the coffin and said they would never leave. Preller tried to pull them away. It started to be a real fight. Miranda and I … we hurried out of there. I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I didn’t want to be there when the police arrived. It was so horrible, Caitlyn.”

  “Oh, wow.” I didn’t know what to say. It was so hard to imagine …

  “Poor Miranda,” Julie continued. “She threw up on the sidewalk as soon as we got outside. She just heaved up her guts. She felt totally sick. She went straight home, and I … well … I wandered around for a while. In a total daze. I mean, I still feel sick and weird, and I can’t stop the shakes. I mean, it’s like it all followed me home.”

  “Julie, I feel the same way,” I said.

  “Do you want to come over?”

  I thought about it. “No. Sorry. I think I’m going to try to take a nap. Maybe if I sleep for a while, I can calm myself down a little.”

  “Oh. Okay. Call me later. When you wake up. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I clicked off.

  I knew I was lying. I knew I wasn’t taking a nap. I was driving to Deena Fear’s house.

  Why?

  That I couldn’t tell you.

  20.

  Shadows swallowed my car as I turned off Old Mill Road onto Fear Street. Tall, ancient trees on both sides had formed an archway over the street. Sunlight struggled to get through the tangled branches.

  Fear Street winds along the east side of Shadyside. Large, old houses, mostly stone and brick, line one side of the street. Most of them are far back from the street, sitting on wide front yards, hidden by tall, well-trimmed hedges.

  These are the oldest houses in town. They were built by rich settlers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the notorious Fear family (who were thought to practice strange dark magic.)

  The houses all face the Fear Street Woods, a thick tangle of tall, old maple, sycamore, and oak trees, deep silent woods that stretch for miles, and, some say, are always in shadow. That’s one of the many legends about the street. That the sun refuses to shine on the Fear Street Woods.

  So many dark stories.

  Everyone in town knows about the frightening animal howls in the woods late at night. The strange, darting creatures spotted by hunters, creatures running on two legs that no one could identify. And the two Fear sisters who, many years ago, were found dead in the woods with their bones all missing. Just their skin and organs resting under a tree. No bones.

  Yuck. This is what I thought about, Diary, as I drove under the tall, arching limbs over Fear Street, looking for Deena Fear’s house. Fear Street looks so normal and peaceful—even pretty—as you follow its curves. But most people in town, even those who are not superstitious, avoid it if they can.

  I slowed the car near the end of the street as the ruins of the Fear mansion came into view. Over a hundred years ago, the magnificent old house burned to the ground in a tragic blaze, a fire that consumed the whole house and everyone in it.

  Many said it was the evil in the house that caused the fire. It was reported that the screams inside the burning house lasted for hours—and continued long after the fire had been quenched.

  That was over a hundred years ago. To this day, no one has cleared away the charred wreckage of the house. There has been no one willing to clear it or to build a new house on the evil site. The black-and-burned mansion hunches on its sloping lawn like some kind of giant broken insect.

  A large stone guesthouse behind the mansion, nearly hidden at the edge of the woods, is where Deena Fear lives. I parked my car on the street. The driveway curving up to the mansion was overrun by tall weeds and burned pieces of lumber.

  As I made my way up the lawn past the wreckage of the mansion, a blast of wind from the woods nearly blew me over. I toppled backward, trying to keep my balance. It was almost as if I was being warned to stay back, to not come any closer.

  Why was I there? Why had I obeyed Deena’s summons and hurried here when everything told me to avoid her, to stay away. Every sign screamed danger. So why did I hurry to this forbidden spot to see this strange girl who wasn’t even a friend? Far from a friend.

  I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t explain it.

  I ducked my head, holding my hair down with both hands as another strong gust howled past me. I stepped around a deep pile of ashes and had to jump over a tall clump of weeds.

  The house was two stories high, very long, bigger than it appeared from the street. Several windows were shuttered. The others were all dark. The walls were a gray stone. The slanting shingled roof was painted red. The door at the side of the house appeared to be the only door.

  I raised my hand to knock—and the door swung open.

  Deena stood in the doorway. I heard classical piano music from the room behind her. “Come in.” She stepped aside. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see me.

  She hadn’t changed from the funeral. Same pleated purple shirt, black vest, long black skirt almost to the floor. She had tied her long hair back with a black velvet ribbon. She had a tiny silver spider in one pierced nostril.

  I followed her from the narrow front hall to a large living room. The rooms were all dark. One table lamp sent a dim gray light over the leather couch. The piano music grew louder. Two large painted portraits, an old-fashioned-looking man and woman, attractive but stern, cold-faced, unsmiling, faced the fireplace.

  “My famous ancestors,” Deena murmured. She motioned for me to keep walking.

  The hall led past a library. Sunlight filtered in through a high, narrow window. I saw floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with old books, a desk piled high with books, a stack of books on the floor.

  I couldn’t resist. “Do you like to read?” I asked.

  “Yes. But those books aren’t for everyone,” she answered. “You have to be interested in special things to want to read those books.”

  “Like what?”

  She didn’t answer. We turned a corner. I gazed do
wn the long hall. “Are we all alone here?”

  “No. My parents are here, too.”

  The hallway led to a large room at the back of the house. I blinked in the sudden light. The back wall was glass, looking out into the woods.

  Outside the window, tall weeds bent from side to side close to the house. A patch of spring wildflowers caught my eye. Beyond them, I saw a thick clump of evergreen shrubs.

  I heard a squawk.

  I blinked when I saw a parrot on a perch near the center of the room. “That’s Tweety,” Deena said. “He’s my favorite. Isn’t he a pretty boy?”

  The bird was beautifully plumed with red, blue, and green feathers. It hopped on the perch, as if it was excited to see us. It squawked again, making sure we were paying attention.

  My eyes caught a large aquarium on a table near the parrot perch. A single bed stood against the far wall. A desk with a laptop computer. A long, cluttered worktable, test tubes, glass pipes, like a chemist’s table, scattered papers, electronic equipment I didn’t recognize.

  “This is my room,” Deena said. “We can start here.”

  “Start what?” I asked.

  Again, she didn’t answer. She strode to the worktable and picked something up. When she turned, I saw that it was the silver bird amulet she had held at the chapel.

  She raised it so I could see it clearly. Then she stepped back into the circle painted on her floor. “We don’t have much time, Caitlyn.” Behind the owlish glasses, her dark eyes stopped on me. “If we want to do this…”

  “Deena—I don’t understand,” I said. “You have to tell me what you want to do.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Bring Blade back, of course.”

  My mouth dropped open. I started to protest, but no sound came out.

  Deena spun the amulet in her hand. “I came close in the chapel,” she said. “You saw. You saw how close I came. But it takes so much concentration. It takes so much out of me.”

  I couldn’t hold back. “Are you for real?” I cried. “You made the corpse sit up. But you don’t really think you can bring Blade totally back to life—do you?”