That hair. It was just as Cassie remembered, impossibly long, an impossible color. The girl was facing the circulation desk, smiling and talking to the librarian. Cassie could feel the radiance of her presence from across the room.
She had the wildest urge to leap up and run to the girl. And then… what? She didn't know. But the urge was almost beyond her control. Her throat ached, and tears filled her eyes. She realized she was on her feet. She would run to the girl, and then-and then… Images flooded Cassie's mind, of her mother hugging her when she was young, cleaning out a skinned knee, kissing it better. Comfort. Rescue. Love.
“Diana!”
Another girl was hurrying up to the circulation desk. “Diana, don't you know what time it is? Hurry up!”
She was pulling the girl with the shining hair away, laughing and waving at the librarian. They were at the door; they were gone.
Cassie was left standing alone. The girl had never even glanced her way.
On Friday morning Cassie stopped in front of her locker. She didn't want to open it. But it exerted a bizarre fascination over her. She couldn't stand feeling it there, wondering what was in it and not knowing.
She dialed the combination slowly, everything too bright.
The locker door opened.
This time she couldn't even scream. She felt her eyes opening, straining as wide as the stuffed owl's. Her mouth opened in a soundless gasp. Her stomach heaved. The smell…
Her locker was full of hamburger. Raw and red like flesh with the skin torn off, darkening to purple where it was going bad from lack of refrigeration. Pounds and pounds of it. It smelled like…
Like meat. Dead meat.
Cassie slammed the locker shut, but it bounced off some of the hamburger that was oozing out the bottom. She whirled and stumbled away, her vision hazing over.
A hand grabbed her. For an instant she thought it was an offer of support. Then she felt her backpack being pulled off her shoulder.
She turned and saw a pretty, sullen face. Malicious dark eyes. A motorcycle jacket. Deborah tossed the backpack past Cassie, and automatically Cassie whirled, following it.
On the other side she saw shoulder-length blond hair. Slanted, slightly mad blue-green eyes. A laughing mouth. It was one of the roller-blade guys-the Henderson brothers.
“Welcome to the jungle,” he sang. He threw the backpack to Deborah, who caught it, singing another line.
Cassie couldn't help turning around and around between them, like a cat chasing a fur mouse on a string.
Tears flooded her eyes. The laughter and singing rang in her ears, louder and louder.
Suddenly a brown arm thrust into her field of vision. A hand caught the backpack in midair. The laughter died.
She turned to see through a blur of tears the cold, handsome face of the dark-haired guy who had stood with Faye that morning two days ago… could it really be only two days ago? He was wearing another T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the same worn-in black jeans.
“Aw, Nick,” the Henderson brother complained. “You're wrecking our game.”
“Get out of here,” Nick said.
“You get out,” Deborah snarled from behind Cassie. “Doug and me were just-“
“Yeah, we were only-“
“Shut up.” Nick glanced at Cassie's locker, with globs of meat still seeping out of it. Then he thrust the backpack at her. “You get out,” he said.
Cassie looked into his eyes. They were dark brown, the color of her grandmother's mahogany furniture. And like the furniture, they seemed to reflect the overhead lights back at her. They weren't unfriendly, exactly. Just-unimpassioned. As if nothing much touched this guy.
“Thank you,” she said, blinking back the tears.
Something flickered in those mahogany-dark eyes. “It's not much to thank me for,” he said. His voice was like a cold wind, but Cassie didn't care. Clutching the backpack to her, she fled.
It was in physics class that she got the note.
A girl named Tina dropped it on her desk, casually, trying to look as if she were doing nothing of the sort. She went right on walking and took a seat on the other side of the room. Cassie looked at the square of folded paper as if it might burn her if she touched it. Her name was written across the front in handwriting that managed to look pompous and prim at the same time.
Slowly, she unfolded the paper.
Cassie, it read. Meet me in the old science building, second floor, after school. I think we can help each other. A friend.
Cassie stared at it until the writing doubled. After class she cornered Tina.
“Who gave you this to give to me?”
The girl looked at the note disowningly. “What are you talking about? I didn't…”
“Yes, you did. Who gave it to you?”
Tina cast a hunted look around. Then she whispered, “Sally Waltman, all right? But she told me not to tell
anybody. I have to go now.”
Cassie blocked her. “Where's the old science building?”
“Look-“
“Where is it?”
Tina hissed, “On the other side of E-wing. In back of the parking lot. Now let me go!” She broke away from Cassie and hurried off.
A friend, Cassie thought sarcastically. If Sally were really a friend, she'd talk to Cassie in public. If she were really a friend, she'd have stayed that day on the steps, instead of leaving Cassie alone with Faye. She'd have said, “Thanks for saving my life.”
But maybe she was sorry now.
The old science building didn't look as if it had been used for a while; there was a padlock on the door, but that had been sprung. Cassie pushed on the door and it swung away from her.
Inside, it was dim. She couldn't make out any details with her light-dazzled eyes. But she could see a stairway. She climbed it, one hand on the wall to guide herself.
It was when she reached the top of the stairway that she noticed something strange. Her fingers were touching something… soft. Almost furry. She moved them in front of her face, peering at them. Soot?
Something moved in the room in front of her.
“Sally?” She took a hesitant step forward. Why wasn't more light coming in the windows? she wondered. She could see only glowing white cracks here and there. She took another shuffling step, and another, and another.
“Sally?”
Even as she said it, realization finally dawned on her exhausted brain. Not Sally. Whoever, whatever was out there, it wasn't Sally.