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Fiona was flipping through pages of her social studies book that she was supposed to be reading, looking for the answers to the questions at the end of the chapter when she suddenly saw him again. A guy with dark brown hair and entrancing eyes that watched her intently, not speaking a word as if he were afraid to approach her. One minute, he was far away, observing her, and then the next, he was right there, dancing with her. Dancing?
He…he was wearing a black tuxedo and black shirt, and absolutely gorgeous. Where was she that he was dressed so nicely? The prom? She couldn’t even tell what she was wearing. Something…white, she thought. Why would she wear something white? If she even thought of going to the prom, if she even had someone to go with to the prom, she would wear green—to match her eyes. Green was her favorite color. Even now, she was wearing a green T-shirt featuring a kitty cat with big green eyes wearing a black cape and black witch’s hat and blue jeans.
But why was she having these strange visions? Since…a couple of weeks ago?
Everything would blank out when it happened and everything was strange in her visions—no background, no way to identify where she was, as if she were in a dream where the people were like scrap art—only parts of them really present, the rest a blur, blending in with nothingness.
And the dreams at night—he would come to her, speaking to her, and she would talk to him, she thought—at least of what she could recall. But this vision was so real, like she no longer saw the dining room where she was seated at the table to do her schoolwork. Then the old and very annoying grandfather clock chimed six times, breaking her out of the vision. Ugh, she had to go.
She grabbed her social studies book, notebook, and pen and ran to her bedroom. The room was decorated all in black and white, from her black comforter to the black and white photos of roses on the wall. At least the dresser and bedside tables were white so it wasn’t quite as gloomy in her room as some parts of her great aunt’s house. The whole place needed a makeover.
She tossed her stuff on her bed and then shut the bedroom door. Pulling her shirt over her head, she toed off her sneakers at the same time. Then she slipped out of her jeans and grabbed her martial arts karate gi from the closet. Yeah, it was a copout when it came to a costume for the Halloween party, but she hated Halloween. She yanked on her pants and then belted her top on afterwards. Black belt. She smiled. At least no one would dare to get fresh with her or give her any other kind of grief. She hoped.
Emma pulled up out front of the house in her bright red Ford Focus and Fiona hurried to pull on her white tennis shoes, then raced to the front door. But then she paused. Why could she hear her friend’s car pull up in the drive? She had never been able to before, at least that she recalled.
She opened the front door, then closed and locked it. Not wanting her great aunt to show up and change her mind about Fiona going to the party, she raced to the car, yanked the door open, climbed into the passenger’s seat, and slammed the door closed. “Go, Emma.”
“You’re worried your great aunt will stop you? You said she gave you permission to go.” Emma wasn’t worried they would get into trouble over it. She had a bit of the devil in her.
“Yes,” Fiona said. “I mean, she gave me permission, but that doesn’t mean she won’t change her mind. She really didn’t want me to go.”
Emma had already pulled onto the road and headed for the school. “Your wish is my command.”
Emma had a hot boyfriend, but he was going with some of the guys to the party and would meet her there. Fiona thought it had been weird. Why not take Emma to the party? At least Fiona was glad she didn’t have to find another ride to the high school. She probably wouldn’t have been able to go then. Her great aunt wouldn’t take her. She’d already said so.
Tall, blond, outgoing, and never in a fluster, Emma was everything Fiona wasn’t. Well, except for the blond hair. For whatever reason, Emma had made Fiona feel welcome during her senior year, when everyone else ignored her like she was a brand-new freshman with a communicable disease. Instantly, seeing her friend, Fiona’s spirits lifted some, not a whole lot, but some. Emma’s blond hair was swept up in a chignon, an attempt at a period-style hairdo, while she wore a yellow southern bell gown.
Emma flashed her a chemically whitened smile, but then she frowned at Fiona’s attire. “I can’t believe you’re wearing your martial arts uniform.”
“I still can’t believe your boyfriend didn’t take you to the dance.” Fiona knew she’d get a lecture about her choice of costume. The best defense was to go on the offense. “I thought Randy would take you.”
“Yeah, if the guys ask him to go with them, he does it, forgets all about me, but when he sees me, all he’ll want to do is spend the time to dance with me.”
Fiona hoped that was true. She had never been to a dance at the high school here before.
When they arrived at the school, a lot of the kids were just arriving also, and headed inside the gym. Fiona had expected to see a variety of costumes from vampires to ballet dancers. What did she know?
But what did she see?
Dead cheerleaders. Dead soccer players. Dead jazz dancers.
Couldn’t anyone come to Portland High School’s Halloween party dressed as something less… dead?
Fiona and Emma went inside and immediately Emma saw her boyfriend. “Talk later.” She hurried off to meet up with the guy. He was wearing his football uniform. But Fiona figured Emma would think that was cool, not something to lecture her boyfriend about. Then they were dancing.
Fiona sighed with relief. She had been afraid that maybe he was breaking up with Emma and that’s why he didn’t bring her to the dance.
Then Fiona’s attention riveted to two ghoulish teens dancing together, a guy and a girl she knew were dating. They both gave her sickly, bloody smiles.
At seeing all the “dead” people, Fiona’s stomach twisted into knotted rope. Why would anyone mimic the dead? It seemed rude, even sacrilegious. Would any of them feel that way if their parents had died so recently? It added another reason why she didn’t like being at the party. Trying to curb her irritation, she tugged at her black martial arts belt and took another deep breath.
Rock music thundered in the gymnasium, shaking the floor and rattling the walls, while colorful rays of lights poked into the darkened room, making everything look eerily surreal. Decorated in faux cottony spider webs, jack-o’-lanterns, ghosts made out of someone’s white sheets, and hideous toothy ghouls painted on poster board, the place looked bad enough. But the ghoulish students squirming on the gym floor made the most hideous scene—a vision similar to something really bizarre in some other world of an apocalyptic, zombie flick.
Reminding herself she came here to earn extra credit in social studies—a subject she definitely needed help in—she vowed to stay for one hour, no longer. The alternative was returning home to her great aunt’s old people’s Halloween party. She wished her parents had warned her that her Great Aunt Regina was unusual, but odd didn’t begin to describe her or her friends. The really strange part was her parents had never even mentioned her before and then when they died she came to take Fiona home with her and had said she was Fiona’s dad’s aunt on his mother’s side.
Like any other Halloween, this appeared to be one more disastrous venture.
Fiona saw Emma finish a dance with Randy. He kissed her, then took off in another direction. Emma got a drink at the refreshments table, and she headed back through the twisting, turning dancers toward Fiona like an arrow shot from a bow, her drink held up high so no one would knock it out of her hand. Emma glided toward her in the yellow satin gown, the top cut low, and her breasts pushed up, looking as though she would fall right out of the gown if she leaned over just a tad. Emma smiled at her.
