It occurred to me then that I had a project due. My science project, which was . . . I couldn’t recall what it was, but that single fugitive memory, that anxiety, had crept through whatever blocked my memory and reminded me that I did truly have a need to get back.
My God, was that really my only reason for needing to get back to my life?
I took a deep breath and walked straight toward the Starbucks’ brick-and-plate-glass storefront. I steeled myself for impact and closed my eyes in a flinch.
There was no impact. I was on the other side of the window, inside the coffee shop, standing behind Samantha Early as she typed and paused and typed some more.
This is what I saw on her monitor:
what the French call, l’esprit de l’escalier. It means the spirit of the staircase, but what it’s really about is the way you always think of the perfect comeback after it’s too late, after you’re on the bus heading home from school, or in your mom’s car, or on the staircase, and then, ah hah! The perfect comeback.
Now Jessica knew what she should have said to Elise. She should have said, “I am sad for you that you care so much about how I look and what I wear. It must be hard for you being so superficial.” That’s what she should have said. But instead she
Messenger was beside me. I did not turn to look at him but said, “She’s a pretty good writer. I wonder what the story is about.”
“Wonder,” he said. It wasn’t an echo, it was an instruction.
So, I wondered, and gasped as the whole of it, the 72 pages that preceded that single screen, and the 241 pages that would come after it, were all suddenly known to me. As if I had read it all. No, not that, because even when you read a book, you forget a lot of it. This book, The Nightmare Clique, was known to me in every detail.
“It’s about a group of high school girls who use supernatural powers to bully kids they don’t like,” I said.
“That’s the story. Is it the real purpose of the book?”
I shook my head. “No. No, it’s really about Samantha. She is Jessica. And the nightmare clique is Kayla and her friends.”
Messenger nodded. “Shall we look at the happiest day in Samantha’s life?”
I was not so naive that I didn’t realize there was a danger in this. Seeing Samantha happy would only emphasize the awful tragedy of her death. But Messenger didn’t wait for an answer. Without any sense of movement we were suddenly in a different place. We were at Yolo’s, and Samantha was loading a large Styrofoam dish of frozen yogurt with Reese’s Pieces and Butterfinger crumbles. She paid at the register and glanced around, nervous that someone from school would see her piling on calories.
As soon as she sat down, she ate a big spoonful and while she crunched the cold candies, she checked her email on her phone. I saw the email, and in some way I could not yet hope to explain, I saw it more fully in Samantha’s mind.
It was from a literary agent.
I am very pleased to tell you that I would love to represent The Nightmare Clique. I think there is an excellent chance of selling it to a major publisher, and if you will sign the attached document, I will get to work immediately.
“She thinks she’s going to publish it!” I said. I was excited. There have been times when I thought of becoming a writer, but I would never have had the courage to actually submit a manuscript at my age. Samantha and I were the same age, and she had been brave enough to risk rejection.
I had pitied her. Now I admired her.
“Twenty-seven days from this moment, HarperCollins will agree to publish Samantha’s book,” Messenger said. “Samantha will read that letter seven times, will have no choice but to read it seven times. She will be frustrated by her compulsion, but she will also be elated. She will tell herself that now, at last, everything will change for the better.”
“But that’s not the way it works out,” I said.
“No,” Messenger said, and we were back in Samantha’s room, and her body was on the floor of her bedroom, stiffening, growing cold as it awaited her mother’s horrifying discovery that her only child was gone.
I shook my head. “I can’t do this, okay? I can’t. You have to let me go. I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to feel this, Messenger, whoever you are, whatever you are, I don’t . . .” I was crying. It should have been humiliating, crying in front of him.
“No one prefers this path,” he said. His voice was flat and devoid of emotion. But I saw something like nausea reflected in his expression. “No one would choose to feel another’s pain. But this is my . . . This is your fate, Mara.”
“No,” I said sharply. “This is all some kind of creepy trick!”
He didn’t deign to reply to that. He waited, silent, as the truth, or at least a part of it, began to sink in.
“I’m being punished,” I said.
Again, he said nothing. I wondered if I could find a way to feel what he was feeling, to know his mind as I had so easily penetrated the mind of Samantha Early, but when I turned my thoughts that way, I felt his mind retreat and fend me off.
It was like the door handle. I could see him, but I was not allowed to touch him. Not physically, not mentally. I was an open book to him, and he was closed to me.
I am not to be touched.
“Not all my . . . our . . . duties are quite so grim,” he said at last. “This terrible matter will hold for a while. And I think you could do with a change of scenery.”