What Gifts She Carried Read online

  “Oh.” It took a while for what she said to sink in, but when it did, a stone settled on top of my chest. He was leaving. He and his beard would go to college and gain instant celebrity status among the population who had eyes. He was leaving, and I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to after the last few days. It didn’t make the sudden pain in my chest any less sharp, though. But why didn’t he tell me himself?

  Jo shrugged. “At least you have Tram.”

  “Yep.” My voice came out as a whisper since nothing with much force could get past that rock that felt as though it was crushing me. It didn’t make any sense why I should feel this way. I didn’t have any claim over Callum. He was a big boy. Still, it felt like a slap to the face that he didn’t tell me this. That he was leaving me. The boy who my thoughts sometimes strayed to even though they shouldn’t.

  “Are you okay?” Jo reached across the table, palm up, probably reading everything that had just crossed my mind.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, and squeezed her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

  I STOOD ALONG THE EDGE of the sidewalk, staring at my overturned bike in the yard, with a weird shifting kind of pain settling into my head. Yeah, I had every right to a headache, what with Tree Ica and other dead things coming back to life. And Callum... But this was more than that. The feeling seemed to seep into my brain, and twisted it all up into a pretzel so tightly, I fell to the grass with a low moan. What the hell was wrong with me? Maybe the stresses of this new life were getting to me.

  Even though I wanted to go pet Mom’s lilacs and then get out of the sun to look through my baby book like Mom had directed, it felt as if I would never make it that far. I probably just needed more sleep in my own bed instead of underneath Darby’s.

  If I turned my back to the wind and focused on the spin of my tire wheel, my stomach didn’t seem so bad. I would just have to live on the yard for the rest of my life since I couldn’t get up.

  Mrs. Gonzalez soon pulled in with Maria and Darby chatting excitedly in the backseat. I thought about getting up to whisper in Maria’s ear that Bobby Fever puts little girl ears in his breakfast cereal so she would stop talking to Darby about him, but decided against it. Changing their minds about him was probably just as easy as changing mine about punk rock. Never going to happen.

  I waved to Mrs. Gonzalez as she pulled out of the driveway then handed my key to Darby. “You can go on in if you want.”

  She glanced at the front door and swallowed. “I’ll wait with you until Dad gets home.” Her stretched-to-the-limit backpack landed next to me with a loud thud.

  “More homework?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Bonham is the devil. That’s the only explanation,” she said and plopped down next to her bag and across from me so half her butt was on the sidewalk.

  “We can move somewhere else if you want.”

  A wary look crossed her face as she looked over my shoulder, but it disappeared when she shrugged. She seemed almost nervous about something. “I’m good.”

  “You okay?” I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to pick apart her brain.

  “Well, we could use a vending machine out here.” She unzipped her backpack to show me the stacks of notebooks and books, and I let loose an impressed whistle. “Don’t you ever have homework anymore?”

  She didn’t answer my original question, but I chose to ignore that. For now. She couldn’t keep anything from me for long.

  “Finished it already.” Yeah, right. Homework was so far down my to-do list, I couldn’t even see it.

  The garage door opened as Dad’s car pulled in during the middle of problem number twenty-eight of Darby’s math homework. We’d had to get up and chase the paper twice because of the stupid wind.

  “Hi, girls,” Dad said after he’d parked his car in the driveway instead of the garage. “It’s a little windy to be doing homework outside, isn’t it?”

  “We couldn’t go inside,” Darby said.

  Dad flipped his jacket over his shoulder. Sweat darkened the armpits of his white shirt. “Why not? Where’s your key?”

  Darby dragged her backpack into the garage. “In my bag.”

  I shook my head when Dad turned his bunched eyebrows toward me. “We could’ve gone inside but we chose not to.” How else could I explain it?

  “Hmm. What’s with the sweat suit?”

  “Oh, this? I spilled paint all over myself in art and this was the only thing the school had for me to wear. It’s pretty craptastic, but...” I shrugged.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you without all your black.” He took my outstretched hand to help me up and walked with me into the garage.

  As soon as the cool dark hit me, I felt instantly better. I took off my sunglasses and breathed deep.

  “I called Herman about the attic today, but his secretary said he’d had to rearrange his schedule because he’s tied up with something else,” Dad said, glancing up at the attic door in the ceiling. “I’ll go check it out quick after I change my clothes if you take care of dinner. All right?”

  I nodded while a shiver skidded up my back. No way would I let him go up there alone. I followed him inside, and we used each other’s shoulders for balance to take off our boots and shoes. With my fingers still tucked inside mine, I dialed the nearest Chinese restaurant that delivered. That was me taking care of dinner. Dad just grinned and shook his head.

  When he disappeared down the hallway, a soft thump sounded from above. Worry clawed at my gut. What was up there?

  I made my way down the hallway, listening, and poked my head inside Darby’s room. Only drawings of mermaids and unicorns stared back from their place on the walls.

  When I entered my bedroom, a loud bang punctured the silence. I jumped. Goose bumps rose along my arms. Another bang a few feet from the last one. And another right over my head like loud, heavy footsteps. One more out in the hallway.

  I whirled around and screamed.

  Half of Darby’s face peered in through the doorway.

  “Darby,” I gasped, clutching my chest. “Tell me when you’re standing behind me.” My rushing blood dripped a sharp edge into my words.

  She pushed away from the wall and glared. “Sorry.” Then she stalked to her room and slammed the door.

  I sighed, still trying to get my hammering heart under control. She was such a little broody-moody lately. Wonder where she got that from?

  I threw on something less hot than sweats since I knew it would be stuffy in the attic, then I grabbed an ash tree key from my floor and a nail in case I needed to draw blood. Just in case.

  By the back door, I stepped into my boots again and entered the garage. A small rectangular door cut into the ceiling marked the attic’s entrance. A red rope tied to the end in a knot would pull it open. I scratched at my palms and gazed up at it. If Tram was here, he would tell me it was just an attic and nothing more. But no matter how much I repeated it to myself, it did nothing to stop the flashes of what could be lurking up there from spiking into my brain.

  Wind lifted the fingers of Mom’s purple gardening gloves along the back wall. It looked like they waved me on to get this over and done with.

  Okay, Mom. Let’s do it.

  Several deep breaths later, I pulled the rope and the door creaked open. I reached up a tentative hand and unfolded the ladder. Nothing but inky darkness covered the entrance. Stale hot air wafted from inside with a hint of decay. Something was definitely dead up there, but it could be anything, things worse than what haunted my brain.

  Dad came out in shorts and a t-shirt. “Hey. Whoa. I’m climbing up there, remember?”

  I glanced up into the black hole, my scalp prickling. No matter how much I didn’t want to go up there, no matter how much I didn’t want whatever lurked up there to do with me, I wasn’t about to let my only parent go up alone.

  “I’ll go up, too,” I said. “You’re getting old. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m not that old,” he mumbled.

/>   “It’s okay, Dad,” I said, stepping up onto the first rung. “I got this.”

  “Well, you’ll need a flashlight.” He took two from the table by the trash can and tested them both. Satisfied, he handed one to me.

  I set my other foot on the ladder. The concrete floor, just a few inches underneath me, swayed. I swallowed. “Hold the ladder for me?”

  He pressed a hand to the crease between the hinges. “Of course.”

  I kept my gaze aimed at Mom’s gloves while I climbed. The hot dead stink grew stronger. It swirled around me, pressing in. Sweat trickled into the collar of my shirt and slicked over my upper lip. The smell, the dark, the closed-in space twitched my fingers. They wanted to poke those memories and everything associated with them from my brain by ripping holes into my shirt. I clung to the ladder and gasped for breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Dad asked from far, far below.

  “Heights,” I whispered. “Not a fan.”

  The ladder creaked. Dad’s hand grasped the heel of my boot. “Come down, Leigh.”

  “No.” I looped my flashlight hand around the top rung and spread the holes at the bottom of my shirt wider with a satisfying rip and a cough to muffle it. A shaky breath of air filled my lungs. “I’m fine.” No, I wasn’t, but at least I could breathe. “Did...did Herman spray up here for spiders when he was here?”

  “I’m sure he did.” The ladder creaked under Dad’s weight. He was on his way up.

  ‘I’m sure he did’ didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but it would have to do. One more step, and my head poked through the opening. I turned on the flashlight and tipped the beam over boxes coated in layers of dust.

  Tram said fear made you sharper. Well, consider me a scalpel.

  I palmed the nearest box to steady myself as I climbed higher. Thick dust left a gritty film on my skin, and it coated the insides of my nose when I breathed in. I stood in a crouch since the ceiling pressed too close to my head, but if I stepped farther out, I would be able to stand tall again.

  “Tell me if you see anything I don’t,” Dad called, just a few steps below.

  “Okay.” I wound around the maze of boxes until they hid the light from below. The glow of the flashlight bounced around the support beams above, throwing shadows into the far corners. An old Christmas tree spray-painted with fake snow leaned against the pink cotton candy insulation that escaped through the walls.

  “There you are,” Dad said and shined his light directly into my eyes. “See anything yet?”

  I cried out and turned my back on him. “Now I just see spots.”

  “Sorry,” he said, tucking his nose into the crook of his arm. “Something definitely died up here.”

  “Smells that way,” I said.

  What was it though? Something normally dead or something undead? The giant granny spider twins that I was sure had died at Whaty-Whats? The bird with the broken neck who’d tried to kill me? A squirrel? I hoped with all my might it was just a simple squirrel.

  My light fell to the right where a box had tipped over from a high stack and spilled an old basketball and other sports equipment to the floor. I picked my way over it, trying to blink away the colorful explosions behind my eyes.

  The pointed end of something big lay on the floor near the back wall, half hidden behind an old lamp shade and between the layers of a blue tarp. I inched closer. The something was hairy, too. And moving.

  Whatever it was kept twitching. Right behind the pointed end, something else hairy rose and fell in an unsteady pulse.

  Icicles stabbed up my back, even in the crushing heat, freezing me solid. A scream built inside my throat at the same time Dad said, “Dead squirrel” on the other side of the attic.

  It wasn’t the granny spider twins because that pointy thing was a tail. Whatever it was, something seemed very wrong with it. Why was it convulsing like that?

  “Dad?” I whispered, but he must’ve not heard me.

  I kept my flashlight trained at the floor and didn’t dare move for fear any sound or movement would get its attention. But something with a ragged edge poked from underneath the lamp shade. Like it had been hidden, only not too well.

  “Dad?” I whispered again, but I couldn’t even see the glow of his flashlight. I didn’t even think he was up here anymore.

  I muffled the sound of my heavy breaths with my forearm and knelt down slowly. The leather on my boots squeaked. I froze. My heart rocketed against my chest. The thing kept convulsing but didn’t move any more than that. I let out the smallest of breaths then crept a finger under the lamp shade.

  An old black book lay face down underneath the shade in the middle of a small area skimmed free of most of its dust. Dread uncoiled from the pit of my gut and overflowed into every part of my being. Sweat poured down my face.

  It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that book. Dad had thrown it away. I reached a tentative hand for the cover and flipped it over. The title, those silver letters that spelled Resurrection: Dark Magic to Bring Back the Ones You Love, seared over the words already etched inside my head. I snatched my hand back and tripped backward. The flashlight crashed to the floor.

  I backed away, fumbling for the flashlight to keep it trained on the thing behind the lamp shade. When the Christmas tree made a grab for me with fake branches, I turned and ran and didn’t stop until my feet hit concrete.

  Dad entered the garage talking a mile a minute about what he could use for squirrel traps. His voice sounded far away, like none of this could really be happening.

  But it couldn’t be happening because I watched him throw the book away. Had he dug it out again? Had Darby?

  All my efforts at trying to keep Mom in her peaceful grave weren’t working. Even my own family wasn’t listening to me. How could they not realize she was in the best place she could possibly be? Did they want her coming back and looking like that thing in the attic?

  White fire surged through my veins. I threw the book down at Dad’s feet so he would shut up. “You threw it away!” Tears cracked my voice, making my anger sound weaker than it was.

  His gaze snapped up to mine, a blaze of white around the horror in his eyes. “I did.”

  Red soaked through my vision as I tore around him. Was it her, my own sister, who brought back Ica’s tree and Mr. Benjamin? Was the attic some kind of Frankenstein lab for her? All signs pointed to yes while my heart hammered a series of no’s.

  Her name coiled up in a shout behind my tongue. “Darby!”

  Chapter 11

  I barged into Darby’s room. She lay sprawled on her bed, head propped on her forearm, until she jerked up with wide eyes.

  “Don’t you kn—” she started.

  I dragged her small, bony shoulders off the bed and shook them. “Why did you take Dad’s book from the trash?”

  “What book?” Tears leaked out from behind her glasses, and I knew right then that she knew exactly what book I was talking about.

  “The book, Darby.” I crushed her arms under my grip and shrieked at her face. “Tell me. Why did you take it?”

  Dad filled the doorway, breathless. “Leigh, stop.”

  “The book.” The words came out like a plea, a plea for her to understand how horribly wrong it was for her to even think about that book, let alone use it. “The one that would bring Mom back.”

  Memories stabbed through the wall of fog in my brain and crumpled me to the floor in a heap of sobs. I buried my head in my hands and wished them away.

  Sniffs and heaving breaths continued long after mine finally ended. A light touch landed on the side of my face. I looked up into Darby’s red-rimmed eyes.

  “I wasn’t going to bring Mom back like Sarah,” she said and hiccupped. “But I just...I wanted to know if I could do magic. Like Merlin.”

  “Darby, magic...it doesn’t exist.” Dad slumped against the open door, his hand over his mouth and lower lip trembling between the cracks in his fingers. “It’s fiction. That book was something I got out of the
attic because I wanted some kind of explanation for why Sarah could come back...and your mom couldn’t.”

  “Darby.” I finally looked up at her, and the hurt and remorse I found there splintered my heart. “You can’t look at that book again. Not ever.”

  She threw her arms around my neck with a gut-wrenching sob. “I wasn’t going to try to bring Mom back. I promise.”

  “Then promise me,” I said, smoothing the hair in her ponytail down her back with gentle strokes. She seemed so fragile. Dad, too, with his trembling hands trying to hide the devastation written all over his face. All of us were completely broken. But less so than if Mom had come back and stayed back. “No more.”

  “I promise.”

  We stayed like that, both of us squeezing each other until we might burst, until the doorbell rang.

  “Anyone hungry?” Dad asked, scrubbing the tears from his face.

  I shook my head, and Darby shrugged.

  When Dad had composed himself enough to answer the door, I pulled away from Darby.

  “What’s in the attic?” I demanded.

  “Maria’s dog,” she said and sniffed.

  “You tried to bring it back, didn’t you?”

  A pause, then, “Yes.”

  That one word flashed dread down my back, but I had to know all of it. “Tell me.”

  “I couldn’t finish it. I was too scared. It was bigger than the other things...” Her mouth stayed open but nothing else came out. She looked up at me with big, terrified eyes.

  I blew a steady breath out of pursed lips to keep myself from puking. “What other things?”

  “Just a bird.”

  “Just a bird,” I repeated. I was pretty sure I knew which bird.

  “At the motel and a squirrel. I won’t do it again, I swear.” She reached for my hand, but I pulled back. She’d touched dead things, after all, and dragged a dead dog up to the attic. I couldn’t have her touch anything near me.

  “You have to fix this, Darby,” I said, standing because I needed to get away from her. “You’re the one who got it up there, so you have to get it out.”