Deep Dark Secrets (The Spiritwalkers Book 1) Read online

  “Did you want to stop and get something to eat on the way home?” Mom asked as we climbed into a Mercedes I didn’t recognize.

  “When did you get a new car?” I asked.

  My hands shook as I tried to buckle my seatbelt. Other than an ambulance ride, I hadn’t been inside a vehicle since that night. I hadn’t expected it to affect me this way, but I could hardly breathe as I strapped myself in.

  “A few months ago,” she said, glancing back at me. “Didn’t I mention it?”

  I shook my head. No, she had not mentioned it, which suddenly made me wonder what else had been changed since I’d been gone.

  Was my room still the way I left it? Or had my little sister been going through my journals and books? Stealing my magazines? Had my mom gone in and cleaned my stuff off the floor? Or would it be like stepping into my life exactly how it used to be?

  I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  Dad threw my bag into the back and got in on the passenger side. When he closed the door, I immediately struggled to take a breath. I tried to pretend everything was fine, because I didn’t want my parents freaking out and taking me back inside, but underneath my calm exterior, I was in complete panic-mode.

  Mom started the car and backed out of the parking spot. I quickly latched my seatbelt and clutched the strap, closing my eyes.

  No, closing my eyes made it worse. I opened them wide and pressed my head hard against the headrest.

  Breathe.

  “I was thinking we could stop by your favorite burger place for lunch on the way home,” Mom said, chatting away as she pulled onto the road in front of the facility. “I bet you’ve just been dying for some good, greasy food.”

  She caught my eye in the rearview mirror and winked. I tried to smile, but I must have looked more ill than happy, because she frowned and glanced nervously at my father.

  He cleared his throat and shrugged.

  “Or we could go to Luigi’s,” she said. “They have this new spaghetti and meatball dish that has a meatball literally the size of my head. You’d love it.”

  Mom was trying too hard, and I didn’t have the emotional energy to pretend that it was working. I couldn’t even breathe, for God’s sake. I pressed my feet so hard against the floorboards I thought they might break through. Every muscle in my body tensed as the landscape zoomed by.

  Mom glanced back at me and then sent another panicked look at my father. This was it. If I didn’t speak or at least make an effort, this moment would set the tone for the next year of my life. Fragile Marayah, completely unable to handle the smallest thing on her own.

  They were already worried about me and trying to protect me from everything. I couldn’t let them see how scared I was or they would end up hovering over me every second of every day, fussing over my every move.

  They would suffocate me.

  “Marayah?” Mom asked. She reached over and grabbed Dad’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Are you feeling okay, honey?”

  There was desperation in her voice. Hope mixed with terror. I had the feeling it had more to do with them not wanting to deal with a broken daughter and less about me actually being broken.

  This wasn’t good. I had to do something.

  I picked a spot on the back of Dad’s headrest and stared at it, doing my best to ignore the trees and cars rushing by. I counted to three in my head and made a deal with myself. Every three seconds, all I had to do was breathe in or out. Simple.

  I was stronger than this.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe in.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe out.

  I repeated the pattern a couple of times until I found my voice again. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice shaky but audible. “If you don’t mind, though, I think I’d rather just go home first.”

  Mom’s shoulders visibly relaxed, and she squeezed Dad’s hand again.

  “Of course, sweetheart. I can make you a sandwich, or you know what? We could order pizza from that new place on Fifth? What was it called?”

  “Twin Rivers Pizza,” Dad said. It was the first thing he’d said all day.

  “Oh, right, that’s it,” she said. “Debra told me that they ordered from there the other day and got the nicest delivery boy. She said he was very polite, and the pizza was delicious.”

  “Pizza is fine,” I said.

  Mom smiled. Crisis averted. Pizza was fine. I was fine. That’s all they needed to hear, regardless of whether it was actually true or not.

  For the rest of the drive, Mom pointed out things in town that had changed and talked about everything she wanted to do before school started back. I only partially listened, letting the landscape fly by without actually focusing on any of it.

  When we finally pulled up to the white-brick house where I’d lived since I was five, I felt as though I was seeing it for the first time. My parents ushered me around like I was a guest from out of town, showing me the new set of leather sofas in the living room and the progress Dad had made on the surround sound system.

  All I could do was nod and look interested until they felt they had adequately reintroduced me to the place. When they finally stopped talking for a minute and exchanged worried glance number five-hundred-forty-six of the day, I asked if I could go up to my room for a while.

  “Why don’t we—” Mom started in, but Dad placed his hand on her arm, and she grew quiet.

  “Of course,” Dad said. “Why don’t you go put your things away, and we’ll order pizza? I’ll call you down when it gets here.”

  “Kimi’s not here, either?” I asked. I had assumed when they said they wanted me to take things slow that I would just have to wait until I got home to see my sister, but when she hadn’t bounded down the stairs and thrown her arms around my neck, I knew they were going to make me wait.

  Mom made a face, glanced at Dad. Man, if only I could hear what was going on in their heads, because they were obviously having some sort of conversation through the looks they were throwing each other. It was driving me batty.

  “She’s over at Kelsey’s for the afternoon,” Mom said. “She’s dying to see you, but we thought you might want to have the house to yourself before your sister started talking your ear off about everything you missed.”

  Dad threw her another look, and Mom winced. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but I just shook my head.

  “It’s fine,” I said, disappointment weighing heavy on my chest. It would have been so much better if Kimi had been talking my ear off and acting normal. I’d been sequestered in a nut-house for months. I was dying to hear about all the things I’d missed. Didn’t they realize that?

  Why was it that parents always acted like they wanted to do things for you and make things easier, but they never actually just came out and asked you what you wanted?

  They always assumed they knew what was best, which was rarely the case.

  I turned without another word, grabbed my bag, and ran up the stairs to my bedroom.

  Out of breath, I stood in front of the closed door, my hand hovering over the doorknob for a minute before I found the courage to go inside.

  What was I so afraid of? This was my space. My private sanctuary. I’d been dying to get back here for months, but now that I was really here, my heart was nearly beating out of my chest.

  I took a deep breath and threw open the door.

  Everything was exactly the same, and yet nothing felt right.

  My mom had obviously been in here to clean up. She’d made the bed, picked up my clothes off the floor, straightened my books and papers on my desk, but other than that, nothing had really changed. Seeing it so pristine unhinged something inside of me.

  It was like staring into my past.

  I stepped inside, and it was like walking into a time capsule. I felt as though I was visiting an old version of myself from long ago.

  I couldn’t make complete sense of it, but it all felt so wrong. I set my bag down on the bed and ran my hand across the top of the pink comforter.
I walked to the desk and touched the books and papers, the pens and highlighters in a pink cup that I’d gotten at one of Hailey’s running competitions last summer.

  These were my things, and yet I felt absolutely disconnected from them. It was like walking into a room that had been preserved under the ash of a volcano.

  I watched a documentary once about the ancient city of Pompeii and how the eruption of Mount Vesuvius surprised them so quickly the scenes of their everyday lives were perfectly preserved under the ash and rock. When archaeologists began to excavate the area centuries later, they found the tables still set with food and the bodies still in the exact position they had been when they died.

  Despite the horrific tragedy of the event, everything under the ash remained the same. That’s how I felt looking at my bedroom.

  This place was an ancient artifact. Proof that I had once been the girl that lived here.

  Outside, a car pulled down the driveway. I stepped over to the window and saw a guy in a red shirt and hat carrying a couple of pizza boxes. He disappeared under the front porch for a moment and rang the doorbell.

  Downstairs, I heard my father open the door and say a few words. Seconds later, the guy reappeared and walked out to his car. He slid some cash into his pocket, but just before he got into the car, he stopped and glanced up at the window.

  He squinted for a moment and then lifted his hand in a small wave. I waved back, knowing it was a wave that would soon spread through our small town like wildfire.

  The guy was Troy Hardin, my boyfriend.

  Well, ex-boyfriend I assumed, even though he’d never officially broken things off with me after the accident. The simple fact that he’d never come to see me even once in the past year kind of tipped me off to the fact that we were through. I’d had months of therapy to deal with the anger I’d felt at first, but it still stung.

  Sadness darkened his blue eyes, and he quickly got into his car and drove away.

  I grabbed a pillow from my bed and walked into the closet. I sat down and pressed my back against the wall, letting the skirts of my dresses cover me up as I pulled the pillow tight against my chest.

  I was home, but the girl who had returned wasn’t me at all.

  3

  Disappear Entirely

  “Marayah, honey?” Mom poked her head through my bedroom door and looked around.

  “I’m in here, Mom,” I said from the closet. I stood quickly and threw the pillow into the corner, not wanting her to know I had been hiding in my dark closet, alone. That really wouldn’t go over well for me.

  “What are you doing in there?” she asked. “Did you want to change clothes before we eat?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just wanted to look around. Make sure nothing was missing, I guess.”

  She tilted her head to look at me, and I realized I was going to have to get used to every little choice, action, and word being scrutinized from here on out. I would never just be normal, responsible Marayah again. I would always be broken in her eyes.

  And a liar.

  “Missing?” she said. “Why would anything be missing?”

  I shrugged. “I have a lot of nice clothes and a little sister who’s only a few years younger than I am,” I said. “I was worried she would have cleared out half my closet by now and moved it to her own room.”

  Mom smiled, apparently pleased with that answer. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “We didn’t let anyone into your room while you were gone. You’ve been through so much, honey. We wanted everything to be perfect when you came home. Just like it was.”

  She leaned over and kissed my forehead, taking a long moment to smooth my hair and pull it back from my shoulders. When she finally stepped away, there were tears in her eyes. Again.

  “Mom, don’t cry,” I mumbled.

  “I’m sorry. You just have no idea how happy I am that you’re finally home,” she said. “When we got that call the night of the crash—”

  Her choked sobs cut off the rest of her statement, and she pressed a hand to her lips.

  “I know, Mom,” I said, thinking of Hailey and how her mom had gotten a very different call that night. “But I’m home now, okay? I’m fine now.”

  Another lie.

  She nodded and quickly swiped her fingers under her eyes to brush away the tears. “Of course you are,” she said. “Come on, let’s go eat some pizza. You must be hungry.”

  “Starving,” I said. I followed her into the hallway and down the stairs.

  We sat together at the kitchen table, making small talk over pepperoni. I forced myself to eat, even though I wasn’t hungry at all.

  Was this how it would be from now on? Me lying to them in order to have some semblance of freedom? Kind of ironic that the only way to regain their trust was to tell them the lies they wanted to hear.

  If they’d only been willing to listen to the truth...

  If I didn’t eat, they’d be worried about me, and I couldn’t bear to watch them exchange any more worried glances today. So I ate what I could stomach of the pizza and pretended to listen to Mom going on and on about the end-of-summer festival she was helping to plan this year.

  I nodded when I was expected to nod, asked questions when there was a lull in the conversation, and otherwise zoned out entirely.

  “Wait, I have a surprise for you,” Mom said when I got up to clean off my plate.

  I’d been planning to park myself on the couch and watch the latest season of Game of Thrones since I hadn’t been allowed to watch any TV at Longview, but I had a feeling Mom wasn’t going to let me veg out in front of the television for the next eight hours like I’d hoped.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Her eyes sparkled, and she pulled a rectangular box from her purse that was hanging on the back of her chair. It was wrapped in gold paper with a large gold bow.

  “No pressure if you’re not quite ready to dive back into the social scene, but Dr. Millner said it would be good for you to reconnect with your friends before school starts back. Well, open it,” she said.

  I took the small box from her and tore open the paper, pretty sure I knew what was inside. The new Samsung phone was sleek and slender and light in my hands when I removed it from the box. I knew Mom was waiting for my reaction, but I honestly couldn’t even decide how I was supposed to feel about the gift.

  I hadn’t been allowed to have a phone or access any social media when I was at Longview. It was their policy for all patients, not just me. They felt that social media and unsupervised contact with the outside world hindered recovery and could cause unnecessary stress during treatment.

  Really, all it had done was completely isolate me from the rest of the world. None of my friends could text me or message me, and even though there was a designated visitation day every other Saturday, no one ever came to see me except my parents.

  “What do you think?” she asked, practically dancing on her tip-toes with anticipation.

  I forced a smile that might have looked more like a grimace. “It’s great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  She snatched the phone from my hand. “It’s the latest model, and the guy at the store said it was the one all the teenagers had these days. I already charged it up for you and had them transfer all your old contacts and stuff, so it should be ready to go.”

  “Oh,” I said, watching as she scrolled through the list of names programmed into the contacts list. “Thanks, Mom, this is great.”

  She handed it back to me. “Of course,” she said. “I thought you might want to send a text out to some of your friends and let them know you’re back. Of course, I’m sure by now most of the town has heard about it, the way people talk.”

  I held the phone in my hand, just staring at the screen, unsure what I wanted to do with it. I couldn’t even imagine what I would say to any of my friends after all this time.

  I’m back from the looney bin. Hailey’s still dead. Wanna hang out?

  Somehow, I didn’t th
ink that was quite going to work, but even a simple hello seemed like too much right now.

  “Do I still have the same number?” I asked.

  “Yep, same one,” she said.

  I scrolled through my contacts, just trying to think about who I might reach out to, but when I got to the H’s I stopped and just stared at her name.

  Haileybug.

  My nickname for her since we were tiny little things.

  My heart pounded, and I couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. My palms began to sweat, and I leaned back against the kitchen counter to steady myself.

  How many times had we stood right here together, cramming our faces with chips after binge-watching Supernatural and joking about how we were going to find a pair of demon-hunting brothers for ourselves someday and be official sisters?

  She’d been right here with me, flesh and blood, more times than I could count. It wasn’t possible that she was gone. And there was more to her death than anyone else understood.

  “Marayah, honey, are you feeling okay?” Mom asked. She put a hand to my forehead, but I pulled away.

  I couldn’t catch my breath, and I was afraid that if I tried to talk, I’d start crying and I might never stop. Instead, I just shook my head and held a hand up.

  I closed my eyes, cutting myself off from the room around me and imagining for a second that I was back in my room at Longview, alone and safe. Back there, I didn’t have to worry about what had happened that night or how my friends were dealing with the tragedy or what was going on in the outside world, because the outside world didn’t seem to exist while I was there.

  While I was there, I could pretend it was all just a terrible accident. It all made sense, even if it was horrifying.

  But standing here, in the place where she had stood so many times, I knew I couldn’t deny it.

  “You’re scaring me,” Mom said, fidgeting beside me. “Do you want me to call Dr. Millner? What should I do? Marayah?”