Gretchen and Zach didn’t say a word and their faces didn’t show any expression at all as Helen hurried by with her shoulders practically in her ears. At least Lucas wasn’t there, she thought, ducking into the cafeteria.
“Stand up straight! You’re going to give yourself scoliosis,” Claire scolded when Helen got to their table.
“Sorry. I just had to go by his locker,” Helen explained quietly. Matt made a disgusted sound.
“You can calm down, Lennie,” he snapped. “None of them are here today.”
“Supposedly they all took the day off because the aunt and the eldest Delos kid finally got to the island this morning,” Claire said.
“Oh yeah, great,” Helen mused. “There’s another one.”
“Hector. He’s a senior,” Claire added helpfully, although she could have no idea that saying his name didn’t help Helen at all. In fact, for some inexplicable reason, it ticked her off.
“No news on him yet. Zach will probably call me with an update this weekend,” Matt said with a shrug. “He always knows where everyone is and what they’re doing.”
The rest of the day dragged by, although there was some relief in knowing that she wasn’t going to bump into the Delos kids or the wraiths that seemed to appear whenever they did. She even started to enjoy herself during track practice as she ran through the fog and splashed in muddy puddles with Claire. Coach Tar didn’t say a thing about Helen’s pathetically slow run time when she came in, although Helen knew she wouldn’t be able to get away with that for much longer. She had an athletic scholarship to win, and Coach Tar was not about to forget it.
Dodging her way through the day, Helen made it to work that evening with something like relief, until she realized that a lot of kids from her school were coming in to buy a single piece of candy or one can of soda.
“Why don’t you go to the back and do some stocking for me?” Kate asked, giving Helen a gentle pat on the arm. “They’ll stop coming in to gawk if they think you’ve left for the day.”
“Don’t they have anything else to do on a Friday night?” Helen asked hopelessly.
“What island did you grow up on?” Kate replied sarcastically. Helen rested her forehead briefly on Kate’s shoulder, stealing a second of comfort before she straightened up. “You may as well do the inventory, too. And take as long as you want,” Kate added as Helen headed toward the back.
Inventory was not usually Helen’s favorite job, but it was that night. She was so occupied counting every object in the store that before she knew it, they were locking the front and going through the ritual of closing down.
“So. What really happened between you and that Lucas kid?” Kate asked without looking up from the stacks of bills she was sorting.
“I wish I knew.” Helen sighed as she rested on her broom handle.
“Everyone’s talking about you two. And not just the kids,” Kate said with a half smile. “So what’s up?”
“Look, if I had an explanation, believe me, I’d be shouting it in the streets. I don’t know why I attacked him,” Helen said. “And the worst thing is that the attack isn’t the worst thing.”
“Oh, you’re going to have to explain that,” Kate said. She put aside the money. “Come on. Tell me. What’s the worst thing?”
Helen shook her head and started pushing the broom around.
There had always been a voice in her head that would whisper possible explanations for her strangeness, words like freak or monster or even witch. No matter how deftly Helen silenced that voice, it always came back eventually.
The absolute worst thing that Helen could think of would be to find out that she really was one of those things.
“It’s nothing,” Helen said, unable to look up.
“It isn’t just going to go away because you don’t talk about it, you know,” Kate pressed. Helen knew she was right, and she also knew she could trust Kate. Besides, she needed to talk to someone about it or she’d go crazy.
“I’m having nightmares. Actually, it’s the same nightmare that I keep having over and over, and it feels so real. Like I’m going someplace while I’m sleeping.”
“Where do you go?” Kate asked gently. She came out from behind the counter and made Helen stop sweeping and focus.
Helen pictured the barren, hopeless world she had been forced to visit the last few nights.
“It’s a dry place. Everything is bleached and colorless. I can hear