Ripple Effect: A Novel Page 8

  “Ladies,” Sabrina said, intervening. “Hazel.” She looked at her with warning.

  Sabrina’s eyes were sullen and had dark circles around them. Large bruises covered her face, which her makeup failed to cover. A fresh bloodied lip still looked swollen.

  Stacy and Sabrina exchanged awkward glances.

  “Stacy, I really do think that this little vigil has gotten out of hand. Cecily is dead,” Sabrina reminded her, her voice tired. Then, rage filled her eyes and she appeared to be doing everything she could do to not kick someone in the face. “Cecily, the spineless coward, is dead.”

  I gasped. “Spineless coward! Sabrina’s the one behind my death!”

  Kelly patted my arm and suggested we continue watching the scene.

  Hazel looked as though Sabrina had stabbed her with a knife in the heart. “Sabrina, don’t say that! We might as well have pushed her off that cliff. It’s your fault! You invited her to that stupid party!”

  “It was the only hope we had! You know that!” Sabrina hissed.

  “You could have called the––” Hazel’s mouth zipped shut as Mr. Leison walked up.

  Tall, mysterious, dark, and possessive—Mr. Leison, a younger teacher, was a shocker in the looks department. All the girls swooned over him. Not a good mixture in a high school setting. He looked at Hazel and urged her to continue the sentence. “You could have called the what?”

  “I forgot,” Hazel said quickly and looked down. She wiped the tears from her face.

  Sabrina gulped lightly. “Mr. Leison,” she acknowledged, head held high in the air.

  Leison looked at Stacy seriously. “Take this down,” he ordered. “Girls, get to class before I get the principal.”

  “Yes, Mr. Leison,” the three of them said in unison. He walked away from them.

  Stacy looked at the girls, wide eyed. “You were going to say call the cops,” she whispered. “I have heard rumors about what he’s done, about––it can’t be true––the three girls?”

  Sabrina lifted her hand to smack Stacy. “You better watch yourself. Don’t you dare repeat any of this to anyone! You wouldn’t want to be the next victim, would you?”

  Stacy looked down momentarily with a pained expression, but persistence filled her and she faced them. “I’m telling the cops! We don’t have to put up with this!” She glared at Sabrina. “Cecily would’ve told!”

  Hazel was crying once again, trying to wipe the tears from her face. “Why do you think she’s dead?” She covered her mouth as her eyes widened.

  Sabrina smacked Stacy across the face. Stacy let out a cry and held her cheek in her hand. Sabrina stormed off.

  “Cecily could have made this right,” Hazel whispered, barely audible. Remorse filled her and she turned her back to her best friend’s photo.

  While leading Kelly to the art section of the school, my mind raced a thousand miles per hour around what had just happened, and then Kelly asked me something. “Do you think that they know that the man was sent after you?”

  “Whoever is behind this must be scaring them with that fact,” I responded. “I’m sure the bad guys had said that Cecily Wolf committed suicide, instead of standing up to her attackers. That’s why Sabrina and Hazel hate me. To them, I ran away when I should have saved them.”

  I still felt confused on how Sabrina tied into it.

  “And Stacy?” He looked over his shoulder in her direction. She sat there stunned. “Do you think she has any part in this?”

  I stared at him strangely. “She would have banded with the others if she were attacked.”

  Kelly nodded slowly. “Who do you think is doing this, Cecily?”

  “I wish I knew,” I responded. “Why am I seeing this, Kelly? I can’t do anything to help them, I’m dead. I’m done here. I can’t help the ones I love and it only breaks my heart.” I sniffled as tears stung my eyes.

  Kelly squeezed my hand, which caused me to glance at him. He gave me a small smile to not worry. “Things will work themselves out, right?”

  Without answering, I continued toward the painting room. I was dead. I couldn’t help them even if I tried. And for all I knew, they’d be dead as well.

  As we passed a group of girls I heard, “Mr. Leison blames himself for her suicide.”

  Another girl giggled. “I can’t believe that Cecily would seduce a teacher. We all know how hot Mr. Leison is, but really?”

  “The duchess has always been in bed with Leison. So when Cecily went for him . . . Sabrina was in it to get payback. Maybe she killed her out of jealously?”

  The wannabe royals laughed loudly and strutted along their way down the hall.

  I sighed loudly and shook my head. Sabrina was in bed with Leison? Or was she forced into it? The bruises on her body suggested that she was not enjoying things as she had hoped for. What was he holding over her head, over their heads? And what about the girls that Stacy and Adie mentioned––the three girls who were kidnapped? Was it all related?

  And why couldn’t Sabrina tell her father, Gordon, of all people, that she was being attacked? He was the most understanding father ever––poor guy had to raise the spoiled brat. Things weren’t adding up here.

  The painting studio was empty. Easels stood at various places of the classroom and the paint supplies were stashed on a table near the front of the room. The place was one of my sanctuaries when I walked among the living.

  “I think I’ve found something,” Kelly said loudly. He was near the office of the paint instructor, Iles. He was really cool and laid back––a total art junkie.

  As I moved toward Kelly, I ran my hand along one of the table tops. I felt the surface but it didn’t recognize me. I was just an apparition here, as invisible to the paint and pencil shavings on a table as I was to humans. Just another reminder of how dead I truly was.

  The picture came into view, the one that Kelly was so eager for me to see. I knew that picture well, being that it was one of my prized paintings. That painting got me my scholarship to the Art Institute.

  A beach with curling waves and white sand stood in front of a foggy sky. The cliff on the edge was hardly visible due to the accumulation of fog. The curling waves with white peaks and the untouched white sand stood prominent. It was my masterpiece, the most prized painting in my collection next to the red lily I did for Adie.

  * * *

  We disappeared from the school and reappeared in Hazel’s bedroom.

  Hazel wore the same black outfit. Tears streamed down her face as she stared at a white stick that she held in her hand. I had heard about those sticks, but we had never actually used or held one. Hazel held a pregnancy test in her hand. She was panicked beyond reason.

  My stomach lurched. “I can’t watch this,” I whispered sickly to Kelly.

  Kelly didn’t want to see it either. “There is a reason as to why we are watching this.”

  Hazel started to scream hysterically when her results showed up. After chucking the test across the room, she held her stomach as if she was going to puke. “No,” she pleaded.

  “She’s prego!” I yelled, with the same hysteria.

  “I can’t have it!” Hazel mumbled fearfully. “I have to get it taken out!”

  With wide eyes, I gasped. Hazel did not just say that she was going to have an abortion! She was so against that!

  Hazel took a swig from a bottle of vodka. “I can do this . . . It’s just a blob of crap anyway.”

  “NO! It’s not, Hazel!”

  Taking her fist, she punched herself hard in the abdomen and moaned. “I have to get rid of it!” She took another swig. “What if they kill me?”

  I looked at Kelly with apprehension. “I want to leave now!”

  “I can’t do anything . . .,” he replied, wishing he could.

  Hazel grabbed a bag of cocaine and snorted it. She became less panicky as she went into a state of drug inducement. Smiling, she lifted the pregnancy test off the ground and stared at it once again. “It’s okay. Things wi
ll be okay,” she said. She glared down at her stomach and patted it. “It’ll be like you never existed.”

  My heart was aching! Hearing her say those words was like hearing my mother say that she loved another man. It’s not right! This was an imposter in my Hazel’s body!

  Kelly grabbed my arm as we both disappeared, leaving a high and drunk girl to ruin her life.

  Chapter 12

  Now back in my colorful paradise/holding cell, I headed away from the purple grove of trees—the color making me sick due to its association with royalty—and towards the glacial ponds, the water smooth as glass, a mirror of sunset and vibrant trees. Up close, the turquoise waters were refreshing and simplistic. Combine that with the white rocky shore and specks of magic dust—it became just breathtaking. It helped ease my worries of seeing my world being ripped apart, if just for a moment.

  Kelly knew I had to walk alone. I had to think—to—to spend precious energy fretting about the mortal world and the fact I could do nothing to stop the pain and anguish of the ones I loved!

  Once there, I picked a white stone from the shore and held it in my hand. It felt warm from the heat of the suns in the east and west, and soft in my palm. My thumb rubbed the shiny surface. Glancing out over the glassy water my arm dropped, my wrist flicked, and the rock was sent skidding across the surface. With each skip my stomach lurched, knowing that my death had created ripples like that in the world had I left behind.

  With each ripple of that still water were correlations to the people in my life: Hazel punching her stomach, Adie dying ever so slowly and miserably, my mother losing all hope, even Sabrina begging her father for help.

  The rock stopped skipping, the surface tension broke, and the rock sank. Trying my hardest not to cry I bit my lip hard, but there was no fooling anyone. That resembled death to me, the rock sinking to the bottom and disappearing forever. It was how it would all end. Everyone would die because of me.

  Kelly stood far behind me. I could feel his eyes watching everything I did.

  Confusion swept through me, just like the ripples that still spread through the water. Hazel and Sabrina were comrades and absolutely terrified by some power-hungry man. My sister was going to die, who knew what my mother thought, my name degraded and destroyed by some disgusting teacher. I knew, without a doubt, that I did not seduce him. Cecily wouldn’t do that.

  And Hazel . . . was considering an abortion. Just last year she saw horrible pictures of aborted fetuses and she swore then and there, even if she were raped, that she would have the child and give it up for adoption. “Everyone deserves a chance at life,” she’d said.

  Heart almost entirely sunk now, I looked back at Kelly. His hands were resting at his sides, tensed against the white clothing he wore. Blue eyes were squinting and his lips pursed. “Cecily,” he said, almost a warning. “You’re disappearing.”

  I noticed that he was fading, just as everything else around me. Panic filled me, knowing that I’d jump to another scene in my life. I was terrified to go without Kelly. “Don’t leave me—” My mouth just gaped open. It was too late. We had separated.

  World map posters hung on the walls of the classroom, one huge one in particular on the wall with the door with a slim vertical window to the side. Desks filled the room—old plastic surfaces, scribbled and scratched up, with attached seats with baskets underneath. The whiteboard held the ghost markings of earlier lessons and discussions.

  I held my face, realizing now where I stood. The World Civ classroom.

  Talking sounded; very quiet, but not soft—not one bit. The tone reminded me of dirty businessmen up to no good. It came from the back, the place of darkness and shadows that I didn’t want to turn toward, but had to. Instantly I felt sick and shaky.

  There stood Cecily and . . . Mr. Leison—tall, dark, dangerously looming.

  Mr. Leison was a man of intelligence. His charming looks and youth made most high school girls swoon over him—and he was only “thirty”. Yes, it is very wrong, but unfortunately very true. It didn’t matter if you were royal, middle class, or bottom feeder.

  It reminded me of a rumor that went around about Mrs. Clark once assaulting a male student after fourth period one day. Clearly these creeps roamed free through our halls and no one was safe. This male student was on the football team and Mrs. Clark was the dance instructor. Rumor also had it they continued a love affair together, behind the backs of everyone.

  Back to the current problem: Mr. Leison was a predator, a very sick and twisted man, and had somehow gotten his footing in a high school filled with young and susceptible women.

  With great reluctance, I began moving towards them. There stood Mr. Leison, smoothing back his dark hair with his hand, smiling arrogantly down at Cecily—curled into a ball on his desk. Everything that once sat on his desk now scattered across the ground. I wanted to throw up.

  His charm and flirtatious manner had always disgusted me. I could see straight through him to the true monster, but perhaps, only because I had died. The veil of life had a way of masking the horrors that lurked beside you.

  Cecily sniffled, her eyes still filled with fresh tears. Mr. Leison tilted his head in curiosity, clearly evaluating what would come next for his young victim. His dark eyes were lit with an insatiable fire, yet were darker than night.

  “I sometimes think about how fragile your sister is. Adie, right?” he asked Cecily.

  She whimpered. “Don’t,” she begged.

  Leison’s face filled with dark satisfaction. “It’s unfortunate, leukemia is. With one little tweak of the ankle she could shatter like a porcelain doll. That would be just horrible . . . don’t you think, Cecily?”

  Cecily stood up and tried her hardest to ignore that sick, vile freak. She adjusted her clothing, first by smoothing her black skirt down—a little short for my taste—then clasping the straps of her bright red bra back together. Lastly, she straightened her tight, lacy, black shirt.

  A bad feeling entered me, a feeling that perhaps she had asked for it.

  She refused to make eye contact with him. Uncontrollable fear and sorrow streamed down her cheeks as she brushed her fingers through her snarled auburn hair. Silent regrets whispered on her lips, only audible for her to hear.

  Leison stepped toward her, his eyes planted on her baby face. His hand traced slowly from her neck down to her chest and stopped in the middle, just where he could feel her racing heart vibrate.

  Terrified, Cecily watched his hand, trembling from his touch. She flinched away from him. Another plea filled her lips as she started to crumble. A smile of arrogance appeared on Leison, enthralled with her fear.

  “Who protects you, Cecily?” he asked quietly, pushing his palm against her chest and grasping tightly. She gasped. “Your Papa? Oh, that’s right . . . he’s not around, is he?” His hand dropped and he circled around to his desk, ignoring her sobs. “I know everything about you.”

  Vomit burned my throat—hers as well. White washed across her face and I feared she’d pass out from the trauma. Red, blotchy spots marked her fair skin, surely holding the early formations of bruises. She felt beaten down, violated, and assaulted. I felt violated and assaulted! It pained me to say this, but Cecily knew exactly what this was . . . molestation, maybe even rape.

  Mr. Leison stood before her now, holding her shoulders firmly as he spoke, looking directly into her eyes. “Fear is what fuels humanity, Cecily. And the one that holds the fear––controls humanity.”

  The lone light in the classroom beamed just above the door. It gave enough light to show the fear that flashed across her face. The tears on her rosy cheeks were like silver streams of horror.

  “I––why––I don’t?” she stammered.

  Earlier he had said, “Cecily Wolf, see me after class.” Why? She was always an honors student, so it clearly wasn’t her grades he wanted to discuss. She met with him and within minutes he was attacking her. Well, Cecily had no idea why. It couldn’t be the fact that too much thig
h showed when she crossed her legs, or the way that her auburn hair cascaded down her back would drive any man crazy. Something was wrong with Cecily, something dark, and it showed in the way her eyes were dimming.

  That’s when the aching pain of being abandoned had intensified within her. It was then that Cecily knew that the nightmares would continue and they would never end. With all of that on her plate, it only made sense as to why she would go on a downward spiral of despair.

  Cecily refused to look at him. “You won’t get away with this,” she muttered.

  “Well, aren’t you the brave one?” Mr. Leison’s face contorted into a wicked grin. “You surely don’t act like a hero, do you?”

  Red stained her pale cheeks. She lashed out at him. “I hate you! You hurt me!”

  Mr. Leison grabbed her arms, shaking her once. He smiled, enticed by her anger. Leaning forward he said, “Interesting . . . it was you who seduced me to begin with.”

  “I did not!” She tried to squirm away from him. “You are lying!”

  He grabbed her chin in his hand violently, causing Cecily to yelp. “Of course you did. That little skirt that shows too much of your alabaster thigh, the curve hugging shirts, and the hair . . .” Leison took a long strand of tangled hair in his hand and looked down at it. “You know that it was you that seduced me.” He yanked it violently and she bit her cheek until it bled, holding back the scream that would get her murdered.

  “It’s not true,” she hissed, tempted to spit her blood into his face.

  Fascinated by her, he stroked her cheek slowly, up to her temple. “Sweet, little, innocent Cecily, filled with so much hatred––so much darkness. What is it that has you so distraught?” He barely traced her soft lips with the cold pad of his fingertip. Her lips quivered and she looked away. “You like my touch, don’t you?”

  Closing her eyes, she fought vomit. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You like this, Cecily,” Leison said, his eyes lit with satisfaction. Grazing her arm, his hands followed the contours of her shoulders and he stood behind her now. “You asked for it, remember?”