• chapter eleven •
Three days later, on a Friday, the No Art Class day, I went into the bathroom and stripped and stood under the hot water of the shower till it turned cold. Then I slathered on some moisturizer and went to sit on the couch in the living room at exactly five o'clock, because that was the time when the rays of the setting sun seeped in through the windows. Instead of reading like I always did, I lied down on the couch and stared at the patches of sunlight on the wooden floor, on the walls, on the carpets. I hated to admit it, but I felt lonely. The emptiness of the house was starting to get to me.
A little hesitantly, I took out my phone and called Stan, of all people, because if I was right, it was seven thirty in the morning there, and he would be the only one alive.
"Unhh?" His voice sounded sleepy, like he'd just woken up.
"Sorry. I thought you'd be awake."
"Yeah, well, I am now." I heard him shifting in bed. "Morning. By the way, do you know where the pin of that pump is?"
"Which pump?"
"The one which I use to fill air in my football."
"Oh. That. I'm sitting in another continent, you idiot, how do you expect me to know?" I said, even though I was the one who had hidden that pin just before leaving so that he couldn't fill air in his football. Hah, seemed like he had spent the past three months without it.
"Whatever," he said. I asked about college, and he told me that last week he'd set off the fire alarm and then gone for a long drive with his friends, and about a food fight he'd started in the canteen because of which he'd almost got suspended. Then he asked about my life, and I said that school was good and that I'd made some friends.
I didn't tell him that I had an exhibition this week, because I didn't like to talk to him about the stuff I loved, because whenever we fought, he used it to hurt me. Once, when he was angry with me, he went into my room and painted zig-zagging lines all over one of my favorite paintings. He's pretty heartless that way. When I saw it, I broke down and cried for an hour, till mom got some ice-cream to calm me down. That day, I hid all of my books, scared that he would tear them apart, and took off all my paintings from the wall and rolled them up and stashed them under my bed, hoping he won't find them there. And after that day, I shut him out and stopped telling him about the stuff I loved, so that he couldn't use it against me again. And I told him that I hated Bryan Adams so he won't call him names to annoy me anymore; and I told him that I'd broken up with Ryan, so he won't call Ryan a faggot.
So I just asked more about his college, and when he had nothing left to talk about, we hung up.
I felt lonely again.
Then I lay and thought about the exhibition, and the paintings I would make, and I started picturing the Cinderella painting in my head. I was itching to get started on it, but it was silly to start without planning the entire thing, so I made a mental note to ask Helen for some suggestions, and thinking of her reminded me that she had told us to look up Khokhloma art which I hadn't yet done, so I went to my room and placed my laptop on the table and for some time I read about the Russian folk-art till I was sure the information I had gathered was enough, and then I clicked on another link like I often did when I was researching. Then I clicked on another link, then another, and soon I had reached a website about human body, which had an essay about human memory on the homepage.
On the right side of the essay, there were images of other articles which were available on the website, but they were just images, and that too of a few lines of the articles, which was totally pointless, because I couldn't click on the image and visit the article, nor could I know the title of the article through the few lines which were available.
I rested my chin on my hand and started reading about the left-brained and right-brained people. I read half of it, but when I totally couldn't understand a thing, I glanced over at the images on the right.
...may become ionized to produce plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the fire's intensity will be different. Fire in its most common form...
A little more than one and a half sentences. I wondered what the article was about. Fire? Flame? Fuel?
I moved on to the next image. During the 1900s, unmarried pregnancies were considered very shameful. The women were often...
I paused at that one. The words 'shameful' and 'unmarried' had pulled a string at the back of my mind. I read the line again, drumming my fingers on the table, and suddenly my eyes widened. I stood up so quickly that my chair toppled over, but instead of picking it up, I ran to my bed and picked up my phone. I called Zack.
He picked up after so much time that I almost hung up. "Who's this?" he snapped, clearly annoyed.
"It's...me." I heard the sound of water running. "Are you taking a shower? I could call later," I said, even though I didn't mean it.
"Oh. Reddie. Hi. Not just a shower, a hot, steaming, refreshing, amazing shower, to be exact. And you ruined it by making me run all the way from the cubicle to the closet, and that too naked and covered with soap all over. What do you want?"
I held back my laughter and said, "I have a test for your brilliant memory. How much of Mary's diary entry do you remember?"
"Huh. I don't remember the exact thing, but...here are a few lines. I told William my secret yesterday, and it was a mistake...I'm not even married yet...What will people think?...I am so ashamed of myself...I should never have told anyone...I'm only twenty-two. I think it went something like this. Oh, and if you're trying to figure out something about that stupid sanatorium, well, it's useless. Bye."
My heart was pounding in my chest. Before I could say anything, he hung up, probably to resume his shower, so I picked up the chair that I had upset and sat on it and called Liam, tapping my foot on the floor impatiently. "Hi, Hazelnut," he said, and I smiled.
"Liam, I think I know why Mary killed herself."
"Really? Why?"
"Because she was pregnant. I read just now that in the 1900s, it was considered shameful to be pregnant before marriage. And in her diary she wrote, I'm not even married yet and I'm so ashamed of myself. This has to be the secret she told William! And this is why she killed herself!" I was breathing fast, a little excitedly.
"You sure?"
"Totally."
"It...does make sense."
"Yeah. I don't know who got her pregnant, though."
His voice sounded dazed. "I think I do. I don't remember the diary entry, but I remember just one line: I told William my secret, our secret, and it was a mistake. See? Our secret. I think William got her pregnant."
I stopped tapping my foot. I was so shocked I could barely speak, and all my sentences sounded like they had a question mark at the end: "So William and Mary...loved each other? And she got pregnant and killed herself because she was ashamed? And four years later, William killed a nurse by pushing her from the window? Oh my God?"
"Yeah. That sounds weird, but..." I almost heard him shrugging, " — I guess that was her secret. Whew. This thing is becoming even more confusing."
∞
There was almost no one about. The sky was clear and blue as forget-me-nots, and I was lying in the snow and staring up at the sky, because I was the only one interested in it. Everyone was in the hallways talking about Valentine's Day, which was a week away. I looked at the clouds for some time, trying to make out shapes, and then closed my eyes. I was half-asleep when I sensed movement. So I opened them. Liam was sitting next to me with a goofy grin on his face. "Just checking if you're alive."
I smiled. "Yeah. I am."
He lied down next to me, then winced. "Oh, man. It's cold." He pulled out the hood of his coat and nestled his head in it. "Why are you here?"
"Just looking at the clouds. I like looking for shapes in them." I turned my head to look at him. "Have you ever looked at clouds at sunset? They're sort of golden and it's like sunlight reflecting off snow-capped peaks. It looks beautiful. Sometimes when the sunlight is just right, it looks like there's snow all around, and sometimes you see a lake or two. There's a whole picture in the sky."
"So...is this how you get inspiration for your paintings? When you see hidden pictures in clouds or leaves or something?"
I shrugged. "Guess so. Mostly I get ideas from my dreams."
After a pause he said, "So you dream your paintings and you paint your dreams."
"Oooh, someone's talking like a writer," I teased.
He smiled. "What's your favorite color?"
"My favorite color? Hm. You know that mauve that you see just after sunset, just before nightfall? That light, purplish color that's there for just five minutes or so? That color." I looked at him. "Yours?"
"Blue. That deep, sapphire-like blue that's at the bottom of dark lakes. The kind of blue your eyes are."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm not flirting. It's really my favorite color."
I started laughing. "Did I say you were flirting?" The bell rang. I sat up. "Let's go."
On the way to the class, we passed the wall which had the 'You must kill William' graffiti, which had appeared there on Liam's birthday. Everyone was so used to it by now that no one paid much attention to it (except us).
I sat with him in Math, which was the only class we had together. The teacher hadn't yet entered. Luke was bullying someone in a corner.
Liam didn't talk much. He stared at the wall for sometime, then took out a notebook from his bag, and started writing something. The notebook was black and spiral-bound and much abused: it looked like it had fallen into water at some point, and the pages were worn out, like they were flipped at least twenty times a day. I tried to peek, but Liam saw it and covered it with his hand and continued to write. This hurt me a little, but I didn't say anything.
Luke's attention turned to us then, and he forgot about the guy he was bullying and called out, "Hey, freak! Writing a love letter?" Some people laughed. Liam ignored him. "Hey Meatball, it's you I'm talking to!" Liam ignored him again, and then suddenly Luke was there, and he snatched the notebook Liam was writing in.
"Don't!" he roared, throwing Luke at a table, who got mad and pushed Liam against the wall, his hands wrapped tightly around Liam's neck. Liam's face was turning purple. About five people came and tried to pull Luke away, and when they did, Liam pushed him to the ground and dug his nails into his skin. "You think calling people names makes you very cool, huh?" He started punching, and the five people who had tried to save him now tried to pull him away. His ears were red. I stood up, as if that would do anything. I felt helpless. "Stop it, Liam!"
The math teacher walked in then, and saw Liam sitting on Luke and punching him into a six-feet pulp. "What's going on?" she cried, and they stopped fighting immediately. There was blood on Luke's face, and she looked at it and said, "Detention for you, Liam. For a month." Then she sent Luke to the school doctor and made Liam sit on the first seat, where she could keep her beady little eyes on him.
I sat down, and I saw his notebook on the ground. I picked it up. A page had come out of the spiral, probably the page he was writing on, and the edge peeked out from between the pages of the closed notebook. I could make out two words, and the rest was hidden, but those two words were: blue, as in my eyes, and Hazel with a capital 'H', as in my name. The skin on my neck tingled with excitement. I was tempted to open it and see what he'd written, but I feared he would turn around in his seat and catch me reading and get annoyed, so I put it down on the table and forgot about it.
∞
"Which flower do you like?"
"Orchid. Blue and purple orchids." I put the bowl of spaghetti in the microwave. "Why?"
"Because it's Valentine's Day and so I'm getting a flower for you. Do you mind if I come over? Dad's going somewhere and I really don't feel like being alone right now."
Whaaaat? I thought. Liam Samuels is bringing a flower for me on Valentine's Day?
"Oh, sure," I said as normally as I could. The home phone was ringing. "Bye. Gotta go." I ended the call.
I hopped happily to the living room and picked up. "Hello?" Nobody replied. Then I heard a voice whispering something, but I couldn't make out anything because of the static. It was a throaty, raspy voice. Goosebumps rose on my skin, but I acted normal. "Hello? I can't hear you!"
I waited for some time, then hung up. My blood was pulsing in my ears. I went back to the kitchen and ate my dinner hurriedly, then I brushed my teeth so that my mouth wouldn't reek, and just when I came out of the bathroom, the doorbell rang. My lopsided reflection was visible in the doorknob. My hair looked okay. I pulled the door open.
Liam stood there, holding something in his hand, but I didn't know what because I was too busy looking at his face. He was wearing these huge, ugly glasses that made him look weird. "You...got...glasses?"
"Nah. I wear them because they're cool. My eyesight is okay." He held up a single stem of blue and purple orchids. "For you. With lots of love from the bottom of my heart."
I laughed and nervously took the stem from him. "Thanks. They're beautiful." I stepped aside to let him in and shut the door.
We sat on the L-shaped couch and talked, and then pretty soon I lied down on my back on one arm of the L, and then he lied down on the other arm of the L, our heads touching at the joint where both the arms met. It gave rise to a warm feeling inside me.
Should I tell him I like him? I asked myself. What better day than Valentine's?
And then he turned around till he was lying on his stomach. I turned around too, and we were looking at each other. We didn't really say anything. I thought about leaning forward and kissing him. I had a feeling that he felt something for me, but I didn't know how seriously. So I just lay there and looked at him and wished he would kiss me.
The phone rang again. Not now, I thought, not when I'm having a maybe-romantic moment that just might change my love-life. I sighed and picked up. "Hello?" I said, and as I expected, no one answered. "Who the hell is this?" And then it occurred to me that maybe the person on the other end was speaking, and I wasn't able to hear him because maybe something was wrong with the phone. I pressed the 'speaker' button.
"Hazel? Can you hear me?" It was dad. "Hello?"
No. No. I closed my eyes. "Yeah, dad, I can."
"Why is your phone switched off?"
"It ran out of battery. Can I call you later? Please?"
"Why? What are you doing right now? How was that maths test of yours?"
"It was...okay."
"Your score?"
I bit my lip. I could lie to him, but if he ever found out, it would be worse. "I got a...C."
"C?" he roared. "You got a C? Why aren't you studying properly?"
"I did study," I said, embarrassed, wishing the ground could swallow me. Is should have just lied. There was obviously no way for him to find out the truth. "Dad, please, I'll call you later—"
"No, you won't. I want to know why you got a C."
And suddenly I was furious, because Liam was sitting here and watching me get humiliated, and there was nothing I could do about it because dad wasn't listening to me, and I shouted, "What's wrong with a C? Can't I ever get a C in my life?"
He was quiet for a moment, then: "Don't use that tone with me, Hazel Jones." His voice was low, threatening. "Do you want to come back home?"
"No!"
"Then I want you to work harder. Call me later when you're done doing whatever you're doing." He hung up. I stared at the phone for a long time before picking up a cushion and burying my face in it. I started crying.
"Hey, don't." I felt Liam sit next to me. He put his arm around me. "It's okay."
"Nothing's okay." I tried to shrug him off, but he held on. "You don't understand anything. You don't know what it's like to be me, and you never will. You don't know how much my parents torture me. I hate them. So don't tell me it's okay. Nothing's okay."
"At least you have both your parents," he mumbled, mostly to himself. That made me stop. I looked at him. He was staring at the wall. I rubbed away my tears.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"What happened to your mom? How did she...?" My voice trailed off.
He took his time to answer. "I was about nine years old then. It was winter. Mom had gone out somewhere, and she'd promised me that she would get my favorite chocolate for me, but she forgot, and when she came home I threw a huge tantrum. And I told her that I really wanted that chocolate, and so she went out again. She never came back." He looked at me. "An hour later the policeman stood at the door. And then dad started crying softly. And I ran to my room and shut the door. That's all I remember." His eyes were glistening slightly. Before I could say anything to comfort him, he stood up. "I need to go to the washroom."
A water drop clung to his nose when he came out. He'd washed his face. He sat next to me. "It wasn't your fault," I said.
"It was."
"You were just a kid, Liam." I squeezed his hand. "It's okay." And then the lights went out abruptly. I jumped and squeezed his hand tighter and let out a high-pitched scream.
"Hey! Calm down. I'm right here," he soothed.
But I felt cold. And it was the same, unnatural cold that I had started to recognize. Goosebumps rose on my skin. "Liam! She's here! Oh my God, she's here!"
"Who? There's no one—"
"That woman! That nurse who jumped from Room 502! She's here, Liam."
And then we heard it. That whispery, whistling voice coming from all around us: Just find him...If you can't kill him, just find him...
I screamed again, squeezed his sweaty hand tighter, then worried that I was stopping his blood supply. I loosened my grip a little and squeezed a cushion instead.
Liam cleared his throat. Then, a minute later: "What— What do you want from us?"
William killed me, she hissed. And you will kill him.
"Why don't you just k-kill him yourself?"
Because I'm too weak...
"What do you mean?" But she was gone. The cold and her voice was fading away. It was still dark. I continued to squeeze the cushion. "Hazelnut? You okay there?"
"No. I can't see anything."
"The lights will come on in a moment." And then they did. "See?" He flashed a watery smile. We were hugging each other so tightly that I was almost on his lap. The moment would have been enjoyable had we both not been so shaken.
I wiped away my tears, wondering when they had erupted. I hadn't even realized I was crying. "Why do the lights go out whenever she's here?"
He shrugged. "Just a ghost thing, maybe." He shivered. "Jesus, it's like living in a horror movie. I didn't even believe in ghosts until I saw that pale woman at my window. I never thought something like this would happen to me."
I sniffed. "What should we do? I mean, there has to be a way to get rid of her, right? She can't keep...haunting us till we die."
"All I have learnt from horror movies is that ghosts stay on earth because either they died a violent death, or they have some unfinished business here. And obviously, she's here because she wants to kill William. So unless someone kills him, she won't leave us alone."
A silence followed.
"William pushed her in 1932, right?" I asked. "He must've been pretty old at that time. Let's say he was thirty years old or something. He would be dead by now."
"If she's still here, then maybe he's alive, too. If he'd died, then the thread which keeps her tied to the earth would've broken, and she would've moved on to the afterlife. So he must be alive."
"But we can't go and kill him just to get rid of some stupid ghost! We don't even know who he is!"
"Of course we can't kill him. There has to be another way." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I stared at him. My expression must've been hopeful, because he threw up his hands and said, "Look, I don't know anything about this ghost shit. I don't know how to break curses. I don't know why William pushed that nurse. I'm the last person you should ask about ghosts."
I bit my lip. "What about...an exorcism?"
"Exorcism?" he repeated. "You can't just pick up a candle and chicken bones and perform an exorcism, Hazel."
"What the hell should we do then?" I asked heatedly. "Maybe this stuff doesn't scare you, but I can't even sleep at night. I have nightmares. Whenever night falls I think that the stupid ghost is going to turn up and kill me or...possess me or something. I came here to learn art, Liam." My voice broke slightly. "All I wanted was to have my own studio and be a successful artist. I never wanted to get involved in this paranormal stuff. And it scares the life out of me. I—"
Before I could finish, he pulled me into a hug. "It's alright. We'll find a way."
I buried my face into his shoulder. "Promise me."
"I promise." He stroked my hair. "We'll get rid of her."
I just nodded.
An hour later, he announced that he was going back because his curfew was ten. I walked with him to the door. A blast of cold air hit my face as soon as I pulled it open. We stood there for a minute in the doorway, standing facing each other, leaning against the frame. He was looking at me. I gazed into his soft, grey eyes. My heart was beating loudly.
He slipped his arm around my waist and kissed my tear-stained cheek. I remember clearly the feeling of his chapped lips on my skin.
If I had to pinpoint the exact moment when I fell in love, well, this had to be it.
Then he flashed me that weird, goofy smile and said, "See ya tomorrow, Hazelnut."
I smiled at him and watched as he walked away. And I thought how beautiful he was. And I remembered that I'd told Sharon that he wasn't very hot, just good-looking. And I remembered that she'd said that when you loved someone, you thought that they were beautiful. And I remembered that she'd asked me if I'd take a bullet for him. And I thought: Yes. I would.
∞