“Isabel, what do you think of this F?” Diana demanded, shoving a piece of lined paper in my face. “Is the loop okay or no?”
I blinked, glancing over at Diana and forcing a smile. “It’s kind of hard to tell when the paper is so close to my face,” I told her with a short grin.
With more than a little grumbling on her part, Diana pulled the paper away to a distance so that I’d actually be able to see more than blurred lines of blue and white. I pursed my lips with thought, my eyes flicking between Diana’s F and the F in my mother’s signature. My mom’s name was the only name Diana hadn’t mastered yet. Though writing the name Francesca was not all that difficult, it was incredibly hard to write it out exactly like a woman with a sophisticated signature. Sadly, my mom was the type of person who prided herself in having a beautiful cursive hand. So this was going to be challenging.
“I think it needs to be a little thinner,” I said, tilting my head to the side. “You might want to try tracing her name over again. The A’s look a little off, too.”
Diana sighed deeply, but nodded. “Whatever you say, boss,” she drawled. She collapsed on my bed with a sigh. “It would be so much easier if we only had to use a copy machine.”
“That it would,” I murmured, my attention already elsewhere. “Too bad we don’t have that option.”
My eyes went back to my computer screen as I typed Ashlynn’s name, yet again, into Google. I leaned back against my bed, my spot on the floor seeming more comfortable at the moment than my mattress. Don’t ask me why I felt that way. I just did.
I’d been searching for Ashlynn’s location for what felt like forever. In reality it’d been about a week, but it made no difference to me. Even if Diana managed to master signatures, it would still be pointless without Ashlynn’s location. Elijah had already figured out how to get us out of the school and into another one. He’d finished his part in the plan the day after it was assigned. He was trying to help me find Ashlynn, but it was proving difficult.
Saying I felt screwed would be a complete understatement.
“If she had honor roll this would be so much simpler,” I muttered, bringing a hand exasperatedly through my hair. “She’s probably failing her classes. Even in elementary school she didn’t care at all about her grades.”
Diana’s eyes flicked toward me before moving back to her sheet of paper. “Girl, no one cared about grades in elementary school besides you,” she said with a small grin. “And you didn’t even care about grades until you came home with a B and your parents scolded you for not doing your best.”
That was true. The first few years of my elementary life had been bliss. Grades weren’t my concern; playing with my friends on the playground and coloring in my coloring books were my concern. But the first time I got a low score, my parents drilled it into my head that it wasn’t acceptable. I needed to thrive in my education. I needed to care.
“I wonder how much they’d scold you now,” Kendall mused, appearing out of nowhere. She sat crisscross-applesauce next to me, her chin resting on her fist. She smiled mischievously. “I mean, you’re supposed to have B’s and all.”
I jumped, letting out a small curse. “Geezum, Kendall!” I gasped out. “Don’t do that!”
“Hi, Kendall,” Diana drawled disinterestedly, her full concentration placed on her signature forgery. “This F is going to be the death of me!”
“Are you having any luck?” Kendall asked, serious now. “It’s been like a week.”
I shook my head, frowning. “It’s ridiculous. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s like she never even existed.”
“Or she got married at a ridiculously young age,” Diana suggested unhelpfully. “Maybe her last name is something really atrocious now. I hope so.”
I rolled my eyes. “As funny and comforting as it would be for her to have a terrible last name, that doesn’t help me.”
Kendall let out a long breath of air through her teeth. I glanced over at her, biting my lip. She looked exactly as she had the first time I saw her, yet she seemed different. Of course her outfit had changed (unlike all the stories, Kendall was somehow able to change her clothes), but other than that, she was the same. However, her energy was a different story. She seemed less energetic, less…I didn’t even know how to explain it. She just wasn’t acting like herself.
“Kendall, are you all right?” I asked softly.
“Hmm?” Kendall murmured. “Yeah, fine.”
My eyebrows drew together. “You didn’t make a sarcastic remark about Ashlynn’s last name. That’s unlike you.”
Kendall grimaced. “It’s just…I only have a month and a couple weeks left. I’m starting to feel less…I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Alive?” I offered softly.
Kendall pursed her lips before nodding. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it. I mean, I don’t breathe and I don’t have a heartbeat, but I still have energy. But starting yesterday I’ve been having less of it. Soon enough I’m not going to be able to pop from place to place. And then I’ll start to disappear.”
I stared at her, dread curling in my stomach. My sister was slowly deteriorating before my eyes and I could do basically nothing to stop it. And what little I could do seemed impossible at this point. How was I going to save her when I couldn’t even get a city name? How?
“What is Kendall saying?” Diana demanded suddenly. “Iz, you look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I need to get Ashlynn’s location, and I need to get it now,” I muttered instead of answering my friend. “We can’t afford to waste any more time.” I glanced up at Diana, my lips tugging into a grimace. “Do you think you’ll be able to master my mom’s signature by tonight?”
Diana shrugged. “Maybe. Do you think you’ll be able to find Ashlynn’s name?”
“I don’t have a choice.” My head twisted back to my screen. “I have to find it tonight. We need to get this plan on the move. Kendall doesn’t have much time.”
∞
“I found her!” I shrieked. “I found Ashlynn!”
Elijah, Kendall, and Diana looked over at me, eyes wide. They were all sprawled on my bed, their own devices in front of them. Diana, her paper; Elijah, his laptop; Kendall, her dry-erase board. The three had been conversing together for the past hour while I stayed quiet, determined to find Ashlynn before the night ended.
“Where is she?” Elijah demanded grimly. “Is she in the state?”
Elijah had arrived an hour before after Diana called him over to help. In order to explain this to my parents, I told them that we had a group project due for school on Monday. Seeing how it was Friday and that meant time was slim, they didn’t care at all that Elijah arrived past eight o’clock. They didn’t even object to both Diana and Elijah sleeping over, which was new.
I smiled triumphantly at my computer. “Yes, she’s in the state,” I said. “She lives three cities over, so we won’t have to travel that far. That means that we can get home in time for dinner each night.”
“Good.” Elijah let out a breath of air. “I did not want to have to make up a bull-crap excuse to my parents each night about why I keep coming home late.”
“Wait, are we still enrolling in her school?” Diana demanded. “I did not practice Francesca’s signature all night not to enroll.”
“We’re still enrolling,” I said with a nod. “If it were the next city over, thing would be different. But she lives a good half-hour away.”
“Where does she live?” Diana asked.
My eyes flicked back to the screen. “She lives in Gardner,” I replied, tilting my head to the side. “She goes to Gardner High School. Go Wildcats.”
“Their mascot is the Wildcats?” Diana snorted out a laugh. “And I thought ours was lame.”
“Ours is lame,” Elijah snapped. “I’d rather be the Wildcats than the Black Panthers.”
“Well, it’s your lucky day, Eli.” Diana winked. “You’re about to become one.” She gasped. “Oh my god is this going to be like High School Musical? Am I going to meet Troy Bolton?”
Elijah shot her an unimpressed look. “We don’t have time for stupidity.” His eyes moved to me. “What website are you on, anyway?”
“The school’s,” I replied. I glanced at Kendall and smiled. She smiled back. “She’s a cheerleader there.”
“Are you sure it’s her?” Elijah asked. “I know you don’t want to hear any doubts, but—”
“It’s her.” I nodded, determined. “There’s a picture of her and the squad. She looks almost exactly the same, and when we were younger she was on a cheerleading squad.”
“Let me see!”
Without a word, I handed my laptop over to Diana. She took the laptop from my hands, letting it fall roughly on her lap. “Oh hot damn,” she breathed as her eyes latched on the screen. “She’s gorgeous!”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, bringing a hand through my hair. “Guess we can’t bet on her becoming an ugly troll, huh?”
Diana sent me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, babe. On the bright side, since she’s gorgeous you were able to recognize her. Otherwise we would have been screwed.”
That was true.
I nodded and let out a sigh. “Okay, we know where she is. Now we have to get unenrolled from our school and enrolled into hers.”
The three nodded. One glance at Kendall and I could see that a new energy was surging through her. She didn’t look as deflated as she had a few moments ago. Of course her sarcasm was still weak and she was still losing herself to limbo, but now she had hope on her side. And hope could be a powerful thing.
“Okay,” Elijah murmured, bringing a hand through his hair. “I’ll get the paperwork tomorrow. It’s probably going to take a couple days, though, to get us into the other school.”
I nodded. “Fine. Do what you have to do.”
My gaze returned to the computer screen and I stared at Ashlynn’s photograph. She was standing with her squad, a bright smile on her face as she held up pompoms in her hands. She was extremely pretty, though I’d always known that she’d turn out that way. Long, beautiful blond hair that I was jealous of, vibrant blue eyes that always held so much energy. Ashlynn was gorgeous, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d gotten my sister killed.
I bit my lip, ripping my eyes away from the computer. So much could go wrong with this plan—so much. Elijah could have problems with transfers, Diana could sign the papers incorrectly, and I could screw up when facing Ashlynn. Just the thought of seeing Ashlynn after all these years was enough to render me panicked. What was I supposed to say? “Oh hey, Ashlynn! How’s it going? I know it’s been a few years, but remember me? You killed my sister. Remember that? No? Well, if you could admit it that would be great because my sister’s afterlife existence is kind of depending on it.”
Yeah, totally.
There was one thing for certain though: I had to go through with this plan, mess-ups or not. No matter what went wrong, I would get a confession out of Ashlynn. It didn’t matter what I had to do in order to get one.
I would save Kendall. I would.