Fire with Fire

AT DAWN, I WAKE UP AND FIND MYSELF IN A BALL ON the ground. Frosty green grass, dirt, and a touch of snow. But I don’t feel cold. I don’t feel anything. I lift my head.

What happened?

Why am I still here?

Slowly more things come into focus. Slabs of white marble, brittle bouquets, melted candles. I’m in the big graveyard in the center of the island.

I crawl closer to the gravestone I’m lying in front of.

JAMES GLENN DONOVAN, BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER.

I let out a sob. Daddy.

It says he died a year ago. I rack my brain, trying to remember the last time I saw him. It had to have been before I left for Jar Island. But I can’t remember anything about that day. I can’t hear his voice, or see him put me on the ferry. It’s like someone erased my memory, wiped it blank.

I’m still choking back tears when I see it. The gravestone right next to his. It looks old, like it used to be white and now it’s grayish.

ELIZABETH MARY DONOVAN ZANE. SLEEP, MY LITTLE ONE, SLEEP.

My fingers reach out. Elizabeth. I say it and I know it’s my name.

My family has always called me Mary, because I was named after Aunt Bette . . . but at school, I was Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Zane.

Big EZ.

With a shaking hand, I try to trace my birthday. Thirteen when I . . .

I stumble to my feet and start backing away from the grave, without leaving a single footprint behind in the snow. I spin and run as fast as I can back to my house.

The front door is open. I run inside, up the stairs, to my room.

There aren’t any boxes. None of the clothes I packed away. My dresser is covered in a sheet. My bed has no linens. I step into the bathroom. The shower curtain’s gone. The towels, too. I look down into my bathtub. It’s full of dust, even though I showered right before Mom came.

But I’ve been going to school. I’ve been doing all the normal things a high school girl does. I have friends. I have two friends!

How could they see me if I’m dead?

I go over it in my head. All the people I’ve talked to . . . Kat, Lillia, Aunt Bette. That’s pretty much it.

But wait! Halloween! I talked to other people on Halloween. I kissed a boy on Halloween.

Then I remember what Aunt Bette said to me that night. On Halloween the line between the living and the dead is blurred.

I rock back on my knees. Aunt Bette’s been trying to tell me all along. But I didn’t understand.

And I still don’t.

Have I been here this whole time? The mental hospital, the new house, the years I’ve spent away from here—did I make it all up in my head? Like the bike? My clothes?

Is none of it real?

And the biggest question of all . . . If I’m dead, why didn’t I go to heaven? Or hell? Or just disappear? Why can’t I leave Jar Island?

I squeeze my eyes shut, throw back my head, and scream a scream that doesn’t end.