Chapter 20: Give Myself the Creeps

The bus back from the community college took forty minutes and a transfer, and they had the back row to themselves.

Eliana sat by the window with her jacket zipped to her chin. She could still feel where its hands had been, two flat spots between her shoulder blades.

“It did that to Alfred,” Lexie said. “Put its whole hand on him and just left it there.”

“It was learning him,” Eliana said. “Same as me.”

“Learning you for what?”

Eliana didn’t have an answer. She pulled the cap off her pen and pushed it back on.

“It used to stay away from us,” Lexie said. “Then it says hi to me at the snacks like we’re friends. Then it hugs you.”

That had been the one rule on the back page of Eliana’s notebook. It had never been anywhere either of them actually was. Today it had walked right up to both of them.

She looked at Lexie, lit orange by a passing streetlight, and couldn’t stop herself from wondering. “Birdie?”

“Rosebud,” Lexie said. “Seriously?”

“Okay.” Eliana counted on her fingers. “It doesn’t get near anybody we care about. I keep the pick on me. If anybody’s weird, we check.”

“And we get it alone first,” Lexie said. “Then we push it so hard it forgets whose face it came in with.”

The bus slowed for the transfer. Lexie stood and shoved her good hand into her hoodie pocket.

“Text me when you’re home.”

Eliana watched her go down the steps. Then she kept her hand on the pick in her pocket and looked at every face on the bus, one at a time, all the way home.

On Monday, the steps were already full when Eliana got there.

She took her usual place, one step below Hannah and to the left. Hannah’s hand came back with a paper cup without her looking. She was holding it by the rim, with just her fingertips.

“Have some marshmallows.”

“Spiritually,” Eliana said.

Hannah wiped her palm on her skirt as soon as the cup was gone. Then she did it again, like the first time hadn’t worked.

Eliana counted it, the way she had last Tuesday, and hated herself a little for counting. It was Hannah.

It had been a week. On these same steps, Hannah had told her it felt like it was holding on to her, and she had only said it happened really fast, and nothing else. She looked away, toward the doors, and that felt worse, because now she was watching them for a reason too.

Then the bus loop. Then every face coming up the path, one at a time, checking for a smile that was too wide or a walk that was too slow.

“Oh my god, okay,” Tessa said, turning around on her step. “So you know the robotics girl. Emma? She came up to me in the parking lot this morning and said she loved my bracelet.” She held up her wrist, T-H-E catching the light. “She’s literally never spoken to me in my entire life. She asked where I got it.”

“That’s nice,” Emily said.

“It’s weird. Like, nice, but weird.” Tessa looked pleased about it anyway. “I told her it was a trio thing.”

Eliana’s pen cap came off and went back on.

“You’re doing the door thing again,” Hannah said quietly, scrolling her phone with one finger.

“What door thing?”

“The thing where you just keep staring at it like you’re waiting for someone.” Hannah scrolled. “It’s fine. I’m just saying I notice it.”

Eliana made herself look at her latte.

“Oh, and Mel’s doing a movie night Friday,” Hannah said, a little louder, for the group. She lowered her voice again for Eliana. “I texted Lexie. She left me on read.”

“She does that.”

“I’m wearing her down.” Hannah’s hand went to her skirt again, flat, and wiped once. “She jumped in a pool for me. She can sit through one bad movie.”

Tessa’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Vivian promised she won’t say anything about punk basements,” Hannah added.

“I promised I’d try,” Vivian said.

The bell rang. Eliana stood up with everyone else. Hannah walked ahead of her with her hands balled up in her sleeves, and Eliana looked at the doors one last time before she went in.

Lexie found the band where they always were, on the milk crates behind the gym.

Rodney was drumming on his knees with two pencils. Ryan had his phone out. Meghan had her guitar case across her lap with a new setlist taped to the lid, and when she saw Lexie coming she moved her bag off the fourth crate without being asked.

That was new since Thursday. Lexie sat down on it.

“So,” Rodney said. “Narnia says you went to a robot fight.”

“It wasn’t a fight.”

“Narnia says there was a fight.”

“Narnia wasn’t there.”

“That’s never stopped Narnia.” Rodney pointed a pencil at her. “Did the robots fight or not?”

“They stacked cubes.”

Rodney looked at her like she had told him his dog died. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Alfred won, though.”

“Who’s Alfred?”

“The robot.”

Ryan looked up from his phone. “You’re on a first-name basis with a robot now?”

Lexie didn’t answer. She was looking past them, at the bleachers across the field, where Ajax had once seen her smile and wave at him on a Saturday she’d spent in Rodney’s basement.

Nobody was there. She looked anyway.

Then she looked at Rodney. He had gone back to his knees, pencils going, and he was rushing it, the way he rushed the bridge on every song they had ever played. Lexie let out a breath. Something wearing Rodney would probably keep better time.

Her phone buzzed.

Meghan was close enough to see the screen. Her pencil-straight eyebrows went up.

“Hannah?” she said. “Like, Hannah Hannah?”

Lexie put the phone face down on her knee. “It’s nothing.”

Meghan looked at her for a second. Then she went back to the setlist.

“Okay,” she said.

That was all. From Meghan, that was a lot.

“Thursday,” Meghan added, without looking up. “Bring your voice.”

“I always bring my voice.”

“You bring some of it.”

Rodney laughed. Ryan didn’t look up from his phone.

Lexie looked back at the bleachers. Still nobody.

Lexie ate lunch in the yearbook room, the way she had every day for weeks.

Mika was already at the computer with the clubs spread open, and she spun her chair around the second the door shut.

“Okay, you have to see this,” Mika said. “I got a miracle this morning.”

“What kind of miracle?”

“Emma.” Mika said it like the name of a rare bird. “Robotics Emma. She came in before first period carrying the trophy. Like, actually carrying it, both arms. And she asked me to take her picture with it.” She pressed her hands together. “I’ve been trying to get one usable photo of that girl since freshman year. Every picture I have of her, she’s glaring at the camera like it insulted her robot.”

Lexie put her sandwich down.

“Show me.”

Mika turned the screen around.

It was Emma, in front of the proof sheets on the wall, holding the robotics trophy against her chest. She was smiling with her whole face, the way she had at the snack table, with her chin up and her eyes squeezed half shut. It was a good picture. Mika was right about that.

One of her hands was flat against the trophy’s metal base, fingers spread, like she wanted to feel all of it at once.

“She stayed for like ten minutes,” Mika said. “She asked how the camera works. She held it. She kept saying everything was so cool.” Mika tilted her head at the screen, pleased. “I think winning changed her.”

Lexie looked at the hand on the trophy.

“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”

Mika looked at her, then at the photo, then at her again. Her smile stayed where it was, but it got smaller around the edges.

“You don’t like it,” Mika said.

“It’s a good picture.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Lexie picked her sandwich back up so she’d have something to do with her hands.

“Where’d she go after?” she said.

“Library, I think. She said she wanted to see Anthony.” Mika turned back to the computer and dragged the photo into the empty box on the clubs spread, where it said ROBOTICS. “She said they’re friends now.”

Lexie’s text came in while Eliana was still in the lunch line.

Eliana got to the library’s glass door first. Lexie came around the corner a minute later, half running, and stopped beside her.

The table by the window was full. Ajax was stretched across two chairs with his eyes closed. Lisa was at the end with a problem set. Anthony was in his usual seat with his laptop open, and Emma was sitting next to him.

Too close. Her chair was pulled right up against his, so their shoulders touched, and she didn’t have a laptop of her own. She was reading his. She had a bag of his chips open in her lap and was eating them one at a time, and every so often she pointed at a row on his screen and laughed.

Anthony was typing with his elbows pulled in tight, like he was trying to take up less of the table. Every few seconds he leaned an inch away from her. Every time, she leaned an inch after him.

“Real Emma brings her own laptop,” Eliana said quietly.

“Real Emma doesn’t eat other people’s chips,” Lexie said.

Emma stood up. She brushed the salt off her hands, then put one palm flat on Anthony’s shoulder and left it there for a second too long. Anthony went completely rigid. Then she walked out the far door, the one on the other side of the stacks, and didn’t look back.

The girls went in.

Anthony saw them coming and put his headphones on. Lexie walked straight up and pulled one side off his ear.

“Don’t,” Anthony said.

“What was that?” Eliana said.

“I don’t know.” He pulled the headphone back down around his neck himself. His hands were shaking, a little. “Emma sends me spreadsheets. Emma does not sit on me. That was not Emma behavior.”

“What did she want?”

“She read every row.” He turned the laptop so they could see it. “Out loud. She laughed at the ones about you two. She said the gym one was her favorite.”

Eliana looked at the screen. It was a row from last week, Emma’s own sighting.

“She told me my ghost was her favorite costume at the party,” Ajax said, without opening his eyes. “Which was nice. Except Emma wasn’t at the party.”

Down the table, Lisa had stopped writing. She was looking at Eliana.

“Where did she go?” Lexie said.

“I don’t know. She asked me where the fire started.” Anthony scrolled up to the first rows of the log. “East hall, upstairs, by the main stairs. Outside the chem lab. Then she said thanks and left that way.” He shook his head. “Emma doesn’t say thanks.”

The bell rang for fifth period.

Anthony turned his laptop back around and started a new row. He typed fast, without looking at either of them.

Then he put his headphones back on.

Eliana had never skipped a class in her life. She looked at Lexie, and Lexie was already walking toward the far door.

Lexie got to the top of the stairs first.

The east hall was empty. Everyone was in class. Mr. Bayer’s voice came muffled through the chem lab door, and somewhere farther down, a projector hummed. The baseboard by the main stairs had been painted over, but if you knew where to look you could still see it, a darker stripe under the new paint. There was a new extinguisher in the bracket by the trophy case, red and shiny.

Emma was sitting on the floor under the trophy case with her legs stretched out, eating the last of Anthony’s chips.

She looked up and smiled.

“There you are.”

Eliana came up the last step beside her and stopped. Lexie felt it at the same time she did, the low pressure in her chest, like standing too close to a speaker that wasn’t playing anything.

“What are you?” Lexie said.

It tipped its head. “Your friend in the library had a word for it. Doppelgänger.” It said the word slowly, like it was trying it on. “I like that one.”

It folded the empty chip bag into a neat square and put it in its pocket. Then it licked the salt off its thumb.

“Where’s Emma?” Eliana said.

“In the lab. Where she always is.” It shrugged with Emma’s shoulders. “She skipped first period to fix the claw. Nobody noticed. I made sure.”

“What do you want?”

“Me? Nothing.” It got to its feet and brushed off its jeans. “Somebody wants to know what you two can do. So I’m supposed to find out.”

Then its face changed.

It happened the way a song changes key, all at once and smooth. Emma was gone, and Eliana was standing there with her own hair, her own face, smiling at herself with both hands empty. No pen. Then that face slid away too and it was Lexie, and it held up its left hand and waved it, palm open, clean, no gauze and no burn. Then it was Hannah.

Hannah, smiling, with her hands loose at her sides.

Eliana made a sound she didn’t mean to make.

It was Emma again. It looked pleased with itself.

Eliana’s hand was already in her pocket. The pick was warm, warmer than her hand could make it, and she knew what Tommy had written on that slow, almost neat page, without having to look.

it wears many facesand it’ll wear yours too

“Lexie…” she said.

“Yeah.” Lexie didn’t look away from it. “Do it.”

Eliana brought the pick down on the nearest locker door.

It didn’t clank. It rang, the low E, deep enough that she felt it in the floor, and she hit it again, all downstrokes, the way he had written it. Lexie came in on the next beat, not loud but hard, her bracelet cracking against the locker beside Eliana’s in time.

back up, back downthis ain’t your town

Eliana didn’t think about the chords. She thought about Hannah’s face on that thing, smiling, with her hands loose. Hannah, who couldn’t hold a cup by anything but the rim anymore.

you heard me oncedon’t make me twice

The air went out of the hall in one shove.

It caught the Doppelgänger in the chest and threw it back down the hall on its heels. A row of locker doors banged open one after another as it went past. It hit the fire door at the far end hard enough to rattle the glass, and slid down to sit on the floor.

Then it laughed.

It sat there with its back against the door, laughing, with Emma’s hair in its face. Not hurt. Not even a little. It got up and brushed itself off and walked back toward them, taking its time.

“That’s the one,” it said, delighted. “That’s the one I wanted to hear again.”

It stopped at the lockers beside them. It looked at Eliana’s hand, at the pick, the way you’d watch someone tie a knot you wanted to learn. Then it raised its own knuckles and rapped them on the locker door, in exactly the same rhythm.

It sang, and it sang in Lexie’s voice. Every word, every rasp on the low notes, perfect.

back up, back downthis ain’t your town

Nothing moved, not a door, not a speck of dust.

It looked at its hand, puzzled, like a vending machine had eaten its dollar.

“Huh,” it said. “He made that look so easy.”

Eliana went cold all the way through.

“Your uncle,” it said, to her, almost friendly. “He used to play it so much louder.”

Lexie rushed it before Eliana could grab her. She closed the gap in three steps, good hand already pulled back, and swung at Emma’s face with everything she had.

Emma’s face went gray.

It happened under her knuckles, at the last second. The skin went dull and hard and cold, the color of Alfred’s chassis, and Lexie’s fist hit steel. Something in her hand cracked. She heard it before she felt it. Then she felt it, all the way up her arm, and she doubled over with her fist against her stomach and swore through her teeth.

It didn’t hit back. It just stood there while the gray faded out of its face and Emma’s skin came back, and looked down at Lexie’s hand.

“You shouldn’t do that,” it said. It sounded like it meant it.

Then the fire alarm went off.

It was the same flat, ugly note from the drill. Every door on the floor opened at once.

“Are you serious?” a girl said, coming out of the chem lab with her goggles still on. “Again?”

“Is it a real one?”

“It’s always a real one now. Remember last time?”

“Dude, the lockers are all open.”

“Single file, please!” Mr. Bayer was in the lab doorway with one arm out, counting heads. “Leave it, Marcus. Go. Down the stairs.”

The hall was full of kids in seconds, all of them moving the same direction, toward the main stairs.

The Doppelgänger stepped into the line.

It didn’t run. It just fell in with everyone else, Emma’s hands in Emma’s pockets, easy, like a drill was the most normal thing in the world. Eliana pushed after it. A boy cut between them, and when he passed, the girl standing where Emma had been had a ponytail and a cheer jacket. Then a tall kid in a hoodie. Then nobody she could pick out at all.

Her hand was on the pick in her pocket. She couldn’t use it here. Not with half the floor standing between her and it, and every one of them looking.

She stopped and let the crowd go around her. The pressure in her chest was fading, the way a speaker hums for a second after you turn it off, and then it was gone.

She turned around.

Lexie was against the lockers where she’d left her, holding her right hand against her stomach. Someone knocked her shoulder going past and she hissed through her teeth.

Eliana pushed back through the crowd and took her wrist, carefully, the way she had in the kitchen after the fire.

“Let me see.”

Lexie let her. Two of the knuckles had split open, and the whole back of her hand was already going red and puffy.

“Can you move your fingers?”

Lexie moved them. Her face said that was a mistake.

“It turned into metal,” Lexie said. “I punched a robot.”

“I know.”

“It didn’t even hit back.”

Eliana looked down the hall at all of them, the kids in goggles and the kids with their phones up, every one of them looking at the open lockers.

It could have been any of them.

Mr. Anderson was coming up the main stairs against the flow, one hand on the rail, saying stairs, keep moving, stairs to everyone who passed him.

He reached the top and saw them against the lockers. He stopped.

He looked at the two of them, at Lexie’s hand held tight against her stomach, at Eliana holding her wrist. Then down the hall, at the row of locker doors hanging open, and the fire door at the end still shut crooked in its frame.

He smiled at them, warm, the way he smiled at everyone.

“You two look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Neither of them said anything.

“Come on. Outside.” He stepped back to let them past and held out his arm toward the stairs. “Ms. Calloway, the nurse will want to see that hand once we’re on the lawn.” As they went by him, he added, mildly, “Let’s take this one seriously, hm?”

Eliana didn’t look back until they were halfway down the stairs. When she did, he was still standing at the top, looking down the empty hall with his hands in his pockets, like he was making sure they got out before he did.

Lexie found her before Eliana did.

The whole school was spilling out across the front lawn in uneven lines, teachers walking up and down with clipboards, kids complaining about the cold. The robotics kids had their own clump near the fence, and Emma was in the middle of it, sitting cross-legged on the grass with a piece of Alfred’s claw in her lap and a tiny screwdriver in her hand. She was scowling at it. Dylan was asleep sitting up against the fence beside her.

Lexie stopped in front of her. Eliana came up a second later.

Emma looked up at both of them, flat, the way she looked at everyone.

“What,” she said.

“Were you in the yearbook room this morning?” Eliana said.

“Why would I be in the yearbook room?”

“The library. At lunch.”

“I’ve been in the lab since seven.” Emma held up the claw. “The servo stripped. I skipped first period to fix it, and I skipped lunch to fix it, and now there’s a fire alarm, so I’m fixing it on the grass.”

“She was there,” Dylan said, without opening his eyes. “I was there. I was asleep, but I was there.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at Eliana. “Why?”

“Somebody said they saw you.”

“Somebody says they see you every week.” Emma went back to the claw. “I wrote it down.”

Lexie looked at Eliana. Eliana looked at the claw in Emma’s hands, at the scowl, at the tiny screwdriver turning and turning. Emma hadn’t smiled once. She probably wouldn’t for the rest of the year.

It was her.

“Okay,” Eliana said. “Sorry. Never mind.”

They walked away. Behind them, Emma muttered something to Dylan about weird people, and Dylan said “mm” in his sleep.

Civics was last period on Mondays, and by the time everyone was let back inside, there were twenty minutes of it left.

Mr. Anderson had already written on the board. WHAT COUNTS AS PROOF?

“Somebody pulled the alarm this afternoon,” he said, once everyone had stopped complaining about the cold. “Or something set it off. Nobody knows which. So.” He tapped the board. “How would you find out?”

Sean’s chair was already tipping back. “Cameras. Obviously. A free society is a recorded society—”

“That’s the opposite of what you said last week,” Thea said.

“Devil’s advocate here,” Leonard said. “You don’t need a camera. Who was in the hall? Who had a reason? Who was acting weird? Put it together. That’s how half of all convictions work.”

“And how half of them are wrong,” Thea said.

Eliana stopped listening.

Across the aisle, Lexie had her right hand on the desk, wrapped in fresh white gauze from the nurse. Her left was still in the old bandage. Both hands, now. She was looking at the board without reading it.

Eliana’s phone buzzed against her leg.

Eliana looked at the screen for a long time. Then she typed with her thumb, under the desk.

The dots came up. Went away. Came back.

Eliana thought about that page. No two sightings agree. No symbol in the corner. Cece hadn’t known what it looked like. Nobody would, if it could look like anybody.

She thought about the night Tommy didn’t come home. The same night as Cece. Two people who knew exactly what to do with a song, and something that had heard them sing it.

She typed it before she could stop.

The dots didn’t come up for a while.

At the front of the room, Mr. Anderson was listening to Leonard argue both sides of something at once. His eyes went to the two of them, to the phones under the desks, the way they had twice before.

This time he didn’t say anything. He just turned back to the board and underlined the question, once, slowly.