Shantallow Read online

  “So, you’re … what, sixteen?” I asked after a long moment.

  She nodded almost imperceptibly. Then she raked one hand through her hair with sudden aggression, her cheek twitching and her gold bracelet shifting position on her wrist. “Remember what I said about it being a bad day.” Tanvi’s lips slapped shut, the temperature in the car abruptly dropping another couple of degrees.

  “Translation — quit the chatter,” I murmured. “I hear you.” I motioned to my street, reciting the house number and then pointing it out for her as we approached. If Tanvi had been someone else I might have been able to figure out how to stop her from disappearing now that it was almost time for me to get out of the car. With her, I had no idea.

  Frustration coated my tongue as we swerved into my driveway. Had I known then what the Mahajan house looked like I could have felt defensive about the modest three-bedroom townhouse my mom had worked so hard to land a mortgage on. The narrow, three-storey house’s bare-bones style — plain brick and vinyl siding — and deck of cards-sized front lawn might have made me uncomfortable in my seat.

  But in the moment all I could think of was her. She wasn’t a dream. We weren’t standing in the clearing in the woods, the sky as black as dirty oil and gloom pressing in on us from every angle. She was a regular teenage girl next to me, one of her overalls straps threatening to slip off her shoulder.

  Tanvi shifted into park and furrowed her eyebrows. “You like what you see?” she asked pointedly, right hand firmly clutching the gearshift. Brown eyes stared at me appraisingly, a current of antagonism headed directly for my forehead while I refused to duck.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “You’ve been staring at me practically the entire ride. I figured you must like what you see.”

  If she’d seen me in her nightmares she would’ve stared too. On the lawn and again in her car. No matter how she tried to stop herself.

  “I do,” I admitted. I like it a lot. The hairs at the back of my neck stood on end. My calf muscles clenched and my jaw along with them, the falling sensation expanding inside me like a mushroom cloud, annihilating everything else.

  A sour smile skimmed across Tanvi’s lips, only to be replaced with a frown. “What if I followed you inside?” she asked. “What would you do?”

  That wasn’t a fair question, and I frowned back. Outside a dog was barking wearily, as if purely by habit. Arctic air from the car vents brushed my arms like invisible fingertips.

  “You don’t want me to?” Tanvi asked, leaning back against the headrest.

  Then her cellphone chirped, demanding her attention and giving me extra time to work out her desired reaction. Was she messing with my head? Baiting me so that she could relish shooting me down? What could I do or say that wouldn’t be the wrong thing? Who the hell was this girl? Why was she stalking my nightmares?

  Tanvi fished her phone out of her overalls pocket, biting the side of her lip as she glanced at the screen. “My friends back at the movie theater,” she volunteered with a glance. “They realized I was gone.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  Tanvi shrugged, her dusty pink lips drooping at the corners. “I didn’t want to be there.”

  “Because of your bad day?”

  “Uh-huh.” Any anger coming off her had dissolved, sadness gusting in to take its place. My defensiveness began to fall away as the change registered.

  “I don’t think you really want to be here either,” I observed, heart punching against my rib cage. “Why’d you drive me home?”

  “I don’t know.” She laid a finger against the amethyst centerpiece of her bracelet. “Don’t you ever do something without really knowing why?”

  “All the time,” I replied. Not the whole truth, but it made Tanvi smile.

  “Actually, I do know,” she admitted with an incline of her head. “I didn’t want to think. I wanted” — her lips lingered, blooming in slow motion — “a break. But I don’t want to talk about what from. That defeats the purpose.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly, the ground beneath us shifting and whatever was going to happen between us tonight beginning to come into focus. “Then … come in if you like.” I unbuckled my seatbelt, the joint pain and headache worse now that I was opening the car door and stepping onto the asphalt. Nervous energy collided with the flu symptoms, struggling to overtake them. Leaning down, I peered into the car. “I do want you to,” I said.

  The dog yelped brokenly from down the street. My mind flickered, tall trees dwarfing me and darkness descending, dream memories flooding my senses.

  Tanvi blinked once and stopped her engine, the trees receding in the bright light of day. Sunshine glinted off the car as I straightened, making me squint. I watched her unfold her body and stand solidly in the here and now on my driveway, so cute in her overalls that she made my eyes hurt along with my limbs.

  I headed for the trunk, wrestling my bike out of the car and locking it away in the garage while Tanvi waited. Then I loped to the front door and slid my key into the lock, Tanvi right behind me. Stepping into the entranceway, I skirted to the right, leaving her room to slip inside. Two staircases lay ahead. One up and one down. Our basement was partially finished but mostly we used it for storage; I never took anyone there.

  Before I could kick off my shoes and lead her upstairs, Tanvi’s hand curved around my waist. Slowly, she stepped up close to me, the toes of her canvas shoes jamming against the toes of my black oxfords. Her waist was higher than mine, her legs longer, but I’d been right that day I first saw her — our heights matched.

  She leaned her face toward mine, her head tilting one way and mine the other, automatic adjustments we didn’t have to think about. The space where our mouths met caught fire. I tasted popcorn on her lips and in her mouth, her tongue salty sweet. Restless too, warm and hungry. One of my hands skimmed over her long hair and then her back, two of my fingers gently fish-hooking the overalls strap she’d had to fiddle with in the car.

  Tanvi’s fingers skated around the back of my neck, her body sinking into mine, the kiss deeper with each second. Her breasts crushed against my chest, my hand swimming up and down the strap, ready to slide it down and set her free.

  Then Tanvi eased her face away, mischief sparking in her eyes as she turned to dart upstairs. My feet were heavy on the steps as I trailed after her. She laughed when she heard the stomp. I laughed too, my lungs short on oxygen.

  She was halfway into the living room, her presence among the familiar furniture making the place feel like somewhere new, when I stopped, a wave of nausea bending my head and fastening my lips shut. Tanvi’s strap slid down her arm of its own accord when she spun to look at me. “What is it?” she asked. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.” I leaned one shoulder against the wall, steadying myself. “Why? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Not — no.”

  Three negative answers to a single question in the space of three seconds. That didn’t sound like an unqualified no to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the energy to follow up.

  “I need to lie down for a second,” I murmured, lurching over to the couch behind her. Who catches the flu in summer? And at what felt like the worst conceivable moment. Fate was playing with me, making me the butt of a joke. I would’ve been furious, but I didn’t have the energy for that either.

  “Don’t run off on me yet,” I pleaded. “I just need a minute.” Or a full body transplant.

  I collapsed onto the couch, Tanvi staring pensively down at me as she perched on the arm. “I’ll get you some water,” she offered, drifting off in the direction of the kitchen.

  My hair was sticky wet, like when I’d been running, and I knew if I kept my eyelids open I’d soon be vomiting partially digested waffles onto the carpet. The room was whirling.

  But if shutting my eyes allowed T
anvi to disappear again, I’d never forgive myself. “Thanks,” I rasped after her, my eyes closing like blackout curtains, forcing the decision.

  Behind my eyelids, the trees gradually closed in. There was nothing I could do to stop them. Their bony, twisted branches reached for my arms and shoulders, tearing into already bloody skin. My calves ached from running. My lungs howled silently, ready to give up the fight. The wind blew through my bones, threatening to crush me into rubble. It whispered cold into my ear. Things I couldn’t and didn’t want to hear. Tanvi was with me, struggling to keep up the way she always did and saying what she always said when we reached the clearing.

  I shook my head, my heart beating out of its rhythm. “I won’t do it,” I protested hoarsely. “That’s not going to happen, so you can forget about it right now.”

  “You might have to.” Tanvi’s shining eyes pleaded with me. “It could be our only chance.”

  “I don’t care.” I tugged her forward, staring into the murky tree line ahead, ready to drag her along with me until she’d give in and start running again too.

  When I pried my eyelids open again — who knows how long later — the living room was in near darkness and a noise scratched steadily overhead. I blinked up at the ceiling, searching for the cause and not finding one. But it was still happening, persistent and eerie like something that didn’t belong here. Something lost and hungry.

  I shivered as I sat up. Low voices drifted in from the kitchen, chasing the scratching sound away. My eyes had been open when I’d heard the scratching. I was sure of it. Yet I must’ve still been dreaming.

  A pint glass filled with water stood on the coffee table, within arm’s reach. I grabbed for it, the mingling voices separating themselves into two separate entities. Mom and Tanvi. Cautiously sipping, I listened to snatches of words that didn’t add up to anything I could understand.

  As I staggered into the kitchen, fever flooded me with worse shivers than the dream sound had provoked. I saw Mom with one hip parked idly against the counter as she stood listening to Tanvi utter more words than I’d heard from her so far. Mom was still in her work uniform. Navy pants and a pale blue button-down shirt with a Tealing Transit logo embroidered on the arm. Her glasses, which she needed only for distance, hung around her neck on a chain. At the sight of me, Mom’s eyes popped, her hand instinctively reaching for my forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  “I know,” I replied, but it was Tanvi I was looking at. She was still here. Still one hundred percent real, unharmed and unafraid.

  Tanvi’s eyes were mainly on my mom’s. “I better go,” she said lightly, her overalls strap neatly back in place, like it had never been otherwise. “Hope you’re feeling better soon, Misha.” She steered a neutral glance in my direction. A dark-haired mystery in a pair of overalls and a striped T-shirt.

  “Thanks,” I said, as though that was the end of it. Short and sweet.

  It could’ve been.

  Only when she made for the stairs, I went with her. I followed her down and stood in the open doorway of my house, trying not to shake as I molded a hand to her shoulder. “Who are you?” I said. “Tanvi who? Am I going to see you again?”

  In your dreams, a voice whispered inside me.

  “Tanvi Mahajan,” she replied, not answering my other question. “You should go back in. You look like hell.”

  “It’s an improvement on earlier, then,” I noted, my fingers slipping from her shoulder. “Outside the theater you said I looked like shit.”

  Tanvi grabbed herself around the middle, the two of us close enough to have touched each other whenever we wanted. “I’m trying to be nicer now that I know you a little better.” A slight grin swelled her cheeks. “Your mom seems pretty okay.”

  “She’s been through a lot.” I didn’t know what had made me say that. It must’ve been the flu warping my judgment.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Bad days …” Bad years would be more accurate. But I didn’t want to get into defining “bad” any more than Tanvi did.

  She nodded, winding a strand of hair around her finger and pulling it across her cheek at a slant. Tanvi peered down at her shoes, slowly releasing the lock of her hair to slip both hands into her pockets. Her gold bracelet peeked out from one of them, the amethyst centerpiece catching on the fabric. “My aunt died last week,” she confessed, her chin close to her chest. “She was more like a cousin. Only eight years older than me. She lived with us for a couple of years.”

  Tanvi held up one hand, palm out, to stop me from telling her I was sorry. “It was partly my mom’s fault,” she said. “That’s the worst thing about it. She wouldn’t let Alice come back home.” I watched Tanvi’s chest fill with air, weighed down by the revelation. “Don’t say anything. I’m just going to go now.”

  My shoulders sagged with second-hand grief. Tanvi didn’t care if whatever grimy virus had gotten a hold of me took her down too, and this was why. She’d lost someone close.

  I shrugged helplessly with my elbows, a mixture of pride and sudden awareness of my comparative insignificance stopping me from begging her for some kind of second chance.

  “I know where to find you,” Tanvi said, kicking her right leg out to casually tap my shoe with hers. Then she swept toward her car without a backward glance, the dog down the street howling at the rising moon and my fever carrying me back me into the house to dream more murky dreams of places I’d never been and a girl who was still more a stranger to me than she was anything else.

  4

  THE FLU KEPT ME out of my Golding Green Thumb shirt for days. I sprawled around the house like a dying dog, too restless to stay in one spot but too weak to accomplish anything except Netflix binging and looking up Tanvi Mahajan on the Internet. The first thing I found was a group photo of Holy Trinity’s sophomore girls’ volleyball team. A pack of pretty, long-haired girls in red T-shirts and black shorts crowded into the frame, the front row of girls kneeling so that it was easy to locate Tanvi amid the row of grinning teammates standing behind them. With Tanvi’s legs fresh in my memory, I wasn’t surprised she played volleyball, only sorry I couldn’t see her legs in the picture.

  The school website had an entire page dedicated to their various volleyball teams’ achievements. This past season the sophomore team had killed it, winning a regional championship. I skimmed through the articles and then scouted out Tanvi’s various social networking pages. Because we weren’t friends I couldn’t see a lot. Mostly food porn and photos of trendy clothes, lipstick, and animals doing crazy things. The usual.

  Every day I almost sent her a message and then held off.

  When school was back I’d have no trouble finding her in person. But I shouldn’t look for her at Holy Trinity either. If she didn’t want to see me again, I needed to let it go.

  It was obvious … in theory.

  Then, five days after Tanvi had driven me home, while I was crashed out in my bedroom after dinner, listening to tunes and relishing the comparative coolness after a long day in the sun, my cellphone vibrated.

  “It’s Tanvi. How long did you have your flu?” the text demanded.

  I phoned her right away. “How did you get my number?”

  “I ran into a friend of yours online. Arjun Grewal. He passed it on.” She paused while I absorbed the idea that she must have been looking me up the same as I’d done with her. “He said something like, you’re the one we were looking for at Midnight Madness.” Voice gathering strength, she continued. “You were looking for me?”

  No point in denying it. She had confirmation. I sat up, flinging my legs over the side of the bed and pinching my phone tightly, as though someone was trying to wrestle it away from me. “I saw you there,” I admitted. “But you have a habit of vanishing.”

  A gravelly bitterness peppered Tanvi’s laugh. “Really? Because I feel pretty stuck for someone who has the po
wer to vanish into thin air. I’m a disaster zone. I haven’t been able to leave the house in forty-eight hours. If I have to spend another night in here with them I’m going to lose it. I need a recovery estimate from you. Hopefully one that’s going to make me feel better instead of worse.”

  “The first two days were hell,” I said truthfully. “The third day was medium-hell, and then I was out of the woods.” Guilt at having infected Tanvi melded with warped pride at hearing that part of me had stayed with her. “Trust me, you’ll feel better soon.”

  The phone line’s eerie silence droned in my ears, Tanvi’s dream voice echoing in the blank space: you have to be the one. She’d wanted me to leave her behind in the clearing. I wouldn’t do it in the dream, and awake, I felt a shadow of that same responsibility toward her. It was a potentially hazardous feeling. Hearing from her again wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  An adult male voice muttered something in the background. “I’m on the phone,” she told him. “I don’t need anything right now.”

  “Your dad?” I asked.

  “They won’t leave me alone. It’s so phony.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” Tanvi said dismissively. “My head is killing me. You must’ve been ragingly contagious the other day. It was only one kiss.”

  “It was your idea,” I reminded her. “And it was a good one, except for the timing.” Tanvi in her overalls and canvas shoes. Tanvi in the clingy fleece shorts that showed off her muscular volleyball legs and sexy ass. Tanvi’s hair in my hands, our mouths burning. Tanvi lying underneath my weight, wanting me with her eyes, slipping nimbly out of her clothes and then helping me with mine.

  I wasn’t delusional. I knew the night would never have ended that way, except in my head. But it didn’t mean that ending wasn’t out there somewhere, waiting for the right time to fall into place.