What Emma Left Behind Read online

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  Three hours later, Caera was removing the last batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from the oven. The recipe only made two dozen cookies, so Caera had doubled the ingredients. She put two dozen cooled cookies on a plate, and they all hurried upstairs to watch another movie.

  Claudia pleaded to watch Star Wars or at least The Empire Strikes Back, but Ana and Caera disagreed on the grounds that they all had the lines memorized, so Ana suggested watching a murder mystery. At first Claudia protested, but eventually she agreed. It was so dark and stormy outside that it seemed the perfect atmosphere for their Agatha Christie marathon.

  When the second Agatha Christie movie was halfway over, Claudia crawled into her sleeping bag to go to sleep. She didn't particularly like wondering who would end up being murdered next. Claudia just stared at the ceiling for several minutes when she heard Caera and Ana scream as a woman was stabbed in the back. Then she turned over, plugged her ears, and soon drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  "Where am I?" she thought.

  She was running, running on the pier again. She felt its chill through her toes, as though the pier under her feet were real. Looking down, she had noticed that she was wearing little, thin, silk blue shoes with big buckles and high heels. When she thought about it, she realized that her clothes were far tighter than she had ever known them to be, like she had a corset on or something and a puffy quilted jacket on the outside. Everything about this dream was so real, too real, not at all like a dream was supposed to be. She was back where she'd been the evening before, back by the water. What was she doing there?

  She had a feeling that she had been trying to hide something before it was too late. But what was it? And had she succeeded?

  She was back in the fog again, back where she could hardly see anything a foot ahead of her, and she didn't know where to go. She turned aimlessly, listening for the water that would tell her which direction to go.

  Then the mists that swirled around her thinned out. The sky above was dark, and the stars weren't of much use in helping her to see. The sound of waves got louder. And then she heard breathing, strained breathing, behind her.

  Someone was chasing her. She ran faster, tried to get away--but there was nowhere to go. She ran thinking that she should have known why she was in danger and who it was that followed her, but she couldn't remember. Then, Claudia felt something strong locking around her neck. Something also gouged into her neck, like a hard little stone—maybe a ring on a person's finger? She jerked to a halt, tried to struggle, and couldn't catch air.

  She fought for her life... but the world was spinning.

  And then she felt creeping cold around her, the creeping cold of icy water filling up her lungs.

  She couldn't let it end this way! She wouldn't rest, not until someone knew what had happened...

  Claudia sat upright in horror. It was raining hard outside, and raindrops on the roof echoed through the drainpipes far above her head. She was cold. Claudia looked down and saw that she had kicked her sleeping bag to the end of the bed. The last thing that she could remember was falling asleep when the girl in the movie was strangled. Or--wasn't she stabbed?

  Except for the thunder outside, the room was completely silent. Claudia sat still as a gripping fear began to creep over her. She couldn't bear the silence!

  Then suddenly, just as she was about to have a heart attack (or so she thought), someone began snoring softly. Claudia started.

  Nothing happened, except that the person went right on snoring.

  Claudia relaxed and even smiled. Feeling a sneeze coming on, she reached an arm over to her bedside table and groped in the darkness until she found the tissue box.

  What was it she had been dreaming about?

  As she pulled the covers under her chin and went back to sleep, something intangible gnawed on her soul.

  A voice was whispering sadly in the night, the wail of a lost child. A shadowed face appeared beyond the windowpane, peering in.

  Will no one ever know who murdered me? The ghost cried into the wind.