Phantom [h.s]

Eleven

"Get up, lazy."

I groan at my mother's voice, pulling a pillow over my head.

"It's Sunday," I say groggily, not opening my eyes.

"Your father and I are going to the farmer's market, and we want you to come. It's almost eleven in the morning!"

"Exactly, it's too early."

"Jane Alison. Don't be so lazy."

I sit up in bed, rubbing my eyes. "Do I have to come to the farmer's market?" I make a disgusted face.

"It's locally grown produce, which is fresher and healthier." She crosses her arms over her chest.

"Mom."

"We're leaving in twenty minutes," she says cheerfully, grinning widely as she exits my room.

"Uuuggghhhh," I groan when the door shuts behind her.

I drag myself out of bed, knowing I'll never hear the end of it from the positivity power couple that happens to be my parents if I don't accompany them to the farmer's market.

I pull on a pair of jeans, shrugging on a plaid shirt and buttoning it as I walk out of my closet and back into my room.

I jump at the sight of Harry sitting calmly on my unmade bed.

"Shit!"

I pull my shirt closed, rolling my eyes at his cocky smirk.

"Still not used to me, are you?" His tone is teasing.

"Not when I'm getting dressed." I blush furiously and turn around to finish buttoning my shirt.

"Well, that's what closets are for." He grins. When my shirt is sufficiently covering me up, I turn back around and cross my arms over my chest. He still beams teasingly.

I glare at him. "What are you doing here?" I turn toward the mirror and run my fingers through my hair, pulling it into a ponytail.

He shrugs. "I miss having this room, I guess." He points to the wall across from my bed. "Had a TV hung up there, and all my CDs organized on a shelf underneath it." He leans back on his palms. "And my bed was right here." He pats the sheets of my bed, smiling crookedly.

"Where are your parents?" I ask him. "My mother said this house was on the market for a few years, but that doesn't make any sense."

Harry's expression loses all humor. "My parents moved away after my murder case was closed. The real estate company lied about the vacancy period of the house just so it would sell."

"Where did they move?"

"Vancouver, British Columbia. That's where the Styles Petroleum Industries headquarters are, anyway," he says bitterly.

"You sound hostile."

"I am hostile." He stands from my bed. "They moved thinking they could forget what happened to me here."

"Did they?"

He clenches his jaw and stares at me, his eyes full of contempt. "They sure seem like it."

I open my mouth to ask another question, but I hear footsteps in the hallway and widen my eyes.

"Jane! We're getting in the car!" I hear my father call. He's just out in the hall; he'll walk into the room any second.

I motion to the closet and Harry crosses the room silently, shutting the door behind him.

The bedroom door opens and my dad steps in.

"Ja-"

"Yes, father," I say, quickly turning to the mirror and pretending to have been fixing my hair. My voice sounds high and on edge and I internally curse myself.

He raises an eyebrow at me. "You okay?"

"What?" I look at him, forcing a wide smile. "I'm fine." Yeah, I just have an attractive ghost boy hiding in my closet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

My father stares at me for another moment before shaking his head slightly and walking back out of my room.

The closet door opens and Harry smirks at me.

"Going somewhere?" He asks.

"The farmer's market," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Sounds like a hoot and a half."

I glare at him.

He smiles.

I grab my bag and sigh.

"Will you come see me later?" He asks.

"I guess," I say. "In the clearing?"

He nods.

I give him a small smile.

"Your hair looks nice like that," he tells me suddenly.

I blush, turning my head to examine my ponytail in the mirror. "Thank you."

"I like it down better, though." He reaches out and pulls the band from my hair, my dark locks spilling over my shoulders. He towers above me, a small smile adorning his pale lips.

I look at him curiously as he hands me back the hair tie.

He smiles.

I hear my parents honk the car horn in the driveway and snap to attention. "I'd better go before one or both of my parents bursts a blood vessel," I say, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.

"Of course," Harry says. He moves back to my bed, pulling the comforter up and smoothing out the sheets before taking a seat on the mattress. He catches me staring at him and smirks. "You don't mind if I hang out here, do you?"

I almost tell him to leave and that I'm not comfortable with him being here without me, but I hesitate. He said himself that he misses having this room, and if letting him stay here while I go to the farmer's market with my parents makes him feel a little less dead, then so be it.

"No," I say. "Stay as long as you want."

"Sick."

He leans back on my pillows, resting his arms behind his head and grinning at me widely, dimples prominent in his pale cheeks.

I smile back at him.

I hoist my bag over my shoulder and exit my room, uttering a goodbye to Harry who lifts his hand in a wave.

My mother gives me a stern look from the passenger seat when I finally slide into the back of my father's whale-looking Prius.

"Don't give me that look," I say. "You already woke me up early. And I didn't get any breakfast."

"You can have something at the market," my father says as we back out of the driveway.

"No, I don't want squash pancakes with soy bean syrup from those hippie farmers."

"They're not hippies, and you know they don't make that. Soy beans can't have syrup extracted from them."

I roll my eyes at my father. Yes, soy beans not being able to produce syrup is the only problem with my previous statement.

It takes twenty five minutes, two maps, and three times getting lost for us to finally arrive at the farmer's market. The noises that my stomach has been making sounds like it's been gagged and chloroformed. I'm sure it'll begin to devour itself soon if I don't get anything to eat.

"What a lovely little market," my mother says as we walk toward the vendors lined up in the empty parking lot. I sigh.

"Can I please go get something to eat?" I groan.

"Jane, Jane." My father reaches into his pocket and pulls a ten dollar bill from his wallet. "Go find something healthy."

"Sure, Dad," I say, but he doesn't pick up on my sarcasm.

I walk away from my parents and begin skimming the vendors for the unhealthiest option.

Unfortunately, the unhealthiest thing I can find is a vendor that sells bagels. Life is full of disappointments, I suppose.

I purchase my food and walk slowly back to where my parents told me they'd meet me. I pick at my bagel, finishing it in a record three minutes.

"Hey!"

A high voice startles me and I turn to meet the eyes of Jenna. She grins widely, waving at me.

"Oh, hi," I say, forcing a smile. I had sincerely hoped that I wouldn't see anyone I know here, but in a town of this size, you never know who you'll run into.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, still smiling impossibly widely.

"My parents dragged me with them," I tell her.

She nods. "I assumed as much. Not a lot of people our age tend to come to farmer's markets at their own will on Sunday mornings. I guess I'm just weird." Jenna laughs.

I shakily laugh along with her.

She tilts her head at me. "That's such a pretty necklace," she says, reaching out to touch it. Her finger makes contact with the silver of the skull before I can stop her and a gasp is caught in my throat, my pulse quickening.

"Funny, it looks like the one Ava got from Ha-" She stops herself, dropping the necklace. Her smile drops from her face and she turns her head slightly.

"Ava?" I ask.

"I, uh..." She scratches her head. Her cheeks flush. "I meant..."

I close my hand around the necklace, stepping toward Jenna. "Who did Ava get it from?"

"No one," Jenna snaps, eyes flashing. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude, I..."

Jenna knows something.

"It's alright," I say. I look around us briefly before continuing. "Did Ava get it from...Harry?" I lower my voice to a hush.

Jenna's mouth falls open slightly. Her cheeks flush a deeper shade of pink and she continues to shake her head. "I don't know who that is," she says, her tone rushed. She turns promptly and strides away from me.

"Jenna, wait!" I try to follow her but she ducks around a vendor and is out of sight before I can process what just happened.

Harry said that no one knew about the necklace except for him and his parents. How would Ava have gotten it?

I chew on my lip as I find my way to my parents, who are conversing with a woman in a huge gardening hat and holding a basket of tomatoes.

"...Even after everything proven, some people still call them vegetables," the woman is saying bitterly. "Can you believe that?"

"Unbelievable," my father says, shaking his head. "The tomato is clearly a fruit."

"Can we leave?" I ask my mother quietly. I need to get home and tell Harry about this.

"No, honey, we just got here," she chides me as the tomato lady and my father carry on a conversation.

"I need to get home, though."

"Why?"

I struggle for an excuse. "Um...lady problems."

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

I stare at her. "How can I not be sure?"

My mother sighs. "Come on, Jane. That's the oldest trick in the book."

I restrain a frustrated scream as I turn away and cross my arms over my chest, like a child.

My parents spend another hour and a half at the farmer's market. They stock up to their elbows with "fresh" and "healthy" produce, bantering back and forth while I sulk and mull over my encounter with Jenna. She acted so suspicious, she must know something. I mean, she almost said his name, for God's sake.

As I look out the window on the car ride home, it finally sinks in that a murderer could be walking among us in this town. Maybe they go to school with me, maybe they don't. Maybe they even skipped town. There are so many possibilities, and I barely have an idea of where to start.

I close my hand around the skull pendant that hangs around my neck, and realize I never really asked Harry why he gave it to me in the first place.