Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

gone the next morning.”
    We arrived at Giuseppe’s. “Where did the food go?”
    Bliss smiled. “My neighborhood is home to some of the fattest raccoons around.”
    Inside, the restaurant was wonderfully empty. It was after lunch but before dinner, so we had our choice of booths. Craving sugar, I ordered a cannoli but couldn’t convince Bliss to do the same. She sipped on unsweetened iced tea while I tried to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.
    Bliss beat me to it. “So, you wanted to talk?”
    â€œYes. I hope that doesn’t seem too weird.”
    â€œWell, we spent our senior year basically hating one another despite the fact that we hardly knew anything about each other. So, yes, maybe you showing up at my house is a little strange.”
    Her voice held no malice. She was simply stating facts. I appreciated that. In fact, I respected it. High school was behind us. Whatever petty problems had once existed there now remained there, forgotten along with the locker combinations and the lunch schedule.
    â€œI need advice,” I began. “Advice from someone removed from my situation.”
    â€œYou mean an outsider.” She stared at the red plastic tumbler in front of her. “Because that’s what I am, right? An outsider.”
    â€œIn a way…”
    â€œIn every way.” Bliss sighed. “I’ve lived here my whole life,but I’ve never fit in. Do you know what that’s like? To know people since kindergarten, and for them to never accept you?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “But that’s because I’m a different kind of outsider. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere, and I’ve only been here for a year.”
    This brought a small smile to her face. “So we’re both outsiders. Just a different breed, I guess.” She swirled a straw through her tea. “Maybe that’s why we clashed. We’re too much alike.”
    â€œMaybe.” It wasn’t as if I had set out to hate her, though. She had disliked me from the moment I had stepped into the AV room. She had never trusted me. And now here I was, asking for that trust, and all I could think was that, despite our conflicted history, it felt right to be here.
    â€œSo.” Bliss looked at me. “You brought me here so I could give you advice.”
    I set down my fork next to the untouched cannoli. “You know about the panic attacks.”
    She leaned forward. “Did seeing your mom help?”
    â€œNo. I don’t know, I didn’t stay long. Something happened while I was at the hospital.” I wasn’t sure how to explain everything. Bliss knew nothing about the events that had shaped my life over the past year. She was, as she had pointed out, an outsider. Her knowledge of what had happened to my mom was gained from reading the same news stories that everyone else had read or seen, a story that had been crafted to protect my family and friends. A demented fan had attacked us, we claimed, not a demonic force.
    â€œYou obviously want to tell me something important,” Bliss said, filling the silence that I had allowed to form. “I’m here and I’ve got time. So start talking.”
    There was a time when Bliss’s inherent bossiness wouldhave annoyed me. But now I appreciated her no-nonsense approach to things. If you have something to say, say it.
    So I did.
    I didn’t start at the beginning, which for me was the summer before, when my family had entered the Courtyard Café in Charleston together—and had left with something else entirely. Instead, I started my story with the New Year’s party. She had been there, sitting with me and some of our classmates around a hundred candles. She had been at the school when so many strange things had occurred. She knew who was responsible for those happenings—before prom the truth had been revealed—and she had