What would you trade your soul for?
The answer is simple for Jessa: nothing. Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty good with her best friend Taylor at her side.
But everything changes when the Devil--disguised as an attractive high school girl--comes...
When the bell rang, Taylor hung back, staring at me with a look of concern.
"Jessa," she said. "Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I waited until Lana was out of the classroom before turning to Taylor. "Something is wrong with me," I hissed.
"What are you talking about?"
"I can't remember Lana. At all."
Taylor's eyes narrowed and she rolled up the sleeves of her canvas jacket, as if ready to delve into some detective work. "What do you mean you can't remember her?"
"I mean that every memory I have in my head is telling me that Lana Gibbons did not go here until today." I gestured to the seat she had been sitting in. "That seat has been empty all year, I'm sure of it." I then pointed to my friend. "And I could have sworn that at your birthday dinner, it was just the three of us. Me, you, and Sam. That's it. But she's in the picture on Facebook!"
"Umm... well, I hate to break it to you, but she definitely was at my birthday. So I... uh, I'm not really sure what to say to you. Except that this is really weird."
"I know," I said with a groan. "Do you think there was something in the muffin? How can I have just entirely forgotten one person?"
"Look," Taylor said, gently tugging my arm until I got to my feet. "Let's go to our next class. You're probably just tired or having a brain fart. I bet you in like five minutes you're going to remember who she is, which means you're worrying for no reason. Plus we have that Calc test today—you can't miss that. You know Mr. Allen makes the make-up tests harder."
"Well," I mumbled, "let's hope that I don't forget how derivatives work before third period. If I do, I'm screwed."
Taylor laughed. She had the best laugh out of anyone I knew; it was infectious and put a grin on my face despite the situation. "If you forget that, I'll personally bring you to the nurse myself. Oh, and also—" She bent down and grabbed the paper bag. "If you're not going to eat the rest of this, I will!"
I smiled. "Fine," I said, letting her lead me out into the hallway.
However, the grin fell off my face as soon as I stepped out of the classroom. Lana Gibbons was leaning against a nearby locker, chatting with another one of our classmates—Billy Stevens, a boy on our lacrosse team. I stared at Lana's face, trying to will it into my memory, but I was still coming up blank. In fact, the more that I stared at her, the more I was convinced that she didn't exist at all.
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Lana wasn't in my AP Bio class, but she was in math with us. And this time, she sat right in front of me. Her black hair tickled my desk as I wrote my name on the top of my test.
I should remember seeing her hair on my desk, I thought as I dated the page, and yet in my memory, that seat had always been empty. In fact, I distinctly remembered propping my feet on it just last week and getting in trouble with Mr. Allan.
