by Edie Claire
I turned to her with a smile. Ever since my revelations at the sleepover, Tara had been avoiding me… sort of. Technically we were still together as much as ever. She still cracked jokes and shared her genetics notes and complained about the cafeteria food and her beastly little brothers. But whenever any subject even remotely resembling my abilities came up, she either became suddenly preoccupied or disappeared completely. The chance for a private conversation never did seem to come up. Her seeking me out today to ask about Zane was a first.
“Yes,” I answered, beaming. “Not too often, but as much as any guy texts, I guess.” I had no intention of telling Tara, or anyone else, how much time I’d spent reading and re-reading the few texts Zane had sent — analyzing every syllable, reading ridiculous amounts of totally insane infatuated-girl crap into every line, obsessing over what was there, what wasn’t there, what he really meant…
It was embarrassing. My pre-Zane self would have absolutely no respect for me now.
But I did it anyway. I couldn’t help it.
“What’s he saying?” Tara asked, swinging her backpack off her shoulder as we reached our lockers.
I didn’t tell her that I could recite every text by heart, in order, with footnotes. “Just that he likes the rehab place, and he’s got a laptop now, and he’s getting ready to take the GED so he can graduate high school and apply to college.”
She blinked at me. I didn’t realize, until I summarized it, how dry and impersonal such news sounded.
Great. Something else to obsess over.
“He seems his usual, optimistic self,” I defended, finishing at my own locker and slamming it shut. “It’s just a little awkward, I guess. With him not really remembering me.”
Tara’s expressive blue eyes held mine. “He doesn’t have to text you at all,” she pointed out. “If he’s trying to keep any kind of conversation going, that says a lot.”
I sighed with relief. “You’re right, as always.” We walked out toward the bus lines, where our paths usually split.
“Tara, do you think we could—”
“Don’t get in line,” she interrupted, then gestured toward the student parking lot. “Kylee’s giving us a ride. You don’t have anything going on this afternoon, do you?”
I looked at her suspiciously. She knew that although I had dance three afternoons a week, I was free today. It was her schedule, not mine, that was almost always booked, since she had to be at home to watch her little brothers. Tara was the second oldest of six, and her parents’ hours in law enforcement were irregular. No one expected her older brother Damon to babysit, partly because he was just as likely as the younger ones to burn the house down, and partly because he was always at practice for some sport or other. But Tara was no willing victim of gender discrimination. At the age of thirteen she had sat her parents down and explained that she could, like her brothers, play soccer and basketball and run cross country, or they could fire the current after-school babysitter and hire her at a reasonable discount. The rest had been history. Over the years she had amassed a sizeable bank account, chortling all the while that she had never wanted to play organized sports anyway.
“My dad’s off today,” she explained. “And I thought of something interesting we can do.”
My eyebrows rose. Tara was definitely up to something. And when Tara got an “interesting” idea in her head, you could be pretty sure it was either going to be fantastically fun or positively horrifying. Her brain in action was like a registered weapon.
“Like what?” I asked timidly.
Tara made no response; we had reached Kylee’s car.
Kylee stood waiting by the side of it, watching us curiously. “So what’s this all about?”
Tara moved toward her and stretched out a hand. “Can I drive?”
Kylee made a skeptical face, but allowed the keys to dangle from her fingers.
Tara swooped them up and popped into the driver’s seat. “Come on!” she encouraged.
Kylee and I exchanged a confused glance. Tara drove both our cars occasionally, since she had no wheels of her own, liked to drive, and could get anywhere in the county on sheer instinct. Her wanting to drive today was not surprising. What was weird was the cool determination that lurked beneath her obviously fake cheer. The girl was on a mission.
Kylee turned and opened the passenger door, and I slipped into the back seat.
“Where are we going?” Kylee asked.
Tara switched on the ignition. She didn’t look at either of us, but kept her eyes trained straight ahead. “Ghost hunting,” she answered.
***
I squirmed anxiously in the back seat as Tara turned the car onto a gravel road and drove away from the city. The skies had been blue this morning; now the horizon in every direction was studded with ominous gray clouds. The scene fit my mood perfectly.
“Kali,” Tara said, her voice understanding. “You don’t even have to get out of the car if you don’t want to. I just thought it would be, well… interesting. Kylee’s wanted to go on one of those ghost tours ever since we were kids, but I never would — the thought of tromping around at night through graveyards and dingy basements always creeped me out, even if they weren’t really haunted.”
“I did go on the Cheyenne ghost tour!” Kylee exclaimed. “I’ve been ghost hunting other times, too.” She smirked knowingly. “Makes for a great date.”
“But why do you want to do this now?” I asked Tara. She couldn’t seriously expect me to believe this had nothing to do with my confession.
Tara paused a moment. “Believe it or not, Kali,” she answered softly, “I’m trying to be open minded.”
“Woohoo!” Kylee cheered sarcastically.
“Shut up!” Tara responded. “I’m not saying I believe in the supernatural.” She threw a worried glance over her shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Kali, because I do. I swear I do. I’m just not convinced that what you’re seeing isn’t being generated internally, by brain chemicals or something, you know what I mean?”
Kylee sighed dramatically. “Open-minded… Right.”
I didn’t say anything, but I did get Tara’s meaning. I’d thought about it myself, but I knew it wasn’t possible. I could give her any number of examples where the shadows I’d seen revealed information I couldn’t possibly have known otherwise. But what would be the point? My knowing about Zane’s accident was as convincing as any of them, and Tara had clearly blocked that out. She wasn’t ready to accept that what I experienced was supernatural, and she might never be. But she still accepted me. For now, I was cool with that.
“Look guys, I’m just trying baptism by fire, here,” Tara tried to explain. “I want to meet this stuff head on. I don’t believe in ghosts. But if we happen to run into any today, then hey — they’re welcome to prove me wrong.”
Kylee frowned at her. “Don’t be saying crap like that! If you want to antagonize the spirits, you can do it when I’m not around, thank you very much!”
Tara rolled her eyes.
Kylee winked at me over her shoulder.
I let out a nervous chuckle. If no ghosts happened to present themselves wherever the heck we were going, I was pretty sure Kylee would manufacture some. The fact that doing so would undermine her case for the supernatural wasn’t likely to sway her — messing with Tara’s mind was too much fun.
“So where are we going?” I asked, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt. I had less than no interest in fake ghost stories. The real ones were disturbing enough.
Tara shot a playful glance at Kylee. “Guess.”
“Hmm…” Kylee took the bait. “Well, it can’t be the Plains Hotel. We passed that. And they wouldn’t let us roam around it just for fun, anyway — although Josh and I did sneak down the fire stairs one time, and I swear I saw a woman in a long blue gown—”
“Heard it already,” Tara interrupted. “Everybody’s heard the ‘murdering ghost bride’ stories. Not buying it. Next?”
Kylee’s lips pursed. “Fine. But I did see her.” She thought a moment. “We’ve already passed the Atlas Theater and the Knights of Pythias building… Terry Bison Ranch?”
Tara shook her head. “None of the above. We’re going to Striker Schoolhouse.”
Kylee squealed with delight. “Oh, that place is so cool at night! I went there with a bunch of guys one time. Dustin was there, and Ryan… who else? Maybe I’ve been twice. I forget where it is, exactly… Oh, my gosh, Dustin was so funny. He hid behind a tombstone, trying to scare me, but then Ryan came up behind him and he got so scared he screamed like a woman — it was hysterical!”
She went on, but my mind wandered. I gazed out the car window at the endless Wyoming plains, once waving with prairie grass and teeming with buffalo, now chopped up into rectangular fields dotted with the occasional farmhouse and barn. Off in the distance, an oil tank farm loomed. The landscape looked pretty much the same in any direction, for miles around. Some might call it bleak, but thanks to Kylee and Tara, I’d been happy here.
Since I was now officially being honest with them, you might think I’d mention that even as Kylee spoke of imaginary spooks, we had in fact driven past the shadows of a half-dozen long-dead miners and railroad workers, any number of farmers, and at least a dozen Native Americans. But you would be wrong. Not even Kylee could grasp the sheer volume of “spiritual energy” I was forced to view, even in such a sparsely populated area as this. Facing the full scope of my reality would be overload for them.
It certainly was for me.
“You’ve heard about Striker Schoolhouse, haven’t you, Kali?” Tara asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“What?” Kylee exclaimed. “Nobody gets through elementary school in Cheyenne without hearing that story!”
“Kali didn’t go to elementary school in Cheyenne,” Tara pointed out.
“Oh, right,” Kylee admitted. “Well then, you’re in for a treat!”
“Wait a minute,” Tara said. “It’s just up ahead. I’ll pull off and then you can tell her.”
We reached the intersection of two gravel roads, and Tara turned to the left. There, sitting in the midst of countless acres of perfectly flat fields, lay a small, square plot of land covered with mature trees. As we turned off the road and onto bare dirt, clusters of ancient looking white tombstones appeared scattered among the trunks ahead of us. There was no building on the property. Nor was there any kind of sign.
“I see no schoolhouse,” I remarked.
“Oh, it’s long gone now,” Kylee explained. “But you can see the foundation where it was.”
Tara rolled down the car windows and killed the engine. “Tell her the story,” she urged, turning around in her seat.
Kylee’s eyes sparkled as she, too, turned sideways in her seat to face me. “Well, way back in the olden days, when this place was first being settled—”
“It was in the 1880s,” Tara noted.
Kylee’s eyes rolled. “Whenever. It was a long time ago. Wild West and all that. There were little settlements scattered around all over, what with the railroad camps and mines and everything, and Striker was one of them. There were families here, and they built a one-room schoolhouse for the kids that doubled as a church. They planted trees on the lot and started a cemetery behind it. I don’t know how long the school had been around before this happened, but at some point they hired a teacher who was majorly messed up — twisted and sadistic. She was abusive to the students, beating them for all sorts of imagined crimes, and threatening them not to tell anyone. Some of the children tried to complain about her, but the settlers didn’t believe them. Teachers were allowed to whip students back then, so this witch’s authority went unquestioned. Horrible, horrible things went on in that little schoolhouse, but none of the adults would intervene. Around them, this woman was calm and reasonable — she was like a split personality. One day, as the story goes, the teacher started to beat on one particularly sweet little girl for doing nothing at all, and the students had had enough. The bigger kids overpowered the old woman and tied her to a chair. Then they all got out, lit the schoolhouse on fire, and burned it to the ground.”
I flinched. “They burned her alive?”
“So the legend goes,” Tara answered skeptically. “At least, that variation of it. You hear it different ways.”
“I also heard it where the kids beat her to death with schoolbooks and lunch pails,” Kylee admitted. “But they always end with the building burning down.”
“Let’s check it out,” Tara suggested, opening her door and popping out of the car. Kylee followed.
I sat still another moment, letting out an unenthusiastic sigh. I knew that many perfectly normal people had a fascination with horror stories — even enjoyed letting themselves be scared by them. I wasn’t one of those perfectly normal people. I hated the grim and the gruesome. Dwelling on any sort of pain and agony, real or imagined, made me feel way too much like I was experiencing it myself.
And I did not care to be burned to death this afternoon.
I gritted my teeth and opened the car door anyway. With luck, the legend wouldn’t be true — or at least there would be no shadows to remind me of it. I tried not to blame Tara for my predicament — she had no idea how deeply scenes of tragedy affected me. Kylee knew, but even she didn’t really seem to understand. For her, tromping around the ruins of a schoolhouse and a spooky old cemetery was harmless fun. And she could actually see ghosts!
Could it be that she, too, secretly thought these local legends were crocks?
Feeling a bit more confident, I stepped out of the car. We were near the edge of the cemetery, and Kylee approached a group of tombstones and waved us over. “These are the oldest ones,” she said knowledgably. “Most of the writing is worn off, but they look about the same age. I heard that a bunch of people were buried all at the same time because of a cholera epidemic.”
I looked at the aged stones, now leaning randomly this way and that, many of them tumbled and broken. The wind gave a sudden gust, buffeting their ragged surfaces with overgrown prairie grass. I felt a chill, but not because of the wind. It was always windy in Wyoming. I just didn’t like cemeteries.
“Kali?” Kylee asked tentatively. I looked up to find both of them watching me. “Do you see anything here?”
I had to force myself to look around. I knew that a lot of people thought of graveyards as places where evil lurked — ghosts and ghouls and restless spirits — but I had yet to sense any evil in a cemetery. It was the emotions of the dead people’s loved ones that made me miserable.
“I see mourners,” I explained tonelessly. “And I can feel their sadness.” I walked away into the clearing, and the stifling sense of grief gradually lifted. I breathed deeply. The rainclouds in the sky had only continued to thicken; for a weekday afternoon in broad daylight, it was eerily dark.
“Geez, I’m sorry,” Kylee apologized as she and Tara moved to my side. “I didn’t think about that. We’ll stay away from the graveyard.”
“It’s okay,” I said honestly, feeling better. I really didn’t want my issues to be a drag on the day. I was happy enough that the three of us were hanging out together again. “Where did the schoolhouse used to be?”
Kylee smiled at me encouragingly. “Over here.” She led us to a spot in the clearing where a rectangular depression was visible, its borders loosely lined with large, half-buried stones. I bent down and took a closer look at one. Its exposed edge was scorched with black. Others bore similar scars.
“Wow,” I said, a little surprised. “Whatever building was here really did burn down.”
Tara nodded. Her eyes watched me intently, her face uncharacteristically pinched and nervous. “Do you see anything?”
Reluctantly, I looked up. Maybe I would get lucky. Fortunately for me, every episode of pain and death that had ever happened in a place wasn’t represented by a shadow. Why some were and others weren’t, I had no idea. I only knew that I ha
d been in sites of documented tragedy where I neither saw nor felt a thing. I hoped this would be one of them.
My eyes scanned the area where the schoolhouse had stood. For a long time, I saw nothing. Tara and Kylee stood motionless, watching me.
The shadow took shape before me with a swirling motion, as if it were created by a gust of wind. Higher than I stood, no doubt where the original floor had been. It was a girl, with long skirts, a high-necked blouse, and hair swept up in a massive bun. She looked my age, not much older. Her eyes were wide with terror.
Guilt. It hit me like a slap in the face. The girl might look like a frightened fawn, but she was no innocent.
Hatred. I whirled around as someone else’s eyes seemed to bore into the back of my head. Another woman. This one dressed similarly, but shabbier, and a good deal older. Her hair was also in a bun, but an unkempt one, with wisps hanging limply around her face. Her eyes, fixed squarely on the younger woman, burned fiery with rage.
“Holy crap,” I murmured, sensing, but not focusing on, the presence of Kylee and Tara right behind me. The shadows’ dueling emotions pummeled me from either side, and my instincts screamed for me to back away.
But I didn’t. Not this time. My friends were here, standing right behind me. And I had nothing to hide from them anymore. I began to wonder… What would happen if, instead of running away, I actually tried to interfere?
Feeling bold, I stepped between the two shadows. I extended my arms as if to ward them off — both from me, and each other.
I should have known better. My actions made no difference whatsoever. The scene the shadows were enacting had happened over a century ago; no one could do anything to stop it. It was going to happen all over again.
“Please,” the teenaged girl pleaded, her heart beating so loud that I swore I could hear it, even over the wind. “I’m sorry. Truly I am. He told me—”
Her last words were lost, smothered into a choking gurgle by hands that reached out and wrapped around her throat. She resisted, but only feebly, as the older woman launched herself forward through my own, pointless self and delivered a body blow that knocked both women to the ground.
