by Sarah Dalton
Everything about Ashforth Comp seems like a more high-brow version of my old school. The canteen has been refurbished somewhat recently, the uniforms are slicker and have a pretty school crest on the breast pocket—a shield split in three with a Yorkshire rose, an oak tree, and an outline of the school—the class sizes seem smaller, the teachers are better, and atmosphere is generally quieter.
But the food is pretty much the same.
“Sometimes we go out for lunch,” Grace tells me as we take packaged sandwiches and bottled drinks towards the sixth form common room at the bottom of the canteen. “There’s a chippy in Ashforth village, and a quaint little coffee shop that do ciabattas. I have a free period after history on Wednesdays. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Wherever we go, I feel like I’m being followed by the screens dotted along the walls. The pictures change from after-school socials to notices about room changes and teacher absences.
“It’s weird that you need all this information at such a small school,” I say.
Grace shrugs. “The head teacher likes them. I guess he had the budget for it. They are pretty useful. Here, let me introduce you to everyone.” She gestures to a round table filled with attractive people. “This is Colleen, Melanie, Rob, Anil, Terri, and I think you know Trav.”
“Afternoon, Princess,” Travis says. He’s part hipster, part jock, with a 40s style haircut and straggly beard, but a stocky chest trapped in a tight rugby shirt. He grins at me.
“Everyone, this is Mary,” Grace says.
Colleen—a freckled brunette with green eyes and lots of delicate gold necklaces—pats a plastic chair and says, “Hey, welcome to Ashforth. What do you make of it so far?”
“It’s… it’s different from the city school I went to,” I say, settling into the chair.
Interest piques at the mention of the city. About five voices start up all at once, asking me whether there was knife crime or heroin addicts.
“Not as far as I noticed,” I reply with a laugh.
“So did you have a boyfriend?”
“Why did you leave?”
“How did you get so scarred?”
The names of the girls fade from my mind as the quick-fire questions fog my brain. All I can think about is the time I found ‘Scary Mary’ plastered all over my locker. The faces of the group seem to close in on me.
“You okay, Mares?”
Lacey appears by my side with a concerned half-smile on her face. I try hard not to stare at her.
“Guys, guys, give Mary some time to think.” Grace comes to my rescue. “She’s only started here today.”
Terri, a brown-eyed girl with ebony skin, leans forward. “We’re just pleased to see some new meat. It gets pretty dull around here.” She twists a curl around her finger and smiles.
“Only when I’m not around.” Travis puts Grace into a headlock and rubs his knuckles over her skull. Grace squeals and pushes him away, rearranging her hair back into perfection.
“Jesus, it’s like you’ve stepped into Eton,” Lacey says.
I try to stifle a smile. She has a point. I guess a secondary school in a posh village is really different from an inner city school.
“It seems all right here so far,” I say, trying to break the ice. “But it’s smaller than what I’m used to.”
Melanie rolls her eyes. “Everybody knows everybody.” Her hair is a caramel shade, and a touch darker than her skin, which could be tanned from either make-up or a salon; I’m not sure which.
“She’s not kidding,” Colleen adds. “Even our parents know each other. My dad is her dad’s solicitor, and our mums go to the same yoga class. Terri’s dad is my GP, and Anil’s brother goes to Uni with my sister.”
“Don’t even get us started on the whole relationship thing,” Terri says. “We’ve all pretty much been out with each other.”
“Travis has fucked his way through the entire sixth form,” Rob, a tall, thin guy with piercing blue eyes and acne scars, points out. The lads high-five each other.
Travis sits half on the table with his feet perched on Grace’s chair. “Everyone’s had a piece of this. The Vance Monster.”
“Ew.” Colleen winces. “Don’t remind me. It’s bad enough that you call your penis that, let alone that I ever went anywhere near it.”
For a fraction of a second, Grace’s expression grows hard. She narrows her eyes and shoots Colleen with one of the coldest looks I’ve ever seen. I can’t help glancing at Lacey to see if she noticed. Maybe Grace isn’t quite as straight-laced as she seems.
“Oh, God, here come the Voodoo Twins,” Melanie whispers.
“The Maynard Munters,” Anil adds, smiling with straight white teeth. He’s probably the best looking of the lads, with thick black eyelashes framing dark eyes.
“Twisted Incesters,” Travis says with a wicked grin.
I follow their stares towards a guy and a girl walking through the common room. A jolt of recognition runs up my spine. I’ve seen them both somewhere before. The girl is stunning, but she’s the opposite of Grace and her friends. She’s the kind of girl you see hanging around with a famous band, photographed just for being beautiful. She’s the kind of girl who could walk into a room in a bin bag and still get hit on, whereas Grace and her friends are preened to perfection. This girl doesn’t give a shit. Her long strawberry blonde hair hangs low down her black leather jacket, as though it has never been cut. Her Doc Martins are worn down and her fingernails are chipped. She’s wearing a tartan skirt and pink t-shirt in a sort of accidental-punk way, and no make-up at all.
“Wow,” Lacey breathes. I glance at her, and she looks away.
The guy I know I’ve seen before. He’s maybe six feet tall, and dressed in casual jeans and a worn brown leather jacket. His head is shaved, and his cheekbones are angular, giving him a male model look. While the girl is pale as milk, his skin is a copper-brown. He turns his head as they pass the table. His eyes meet mine and a shiver runs down my spine. It’s a different kind of shiver from the frightening feel of a nearby ghost; this is one of annoyance. I remember them now. He’s the driver who almost ran me off the road on Splinter Hill, and she is the passenger. But what annoys me most is that for the brief moment our eyes are locked, I’m physically attracted to him. My body responds. My cheeks flush, my heartbeat quickens, and my pupils are probably dilated, too. He knows it. He smirks, and then keeps on walking.
I turn back to Grace. “Who are they?”
She makes a face. “Urgh. Willa and Jack Maynard. They’re creepy as fuck.”
“They’re brother and sister? But they look so different,” I say.
“They’re adopted,” Melanie adds. “Katherine Maynard is some sort of anthropologist who studies cults. She found them in a cult when they were kids and adopted them. They aren’t related. They’re super weird. I would stay clear of them if I were you.”
“The girl, Willa, is deranged,” Terri adds. “I’ve seen her talking to herself.”
“And Jack is short for Jackal. They say that in the cult, they thought he was the reincarnation of the devil. It’s like The Omen,” Grace says, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Yeah, but she’s pretty hot,” Anil says with a sigh.
“Dude, don’t stick your dick in crazy.” Travis laughs. Then he moves closer to Rob and whispers, “Speaking of which…”
Rob checks his watch and then stares up at the monitor on the wall. The two guys break into a grin.
“Something’s going on,” Lacey whispers.
I look up at the screen to see the picture shift from class notifications to a bad quality video.
Grace frowns. “What’s going on?”
A girl’s body comes into the shot. Petite and curvy, she looks great in the hot-pink underwear set. Colleen squeals and stands up from her seat. Her face drains of blood. Even her freckles appear washed out.
“What have you done?” Colleen says in a raspy voice.
“Turn it off!” she shouts.
“This is what you get for being a cheating whore.” Travis stands up and points at Colleen, leaning over her until she squirms away. “No one cheats on me and gets away with it. No one.”
Colleen turns and runs from the room, met with laughter on her way out.
I can’t believe what’s happening. “Someone needs to shut it down—” But I’m cut off by a change on the screen. There’s a scratching, distorted sound, like microphone feedback, and everyone grasps their ears.
“Incoming ghost,” Lacey warns.
The screen changes from the gyrating, headless torso to a rotting animal covered in bugs. It heaves up and down as the bugs move around the lump, degraded to such an extent that I cannot even say what animal it once was. The common room erupts into disgusted noises. Then the sound changes to the low, haunting tones of a cello. Something about the pairing of the corpse with the baritone music makes my blood run cold. The screen changes again, flashing up a montage of disturbing images, like hands pushing through walls, needles pressed against eye-balls, scalpels cutting flesh. Last of all, the screen changes to an emaciated figure pulling itself along the ground before a shadow forms across the screen. There is more distortion, and then the monitor flicks back to the usual class notifications.
“What the hell?” Travis says in a small voice.
“You’re sick,” Grace shouts. “I can’t believe you did that.” She storms out of the common room, followed by Terri and Melanie.
As I get up to leave, I overhear the conversation between the remaining guys.
“It wasn’t me,” Travis says. “The stuff with Colleen was, but that fucked-up last part? That wasn’t in the file.”
Chapter Four
The warm autumn afternoon is stifling as I stagger out of the school. Every time I close my eyes, I see the disgusting pictures from the monitor. They merge with my own nightmares. The video was nothing compared to the things I’ve seen.
I find myself leaning against the sturdy trunk of the oak tree, protected by the canopy of gold leaves.
“She’s angry,” Lacey says. She paces back and forth, flickering like the broken strip lights on the third floor of the school. “She wants something. Revenge, I think.”
“They always want revenge,” I reply in a choked voice.
“Are you all right?” Lacey stops pacing and stands in front of me.
“Yeah. There’s a lot to deal with, I guess.”
“You’re still messed up after that ghost possessed your mum,” Lacey replies. She nods to herself as though acknowledging a thought she’s had for a while. “I thought you were.”
“It’s not just that. This is the first time I’ve been to school since I left the psychiatric ward.”
Lacey lets out a hollow laugh. “Me too.” Then her face softens. “It must be hard. I know they bullied you at your last school.”
They hadn’t bullied me at first. I’d been happy at school. I wasn’t one of the popular girls, but I wasn’t an outcast either. I had my small group of friends and I enjoyed getting up and going to school every day. Then they realised I was a freak, and everything changed.
I clear my throat and try to put the memories behind me. “We should find out who this girl is. It’s going to be tricky. This is an old school; there’ll be tons of dead students.”
Lacey rests her chin on her hand and furrows her brow. “Except that this ghost can manipulate technology, and used images that they must have got from the web or something. I can’t imagine a Victorian kid learning to do that.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure we can rule them out, though. They’ve had over a hundred years to adapt to our surroundings.” I think of how ghosts can change and feed from human energy. “But you’re right. It’s more likely to be someone who died recently. I’ll see what I can find out.” I pause. “Hey, what do you make of the Maynards?”
“The adopted brother and sister?” She shrugs. “I dunno. Growing up in a cult must have been pretty weird. The girl is… good-looking, I guess.” I swear Lacey almost blushes. “Why?”
“I think it’s the same guy who nearly ran me off the road last week. He didn’t stop and see if I was all right or anything.”
“I’ll add him to my haunt list,” Lacey says with a grin.
The bell rings and I pick up my bag and start walking back to the school building.
“Catch you later, posh girl. You must be loving this super posh school.” Lacey’s laugh fades into the afternoon sun as I step back into the haunted building.
*
The rest of the day is taken up with biology and psychology. I can’t help but notice that Willa Maynard is in my psych class. She sits at the back, her hair draping over the desk like a curtain. I sit with Terri, who chatters on about her boyfriend—an intern at some investment bank in London.
Neither Grace, Travis, nor Colleen turns up in the afternoon break. I sit with Terri and Melanie as they discuss the events in the common room.
“Do you think Travis will be suspended?” I ask.
Melanie frowns. “Don’t you know?”
I shrug.
“Travis’s father is on the school board. They’ll slap his wrist and move on like always,” Terri says, leaning forward like my fellow conspirator. “If it was me, I’d get him the hell out of here. That video was sick.”
“I know. It’s such a violation of privacy—” I start.
“Not that,” Terri says. “The weird shit that came after. Everyone knows Colleen is a skank. She had it coming.”
“You can’t really think that,” I say.
Melanie replies, “He went too far, but you don’t know Colleen. She steals boyfriends and she sleeps around. He shouldn’t have shown that vid, but the girl needs taking down a few pegs. If Grace wasn’t so sweet, she wouldn’t even hang around with us.”
“Yeah, Grace is way too forgiving sometimes. And I still don’t get what she sees in Trav. He’s a dick,” Terri agrees.
I leave school with my head swimming from the events of the day.
Outside, the afternoon sun has been replaced by inkblots of clouds. The breeze urges them forward, like cotton wool ships. The sound of the school thickens the air, a distant noise. I can’t stop thinking about the film. For the first half of this day, I thought of Ashforth as a quiet sort of place, a relaxed version of my old school. It seemed somewhere I could survive, with friendly students and staff. Now it’s almost sinister. It’s a place where girls are shamed and nothing is done. Mrs. Blake seemed like someone who might help. Maybe I should go to her.
This new plan gives me fresh energy. I turn back towards the school to see if she might be somewhere around, perhaps in the teacher’s room, if I can find it. But I make it only a few steps before a fast-moving brown blob knocks me flying back. I trip over my heel and am about to land straight on my arse when a hand clasps my elbow and straightens me.
“Watch where you’re going, why don’t you?” snaps Jack Maynard.
“I was. You were going too fast.” I wrench my elbow from his hand and right my skirt.
Jack narrows his eyes. “You know, you could say thank you for me not letting you fall. That’s pretty rude.”
“Yeah, well, my car is in the garage thanks to you,” I say, lifting my chin.
“What car? What are you on about?”
“I was driving back to Ashforth when you nearly ran me off the road.”
“I’ve never met you before,” he says, smirking in such a way that I could slap it off his face. “I think I’d remember if I had.”
I make a disgusted noise and turn away from him.
“Where are you going?” he calls.
“Home,” I reply. I turn back over my shoulder to see him watching me leave
with a huge grin plastered across his smug face. “On the bus, thanks to you.”
My cheeks flush red hot, and the gathering storm thickens the air until I can barely breathe. I’m shaking, but I can’t figure out why. It’s something about this school. I never thought that returning to Ravenswood would bring me comfort, but as Ashforth town blurs through the bus window, and the narrow road of my home comes into view, my heart feels lighter. I step down from the bus shaking away the troubles of the day, a feather in the breeze.
But the weather has other ideas. As I make my way up the long, shaded drive, the storm finally comes, drenching me to the skin.
Luckily, Mum sees me from the window and meets me at the door with a towel.
“How was it, love?” She doesn’t have to tell me that she’s been worried. Her hands are clasped together, her thick, dark hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, and there are dark circles beneath her eyes. I know she has nightmares.
“It was a weird day,” I reply.
But as much as I hate the ghost who possessed my mum a few weeks ago, I’m also grateful to it, because never before could I sit in front of the telly with a hot chocolate, watching the rain beat on old glass, and tell Mum that I think a ghost is haunting the school.
Ravenswood has been our home for a few weeks, but it’s rich in our memories already. I had always been closer to my dad before we moved here, yet now, it’s mine and Mum’s. Our place of battle.
“Do you think you can help this ghost?” she asks.
“I’m not sure yet. I need to figure out what it wants.”
“Be careful.”
When Dad comes home, the talk of ghosts stops abruptly, but Lacey appears, sitting in an empty chair, motionless and oddly subdued. As we have our dinner and I tell Dad a ghost-censored version of my first day at school, I find myself waiting to be alone so I can do some research on Ashforth Secondary School. The dark world of ghosts might be drawn to me, but I’m drawn to it, too. Emmaline says that the world is made up of dark and light energy, and that bits of like energy are attracted to each other. That’s why I always seem to find people embroiled in the same dark world. That’s why the ghosts find me. I’m dark.
