by Sarah Dalton
“What’s the matter, Scary Mary?” Travis says, his lips close to my ear. “I thought you were some big bad ghost hunter.”
Grace moves towards us and places a hand on Travis’s shoulder. The room has erupted into fits of laughter. Anil and Rob burst from Grace’s wardrobes. They’ve been up here for the last two hours waiting for this moment. Grace planned it all.
“Take your hands off me,” I say, turning to Travis and lifting my chin.
He only holds me closer, pushing my face into his chest, his hands roaming over my body, taking advantage of the moment.
“That’s enough,” Grace says.
Travis gives me one last squeeze and then pushes me away. Lacey is in the centre of the room, glowering with rage. I run towards her, but Anil blocks my path. He pushes me back and I stumble, almost falling to the floor. Rob throws something over me, a net of some kind. Cobwebs.
“We know all about you,” Grace says as I struggle out of the cobwebs. “We know how you set fire to your school, and how you went to a mental ward. There was another fire there, too, wasn’t there? Some doctor got killed, and your roommate.”
“She’s a nutcase,” Anil says.
My breath is hot and panicked. This can’t be happening again. How did they find out? The words Scary Mary cut me open, slicing into a closed wound.
“Mary, someone’s here. Someone stronger than me,” Lacey warns.
I pull the cobwebs off me, but Travis tosses something small, black, and round at me. It hits me on my shoulder and stays there. I move my head to investigate, but it moves, quick as a flash.
Then I lose it. I scream. I dance. I swat at myself over and over. He threw a spider at me. A live spider, and now it’s on my skin. It scuttles under my pyjama top, and I feel it moving across my bra. I can’t stop screaming. My motions are frantic, violent. I yank the top from my body and finally, finally, swipe the large house spider from my body. After, as I’m trying to calm my breathing, I catch a glimpse of myself in Grace’s dressing table mirror.
It isn’t me standing there, it’s a mad woman with sweaty, pale skin and a bird’s nest hairdo. I could be a homeless girl. My face is tracked with tears. Mascara runs down my cheeks.
“Nice tits,” Travis says. His cronies laugh with him.
I pull the pyjama top back over my chest and notice the phone for the first time. Colleen is filming me. She caught the entire freak-out on her phone.
“That’s it. We’re getting out of here. I hope Judith tears them to pieces,” Lacey says.
And with that, she loses it, too. Grace’s mirror is the first to smash, cracking my reflection into a thousand tiny pieces. Then it’s her lamp. Then her teddies burst in a cloud of stuffing. Melanie screams and covers her face with her arms. Grace turns to me with a look of disbelief.
“This is you,” she says. “You’ve brought something here, you fucking freak. I don’t know what you are, but you’re getting out of here. Get out of my house, weirdo. Get the fuck out of my house.”
*
The tears that come are the kind that won’t stop. I stand on Grace’s drive, next to her neat convertible, with my phone in one hand, trying to compose myself so I can call for a taxi. The night air is bracing. The thin cotton of my pyjamas is no match for the September chill. Lacey drags her fingernails down the side of the car, leaving five long scratches. It doesn’t make me feel better. None of it does.
“They picked on me because I’m a victim,” I say. “They never saw a new friend, they saw a new target.” I sniff, and another wave of tears washes over my face, swelling my eyes, shaking my body.
“Because they’re weak,” Lacey says. Her voice is low, almost a growl.
“No, they’re strong. The strong prey on the weak. That’s how it always is.”
“Are you kidding?” Lacey says. “You’re a ghost hunter. You wield the power of the Athamé. You made that spirit leave your mother when it had already claimed the lives of many before her. You’re the strongest person I know. Do not let these bastards ruin your life. I mean it, Mares. They’re deluded if they think they’re the strong ones. They’re going to get eaten alive once this school spits them out. They might be the big fish here, but believe me, there are plenty of piranhas in the pond. They act like they’re from Eton heading to the fucking Bullingdon club, but you know what? They’re from Ashforth and they’re going to Leeds Uni. Just wait until they realise they aren’t the smartest, or richest, kids in the class anymore. Trust me. I saw loads of these shits in and out of the psych wards for popping pills and craving attention. I know exactly who they are.”
I lean against Grace’s car, letting it all sink in, wiping away my tears and trying desperately to process all the emotions inside me. I know she’s right, but that doesn’t change the humiliation they put me through.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. “We’ll walk for a while. I’ll call a taxi at the end of the street.”
Lacey nods. Her crackling energy calms, but she’s still lit up as though the moon has a private spotlight reserved only for her. I’m almost jealous of her magnificent ethereal quality. Almost.
“I still have you, Lace,” I say, allowing myself to smile. “We’ll get through this. We always do.”
“We will. And you’ll be a stronger person. I’ll be a stronger… ghost, I guess.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Thanks for cheering me up. And for putting everything into perspective.”
“You’re welcome.”
I turn back and take one more look at Grace’s house before we turn onto the road. Her parents should be back from dinner soon, and she’ll have to explain the broken mirror and the keyed car. Maybe she’ll blame me and I’ll get into trouble with Dad again. I actually feel sorry for the old man. I’m certainly one hell of a liability as a daughter.
A face comes to the window. At first I think it’s Grace watching to make sure I leave, but they move forward, and the light falls on their features.
It’s not Grace.
“Lacey,” I whisper.
The face is gone mere seconds after I see it, leaving only an afterimage on my eyeballs of gaunt cheekbones and lank hair.
“She’s here.”
The house goes dark, and cello music blasts through the rooms. It’s the same piece as before, so haunting and full of pain that my abdomen twists. Lacey bends down to me as I sink to my knees, the sadness coursing through me. It’s so intense that I claw at my stomach, trying to stop it, needing to stop it before I lose my mind.
“Mary, you’re scaring me,” Lacey shouts.
“Go… to… the house. Stop… her.” I squeeze the words through gritted teeth before letting out an animal wail.
There could be a thousand rats gnawing at my intestines. I’ve never felt pain like this. The world seeps into an inky pool of black. I lean forward and put my forehead on the tarmac, with no way of knowing if Lacey has done as I asked. I sprawl forward, trying to move my body, trying to push myself off the ground. It’s no good. I’m stuck in a spiral of utter agony.
There’s a scream, and it takes a few seconds for me to realise that it didn’t come from me. The music stops. The ache is gone. I’m on my feet, running back to the house, when a lump of something falls. It lands at my feet with a hard thud. I look up at Grace’s balcony, at the faces of horror.
Anil lies on the ground, his head tilted to one side, with blood coming from a deep gash on his forehead.
Lacey is next to me in an instant. “I couldn’t stop her. She pushed him.”
I dial 999 on my phone, then kneel beside him and feel for a pulse. He’s still breathing. Grace topples out of the front door and pukes onto the gravel. She straightens up and turns to me. This Grace is wild and untamed. Her perfect hair and make-up are gone, replaced with clammy skin, matted hair, and tears streaming down her cheeks.
“He fell,” she says.
She stumbles forward and gestures to the broken railings.
“They… it broke, and he
fell.”
I talk to the operator, ignoring her. After taking the advice of the operator, I turn to her and say, “You should have listened to me. You should have believed me.” I look down at the broken body on the ground, wincing at the expression of pure horror on his face.
*
It’s over an hour later when I slip away unnoticed. Anil’s parents have been called. Grace’s parents have returned to talk to the police. We’ve all given witness accounts to the police. Anil has been taken away in an ambulance. I don’t have a medical degree, but I can say with some certainty that he’s broken up pretty bad. The paramedics wore grim faces as they moved him onto a stretcher.
Nothing about today went well. Instead, I ended up with a crash course in how shitty human beings can be to each other without any real cause. Again, I walk amongst darkness, but this time it isn’t death. It’s people. And then, the dead hurt the living again. Even after death the cycle never stops. When will we learn to stop?
“So, Judith lashed out tonight,” Lacey says.
We walk along a residential street on the outskirts of Ashforth. It’s the kind with pleasant, mid-sized semi-detached properties and tall town houses. I kick a stone into a perfectly symmetrical garden.
“That means we need to stop her as soon as we can,” Lacey continues.
“I know,” I say. “But every time she’s around, she makes me hurt so bad that I can’t move. I’m in complete agony. My body won’t work. I’m stuck there watching and there’s nothing I can do about it, and all the time there’s this gnawing in my stomach, like rats are chewing on my insides.” I sigh.
“You can overcome the pain. I know you can.”
“What am I going to do? Smuggle the Athamé into school? If I get caught…”
“Maybe we could go after school ends,” Lacey suggests.
That’s the grim reality. Breaking and entering to do a job that no one will know about. And if I do tell them, they’ll lock me up for being crazy, as well as breaking the law.
“Hey,” Lacey says, interrupting my thoughts. “Is that car following us?”
Behind us, two headlights crawl along through the dark. Lacey is right. They don’t seem to be trying to park. They’re following us.
“Shit,” I say, suddenly realising I’m a girl on my own at night wandering down the street in pyjamas. I turn around and take out my phone. Trying to muster some courage, I stride towards the car, holding my phone out, and shout, “If you don’t turn around right now, I’m going to phone the police.”
The driver’s window rolls down and a head peeks out. “Right. You do that if you like, but I was going to see if you need a lift.”
I drop my arm to my side. It’s Jack Maynard. “Why should I get into a car with you?”
“Well, it’s pretty cold, for one thing. You’re wearing pyjamas for another. You also look a little psycho and seem to be talking to yourself. But I can keep driving if you like. Or, you know, you could phone the police.”
I edge closer to the Volvo. “What are you doing out here at this time of night?”
“Okay, we’re doing that, then. We’re questioning my intentions when you’re the one in pyjamas on the street. Well, if you must know, I just took a girl home, whom I took to the pub, and no, I’ve not been drinking, and now I’m on my way home myself. So are you getting in or not?”
On the one hand, Jack Maynard seems like a dick. On the other, it’s freezing cold.
I get in the car.
Chapter Twelve
“So what’s the story?” he says, after sitting in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time.
“What?”
“Morning Glory. It’s an album. By Oasis.” He rolls his eyes and his upper lip sneers up in a half-smirk of arrogance. “What’s the story? Why are you walking down Dickenson Street in your pyjamas?”
“Oh, right.” I’m aware of Lacey in the rearview mirror, narrowed—and distrusting—eyes focussed on Jack. “It’s a long story.” And one I don’t want to talk about.
“It’s a fifteen-minute drive to Ravenswood. Twenty if I go slow.” He raises his eyebrows. They’re surprisingly well shaped for a guy. Yet somehow, he pulls them off. They add to the angles of his face, drawing your eyes to his sharp cheekbones and square jaw. “Come on. At least tell me something.”
“I was at Grace Templeton’s house. It was a pizza and prosecco sleepover,” I say. “There was an accident and Anil Masood fell off the balcony of Grace’s bedroom. He had to go to hospital.”
“Jesus. Is he okay?”
“No, not really. He’s alive, but he looked broken up. I saw it happen. I was outside and he landed near me.”
“Fuck. No wonder you’re shaken up.”
I can’t help but glare at him, wondering why he cares.
“What? You think I’m some sociopath who doesn’t care when a person is upset or hurt? I think you’re mistaking me for Travis Vance.”
I can’t help but smile at that.
“So, that explains the pyjamas. But why are you wandering down the street? Couldn’t your parents pick you up? The police would give you a lift, right?”
I shrug. “I had to get away from there.” I clear my throat, trying to hide the wobble in my voice.
I stare straight ahead at the road, trying to pretend I don’t notice Jack watching me. At one point his mouth opens to speak, and then he seems to think better of it, and the silence continues.
“Your sister gave me a lift the other day,” I say. “Do you two just drive around all night or something?”
Jack smiles, revealing teeth for the first time. Two dimples appear in his cheeks, about the perfect size for the tip of my little finger. Oddly, he looks a bit like Willa when he smiles. “We have busy social lives.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Jack’s smile broadens. “A tad judgemental, aren’t we?”
The words send a flush of indignation to my cheeks. I never used to be before Ashforth. But then I hadn’t experienced guys getting revenge on their exes, and drunk girls in dangerous situations. “It’s this place. I think it drags the worst out of everyone.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Jack’s smile fades and he tilts his face down so that the sockets of his eyes are covered in shadow. “Or maybe we’re always our worst, no matter what. Maybe our worst is who we are.”
“It certainly seems that way.” I push back into the seat, trying to make myself as small as possible. It doesn’t work. I’m still here, and I’m still me.
“There are good people in this world, you know. That girl you were asking about the other day.”
“Judith?” I ask, sitting up in my seat.
“Yeah. She was a sweet girl. She helped me out with GCSE French before she…” Jack winces and grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “There was a bit of confusion. She sent me a Valentine’s Day card once. It was nothing, really. She had a crush, I guess. But the hyenas circled as soon as I was mentioned. I’m guessing you already know that my sister and I are something of a target at Ashforth Comp.”
“Yeah, I have heard some… gossip.” I swallow, uncomfortable to continue with this conversation, but wanting to know about Judith.
“It’s all a load of crap, for the record. Willa and I are brother and sister in every way except blood. We grew up together. We would never go there. If you ask me, the lads started the rumours after they got sick of Willa turning them all down.”
I laugh. “Sounds about right.”
“You’re not like them,” Jack says. He flashes me another quick look, then his eyes are back on the road. “Why do you hang out with them?”
“I won’t be anymore,” I say.
“What happened?” he asks. “They did something, didn’t they?”
I turn away. Jack punches the steering wheel and I almost jump out of my skin.
“You know, they bullied Judith, too. As soon as she sent that card to me she signed her death warrant. They never left her alone after that. They te
ased her so bad that she couldn’t take it anymore and she took her own life.” He shakes his head. “Such a fucking waste.”
“Who bullied her? Grace?”
“All of them. Grace, her ape of a boyfriend, although I think he was someone else’s boyfriend at the time, Melanie, Anil, Rob… they’re all guilty. They have blood on their fucking hands.”
I drop back against my seat, letting my head hit the headrest. “Shit. I had no idea. I thought something might have happened to her, but I didn’t know it was this.”
“They’re bad people. You’d be better off staying away from them.”
“I will,” I reply.
When Jack sees me blink away tears, he puts the radio on and we listen to some late night Radio One dance music show. God, I’m so stupid. Why did I let myself get involved with those people when the warning signs were there from the start? I thought I had some sort of gut instinct for people, but I’ve been so wrong. I let myself want acceptance so much that I missed what was right in front of my face.
“So why were you asking about Judith, anyway?”
In my tired, frazzled state, I make a sound somewhere between a ‘huh’ and a ‘nngg’. Jack smiles and shakes his head.
“I said, why were you asking about Judith?”
“I thought something seemed amiss,” I say quickly, trying to get over the embarrassment of the weird noise. “Did you know Natasha MacIntosh?”
“Not much,” he says. “I know she had cancer and passed away a few weeks before Judith. It was a bad month. It’s not often two sixteen-year-old girls die like that.”
“Yeah, it must have been hard. It seems like Natasha had a lot of friends.”
“She was Grace’s best friend. Didn’t she ever mention her?” Jack asks.
I shake my head. “Yeah, that’s weird. But then Grace doesn’t seem like the grieving type.”
“Well, you’re home. Want me to take you to the door?” he asks.
“Most people want to run the hell away from my house,” I say with a laugh. “But, yeah, you can if you like. The drive is pretty long.” I glance at my phone. It’s half twelve and my eyelids are heavy.
