by Sarah Dalton
“Oh, you poor thing,” she says. “Well, I’m not sure what I have here. We didn’t take many.” Her voice cracks. “Wait, there’s this one. It’s the last picture we ever took of her. She was very ill at the time… Oh, it still upsets me every time…”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. MacIntosh. I didn’t mean to upset you—”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. It’s nice to have visitors. You should come again, soon.” She brushes the hair away from my face, with her eyes lingering on my burn scars. “You remind me of her. She had long dark hair like yours.”
She hands me the photograph and I have to suppress a gasp. This picture of Tasha is nothing like the photos of the sweet child I’ve seen all afternoon. This photograph is disturbing, and I doubt that I will ever forget it. The teenager sits in a hospital bed covered in tubes. She’s smiling, but the smile doesn’t catch her eyes. Her expression is pained, as though it is taking all her concentration to stay awake. The long dark hair is there, but brushed back from her face so that you can see her features. Her skin seems paper-thin, and could be the face of a person twenty years her senior. She’s sallow, and hollowed out, like the skeleton ghost. The girl in this photograph is wasting away.
There’s the sound of a door opening. I presume her husband is home from work.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. MacIntosh. What kind of cancer did Tasha suffer from? I was never told properly, you see.”
Her face pales. She begins to mumble something, but I don’t catch the words. Her eyes glaze over and her smile freezes. Instead of answering my question, she says. “Sometimes I think she’s still here. Sometimes I think I see her in the bathroom. She was always in the bathroom. I heard her retching, but I never did anything about it. I’m a bad mother.”
“No,” I say. “I’m sure that’s not true—”
“What’s going on here?” Mr. MacIntosh is tall and broad, so that he almost fills the doorway. He has a coat slung over one arm, and his brow is furrowed. A vein sticks out on the side of his neck. His skin is shiny and red, like that of a middle-aged man with a drinking problem. If it weren’t for the redness of his face, he would be an attractive man.
“This girl is a friend of Tasha’s,” Mrs. MacIntosh says. “I was showing her photographs.”
Her husband strides across the room and glances down. When he sees the picture of Tasha in the hospital bed, his fists clench.
“I should go.” I set the mug down on the coaster and get to my feet. “Thank you so much for your hospitality.”
I duck my head and scoot past Mr. MacIntosh as quickly as I can, and without meeting his eyes. When I put my shoes back on, my hands are trembling. It takes three attempts to figure out how to open the door, and then I stumble down the steps back to the road.
“How did it go?” Jack asks.
“Tasha is the ghost,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lacey asks. “You know what happened last time.”
I shake out my arms like an Olympian preparing for an event. “Yes. We need more information and we’re running out of time. Judith knows something about Tasha. We need to know what she knows.”
“Tasha had secrets. Not even the people in her group of best friends knew that she played the cello. But Judith knew that. If the two of them hung out together a lot, they will have talked about their feelings,” Willa says.
“And the anorexia,” I point out. I’m almost positive that that was the real cause of Tasha’s death. Her parents tried to cover it up by spreading the rumour that Tasha died of cancer. I can’t imagine why they would be ashamed of their daughter’s illness, but meeting her dad seems to explain a lot. Perhaps he didn’t want his perfect little family wrecked by something strange or unusual, something people could gossip about. It reminds me of when Mum tried to force me to be normal.
“Well, if you’re ready, let’s get on with it,” Lacey says.
The three of us are in the downstairs bathroom during second period. Unless someone needs to use the loo during class, we should be alone. Willa stands closest to the door, so it’s her job to stop someone coming in if needs be.
I touch the Athamé tucked in my belt, thanking the universe that I don’t go to one of those huge American high schools with a metal detector. It’s pretty easy to smuggle a knife in here, and as long as you don’t go around flapping your mouth off, no one will know you have it. Even still, I hate having it here, and I hate the way it brings me out in a cold sweat anytime a teacher comes near me.
“Judith,” I say. “We need to talk to you.”
The strip light flickers overhead.
“It’s important. We need to stop Tasha hurting anyone.”
Three more flickers, as I wonder if we should have brought a candle, and then Judith’s pale face appears in the mirror. I turn around to speak to her.
“We don’t have much time,” she says.
“That’s okay. We’ll be fast. Judith, we know that Tasha was anorexic before she died,” I say. “Her parents told everyone it was cancer. Why was that?”
“She had issues with her dad,” Judith says. “He was weird about the family name. He cared more about his business than anything else. He thought if there was any sort of gossip or rumours that it would affect him.”
I have a hard time with the idea that suffering with anorexia is shameful, but some people are really old-fashioned. “Why was Tasha anorexic?”
Judith’s eyes glimmer with anger. The lights flicker again. “Because of the way they treated her. They passed her around like some toy to be played with. Tasha had a beautiful soul, but no one saw it because she was surrounded by those shallow airheads. She was a talented cellist, but no one saw that except me.”
“Who passed her around?” I ask.
“Travis. Half the rugby team. They treated her like their own property,” Judith says. “Tasha told me how she’d get wasted and wake up with one or a few of them. They’d laugh at her and tell her she could either fuck them again or get out. Travis was supposed to be her boyfriend, but they fell out all the time. He called her a prude once because she wouldn’t do something he wanted to.”
I shiver, remembering his hands on me and the cocky grin he flashed at me while telling me we’d hook up eventually.
“They made her feel dirty, and she felt like she was out of control. She was spiralling. She couldn’t seem to break the cycle she’d found herself in. She couldn’t find the strength to get away from Travis. So she controlled her food. She controlled her body in the only way she knew how.”
When Judith stops talking, the air is thick with the silence.
“Travis can’t get away with this,” Willa says. Her eyes are hard and narrow. “He’s a pig.”
“They’re doing this to Melanie, too,” I say. “I found her in a room with two of them.”
“Tasha wants to take them down,” Judith says. “But she’s out of control. Her anger is so…” Her face twists into a grimace.
“I know,” I say gently. “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
“This school is toxic,” Judith says. “And Travis Vance is the cause. Get rid of him.”
“We will,” I say, and I mean every word.
“She came to me because she knew I understood what it was like to not feel beautiful,” Judith says. “Tasha never bullied me even though she was in the group who did. She even tried to get Grace to stop. She was a good person before all of this happened.”
“You can move on if you want to,” Lacey says, stepping closer to Judith. “All you need to do is ask us for help. Mary can do it for you and it’s quick and painless.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You’d be at peace,” Lacey says.
“I’m not ready yet. I can’t go while Tasha is still in pain.” She turns to me. “You know how much she hurts. She’s attached to Travis. He’s the key to all this. But I think she’s planning something big, and you’ll have to
stop it.”
I nod. “We’ll do our best.”
*
Willa splits off to go to her history class, while I make my way to English Lit. Grace will be there. The thought makes my stomach clench. This is what it was like for Judith every day. She faced her bullies day in, day out. What happens at a school to make a girl like Judith want to end everything? Schools consistently fail us. Teachers, parents, counsellors, they all fail us every day.
“Hades.” My surname is said with a hiss, drawing out the ‘S’. “Looking fine.”
Travis blocks my path, putting one arm up against the wall and leering down at me. His eyes trail along my body.
I make a disgusted noise and try to push him away.
“Playing hard to get?” he says.
“You’re disgusting. You take advantage of drunk girls because you’re a pig, and no one in their right mind would want a pig like you.”
I try to duck around him, but Travis catches my wrist and pins me against the wall.
“You think you know everything about me, don’t you?”
“I know you use people and spit them out like old food.”
He grips my wrist even tighter. His eyes bore into mine.
Lacey barrels into Travis, knocking him back. He looks around him, his eyes wide in confusion. She knocks a bin over and flings old food at him: part of an old sandwich, half a bacon butty, chocolate bar wrappers.
“What the—” Travis says, blocking the onslaught with his hands.
I hurry away from him, trying to suppress a laugh, but also feeling nauseated. Lacey catches up with me, a huge grin plastered across her face.
“That’ll teach him,” she says.
“Hades, you and me are going to bone by the end of this school year, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it,” he calls after me.
I turn to Lacey. “I think he needs to learn a bigger lesson.”
*
I float through the days until Friday. I’m not afraid anymore. Judith told us that Tasha is planning something big. Deep down, I instinctually know that she’s waiting for the party. Well, so am I. But now I know who the real monster is. Travis. Tasha starved herself because of him. He treats girls as disposable things he can pick up and throw away when he feels like it. I think of Melanie with two sober guys, not even able to walk on her own. There’s a distinct line of power there. There should never be more power on one side. It’s not right. And the more I think about it, the angrier I get: at Travis and Anil, even at Melanie and Tasha and Judith, because they never spoke up. How hard is it to speak? I shake my head. It’s the easiest and hardest thing of all, because then you admit what’s happening to yourself.
Before I leave for the party, I put the Athamé in my bag. Jack drives us to Travis’s house. His expression is tense. He says nothing. His eyes are resigned, as though he knows we won’t stop. What else can we do? I can’t go to the police and betray Melanie’s trust. At least we might be able to take away some of Travis’s power. At least we can do that.
“Are you ready?” Willa asks.
I nod. I’m wearing a casual white dress with cap sleeves and a circle skirt, with a tan belt around my waist. It’s a little retro, and a little modern. The pink bodycon dress is gone. I sold it on eBay. This feels more like me. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it as myself, not as someone pretending to be something they’re not.
Jack frowns at me. “I don’t like this at all. Keep your phone on you at all times.”
“I will.”
I climb out of the car and make my way up the drive to Travis’s house. After seeing the other houses belonging to Grace’s group, I expected another small mansion. But Travis lives in a surprisingly modest semi-detached property, with a garden filled with children’s toys.
It’s nine o’clock and the party is already out of control. A group of lads in hoodies sit on a Wendy house smoking a spliff. A girl with smudged make-up and a thousand-yard stare sits on a plastic rocking horse swigging from a vodka bottle. As I’m about to walk into the house, someone rushes out, pushes past me, and pukes in the hedge.
“I think we should go,” Jack says. “I don’t like this. Something is going to go wrong.”
Lacey’s presence is cool beside me. Her skin is a grey-white colour. She’s nervous. Willa clutches the strap of her satchel and chews on her bottom lip. We’re all nervous, and we all feel completely out of our depth.
“We have a plan. If we stick to it, everything will go okay,” I say, reassuring myself as much as Jack. “You and Willa hang back and fit in with the crowd.”
Willa snorts. “We’ll try.”
Every surface of Travis’s house is covered in people, from girls perched on the worktops of the kitchen to guys leaning over sofas. This is something like the house parties I’m used to. It’s exactly that type, in a two-up two-down house with out-of-date floral wallpaper and black leather sofas. But Travis’s house is in quite some disrepair. The carpet is sticky. The sofas are torn. The kitchen cupboards are chipped. I find myself looking at the photographs on the wall. Travis stands next to a small woman with hair scraped back into a ponytail. She grins with a mouth missing a front tooth. Next to them are three young children. Travis towers above them all. This isn’t what I expected from an entitled prick whose father is on the school board.
“Hades, you made it.” Travis stumbles up to me, a can of cider in one hand. “Checking me out in picture form, are ya?”
“Is that your mum?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. He swigs his cider. “She’s a skank.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say about your mum,” I say.
“There aren’t any nice things to say about her. I’m counting down the days ’til I can afford to fuck off out of here. She is a skank. She fucks anything that moves. Sometimes she gets paid.” He shrugs his shoulders. He smiles whilst telling me all of this, but his eyes are hard and hollow. “She had me when she was fifteen and those three all have different dads.”
“That must have been hard,” I say.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Lacey butts in.
“Why would it be hard?” Travis stares at the photo and swallows. “So I’ve got a skank for a mum, so what? So she shagged my dad once and ended up with me, so what? At least she and the kids go stay with Grandpa every few months so I can have an awesome party, right? At least Daddy dearest, the rich bastard, sends me money and gets me out of trouble.” He laughs. “Want a drink, Hades?”
“What, and have you roofie me? I think not.” I glare at him before regretting my fast mouth. I’m supposed to be getting revenge. I’m supposed to convince him I’m interested.
“Stop pretending like you know me,” he says. “I’ve never drugged a girl in my life. They come into my bed willingly, baby.”
Only because you’ve created a culture at Ashforth where the girls don’t feel like they can say no without ruining their social status at the school. And only because they’re so drunk they can barely stand. I manage to keep that thought to myself.
“What was Tasha MacIntosh like?” I ask. “Didn’t you go out with her?”
Travis’s face loses its smile. I must have caught him at the right level of drunk for him to tell me his life story. “She was a cheating bitch, but I sorted her out. By the end of it, she was begging me to take her back.”
“Did you pass her ’round your friends?”
“That’s when we started sharing,” he says, hardly even seeing me anymore. “All the girls were cheaters anyway, so we figured why not.”
“How did she cheat on you?” I ask.
“Anil told me she got off with some University prick.”
“Did you ask her if it was true?” I ask.
“Didn’t need to. Why would Anil lie?”
I exhale. “This school is so messed up.”
He runs a finger down my cheek. “We’re not messed up. We’re just free, baby. You know what that cheating cow taught me? She taught me to s
top being the good guy and take what I want instead. She taught me to stop caring. Why should I care when all women do is manipulate men for whatever they want?”
I suppress the need to vomit.
“Want to come upstairs to talk?” he says, leaning in to me so I smell sweet cider, sour smoke, and something bitter.
“Sure,” I say.
Chapter Nineteen
“What’s going on?”
Travis has hold of my hand and is leading me towards the stairs, but we’ve encountered a problem. Grace stands in front of us both with a bottle of prosecco in her right hand. Her hair isn’t quite as bouncy or perfect tonight. Her make-up is a little too thick. Her mouth is twisted into an ugly frown.
“What are you doing, Trav?” Grace says.
Travis kisses Grace on the cheek. “Come on, baby, you know we have an arrangement. I look the other way when you mess around with that guy from Rotherham.”
She sniffs and rubs her nose. “But this is getting ridiculous. You’re even screwing the school freak now.”
“Chill. Go get some more coke.”
Grace scowls at Travis. “Fuck you, dick.” She takes a long swig of prosecco and dances away from us as though nothing ever happened.
“She’ll be back,” Travis says. “That’s what you have to do. You have to leave them wanting more. Being a nice guy gets you nowhere.” For once, his smile falters as though he’s unsure of himself.
“That’s not true and you know it,” I say, almost forgetting about the revenge. Lacey rolls her eyes at me in frustration. “Your ideas are warped.”
“Yeah, but it’s working on you, and that’s all that matters right now.” Travis spins me into a dance.
I comply, letting myself spin around in time to the music. Out of the corner of my eye I see Grace, drinking down her prosecco, self-medicating whatever issues she hides under the layers of perfect make-up. Jack was right; we all have a story. We all have something that we want, or need, to keep hidden. But I know better than anyone that those stories can’t be hidden for long. Before you know it, those stories are out in the open for everyone to judge you by. Travis can’t hide his broken family, Grace can’t hide her drug addiction, Colleen can’t hide her fear of her drunken father. Lacey can’t hide her inability to be alive again, no matter how much she wants to.
