Ghost Girl in the Corner

by Daniel José Older

  “Whatever he is,” Big Jerome said, “he’s got Ken-doll hair, which means at the very least his mama white.”

  “Why do you just make things up and say them out loud?” Sierra demanded. And the conversation had wandered somewhere else from there, Tee couldn’t remember where, but that was about it …

  She didn’t have much to go on, but nothing about Father Thomas had ever jumped out at her as being even moderately creepy. He didn’t have wandering eyes, never laid his hands on any of them in that aching, suggestive way that some adults did.

  Maybe, Tee thought, turning suddenly and crossing the room toward the table in the middle, it’s not that he did it, it’s that he’s in trouble too.

  She powered up her laptop, checked her phone again idly — still nothing from Izzy — and then leaned over the desk and started an email.

  To: jnewman@kirzenfound.org

  Cc: LRollins5@schools.nyc.gov

  From: itsyagirlTee@gmail.com

  Subject: Update

  Hey Jessica —

  Just wanted to drop a quick email and let you know we have had our first successful run of the printing press and it went really well. There was a situation in the neighborhood and we had to use the press to make posters instead of the first issue, but the reporters are hard at work on their articles for issue one and we should still be on schedule to release it in another day or two.

  Do you happen to know where I might find Father Thomas or have a phone number I can reach him at? Had a question about the space is all, nothing serious.

  Thank you!

  T

  She hit SEND and then held her hands up. Her fingers were trembling ever so slightly. “Shit,” Tee whispered, and then the door swung open and she jumped back, heart hammering.

  “Tee-babe!” Izzy yelled, barreling down the stairs.

  Tee’s whole body went loose for a second as she exhaled all the tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Holy crap, Iz.” She leaned on the table. “You gotta learn to knock or something. You scared the ever-loving shit outta me.”

  “Babe —” Izzy was across the room in seconds.

  Tee grabbed her and pulled her close. “And I need you to text me the second you wake up. I don’t care if it’s clingy. Right now everything is too … everything is too everything for me to worry about you not responding to my texts on top’a all this other stuff.”

  Izzy smelled good: a little musty, with the hint of one of those body oils she got at the candle store on Bedford. She smelled like home.

  “Babe, babe, babe,” Izzy said, kissing Tee and then standing back. “I feel you, but listen! I got stuff!”

  “Me too!” Tee said, then it dawned on her how complicated her stuff would be to explain. “Er — you first.”

  “Corinna Dutch!” Izzy yelled. Then her eyes went wide and her whole face lit up with a flash of blue.

  Tee spun around.

  “Who … is!” Izzy sputtered.

  The ghost girl hung in the air above them, mouth open, arms out again, brighter now than she’d ever been.

  Tee shook her head as Izzy stepped up next to her. “I don’t … know … but … that name you just said …”

  “Corinna Dutch,” Izzy whispered.

  The ghost girl’s eyes opened and closed, very slowly, very sadly.

  “Who’s that?” Tee said.

  “Neville’s niece. She went missing on Halloween eleven years ago and they … She was killed. They found her body, but never the guy who did it, and … Wait, why aren’t you surprised that a spirit just appeared outta nowhere?”

  Tee shuffled her feet.

  “This ain’t the first time she appeared, huh?”

  “I — I didn’t know how to tell you, Iz. It’s hard to explain. Like … she … somehow, I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I just knew that to be true and I can’t explain why, but it was.”

  “This why you was damn near out ya mind yesterday when I found you?”

  Tee gnawed on her upper lip and nodded.

  “Shit, babe. I’m … you know you can tell me anything …”

  “I know, I know. I just … not this, somehow. I’m … I’m sorry.”

  “Who’s FT?”

  She looked up. Izzy was staring at the slugs in the Linotype.

  “WHEREISFT? Did she type that?”

  The ghost girl swung forward with a whoosh and then spun across the room, hanging over the massive file cabinets stacked by the far wall.

  “Yeah,” Tee said. “I think FT is …”

  Izzy’s wide eyes met Tee’s. “Father Thomas?”

  “Only thing I can figure, and …”

  “Tee, Father Thomas the priest?”

  “I think so. I just don’t know if it means where is he like he did it or where is he like he’s in trouble too somehow. Ya know?”

  Izzy shook her head. “I have no idea what I know, to be honest. But we gotta … what if …”

  “I know!” Tee said. “I know.”

  “You think she’s tryna …” Izzy took a few steps toward the file cabinets. “They got all the old Searchlights in there? Neville said Manny was the only one to cover Corinna’s disappearance.”

  “Yeah, organized by year. You think there’s a …” Tee fast-walked past Izzy, scanning the tiny labels on each drawer. “Here!” The cabinet opened with a cranky squeal. Izzy had said the girl disappeared on Halloween. Tee’s fingers trembled as she leafed through the dates to November. She pulled out the file and handed it to Izzy. They crossed back to the table and spread the pages out.

  “Wow.” Tee’s voice was barely a whisper. The ghost girl’s — no, Corinna’s blue glow threw Tee’s and Izzy’s shadows across the papers as she floated up behind them. Her face smiled off almost every page. Here was Corinna’s preciously short life story, there the details of when, where, and what she was wearing when she was last seen (leaving her house to go trick-or-treating; dressed, as she was now, as a cat in a slinky black top, with whiskers painted on her cheeks and two gray ears poking out of her hair). Here was her obituary (body discovered, as Neville had said, decomposing in a river somewhere upstate), her funeral, the protests at the precinct over their inaction, the endless search for her killer, slowly fading out, day by day …

  “Do you remember all this?” Izzy whispered.

  Tee shook her head. “We were, what? Six? I guess they didn’t want to freak us out. It all happened right here.”

  “Anything about Father Thomas?”

  Tee scanned the articles about Corinna; Neville was in there a couple times, giving statements about the search efforts, but the priest’s name was nowhere to be found. “Maybe it’s somewhere else …” She flipped some of the pages over, glancing at the other articles. Behind her, Corinna stirred and flickered, her presence a cool zephyr at the back of Tee’s neck.

  “New bakery opens on Marcy … Construction on the Diamonds … Neighbors gather to discuss plans for a new library branch … Here!” She blinked at the page.

  Father Thomas Greg, recently returned from a monthlong tour through the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean, states he’s excited about the possibility of a new library in the area. “These kids need more books,” Father Greg said. “Heck, we all do!”

  “What’s the date?” Izzy asked.

  “December second, so …”

  “Universal Ken got gone right when Corinna disappeared.”

  “Yeah, but …” Tee furrowed her brow. “You think he … ?”

  They looked around. The basement’s silence suddenly seemed very heavy. Then they looked up. “You think he up there?” Izzy whispered.

  Tee rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe this is where we’re at. Ain’t no way he …”

  Izzy stared at her.

  “I mean …”

  “Either way,” Izzy said, “Corinna wants to know where he is. So let’s at least see if he here. Ya know? I mean, have you even seen him over the past two days?”

  “I saw him th
e day before yesterday. But he also said he don’t really come down here ever.”

  “Which is kinda weird,” Izzy growled through clenched teeth. “Dontchya think?”

  “I mean, he said it … creeped him … out.”

  They both turned to Corinna. She stared back at them, her face wide open and inscrutable as ever.

  A halo of dyed purple hair surrounded Ms. Tanner’s sagging face. She might’ve been eighty, might’ve been sixty. What was clear, abundantly so, was her passion for perfume and all manner of makeup and jewelry. She leaned over her desk, smile first, and Tee and Izzy took a step back.

  “Father Thomas, you say?”

  “Seen him?” Tee asked.

  Ms. Tanner retreated back to her side of the desk and adjusted her librarian glasses. “Mmmmm, not since, let me see, yesterday? Yesterday was Thursday?”

  “Today is Thursday,” Izzy said. Tee put her hand on Izzy’s and squeezed.

  “Well,” Ms. Tanner huffed, giving Izzy a thorough up-and-down for the first time. “Every day is the Lord’s day, am I right?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Izzy said. “I took myself off the email list.”

  Ms. Tanner squinted sharply behind her glasses. “Perhaps I can help you with something instead?”

  “No,” Tee said. “We’re really looking for Father Thomas. It’s a, uh … spiritual question.”

  Ms. Tanner lit up. “Oh, I’m actually very —”

  “It has to be Father Thomas,” Tee said. “Sorry. Does he have, like, a pager or something?”

  “He sometimes doesn’t come in till the wee — oh!” Ms. Tanner interrupted herself with a joyful squeal, her eyes fixed on the bulletin board next to Izzy. “Well, there’s your answer!”

  “What?” Tee and Izzy said, scanning the bake-sale and crochet-class announcements.

  “Right there, sillies!” Ms. Tanner pointed at a small metal hook sticking out of the cork. A sticker over it announced SARAGASSET in block letters.

  “What’s Saragasset?” Tee asked.

  “The church’s retreat center, of course. Father Thomas must’ve headed out there for some peace and quiet. The air is so fresh there, you kno —”

  “Out where?” Izzy said, her hand squeezing Tee’s back.

  “The retreat house, of course.”

  “Where. Is. The. Retreat. Hou —”

  “Well, upstate, obviously. You two have never been to Saragasset before? It’s so lovely this time of yea — hey! Girls?”

  “I knew it!” Izzy yelled as they burst back into the basement. “I can’t … What do we …”

  Tee just shook her head. “We gotta … I don’t …”

  For almost a minute, they both just stood there, taking apart and putting the pieces back together. Father Thomas had gone upstate without telling anyone — upstate, where they found Corinna’s body. He’d been away when she went missing, and now Lani had vanished and he was out of town again. Corinna spun a small sad circle in the far corner, her glow growing fierce and then simmering off in a slow pulse.

  “Text Neville,” Tee said.

  Still spinning, Corinna looked up.

  “Already did,” Izzy said. “He on the way. Didn’t explain, just said to roll up ASAP.”

  Tee nodded, then pulled out her own phone, which had been on silent all along. She pulled up the one email waiting for her. It was from Jessica.

  To: itsyagirlTee@gmail.com

  Cc: LRollins5@schools.nyc.gov

  From: jnewman@kirzenfound.org

  Subject: RE: Update

  Dear Trejean,

  Thank you for the update, and I’m glad to hear things are going well. However, I’m afraid that the grant stipulates that —

  She skipped ahead.

  So unfortunately, we’re going to have to have a conversation about how to move forward with this project, which we are committed to seeing through to its —

  She skipped to the end.

  As for Father Thomas, he’s informed us that he’s taken an unexpected trip out of the country for some missionary work this week, but hopes to be back next week, depending on how things go.

  Look forward to speaking with you soon,

  Jessica Newman

  The Kirzen Foundation

  Tee blinked at the phone. Her mouth moved up and down but nothing came out. “Son of a —”

  “What it is?” Neville said, barging in on long strides.

  Corinna burst into a flurry of movement, sending wild flashes of blue across the walls. In seconds, she’d swept across the basement and stopped a few inches from Neville.

  “Well?” Neville said, looking back and forth between Tee and Izzy’s gawking faces.

  Corinna threw herself forward, wrapping ghostly arms around Neville’s neck and nuzzling into his shoulder. Her shining, translucent body shivered with silent sobs.

  “What are you guys staring at?” Neville demanded.

  “Long story,” Tee said. “We gotta talk on the way. You up for a drive?”

  A light rain danced across the windshield as they burned out of the city in Neville’s Cadillac Seville. For a long time, he didn’t say anything, didn’t even put the wipers on: Jaw clenched, hands tight on the wheel, he just drove. They’d laid out everything as clearly as they could without mentioning Corinna, who lay draped around Neville’s back like a sweater.

  Night fell. The rain tapered off. They sat in traffic at a toll booth for what seemed like forever.

  The woods around them became black shadows against the darkening sky.

  Izzy realized she’d never been in Neville’s car without music playing before. It made her antsy. “What you thinkin’, man? C’mon.”

  Neville shook his head as if snapping out of a long sleep. He frowned. “I think it’s very circumstantial.”

  Izzy met Tee’s eyes in the rearview, then looked away. She took a deep breath, forcing herself not to explode. “But?”

  “But still worth checking out.” He handed Izzy his phone. “Find the contact marked R, text ’em the address we’re heading to.”

  “Backup?” Izzy pulled the glossy Saragasset brochure they’d taken from the front office out of her pocket and clicked on the inside light.

  “Something like that,” Neville muttered.

  “Old Hill Road … not even a damn number; that’s how remote this place is. Old Hill Road.” She shook her head, tapped it in, hit SEND. “That’s it?” She handed the phone back to Neville. “No Meet me there, no explanation, no nothin’?”

  Neville finally let a slight smile edge across his face. “That’s what friends are for.”

  An hour and a half later, Neville pulled onto an unpaved road and killed the headlights.

  Izzy took a deep breath of fresh country air and gazed into the darkness. “This is it, huh?”

  Neville nodded.

  Izzy peered back at Tee. “You good?”

  Tee nodded once, game face on. Corinna stirred from Neville’s shoulder, gazing around.

  Up ahead, a few one-story cabins loomed in a long field. Squares of light marked the closest one to them; the rest were dark. A cheerful sign welcomed them to the Saragasset Retreat Center, adding PRAISE THE LORD! in bubble letters.

  “Alright, listen,” Neville said, killing the engine and pocketing the keys. “Here’s the deal —”

  “Hol’ up,” Izzy said. “Let’s not do this whole ‘You wait in the car’ thing, okay? It’s not gonna happ —”

  Neville let out a soft chuckle. “Easy, Iz, I wasn’t gonna say that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Uncle Neville don’t like splittin’ up the team. ’Specially when the team is only three and two of ’em is minors. And look, backup is still a little ways out.”

  “The mysterious Mr. R,” Izzy said.

  Neville’s mischievous smile made an appearance, then vanished. “And while the evidence we got is dubious at best, we still need to have a little strategy session. You got any bars?”

  Tee and Izzy took
out their phones, shook their heads.

  “Figured. I do, but fat lotta good it’s gonna do me if I can’t reach either of you. We basically just gonna roll up on the spot and see what’s what, real nice and genial-like. But if anything go sour and we get split up or something, gotta yell, I guess. If you need to run, run to the car. If the car outta the question, head right out the driveway. We passed a rinky-dink little bar about a quarter mile back. Shit gets chaotic, that’s the beacon. Got it?”

  Tee and Izzy nodded. Izzy tried not to imagine just how chaotic shit could get, failed miserably.

  “And remember,” Neville said, “much as everything looks wild suspicious, we functioning on the presumption of innocence, but ready for anything. If you happen to make it back to the car and I ain’t here, there’s a baseball bat on the floor in the back.”

  Tee fumbled around till she found it. “Imma name it Hot Sauce 2.0.”

  “That’ll work.” He opened the car door. “Leave the heavy-duty stuff in the trunk till I’ve had a chance to train you on it. Alright? Let’s do this.”

  The air was fresh and the sky impossibly dark with a billion stars.

  Corinna detached from Neville, gave a longing look back at him, and then fluttered off into the darkness. Tee took a step after her, opened her mouth to yell, and then caught herself. Neville was rummaging with something in the front seat and hadn’t noticed.

  “Iz, I gotta go after her,” Tee said.

  Izzy shook her head, already knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop Tee. “Babe …”

  “I … she’s … I can feel it like she’s pulling me. She’s going to Lani. I know she is.”

  Izzy’s mind swirled with images of hands reaching out of the darkness, grabbing Tee. “But —”

  Corinna hung like a luminous blue Christmas tree out in the field beyond the first cabin. She had stopped and turned back to them, her wide eyes set on Tee.

  “Look,” Izzy said, “if you die, Imma kill you so damn hard.”

  “But —”