Ghost Girl in the Corner

by Daniel José Older

“Shh. I don’t care. I will follow ya ass into Hell just so I can whup it. Clear?”

  Tee nodded once. “That’s very damn romantic.”

  “Shut up. And be careful.”

  Tee nodded again, then turned and ran out into the field. Izzy let a tiny sigh escape. Maybe, somehow, Tee would be alright. And so would she. And then they’d look back on this day when they were old and shake their heads with sad smiles.

  “You ready, night dreamers?” Neville said. “Wait, what … Tee!” he whisper-yelled. He turned a frantic look to Izzy. “Where the hell is she going?”

  Izzy cringed. “She’s … she thinks she knows where Lani is?”

  Neville stood staring after her for a solid ten seconds, his whole body tensed as if he might explode across the field after her. Finally, he shook his head, a severe frown creasing his face. “This some ghosty-ghost shit y’all be messing around with, ain’t it? You and my goddaughter and the crew.”

  Izzy nodded.

  “I don’t like splittin’ up,” Neville grumbled, walking up the gravelly path toward the cabin. “I don’t like it all.” At the door, he glanced at Izzy once before knocking. “Play along,” he muttered. “I’m sure you know how.”

  The door swung open before Izzy had time to respond, and she had to quell the flush of terror that tried to break out across her face.

  “Hello?” Father Thomas said. “Oh, Neville! Isake? What’s … what’s going on?”

  She had to give him this: Father Thomas didn’t look like a man who had just been caught in his secret hideaway after kidnapping a teenage girl. He wore a cardigan and khakis and had a mug of tea in one hand. His eyebrows rose with mild surprise, not holy terror or guilt.

  “Hey, Father T,” Neville said. “So glad you’re here, man. I was heading out to drop Izzy here off at her summer program and we started running low on gas. GPS wasn’t showing any open service stations for miles, and I remembered the church has this retreat center out here, figured we could —”

  “Of course,” Father Thomas cooed. “Come in!”

  “We’re so sorry to trouble you,” Neville said.

  Father Thomas waved him off and flashed a wide smile at Izzy. “Not at all! Don’t be silly.”

  This must be the main rec house, Izzy decided. The big room had folding chairs set up and a podium at the far end. Cheesy Jesus posters smiled out from the walls, and a hand-painted banner announced SARAGASSET in huge colorful letters. “Please make yourselves at home,” Father Thomas said, leading them to a plush couch. “Do you want any crackers or juice? Perhaps a cup of tea?”

  The urge to attack rose up in Izzy without warning. It must’ve been lurking, coiled up this whole time, while her mind caught up to the fact that they were there, at the camp, with this (probably) murderous creep. Now it reared up; how dare he offer them crackers and juice when Lani might be tied up somewhere, or dead? When Tee might be next? Her fists clenched at her sides and she turned to face the wall so she wouldn’t leap across the room and throttle him.

  “I’m good,” Izzy mumbled.

  “I’d love a tea, thanks,” Neville said. “Or coffee if you have it.”

  “Just tea, I’m afraid.” Father Thomas gave an apologetic shrug and padded over to the small kitchen area. “It’s amazing you caught me,” he called over his shoulder.

  Just wait, Izzy thought.

  “I’m not usually out here on the off-season. Just come up every now and then to clear my head, commune a bit with the Lord in close quarters, you know? It’s mighty hard to get a moment of peace in the bustle of city life.”

  “I hear that,” Neville said. “Why do ya think when Izzy said she needed a ride upstate, I jumped at the opportunity?” He let out a pretty convincing chuckle, and Father Thomas joined him. Izzy wanted to puke. “Fresh air!” Neville said.

  “It’s a beautiful thi —” Father Thomas shot a furtive stare at the far window, then squinted.

  Izzy followed his gaze, but saw only black night and ghostly reflections in the glass. “What is — ?”

  “Shh,” Father Thomas snapped.

  In the distance, a dog barked and growled.

  Father Thomas fixed Neville with a slow, appraising glare. “Seems someone else is on the property.”

  “Oh?” Neville said, his eyes wide with concern. “Should we be worried?”

  Father Thomas laughed, his mask of geniality fixed and set back in place. “Not at all, I’m sure. The dogs get excited about anything. Stay here, though; your tea will be ready in a few minutes. I’ll go check it out.”

  He headed out the back exit; Izzy couldn’t decide if he was forcing himself to walk slowly or really didn’t see much reason to rush. Either way, there was a dog prowling around, and Tee was out there somewhere, probably terrified. “We gotta go,” she whispered when the door closed behind Father Thomas. “Gotta help Tee.”

  “Help her how?” Neville said. “It doesn’t work that way. Stay cool, Iz. I know it’s hard, trust me. We don’t know if she needs helps yet. Keep an eye out that window.”

  It took everything in Izzy not to bolt out the door and into the night, screaming her true love’s name.

  “Be cool, Iz,” Neville whispered. “Be cool.”

  The crickets were loud as hell out here in the way-deep back-ass country end of New York. Or cicadas. Or zombie death mutant arachnids of hell. That’s what Tee tried to concentrate on as she jogged along the tree line at the edge of the field, a few steps behind Corinna’s glowing form. The ghost girl seemed to know where she was going, so Tee followed. And then Corinna straightened very suddenly and dashed off toward a long building at the far end of the compound.

  A few seconds after Tee started after her, she heard the barking.

  It came from all around her at first, like a thousand snarling hellhounds were emerging from the woods at once. The whole world became her breath and heartbeat, her pounding feet and the dark sky bouncing wildly as she closed in on the building behind Corinna. The howling dogs sounded like they were right behind her.

  Corinna turned just as Tee reached the door. She looked out at the dark field with those big haunting eyes and then stepped backward, vanishing into the building. Tee threw open the door — imagining claws and teeth bearing down on her at any second — hurled herself inside, and slammed it behind her.

  Now she stood with her back against the wall, panting. The scratching and whining of the hellhounds trailed off quickly. Tee gazed at a medium-sized chapel complete with red carpets, wooden pews, and a huge crucifix at the far end, looming over the whole room, and … Lani!

  Tee bolted down the center aisle to where Lani Cortez lay sleeping on a foldout table. She wore an elegant wedding gown, which draped over the sides of the table like some giant doily. “Lani,” Tee gasped, grabbing her shoulders. “Wake up, girl! What’s going on?”

  Her body was warm — she couldn’t be dead, right?

  Tee shook her again. “Lani! Can you hear me?” She gently pulled open Lani’s eyelids. Her light-brown irises glared back at Tee, the pupils just tiny faraway dots in the center. She’s been drugged, Tee thought, and then Corinna appeared in a flash, arms waving toward the door. Tee whirled around; the dogs started barking again, this time without the growl. Someone was coming — someone they were happy to see. She threw herself to the ground and commando-rolled under the nearest pew just as the door swung open.

  “Down, boys, down!” a voice said. Father Thomas’s voice. Tee tried to catch her breath, but even lying still, it felt like it was running away from her. “Get! I said get! Good boys!” The door closed and footsteps padded down the carpet toward her.

  Tee tossed up a breathless, silent prayer. She was in a chapel, after all, and she’d always loved her grandma’s church, even if she’d stopped going after Grann had passed. What better place to beg for divine intervention?

  The footsteps stopped. Tee heard Father Thomas take a deep breath. He walked a little closer, paused again. She closed her eyes, braced
for whatever came next.

  It wasn’t what she expected: the quiet digitized blip-blips of a cell phone, then a distant ring.

  “Krin? Hello?” Father Thomas’s voice shivered. After a pause, someone mumbled something on the other end.

  “Listen … there’s a problem … I know, I know. Someone’s here. Some folks from the neighborhood. Nothing I can’t handle, no, I’m just letting you know … What? That’s not the arrangement. No … Listen to me …” The voice on the other end got agitated. “I said I will handle it,” Father Thomas moaned. “You don’t need to! No! All this work and time and patience, you can’t just come and … Fine, fine, fine. Look, Krin, I will have this handled by the time you arrive, so you might as well not … Alright, fine, I guess we’ll see when you get here.”

  The call ended with a beep and then Tee heard a soft thud — Father Thomas dropping to his knees, she figured — followed by an anguished growl.

  Was he going to … ? Tee tensed, imagining herself rolling out from under the bench and bum-rushing Father Thomas. She would be at a disadvantage in about twenty different ways. It wasn’t like she could just burst onto her feet, smashed pews flying in slo-mo to either side of her like in some action movie. This was real life: She’d roll out and probably get stuck on the way, then clobbered as she tried to stand, and what good would that do? Still, he sounded desperate, and if he was gonna kill Lani now, Tee didn’t have much choice.

  She tensed again and was about to roll when Father Thomas stood and stormed back up the aisle. She heard a jingling sound, then the sharp roll of a key entering a lock, followed by a click. The door swung open and then slammed shut again. The dogs erupted into excited barks, and then Father Thomas’s muffled voice said, “C’mon, boys, let’s go,” and the barking grew distant.

  Tee let her breath come back to her. She rolled out from under the pew. Stood. Walked up the center aisle, her eyes glued to the big white door in front of her. She hadn’t looked at it before, but there beneath the metal handle was a small brass circle. A lock. Tee knew what would happen when she reached the door, but she wrapped her hand around the cool metal very slowly and pushed down.

  It didn’t budge.

  She was locked in.

  Tee turned around, saw Corinna Dutch’s glowing form hovering in a far corner of the room, dim in the neon chapel lights. They made eye contact, then both looked at Lani. Tee knew what she had to do. She didn’t know what would happen after that, but right now, the next move was completely clear. Tee started down the aisle just as Corinna burst forward in a flurry of light and motion. Tee raised one hand in the air as she ran and stretched the other toward Lani Cortez.

  “I think he went into that long building across the field,” Izzy said, cupping her hands on the glass and squinting out into the darkness. “And then someone came out, I think it was him. Neville?”

  “Izzy, you gotta just …”

  “I ain’t gotta do nothin’, man. What I gotta do is go make sure Tee is okay.” She shook her head, fighting off tears.

  “Look,” Neville said.

  “No, you look. Look while I exit out this place.” She threw open the door and flung out into the night.

  “Iz!” Neville yelled from behind her, but she paid him no mind. She had to make it to the long building, then she’d figure out what to do next. The figure who’d walked out of the door — it hadta be Father Thomas — had walked off to the right and disappeared into one of the other cabins. He’d probably be back, but not before she made it to that door. The night sky never looked this gigantic in Brooklyn; there was so much of it! All the trees seemed to shush in time with their own strange rhythm, and the millions of insects sang their night song.

  She could just make out the details of the door — white and wooden with a cross mounted on the front — when Father Thomas’s voice rang out. “Stop!” She’d never heard the man raise his voice, let alone holler desperately across a field. He sounded terrified and furious at the same time. Izzy didn’t care how he felt; he was far enough away that she could make it to the door, she knew she could. “Stop, I said! Don’t — !”

  The first thing Izzy thought of when she heard the metal chuh-chuk was Manny’s printing press. That fire beat. The cool darkness of the basement. Tee there, smiling while Izzy rapped. Izzy realized she’d stopped running without meaning to, just an arm’s length from the door. The moon glinted off the long steel cylinder in Father Thomas’s hands; he was still about ten feet away, but Izzy knew exactly what it was, what the click had been.

  Her mouth dropped open, both her hands raised. Father Thomas lifted the rifle, walking fast toward her. Everything seemed to move very slowly. His face was scrunched into a frown like he was about to cry, and Izzy wondered why he looked so sad, given that he was the one with the gun. Her insides felt like they were turning to goo, like she might collapse right there without even being shot, and become liquid and then nothing in the dark grass on this summer night so far away from home.

  And then Neville yelled, “Hey!” and when Izzy turned there he was, strolling across the field, pistol drawn and pointed at Father Thomas. He looked eternally calm, like he was just out for a walk and happened to have his handgun with him.

  Father Thomas turned, the rifle shaking against his face, aimed at Neville. “Don’t take another step, Neville! I don’t — I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

  “That’s fantastic,” Neville said pleasantly. “There’s an easy way to make that happen.”

  Then something went bang bang bang from the other side of the door. Izzy yelled, “Tee?” and then hated herself for saying Tee’s name in front of this maniac, but maybe it wouldn’t matter anyway, because they were all probably about to die.

  “Get away from the door!” Father Thomas screamed, but he kept his gun trained on Neville.

  “Is that you, Tee?” Izzy whimpered.

  Bang! Bang! BANG!

  If she reached out, she could have the handle in her grasp. She could pull it. She could make it inside, find Tee, get far away from all this.

  “Get away, I said!” Father Thomas yelled.

  “Now, listen,” Neville said. “I want you to just —”

  Izzy grabbed the handle and pulled it open with a yell. A figure stood in the doorway, but it wasn’t Tee. Father Thomas’s eyes went wide. Lani stepped out, her body stiff, shoulders hunched. She wore a fancy white dress with all kinds of lace and poofiness, and she wasn’t moving like Lani at all.

  “How —” Father Thomas gasped, and then Lani coughed and shivered and collapsed forward onto her knees as a blue glow emerged from her.

  Izzy blinked in the sudden spectral glare of Corinna Dutch. She hung in the dark sky, brighter now than ever before, her eyes creased to furious slits, hands reaching out toward Father Thomas.

  Father Thomas let out a yell, then said, “Corin —”

  The crack of Neville’s pistol exploded in the night — once, then again — and Father Thomas flew backward and landed in a heap.

  Tee reached the doorway a second after the shots rang out. Izzy was all she could think. Izzy Izzy Izzy please don’t let it be Izzy. She blinked out into the night. Izzy Izzy Izzy her mind insisted, even as Tee squinted in the blue glow. Corinna expanded and contracted in slow, pulsing waves over the field, brighter than ever before. Neville stared up at her, his gun hand lowered, the other reaching out; his mouth hung open.

  Izzy, Tee’s mind growled. Where the —

  Lani lay sprawled just in front of Tee; she took a breath, her face oddly peaceful, as if she had just decided to take a nap right there in the grass. Izzy appeared from out of nowhere, crouching over Lani and shaking her.

  Izzy! Tee’s mind crowed, and then she heard herself say the name, felt her knees give out as she stumbled into her girlfriend’s embrace. The tears seemed to have gotten knocked loose by her forward motion; they poured out of her, onto Izzy’s shirt. Izzy was laughing, and Tee had no idea why but somehow it made perfect sense, because ther
e she was sobbing and Izzy was laughing and both their bodies were heaving and both were undeniably true to the complete shitstorm that had just exploded around them.

  “I love you,” Tee said in a blubbery whisper. “I love you so deep.”

  “Shut up,” Izzy laughed. “Your timing is shit.”

  When they finally let go of each other, Neville was still transfixed in Corinna’s light. He was smiling, one hand reaching out into the bright blue haze. Then he closed his eyes and nodded, and Corinna swam through the night, away from Neville. She spun a small, slow circle, glancing disdainfully at something crumpled in the grass — Father Thomas, Tee realized with a gasp — then stopped in front of her and Izzy. She smiled, and her smile was like a blessing, like a long-awaited breath of air. Tee and Izzy reached out their entwined hands and the spirit reached out one of hers.

  Tee closed her eyes and gasped; she was back in the basement, but the world was a hazy blur.

  And then she understood: Corinna’s parting gift was her memory.

  At first, she had no name, no memory, no self. She was just a terrified spirit, alone and brand-new, her life and death frantic glimpses, muddled and blurry and terrifying.

  She followed the trail of her own missing posters back to the place where they’d been made. She thought to make a home there, to recuperate, but then a living human had appeared — a shuddering memory, the flash of a knife, this man, now dressed in a priest’s outfit, crying and laughing, crying and laughing.

  She had shrieked with everything in her, and then hid in the nearest place she could find: an old trunk full of clothes. There, she had fallen away from the world entirely, lost herself in the gentle folds of fabric and let time slip away.

  Until an aching had stirred in her. A certain, wordless knowing.

  Whatever had happened to her, it was happening again.

  Then the trunk had opened and she emerged, shattered by broken memories. Nameless, barely there at all, confused about everything except the absolute certainty that something was happening that she had to stop. Something that no one else knew about. A secret.