by Rose Cooper
“Seriously?” Anna thought this was a bad idea. “Eden is nice; you need to leave her alone. And you shouldn’t be messing with Olivia.”
“Well, I only haunted Olivia for like a minute, so that shouldn’t count. But you might be interested to know what I overheard.”
“Haunting and eavesdropping?”
“Whatever. So Olivia was talking on her phone—don’t ask me with who, because I have no idea—and she sounded super angry. She asked this person how they could be stupid enough to lose their phone.”
“No way! Is that the phone I found?”
“I’m not done talking. She also told this person that she did try to find out if Anna—that’s you—found the phone and it wasn’t her fault that Anna—that’s you again—lied to her. She said she did exactly what she was supposed to do and acted nice until she got the info and then dropped her duty. I’m guessing that’s also you.”
“Why wouldn’t she just tell me someone lost their phone and ask if I had seen it?”
“Probably because there was something on the phone that they didn’t want traced back to them.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because she said that too.”
“Oh. But there wasn’t really anything on the phone.”
“Not my problem. But let me tell you what I found out about Eden,” Lucy said, her face whitening in excitement. “Get this….As it turns out, she’s kind of a fan of all things…dead.”
“Meaning what?”
“Have you seen that girl’s room? It’s like death threw up in there! Black wilted roses, black walls, and bleeding-heart posters. I think this girl might be a little, well…off.”
“Really?” Anna asked, wrinkling her nose. She couldn’t picture it. “But she’s just so…pink.”
“I’m serious. She has this other side to her. Trust me, her bedroom doesn’t lie.”
“She wasn’t actually able to see you, right?” Anna asked.
“No, of course not. You’re the only one special enough to do that,” Lucy threw back sarcastically. “But she could definitely sense I was there. And then she thought it was all a big game and took out a huge book, and then—”
“And then?”
“And then she tried to cast a spell on me,” Lucy said.
“She’s a witch?”
“I don’t know if she’s a real witch—I mean, putting personality aside—but I’ve never really met one before, so how would I know? It’s not like I checked her closet for a broom.” Lucy shrugged. “I guess we’ll know for sure if I grow a third head or something.”
“Right. Because growing a second head would be so completely normal,” Anna muttered.
Anytime a sentence starts with “There’s something you need to know,” that something is never good. So when Anna’s mom said this while grabbing her hand and making her sit on the sofa with her, Anna knew it was the kind of bad that was impossible to take standing up. There was never any sit-down news that was good either.
“I have some news,” her mom began.
“Just tell me already, Mom,” Anna said.
“I got another job. Just something extra to do on the side, around my schedule at the salon. I’m working for Winston.”
Anna stared at her. “The mortician guy? Doing what?”
Her mom cleared her throat. “Maybe I should just show you. It might be easier for you to accept.”
“Show me what?” Anna eyed her mom suspiciously, not quite sure what she was up to.
Her mom reached for her hand and pulled her up from the couch. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Anna asked as she followed her mom outside.
“The mortuary.”
Anna stopped walking. “Okay, that’s just…creepy.”
“It’s not that creepy.”
Anna wasn’t exactly one to talk. After all, texting dead people wasn’t exactly uncreepy.
They walked around the corner from the Manor to Leavitt Funeral Home. Ms. Craven shivered from the cold as she rang the bell on the back door.
The outside porch light flickered a few times, and then the door slowly squeaked open.
Anna’s mom pushed the door open and stuck her head inside. “Winston?”
The fluorescent lights buzzed loudly, sounding like a hive of bees, before finally lighting up the small, windowless room. Its walls were stark white and the floor was tiled. There was a card table in the center that held an ashtray filled to the top with cigarette butts and an open, half-empty box of doughnuts, probably from the morning and stale. On the counter running along the side wall there was nothing but a coffeepot, an empty cup, and a microwave. This must be where morticians take their coffee breaks, Anna thought. The place gave her the creeps already.
“He’s probably in his office,” her mom said as they walked down a hallway. “Come on.”
When they reached Winston’s office, her mom went inside. Anna took a cone-shaped paper cup and filled it at the water cooler.
They’ll probably be a while, she thought. She decided to take a look around.
As she walked down the hallway, a shudder went through her, followed by a buzz from her phone. And then another. And another. Anna pulled out her phone. The text messages were coming at lightning speed, too fast for her to even look at one message before another came in. Anna had to wait several minutes for the phone to calm down before she could read anything. Her jaw dropped as she scrolled through the first few.
Need help! Where am I?
I think I died. Can you help?
I shouldn’t be here! It should be my sister!!
Where are my shoes?
She slowly walked backward, her eyes growing wider with each message. “Ouch!” She turned around, having bumped hard into a metal door behind her. A sign on it read MORGUE.
Anna wondered if there was a connection. Were the messages coming from inside that room? The signal on her phone was at full strength—something that happened any time she was close to a spirit. Anna searched the hallway, making sure her mom wasn’t near, before turning the doorknob.
Anna gasped. It was a room full of Lucys. The place was crawling with spirits, all on ghostly cell phones. Each spirit looked more disgruntled than the one before, not that she could blame them. Luckily, none of them noticed her. She backed out, closing the door quietly until it softly clicked shut. She clutched her phone, which was still vibrating with incoming texts, and noticed that the screen was glowing super bright, as if the spirits could sense she was near and were controlling the phone.
And contacting me. Allowing me to communicate with them.
Anna ran down the hallway as if her life depended on it.
She stopped, gasping, outside a room filled with chairs and vases of flowers—and an open coffin. She walked closer until she could see a person in the ivory-silk-lined coffin. Her legs seemed to move on their own, until she was looking down at an older, balding man, his few gray strands of hair brushed to the side. Makeup had been applied to his skin in a really bad attempt to bring color to his cheeks. He wore a brown suit with matching silk tie, and Anna saw the hint of a smile on his lips.
Anna had never been this close to a corpse before.
She had the urge to touch the body. Would it dent if she poked it, like a stress ball? Or would it jiggle like jelly? Or maybe it would be stone hard and cold, like a statue. She hadn’t the slightest idea, but she wanted to find out. Anna quickly looked behind her; then, with one finger, she reached down and…
“Eww!” she cried, zipping her hand away from the dead man’s face. It felt like a ripe, unpeeled mango. She couldn’t believe she had just done that. What was she thinking? Her phone started going off again.
Great, she thought, it’s probably his spirit texting to tell me off for doing that. She didn’t bother checking the message.
Her mom and a man with a fuzzy black mustache—Winston, she guessed—came into the room. “Anna, this is Mr. Doombrowski,” her mom
said.
Anna gave him a weak smile. More like Mr. Doom, she thought. She was more than ready to leave.
“Now, where…did I put…” Winston patted down his pockets, searching for something. “I think I left it in the other room. Let’s stop by there on the way out.”
They turned off the lights as they went. “Think I left my phone in here—the embalming room.” Winston unlocked a door on their right and entered, leaving Anna and her mother in the hallway.
Anna peeked into the embalming room. The pungent odor of formaldehyde and bleach wafted past her nose. It looked like a hospital room, with its sterile supply tray and fluorescent lighting and neatly ordered supplies lining the counters. Set into the far wall was the massive stainless-steel door to what looked like a walk-in refrigerator.
In the middle of the room, a girl lay on a metal table, a white sheet covering her body so that only her head was visible. Her face was free of makeup and her skin had a flat, chalky pallor. Her eyes were shockingly open, her mouth slightly parted, as if she were begging for another breath.
Anna’s mom pulled her away from the door. “Don’t look in there, honey.”
Winston walked out briskly, closing the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’m not used to having anyone back here.”
“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t. Anna didn’t think she could get the image of that girl out of her mind. She looked so unnatural, so strangely fake.
Anna’s mom put her arm around her. “Seeing dead people can be pretty upsetting. That’s why Winston hired me.” She smiled. “I’m going to do their hair and makeup.”
Anna considered this. “Well, if anyone can make her look the way she was, I know you can.”
Her mom squeezed her shoulders. “Thanks, honey. That’s really sweet of you.”
Anna took a deep breath. Her mom was a corpse cosmetologist.
And Anna was never going to escape dead people.
A little while later, Anna popped her phone into her hoodie pocket, watching as her mom put the final touches on a woman in the funeral home’s prep room. The body really did look fabulous. Her skin looked smooth and creamy. And she looked so peaceful, as if she were just taking a nap and would wake up any moment.
“What do you think?” her mom asked, taking a step back and examining her work.
“You did great, Mom. Really.” She was a natural talent.
“Do you think she needs more lipstick? Or what about eyeliner?”
“You really need to learn when to stop fussing,” Anna laughed.
“Anna?”
She spun around to see Olivia standing in the doorway. Anna walked over to her. “What are you doing here?” she asked in hushed whisper.
Olivia furrowed her brows. “It’s a funeral home. Take a guess.”
“Right, I just mean did someone you know—”
“No, nothing like that. My grandma’s name was misspelled on her gravestone, so we’re just sorting it out.” She rolled her eyes like it was a huge inconvenience. “So…your mom dresses dead people.”
“She doesn’t dress them.” What an idiot. “She’s a cosmetologist.”
“Same thing. Whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t mention to anyone that you saw me here today, okay?”
Anna stared at her. “Why?”
“Does it really matter? Just don’t say anything.”
Anna shrugged. “Fine. As long as you don’t say anything to anyone either.”
“Fine,” Olivia tossed off over her shoulder as she walked away.
“Ready to go?” Anna’s mom appeared, holding a makeup bag under her arm. “Just got to give this to Winston first.”
They found Winston back in the break room, eating a tuna salad sandwich. How anyone could have an appetite in a place like this was beyond Anna.
Her mom handed Winston the makeup bag. “We’re taking off now.”
Winston nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Thank you for helping out today.”
“Did you just have a family in here?” Anna couldn’t help but ask.
“Nope, not today.”
“Nobody? Not even to fix a misspelled gravestone?”
Winston snorted, almost spitting out bits of his chewed-up sandwich. “That kind of stuff only happens in books.”
Weird, Anna thought. Why would Olivia lie about that? And what was she really doing here?
The next day was one of those days when anything that could go wrong did. And so Anna had made the logical choice: she was hiding in the girls’ room.
“Anna, come out,” Millie said from outside the stall.
Anna pinched her lips together.
“I know you’re in there,” Millie said. “I can see your ratty shoes.”
“Fine!” Anna threw open the door with a bang.
“It’s not that bad, you know,” Millie told her.
“Not that bad? Are you serious?” Anna said, squeezing her eyes shut. It was horrible. It was life-shattering. It was—all true.
No sooner had Anna’s worn-out soles touched the linoleum of Winchester Academy that morning than she’d heard several pings of cell phones going off down the hallway. One by one, like falling dominoes. Except Anna’s. Her phone had remained silent, for the first time in nearly forever. Heads had turned in her direction as she passed. She’d heard the muffled whispers. Anna Craven’s mom gives makeovers…to dead people!
Now Anna walked over to the dilapidated bench against the bathroom wall and sat down, propping her chin in her hands.
“Who cares if they know your mom does makeup and hair for corpses?”
Anna looked at her in amazement. “Don’t you get it? Until now, everyone loved my mom. Even the Ashbury twins went to her at the salon. But they won’t anymore. This will hurt her business.” And people will think I’m a freak, she silently added.
Of course, maybe she was a freak. After all, she texted dead people.
How much freakier could she be?
“Maybe we can make it into something cool,” Millie suggested. “Like your mom is so great at her job that even the dead beg for her services.”
“Nice try. Nobody will listen to us.”
“Well, maybe they will if we send a text out and make it look like it’s from Olivia.”
“There’s no way we can pull something like that off.” Anna tore some toilet paper off a nearby roll and blew her nose.
“Sure we can. I’ll take care of it. Just wait and see.”
Anna managed a small smile. “Okay.” Olivia had to be the one behind the texts: she was the only person who had seen Anna at the funeral home. She dabbed her face with a wet paper towel, tossing it in the trash on her way out.
The door closed with a bang.
And the door to the stall at the very far end of the bathroom opened.
• • •
After school Anna’s phone pinged with the alert of a new mass text message.
Had Millie’s plan worked? Biting her lip, she scrolled to the message.
OMG I touched a corpse, read the text.
Underneath was a picture of Anna. She gasped, dropping her phone.
Millie wouldn’t do that to her. She was her friend. There had to be an explanation. Anna shook her head, trying to clear her mind, and bent down to pick up her phone on the sidewalk. The corner of the screen was cracked. Great, just great, she thought.
But the crack wasn’t big enough to hide what was so blatantly staring back at her: herself. Poking a finger at a dead person. It was a photo from the day before.
Anna’s heart hammered against her chest. She quickly closed the picture.
Out of nowhere, Olivia popped up, her face pinched and red. She shoved her pink-leather-cased phone in Anna’s face. “Seriously?”
Anna looked at the screen. Millie’s text had gone out.
Missing: Olivia Ashbury. Found at: Leavitt Funeral Home, looking for a new boyfriend
Anna would’ve laughed if she didn’t
already feel like crying.
“Me? You’re the one who couldn’t wait to text everyone about my mom!” Anna said, so upset she didn’t even think to be scared to stand up to her.
Olivia glared at her. “Don’t mess with me,” she said. Then she spun on her boot heel and walked across the leaf-strewn schoolyard.
Anna sent a text to Millie.
Can you meet me at the graveyard in thirty minutes?
Yes!
When Anna got there, Millie was leaning against a tree. “So it sounds like Olivia isn’t a fan of payback,” Millie said.
“I guess we’re even now,” Anna said. “Except now everyone knows about my mom.”
“It’s really not that bad,” Millie said. “And pretty soon something bigger will happen and it will take all the attention off you and nobody will remember a thing.”
“I guess you’re right,” Anna said, sighing.
“So you really touched a dead person?” Millie asked.
Anna laughed. “I guess I just got caught up in the moment.” Her phone buzzed with a new text.
“Hey, if that’s from a ghost, I wanna read it!” Millie jumped up, peering over Anna’s shoulder.
“Trust me, it’s nothing to get excited over.”
“It’s a gift. You should embrace it,” Millie said, her eyes wide.
“It’s a curse, not a gift. Or else I would’ve given it back by now.”
“Who’s the text from?” Millie asked, trying to see the screen.
Anna read the message aloud. “Need to talk to you. Now! Who else? Lucy. My favorite ghost.” She stuck the phone in her coat pocket.
“Aren’t you going to see what she wants?”
“Whatever it is, it can wait,” Anna said. She took a granola bar from her bag. “Want one?”
“No thanks,” Millie said. “I’m not very hungry today.”
A gust of wind blew through the graveyard, rustling the few leaves that remained on their branches.
Anna pulled her collar up, shivering. It was the weirdest thing.
She could’ve sworn she smelled lemons.
