Haunt Me (Mary Hades Book 4)

by Sarah Dalton

“You’re important,” Willa says. “You matter. You might not realise it, but you make a difference to people’s lives.” Willa leans over the sofa arm rest and makes sure that her gaze reaches mine. Her eyes shine with intensity. There isn’t a hint of a smile on her lips. I love the serious expression on her face. I love how much she means those words.

  Whoosh.

  My hair flips up. The ghost rushes past me in a blur. Then I’m tense and waiting.

  “Who’s there?” Willa asks.

  Whoosh.

  Another blur of movement that sends a pile of Willa’s homework fluttering to the floor. The curtains billow and Willa closes her eyes against the aggressive draft gushing through the living room. My hands form into tight fists as I wait for the ghost to reveal itself. My heart feels as though it’s hammering against my ribs, and electricity crackles through my limbs. The atmosphere thickens with anticipation. I grit my teeth, ready for battle. There’s no way I’m letting this thing hurt Willa. If it wants a fight, it’ll get one, and then some.

  Naked and screeching, the ghost emerges before our eyes. Willa leaps from the sofa in surprise and rushes to the other side of the room. I’m taken aback at the sight of this teenage girl naked and shivering. Her hair is damp, sticking to her back. Her mouth is open and her teeth are jagged and sharp. The screech that comes from that open mouth sends a shiver down my spine. Then I see the blood dripping from her fingertips and I know what this girl has done. She’s taken her own life. Rage spills out of me in a current of electricity. I can’t help it. She’s done what I tried to do many times, but she’s succeeded where the younger version of me failed. She’s thrown it all away.

  As the ghost flies towards Willa, I rush, half floating, half riding along my own electricity, and knock the naked girl away from Willa. She stares up at me with wide, open eyes. She hadn’t expected another ghost to be here, that much is certain. From the way she examines me, I wonder whether she has even seen another ghost.

  “What are you doing?” I demand. “Why are you here?”

  The girl wriggles out from underneath me, squirming against the carpet. She could easily slip through into the next room but I get the feeling she isn’t aware of her abilities yet. She’s a fresh one.

  “Get off me,” she snaps. I’m just relieved that the screeching has stopped. “Let me go.”

  I recoil as the blood from her wrists slaps me in the face. But as she tries to squirm out of my grasp, I press down harder, pushing her into the carpet.

  “You’ve not been dead long, have you?”

  She turns away from me. The sharp teeth have gone. She’s more like a girl than a ghost. My stomach lurches. If I could puke, I think I’d get the urge now. I hate seeing a life thrown away. I know more than most about how precious it is.

  “Did someone send you here?”

  She swallows, turns her head, and finally looks at me. “I’m going to be with him forever.” Then she smiles.

  I think it’s the smile that sends the chill through my veins. It’s so hopeful, and yet… wrong. Twisted, somehow.

  “Who?” I whisper.

  She opens her mouth, but she never gets the chance to speak. In a flash, she’s pulled out from underneath me, and she’s gone, leaving only the sound of her screech behind.

  Chapter Seven

  MARY

  Jack is driving the Maynard’s car today. They pick me up outside my house and drive to school. I’ve found myself riding a tide of calmness each morning, but today I resent waking up. I want to be back in the dreamworld with the voice. I don’t want to be part of reality. Every night my world gets bigger. The lawn is greener, the sky is bluer, and the sun is warmer. I eat amazing food, wear beautiful dresses, and smell the fresh scent of nature. It’s bliss.

  The real world is death and anxiety. Lacey starts talking before I’m even in the back seat of the car.

  “A ghost attacked Willa again,” she says.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Willa says from the front of the car. “Lacey was awesome. She saved me, again. I need to get better at defending myself.”

  “Hold on, you guys need to slow down,” I say. I can’t help glancing at Jack in the driver’s seat. I’ve been trying not to think about what he told me in the café at the weekend. “Who attacked Willa?”

  “A teenage girl ghost,” Lacey says. “A fresh one. She was confused, I think. She hardly knew what was going on or how to control her ghost-powers. Plus she was naked.”

  “Naked? What?”

  “I think she committed suicide,” Lacey continues. “In the bath. Slit her wrists.”

  I shudder. I’ve always been squeamish about sharp objects and wrists. A wave of nausea hits me and I take a deep breath to control it. Why am I awake? If I was asleep in my garden, in my deamworld…

  “But why would a fresh ghost attack Willa?” I say, pulling myself back to reality. “What could they possibly want with her? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Lacey says.

  “I don’t like any of this,” Jack adds. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I say as Jack pulls the car into the school car park. “We’re going to try and find out if any teenage girl has committed suicide in the last few days. Then Willa is going to come to Emmaline’s with me and start learning to use the Athamé. It’s time for you to learn some self defence against ghosts. If only we had a second Athamé. Any idea where to buy one?”

  “I bet you can get one on Ebay,” Lacey says.

  “You can buy knives online,” Jack says, unaware of Lacey’s suggestion. “But it’s knowing whether it’s magical or whatever. Do you know if the knife works because of your powers, or because it’s magical?”

  “All I know is that Igor gave it to me and it works,” I say. “I guess we’re going to have to learn more about them. Athamés are Wiccan so I guess we start there.”

  “I don’t like the thought of sending ghosts anywhere,” Willa says.

  I notice Lacey look at her and smile. There’s something about their blossoming relationship that makes me a little uneasy. It could be something to do with the fact that Lacey is dead… it could also have something to do with the fact that Willa might not feel the same way as Lacey. I’m not sure which worries me most.

  Jack parks the car and we get out. Even now, after surviving everything that happened with Grace and Travis, and after finally finding two great friends to spend my time with, I still have to repress a shiver when I look at Ashforth Comprehensive. Every time I walk up the steps and into the main school building I think about everything that happened last month. It’s always the shame that feels the worst. If only I hadn’t fallen for Grace’s charm to begin with. What a gullible idiot.

  As soon as we step into the entrance hall I can tell something is different. There are some younger kids in uniform standing in a cluster, staring miserably at their feet. One of them wipes a tear from her eye. A teacher hurries past, white as a sheet, clutching a piece of paper in her hand. She doesn’t even tell the group of kids to get to registration, which is really weird. Ashforth is harsh on latecomers.

  Willa manages to stop a hurrying pupil walking quickly through the hallway. “Hey, has something happened?” she asks in that way she has of putting people at ease with her soft voice. “Everyone seems on edge.”

  “Don’t you know?” says the girl. Her face is red and flustered. She has blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail. “Katie Hodge killed herself at the weekend. She slashed her wrists.”

  The blood drains from my face.

  “Who’s Katie Hodge?” Willa asks.

  “A girl in year ten,” she continues. “I didn’t know her. It’s sad and everything but they say she was a bit weird.”

  “Weird how?” I ask.

  “Like, she used to talk to herself a lot. And she kept going on about hearing voices.” The girl glances behind her as though worried she’s being overheard. Then she walks
away.

  “So that’s a second teenage girl who has killed herself in a week,” Willa says. “That seems a bit suspicious.”

  “Or they were just troubled kids,” I suggest. “You heard the girl. Apparently this Katie was hearing voices.”

  Jacks eye’s narrow. “Oh, come on. There’s definitely something up here. This is a small town. Two teenage girl deaths in one week is pretty weird. You have to admit that.”

  But I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want any of this to be happening.

  *

  Not much work is done at school. Most of the teachers are reeling from the death of Katie Hodge. I hear more whispers about her mental state. Someone has placed a photograph of her in the canteen, and beneath it is a rose plant. At lunchtime I go over to the photograph and examine her face. What am I looking for? Signs of madness? A correlation between her and me? I desperately want evidence that what happened to her could never happen to me, but there is none, and I’m left with nothing that makes me feel better. She’s just another student. Yeah, she’s a little emo. Her hair is dyed black, her fingernails are painted. She wears too much eyeliner. When I examine closer, I see the tiny hole in her nose for a piercing. I think I recognise her as one of the weird kids who didn’t have a lot of friends.

  Like me.

  The difference is she’s dead and I’m alive.

  There isn’t much more to talk about with the others. We know who died and we know how, but what we don’t know is why she attacked Willa just hours after dying. Willa didn’t have any connection with the girl. None of us did.

  At the end of the day, Jack drives us home. I don’t feel like studying, I just want to be alone. But I want the Athamé close. The first girl who committed suicide came to me after her death. She didn’t attack me like she did Willa, but I should be careful anyhow.

  Maybe they know we can see them. Maybe now that there are two people in Ashforth who can see and speak to ghosts, some sort of energy has spread around the town, meaning that anyone who dies is immediately attracted to our presence. But that still doesn’t explain why Katie would attack Willa. Perhaps in her confused state…

  This is doing no good. Already my heart is beating faster and my stomach is churning. I know nothing about this ghost and until I do, there’s no point speculating. I glance at my bed, at the inviting softness of my duvet. Clean on today, Mum just did laundry. It’s only just past nine but I could easily fold myself into the sheets and go back to my dreamworld. There are no ghosts there. It’s just me, and him.

  Jack’s face pops into my mind, along with the bitterness of guilt. I have nothing to feel guilty for and yet I do. He shared things with me that he says he’s never told anyone. He shared a secret about Willa that I struggle to even think about. When Willa comes to see me and Emmaline, I must be careful around her. I can’t let it slip that I know.

  I can’t resist it any longer. I need to be back inside my dream. I pull off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and slip naked into the sheets. They’re cotton, white, and scented with the floral fragrance of Mum’s detergent. I nestle between them, excited about turning off the light and resting my head against the pillow. After what happened with Travis and Tasha, I dreaded sleeping in the dark. I woke every night with the imprint of her dark eyes in my mind, and my sweat soaking the covers. But not anymore. I’ve turned things around. I switch off my bedside lamp with pride.

  And then I fall into slumber…

  *

  The lawn is now a field. There are picnic tables, more swings, a small pond, and a rose garden. I hurry to the rose garden first so I can smell the sweet flowery scent. It’s filled with butterflies of all colours. But on the other side of the roses is the woods, dark and thick with trees.

  “I won’t go in there,” I say.

  When I turn around, he stands before me. I should be surprised yet I’m not. I suppose I always knew he would come.

  “I’m glad.” He smiles and holds out an arm for me to take, like gentlemen do in Jane Austen novels.

  There’s nothing about him that is surprising. He is around my age, with dark hair, dark eyes, a straight nose and a wide, shining smile. His touch is warm, and he smells like apple pie straight from the oven.

  “I want you to be happy, Mary,” he says. “And you can’t be happy if you’re hurt. The woods will hurt you.”

  “I don’t want that,” I say. I can’t stop staring at his hair. I want to run my fingers through the lush strands, feel the thickness of it, enjoy the feel of him.

  “You look very beautiful today,” he says, gesturing to the red, silk dress I’m wearing.

  I pull away from his arm and perform a twirl for him. It’s not something I would ever do outside my dreamworld, but here I am safe to be as feminine—or as ridiculous—as I want to be. Safe. That’s the word that sums up how I feel in my sleep. Safe. Loved. Happy.

  He catches my hand with his and pulls me close to him. Music plays through the field, lilting through the air. He spins me, pulls me closer, turns me around as he moves. I’m his dancer in his arms. I belong to him. There’s nowhere else I want to be. There’s no one else I want to be with. His breath on my skin sends a thrill through my body. I feel it in my fingertips and toes. I’m his. There’s nowhere else I want to be.

  Chapter Eight

  MARY

  The outpouring of collective grief is overwhelming. I’ve always hated it. It’s the hypocrisy more than anything. All these people who claim that Katie was a beautiful soul, or a misunderstood diamond in the rough, are largely the same people who shunned and ignored her. I’m as guilty as anyone. I didn’t see her pain. It’s history repeating itself. It’s Tasha and Judith. They lurk in every shadow. I see Tasha’s emaciated form in every doorway. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to be here, but if I’m not, I’ll be in bed, sleeping.

  When I woke this morning, I threw my phone across the room and smashed the screen. That’s how much I didn’t want to be awake. That’s how much I don’t want to face this.

  I walk through the school corridors with my head down, refusing to meet the watery eyes of every person who walks past me. I’m barely present in each conversation with the others. Jack has been pretty much monosyllabic since I saw him in the café. He’s so embarrassed by what he shared with me that he barely meets my eyes. Lacey talks about nothing but Katie’s ghost and why she attacked Willa. We still have no clue and I’m not in the mood for researching.

  I should be. I used to want to help people. Now I can’t even help myself.

  It’s all going wrong.

  I stop walking and stand frozen in the middle of the school corridor. Some kid walks straight into my back and swears at me but I ignore him. All of my attention is focussed on the Thing in front of me. It looms a shoulder higher than everyone else moving down the corridor. It’s skinny, with gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes. Its hair is sparse. It wears an oversized tweed jacket.

  “Leave me alone,” I say through gritted teeth, not caring who hears me. I can’t cope with this right now.

  But it just smiles.

  I push past the grinning zombie and continue down the hall. It’s only when I’m almost at the classroom that I realise I’ve been muttering under my breath about how annoyed I am that the Thing appeared to me at school. I glance around the corridor and notice people staring at me. Let them. They already think I’m a weirdo after that whole Youtube incident.

  Turning away from the staring faces, I make my way into the classroom, and then stop.

  I want to run away, but all I can do is stare.

  They’re back—the corpses—the same hanging ones I saw at Travis’s party. The blood flows down the walls, onto the floor. It pools there like a monstrous sea of scarlet. And through it all, the students find their seats, and put their books on the table as normal. They laugh and joke with each other as though everything is fine. I back away, dropping my books in the process. Someone calls after me as I leg it down the hallway, but I’m
gone. I can’t look at those dead things anymore.

  As I hurry away, I pass a dark face staring at me through a classroom window. I gasp. It was Mum, again, possessed. I shake my head and continue on. Then Lacey is up ahead. I speed up, hoping her presence will make me feel comforted. But she looks straight through me. There’s blood seeping from the wound in her back, and her mouth is filled with razor sharp teeth. This isn’t Lacey, it’s some sick version of her conjured from my disturbed mind. Why does this keep happening? Why am I seeing these things?

  Without knowing where I’m headed, I just keep running, almost knocking over one of the smaller kids. My breath is ragged and my heart beats faster and faster. I just want it all to stop. It’s my form room that I end up in. It’s quiet and dark. There’s no class in here for this period. This is what I need, to be away from whatever is going on in my head. No more. I can’t take it. I can’t look at death and blood and ghosts. It all ends now.

  My body shakes as I curl up onto the stiff classroom carpet. My head is damp and my hair is straggly. I’m whispering to myself, but what am I whispering? Take me back. Take me back.

  And in a moment, I’m gone.

  *

  “Wake up. Come on. Wake up, Mary.”

  I’m rocked back and forth.

  “No,” I whisper. “I don’t want to.”

  “You have to.”

  I’m still clinging to the calming scent of pine. I won’t let it go. I can’t. I won’t leave this place.

  But I have to.

  I’m ripped from my dreamworld by large hands pulling me upright.

  “You’re lucky I found you,” Jack says. “If it’d been a teacher or another student, your parents probably would have found out. Want me to take you home?”

  All I can think about is my dream and how happy I am there. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Jack moves away from me and crosses his arms. “What the fuck do you think? Helping you out. Wish I’d not bothered now, though.”