by Sarah Dalton
“Mummy,” she whispers, as tears collect in her eyes.
“She’s not here,” he hisses.
With horror, she realises that the stone she’s sitting on is slowly disintegrating. Her fingers roam the small space around her, searching for another place to rest, anything she can hold on to. The stone isn’t going to last. She feels it giving way under her weight.
“No,” she calls out to no one. “Make it stop!”
But he has left her. The electricity of his touch is gone. Even the bitter chill of him has gone. Somewhere in the distance is the sound of laughter.
“Someone help me! Please!”
She claws at the cliff face as the stone falls from beneath her. There’s blood on her fingertips as her body begins to descend into the black night. Her scream rings out behind her.
*
MARY
My body convulses and I sit upright in bed. The stomach cramp makes me double over with the pain. I retch but nothing comes out of me. I throw the covers off my soaked body and feel my forehead with the back of my hand. I’m red hot. My heart is pounding. The room spins for a second, before coming into focus. Despite my temperature, the room is freezing cold, with the window wide open. I get out of bed to close it, almost falling on my wobbling legs.
The old window is stiff. I’m forced to lean on it until it shuts. There. Done. When I lift my hands from the window sill, they’re shaking. My body is trembling, and I’m so hungry I feel physically empty.
I flick on the light switch and then gasp. A gaunt figure stands in front of me with her hand clamped to her mouth. When I step forward and squint, I realise that person is me. There I am, naked, thin, pale. My trembling hand comes away from my face so I can examine myself. Even my skin is bad. Riddled with blemishes and with a greasy, waxy sheen. When did I start looking like this? Shame is what washes over me as I look in the mirror. Shame and nausea.
I grab my dressing gown and wrap it around my body. What time is it? I retrieve my phone from under my pillow. 4am. Great. Just what I need. But then I realise that I actually have slept for a long time. I fell asleep about 9pm last night. It just didn’t seem like a long sleep. Probably because of my dreams, because time always goes so quickly when I’m in that world…
I shake my head. I need to focus. Food should be my priority now. Food, water, and anything other than that dream. I need to ignore the creeping tiredness, and the scent of pine that keeps washing over me, pulling me back towards the dream. Towards him. No. Food first.
I creep down the stairs and into the kitchen. The thought of going anywhere in Ravenswood at 4am would have filled me with fear a few months ago, but now this place is almost… comforting, despite its spookiness.
Mum has left a Tupperware box filled with pasta in the fridge. I open that and dig into it with a fork. When was the last time I ate? What did I eat? I can’t remember. That alone is disturbing. I never forget when I’ve last eaten. Yesterday is blurry as hell. I remember working on some homework but getting distracted. I vaguely remember talking to my parents, but also getting distracted. Then I remember the garden and I remember him.
I’d normally reheat pasta but this is good cold. The more I eat, the better my stomach cramps are. Gradually, energy pulses through my body, giving me strength. This is what I need. I wipe my mouth and head towards the tap to pour a glass of water.
“He’s coming for you.”
The glass smashes against the kitchen floor.
“Who are you?” I say.
Four girls stand before me, all in sleep wear. The sight of them almost makes me vomit the pasta back up. All of them are battered and bruised. I can’t stop staring at the one on the right. Her facial features aren’t even there anymore. She’s a mangled shell of the girl she once was.
“He wants you and he won’t stop,” they say in chorus.
“Who?” I whisper, but I’m already faint, because I think I know exactly who they mean.
Before they can answer, they’re pulled back, sucked into some other dimension. Their wails are left hanging in the kitchen air.
Chapter Fourteen
LACEY
“I told you it was a perfect night to walk home,” Willa says.
I watch with amusement as Jack raises an eyebrow and remarks, “It’s so cold your lips are blue. Are you serious?”
“But the sky is so clear. Look at the stars!” She clucks her tongue. “You need to develop a romantic side, Jack. You’ll never find a girl to fall in love with you with this attitude.” She folds her arms and flashes him a triumphant grin. “Did you at least think the film was romantic?”
Jack gives us one of his classic “Jack” grimaces. “The cinematography was okay, I guess.” He pauses. “I thought the actress was pretty good.”
Willa glances at me and her eyes are shining. It’s a look full of excitement. A “did you see that?” look. All through the film she kept nudging my spirit form and pointing at Jack, who was at most points during the movie doe-eyed at the attractive, dark haired and haunted heroine, and at other times actually sniffling as the heroine overcame her difficult past to admit her feelings for the love interest. It was a typical Willa film—arthouse and filled with sentimentality—but it was also sweet, and the heroine did remind me of Mary.
“Missing anyone tonight?” Willa teases.
Jack stares down at his feet while he shrugs. Then he sighs and says, “Look, make fun all you want, and turn this into something it’s not if you have to, but the truth is I can’t stop thinking about her, but it’s not for the reason you think. It’s because I’m worried about her and, frankly, if you’re not worried too, you’re a bad friend. Something is going on with Mary and we need to figure out what it is. Haven’t you noticed how she never comes out with us after school anymore? She barely even talks to us. She sits there like a statue. It’s fucking painful to watch.”
“She won’t get help, Jack. What can we do?” Willa’s voice has a low, serious edge to it.
“Then we make her get help. We go to the only people who can make her get help. Her parents. Holy Jesus fuck Christ! Lacey, will you stop materialising out of nowhere? What if someone saw?”
“This is important and about my best friend. I need to say something. Look, you can’t say anything to her dad. He doesn’t believe in all this ghost stuff and he thinks she’s still on anti-psychotics from her stay in the psychiatric ward. Go to her mum and Emmaline. If we tell her dad, things will get fucked up.” I bite my bottom lip. Guilt sits in my stomach like a bad burger. I’ve not been around Mary much lately. I’ve not taken her moods seriously. It takes Jack to tell us like it is? I’m a terrible friend.
“Okay, so we go to her mum,” Jack says.
“Yeah,” Willa adds. “I think you’re right. Look, I didn’t mean to trivialise anything. I’m worried about her, too, you know. I’d never stop you from helping her. We have a responsibility to say something. We can’t stay silent, not about this. If you think she’s really struggling, Jack, then we’ll go to her mum.”
The two of them share a look and I can’t help feeling I’m out of the loop. “The one thing we can’t allow is Mary being forced back into a psychiatric ward for ‘hallucinations’.” I air-quote over the word hallucinations. “That place broke her last time.” I shake my head, thinking about Magdelena and everything that happened. I shudder from the chill and then frown. I’m a ghost, I don’t feel the cold.
Jack wraps his arms around his body. I have to admit it, I might like girls, but I can see why hetero girls find him attractive. It’s not just the fact he’s model good looking, or the strong and silent aura he has, it’s the edge of vulnerability he carries. He holds himself as though he’s about to fall apart, wearing this hint of fragility in a sexy, alpha way. I get why that’s so attractive. Maybe that’s what I see in Willa, too. I shake my head. What the hell happened to them in that cult? Whatever it was, it must have ripped them open and bare, forcing them to put themselves back together.
<
br /> What’s even more attractive is the fact that they have put themselves back together. Aside from that edge of vulnerability, they’re so damn down to earth. Yeah, they don’t have a clue about pop culture, and yeah, they clearly have relationship issues, but they’re at school working hard, they have friends, they’re not on drugs or fucked up. They’re good people.
The Maynard home comes into view from the other side of the street. I guess this is one of the reasons why they’re so normal now. This house is the epitome of normal. It’s on a regular village street. It’s modern, red brick, large with a small garden at the front and larger garden at the back. It’s the home they both deserve.
“I guess you can stop complaining about being cold now.” Willa nudges Jack in the ribs with her elbow and then ducks his half-hearted retaliation.
“I mentioned it once, Will. Wow, you are a lover of exaggeration. Look, I’m knackered. I’m going to bed. But we should talk about Mary tomorrow, yeah?” He opens the door, and wipes his shoes on the mat.
Willa nods. As Jack’s walking down the hall, I materialise back to spirit status and follow Willa into the house. She glances at her watch.
“I can’t believe it’s after midnight already. Don’t tell Jack, but I really was cold. I’m going to make a cuppa, do you…?” She trails off and then laughs. “Sorry! Old habits.”
“Dude, I wish I could drink tea. I swear it was so cold out there even I could feel it.” I shiver.
Willa laughs. “Maybe walking home was a bad idea after all. I’m always making Jack do things he doesn’t want to do. I’m just not sure he really lives, you know? I’m trying to make him see what’s out there. What’s worth living for.”
“Do you think he’s depressed?” Despite knowing Jack can’t hear me in my current form, I still lower my voice.
“I dunno, maybe.” Willa is talking quietly now, too. “We both try to make the most of what’s out there, you know? I guess because of the restrictive commune we grew up in. I thought Jack was dating before but then I realised he wasn’t really romantically involved with any of the girls. It was just him trying to save everyone except himself.” She laughs. “We’re like, opposites. I try to save myself over and over, and Jack is saving everyone else.”
“You’re trying to save me,” I point out. “And Jack, too.”
She shrugs as the kettle boils. “I guess so.”
Willa moves around the kitchen getting the tea bags and milk. It’s hard to imagine the kind of childhood she had when she’s in this spacious kitchen filled with mod-cons and cleaned by a housekeeper three times a week. We had similar childhoods, filled with squalor, and—from the fragments Willa has told me—drugs too.
“I’m gonna drink this on the balcony,” she says. “Wanna come?”
Where else am I going to go? I just nod and follow her up the stairs.
“Do you think Mary’s mum will be cool with what we tell her?” Willa asks. She opens the window and sits on her chair by the balcony railings.
“Mary’s mum is rarely cool with anything, but she’ll understand,” I say. The air is cold, chilling. It makes me nervous, and I’m immediately on edge, searching for any other spirits lurking somewhere in the shadows.
Willa lifts her feet and places them on the railing of the balcony, stretching out her long legs. She’s beautiful in this light. Highlighted from the faint glow of her bedroom light, softened by the moon. She’s pale like a star, with her strawberry blonde hair flowing down her back. I long to touch her. Not being able to rips me apart. I hate it. The moonlight caresses her bare toenails, the inside of her calves. I can’t bear it.
“Jack’s right, we have to do something. I sat back once and a boy died.”
My ears prick. “The little boy you told me about? Alfie?”
She takes a sip of her tea and then nods. Her shoulders hunch up, and I can see how her body is tense and rigid from the painful memories. “He was only six years old. When he was a baby, I held him in my arms and rocked him to sleep. When he went missing, we looked for him on the compound and in the nearby town, but Father Merciful wouldn’t let us go to the police. He’d convinced everyone that the police worked with Satan, and they all believed him. Of course they did, most of them came off the streets or out of foster homes. They were all suspicious of authority to begin with. They were susceptible to all his bullshit, they believed every lie that came out of that man’s mouth.” Willa gesticulates towards the moon with narrowed eyes and pink cheeks. I’ve never seen her this angry before.
She sucks in a deep breath and continues. “I was twelve. I should have known better. Jack and I knew how to get into town, or at least we had a good idea. We could have gone to the police.” She pauses. “But we didn’t.”
I don’t want to ask but I have to. “What happened to Alfie?”
She lets out a sob before covering her mouth. “It was Bram, my brother. Our brother. He was… I don’t know, I suppose now I’ve learned what a psychopath is, and I guess that’s what he was. He hurt people. He was trying to hurt me. Father Merciful told him to hit me, to beat Satan out of me, but Jack helped me get away. I ran and ran across the moors, but Bram was chasing me and they’d caught Jack. I hid behind this rock and…” she stops abruptly and stares at the moon. Her hands are trembling so badly that her tea sloshes onto her lap, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I put my hand down and there was something there. It was soft, squishy. I was panicked. Bram was out there and he was chasing me. I thought he was going to kill me, and I think he would have killed me. But I was behind this rock and I knew he couldn’t see me. The problem was.” She brushes a tear from her eye. “I can’t say it.”
I lean forward and place a hand on her arm. I don’t know if she can feel it, but I have to do something. “You can tell me.”
She rests the tea on the top of her knee, where it will probably leave a ring on her jeans, but at least it’s not spilling on her anymore. “I didn’t realise at first. I thought it was mud, or a rucksack someone had left. But the smell was overwhelming. Then I saw Alfie’s coat.”
If I still had a stomach, I think I might have emptied its contents. “It was Alfie?”
She nods. “His body. Bram had killed him and dumped his body on the moor. He hadn’t even buried him. I think he must have panicked and ran, and then meant to go back and bury him but not been able to find him. He was shielded by this big boulder that you couldn’t really see because of the overgrowth on the moor.” She wipes her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. “When I found Alfie, I knew he was going to kill me. But he didn’t, because I killed him first.”
I let out a short, sharp exhale. If I was alive, I would have breathed steam into the cold night air, but I didn’t. There was nothing.
“I’m a murderer,” she whispers.
It takes me a moment to compose myself so I can reply. “No. You’re not. You acted in self-defence. I almost killed someone once, too. He was going to kill Mary, but he killed me instead. I helped kill him as a ghost.” I think of the tearing of flesh and shudder.
“But why do I feel like a murderer?” Willa turns to look at me and her eyes are so wide and bright that I could kiss her right now. I almost lean in. I’m a moment, a split second away from learning towards her, when I’m thrown up onto the roof.
Chapter Fifteen
LACEY
The hissing ghost lies on top of me, baring her teeth. I try to push her off me, which is when I realise there’s another ghost behind me, pulling my hair back. Both of them are young, my age, and—even though their faces are battered and bruised—I think I recognise them from wandering the corridors at Ashforth Comp. Surely there can’t be more teenage girl deaths?
The high-pitched scream from the balcony below tears through the night. I try to call out Willa’s name, but the body of this ghost is smothering me, pressing me down onto the roof slats. Fuck. Who is this and what the hell is going on? Fingernails scratch my skin.
There’s only one thing I ca
n do, I fall through the roof and into the Maynard’s attic, letting myself land on the fibre glass insulation below. I concentrate again, and materialise back in Willa’s bedroom.
“Willa!”
She’s hanging over the edge of the balcony railings with two more ghosts trying to push her off. They’re clawing at her fingers, but they don’t seem to know how to make their form strong enough. I fly at them with my teeth bared, screeching like a banshee. The first girl turns to me and raises her arms to try and block me, but I hit her squarely in the chest and she flies over the balcony railing and dissipates in the night sky. Then I land a punch on the jaw of the other ghost, who staggers back in shock.
As I’m trying to grab hold of Willa, Jack comes running onto the balcony in underpants and a t-shirt. He swears, then clutches Willa’s wrist. I manage to find purchase on her shirt so I can help him pull her up, but the two ghosts from the roof drop down onto the balcony. Luckily, Jack can’t see them, otherwise he might have dropped Willa out of shock. I let him concentrate on pulling Willa back onto the balcony, and turn around to face the ghosts. I need to keep them away from Willa and Jack.
“Who sent you?” I demand, baring my teeth at them.
They rush towards me, but I see the glint of hesitation in the first girl’s eyes. I can take her out. I meet her with the full force of my spirit form, knocking her through the wall and into Willa’s bedroom. The other ghost turns back to her friend in shock, and then disappears.
Jack pulls Willa over the railing and onto the floor of the balcony. He picks her up and hurries her through to the bedroom. I slam the window shut and sweep the room, using every sense in my arsenal to check for ghost activity.
“We’re alone now,” I say, making sure I’m visible to Jack.
“What the hell happened?” he says as he lifts Willa into bed.
“We were attached by four ghosts,” I reply. “All girls, all teenagers, and all wearing their nightdresses.”
