The Girl and the Ghost

by Ebony McKenna

  I was way off with that name then.

  Rebecca was still pretending to see a ghost while attracting loads of attention. Especially from the boys.

  In the cafeteria, Morgan took her usual seat with Kaz, Emma and Olivia, but it felt like every student at school had found out about the paparazzi photos and five hundred teenagers all wanted to see what was going on.

  ‘I can only apologise for being the harbinger of such a burden,’ George said as he took the seat next to her.

  Morgan jumped in fright. There was no reason for her to do that – that anyone else could see – so she pretended it was part of a joke and leaned forward and laughed.

  Kaz, Emma and Olivia laughed as well, in a scared kind of way.

  ‘Are you . . . all right?’ Emma asked.

  Morgan cranked up the happiness. ‘I’m fine Em. Never been better.’

  Now everyone had their phones back, they were taking pictures of Morgan and her friends. No doubt sending them to the tabs or updating their social feeds.

  ‘Maybe we should go to the library,’ Emma suggested.

  ‘The what?’ Kaz said.

  ‘It’s quiet in there,’ Emma said.

  ‘I’d rather die,’ Kaz said.

  ‘Death is no subject for jokes,’ George said.

  Morgan grinned.

  The others looked at her with suspicion

  ‘He’s not . . . he’s not here is he?’ Kaz said, looking Morgan up and down.

  ‘He might be,’ Morgan took a chance to reverse the tables. It was fun, if only for a moment, to see her friends’ faces lose their colour.

  Kaz said, ‘It’s not funny. Do you know how hard it is to be the one sticking up for the crazy friend?’

  Oh great. Now Kaz was calling her crazy. And making it all about herself.

  No appetite left, she got up from the table. ‘Come on George, we’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Ladies,’ George touched the brim of his hat in a polite farewell, but they didn’t see it.

  Normally she’d never skip school. Normally she’d never be so brazen she’d simply walk out of the grounds towards the tram stop before the school day was over. But today was not normal, so she grabbed her bag and walked out through the front gates. George walked beside her, but she ignored him because a photographer might have a lens trained on her.

  The minute the tram approached, she heard the snap of cameras and pop of flashes. Damn! They’d been dressed as regular people waiting for transport! One of the snappers had the sheer nerve to get on the tram as well. By the time she thought about racing straight back out the door, the tram jolted forward.

  ‘Got a smile for us, darl?’ He had tightly cropped black hair and sticky-out ears, but the rest of his face was utterly obscured behind the camera.

  No choice but to brazen it out. Morgan gave him the smile he wanted and he clicked a few times. ‘Can you leave me alone now please?’

  ‘When are ya gonna start talking to yerself?’ Still no sign of his face at all. He may as well be welded to the camera.

  The other passengers turned to see why this bloke was taking snaps of a schoolgirl.

  ‘Who is this rude man?’ George asked.

  ‘This is a massive breach of privacy,’ Morgan said. ‘If any of these pictures are published, I’m in uniform so it will identify the school and my year grade and I’m not an adult giving consent to having my photo taken.’

  ‘We’ll airbrush it out. No dramas.’

  The tram stopped at the next set of lights. The driver called out, ‘Is he bothering you?’

  ‘He is properly annoying,’ Morgan answered back.

  Snap, snap, snap.

  Oh great. He got a picture of her talking to ‘nobody’ anyway. She heard a toilet flushing as her life swirled down the drain. Suddenly the tram lurched and then stopped again. The photographer lost his balance and fell on his bum.

  Morgan laughed. ‘Serves you right.’

  He kept taking photos though. Regret addled her brain. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t such a great idea to skip school so she could take George the ghost to the cemetery.

  The photographer followed her off the tram to the cemetery gates.

  ‘Can you please stop taking pictures now? I’m actually here for a school history project.’ Not a total lie, she was bound to end up using what she found on George’s family in some future assignment.

  George said, ‘He is a bothersome oaf. Let me take care of this.’

  She couldn’t answer George out loud because the photographer would catch her in the act of talking to someone who wasn’t there.

  In the daylight, George’s features glowed with health. Shame he was dead.

  ‘One more smile, love,’ the snapper said.

  If she could pretend her nice ghost wasn’t there, she could pretend the annoying pap wasn’t either.

  With graves all around them, it could have been a morbid visit, but the shining sun made everything serene. A true resting place for loved ones. Not at all the creepy experience they made it out to be in the movies. That’s why she’d come in the middle of the day. No way would she come at night. Or even late after school. That would be pushing her limits.

  Suddenly, George’s voice sounded too loud in her ear. ‘I do not wish to be in this place.’

  That same marshmallowy feeling came over her as George took her by the arm. Her vision blurred. Did something just move above one of the gravestones?

  The marshmallowy feeling subsided and the blurry vision cleared. George was no longer holding her arm but standing a few paces behind her.

  ‘Give me your arm. Something happened when you held my hand.’ The moment she came into contact with George, she saw the vision again. Soft shapes near the tombstones.

  snap, snap, ‘What’s that love?’

  Frustration pursed her lips. The pap must think she wanted him to take more photos, but she was beyond caring. Something weird was going on and she wanted to check it out.

  ‘Let us leave this forsaken place,’ George said, wrapping his arms around Morgan to guide her outside. His touch was like putting on 3D glasses – suddenly everything became more real, breaking the wall between this world and the next.

  All the souls, the sleepers, the wailers and the confused came into focus. On display, like an open-air exhibition.

  The pap kept snapping but Morgan was too awestruck by this new scene to care. Seeing what others couldn’t was equal parts remarkable and terrible. Is this what people had to look forward to when they died?

  Morgan held George’s not-quite-there arm in hers and took a step forward. The shapes didn’t react to her proximity. She took another step. And another. The strange shapes were everywhere.

  ‘Please, Morgan, may we leave?’ George asked.

  ‘This is amazing,’ she said, walking down the paths to another section where she saw someone driving a leaf sweeper down the path. A creamy-greyish shape on a nearby tombstone rolled over, intent on sleeping.

  In the corner of her eye she saw pinwheels spinning in the wind. A sick feeling came over her. The children’s section. Why did she have to look over that way? Morgan had no problem with old people dying. They’d had their turn. But children? They’d never had a chance. If she’d had any sense, she would have walked the other way. Against her better judgement she found herself walking closer.

  The children’s shapes were small and smoky, tumbling in the breeze. Some were laughing into the pinwheels, their high-pitched voices reverberating in the wind. Bittersweet pain seeped into her. Being a child forever held a fair amount of appeal. No school, no homework, but plenty of fun and as many naps you could handle.

  A chill unfurled in Morgan’s belly as she spied a young girl sitting on a tombstone. The girl looked lost, looking left and right, waiting for someone to turn up. Except for the outdated clothes placing her somewhere in the nineteen seventies, Morgan would have sworn she was a real person.

  George asked, ‘You can see what I am seein
g, can you not?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sadness would have drowned her if George had not led her away in a different direction, towards a rose-lined avenue. ‘Is this how you see the world?’

  The paparazzi answered, ‘Yes love, life through a lens.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you,’ Morgan snapped back.

  ‘Eh?’

  Shaking her head, she turned towards the photographer. ‘You’ve had your fun, you’ve taken your pictures, now leave me alone.’

  ‘You’re on public property, love.’

  ‘Only because we don’t have our own graveyard in the school grounds. I’m asking you nicely, for the last time, please leave me alone?’

  A bird squawked in the pap’s pocket. He pulled the camera away and reached for the phone. Now she saw his face. He looked so very ordinary. And young too, no older than Gareth. For some reason, she’d had the idea that all paparazzi were crusty old hacks. But a young person, with so many options? Why had he chosen such a crappy trade?

  The man reached into his bird-calling pocket and answered his phone. ‘Yep, I’m right there.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘You’re in luck sweetheart. Biloxi Rachenko is in the shops around the corner. Cheers.’

  He jogged off as if nothing had happened at all.

  ‘Good riddance,’ George said, ‘What an odious man.’

  They walked towards a wall made of black marble. On it were etched surnames. Morgan scanned towards the W’s. Watt, Wales, Wallace and Walter. There were four Geo. Wallaces, but none had the S in the middle for Sebastian.

  ‘I don’t appear to be on the list. This is a dreadful error. We held all our family funerals here in Melbourne.’

  ‘There wasn’t a cemetery in Portland?’

  ‘Yes, but many of our business interests and trading partners were in Melbourne. We also had extended family, on my father’s side.’

  Boggled, Morgan said, ‘It must have taken a week to get here? What if it was summer, gross!’

  ‘You speak as if we lived in the wilderness. We had steam trains and boats, my dear girl. It took a day at most.’

  ‘Huh,’ Morgan boggled. She tapped the map on her phone and showed him how long it would take today. ‘It’s just over four hours in the car.’

  Exploring the cemetery, they found the Wallaces interred in a family crypt. Maybe he’d find the rest of his family? They might be sleeping or riding a horse or floating around . . . ‘Maybe Sebastian isn’t your real middle name?’

  ‘It certainly is. Sebastian is my mother’s maiden name. But she does not appear to be buried here either. My father was George Fuller Wallace. The Geo F could be him.’

  ‘One way to find out.’ Morgan grabbed his arm to pull him along, but she only clutched at air.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ George said.

  ‘We’re this close to finding out clues about your family, and you don’t want to know?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

  Morgan ignored George and walked towards the Wallace family’s resting place. The air thickened, becoming hot and soggy. Her steps faltered as she neared her goal. Goose bumps spread over her skin.

  George said, ‘I cannot walk any further. A terrible sense of dread is cloaking me.’

  Morgan made the mistake of reaching for George’s hand to steady him. The moment she made contact, the wall between realities vanished. Everything that had ever freaked her out was here, draped in a black cloud of misery. For the first time in years, Morgan muttered a prayer. The only one she knew completely was The Lord’s Prayer. As she recited it, George joined in, changing a few words along the way. Then she twigged – he spoke the ye-olde version.

  A ghostly shape came flying at them. ‘Be gone!’

  Morgan dropped George’s hand and screamed. The real world came into view but she knew the creepy shapes and shadows were still around. Why was everything going so badly? Wouldn’t the spirits be happy to see one of their own again? Morgan began walking backwards. ‘I want to go home. Right now.’

  ‘That would seem a wise course of action.’

  Morgan charged past the rose gardens before the gates came into view. A cramping stitch brought her up short as she reached the gates. A few staggers more and she slumped into the tram stop.

  The only consolation was the photographer had cleared off. He would have had a party taking shots of her freaking out.

  George sat beside her.

  When she got her breath back, Morgan asked, ‘Is that how you see everything?’

  ‘Not all the time. Usually, when I am near you, things look brighter.’

  Hope unfurled like a blossom. ‘Really?’

  ‘Always. Now I want you to promise me we never have to come back to this forsaken place.’

  ‘Deal.’

  Morgan arrived back at school only a few minutes late for Humanities. Mrs Edgars wanted to confiscate Morgan’s phone the moment she walked into class.

  ‘But Miss, I’m doing history work. Look,’ she showed her teacher the screen, ‘I’m searching one of those ancestry places.’

  Ms Edgars held the screen at arm’s length to focus. ‘Really?’

  ‘Promise,’ Morgan said. ‘And I’m not doing my family either, so it’s not like I’m completely up myself.’

  Mrs Edgars grabbed her reading glasses and brought the screen closer. ‘You’re researching proper history then?’

  ‘Yes Miss.’ At that moment, George walked in behind her, but she had to ignore him or they’d make fun of her all over again.

  Mrs Edgars said, ‘Plug this in to the projector and show us what you’re researching.’

  ‘You cannot. It’s private,’ George pleaded with her.

  Morgan slotted the adaptor into her phone and connected it to the data projector. What she saw on her small screen, the whole class now saw on the wall. ‘As most of you have probably heard, there’s a ghost in my house,’ she said.

  Giggles rippled through the room. Yep, they’d all heard.

  ‘The people that used to live in our house, back when it was built in Portland a hundred and something years ago, were the Wallaces.’ She toggled through her photographs until she found the one that looked like a smudge by the door.

  George said, ‘Not my best arrangement.’

  One of the students said, ‘You have a pink door?’

  Olivia interrupted, ‘It was like that when she moved in.’

  Morgan silently thanked her friend. Even though that same friend had been in hysterics over the pink.

  In a few clicks, Morgan had the ancestry website on display.

  Mrs Edgars said, ‘You really are researching.’

  ‘It’s kind of fun,’ Morgan admitted. ‘George Sebastian Wallace, he’s my ghost, he was literally born in my room. So that’s why he keeps returning to it. I mean, I think that’s why he keeps coming back. I’m not sure what the rules of haunting are.’

  Mrs Edgars made a moue with her lips. ‘We’ll stick to history for the moment. Save your supernatural themes for English.’

  A few more clicks and Morgan had details about George, including an approximate date of death and the cause.

  Riding accident (unconfirmed).

  Morgan blurted out to George ‘You were right. That’s why you’re in horse riding gear.’

  ‘Why do they not know on which day I passed?’ George asked.

  ‘Sorry, who is right?’ Mrs Edgars asked.

  ‘Um . . . my ghost, George, he always appears in riding gear. The boots, the hat, that sort of thing.’

  Mrs Edgars turned pale.

  George asked, ‘Can everyone in the class see this information?’

  She turned to him. ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m doing it.’

  ‘Uh, Morgan?’ Mrs Edgars said.

  ‘Close it down. I do not care for it,’ George said.

  Someone in the room cleared their throat, but Morgan kept looking at George. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened to you?’

  ‘Of course I do. However, I wish
to absorb it in private,’ George said.

  Mrs Edgars said, ‘Morgan!’

  Oh! Morgan snapped to attention and realised everyone in the class was looking at her. Well, of course they were looking at her, because she was up the front. But they were really looking at her, as if she’d gone lulu.

  Fresh information pinged on the website. Morgan opened it and read the copperplate script from a hand-written entry. It was dated several weeks after George’s death.

  Buried in a pauper’s grave.

  No family present to claim the body.

  ‘Ooooh,’ her classmates said.

  ‘Oh George, I’m so sorry,’ Morgan said.

  ‘That cannot be possible,’ George said. ‘Piled in with a bunch of vagrants? My father had more money than Croesus.’ George the ghost looked so pale he might be sick. He buried his face in his hands and vanished.

  Morgan jumped in shock.

  Mrs Edgars said, ‘Enough theatrics please.’

  ‘I’m sorry Mrs Edgars, I didn’t mean to scare anyone. He’s gone now, if that makes you feel better.’

  ‘Ghost silliness aside,’ Mrs Edgars said, cleaning her glasses on the edge of her t-shirt, ‘I think you might be getting the hang of history. All it takes is to find a topic you’re interested in and off you go. These are a great example of primary documents too. I take it your assignment will be on the Wallaces?’

  Morgan should have been happy to find out how George had died. Instead, heartache gripped her. Why wasn’t he buried with his family? The more she thought about it, the more she wondered how someone so rich (she’d Google that Kreesus bloke later) could be buried with paupers?

  Had he done something terrible to make his family disown him? Maybe that’s why the Wallaces at the cemetery were so angry?

  Mrs Edgars asked, ‘This George person was born in your mansion?’

  ‘It’s just a house, really.’ No need to brag.

  ‘I’d doubt he intended to die a pauper. I can’t wait to find out what really happened to him.’

  9

  Home Truths

  Morgan and Olivia settled in to the big table in the kitchen to get started on their homework. Olivia kept looking around the room, expecting someone to walk in.