Breathe: A Ghost Story (Fiction - Middle Grade)

by Cliff McNish

  “I will do that, Jack. We won’t leave now, at least until we can find and help the ghost children. But first, let me take a small rest. . . .”

  “Yeah, of course . . . of course . . .”

  Jack helped her to the staircase. The Ghost Mother swept up it, suppressing a small grin of triumph.

  Jack spent the next hour or so in his bedroom, waiting for one of the ghosts to visit him. When they didn’t, he checked anxiously around the house but couldn’t find a trace. Where were they hiding? But he wasn’t as worried as he had been. With his mum already talking to the Ghost Mother, he knew things could only improve. About mid-morning, after poking around a while in various places, calling Oliver’s name, he took a break and went to fix himself a snack.

  The Ghost Mother was already in the kitchen, waiting for him. She had decided to wear Sarah’s longest skirt—all the trousers felt uncomfortable against her legs—and a blouse that covered her arms. As Jack entered, she stood at the sink, her back to him, preparing food. In her left hand there was a pear. As Jack watched she bit voraciously from it, a single bite, then put it down. Several other pieces of fruit and raw vegetables, all with one or two bites in them, were strewn across one side of the table.

  In her right hand she held a five-inch-long carving knife. She was slowly chopping carrots with the knife, then clearing them with the side of her hand to the edge of the cutting board. It was an efficient method of cutting, though Jack had never seen her use it before. She hummed an odd tune to herself, one Jack didn’t recognize. The table was set for lunch. Plates and cutlery were laid out, cups positioned neatly.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “We having guests?”

  She stopped and blinked at him. “No, of course not.” She finished preparing the food. It was vegetable soup. Jack had had it before, but never tasting quite like this. “Nice,” he said, helping himself to a second bowlful.

  The Ghost Mother watched him eat. It was a pleasure to see Jack enjoying her first attempt at a meal. But she was careful. She resisted the impulse to say anything unless he asked a direct question, because she kept tripping over the simplest of words—Sarah’s constant shouting making it hard to focus. Instead, she let her taste buds, dormant for so long, linger over the food on her own plate. To eat again after all these years! She wanted to dwell over every spoonful but was careful about that, too; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

  Jack didn’t mention the packed bags sitting in the corner of the living room. Although Sarah had said she’d help him find the ghosts, he wanted to keep any thoughts about leaving far from her mind. Instead, he went over everything he knew about the ghosts again, including his fruitless search this morning. He decided against mentioning Isabella yet, though—five ghosts were probably enough for his mum to cope with right now. The Ghost Mother listened closely, but her attention wandered whenever Jack mentioned the children, especially Oliver.

  “Aren’t you interested in him?” Jack asked, after a long silence.

  “Yes.” She smiled.

  “Oliver’s scared of the Ghost Mother.”

  No reaction. Just the smile.

  “Are you listening, Mum?”

  “Yes.” Her vague gaze was somewhere in the middle of his forehead. With a visible effort, she collected herself. “And your . . . cough?” she asked. “What of your cough? It seems less pronounced today.” Flustered, especially by all this admiring talk of Oliver, and with Sarah tormenting her in any way she could, the Ghost Mother sensed her control of language slipping. When Jack stared oddly at her she hurriedly cleared the table and asked him to retire with her to the living room.

  “Retire?”

  “It’s cool,” she said, biting her lip. “Let’s build the fire. After all, if there are ghosts in this house they may feel the chill as much as we do.”

  Listening to her talk, Jack realized how much the Ghost Mother had disturbed her. He wanted to sit his mum down, stay with her, and make sure she was okay. They walked together into the living room, but she made no move toward the fireplace. She just stared at Jack, that awkward smile perched on her face.

  “I’ll do it,” Jack said, wondering if he was meant to be taking a hint. “I saw how you got the fire going yesterday.”

  Under her watchful scrutiny he cleaned the fireplace out and arranged the kindling. It took three matches to get a good blaze going. The closest radiator creaked as it expanded.

  “You’re a proper little man now,” she said suddenly. “Aren’t you?”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to reply to that.

  “Mum, you’re still behaving and talking a bit weirdly.”

  “Come and sit closer to me.”

  Jack pulled his chair up, just as he’d done on their first night together in the house. But the Ghost Mother wasn’t content with how close he was; not until they were side by side and she could put her arm all the way around him did she seem satisfied.

  They stared into the fire.

  “This is getting to be a habit of ours,” Jack said, wanting to break the strange tension between them. “See any shapes in the flames?”

  “No.”

  It was stifling in the room. The sun added to the heat, streaming through one of the windows. A bird called outside, a sad sound. Inside the grate of the fire a log shifted, sending sparks up the chimney.

  “We’re going to be so happy in this house,” the Ghost Mother said, tears brimming in her eyes. “Jack, I feel that we are. Once these matters with the ghosts are dealt with, we are going to be so, so happy together here.”

  In the afternoon they spent a couple of hours together unsuccessfully searching for the ghosts. The Ghost Mother made sure Jack searched especially well in places the children never went. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with Jack increasingly concerned about not finding the ghost children, but also having no choice except to rest in his room, still recovering from the asthma scares of the past few days.

  In the evening, after they’d eaten—a quick meal, the Ghost Mother wanted to cook something more elaborate, but why risk increasing Jack’s suspicions?—she said she would be pleased if he spent a little more time with her by the hearth.

  She sat close to him on the sofa until night settled in. The fire was stiflingly hot, and by the time Jack finally managed to extricate himself from her embrace he could barely stop yawning. He said goodnight, she kissed him— on the forehead, the way Sarah did it—and Jack traipsed upstairs. To o tired even to brush his teeth properly, he undressed, got straight into bed and pulled the duvet up to his neck. His last thought before he fell asleep was that more than anything else in the world he wanted to know what had happened to the red-haired girl in the white slip.

  Ann’s body, deep inside Sarah’s wardrobe, felt cold. She couldn’t stop shivering. It was only when a numbness started creeping over her heels that she understood why— her soul was fading; almost all its energy was gone. The Ghost Mother’s last draft had taken nearly the last of it, and the Nightmare Passage’s long wait for her soul was almost over.

  There was virtually no air left inside the wardrobe to float on. Ann could barely find enough to lift her head. Not that it mattered. There was no reason to lift her head anyway. The wardrobe offered no view of the bedroom—the keyhole was sealed with masking tape.

  Resting against one of Sarah’s denim jackets, Ann waited for the Nightmare Passage to claim her. There was nothing she could do to stop that now. But she still had one hope: that the Nightmare Passage would take her before the Ghost Mother drained the last of her soul. It would be good to deny her that, at any rate. And alongside this hope was another: that Oliver wouldn’t find her in time. She knew he’d attempt to rescue her. But for all his fighting spirit he’d be no match for a Ghost Mother armed with Sarah’s body. And if she caught Oliver now, Ann realized, the Ghost Mother wouldn’t hold back. She’d waited too long for that. She would gorge on his soul until nothing remained except the husk the Nightmare Passage takes for itself. The
thought of Oliver’s bright soul being at the mercy of that desolate place filled Ann with despair.

  Could she help him? Could she at least speed up her journey into the Nightmare Passage so he had no reason to look for her? Her feet were tucked underneath her, wrapped in the cotton slip to ward off the chill. Stretching them out, Ann deliberately exposed them again. She let the cold seep into her legs and prayed for the cold of the Nightmare Passage to overwhelm her.

  “You have to!” Oliver growled. “Gwyneth, just do it!”

  “No!”

  “What do you mean, no? Do you know how dangerous it is for us to be out here? Stop dithering and just get inside! Do I have to beg? Is that what you want? You want me on my knees? What’s the matter with you? Charlie, tell her!”

  The three of them were squeezed inside a narrow gap between planks under the pantry floor. Many years before Ann had chosen a location for each of them to hide in an emergency. The locations were meant to be secret even from each other, so that if they were found the Ghost Mother couldn’t scare them into revealing the hideouts of the others. But Gwyneth wouldn’t go to hers without Ann to coax her. She’d insisted Charlie hold her hand the whole way, and now that they were there she refused to stay inside.

  “I won’t,” she whimpered. “It’s too dark.”

  “Look, just get in there!” Oliver demanded.

  “You can’t make me!”

  “If Ann told you to, you’d do it fast enough!” “Stop shouting!”

  “I’ll stop shouting if you do what you’re told!”

  Oliver knew he’d spoiled any chance of gaining Gwyneth’s willing cooperation. He’d rushed and jostled her through the risky parts of the house. When she’d stopped right in the middle of the corridor to cry over the loss of Ann, his patience had snapped altogether and he’d forcibly dragged her here. Stupid, he realized. Really dumb. He knew she’d prefer to be with Ann now, locked away somewhere, anywhere, rather than here with him. And her mood wasn’t improved by the discovery of fresh mouse droppings at her secret location, either. She kept looking around for more of them.

  “It’s horrible!” she wailed. “It’s . . . it’s dirty!”

  “Nah, it’s okay,” Oliver muttered, getting Charlie to nod along with him. “Just a mouse run. Think of it as company. With all your crying they’ll never come back, anyway.”

  “You stay here then!”

  She stared at him, her lower lip trembling.

  “I’ll sing you a song,” Charlie piped up, trying to keep the peace.

  “Yeah,” Oliver said. “How about that, Gwyneth? A nice song. We’ll both sing it.”

  She sniffed, surprised by the offer. Oliver always mocked the rhymes Ann sang her. “Will you?”

  “No problem,” Oliver said. “Listen, Gwyneth, I’ll even stand on my head and warble if you like, but if I do you’d better let me and Charlie go to our own secret locations.” He managed a smile.

  “No, you’ll muck up the words. You’ll spoil it! You always do! You’ll mess it up!”

  “We’ll both sing it properly, okay? Nicely. Tr y anyway.” Oliver took a deep breath, glanced sheepishly at Charlie, and began, “The waves of a mighty sorrow—”

  “Not that one,” Gwyneth said.

  “What then?”

  “The Ringlety-jing one.”

  “I can’t sing that. It’s stupid! I don’t even know the words. . . .” Oliver saw the stubborn look on her face, sighed, and gathered himself.

  “Ringlety-jing!” he muttered tonelessly. “Ringlety—”

  “Sing it the same way Ann does.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I haven’t got a girl’s voice!” Gwyneth’s lower lip wobbled. “Okay. Okay.” Oliver cleared his throat. “Ringletyyyyyy-jing! Ringletyyyyy-jing! Ringlettyyy-jing-jing! And what shall we sing? Some little crinkety-crakety thing, that rhymes and—aggh!” He cursed, unable to remember the rest.

  “It’s all right,” Charlie said. He shut his eyes to help himself recall the way the rhyme went. It wasn’t one of those Ann often sang:

  Ringlety-jing!

  And what shall we sing?

  Some little crinkety-crankety thing

  That rhymes and chimes

  And skips, sometimes,

  As though wound up with a kink

  in the spring.

  Charlie finished. Having sung the whole verse perfectly, he turned to Oliver. “I’ll look after Gwyneth,” he said. “She won’t stay here on her own anyway. She’s too scared. I’ll stay with her.”

  Oliver studied him closely. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really think you can keep her quiet?”

  “If Charlie stays with me I will be quiet,” Gwyneth said.

  Will you now? Oliver thought. What if the lovely Ghost Mother comes after you? How quiet will you be then?

  “I promise,” Gwyneth told him.

  Charlie gazed up. “You’re not going to your secret location anyway, are you, Oliver? You’re off to warn Jack. You shouldn’t.”

  “It’s what Ann wanted.”

  “It’s too risky.”

  “Then I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?” Oliver sighed. “Look, I can’t just hide, Charlie. What if that was your mum out there? Anyway, if I don’t get a message to him, who will? You? Gwyneth?”

  “I . . . I can try,” Charlie said.

  But they all knew the Ghost Mother would find Charlie long before he could get anywhere near Jack. Only Oliver was fast enough to evade her, and now even he might not be.

  “She’ll be waiting for you,” Charlie said.

  Oliver shrugged. “So what? I’m not letting her scare me witless just because she’s got a whole new body to play with. She’ll be able to move faster, but she can’t squeeze inside cracks anymore like us, can she? And she’ll be noisier, too. I’m bound to hear her big feet a mile off.”

  “What if she catches you?”

  Oliver grunted. “She’s never seen anything like the fight I’ll put up if she does. Even if she gets hold of me, it won’t be the end, I guarantee you that.” Bending down, he whispered in Charlie’s ear, “You’re asking a lot of yourself, taking charge of Gwyneth. It’s a brave move, but are you sure? Do you really think you can keep her quiet if old Weepy turns up?”

  Charlie grinned. “I can keep her quieter than you, anyway.”

  Oliver grinned back. “That’s true. I was never cut out to be much of a mother, was I?”

  “No, you’re rubbish at it.”

  Oliver laughed. “Well put. Now listen, and see if you agree with me. I think I’m going to go after Ann first. If Weepy’s got her tucked away somewhere, she’s bound to get hungry sometime soon and remember she’s got a nice soul-meal ready and waiting. We can’t let that happen without doing something about it. Probably not much chance of helping Ann escape, but I have to try. If I meet Jack on the way and can get him a message, fine, I’ll do it. But Ann first.”

  Charlie nodded and so did Gwyneth.

  “Yes,” she said. “Find Ann. We’ll wait for you, and I’ll be good.”

  Oliver gave her a look. “You’ll be quiet? You won’t count out loud, and give Charlie away?”

  “No.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Even if the mice come back?”

  She nodded.

  Oliver chewed his lip, turned to Charlie and murmured, “You don’t have to do this just to impress me, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Oliver winked at Charlie and gave Gwyneth a stern look. “I need you to do one more thing for me, Gwynnie. Charlie boy here isn’t very keen on the dark. It scares him. He’s gonna need his hand-holding a hell of a lot. He probably wants it held all the time. I want you to look after him for me, make sure he’s okay. Think you can do that?”

  Gwyneth gave him a puzzled nod and squeezed Charlie’s hand. Oliver glanced once into the s
cullery to make sure the Ghost Mother was not there, gave Charlie a final grin, and rode a wisp of air into the main part of the house.

  In her new body, unaffected by the breezes of the house, the Ghost Mother slept long and soundly. Even Sarah’s shrieks did not keep her awake for long. She slept, and woke well rested and ready for her second morning with Jack.

  Yesterday she’d made many mistakes. However, the evening had ended cozily enough, nestled up against Jack’s thigh by the fire. And though modern words still felt peculiar on her tongue, she was beginning to master their sounds. Sarah, screaming to get out, was, after all, teaching her more and more of them.

  The Ghost Mother decided on an early start. A few deep breaths to wake herself, then up and about in Sarah’s room, testing out her clothes, searching for something sensible to wear. There were none of the embellishments, ribbons, or curl-papers of her own time, but even so there were still plenty of ways to enhance her appearance. Nothing too fancy, of course. She experimented with applying Sarah’s pink lipstick, foundation cream, and mascara, and using the hair curlers. The results were hideous.

  “Help me,” she whispered. “I’m not used to doing this.”

  From inside her, Sarah answered, “Don’t you understand? I’ll make it harder, not easier. I won’t let you rest. I’ll fight you for everything.”

  “He’s my son now.”

  “No. You can’t force a child to love you. If you let me out—”

  “Let you out? I’ll never let you out,” the Ghost Mother said. “Not now. Not ever. Not unless Jack is dead. And if that happens, you won’t want to be let out. You’ll wish you were dead as well. You’ll wish you were as dead as I am.”

  Sarah searched for a reply to that.

  “What happened to you?” she asked at last. “How did you become so bitter?” She knew there had to be a way to break through the Ghost Mother’s defenses. She’d already looked inside much of her mind. Horrors lurked there, though the Ghost Mother hid the worst of them from her.