I Am Dust

by Louise Beech

  ‘Why?’ demanded Jess. ‘James might be taking me home.’ James was another drama student she toyed with, if only to make Ryan jealous.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plans for this summer, and you wanna be involved.’

  Jess fake-yawned, but Chloe knew they would be meeting Ryan near the skip behind the church.

  ‘Let’s get some cigs first,’ said Jess.

  ‘See you in a minute,’ said Ryan, heading around the back.

  The two girls went to the newsagent’s opposite, where the elderly man didn’t care how old they were and often sold them vodka as well as cigarettes. Many nights they had come here, just the two of them, and shared a small bottle in the nearby park, Chloe afraid to drink too much, Jess more daring.

  Crossing the road to go back, Chloe looked up at the church as they approached it, at the boarded-up, dome-shaped windows – most of them broken – and the turrets with ornate crosses soaring from their peaks. A glossy black bird perched on one of them, squawking harshly.

  What was the rhyme? One for sadness, two for joy? Chloe scanned the roof for a second bird. No. Just one. Wasn’t it supposed to be a magpie in the rhyme? Chloe had no idea what they looked like, so maybe this was just any old bird. No omen. No darkness. No need to feel nervous.

  At the back of the building, on a pile of newspapers, Ryan sat smoking. His floppy blond hair particularly irritated Chloe tonight. Maybe it was just the heat. She knew how quickly Jess was going to agree to whatever he wanted to do.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

  Jess opened her cigarettes and lit one. ‘How? Everyone’s gone. It’s locked.’

  ‘There isn’t a lock in the world that can stop me.’ Ryan got up and led them to the side of the church; the gap between it and the next building was claustrophobically narrow. ‘Look at that window there. See? It’s low enough to reach and it’s never locked. I know because it leads to the boys’ toilets.’ He dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his foot. Then he edged sideways down the gap and disappeared through the window.

  Without a word, just as Chloe knew she would, Jess followed.

  For a moment, Chloe stood alone.

  Afterwards, she would see herself there, brow damp in the heat, faded jeans covered in hand-drawn doodles of flowers and rainbows, nail polish chipped. And she would whisper from the future to that young girl: Don’t follow them. Go home. See your mum. Learn your lines. Concentrate on your craft. Don’t follow them.

  But she did.

  She followed them.

  She dropped onto the tiled floor of the boys’ toilets and went out into the corridor.

  ‘Hey, where are you?’ she called.

  No answer.

  ‘Come on, guys. Don’t mess around.’

  Chloe had never liked the darkness that the boarded-up windows created. The place always smelt damp, and every floorboard creaked. She moved carefully along the corridor towards the theatre, opening the heavy door with an agonising scrape. This cavernous room was where parishioners once worshipped; where rows of wooden pews now served as seats for those watching a show rather than a sermon. The altar had been ripped out and replaced with a wooden stage, with crimson velvet curtains that took an immense effort to open and close. Here, on these boards, young actors craved the reverence once given to long-gone priests.

  Chloe walked down the aisle towards the stage, afraid.

  Breath on her neck.

  She spun around.

  Nothing. Just her overactive imagination.

  But she often felt it in here.

  She reached the stage and climbed the steps to the left. Someone had left the spotlight on, and it burned her face. She held up an arm to block it out and looked at the rows of empty seats. In the current show, Macbeth, Chloe was one of the unnamed witches. She rarely got glamorous parts, and though this was an important role she couldn’t help but think that it was the story of her life so far: a nameless character. Jess was playing the ruthless Lady Macbeth with gusto. Ryan, of course, was Macbeth himself.

  ‘Chloe!’ Two hands grabbed her.

  ‘Shit.’ She fell to her knees.

  Jess and Ryan helped her up, weak with laughter.

  ‘Your face,’ cried Ryan. ‘Who the fuck did you think it was?’

  ‘Nothing. No one.’ Chloe’s heart raced.

  ‘You looked like that when we watched The Exorcist,’ he laughed.

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’ Chloe stormed off the stage and sat in the front pew, arms crossed, scowling. It didn’t feel natural to be so stroppy. She was always the smiley one. The nice one. The people-pleaser. But Ryan had been annoying her recently. ‘Are you gonna tell us your plan then?’ she demanded. ‘If we get caught in here, we’re in big trouble, you know.’

  ‘Ooooh, big trouble,’ mocked Ryan, from the stage.

  Jess stayed there, at his side, a hand just inches from his, as though she might hold it if she dared; if they were alone. Sharing the spotlight, they could have been Romeo and Juliet. Cosette and Marius. Esme and Chevalier. Chloe ached with jealousy. It was another alien emotion. She seemed to be feeling so many recently.

  ‘What’s the plan for this summer, then?’ Jess asked.

  She finally moved away from Ryan and joined Chloe on the pews. Basking in his small audience’s attention, Ryan paced the wooden floor, then stopped suddenly and turned to face them with a dramatic swing.

  ‘We’re going to play a game,’ he said.

  ‘A game?’ Jess asked with a flirty smile.

  ‘Not that kind of game.’ He grinned at her. ‘It is a bit sexy though…’

  ‘Have you played it before?’ Jess said, a suggestive tone to her question.

  ‘I’ve done it on my own,’ he admitted.

  ‘And?’ asked Chloe in spite of herself.

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘You sure?’ laughed Jess.

  ‘You need at least two people,’ explained Ryan.

  ‘I’ve heard.’ Jess again.

  ‘More than two is even better. Three is perfect. Something to do with being connected to the divine or some shit. I thought of us…’

  ‘I’m not spending my summer playing daft games.’ Chloe stood up, sick of Ryan, sick of her own strange grumpiness. Why couldn’t he fuck off and leave her and Jess to spend more time together? ‘We’re sixteen, not six.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Did you hear about Daniel Locke and Harry Bond?’ he asked.

  Chloe stopped. She looked at Jess; she wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Chloe asked softly.

  Earlier that year, throughout April, Daniel and Harry had dominated the local news headlines. Daniel had died after walking out onto the A63 in the middle of the night; Harry had been in a secure mental-health unit ever since. The speculation about what had led to his tragic suicide included devil worship, drug abuse, demonic possession, and a bizarre game of dare.

  ‘They went to my school,’ said Ryan.

  ‘No,’ whispered Chloe and Jess simultaneously.

  ‘Yes. And it wasn’t any of the things they said in the papers.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Jess.

  ‘And what was it?’ asked Chloe after a beat.

  ‘I know because I’ve spoken to the third person involved.’ For the first time during his time on the stage, Ryan stepped out of the spotlight. For a moment, he was a silhouette. ‘Three was what made it work, like I said.’

  ‘Made what work?’ demanded Jess

  A master of any role he played, Ryan strung out the suspense; he walked slowly and purposefully down the steps and stood in front of the two girls, legs spread. ‘There was a girl who never made the headlines: Amelia Bennett. She seemed to escape unhurt. But she wouldn’t talk about what happened.’

  ‘So how do you know?’ asked Jess.

  ‘I have my ways.’

  Chloe shook her head at Ryan’s cockiness.

  ‘We got drunk together once, and s
he told me that there’s always one person who gets out of it OK. One person who seems to have some sort of spiritual strength or magic, or whatever you want to call it.’ He paused, then added dramatically, ‘Apparently, they pay in other ways though.’ Ryan laughed suddenly, making them jump. ‘Look, I don’t know if I believe any of that crap. But there’s only one way to find out…’

  ‘What did they do?’ asked Jess softly.

  ‘A Ouija board,’ said Ryan.

  ‘A Ouija board?’ repeated Chloe.

  She shivered; she had heard of one. Had been warned by her mum never to use one, especially not in the house, though when asked why, her mum couldn’t answer. Chloe’s cousin once said during a sleepover that she had known someone who used one, and they’d ended up being possessed by a demon. Though Chloe dismissed this as a ghost story invented to scare her, she lay awake all night afterwards. The words Ouija board had been whispered with reverence and fear by kids at school who shared tales of friends of friends of friends who had done them and been spooked. No one seemed to quite know exactly what had happened or could directly name those involved, but Chloe knew it was a bad idea.

  ‘Isn’t that what people use to speak to the dead?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Yes. And we’re going to do it here.’ Ryan gestured at the stage.

  ‘How does it work? What do we do?’

  ‘You can get an actual board game with a planchette and everything set out, but I’m not paying forty quid. We can improvise, make our own. We just need a glass, a flat surface, and some the letters of the alphabet written on pieces of ca—’

  ‘But someone died,’ cried Chloe.

  ‘We don’t know if that was really because of a Ouija board, or if Daniel Locke was just a troubled teenager. Unless I wanted to, nothing on earth would get me to walk in front of a fucking lorry.’

  ‘You called it a game,’ said Chloe. ‘But that isn’t how I’ve heard it described. It’s not something fun. It’s supposed to be dangerous.’

  ‘I like “game”,’ grinned Ryan. ‘Sounds, I dunno … edgy.’

  ‘How does it actually work?’ asked Jess.

  ‘We all put our fingers on an upturned glass and ask to speak to the spirits, and the glass moves from letter to letter, spelling out what the dead are saying.’ Ryan paused. ‘Are you two in?’

  ‘Not me.’ Chloe again made as if to leave.

  Ryan shrugged. ‘We can ask someone else.’

  Chloe looked at Jess for back-up, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  ‘I have to go,’ said Chloe. ‘If you guys wanna hang out and do something less insane this summer, let me know.’

  She hoped Jess would follow her. She reached the door and looked back. The two of them were deep in conversation, oblivious to her aching heart. Chloe climbed out of the tiny window in the boys’ toilets and edged along the gap. As she walked around to the front, she glanced at the steps leading up to the main doors.

  What was that?

  Chloe approached the black lump on the top step. When she realised what it was, she recoiled with a gasp. The bird. Its sleek, black wings were bent at an awkward angle like some sort of mechanical toy gone wrong, and its head was smashed and bloody. A dead eye stared coldly at her. Chloe looked up at the roof. Was it definitely the one from earlier? How horrible.

  It filled her with sickly dread.

  As she rode the bus home, she couldn’t get it out of her head. And doing a Ouija board – or playing the ‘game’, as Ryan insisted on calling it – screamed trouble to her. But Chloe knew Jess was besotted with Ryan and would do absolutely anything he asked. She knew Jess would play his so-called game.

  Recently she’d been watching Jess studying Ryan while he rehearsed for Macbeth. She knew what her gaze meant; even if Jess flicked her hair dismissively, her pink cheeks and that rapturous look belied the depth of her true feelings.

  Chloe felt like this too.

  For Jess.

  Oh, Jess.

  And she would do anything she asked…

  8

  Chloe’s Room

  January 2019

  When she gets home – a flat shared with two students, James and Jennie – Chloe escapes to her room. She avoids the tall mirror on the back of her door, afraid she might see those seven words again; words that stir something sickly in her stomach. How is it that when she tries to visualise where she first saw them – long ago – they fade like old letters in the sun? Is it that she has forgotten them – or that she buried them?

  Instead a face pops into her head – Jess.

  Jess Swanson.

  Gosh, Jess. Why her face? Why now?

  Chloe sees her, pink-cheeked, blonde-haired, smoking a cigarette, and laughing at … who? Of course; at Ryan. At some joke he’s telling. This memory is vivid. It comes for the first time since … when was it? A hot summer? Yes. Chloe smells the celebrity perfume Jess used to wear; the coconut conditioner that made Chloe breathless when she got close enough; the nail polish they took turns applying. What did the three of them get up to? Wasn’t that the last year they went to the youth theatre?

  Yes.

  She suddenly sees them there, sitting on a dusty stage, candles flickering, an eternal trio of hurt. Because she loved Jess, but Jess loved Ryan, and Ryan loved only himself. The feelings are suddenly acute. Here. Now.

  Still.

  Hasn’t she used such feelings in her new script?

  Chloe reaches under her bed and pulls out the wooden box, now scratched and faded. She sits with it in her lap. Then she unhooks the latch and opens it. Inside are mementoes from the past; pictures she never bothered framing, tickets from her favourite theatre visits, flyers signed by actors and directors. At the bottom is the CD she wants. On the cover gold, swirly script reads ‘Dust – the Musical’. Chloe remembers how she knew all the songs. How she and Jess sang them together. How she would listen to the title track and imagine her and Jess together. In love. In the dark. Kissing.

  Didn’t they once kiss?

  Maybe.

  She plays the CD.

  She turns the volume down after a while and starts checking the social media feeds on her phone, waiting for the big announcement at nine o’clock.

  Then she goes back into the wooden box and takes out the knife.

  DUST

  Midnight for an hour,

  I’m yours.

  We dance in the shadows,

  in the halls.

  Midnight for an hour,

  feel my touch.

  When you dance with me,

  I’m not lost.

  I’m still here; I am dust.

  I’m those fragments in the air,

  the gold light dancing there,

  that breeze from nowhere.

  Forever, together, we are dust.

  Pieces of everything;

  pieces of all of us.

  Dust.

  When the dust settles,

  and they all sleep,

  we dance and love and kiss.

  We live the dream.

  You light me up

  like a dawn I’ll never see.

  I light you up

  and set you free.

  I’m still here; I am dust.

  I’m those fragments in the air,

  the gold light dancing there,

  that breeze from nowhere.

  Forever, together, we are dust.

  Pieces of everything;

  pieces of all of us.

  Dust.

  9

  The Game

  2005

  Chloe dreamed about the dead bird.

  In the nights after Ryan suggested using the Ouija board, she woke in a cold sweat, despite the heat, sure the glossy, black creature was in her bedroom. She’d hear a scratch-scratch-scratching and a rustle-rustle-rustling and hide under the duvet until it subsided. Then it took hours to get back to sleep and she woke late, cranky, which was unlike her.

  At breakfast, Chloe’s dad laughed at her
stuck-up hair.

  ‘You get out of bed the wrong side, sweetheart?’ smiled her mum.

  ‘How could I?’ snapped Chloe. ‘There’s a wall on the wrong side.’

  Chloe arrived twenty minutes late to the next youth theatre drama group, and Macbeth rehearsals were already under way. Mr Hayes must have opened the fire doors again because a gentle breeze cooled Chloe’s damp brow. Dust fragments danced in the stage lights. She paused at the back and took in the scene. As the lead character, Ryan marched the wooden boards, swathed in a stained, purple velvet cloak, chipped gold crown atop his blond hair. It occurred to Chloe – not for the first time – that this must be the one place he got attention. As one of nine boys, living in a three-bedroom council house with a single mum, it must have been crowded at home.

  Jess was in the front pew, watching him – utterly entranced – and chewing bubble gum. She didn’t even notice as Chloe slid into the seat next to her. Eventually Ryan finished his soliloquy, took an ostentatious bow and disappeared.

  Jess seemed surprised to see Chloe there. ‘Where were you?’ she asked, blowing a pink bubble.

  ‘I missed my bus.’

  ‘We need to talk after rehearsals.’

  Chloe would happily have talked to Jess for hours, about anything she wanted. She wished it was just the two of them; that Ryan would be spotted by a talent scout and fuck off to London or somewhere so she and Jess could have a wonderful summer together. When Jess was in the room – any room – Chloe didn’t want to leave it. The way she felt about her was a little bit like pain; it hurt when she saw anyone else speaking to her, it hurt to know that it was unlikely Jess felt the same way; and it hurt to know that she would have to carry these feelings around inside her forever.