I Am Dust

by Louise Beech

  Three people who did a Ouija board too; all dead.

  Three.

  Didn’t that mean something back then?

  A knock on the bedroom door makes her shriek.

  ‘What?’ she cries, trying to control her voice.

  ‘We’re ordering take-away,’ says flatmate James. ‘You want owt?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

  Chloe breathes slowly. They are just stories. Exaggerated, like those surrounding Dust.

  Do you really believe that?

  She ignores her own question, puts the laptop away and pulls out her wooden box. She pauses before opening it, the way she always used to when she was trying not to cut. When she would count to ten, hoping the desperate need would pass.

  ‘I will not cut,’ she says.

  ‘What was that?’ calls James, passing on the landing.

  ‘Nothing … just, um, on the phone.’

  Chloe closes the box. She needs to lose herself. To distract herself from the knife and swirling thoughts of blood. To bury the images of Daniel Locke and Harry Bond and Amelia Bennett, all cold in their graves, all young, all having dabbled with a Ouija board. She opens her laptop again and finds the She Haunts Me file.

  Ginger said it was gorgeous.

  Is it? Is it really?

  It’s finished now; Chloe knows that much. She wrote the final lines last night when she couldn’t sleep. She wrote how Abigail falls utterly in love with Grace, the paid dancer. How they meet every night in the ship’s piano bar and set the dancefloor alight. How one night she isn’t there – and not the next, nor the next. How Abigail asks at the reception desk where she has gone, only to be told Grace was indeed a dancer, but she died ten years before, gone missing in the night, presumed lost at sea. How Abigail realises she’s fallen in love with a ghost. How at the end, Abigail is standing on her balcony, staring at the sea, wanting to join her love…

  Is it time to share it? To let Ginger read it?

  That would be like baring her soul.

  Her scars.

  No.

  For now, she reads aloud Abigail’s final words:

  ‘What if I let go? What if I fall? She is there, in the water, I know she is. What if I swim and don’t look back, and swim and don’t look back? Was I ever here, on this ship? Here and yet not here. There and yet not there. If I let go, what will there be? Only the music of the ocean – wordless, melodic, soothing – and the dance of the waves, and the two of us sinking, forever, together, to the bottom of the sea.’

  33

  The Game

  2005

  When Mr Hayes marched into the youth theatre on a sticky night, his face as thunderous as the August sky outside, Chloe was sitting on the edge of the stage, charcoal witch hat in her hand and matted wig on her head. Jess and Ryan were whispering by the door. Chloe had arrived at the theatre early and alone, and quietly recited her lines on stage, whispering, ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.’ Now the drama students were scattered about the pews and floor. They perked up as Mr Hayes clattered up the steps to the stage.

  ‘Attention, guys,’ he cried, clapping his hands together. ‘I was here last night to pick up those costumes that need mending, and I was very distressed to find that the knife we’re using as a dagger is gone. I hope this is just a prank and that the culprit will now hand it over?’

  The group looked around at one another, eyes wide. Jess and Ryan had come further into the room. Jess wore a white top Chloe hadn’t seen before; it was wide-necked and her pink bra straps peaked out, both delicately cute and utterly erotic. Chloe pulled the wig from her head and tried desperately to do something with her now-sweaty hair.

  ‘If anyone has it,’ Ryan said, ‘they’d better give it back, cos it’s my mum’s carving knife and I’ll be in the shit.’

  No one else spoke.

  ‘Well, someone must know,’ said Mr Hayes.

  Silence.

  ‘We’re cursed,’ cried someone.

  ‘It’s no laughing matter.’ Mr Hayes shook his head.

  ‘Well, you told us about that coven of witches who objected to Shakespeare using real incantations,’ cried someone else. ‘How they cursed the play.’

  ‘Wasn’t a real dagger used in place of the prop to kill King Duncan in the first ever play?’ asked Jess. ‘Didn’t the actor die?’

  Everyone nodded, vigorously.

  ‘Maybe it’s better that real knife has gone then,’ she said. ‘I did think it was too sharp. We should use a prop instead.’

  ‘I guess we’ll have to.’ Mr Hayes didn’t look happy. ‘I don’t like that a dangerous instrument has simply vanished into thin air though.’

  ‘What shall I tell my mum?’ demanded Ryan.

  ‘I’ll get her another.’ Mr Hayes clapped his hands again. ‘Right! Rehearsals! Ryan, you’re up…’

  After the session – when Macbeth’s rusted, gold crown had been abandoned as though too great a burden – Ryan, Jess and Chloe climbed back in through the window, wordless, the agreement to continue the game unsaid but fat in the air between them.

  As Ryan carefully set up the letters, Chloe wondered what they would do when the show was over. Would they still break in? Would they stop doing the Ouija board? She couldn’t imagine not seeing Jess all the time. What if she went away to college in another city? Her mum often talked about there being bigger opportunities down south.

  ‘Ready?’ Ryan asked once their fingers were on the glass.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s creepy about the knife?’ Jess wanted to know.

  ‘I’m just pissed off,’ said Ryan.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of a missing knife.’ Jess looked around them. ‘Not with us doing this. The two things must be linked. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Forget it,’ snapped Ryan. ‘Let’s just do this.’ Then he asked, ‘Is there anyone here with us tonight?’

  The glass immediately shot across the floor.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ryan. ‘This one’s strong.’

  Chloe didn’t like it. A man. She was sure. She could smell him. Acrid, unclean, evil. His odour invaded her nasal passages, the back of her throat, her pores, as though to infect her. She whispered the words aloud as the glass spelled them.

  THAT CUNT AINT COMING BACK

  ‘What cunt?’ asked Ryan, grinning.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Chloe. ‘We need to say goodbye. I don’t like him.’

  Ryan went on regardless. ‘Who are you? Tell us your name.’

  I AM GOD

  ‘Oh really,’ laughed Ryan.

  ‘Stop it,’ cried Jess. ‘You told us right at the start that we should respect the spirits, never laugh at them. Look what happened to Daniel Locke!’

  ‘You think he died because he laughed at some dead idiot?’ Ryan sneered.

  ‘I don’t know, but I don’t like this.’ Jess’s voice was small.

  Chloe felt sick. The air around her was hot, tight, suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. Remember how, she thought. Push. And Chloe did it; she pushed. And the glass began to shift towards ‘Goodbye’.

  Then it resisted.

  Shit. This was one powerful spirit.

  I KILLED MORGAN MILLER

  Jess took her finger from the glass, her face devoid of colour. As her hand fell into her lap, the single witch hat charm on her bracelet caught the light, flashing at Chloe.

  I KILLED THAT BITCH

  ‘You killed her?’ Ryan looked delighted.

  SHES FOREVER HERE WITH ME

  ‘Let her talk to us then,’ said Chloe. ‘She’ll tell us what happened.’

  I AM GOD HERE

  ‘I don’t believe him,’ Chloe said to the others. ‘I don’t know why, but I just don’t think he did it.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a him?’ Jess still hadn’t put her finger back on the glass, and Ryan was clearly too excited to comment.

  ‘I just know. And not a nice him.’

  ‘
That’s obvious,’ said Jess with a shiver.

  ‘I feel like … he lived near here … was horrible in life … violent … but nothing to do with Morgan, just playing with us.’ Chloe spoke the thoughts as they came to her.

  ‘How can you know that?’ asked Jess.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I AM GOD HERE

  ‘If you’re really God,’ said Ryan, ‘then possess me, right now.’

  Chloe pulled her finger from the glass too. ‘That isn’t even funny.’

  ‘Well, this is getting dull now,’ said Ryan. ‘We’re just asking stupid questions back and forth. We should have some proper fun.’

  ‘No.’ Chloe spoke in a low, firm voice. ‘We are not doing that.’

  ‘Fuck off then. Leave me and Jess to do what we want.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Chloe held his gaze. The candles flickered, giving his irises a demonic streak.

  ‘You can’t really stop me,’ he said.

  I can, she thought.

  Chloe closed her eyes, and – in her head – she saw Ryan quietly take his finger from the glass and stand and walk slowly along the aisle and out of the door, his face sombre and eyes unblinking.

  When she opened her eyes, he had gone. Jess was staring, open-mouthed, at the door.

  ‘Where did Ryan go?’ asked Chloe.

  ‘It was so weird.’ Jess looked horrified. ‘He just got up without a word, and his eyes, shit, they were just … dead. Like he wasn’t in there. I didn’t even dare speak. No. It wasn’t that. I couldn’t speak.’ She paused and Chloe was sure she could hear both their heartbeats, thumping in feral unison. ‘I looked at you … and for a split second … you looked like…’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Morgan Miller.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘But then it was gone. Like I imagined it … Chloe?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  Don’t be, thought Chloe. I’m here.

  ‘What should we do?’ Jess asked. ‘Go after him? Bring him back?’

  ‘No, leave him. If he wants to sulk, let him. We don’t need him, do we?’

  ‘But … isn’t it supposed to be three of us?’

  Chloe looked down then; the glass sat next to ‘Goodbye’.

  ‘Whoever that man was, he’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Shit, what if he did possess Ryan and that’s why he was all weird when he walked out?’

  No, that was me, thought Chloe.

  A slow scrape drew their eyes down again – the glass was moving. Chloe looked at Jess; Jess looked back, eyes wide. Neither had yet put a finger on it. It was both a surprise and expected. Chloe mused how easy it was to get used to unusual things; how if someone had told her a month ago that she would sit in front of a freely moving glass that spelled out words spoken by the dead, she would have laughed. And yet it felt like she had been doing this since the beginning of time. Like everything that had happened previously was leading to this. So she whispered aloud the words as they formed, realising she hadn’t written down a thing tonight.

  JUST GIRLS NOW

  ‘Who is this?’ asked Chloe, though she knew.

  WE ARE DUST

  ‘Morgan, is that you again?’

  I AM DUST

  ‘It’s her,’ whispered Chloe, awestruck.

  Jess smiled; her face was utterly beautiful in the gingery glow. This was perfect. Just the two of them. No Ryan to interfere and complicate their simplicity.

  GOLD LIGHT DANCING THERE

  ‘Hello Morgan,’ said Chloe. ‘Who was that other spirit just now?’

  NOT WHAT HE SAID

  ‘Did he kill you?’ asked Chloe.

  The glass remained still.

  ‘Maybe she’s scared of him. Maybe she can’t answer that right now.’

  ‘Can I ask,’ whispered Jess, ‘what is it like where you are?’

  She rarely asked questions. Chloe smiled. Such a simple one.

  LONELY

  ‘Why?’ asked Jess. ‘Can’t you see your family here on earth?’

  SEE BUT CANT SPEAK

  This was how Chloe had imagined it to be. Floating around in an otherworldly place, not existing but not dead, there and yet not there, and only able to watch those you love going on without you. She felt an acute sadness for Morgan. Six years on from her death and only ever mentioned in sentences including words like ‘murder’and ‘brutal’ and ‘unsolved’.

  ‘We could pass a message on to your family,’ said Jess, optimistically.

  ‘Not sure they’d believe us,’ whispered Chloe.

  MY BOYFRIEND

  ‘Do you mean Clive?’ Chloe knew he was still alive, that he had been questioned extensively after Morgan died. Though their relationship had been described as volatile by the press, at the moment she died he was with a group of people arguing in the theatre foyer. ‘Do you miss him?’

  EVERY DAY

  Chloe and Jess looked at one another, eyes moist.

  HE GOT ME TO DO IT

  Chloe frowned. ‘Do what?’

  WHAT YOU ARE DOING

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Chloe.

  SPEAKING TO THE DEAD

  ‘You mean a Ouija board? You did one because of your boyfriend?’

  YES FOR LOVE FOR LOVE FOR LOVE

  ‘She must have done one with him maybe?’ Jess paused as though she had thought of something. Chloe enjoyed having a moment to study her. A moment to imagine leaning in and kissing her on the lips. It would be her first kiss. ‘Do you reckon you have to have done a Ouija board to be on the other side of one?’

  Chloe thought about it. ‘No. How could that baby we got have done one?’

  ‘Suppose. Maybe its parents did?’

  The glass moved again, in the slow and seductive way that Morgan often spoke. Chloe heard the whisper of her voice in her ear too.

  THREE OF US

  ‘Three?’ Chloe felt tingles along her spine.

  ALWAYS THREE BUT NOW YOU ARE TWO

  ‘Can you really see us, Morgan?’ asked Jess.

  YES

  ‘Why three?’ asked Chloe.

  THREE TO GET THE POWERS

  ‘What powers?’ Chloe looked at Jess. She knew they were both thinking about Daniel Locke, Harry Bond and Amelia Bennett; both thinking about Ryan’s obsession with the powers he claimed they had.

  WHATEVER YOU MOST WANT

  ‘So we just ask?’ said Jess.

  THREE OF YOU

  ‘If there are three of us?’

  YES

  ‘Were there three of you?’ asked Chloe. ‘When you did the Ouija board.’

  YES

  ‘And what power did you ask for?’

  DUST

  ‘Your role in Dust?’ said Chloe.

  I AM DUST

  ‘You really think she got the role of Esme because she got powers on a Ouija board?’ asked Jess.

  Chloe didn’t know what to say. Did she believe it?

  She realised something then. ‘You said there were three of you … so there was you … your boyfriend Clive … and who else?’

  The glass remained immobile; Chloe imagined Morgan had held her breath and closed her eyes.

  ‘Who was the third person on the Ouija board?’ repeated Chloe.

  MY KILLER

  34

  The Game

  2005

  Jess gasped. Chloe’s heart melted at her reaction. It was so vulnerable, her face alight with shock. It was Chloe’s first response. Then she realised what Morgan had said.

  ‘Her killer,’ she whispered, and Jess mouthed it at the same time, their breath in the air together.

  The glass didn’t move. Chloe did. She reached out and put a finger over Jess’s lips, the way she had when that moment fell into place the last time Ryan left them alone. She traced the softness and then leaned forwards to put her mouth there instead of her fingertip. Jess inhaled; Chloe was sucked in. She was lost. Their tongues touched, warm, nervous, then bolde
r. Chloe put a hand in Jess’s hair, wanting to wrap the curls tightly around her fingers so she could never escape. Be mine, her heart whispered.

  The glass moved.

  Jess pulled back violently and watched the words form.

  CUT BLEED RELEASE

  ‘What does that mean?’ she cried, not looking at Chloe. Then after a moment, ‘I think I should go now.’

  ‘No, don’t,’ begged Chloe. ‘I’m sorry. We don’t have to—’

  Jess stood up, the candles swaying in her wake. ‘Sorry, Chloe, no, I, um, I’m not … that’s not what I want…’

  ‘I understand. We can forget it. We can!’

  But Jess walked away, repeatedly saying sorry, still unable to look Chloe in the eye. The door closed gently but finally after her.

  Chloe should have been afraid, being alone with the shadows and the spirits, but sadness was the more powerful emotion. And shame. Miserable, wretched shame.

  The glass moved. Chloe followed its languid journey.

  CUT BLEED RELEASE

  ‘Cut, bleed, release?’ she repeated softly.

  CUT BLEED RELEASE

  Chloe heard the words as though they were being sung. Heard Morgan Miller’s syrupy voice swirling in the dust around her. Smelt her perfume as though she were gliding past. Felt the song was for her; only her. So lyrical. So tempting. So personal.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  IT HELPS

  ‘Who was your killer, Morgan?’

  WHEN THE DUST SETTLES YOU WILL KNOW