Shadow School #1

by J. A. White

  One time, Cordelia stared too openly, and the cook took notice.

  He carefully laid his invisible spoon on the table and started in her direction. Cordelia ran as fast as she could, only looking back when she was a safe distance away. The cook stood at the threshold of the kitchen, his palms flat against an invisible barrier. He was still watching her, but he had reached the border of his ghost zone and was unable to pursue her any farther.

  He didn’t look scary. He looked desperate.

  A few days later, Cordelia hesitantly returned. The cook didn’t register her presence at all, as though some kind of reset button had been pushed. Cordelia was relieved, but she also realized how lucky she had been.

  What if the next ghost is faster? What if not all of them are nice?

  After her experience with the cook, Cordelia went back to avoiding the ghosts. Curious or not, she knew she couldn’t risk it.

  Except for the boy.

  Cordelia visited him every day, either in between periods or for a few minutes after school, before the buses left. She didn’t go beneath the bleachers again. Instead, Cordelia sat by the opening with her body half-turned, watching the boy from the corner of her eye. In the beginning, he was always crying. But then Cordelia started to talk to him. She told him about her life in California and how much she still missed it. She talked about her teachers. Ms. Patel, who gave a lot of work but made science interesting; Mr. Derleth, who always knew some obscure fact or story that helped bring history to life; and Mrs. Machen, who made Michael Davies redo forty long division problems because he forgot a single decimal point.

  As Cordelia talked, the boy’s tears gradually subsided. He crept closer, his glasses askew on his face, and sat by the edge of the opening, listening to her. After a week of this, Cordelia finally risked making eye contact.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  The boy gave her a blank stare. Cordelia wasn’t sure he knew the answer any more than she did.

  Halloween used to be Cordelia’s favorite holiday, but without Ava and Mabel it didn’t seem the same. She still might have gone trick-or-treating if Agnes had expressed any enthusiasm whatsoever, but after an incident with Mason James and a carton of eggs the previous year, Agnes had sworn off the holiday forever. In the end, Cordelia didn’t even bother getting a costume. Instead, she spent Halloween evening in front of her Chromebook, snacking on candy corn and researching ghosts. Usually she focused on the scary hauntings, but her experience with the boy had inspired her to take a different approach.

  “Good spirits,” she googled.

  This took her to a list of stores that sold alcohol, so Cordelia refined her search.

  “Good spirits dead,” she typed, and then, after tossing a handful of candy corn in her mouth, added, “sad.”

  The first website she clicked on was a blog written by a husband-and-wife ghost-hunter team. They claimed that spirits had gotten a bad rap and were nothing like the bloodcurdling entities popularized by horror movies. The ghosts they had encountered during more than thirty years of experience were “lost, harmless travelers who had gotten stuck in a world they no longer belonged in.”

  Cordelia read the words over and over again, mouth agape.

  Lost, harmless travelers . . .

  It was like a river had been forded in her brain, allowing her access to startling new ideas. She considered all the spirits she had seen. The crying boy. The sad cook who couldn’t follow her past the kitchen. The man in the gray suit, looking down at her from the window.

  It all fit.

  “They’re not dangerous,” Cordelia said. “They’re trapped!”

  Her fingers flew across the keyboard with renewed determination. We should be helping them, she thought, not avoiding them. Cordelia researched ways to help a ghost leave the “material realm” and move on to the next “plane of existence.” She scanned blogs. She watched YouTube videos. She read posts on Reddit.

  As far as Cordelia could tell, spirits might have trouble “moving on” for any number of reasons. In the movies it was always something dramatic, like wanting their murder to be avenged, but that wasn’t necessarily the case with real-life hauntings. One recently deceased grandmother, for example, hung around the house for a few days to make sure her beloved cat found a new home. A penny-pinching husband haunted his wife until she stopped leaving the hallway light on at night. The owner of a muddy Mercedes wanted one last trip through the car wash. These particular ghosts reminded Cordelia of the ones at Shadow School. The cook trying to bake a cake. The woman looking at herself in the mirror. The teacher staring at the bulletin board. They each had something they wanted to accomplish. Nothing major. Just a normal part of life. And just like the other ghosts, they wouldn’t be able to move on until . . .

  It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

  Cordelia’s mind jumped into overdrive, already forming a plan. She knew Benji would say it was too dangerous, but she had to try it, just to see what would happen.

  Ten minutes later, her parents knocked on her door and said they were heading out for a few minutes to restock their candy supply. Cordelia surprised them by asking if she could come too.

  There was something she needed to buy.

  The next day, Cordelia made a lame excuse to Agnes and slipped out of the lunchroom. Benji was waiting for her by the lockers. He was wearing a brown hoodie today.

  “You know,” Cordelia said, “there are these things called shirts. They’re like hoodies with buttons. You should check them out.”

  “It’ll never catch on,” Benji replied. “Why’d you want to meet?” He phrased his next question in a kind of code, in case any of the passing students happened to hear them. “Is there a new red circle to add to our map?”

  “Even better,” Cordelia said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “There’s something I want to try.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Unlike Cordelia, Benji had no desire to learn more about the ghosts. He refused to even look in their direction, as though they were Medusas whose slightest gaze could turn him to stone.

  “If you’re thinking of going near one of them,” Benji said, keeping his voice low, “count me out.”

  “You won’t have to get close. I promise. I just want you to be there.”

  “Why?” Benji asked with a suspicious look.

  “Um . . . you know,” Cordelia said, not wanting to scare him away. “Just in case.”

  “In case something goes wrong!” Benji exclaimed. “Forget it! Listen, I know you think you’re besties now with the one beneath the bleachers—”

  “He listens to me.”

  “He’s dead, Cordelia!” Benji exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be messing around with them. This isn’t a game.” He flipped his hood over his head and started to walk away.

  “What if I told you there might be a way to get rid of all the ghosts?” Cordelia asked.

  Benji swung back around. There was a doubtful look in his eyes, but also the slightest bit of hope. “All the ghosts in the entire school?” he asked.

  Cordelia nodded.

  “I’m listening,” Benji said.

  “It’s going to take more than that,” Cordelia said. “Come on.”

  She led Benji to the spiral staircase on the west side of the building. As they ascended to the third floor, she explained her plan. Each ghost seemed trapped in a kind of loop. They were trying to perform a specific action—such as the cook baking a cake—but were unable to complete it. If Cordelia and Benji could help the ghost successfully perform whatever it was they were trying to do, then maybe the loop would be broken.

  “What happens then?” Benji asked, looking closer to laughter than being convinced. “The ghost goes to heaven?”

  “I don’t know where they’ll go,” Cordelia said. “Somewhere different. Better. The important thing is they won’t be trapped in Shadow School anymore.”

  “So the ghost of the old woman who walks back and forth ac
ross the stage, making a sweeping motion . . .”

  “We give her a broom,” Cordelia said, smiling. “Exactly! That’s a good example.”

  “You’re crazy!” Benji exclaimed. Cordelia opened her mouth to respond, but he added, “And before you tell me I don’t know anything—I’ve done research too. The dead move on when they feel at peace. Not because you hand them a broom!”

  “That might be true in the real world,” Cordelia said, “but if you haven’t noticed, Shadow School works a little differently. You and I can see the dead! Is that normal? Maybe the ghosts here play by different rules too.”

  Benji grumbled unhappily, but it was clear that her point had struck home.

  “I’ll help you,” he muttered. “But just this once.”

  The bearded man in the sweater vest was sitting at his usual table. As always, he held the newspaper far too close to his face. Cordelia casually took a seat across from him and pretended to check her phone. From the corner of her eye, she saw that the newspaper was the Charlotte Observer from June 12, 2002. The dead man squinted, clearly struggling to read the small print.

  Cordelia took a deep breath in order to steady her nerves. Then she slid a pair of reading glasses across the table.

  The man folded his newspaper down and stared in Cordelia’s general direction, as though he had heard a strange sound outside and was looking through the window to investigate. He leaned forward, his face only inches from hers. Cordelia pretended she couldn’t see him and continued to stare down at her phone, hoping the ghost wouldn’t notice the bead of sweat that ran down her temple.

  Finally, the man leaned back in his seat.

  Cordelia shakily rose to her feet and crossed over to Benji, who looked as nervous as she felt. She risked a look over her shoulder and saw the bearded man slide the glasses over his ears.

  “Whew,” Cordelia whispered. “I was worried his hand would pass right through them.”

  The ghost looked down at the newspaper and burst into a glorious smile. He pushed the glasses up on his nose.

  “It’s working!” Cordelia said.

  “What if they’re not the right prescription?”

  “I don’t think it matters. It’s just a symbol. The key that will let him leave.”

  The bearded man, now holding the newspaper a normal length away from his face, flipped to the next page and propped his feet up on the table. All the frustration left his body. He looked ten years younger.

  A black triangle the size of a welcome mat appeared in the air above him, hovering a few inches below the ceiling.

  “What’s that thing?” Benji asked, taking a few steps back and pulling Cordelia along with him.

  The triangle grew until it was half the size of the room. It should have been terrifying. But looking at it, Cordelia felt only a sense of peace and joy. It slid open from the bottom, like a garage door, revealing a gentle, flickering light that brought to mind a cozy fireplace on a cold winter’s night. The man began to rise upward, still reading his newspaper without a care in the world. A breeze kissed the back of Cordelia’s neck and fluttered the papers of a nearby bulletin board. Lights flickered on and off. A vacuum that had been left behind by a careless custodian suddenly vroomed to life.

  The man vanished into the light. The triangle closed again, faster than it had opened, and disappeared.

  Cordelia turned to Benji, whose look of astonishment no doubt mirrored her own. We freed him, she started to say, but then she saw Agnes standing behind them, and the words got stuck in her throat.

  “Hey,” Cordelia said with a friendly wave.

  Agnes pointed past them with a trembling finger. Her face was ashen.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  Cordelia burst into a huge grin and threw her arms around Agnes.

  “This is so great!” she exclaimed. “You can see the ghosts too!”

  “Ghosts?” Agnes asked, pulling away. “What ghosts?”

  Cordelia stared at her, confused.

  “You didn’t see a man in a sweater vest?” she asked, spirits sinking.

  “No.”

  “How about a giant hovering triangle?” Benji asked.

  “No!” Agnes exclaimed. “And before you ask, I didn’t see any dragons or leprechauns, either.”

  “Then what did you see?” Benji asked.

  “The lights started flickering on and off. And things got windy all of a sudden. It was really weird.”

  Cordelia stopped to think. Despite her hopes to the contrary, Agnes didn’t have the same special ability as they did. She could only see the way that supernatural phenomena affected things in the real world, like flickering lights.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Benji asked. “Were you following us?”

  Agnes’s cheeks reddened.

  “It’s your fault,” she exclaimed, jabbing her index finger in Benji’s direction. “Ever since Cordelia started hanging out with you, she’s been acting super strange. I wanted to see what was going on.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “I should have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  Cordelia glanced at Benji, who gave a shrug. She’s seen so much. Might as well tell her the rest.

  “Shadow School is haunted by a slew of ghosts,” Cordelia said, using a measured tone of voice in order to make her words sound as rational as possible. “And Benji and I are the only ones who can see them. They’re trapped here for some reason. We don’t know why. Or how. But we’re trying to figure out how to help them.”

  “She’s trying to figure out how to help them,” Benji clarified. “I just want them to go away.”

  Cordelia expected Agnes to react with shock or horror. Maybe even anger that Cordelia had kept the truth from her for so long.

  Instead, she looked relieved.

  “I thought you didn’t want to be friends anymore,” she said, staring down at her clunky shoes. “Only you were too nice to tell me, so you were just going to ignore me until I took the hint. But ghosts?” She smiled wide, blue braces gleaming. “That’s not so bad!”

  “Of course I still want to be friends with you,” Cordelia said, feeling terrible that Agnes had ever thought otherwise. She reached up and took the taller girl by the shoulders. “And now that you know the truth, the three of us can work together! Like a team! Right, Benj?”

  Cordelia glared at him until he replied.

  “Can’t wait,” he said, with two half-hearted thumbs-ups.

  “There’s one problem,” Agnes said with a worried look. “Even if I believe you about the ghosts, it’s like you said: you can see them; I can’t.” She looked disappointed in herself, as though she had done something wrong. “What can I possibly do to help?”

  Cordelia grinned.

  “I have an idea about that.”

  8

  Confirmation

  Cordelia stared out the window as they drove through downtown Ludlow. There were a few old pickup trucks parked in front of Lily’s Breakfast Nook, but other than that the town was deserted. A banner strung from one side of the street to the other announced that the Ludlow Holiday Festival was only a few weeks away.

  There was no traffic. There was never any traffic.

  “Does Mrs. Machen always offer extra help this early?” Mr. Liu asked as they stopped at the only traffic light in town.

  “Um, I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask.”

  Cordelia turned away so her father couldn’t see the guilty expression on her face. She wasn’t really going for math help (though she could certainly use it). That was just the lie she’d told her parents in order to get a ride to school. Cordelia wanted to prove that what had happened with Newspaper Man wasn’t a fluke, which required getting into the building before the other students arrived.

  “This is really nice of her,” Mr. Liu said. “Not a lot of teachers would come to work early just to help their students.”

  “Yeah,” Cordelia said. “Mrs. Machen’s the best.”
<
br />   Mr. Liu gave her a strange look.

  “Last week you said her classroom was the place ‘where time stops and smiles die.’”

  “She’s really grown on me since then.”

  There were dark circles under her father’s eyes. He had been on the phone with Cordelia’s grandparents until after midnight again. She had overheard her father’s end of the conversation through the bedroom wall. Her Chinese wasn’t good enough to understand every word, but she got the main gist: Nainai and Yeye wanted them to move back to San Francisco, while her father insisted that Ludlow was their new home. It started out as a conversation and ended in an argument.

  “I’m glad to see you taking an interest in your new school,” Mr. Liu said as they left the downtown area and picked up speed. The sky above the distant mountains was streaked with lavender. “Your mother and I have been worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Have you made any new friends?”

  My friends are in San Francisco, Cordelia started to say, and then stopped. Her grandparents had already made her father feel bad enough.

  “A few,” she said.

  Mr. Liu smiled.

  “That’s great!” he said. “We’d love to meet them. You should invite them over.”

  “Maybe,” Cordelia said as they pulled in front of Shadow School. Mr. Liu eyed the near-empty parking lot.

  “You sure it’s okay to drop you off this early?” he asked.

  “Yup,” Cordelia said, quickly slipping out the door before he could change his mind. “Thanks for the ride!”

  The moment she entered the school, Cordelia heard raucous laughter in the main office. Students weren’t allowed in the building so early—and she doubted a staff member would fall for her whole “math review” excuse—so she dashed down the hallway before anyone noticed she was there.