by James Dawson
Then the real thing started. ‘Bloody Mary,’ they all said, looking dead into the mirror. There was a pause and they repeated the refrain. How could they have been so stupid? Now, sat in the car, Bobbie wondered who or what in her life had led her to believe she was invincible. She thought of the girls in her year: drinking, smoking, eating junk as if none of it mattered, simply because they were young. They all assumed that bad things only ever happen to other people – old people. She’d been just as dumb. They’d played Russian roulette and got the bullet.
In the video, as they finished the fifth ‘Bloody Mary’, Bobbie scrutinised the clip. The candles flickered, and for a second the video was almost pitch-black. The room settled before they’d burst into hysterics. Bobbie held the phone centimetres from her eyes, desperately looking for a hint of the girl in the mirror, but at the same time scared to see her face. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘It’s not something to see. Listen,’ Caine told her. He reached over and bumped the volume up to full. Their laughter and chatter became noisier. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘Us?’
‘No. In the background.’ Bobbie shook her head and Caine held the speaker to her ear. That was when she heard it. Behind all their giggling, a baby was crying. It was faint but unmistakeable. The baby howled, the cries rattling inside her skull. There was something unique about that noise – a crying baby – a noise you instinctively have to stop; hearing such distress was unbearable.
‘Oh my God.’ Bobbie stopped the video. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘Is there any way there could have been a baby in school?’ Caine asked.
‘Well, we do have a mother and baby wing,’ Bobbie deadpanned.
‘Serious?’
‘What do you think? I’m kidding!’ Bobbie smiled and Caine smiled back. He was gullible and it was kind of cute. ‘There’s no babies at Piper’s Hall … this … baby … it can’t be real. It’s her.’
Mark shook his head in disbelief. ‘You know what – I think you are getting each other all fired up. I am not buying all this Woman in Black shiz.’
Bobbie looked to Caine, who looked back sympathetically. ‘It’s all real,’ she said. ‘I had another dream last night. About her. I think she’s trying to show me why she killed herself.’ Caine frowned, and turned to sit properly in the passenger seat. ‘What?’ she prompted.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just … just that I’ve been having weird dreams too.’
Bobbie sat forward, clinging to the back of his chair. ‘About what?’
‘I dunno. They were … I don’t wanna say.’
Mark rocked back in his seat, laughing. ‘Oh my days! You had a proper filthy dream! You have to tell us, man!’
Even with his skin tone, Caine visibly blushed. He said nothing. ‘Caine, it might be important … ’ Bobbie said, although she suddenly felt the most irrational jealousy of her life towards the dream girl.
‘You know what?’ Caine finally admitted. ‘I couldn’t talk about it even if I wanted to. I was so out of it … I mean, in the dream it was half like it was me and half like I was watching it.’
‘That’s how I felt too.’
Mark carried on cackling. ‘Dude … it was hot though, right?’
Caine said no more, but a coy smirk crossed his lips and Bobbie experienced her second ever swoon.
The Royal Seahaven Hospital didn’t look unlike Piper’s Hall, except the hospital was set amongst the outskirts of woodland, making the approach feel even more intimidating somehow. As Mark drove down the long, oak-lined drive, Bobbie recalled The Shining and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and suddenly this didn’t seem like such a great idea.
The trees cleared and the hospital came into view. It was an old building with modern features artificially grafted to its bones – gleaming handrails and sliding doors on an antique hospital. It did nothing to make the place any more inviting.
Mark drove past the ambulance bay, following signposts towards the psychiatric unit. The Charity Sawyer Ward was set behind the main hospital, a square structure with square windows neatly arranged in parallel lines – not a curved edge anywhere in sight so as not to upset the mad people within, Bobbie thought.
‘I gotta get back to school for second period. I can come back period three if you need me to.’
‘Nah, it’s cool – we can get the bus into Oxsley,’ Caine suggested, and Bobbie nodded agreement. At this stage, she was so nervous she could taste bitter bile at the back of her mouth. This didn’t feel like playing or ‘being mischievous’ any more; this was serious – they were about to break into a hospital to interrogate a person with a mental illness.
That was the whole problem, though. What if Bridget Horne wasn’t ill? Or what if she was and they were seeing things too? Bobbie wished she’d grabbed something to eat before she left school; her whole body felt hollowed out and empty, like the rotting jack-o’-lanterns left over from the weekend.
‘You okay?’ Caine sensed her unease.
‘Not really. We could get in serious trouble for this. Like police trouble.’
He shook his head. ‘We’re just visitors. There’s no law against that.’
Bobbie nodded, trying to absorb some of his calm by osmosis. Caine got out of the car and she followed, smoothing down her outfit. On the drive over, she’d let down her hair and swapped the sunglasses for her usual ones. ‘We’re just paying a visit,’ Bobbie said to herself as much as Caine.
Mark pulled away, heading back to Radley High, leaving them in front of the mental hospital. It was surprisingly quiet. Bobbie had half expected there to be wailing, flailing mad people struggling inside straightjackets, even if she knew that was purely TV territory.
A first few marble-sized drops of rain spattered onto the tarmac. ‘Come on, let’s get inside.’ Caine put an arm around her and steered her up the steps. Automatic doors slid open, and the reception area was pretty much like any doctor’s surgery: a desk, a couple of padded chairs in eggshell blue, tatty posters about how one in four of us will experience mental-health problems. The only difference was that the room was secure. Access to the rest of the building was behind tightly shut security doors, guarded by a man in uniform.
Bobbie forced herself to smile for the receptionist. ‘Hi, we’re here to see Bridget Horne, please.’
The receptionist, an impossible-to-age, obese woman with a red face and salt-and-vinegar odour, tapped something into her computer. ‘Okay, sweetheart. Take the lift to the third floor and there’s a waiting room.’
Bobbie almost keeled over. Surely it couldn’t be that simple. There was an obnoxious honking noise and the security light above the double doors changed from red to green. ‘Go on through,’ said the guard. ‘Third floor.’
Not needing to be told twice, the pair hurried through. As soon as they were in the lift, Bobbie exhaled for what felt like the first time in five minutes. ‘Why was I so nervous?’
‘I know,’ Caine agreed. ‘I guess it’s just a hospital.’
The lift arrived at the third floor and they stepped out into another NHS room, only this one had Radio 2 playing at a low volume. It had that awful hospital smell – alcohol hand gel mixed with vomit and disinfectant. The air was oddly sweet too, like someone had been spraying room freshener.
This time Caine approached the reception desk. ‘Hi, we’re here to see Bridget Horne.’
The nurse at the station – a handsome ginger-haired guy in his twenties – looked surprised. ‘You’re here to see Bridget?’
‘Yeah,’ Bobbie said. ‘Friends of the family.’
The nurse – David, according to his name badge – looked her up and down sceptically. ‘Bridget doesn’t get visitors other than her mother.’
‘I know. It was her mum who asked if we’d come. I think she wants Bridget to see more people … ’ Bobbie felt awful lying. Bridget was alone and her only visitors were here for selfish reasons.
‘Can you wait here, please?’ David swiped a se
curity pass through a card reader and entered the ward. Craning her neck, Bobbie looked through the glass in the door. He was talking to another nurse or a doctor – it was hard to tell when they all wore those pyjama scrubs. Eventually, he returned with a kind-faced Asian woman dressed in normal clothes.
‘Hi, I’m Dr Kahn. David says you’d like to visit Bridget?’
‘Yes please,’ Caine said.
‘I have to say, this is quite unusual. Bridget is a very anxious patient, and doesn’t really enjoy visits – not even from her mother.’
Bobbie could see this failing, but it only made her more determined. They’d got this far. ‘Please. I … we just want to help.’ That much was true. Anything they could do to stop Mary might help Bridget too. Dr Kahn didn’t seem convinced, so Bobbie jumped in again. ‘Please. If you could just tell her that … that … we’re on day three.’ Instinctively she knew she shouldn’t mention Mary’s name.
Dr Kahn looked even more confused but, with a sigh, swiped her way back onto the ward, leaving them in reception. When she returned moments later, the bafflement on the doctor’s face was next level. ‘Okay. This is very strange, but she says she’ll see you.’ Behind the desk, David dropped his pen in shock. ‘Do either of you have mirrors on you, or anything reflective at all? We can’t have any mirrors on the ward – it triggers Bridget’s psychosis.’
Bobbie rummaged through her satchel and found a pressed powder compact with a mirror inside the lid that actually belonged to Naya. She handed it to David who placed it behind the counter. Caine gave over his phone, which had a shiny chrome cover.
The nerves were back. As Dr Kahn led them onto the ward, Bobbie’s tummy crunched painfully. Without thinking about it, almost like her hand was seeking its own comfort, her fingers found Caine’s. He gave her hand a squeeze.
The patients were an eclectic bunch. From what Bobbie could tell, this must be a mixed ward – mixed nuts (why her brain thought now was the time to make lame and offensive puns was anyone’s guess). The ward didn’t look unlike a classroom: in the centre of a shared area there were two large tables set out for activities. There was a man in his forties, receding hair slicked down on his head, painstakingly cutting letters out of a magazine. The scissors precisely followed the edge of the R he was cutting. On the other side of his table a black woman with a shaved head was writing in a diary in the most minute handwriting Bobbie had ever seen, almost as if she had challenged herself to write in the smallest letters ever. The microscopic notes filled entire pages.
On the next table, a younger patient, a guy not much older than them, was having a tantrum, a nurse calmly trying to reason with him as he stamped his feet. ‘Okay.’ Dr Kahn stopped them outside the door to a side room. ‘Bridget doesn’t really leave her room, so you’ll have to see her in there.’
‘That’s cool,’ Caine said, although he now looked twitchy. Bobbie could feel the palm of his hand, red hot against her skin. Dr Kahn opened the bedroom door, but Bobbie saw only darkness inside – the curtains drawn. With a clenched jaw, and clutching Caine’s hand like a security blanket, she entered the shadows.
Chapter 13
Bridget
It took Bobbie’s eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. Thick drapes hung over the single window, letting only pencil-grey light bleed in around the edges. Bobbie could make out rough shapes – a single bed, an empty desk under the window, a single plastic chair, a functional wardrobe. Like trying to find a specimen in the nocturnal house at the zoo, it was only on second glance that she even realised there was a figure in the room.
Bridget was pressed into the corner where her bed met the wall, sitting with her knees tucked under her chin – the exact same way Bobbie had crouched on that toilet in her dream. Only the whites of her eyes were immediately visible. She peered out through curtains of greasy brown hair, which hung over her shoulders. Bobbie wondered how long it had been since she’d seen the sun – her face was so pale it was ghostly, with raccoon circles around each sunken eye. ‘Hello, Bridget, these are your vis—’ Dr Kahn began.
‘You called her, didn’t you?’ Bridget slurred. It was hard to age her; on the one hand she looked haggard, older than her thirty years, but at the same time she seemed like a frightened little girl, curled up in a ball on the bed.
Bobbie’s eyes widened and she gripped Caine a little tighter. He gripped back.
Dr Kahn spoke again. ‘Bridget is taking some quite powerful anti-psychotics, that’s why she’s so drowsy.’
It seemed to take Bridget a great deal of effort to hold her head up. It hung to one side – her posture not unlike the silhouette Bobbie had seen in the corridor two nights ago. ‘Leave us alone.’ Bridget peered at Dr Kahn.
‘I’m not sure that’s such a –’
‘It’s fine,’ Bobbie assured the doctor.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Okay. I’ll be just outside if you need anything.’ Reluctantly, Dr Kahn left, closing the door behind her.
‘Do you want the light on?’ Caine asked Bridget.
‘No.’
Bobbie gestured at the plastic chair. ‘May I?’
‘Doesn’t matter, does it?’ Bridget picked at a corner of her pillow with fingernails she’d bitten down to the quick. ‘You’ve only got a day and a half left, you can do what you want.’
On the chair there was a large wash bowl with a bedpan and jug inside. Bobbie realised that Bridget never left this room – certainly not to go to a bathroom. Bathrooms had mirrors in. Not making a fuss, Bobbie placed the apparatus under the chair and sat on it. Caine hovered at her side, unsure of what to do with his hand now that she’d returned it. ‘We saw your blog,’ Bobbie started. ‘I’m Bobbie, by the way, and this is Caine.’
‘She told me your names.’
Bobbie glanced up at Caine. ‘What?’
‘She knows you now. You let her in. She can see inside you. She knows you. Always looking in through windows.’
Swallowing hard, Bobbie said: ‘We did the summoning. In Piper’s Hall.’
Bridget giggled. ‘Why else would you be here? I knew it’d happen when everyone forgot about us. While people remembered what happened to us, no one would be fool enough to say her name. I guess we’re old news now – day-old bread. Time for the next generation.’
‘Forgot about who?’ Caine asked, clearing his throat.
‘Me and Abi and Tay.’ Maybe it was the darkness, or perhaps the medication, but Bridget’s swollen pupils were gaping black holes in her face, drawing Bobbie in.
‘W-what happened to them?’ Bobbie tripped over her words. ‘I’m sorry to ask, but if there’s any way we can stop it from happening to us.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Please … ’
‘Five days,’ she snapped. ‘You get five days and that’s it. It’s all wound up and then it just tick, tick, ticks away until time runs out. You wound it up and you can’t stop the clock.’
‘Please, Bridget. Tell us what happened. We’ll believe you.’
She seemed to perk up at that, snapping out of her rut. When she spoke she was animated, bordering on manic. ‘There was a house party in Oxsley. Some girl, she had a really pointy face, was telling us why she was so scared of Piper’s Hall – a ghost story about a girl called Mary who threw herself off the cliffs into the sea. There was an urban legend – although I never understood why it’s urban given that the school’s in the middle of the countryside – that if you called her name five times she’d appear in the mirror.
‘We all thought it was a load of crap of course, but when we got back to Piper’s Hall – we were in Upper One – Abi thought it’d be hilarious to give it a whirl. That’s Abi for you – nothing’s too stupid to try … I remember once she snorted sherbet because she heard you got high off it. I swear she sneezed for an hour afterwards.’ Bridget chuckled wildly at the memory. ‘We did it in the Uppers’ Common Room toilets. It was just the three of us – we even
lit a candle, just like in the story. Taylor had the worst fit of giggles ever – it took us about a year to say her name … ’
Caine chipped in: ‘Bloo—’
‘DON’T SAY IT!’ For the first time, Bridget moved. She sprang across the bed, agile as a cat, and clamped a hand over Caine’s mouth. His eyes widened with shock. ‘Don’t say it,’ she whispered. ‘Never say it. Haven’t you learned? She’s always listening in.’ She let go and Caine backed away with shaking breath.
‘What happened next?’
Bridget crawled back onto the bed, returning to her den like Gollum. ‘We said it once, then twice, then three times, then four times … and then I stopped. I saw something in the corner of my eye. Right at the back of the mirror something shuffled around. Like we’d woken something up. You don’t keep prodding a sleeping bear, do you? So I stopped at four times. Tay and Abi said her name a fifth time though. They didn’t see. They didn’t stop.’
‘You only said it four times?’
Bridget nodded. ‘It was enough though. Enough to let her in. She’s waiting on the line for number five.’ The girl started to rock gently back and forth. Her foot started tapping. ‘Always waiting for me to say her name.’
Bobbie couldn’t sit still a moment longer. She joined Bridget on the bed and placed a hand on her knee to stop the tapping. ‘Bridget, it’s okay. That was years ago … she isn’t coming for you.’ It all made sense. Bobbie had been living with this for three days, whereas it had been hanging over Bridget for more than thirteen years. It was no wonder.
‘I see her in my dreams. I see the graveyard. She hasn’t forgotten me … she’s waiting for me to slip up.’
‘What happened after you summoned her?’ Caine asked. ‘Did you start seeing stuff?’
‘We broke up for the Easter holidays the next day. We all went home. I was in Italy and I hadn’t thought about it, until I got a text from Abi. At the time I didn’t think anything of it … why would I? I was clueless … stupid little idiot in front of a mirror … say her name five times.’