by Zoe Aarsen
They looked like exactly the kind of shoes that Olivia had been shopping for the night she died, shoes that would match her homecoming dress.
The girl’s bare feet weren’t leaving footprints in the snow that had collected on the asphalt. Henry noticed this at the same time I did and he muttered in a barely audible voice, “What… the… hell.”
My blood ran ice-cold. I was certain, more certain than I’d ever been about anything, that we were looking at a ghost.
“Jesus,” Trey whispered next to me.
“We shouldn’t be driving down this road when it’s snowing! That’s Bloody Heather, don’t you get it? Just like in the story,” Mischa rambled. Her voice was more high-pitched than usual, as if she were about to break into tears. “Turn around! We can’t drive past her!”
Suddenly understanding why my scalp had been tingling and what it meant I had to do, I unbuckled my seat belt. “Wait for me,” I ordered Henry.
“What are you doing?” Trey asked, grabbing my arm as I opened the car door.
“If Mischa’s right, and that’s a ghost, then maybe she can help us. We still don’t know how to break Violet’s curse. Maybe she can tell us,” I said. It seemed logical that another entity from the spirit world might be able to explain why the spirits working with Violet wanted a sacrifice from her every month. And even though I was so afraid that my fingers were trembling as I pulled on my gloves, it seemed obvious to me that I was the only person in our car who stood any chance of getting an answer. “Just wait for me.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Mischa chanted. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, tightening her entire body into a ball.
Henry hesitated for a moment, his eyes fixed on the back of the girl walking through the snow in the beam of his headlights, before shaking his head and mumbling, “No. Don’t get out of the car. This is just too—”
“Henry,” I said firmly. “I have to.” I slowly climbed out of the back seat and left the car door opened by a crack behind me, fearful that a loud slam might make the specter ahead of me vanish—or worse, turn around to take me by surprise with a shockingly gruesome face.
Not knowing how to best establish contact with her, I fell into lockstep behind her, walking far enough to step outside of the bright safety of Henry’s high beams. I relied on the local legend of Bloody Heather to ask as if scripted, “Do you need a ride?”
The girl stopped walking as if she had been expecting me.
Fear decelerated my perception of time. My heart felt like it had slowed to a dangerously low speed. I could hear my own blood pumping through my ears, hot with fright. Thump. Thump. Thump. My breath was raspy, and I tried to focus to prevent myself from hyperventilating. Even though she must have sensed me behind her, she didn’t turn her head to look at me.
On legs so numb with fear I could barely feel them, I took a few steps forward to stand next to the girl. Nausea overwhelmed me. Behind me, I heard the Mercedes advance by a few feet. Only then did I dare to tilt my head slightly to the right to take a look at the ghost in profile. Her long dark hair hung in her face, obscuring her features, but even still I gasped, making a sound that sounded like, “Ha!”
She looked exactly like me.
Or, rather—I could only guess—exactly like what Jennie would have looked like if she were still alive at the age of sixteen, like me. My entire body went rigid with horror; I felt the muscles of my face distort involuntarily, and the bones of my fingers locked into position inside my gloves. The temperature outside felt as if it had dropped about thirty degrees since I’d stepped up alongside the ghost, who finally turned to face me, twisting her neck stiffly as if it were painful for her to move that way. Just as I expected from her profile, her full face was astonishingly familiar. It had been so very long since I’d looked at someone else who shared my appearance that for a second, I was convinced I was looking at my real twin. An emotion I’d never experienced before swelled in my throat, something halfway between the relief you feel when you find something you thought you’d lost forever and the simple but pure joy of climbing into your own familiar bed after spending time away from home.
With a trembling voice, I asked her, “Where are you headed?” Even if the ghost—Jennie—looked exactly like me, I was afraid she would disappear if I deviated from the Bloody Heather story line. She wasn’t transparent, as ghosts sometimes are in movies. But she was distinctly not flesh and blood, either.
“Ten Martha Road,” she replied in a monotone, slurring voice. This was how the legend went; the ghost requested an address where she wanted to be dropped off.
My heart skipped a beat. I bit into my lower lip so hard that I tasted blood. She’d given me my old address, the address of our house that had burned down on what was now the empty lot on my corner.
“Okay,” I said, choosing my next words carefully so as not to deviate too far from the dialogue that Bloody Heather was rumored to always have with the people to whom she appeared in the legend. “I know where that house is. I used to live there. My name’s McKenna. Do you know me?” Although the ghost had angled her face toward me, a white sheen covered her eyes kind of like cataracts, and they were fixed on a place behind my head as if she was looking past me. Just like Violet’s victims that we’d seen in Kirsten’s mirror back at the store, it was as if Jennie were aware of my presence but a layer of tissue or fabric in between us prevented her from actually seeing me even though I could see her.
“You’re my sister,” the ghost replied.
I could hear the staccato beat of blood coursing through my ears and wished I hadn’t insisted on confronting the ghost alone. Wished I weren’t close enough to smell the scent of blood wafting off her. The only voice I was able to squeeze out was barely audible. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jennifer Laura Brady,” she replied.
I hadn’t had a chance to even skim through the book Kirsten had given me about the behavior of spirits, but after having been tricked into believing that destroying Violet’s locket would break the curse, I knew that spirits—or ghosts—were perfectly capable of deceiving people, of tapping into their desires for their own purposes. “Prove it,” I whispered.
“How?” she asked.
“Tell me a story that only Jennie would know.” Now I was really straying from the Bloody Heather story, but I had to know if this spirit was really that of my twin before I could trust anything she told me. My heart felt as if it had paused in between beats, and I didn’t want to allow myself to feel the full rush of happiness that was building up inside of me for having been reconnected with Jennie until I was absolutely sure that it was her.
Staring straight ahead rather than looking at me, the ghost hesitated as if it was difficult for her to make her lips force out words before replying, “You left me in the tree.”
My heart resumed beating, flooding my body with a torrent of glee. I felt the urge to both cry and laugh, as if someone had stabbed me beneath the ribs and tickled me simultaneously. It was a ridiculous detail that only someone who’d grown up on Martha Road with us would know, which made me confident that the spirit standing next to me was definitely Jennie’s. One summer, Trey had taught Jennie and me how to climb the tall pine tree that used to stand in his front yard. When we’d reached the top branches, Jennie had been too afraid to climb down. After panicking for a while, Trey and I had run inside my house for help. My mother had called the fire department, and they’d sent a truck, sirens blaring. One of the firefighters had climbed a tall ladder to retrieve Jennie, who kicked and howled all the way down.
Then, the very next day, we’d climbed back up into the tree and Mom had had to call the fire department again.
“Yes, I did,” I agreed. I hadn’t thought about that tree in ages. Dad had cut it down after our second climb to the top. A tear escaped from my eye, and I wiped it away, grateful for the memory even though my whole body ached at the realization that that had been our last summer to
gether, the summer before Jennie died. “Sorry about that.”
The ghost took another step forward and resumed her slow-paced walking, as did I. I heard the Mercedes behind us rolling along on the snow.
I knew we didn’t have much time left to save Mischa, but if this was my one and only chance to reconnect with my deceased twin—to fill her in on eight long years of regret, guilt, and heartbreaking grief—I couldn’t waste the opportunity. I had to tell her how much Mom missed her, how she used to sit on the porch swing after the house fire and stare hopelessly toward the end of the street. I wanted her to know that Dad was so saddened by how much Mom missed her that he left us because it was easier for him to start a new life in Florida than deal with the grief that filled the walls of our house. I wanted to tell her how terrible it had been to go back to school and be the only Brady girl, when everyone in our small town knew that once upon a time, we’d been a pair. So I blurted, “Mom misses you so much. I mean, Dad does too, but Mom really… and I’m so sorry that I couldn’t—”
“There isn’t much time,” Jennie said, sounding as if she hadn’t even heard me. Without my even steering the conversation toward Mischa’s impending death, Jennie seemed to know exactly what we had driven out there to discuss with her. I wondered if this stretch of Route 32 was particularly easy for spirits to access, which was why the Bloody Heather legend had developed here, or if there was truth to Kirsten’s theory about paths accessed by spirits becoming wider and clearer with use. If that was the case, then Jennie had infiltrated the path often used by the real ghost of Bloody Heather specifically to connect with me. “There are two in line to die. The third is crossing over as we speak.”
Terrified that the car was going to frighten Jennie away, I whirled around and gestured wildly at Henry not to come any closer. I could barely see the car as I peered directly into the headlights, but I could see Mischa in the front seat, her eyes enormous with horror.
“Is Mischa one of them? Is she the one who’s dying now?”
“Next,” Jennie said ominously. “She will always be next until she’s dead.”
“Who else is in line to die?” I asked, wondering how many times Violet had read tarot cards for kids while I’d been away at Sheridan. “What are their names?”
Jennie coughed, startling me. “I don’t remember their names. It’s been so long.” She coughed again, this time her face wrinkling as if she were in distress. “I only see their shapes.”
According to the Bloody Heather legend, eventually the ghost would dissolve into a bloody mess in the back seat if she was offered a ride home to the destination she provided to the driver. Sensing that my time with Jennie was running out, I asked, “What’s causing all of this?”
“When the grandmother died, they surrounded Violet. She transfers souls at their command, one for each moon.” She grasped desperately at her throat again before sputtering, “She tried to transfer you, so I showed her my death to confuse her.”
I gasped in surprise and felt hot tears roll down my cheeks before I even sensed them welling up in my eyes. I had been wondering why Violet hadn’t been able to predict my death, and if Jennie had stepped forward to prevent her from dooming me. Even though it had seemed ridiculous, I’d been right. Jennie had saved me. I flinched when I noticed blood oozing between her teeth as she formed words.
“Is that why Violet said I was already dead?” I asked.
But instead of answering me, Jennie set me back on task. “To save Mischa, you have to stop them all.”
It felt as if the night went completely silent. For a few seconds, I wasn’t even aware of the crunching noise of my feet on the snow. Out on the track at school, when Violet had insisted there was nothing she could do to change the outcome of the game we’d played at Olivia’s party, she’d said, They don’t take requests. They just arrive, show me stuff, and leave. The way Jennie was referring to the spirits giving Violet her powers as “them” matched the way in which Violet had referred to them. There was more than one. We didn’t know what we were up against.
Jennie began coughing again, this time more violently. Her hands clutched her throat, and dark blood, black as ink, rocketed from her mouth in droplets. Even though I knew I wasn’t observing her actual death—she was already dead—but was instead seeing part of the routine that the Bloody Heather ghost went through each time she appeared to a witness, Jennie still seemed like she was in agonizing pain. I’d watched her die for real when I was eight years old, and I’d had nightmares about watching flames swallow her for the eight years that followed. There was nothing I could do to save her the night of the fire, and there was nothing I could do tonight either. An awful rotting smell blossomed in the night air around us.
I was vaguely aware of Sven’s ahead of us on the road, an old dive bar with a fluorescent COORS sign hanging in the window, which was usually mentioned at one point or another during retellings of the Bloody Heather legend. Its parking lot was pretty full despite the unrelated facts that it was snowing and it was Christmas Eve.
I asked, “Who are you talking about? Who are ‘they’? How many are there?”
Jennie’s raucous cough continued. More blood flew from her mouth, staining the snow ahead of her on the ground. Some of it sprayed onto me, sprinkling across my right cheek and the front of my jacket in a mist, but I tried to ignore it. The skin around her eyes began to darken.
“Five,” she sputtered. “There are five! Five sisters!” Her lips were growing darker. “Her dead sisters are her strength too.”
We’d put at least thirty feet between us and the Mercedes, and I heard it creeping up on us again but didn’t dare take my eyes off of Jennie. Through the falling snow, I saw the headlights in the distance of another car on the road coming our way. This was bad; outsiders posed a threat, whether they were other drivers who might pull over and see me with Jennie, or drunk bar patrons stumbling out of Sven’s. I sensed that I was going to lose Jennie in a matter of seconds. There were so many things I still needed to tell her—most important, how sorry I was that I’d abandoned her in our house as it burned to the ground—but I knew the information I received from her in these last remaining moments was our only chance at preventing Mischa from choking.
So I asked, “How do we stop them and save Mischa’s life?”
Jennie’s eyes bulged, and she gasped for air, clawing at her throat. Dark blood seeped from her eyes and nostrils.
“You must break the connection between Violet and the others,” Jennie whispered in between gagging coughs.
“How? How do we do that?”
Dark blood spilled out from between her lips as she replied, “The curse won’t be broken until they see Violet in their own realm.”
Barely able to believe what she was suggesting, I asked, “Do I have to kill Violet in order for Mischa to live?”
Jennie launched into a coughing fit so violent that I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to recover to answer. The other car on the road was about fifty feet ahead of us, close enough for me to observe that it was a station wagon. “Light as a feather.” She coughed. “Cold as marble.”
I shuddered. “What does that mean? Do we have to play the game with Violet again?”
The station wagon was passing me, and I sensed the driver behind its wheel craning his neck at me. I couldn’t tell if he could see Jennie or not, but he could definitely see me and was probably wondering why I was walking alone in a snowstorm with a Mercedes full of kids trailing behind me.
“Play the game and I’ll show you her death. It’s the only way.”
HONK!
I whirled around and saw that behind me, Henry had slightly swerved into the left lane and narrowly missed hitting the station wagon. He slammed on the brakes and slid right off the pavement and onto the gravel shoulder. The station wagon also slammed on its brakes, its back wheels skidding on the fresh snow.
I stole a glance over my shoulder and saw that Jennie was gone, but a dark puddle of blood remained on t
he snow where she’d just been standing. As if someone had just punched me in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of me, I doubled over in pain. She’d vanished without my having had a chance to tell her so many things I’d kept bottled up since second grade, and ask her if there was any message she wanted me to give to Mom on her behalf. And I’d failed to ask the most important question of all: How would I get in touch with her again?
The Mercedes rolled about forty feet behind where I stood on the road, finally coming to a stop right in front of Sven’s.
The driver of the station wagon had gotten out of his car and left it idling to walk across the snowy road toward me. He was middle-aged with a beard, wearing a heavy winter jacket unzipped to reveal a hideous holiday sweater. There were other people in the station wagon—probably his wife and kids.
When he got within a few feet of me, he asked, “Are you okay? What are you doing out here so late at night?”
“I’m okay,” I insisted, but my entire body was violently shaking from both the cold and the emotional intensity of what I’d just experienced. With my gloves, I wiped tears from my cheeks and knew that it must have looked very suspicious that I was clutching my stomach and crying on the side of the road while my friends watched from behind me in a warm car.
“Are those kids bothering you?” he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the Mercedes. Henry had gotten out of the car and was standing there with the door wide open, as if preparing to dash over and rescue me if necessary.
“No, no,” I assured him. “Those are my friends.” I wiped away snowflakes that had collected on my eyelashes, suddenly fully aware of how sinister it must have looked that I was walking along the highway with a car following so closely behind me.
“Then why aren’t you in the car with them? It’s freezing out here,” he said, sounding angry with me for not needing his help.
“McKenna,” Henry called. “Let’s go.”
To the driver of the station wagon, I lied: “Everything’s fine. It was just a game.” Then I trotted off across the snow toward the Mercedes, and Trey leaned across the back seat to push the door I’d left open more widely so that I could climb inside.