by Rose Cooper
“At least I have you, Pancake.” She held the unresponsive cat close, blinking back tears. “It’s okay. I feel the love.”
It wouldn’t be as bad if she at least knew what to expect. Those people in Beetlejuice had it way easier than her. They at least had their Handbook for the Recently Deceased.
As it started to get dark, Lucy still floated without direction, her mind spinning at a hundred miles per hour. Her emotions seesawed more than a first grader at recess. What did it matter what she did or didn’t do now? There was no point to anything, no life to live.
Lucy stared straight ahead, a bleak look on her face. She wanted to sleep for the rest of the day. Or even through this whole ghostly nonexistence thing. Then she wouldn’t have to think about it. Or feel anything.
She searched for a place to rest. It wasn’t like she could sleep in a human bed anymore. She had no idea, as a newborn spirit, how this was supposed to work. Should she just find a fresh mound of dirt in the cemetery? Or maybe a coffin?
A coffin sounded much more inviting. No, not the occupied ones six feet under. Dead people still creeped her out. But the funeral home was only a few yards away. They would be sure to have a display room with an assortment of comfy coffins.
Lucy chose the first coffin she laid eyes on, not even caring that it wasn’t the most expensive. Or that it was so last season.
And then, closing her eyes, she fell into a deep, ghostly sleep.
• • •
Anna was barely awake, so she only noticed Spencer standing at her locker the next morning when she was a few steps from it. Her stomach flipped nervously. She hesitated, then walked toward him cautiously.
“Hi,” she said as she twisted the dial of the lock.
“I need to talk to you,” Spencer said, almost whispering.
“About what?” Anna asked, opening her locker, relieved to not find a new surprise left for her.
“About Lucy Edwards.”
Anna looked directly at Spencer. “What about her?”
“I don’t feel comfortable talking about it here,” Spencer said. “Can you meet me after school? In the yearbook room? I have a class there last period and the teacher likes me. He’ll let me stay if I tell him I need to finish a project.”
“I don’t know.” Anna felt unsure about this meeting. If Spencer was the one who had left that picture of Lucy in her book, then he had probably put the rose in her locker too. She still didn’t know why, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
“Please. I really need to talk to you,” Spencer said.
Anna sighed. “Okay.”
• • •
After school Anna hurried toward the yearbook room. The school had emptied out. Her footsteps echoed eerily down the hallway.
The door opened into a classroom with only a dozen or so desks, and a brown leather couch up against the far wall. The bright fluorescent lights flickered and hummed above her.
“Spencer?” Anna said as she stepped inside. “Are you here?” She walked in a little farther.
There was another door at the back of the classroom. “Spencer?” she called again.
There was no answer, only silence. Anna walked to the door and pushed it open. “Spencer?” she tried again, entering a small, dimly lit room. The door automatically shut behind her. Spencer wasn’t there. It was empty. Anna felt a chill crawl up her spine as she looked at pictures lying on one of the shelves. She realized Spencer must’ve taken them.
It was obvious that Spencer wasn’t showing up. Anna turned to open the door, when she noticed a backpack lying on the ground next to a stack of papers. Maybe it was Spencer’s, she thought; maybe he had just run to the restroom. She wouldn’t know if it was his unless she opened it, she reasoned. As she bent down to unzip the backpack, she felt a twinge of guilt but pushed it away. She would wait for him if the backpack was his, but otherwise she wanted to get out of this room.
The bag opened, revealing the usual set of books and notebooks. She pulled out a notebook and looked at the inside cover, where Spencer’s name was written in cramped, scribbled letters. She shut the notebook and put it back in the backpack before she was tempted to look through it any further. As she stood up, one of the photo prints caught her eye and she moved closer to get a better look in the dim light.
There was a picture of Lucy, smiling. It was different from the photo Anna had found in her book. In this photo, Lucy was wearing an outfit that Anna recognized. It was the outfit Lucy still wore now. It was what she wore the night she became a spirit.
The night she…died.
Anna felt a chill crawl up her spine. She felt goose bumps on her arms. Suddenly it didn’t matter if Spencer was coming back to meet her or not. Anna wanted nothing more than to get out of there. She rushed back toward the door, pushing against it with all her might.
It didn’t move.
Anna pushed harder.
Nothing happened. The door wasn’t budging. She stepped back a few feet and ran at the door as hard as she could. It didn’t move an inch. She ran again, panic taking hold, and threw her shoulder full force into the door. She fell to the floor, holding her right shoulder, which throbbed in pain.
“Help! I’m stuck in here!” Anna yelled as loudly as she could.
Even as she did, though, the thought that no one would find her until morning ran through her mind. She had gotten locked in somehow. A frightening notion took hold of her: what if someone had purposely locked her in? But why? Was she in danger? She looked around the room. There was nothing dangerous in there. She doubted she’d die before morning. Still, her brain was in full panic mode. She had to get out of there. She was beginning to feel as if she was using up all the air in the room. She pulled out her phone. There were no bars. She tried calling Millie. Nothing happened. She moved to another corner of the room and tried again.
Nothing.
She walked around the room holding the phone, looking for reception. It was useless. What was she going to do? She put the phone back in her pocket and listened for any sounds coming from the other room. There was only silence. She waited one minute and then another, scanning the small room for something to help her escape.
She didn’t know how thick the door was—maybe it was so thick that she wouldn’t even hear someone on the other side, and they wouldn’t hear her. Fear rose in her throat at the realization of her situation.
“Help!” Anna cried again, unable to stay silent.
She wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but the thought of spending the night in the tiny, cramped space frightened her. Anna took a deep breath. She had to stay calm. Think, she told herself, you have to think. She started pacing back and forth. Her thoughts were racing so much it was hard to focus. She didn’t know what to do.
Besides, if someone had locked her in, they could come back in the middle of the night and get her. It was terrifying.
Then she remembered the shelf near Spencer’s backpack. There was more than one picture there, and Anna looked closely at all of them. There were eight shots of the party. Anna didn’t recognize the people in most of them, but some were familiar. One of them showed Eden laughing. Someone was in the background…in jeans, a black hoodie, and mud-coated sneakers.
Another picture was of Anna near the snack table. And although Millie should’ve been somewhere in the background, she wasn’t.
It was a good picture of her, Anna thought, although she also thought she looked a little lost and lonely. That meant that Spencer had been watching her that night.
The sound of the scraping against the door brought Anna immediately out of her thoughts. Terror surged through her body. A cold sweat broke out over her skin. There were no weapons within reach. Unless you counted a stapler.
Anna swung her bag onto one shoulder, prepared to swing it at whoever was coming into the room.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
The doorknob seemed to turn forever as Anna waited to see who was there. She saw a
hand and a flash of a gray shirt.
And then she swung her bag with all her might.
Anna felt her messenger bag connect with the person. He doubled over, clutching the bag to his stomach as it knocked him to the floor. She had been hoping to see his face, but there was no time to waste. This was her chance. She bolted for the door.
As Anna ran past him, he managed to grab the hem of her jeans. She struggled against him, kicking like crazy, finally connecting hard enough so that he grunted in pain and let go.
Anna pushed at the door in blind panic.
“Anna! It’s me, Spencer!”
Anna hesitated, hands against the wood, seconds from freedom. Should she trust him?
“C’mon. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Spencer said, sitting up. He clutched the side of his mouth, where, Anna realized, she had kicked him.
She turned toward him, hoping she was making the right decision. She sat down next to him and peered at his face in the dim light. “Are you okay? I’m sorry I kicked you. I got locked in here somehow and I didn’t know if you were coming in here to kill me or something.”
He gave her a strange look. “Why would I come in here to kill you? I had to run to my locker for a second and figured I’d be back in time to meet up with you. One of my teachers stopped me in the hall, though, and that’s why I was late.”
“Someone locked me in here,” Anna said, trying to breathe normally.
Spencer nodded. “I know. There was a chair wedged under the doorknob. I thought you decided not to show. But then I saw the chair. Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know.” Anna stared at the floor. Then, before she could stop herself, Anna was telling him the story of the rose in her locker, the yearbook photo in her textbook. And then she told him about Lucy. She felt herself relaxing a bit after blurting out so much, but she figured she didn’t know him well, so if he thought she was crazy, then who cared? And if he decided to tell everyone, then she’d deal with it.
“That’s pretty crazy,” he said when she was finished.
“I know! I thought I was losing my mind. But I’m not. It’s all real. I don’t know how, but it is,” Anna said, putting her head in her hands.
“I know it’s real,” Spencer said. “I think Lucy’s been haunting me too. Every night around midnight I’m woken up by freaky, unexplainable things happening.”
Anna looked up. “Really?” A sentence from Maxwell’s journal came to mind: Midnight till one: it belongs to the dead.
“Yeah. And I think I know why,” Spencer said glumly.
“Does it have anything to do with the photo you took of her? It’s from that night, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Spencer said. “And I think she believes I know what happened that night.”
“Do you?” Anna asked, staring at him.
Spencer sighed. “I know she went to the cemetery that night to meet Johnny.”
“But why?” It didn’t make sense.
Spencer ran a hand through his hair. “I think someone pretended to be Johnny and told her to meet him there.”
“What?” Anna was stunned.
Spencer sighed again. “I was outside taking pictures. Someone came out of the Ashbury house in jeans and a black hoodie.”
Anna’s mind was whirling. “Who do you think it was?”
“I’m not sure, but I followed them to the cemetery. And I happened to snap a photo of Lucy right before it all happened,” Spencer told her. “But that’s it. That’s all I know. But she won’t leave me alone.”
“Wow,” Anna said. “I’ll talk to her, but…just curious, why did you want to talk to me about Lucy in the first place?”
Spencer shrugged. “I saw you sitting with her in the cafeteria that day. She never really talked to anyone around school, so I thought maybe she was visiting you too.”
Anna laughed. “Good guess.”
• • •
It was Saturday morning. Anna stared out the window at the falling rain, her hands wrapped around a warm mug of hot chocolate. The tinkling of the bell sounded every time someone entered or left the Corner Café, which seemed to be every ten seconds. Her stomach growled at the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls and buttery biscuits.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the message.
Have you talked to him yet?
It was Lucy. Again.
Anna frowned.
I will. I am!
Finally!
Anna tugged on the edge of her beige knitted beanie, pulling it down farther until it touched the tips of her lashes. Her straight hair was already frizzing from the moisture, and her cheeks were pink from the cold morning air.
The door opened and Johnny walked in. “Hey,” he said, brushing some droplets from his jacket. He got a doughnut and mug of warm milk, then pulled up a chair and sat next to her.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Anna said. “I have a question for you.” There was no use beating around the bush.
“Shoot.” Johnny took a sip from his mug.
Anna decided to feel him out. “So, Johnny…let’s say hypothetically you were being haunted.”
Johnny gave her a funny look. “Ghosts?”
“Well, yeah. Like when someone dies, don’t you think they might hang around for a while after?”
Johnny bit into his doughnut. “Uh, no, I don’t really believe in that kind of stuff.”
“I used to be that way,” Anna said as her phone started to vibrate. “But I’m trying to be more open-minded now.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, ignoring the phone. “I was wondering…I know you said you don’t have a girlfriend, but—”
He set his cup down. “You’re not jealous of Eden, are you? Because if you were, that would be totally cool too.”
“Eden’s your girlfriend?” Anna asked, surprised. She hadn’t expected that.
Johnny shook his head, laughing. “No, but she’s fun to hang out with.”
“Like Lucy Edwards was?” Anna blurted out.
Johnny sighed. “Lucy and I weren’t even friends. I barely knew her. Why are you so curious about a dead girl?”
“I guess being new here, I’m just trying to figure everything out,” Anna said, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. Her phone buzzed again.
Did you talk to him about me yet??
No, she texted back. Stop texting me!
“I’m gonna get another doughnut,” Johnny said, getting up. “You want one?”
Anna shook her head.
She had to tell Lucy the truth. Johnny had never cared about her at all. Alive or dead.
Anna was dying to tell Millie about her phone. About Lucy. But she doubted Millie would respond the way Spencer had. It wasn’t likely she’d had a run-in with ghosts too.
She had played out several different scenarios in her head on how Millie might react to her news.
POSSIBLE REACTION #1
Anna: Hey, guess what? Ghosts are texting me.
Millie: *jaw drops*
POSSIBLE REACTION #2
Anna: Hey, guess what? I talk to dead people.
Millie: *rolls eyes* Yeah, right.
POSSIBLE REACTION #3
Anna: Hey, guess what? I communicate with the unliving.
Millie: What? You’re crazy! *runs for the hills*
But even though Anna was pretty positive she had prepared herself for every outcome, she was dead wrong.
This is how it went down.
Anna: So…I am, I mean…I can, uh…there are things…
Millie: Just spit it out.
Anna: Okay, so don’t freak, but…
Millie: Well, now I’m gonna freak. You can’t start off by telling me not to.
Anna: Well, I can kinda maybe sorta communicate with things. Like ghosts.
Millie: Shut the front door!
Anna: Huh?
Millie: That is unbelievable!
Anna: I knew you weren’t going to belie—
Millie: Awesom
e! So what are they saying?
Anna: You believe me?
Millie: Of course! I totally believe in stuff like that.
So telling Millie had been the easy part.
Now came the hard part: telling Lucy about Johnny.
She met with Lucy face to ghost on the porch steps of the Manor, hoping to break the news gently.
“What did you find out?” Lucy wrung her ghostly hands together.
Anna took a deep breath. “I…don’t think Johnny—”
“John,” Lucy corrected.
“Fine. I don’t think John was ever really your boyfriend.”
Lucy waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not interested in what you think. What did he say?”
“He said you were never his girlfriend. Maybe you got the wrong idea somehow and—”
“But he visited me a few days ago!”
Anna gave her a reproachful look. “You mean at your funeral?”
“And he brought me flowers,” Lucy went on stubbornly. “My favorite kind.”
“For your grave. And I was the one who suggested daisies, because I know you love daisies, remember?”
“But I gave him my heart!”
“I know you’re going through so much right now, but—”
“No, really.” Lucy pointed to her chest. “I gave him my heart. I think you should tell him to give it back until he’s done acting this way.”
Anna shook her head. “You’re exhausting, you know that? So how’s the haunting coming along? I’ve heard what you’ve been doing to Spencer. He doesn’t know any more than we do, you know.”
Lucy sighed. “I’m still learning the ropes of haunting people.”
“People?” Anna repeated. “Who else are you haunting?”
Lucy gave a small shrug. “John. Eden. Olivia.”