The Girl and the Ghost

by Ebony McKenna

  Olivia and Kaz fell into each other as they laughed and tried – and failed – to get their breaths back after racing up the stairs. Overdoing it, Morgan thought. But they were here now, they’d seen it. All she could do was minimise the damage.

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone?’ She begged, shoulders slumping in defeat as her heart rate eventually returned to normal.

  Everything Kaz and Olivia looked at gave them something new to laugh about. Not simply laughing, but laughing so hard they snorted.

  ‘It’s too much!’ Tears rolled down Olivia’s cheeks.

  ‘Princess!’ Kaz cackled as a fresh bout of falling about, snort-laughing took hold.

  Embarrassment shrank Morgan’s body.

  Emma finally made it up the stairs, nibbling at a fresh cupcake in her hand. ‘What going on?’

  ‘Look at this room!’ Kaz said, waving her hand about to encompass all the pink. She and Olivia laughed again, holding their hands to their stomachs.

  ‘I really like it!’ Emma said, looking about.

  Mentally, Morgan put Emma at the top of her friendship totem pole.

  Dave turned up with the rest of the cupcakes on a tray, and a face full of smug satisfaction. ‘Are you going to do your homework up here then?’

  Morgan side-eyed him. ‘You’ll keep.’

  Every time Morgan thought Kaz and Olivia might wind down with the guffaws, they’d start up again, caught in a loop. Kaz’s hysterical cackles would set Olivia right off, to the point where no sound came out. She simply jiggled on the spot in silent laughter, tears streaming down her face.

  The cupcakes wobbled on Dave’s tray.

  Emma looked at Morgan and made a cuckoo hand motion beside her head. ‘They’ve lost it. We may as well go back to the kitchen.’

  ‘I’ll put these over here.’ Dave approached the chaise longue to put the plate of cakes down.

  ‘NO!’ a floating male voice boomed out.

  Like flicking a switch, Kaz and Olivia stopped laughing. Dave froze mid-bend. Emma’s breath hitched. Morgan jolted in shock.

  ‘What was that?’ A rapidly whitening Kaz asked.

  All eyes turned to Morgan for answers.

  The tray wobbled in Dave’s hand as he straightened and looked about the room, eyes wide with fear.

  The disembodied voice yelled, ‘LEAVE! AT ONCE!’

  It was a harsher tone than Morgan remembered, but she knew the cadence and well-rounded vowels could only belong to George.

  Olivia and Kaz screamed in unison. They pushed past Morgan and Emma to get out of the way, fast. An ashen-faced Dave kept trying to find where the voice was coming from.

  A naughty grin crept over Morgan’s face. From now on if her friends teased her about the colour of the room, she could tease them right back about how quickly they had freaked out.

  ‘Relax everyone, it’s just my ghost,’ she said. For a moment she wondered why she’d used the words ‘my ghost’, as if she owned him. She could have said ‘the ghost’ or ‘a ghost’. With all the screaming going on, maybe it was her way of elevating herself, as if she had some kind of control over him?

  Total wishful thinking.

  ‘I’m sorry George, my friends can get a bit noisy,’ Morgan said to the empty furniture. She assumed he’d be sitting there. That’s where she’d first seen him, that’s where he’d returned after each disappearance.

  Dave followed her eye line and looked at the chaise. The setting sun cast orange streaks through the window. Morgan’s friends huddled behind her, using her as a human shield.

  The form of a gentleman from a bygone era appeared. Instead of sitting, he stood beside the chaise, dressed in those glossy black riding boots, slimline pants, dapper high-buttoned shirt and jacket. Emma, Kaz and Olivia made weird noises in shock.

  Dave walked backwards to the doorway. ‘Oh. My. God!’

  The sun made a halo of George’s wavy hair. Morgan grinned at the sight of him. He didn’t half look like he meant business. Brilliant!

  Then George said in a low, steady voice, ‘Leave this sanctuary!’

  The girls’ screams deafened Morgan as they fled her room. Even Dave gave a yelp as he bolted out. He took a few steps down before he stopped and called back, ‘Come on, get away from that.’

  She should be scared, she really should, but instead of fearing him, Morgan smiled in wonder. George’s timing was excellent. He’d proven she hadn’t lied about having a ghost in her room and he’d shut them right up about the embarrassingly kitsch colour scheme.

  ‘You may leave too,’ George said.

  That stopped her. ‘Me? What did I do?’

  ‘You brought that noisy harem into my sanctuary. I am neither an amusement in a travelling circus, nor some sniggering curiosity. And I am most certainly not here for your convenience.’

  ‘You got that right!’ Anger made her fingers twitch and her lips tighten. Her heart rate hammered as if she’d raced up the stairs all over again. ‘In case you didn’t notice, I tried to stop them coming in.’

  ‘At which you were a spectacular failure.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Morgan?’ It was Dave’s voice but she couldn’t see him. He had to be standing even further down the stairs than before. ‘Probably best we get going.’

  ‘Stuff that!’ Morgan stepped closer to George. Close enough to make out the colour of his eyes, a glittering light brown and green. She didn’t think it possible, but her pulse hammered even faster at how confident she’d become. ‘You are in my room, George. I can have whoever I want up here and there is nothing you can do about it!’

  George’s lips quirked in amusement as he stood there, staring at her.

  Morgan flushing in frustration. ‘Are you winding me up?’

  ‘Why do you ask? Are you a clockwork automaton?’ This time he smiled, not so much that he showed any teeth, but enough to soften his face and make tiny crinkles around his eyes. The late sun beamed through him.

  Something unfurled inside her. No, not possible. The dead did not flirt.

  Morgan shook the cobwebs from her head. She made it a habit not to talk to boys because they annoyed her so much with their assumptions about who she was and what she was like. And they were hypocrites too. A boy could kiss a few girls over a school year and his mates patted him on the back, yet she’d kissed one boy at the school dance last year and they called her ‘Plastic Slapper’, as they walked past her in the halls. Adding to the insult, it hadn’t even been a particularly good kiss either.

  George looked Morgan up and down. ‘You are barely more modestly attired than at our last meeting. Your friends favour the same fashion.’

  ‘It’s our school uniform.’ Morgan looked down at her skirt, which ended past her knees. So tame by current standards, but compared to Victorian times she was probably showing way too much shin.

  ‘You attend school away from your house?’

  ‘Of course we do.’

  ‘Girls attending school, how brazenly progressive. And in those clothes. I do wonder what they teach you.’

  His superior tone had Morgan on the defensive, so she reeled off a list of subjects. ‘English, Maths, Science. . .’

  ‘Deportment?’ He raised one mocking eyebrow.

  Morgan put her hands on her hips and pressed on. ‘ . . . Coding, Chemistry, Robotics, Humanities.’

  George scratched his head. From somewhere down the stairs, her friends shuffled position, probably daring each other to sneak a look back into her room.

  ‘Sewing? Music?’ George asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What a waste of a beautiful girl.’

  That had her reeling. As far as Morgan was concerned, sewing was something you did in your spare time. As a hobby. Or an elective if you seriously wanted a career in fashion, and Morgan really wasn’t interested in that. But he’d also called her beautiful, which was all kinds of distracting.

  George stopped pacing around her and halted, one hand behind his back, the othe
r hand pontificating in the air. ‘I have come to a decision. Henceforth, you will clothe yourself appropriately –’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘– I am not finished. You will clothe yourself appropriately before entering my sanctuary. Which brings me to my next point. No person shall enter without my express permission, have I made myself clear?’

  ‘We’ve been through this. This is my room. I can do whatever I want.’

  ‘Which brings me to my next point. It is not appropriate; indeed, it is most scandalous, for us to be in the same room without a chaperone. You will find another chamber.’

  Morgan stared at him. ‘You’re a ghost! You can’t tell me what to do or what to wear!’

  ‘Corporeal or not, being unaccompanied in the same room cannot continue.’

  Morgan threw her hands in the air in frustration. ‘It’s not like anything can happen.’

  ‘That remains to be verified.’

  That had her taking a step back. After last night’s lack of sleep, she’d thought about staying in the spare room. Plus, all that pink really had to go. Yet now that George was demanding she leave, she dug her heels in and wanted to stay. ‘You can find somewhere else. This is my room and I’m staying!’

  ‘We shall see about that!’ George said.

  ‘ – ’ Morgan readied a rebuttal but George vanished from sight. A grunt of frustration flew out of her as she looked about the empty bedroom. ‘That’s not fair! You can’t disappear just because you’re losing an argument!’

  She turned to see half of Dave’s face peering around the doorway. The rest of him hidden behind the wall. ‘You’re either incredibly brave or stupid. I’m not sure which.’

  ‘Can you believe the nerve of him? Telling me to what to wear and where to go. Not likely, mate.’

  ‘What?’ Dave’s face turned whiter than white.

  ‘Telling me I need a chaperone. So last century. I can’t even . . . urgh!’

  ‘You . . . heard it?’ Dave trembled as he took a step back and held on to the banister.

  ‘Him. Yes. Why?’

  Dave swallowed a few times, shook his head and looked more confused. ‘All I could hear were howling noises. And you were standing there talking about school subjects. To nobody.’

  That made Morgan stop. ‘Howling? He’s a ghost not a wolf. Hang on. ‘Nobody’? He was right here.’

  They boggled at each other, then Dave shook his head again and took the stairs down to the kitchen.

  Morgan followed him. The sun fell behind clouds and the world outside turned darker. It should only be four thirty or so, but the oven clock said it was an hour later. The girls were huddled around the kitchen’s island bench, shoving cup cakes into their mouths.

  ‘You’re OK?’ Kaz flew at her and gave her such a tight hug it pushed the air out of her lungs.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said when Kaz let go and she could draw breath.

  ‘That was amazing. There were all these screeches and moans and you stood there completely unafraid!’ Kaz said.

  ‘More like wailing,’ Olivia said.

  ‘And groaning,’ Kaz added.

  ‘Hang on.’ Morgan shook her head. ‘He was speaking normally. Well, normally for eighteen eighty something at any rate.’

  Now it was her friends’ turn to shake their heads.

  Morgan asked, ‘You couldn’t hear him?’

  Kaz put her hands up in a ‘trust me’ kind of way. ‘Not words exactly, but, lot of weird noises.’

  ‘You’re a medium,’ Emma said.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Morgan said, shoving a cupcake into her mouth.

  ‘I thought I saw something,’ Olivia said. ‘An old man wearing a long white . . . or maybe it was grey . . . long night shirt sort of thing.’

  Hang on, George looked nothing like that.

  ‘It was fuzzy,’ Emma said.

  ‘Like a cloud,’ Olivia said.

  ‘Yeah, fuzzy and cloudy,’ Emma said.

  They clearly hadn’t seen anything and were only pretending.

  At the end of the table, Kaz had her phone out.

  ‘Please don’t tweet!’ Morgan begged as her friend tapped at her screen.

  ‘This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened, ever!’ Kaz said. ‘You’ve got a spooky ghost in your room. This is huge!’

  Morgan buried her face in her hands and felt the last vestiges of her privacy disappearing faster than George falling through the floor.

  5

  Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

  Twelve cupcakes into four girls didn’t last very long. Kaz, Emma and Olivia scarfed them down as they re-lived what they’d seen, or what they’d convinced themselves they’d seen, and the strange noises they swore they’d heard.

  ‘Told you we had a ghost,’ Dave said to Kaz

  ‘You’ve got a howler,’ Kaz said.

  ‘He wasn’t howling he was speaking perfectly normally.’ Morgan gathered the cake crumbs off her plate with her finger.

  Emma asked, ‘Then what did he say?’

  If Olivia or Kaz had asked that question, Morgan would know they were teasing, but Emma had a gentle soul and hardly ever teased. Not as much as the other two anyway. ‘He said he didn’t want me in the room and that I should wear clothes that covered me up more.’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘Seriously, Morgan, all we heard were moans and groans.’

  ‘I really thought I heard something,’ Kaz said.

  ‘I swear I saw something too,’ Olivia said.

  They were getting nowhere. It didn’t look like they’d get any homework done either. Which was the whole reason the three of them had come home with her. They hadn’t even opened their textbooks. What a time slurp!

  ‘It’s getting on,’ Dave said as he put a chicken in the oven to roast and set the timer.

  ‘I’m not going home on my own,’ Emma said with a shudder. ‘Not after this.’

  She had a point. Morgan wondered if she might sleep downstairs tonight after all. Maybe they had seen a ghostly, shadowy blur after all and Morgan was the one seeing strange lads?

  That didn’t explain the moaning noises they claimed to hear, while she’d had a perfectly lucid conversation.

  If her parents were here, the big old (on the outside) house wouldn’t feel so empty. Dave was here, but knowing him he’d get her even more wound up.

  Kaz said, ‘I’ve texted Mum, she’ll pick me and Olivia up in fifteen.’

  Dave gathered their empty plates and put them in the dishwasher. ‘All right, Emma? I can give you a lift home if you like.’

  ‘Thanks Dave. But we can’t leave Morgan here by herself,’ Emma said.

  Exactly what Morgan thought, although she didn’t say it on account of wanting to be the brave one of the group.

  ‘Of course you’re coming too. We can stop at the shops on the way back, we’re out of lasagne sheets,’ Dave said.

  Morgan’s phone vibrated. It was her mother, telling her she’d be home in half an hour. Relief washed over her. Even after her friends left, she’d only be alone for about quarter of an hour, max. She could sit in the kitchen with all the lights on for a while, no dramas. Plus, if Morgan left with Dave and Emma, her mother would end up coming home to an empty house. An empty, haunted house.

  ‘It’s OK everyone, Mum’s on her way, I’ll sit tight and wait here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Emma said.

  Not really.

  ‘Dave, I’ve got two younger brothers,’ Emma said. ‘You need to finish up with the Parkers and come to ours. My father’s idea of cuisine involves shoving everything in the slow cooker.’

  ‘A crime against food,’ Dave said with a shake of his head. ‘Alas, Mrs Parker needs my culinary expertise for the cooking show.’

  No, Dave, don’t talk about the –

  Kaz pounced. ‘The what?’

  – program.

  ‘Didn’t Morgan tell you?’ Dave said with a wink. ‘Rachelle’s got a show on The Cooking
Channel and I’ll be on hand to test recipes and prep for it.’ He adopted a mock-sinister tone and tented his fingers. ‘I have a cunning plan to get my own segment, then I’ll shove Rachelle out the way and I’ll be the star.’

  Morgan glared daggers at Dave, wishing she could slap gaffer tape over his mouth.

  The girls all talked at once with a waterfall of, ‘how exciting’, ‘awesome’, and ‘brilliant’.

  Morgan’s life was spiralling out of control before her eyes. If her friends knew about the cooking show, everyone at school would know about it as well, and they’d see her family’s massively huge and expensive kitchen. With its marble benches, chandelier-inspired extraction fans, three ovens and two five-burner stove-tops, it was a TV chef’s dream.

  Any wonder people thought Morgan was a spoiled brat when the media loved to show off their pampered life. Her parents had once tried to explain that their children were having as normal an upbringing as possible, but the headlines only screamed, ‘Poor Little Rich Kids.’

  Maybe she could lie and tell people it wasn’t really their kitchen but a studio instead?

  Maybe when she turned eighteen, she could access some of her trust fund and move into a flat in town, away from all the cameras?

  By the time Kaz’s mum arrived to collect Kaz and Olivia, and Dave left to drive Emma home, Morgan had become so lost in her own imagined panic about her friends gossiping about the cooking show, she’d forgotten all about staying behind in the old house on her own.

  With only a ghost for company.

  The quiet hit Morgan like a slap. Noisy chatter one moment, echo-y silence the next.

  It felt weird. Uncomfortable even. Sure, there had been many times when Morgan had been by herself since they’d moved in. She’d relished the peace and quiet then; able to get plenty of homework done at the kitchen table. Dave might have the day off, Mum might be at a charity dinner, Dad would be working late as usual. The man worked phenomenal hours, now that she thought about it. Especially in the last year and a half. He practically lived at work. Some nights she wondered if he came home at all.