Breathe: A Ghost Story (Fiction - Middle Grade)

by Cliff McNish

  No one fought her the way Oliver did. His spirit bit and clawed to keep her off him, and had this been her first child no doubt he would have escaped to the Other Side. But the Ghost Mother was experienced by now, and so she held him and held him until his loved ones were gone. And then she said to Oliver, as she had said to each of the others, “I will love you now. Don’t resist me. I will love you more than your own mother ever did,” and she took one small sip of his soul to keep him with her. But that was all she ever took from him. Oliver never allowed her near him again, and afterwards she came to realize that he hated her more than any of the others ever had, hated her so much that he was a constant thorn in her side and if she could have rid herself of him she would have.

  The Ghost Mother released her hands from Jack—and he stared at her in revulsion.

  He backed away, feeling for the wall.

  The Ghost Mother smiled darkly, then her expression fell flat. Jack had seen the same look on her face just before she attached herself to Charlie—dismissive. He could almost see her closing off any final feelings for him.

  “Well,” she spoke quietly, calmly, “there is nothing more to be said, perhaps. At least you know now.” She sighed, bent down and picked the cushion off the floor, testing it for size. “How is your asthma, Jack? Sarah is very concerned about you. Until recently, she has been wailing instructions to follow up your attack with proper medical assistance. Sarah told me rather too much, in fact, about your condition. It’s very dangerous for you to exert yourself now, isn’t it?”

  Jack suppressed a pointless urge to run, his asthma hiking up a notch.

  The Ghost Mother’s shoulders were arched and stiff. Only her hands moved—fingering the pillow.

  “I wish Isabella had known you, Jack,” she murmured, moving a step toward him.

  “She does know me! I’ve told you—”

  If ever the Ghost Mother could have listened to him, she was no longer doing so. She gazed wistfully out of the window.

  “Yes, Isabella would have liked you very much, Jack. She changed so much in those final months, but—it’s strange—one thing about her never changed. Her hair. Even at the end, when I placed my hand upon her dead locks, and lifted them, the silken curls felt as soft and vibrant as the plumage of a bird. Your hair is somewhat like hers was.”

  Her hands tapped the pillow.

  “It wasn’t your fault she died,” Jack said. “It wasn’t.”

  “Not my fault? Do you insist on mocking me, even in this? If I had not been so negligent, she might have persisted years longer. I pushed her to do it. But perhaps it was a mother’s conceit to keep her alive so long. In truth, it would have been better for Isabella if she had died sooner. Her pain would have been less. But there will be no long drawn-out suffering for you, Jack. I assure you of that.”

  And with those words the Ghost Mother looked at him solemnly.

  Jack coughed twice, his airway narrowing.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “What are you doing?”

  The Ghost Mother ran her hands across the pillow and glanced at the door. Jack tried to stay calm.

  “Do not be afraid, Jack.”

  With surprising speed, the Ghost Mother leapt past him. She stood against the door, facing him, holding the pillow tightly in one hand.

  “I wonder if Isabella beheld some better place before dying,” she said, not looking at Jack. “When I found her in the garden her arms were open as if such a place was receiving her, and in her lifeless eyes there was some unearthly light shining. And I wanted to cry, but no tears found their way upon my face, though I can assure you I was glad for her.” She squeezed the pillow. “I wonder, too, how Sarah will react to this situation, Jack? I don’t think she will be able to forgive herself. No, I don’t think she will. She is strangely silent at the moment. Holding her breath, perhaps. Come now. It is time.”

  Jack looked at the pillow and no longer had any doubt what she intended to do.

  “Wait!” he rasped. “No. Listen. Isabella liked flowers. Foxgloves and . . . coltsfoot and . . .” He attempted to remember the others. “How could I know about the flowers unless I’d talked to Isabella? Are you listening to me? Isabella showed me! Your dead daughter!”

  “Isabella?” the Ghost Mother shook her head. That word again.

  “Yes, Isabella! Isabella! Isabella! Isabella!”

  The Ghost Mother smiled, not listening, but nodding her head. Placing her other hand on the pillow, she slipped almost imperceptibly closer to him, completely blocking the doorway.

  “My daughter is dead. . . .”

  “Yes, but she’s—“

  “It won’t hurt, Jack. I promise.”

  The Ghost Mother didn’t say anything else. She glanced at him. She pressed the pillow. She didn’t look at it.

  A swift kick tripped Jack toward the floor.

  As he stumbled she swiped his other foot away and Jack fell on his back.

  The Ghost Mother knelt over him and placed the pillow hard up against his face. Her strong hands held it firmly over his mouth and nose. Normally Jack could have fought even those strong hands off, but another attack was on its way, and he couldn’t breathe. He fought her with his arms, but she sat on his wrists. His kicking feet were useless.

  She was no longer talking, except to reassure him.

  Then, abruptly, the pillow lifted clear, and Jack breathed again.

  Sunlight shone in the Ghost Mother’s eyes as she looked not at him, but at her own hair. Her left hand held a great tuft of it, dragging her face upward.

  “Mum!” Jack breathed.

  With a desperate burst of energy, he shoved the Ghost Mother off.

  The pillow slid across the room.

  The Ghost Mother’s face briefly contorted, then she regained control again—Sarah, with the last of her strength, had done all she could. The Ghost Mother checked both her hands. Satisfied that she was in charge again, she set off across the room to retrieve the pillow.

  “Your name,” Jack screamed at her before she could reach it, “is Mary Eloise! Do you hear me? You are a ghost, and your name is Mary Eloise Rosewood! Remember what you were! Mary Eloise Rosewood! That is your name. Your name is . . .”

  It made no difference.

  “It is for the best, Jack,” the Ghost Mother said softly.

  Jack wasn’t close enough to get to the door before her, so he backed into a corner of the room. His hands were free now, and he raised them like a man to defend himself. The Ghost Mother lunged for him, and this time, as Jack twisted away, he slipped, his forehead striking the floor hard.

  Dazed, he looked up.

  The Ghost Mother stood up and went across the room to fetch the pillow again. She blew some dust off it and headed back toward him.

  Jack’s breathing was too erratic to enable him to stand. Lying on his belly, he used his fingers to claw his way toward the door. The Ghost Mother slowly followed. Jack managed to get to the door first, nudging it wide by swinging his head against the base. Contorting his body and arching his spine, he slid a few yards. The bare floorboards took some of the skin off his nose. Ignoring the pain, he heaved himself forward. He didn’t look to see where the Ghost Mother was. He built up a rhythm, straining his neck to keep his face off the ground, sliding and twisting, using his knees to jiggle himself across the landing. And all the while the asthma gathered in his lungs like a fungus. He didn’t try to control it, only slid and writhed, slid and writhed across the floor.

  Down the staircase, along the hallway. He reached the front door. It was still locked. He looked for the keys, but they were gone. He glanced back.

  The Ghost Mother stood in the hallway, holding the pillow.

  “Get . . . away . . . from me!” Jack screamed.

  The Ghost Mother came forward, pillow poised. This time, as she brought it toward Jack, she reassured him fervently. She told him it would be quick. It
wouldn’t hurt. No, it wouldn’t hurt.

  Jack knew he couldn’t fight her even if it did. He crawled one more step away from her. Then he stopped crawling. The thought of the Ghost Mother twisting him over and shoving that pillow up against his mouth again was unbearable. He wanted to see her if she was going to do that. So he stopped, turning to face her.

  She stared at him, the pillow rigid in her hands.

  “I loved you, Jack,” she said.

  “You aren’t doing this for love,” he whispered. “It’s all . . . for you! Oh, you were a good mother to Isabella once, but not anymore. I didn’t believe you’d do anything like this, but . . . Isabella was right. You’re just a horror now.”

  She lowered the pillow onto his face.

  As she pressed down on him he reached around the fabric of the pillow and fumbled to reach one of her hands.

  What was her worst memory? Her very worst? What was it?

  Not her own death. Not even Isabella’s death.

  There was worse than that—the chase; that chase. Being chased by the Nightmare Passage.

  Jack held her hand. She couldn’t pull away. He dug his nails into her skin and revived the memory. He made her relive the chase over and over and over and over. Stroking her hand, he focused on the darkness.

  And the Nightmare Passage reacted. It felt itself—observed. It opened up a chink, and for a moment, gazing inside, Jack glimpsed Oliver facing into a wind, Ann screaming, and Charlie and Gwyneth being dragged across a great icy plain.

  “No,” the Ghost Mother shrieked, dropping the pillow. “Jack, get out of there! Don’t let the Nightmare Passage see us!”

  “See us?”

  The Nightmare Passage reached for Jack, but he was alive, and it had no claim on the living. Sensing the size of its appetite, Jack encouraged it. He led the Nightmare Passage toward him, let it behold him, let it see him, let it get close. And when it was in the hall, but could not take Jack, it reached out hungrily instead to one it could.

  The Ghost Mother was a soul. She’d borrowed a living body, but she was still for the taking if the Nightmare Passage could reach her.

  “No, Jack,” she beseeched him. “I’ll let Sarah go. I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll . . . give you your father. I’ll give you your dad.”

  For a moment Jack lost his concentration, and the Nightmare Passage receded. But only for a moment. He knew the Ghost Mother had no way to contact the Other Side.

  His asthma flowered in his lungs. Almost paralyzed by the attack coming, he acted quickly.

  “Come here,” he whispered—and this time it was the Nightmare Passage he spoke directly to.

  And it came.

  Sarah exhaled—followed by a scream.

  The Ghost Mother flew across the hall. She had a few seconds before the Nightmare Passage came for her, but she had no idea what to do with those seconds. Floating in front of Sarah’s lips, she looked frantically for shelter, anywhere to hide. There was nowhere. In her final desperation, she searched for a soul to drink from, but all the ghost children were gone. There were no meals left.

  With a final glance at Jack and Sarah the Ghost Mother fled, but she never even made it to the staircase. The Nightmare Passage had been waiting a long time for this particular soul and it took her in slow pieces: her eyelids, the hollow of her throat, each lung, each bitten fingernail. It let her scream for a while before it removed her mouth. Then it reached for the essence of her soul, wrapped it in ice, and took her into its dark heart.

  Jack lay on the corridor floor, barely breathing anymore. He was vaguely aware that his mum was there, trying to get his body into a better position—his head being lifted, his back straightened—but he couldn’t help her. She left, running to her bedroom, and soon Jack stopped breathing altogether. Sarah returned, vaulting down the stairs, an object in her hand. Nearly unconscious, Jack couldn’t focus on what it was. Something small.

  Sarah knelt beside him. She raised his head. She pressed the hard plastic and cold metal against his lips. She did not speak except to say, “Come on, Jack. One breath. You need to give me one breath.” He tried, but it was beyond him.

  Seeing that, Sarah forced his slack mouth open with two fingers, thrust the inhaler tube between his teeth, and slapped his face. When that didn’t work she slapped him again, as hard as she could. This time Jack gasped out in pain—and drew in a thin quantity of air. Another half breath followed, but it wasn’t enough. So Sarah pinched his nostrils tight, put her lips across his and breathed for him. She forced the air inside until Jack’s body jerked back—a slight opening of his throat. Quickly, Sarah inserted the inhaler into his mouth. A single dosage of the chemicals, and the pathways in his lungs marginally expanded. Three more ragged gasps and Sarah removed the inhaler. She eased the position of his chest. “Don’t talk,” she said, when he tried to. “Breathe.”

  Jack breathed. His mum held him, and he breathed.

  For a long time Sarah stayed on the corridor floor, supplying Jack with the medication needed to keep him alive. His first attack was followed almost immediately by a second. It was shorter in duration, but just as deadly, and this time, at the height of it, Sarah thought she’d lost him. She felt the second asthma attack rise up through his body like a flame, either to kill him or not, and at the height of it the tip of Jack’s tongue turned blue and his eyes contracted to pinpoints of concentrated pain. Only the beta-agonist inhaler, and Jack himself, not giving in to panic, and Sarah’s own hands, having done it so many times before, kept him alive.

  Then, gradually, the pain receded. Jack came through it. Slowly, with many interruptions, his breathing eased. The pupils of his eyes dilated again. He was not safe, but safe enough at least for Sarah to leave him to reconnect the phone and contact the emergency services.

  Soon after the phone call was made Jack slept, and, seeing that, Sarah broke down in relief. Sleep was good. Sleep was life. The very worst asthma attacks always led to sleep or coma, followed by death. The sight of Jack asleep was such a contrast to what had happened before that Sarah just lay there watching him. She didn’t want to risk putting him in the recovery position, though he was awkwardly perched against a wall. She left him that way, didn’t move him except to adjust the angle of his chest. Then she waited for the ambulance, trying not to think of the other time she had waited and it had come too late.

  The farmhouse was miles from the closest emergency room, but the ambulance arrived at last. The staff was efficient, dispensing oxygen and other medication, then transported Jack and Sarah to the nearest hospital.

  Jack stayed there for two days, recovering. On the first day, he woke for long enough to mutter a few anguished, incoherent words about the ghost children before falling asleep again. By the middle of that night his head started clearing and he didn’t need to sleep quite so much. The next morning he was strong enough to hold a cup of tea unassisted.

  Between sips, Jack watched his mum. She sat at the end of his hospital bed, and he studied her carefully. He was looking for any signs of damage. He saw none, except for a tiredness that seemed to reach into her bones and deep, deep into her voice.

  “I’m all right,” she reassured him.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So am I.”

  They fell silent, not ready to talk about the details of what had happened yet.

  Once Jack was well enough to travel the hospital discharged him, armed with a host of specialized steroids and other drugs for his asthma.

  A taxi brought them back to the farmhouse. It was an overcast day and, as the car bumped along the winding country roads, Jack kept finding thoughts of Isabella intruding into his mind. Modern drugs would have cured her, he realized. If she’d been born a hundred years later she needn’t have died. Not from consumption, anyway. A simple course of penicillin would have been enough. He couldn’t stop thinking about that.

  The taxi lurched along and Jack, surrounded by his boxes of medication, swayed
slightly in his seat, watching the fields slip past his window. He found his eyes glazing over. Shutting them, he let his mind drift, trying to imagine what it would be like to grow older himself, day by day getting closer to his own death. That was what happened to people, wasn’t it? They died. Nothing scary about it. If he was lucky he’d live a long, healthy life, but at some point it would be over, and that was okay. Probably, if events followed a natural course, his mum would die before him, and he knew now that she would be waiting for him, along with Isabella, on the Other Side. What exactly would it be like there? Not like anything you’ve ever imagined, Isabella had said. A better place, a kinder one.

  As the taxi neared the house, Jack attempted to picture the way his loved ones would come to him when his time arrived. He didn’t know, but he was sure who would be first. Leading the way, arms ahead of the rest. Dad.

  Jack smiled. He didn’t feel the need to steal him away from the Other Side any longer. There was no need to regret a few last words he might have snatched in an ambulance. His dad was there, on the Other Side, waiting. Jack understood that now. His dad wouldn’t go away. He wouldn’t forget to come for him when the time arrived. No matter when or how Jack died, he’d have the same welcome ready.

  But what about the welcome there should have been for those drifting in the Nightmare Passage? At the hospital, Jack had had plenty of opportunity to think about that. How could he think about anything else? Even now, as the taxi pulled up to the farmhouse, and his mum popped the seat belt and helped him struggle out, there it was again, drawing his attention away—the horror of the Nightmare Passage. What about those trapped inside there? What about Gwyneth, Ann, Charlie, and Oliver, and all those others stuck inside it forever? Wasn’t there anything he could do for them?

  From the first moment he could think straight in the hospital, Jack had been trying to find a way. Swallowing his fear, he’d focused his mind, attempting somehow to open up the Nightmare Passage and free them. But he couldn’t. The Nightmare Passage held jealously on to its souls. Jack’s gift had never been able to reach them there.