Opposition

  The pity in Ryan’s eyes amplified. “Do you want to talk about how you’re coping?”

  She shook her head once.

  Ryan pushed up from his seat. He moved around, sliding into the other chair on Molly’s side of the desk. “I know what you’re going through can be tough.”

  That stirred a response in her. She eyed him skeptically, though I didn’t miss the twinge of hope flaring to life in her eyes.

  Ryan noticed it too. He nodded eagerly, leaning over the armrest of his chair, his eyes locked with hers. “I understand, Molly. I really do. Loss, especially an unexpected one like Scott’s, can hit us hard.”

  The hope in her eyes fizzled out immediately. The dullness crept back into place as she nodded once.

  “Odd,” Cyril murmured near my ear. “She doesn’t appear to be mourning Scott.”

  “She’s terrified,” Oliver whispered.

  Across the room, I saw Noah’s eyes slide from Ryan, Molly, and their conversation to land on the ghosts hovering over the man’s desk. He nodded once.

  Oliver continued. “I’ve seen it before. Mrs. Rodgers was the same. She was the woman we, er, well, we haunted before the pocket watch found its way to Bronte and Stella. She reached a point where the fear just exhausted her. She was afraid, yes, but internally.”

  “Externally, she just appeared to stop caring,” Cyril added with a sorrowful sigh.

  “It exhausted her. Consumed her. This kid is feeling the same way, Stella. I’m sure of it.”

  But terrified of what?

  I glanced at Noah, seeing the same question reflected in his eyes. It didn’t make sense for Scott to haunt Molly—her name only came up after some digging. And given the lack of response when Ryan mentioned his name, I would have bet Scott wasn’t what bothered her, either the memory of him or his ghostly resurgence, if there was one.

  Noah cleared his throat, politely interrupting Ryan and Molly’s one-sided conversation. Two sets of eyes swung up to him, one vacant, the other exasperated but concerned.

  “Are you interested in the occult, Molly?”

  Her entire body seized. Her hands flew out, gripping the armrests to her chair, as her eyes widened at Noah. Her breathing escalated, chest heaving. And she bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

  Naked fear shone in her eyes.

  “Noah and Stella are ghost hunters,” Ryan explained quickly, snatching a tissue box from his desk when he noticed a single tear run down Molly’s cheek. He extended the box toward her. “They’re here to see if there’s a ghostly cause disturbing the school.”

  Molly’s breathing became erratic, gasping like a fish out of water. More tears leaked from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks, as she stared up at Noah.

  Then a thought passed over her. Her breathing slowed, her composure returned, and she struggled to return to the vacant, dull state she’d adopted when she came in. “N-no,” she whispered, shaking her head, her eyes falling to the floor. “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, that’s a lie,” Oliver muttered.

  “Oliver,” Cyril let out an exasperated sigh.

  “What? She had such a visceral response, Cyril, she has to be lying. She’s afraid of the occult. And there must be a reason.”

  They were right. She had had an interaction with something paranormal, that much was obvious.

  Her reaction alone gave merit to the thought that whatever was happening to this school, a paranormal force was behind it.

  “Can I go back to class, please?” she asked, turning to Ryan. “Please?”

  “Of course,” Ryan said, pulling a tissue out and handing it to her. “But I’d like to talk with you again soon, if I may? Just the two of us.”

  She nodded absently, stuffing the tissue into the pocket of her sweatshirt. Shuffling, she moved for the door and headed out without another glance behind her.

  “Well something’s happened to her,” Noah said, watching as Ryan moved to sit behind his desk.

  “I agree, but I think I should speak to her privately, before we engage in speaking about ghosts again. Your bringing up the occult frightened her and I—”

  A shrill, terrified scream pierced the calm.

  Molly.

  Noah threw himself at the door, wrenching it open, with me and Ryan hot on his heels.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The three of us ran out of the office, into the hallway, and followed it down into the main atrium of the school. The room was massive, the ceiling stretching upwards and outwards in a dome shape, with doors leading outside at one end and windows showing into the cafeteria on the other side.

  Molly sat underneath the cafeteria windows, back pressed up against the faux wood paneling, pushing herself backward as if trying to break through it and into the cafeteria. Her feet kicked against the tile floor, her hands scrambling to push her backward. All while she stared straight ahead, looking at something through the outside doors.

  Ryan and Noah dropped down on either side of her, both clamoring for her to tell them what was happening.

  But she kept screaming. The high-pitched shriek was loaded with pure, bone-deep terror. Eyes wide, mouth wrenched open, spittle freckled on her chin.

  She looked more terrified than that famous painting with the dude screaming in silent agony.

  I turned to follow her line of sight.

  And felt a stab of cold terror at what I saw.

  Something stood on the other side of the school doors.

  It was a shadow. Not a person dressed in black, not someone standing in shadows to obscure their features, but it was a shadow. Standing, three dimensional, more than a projection thrown against the ground by light.

  The silhouette was a person, a woman, her body curved in the right places but bald, without any hair. She was facing this way, facing Molly, but when I continued to stare, her head slowly turned.

  If she had eyes, they would have been looking at me.

  My body convulsed with chills and shivers the longer she stared. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising, goosebumps forming, and adrenaline spiking. My entire body willed me to do something—to flee. Not a single thought of fighting crept into my limbs.

  My body begged me to run.

  But my brain had shut down. Frozen over with fear. A primal fear, something ancient and arcane, older than the fears I was used to.

  This was a fear of the dark, amplified by thousands, and I could feel it tearing into my mind, petrifying every thought until I could only stand there, staring.

  Staring at something that shouldn’t be there.

  A student passed through my line of sight. And for a moment, for the brief second I couldn’t see it, life flared back into my limbs.

  I spun around, forcing myself to do it, even as my body screamed not to turn my back on the shadow. But I couldn’t think if I looked at it. Couldn’t react.

  Students had gathered. They were pouring out of the hallways—the bell must have rung in my trance—and now kids flooded into the atrium on their way to their next classes.

  But they were stopping. Staring at the girl still screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs. Pulling out phones, recording it, as they whispered with those nearby. Even with the din of their conversations echoed in the lofty room, Molly’s screaming pierced through it all.

  Miss Harbon pushed her way through the kids, barking at them to get to class. Naturally, none of them moved. Only pressed in closer as kids in the back surged forward to get a better view.

  Teachers tried to interfere, tried to move the students along, but it was like trying to shepherd a pack of cats.

  I darted to Noah, dropping down to his side, and wrenching his arm so he had to look at me. “Put up a barrier,” I hissed. “Now.”

  He looked at me, mouth open to refuse, when something in my expression stopped him.

  Probably the remnants of whatever terror had seized me looking at that…that thing.

  I shuddered violently, my entire
body shaking. It was behind me. I could still feel it there, looming, towering. Even though it was outside, even though students separated it from me, I could still feel its gaze on my back.

  “Stella—”

  “Put up a damn forcefield or I will force you to,” I snarled, shaking his arm. “Now, Noah.”

  He frowned but clamped a hand over his eye.

  “What’s happening?” Oliver demanded, his voice close to my ear. “Stella, what’s going on?”

  “Stella?” Cyril echoed, his voice equally concerned.

  I froze at hearing their voices. They wouldn’t be able to get in the safety of the barrier. As ghosts, they’d be pushed back. Outside of it.

  With the shadow.

  They’d be defenseless, helpless.

  Because they didn’t know it was there.

  Otherwise the concern would have been flavored with panic, fear, or uncertainty.

  Not just concern for a screaming teenager and me, who’d suddenly dived off the deep end and demanded a ghostly barrier.

  A barrier that probably wouldn’t work on that thing anyway.

  It didn’t…it wasn’t human.

  Not a living one, certainly, but not a dead one either.

  “Get her in the barrier,” I hissed, pointing at Molly. “And keep her in it, Noah.”

  “What are you—where are you going?” he hissed, reaching for me.

  I stepped out of his reaching arm and began pushing my way through the crowd of students. Cyril and Oliver followed—I could hear their voices floating after me, demanding to know what had spooked me.

  My palms turned clammy as I forced my way through the crowd. Toward the door. Toward the shadow.

  Molly was at risk, absolutely, but so were these kids. They just didn’t know it. Couldn’t see the danger.

  I could.

  I maneuvered around the last kid, stepping around him to face the outside doors.

  But there wasn’t anything there. I couldn’t see anything through the glass panes of the door, not where it had been before.

  My legs faltered, relief washing through me that it was gone. Then it spluttered to a stop and switched to dread when I realized I needed to make sure. Needed to know, for absolute certainty, that it was gone.

  Hands shaking, I pushed through the doors and stepped out into the midday sun.

  It tried to warm my skin, to banish away the goosebumps and the shivers, but it was useless. Panic and fear had turned my body cold, a deep-set kind of cold, that would take more than the sun to conquer.

  “Stella,” Cyril’s hand brushed through my arm, the cold causing me to jump. Concern and confusion flooded his voice. “Stella, what’s happening?”

  “I…it’s…”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, earning another jump. Fumbling, it took my shaking fingers longer to pull it from my back pocket than normal, and even then, I felt ghostly help working to steady it for me.

  Noah had sent a text, saying they were taking Molly to the nurse.

  I glanced around again, my eyes lingering on where the shadow had been.

  “Let’s head back inside,” I whispered, backing up toward the doors.

  “Stella, what is going on?” Cyril demanded, Oliver echoing his words.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, grabbing the door handle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I walked into the nurse’s office to see Molly trying desperately to get out of the room. Noah and Miss Harbon tried to keep her calm, barricading her way out, but the girl was practically struggling against the principal when I stole inside.

  The nurse was at her desk, flinging open drawers and digging around for something, anything, she thought might calm down a hysterical girl. She bit down on her lip as she dug around, her eyes continually darting up to Molly before redoubling her efforts to find something that would help.

  Ryan loomed over the nurse. “You can’t give her drugs without her parent’s approval, Ethel.”

  The nurse flashed a glare at him. “I know that Ryan,” she muttered, pushing a strand of gray hair out of her face. “But look at her. She needs something, and you aren’t helping.”

  Ryan fidgeted with his tie, loosening then tightening it subconsciously. “We need to—”

  I tuned them out, moving to help Noah and Miss Harbon with the struggling Molly. She was kicking and screaming now, sobbing as tears streamed down her face, frantically trying to get to the door.

  She kept crying out for her mother.

  I wrestled my way between Noah and Miss Harbon, putting my hands on Molly’s shoulders and squeezing. “I saw it, Molly. I saw it.”

  She stilled instantly, looking up at me in utter shock. Then, with a shuddering sob, she launched herself at me and wrapped around me like a child hugging his mother when frightened of a thunderstorm.

  Molly cried, her sobs racking through her, and the shudders vibrated into me. I hugged her, gently patting her back and using my eyes to motion to Noah that I wanted to move Molly to the bed.

  He hurriedly moved out of the way, helping to guide Molly backwards to the bed. When the back of her legs struck the bed’s frame, I lowered her down onto it until we were seated. She kept her arms wrapped around me, sobbing into my middle, her entire body shaking.

  “I need to call her parents,” Miss Harbon let out a tired sigh, pushing the strands of hair that had fallen into her face from the struggle behind her ear. She took in the scene before her for another beat before asking. “Can you stay here, with her, please?”

  I nodded, still patting Molly’s back, trying to help her calm down.

  Miss Harbon crept from the room, waving for Ryan and the nurse to follow her.

  “What did you see, Stella?” Noah whispered.

  The question was loud in the room. Molly heard it, her grip tightening around my waist, holding onto me like I was the only lifeline she had in the middle of a storm. After a hiccup, her shuddering sobs grew a tad softer.

  “I…I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It was a shadow. Of a woman. But it wasn’t like a shadow. It was like…”

  Molly took in another heaving breath. “Dar-darkness,” she breathed.

  I continued patting her back, nodding at Noah. “Yeah, like she was made of darkness. It wasn’t normal, Noah, whatever it was.”

  Noah nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “It’s not a ghost,” Cyril said. “I didn’t see anything either.”

  “Me neither,” Oliver added.

  Noah sighed. “If it wasn’t a ghost, then what the hell was it? I thought ghosts followed the hierarchy. Ghosts. Monsters. And whatever comes after. But if the ghosts couldn’t see it, and they have the strongest perceptions because they’re ghosts, then what was it?”

  Great. Something else we didn’t know.

  I shook my head. Molly’s arms loosened fractionally, her sobs slowing even more as she took control of her breathing.

  “Plus, Stella saw it,” Oliver added. “She’s the only one unable to perceive ghosts through sight, so it couldn’t have been a ghost.”

  “Another point that says we’re dealing with something less paranormal and more supernatural,” Noah sighed heavily. He pinched the bridge of his nose and moved away from the bed, pacing back and forth.

  I rubbed at Molly’s back. “Molly, is this the first time you’ve seen it?”

  She shook her head no against my middle.

  I gave her a gentle squeeze, thanking her for answering. And her arms loosened even more.

  The nurse’s door open. Even without turning, I could tell Rose and Bronte were behind me.

  “We heard what happened,” Rose gasped, slightly out of breath.

  “Well, we heard something happened,” Bronte clarified.

  The door clicked shut softly behind me. Their footsteps sounded softly on the tile floor as they came closer. Rose reached up, gripping my shoulder in a comforting gesture, before addressing Molly. “How are you doing?”

  S
he didn’t answer.

  “We’re getting better,” I told Rose, patting Molly’s back some more. “We—she and I—saw something in the atrium, Rose. I don’t know what it was.”

  I could hear the frown in Rose’s voice, even if I was turned to where I couldn’t see her face. “What does that mean?”