Ghost Girl

by Ally Malinenko

  But at the next row, the dial worked, and she was warmed by the wash of light. The shadows retreated in the new light, and things that looked creepy morphed back into books and shelves. Now the ticking timer sounded comforting, a gentle tapping in the background. She checked the spines of the books nearest to her.

  377, 378, 378.5, 378.56 . . .

  Finally, she reached the 398s. Her finger tracked the call numbers until she located the slender hardback book that matched hers. She glanced up and down the aisle but saw no one. She wasn’t supposed to touch the book, she knew that, and yet, up went her hand plucking it off the shelf. The binding was loose, the first pages cracked from age. There was a brown mottling, like spiderwebs, on the pages. She paused, feeling watched. That cold feeling morphed into something else. Something close by.

  “That’s called foxing,” a voice behind her said. “And you’re not supposed to be touching that book.”

  Zee nearly leaped out of her skin. She spun around, almost dropping the book. There was a boy standing there. He wore a white shirt tucked into dusty brown pants and, strangely, suspenders. Who wears suspenders?

  “Man, you scared me,” Zee said, still clutching the book tightly.

  “I’m awfully sorry about that. But you’re not supposed to be touching these books. They’re fragile.”

  Did he have an accent? The light timers continued to tick through the silence.

  “I’m Paul,” he said, leaning against the book stacks. “I work here.”

  “You seem really young to have a job.”

  Paul smiled in turn. “I’m older than I look.” He eyed the book in her hands again.

  “I’m on a class trip,” Zee said, glancing down the aisle. The timers behind her clicked off, plunging everything around her aisle into darkness. “We had to go and find a book.”

  “Which one did you find?” Paul asked, his smile making his dimples show. He seemed nice, unlike most of the kids in her school. Like someone that she and Elijah would want to hang out with. Zee realized that was a feeling she had so rarely. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “It’s called . . .” Zee turned the page carefully.

  “Careful, she’s very old,” Paul said.

  “Spirits and Illusions: Science During the Age of Metaphysics by Charles Roebling.”

  “What’s the date on that?” Paul asked.

  “1866.”

  “She is old.”

  “Yeah,” Zee said with a smile. “She is.” Zee liked that Paul referred to the book as “she.” It was sort of cool. “What do you do here, Paul?”

  “Me? Oh, this and that. I manage the lights and the water system. Make sure the boiler doesn’t kick out in the winter. Keep the old girl running.”

  “How did you know that was called foxing?”

  “You been round long as I have, you pick up a thing or two about books.”

  And then the light in Zee’s aisle cut off, plunging them into darkness. A small, startled cry escaped her lips. When the lights came back on just as quickly, her head whipped around toward the end of the aisle and a figure standing there, silhouetted by the darkness.

  “Who are you talking to?” Nellie said, her hand still on the dial.

  Zee glanced back, but Paul was gone. Utterly vanished. She peeked between the rows of books—still nothing.

  “He was . . .” Zee said, confused before composing herself and adding, “No one.”

  “Were you talking to yourself?” Nellie said with a laugh. “Oh my goodness, Zero, that is a new low, even for you.”

  Zee slipped the book back on the shelf and stomped down the aisle, nudging past Nellie, who was blocking her path.

  “You weren’t supposed to touch the books, Zero. My aunt works here, and she can totally get you thrown out.”

  Wow, she disliked this girl. “Then go tell on me.”

  Zee, followed by Nellie, caught up with the rest of the class in the Morgue.

  “I found her, Mr. Houston,” Nellie announced to the room, with a smug teacher’s-pet look on her face.

  “I need you to stay with the class, Zera,” Mr. Houston chided.

  While the name “Morgue” conjured up some intense images, the reality was pretty dull. Just shelves with boxes on them and long, flat filing cabinets filled with photos. Mrs. Washington was showing the class how an archivist processes a collection.

  “Now, not only has the binding come loose but the first few pages as well as the front cover are detached. This is a very old book, and at this point we would have to place it in an archival box for protection. We would also limit the public’s access to this material because it is so fragile.”

  “What’s the point, then?” David Cotter asked. “Why keep it if no one can read it?”

  “Because libraries not only serve as hubs of the community but also as institutions that bear witness to history.”

  “And you know what happens if you forget history,” Mr. Houston said. The class groaned and answered, “You’re doomed to repeat it.”

  Mrs. Washington chuckled. “Indeed. You don’t see the signs, the ways in which you make the same mistakes, the ways the path before you is lined by those that came before. It’s a powerful lesson, children. Now then, where were we? Oh yes,” she said. “You see these brown marks?” Mrs. Washington held up the book to the class. “These are called—”

  “Foxing,” Zee blurted out, and then quickly turned red.

  Mrs. Washington gave her a measured look. “Yes, that’s right. I’ve never met anyone outside the business that knew that term. Do you have archivists in your family?”

  “No,” Zee said, regretting that she spoke.

  “She doesn’t even have a family,” Nellie muttered from the back. Zee turned around and shot her a look.

  “Well then. I do believe it is time for lunch!” Mrs. Washington said, ushering them out of the Morgue and back up the winding staircases into the light of the main library. As she passed through the stacks, Zee searched for Paul. But she saw nothing but shadows.

  An hour later, as they were getting back on the bus, Nellie sidled up to Zee once again.

  “What do you want?” Zee said.

  “Who were you really talking to downstairs?”

  “I said no one.”

  “No, you said ‘he was.’ So who were you talking to?”

  “Can’t we just go back to mutually hating each other? ’Cause that was fun,” Zee said as she boarded the bus. But she knew it was too late. She’d been through this before. Once Nellie latched on to something, she was like a dog with a bone. She wouldn’t let go.

  “Okay, everyone, get your seats,” Mr. Houston was yelling as the sixth-grade class clambered and fought for seats. Zee slipped into the first one she saw and scooted down low. Nellie got in the seat behind her with Liza Cleary. Ten minutes into the ride, they were having a purposefully loud conversation. Loud enough to make sure Zee heard it.

  “And she was talking to no one,” Nellie said.

  “Well,” Liza chimed in, “she is ‘Zero’ ’cause she has absolutely zero friends.”

  “She can’t even be her own friend!” Nellie said loudly. “You know, calling her Zero is fun, but I think I’ve got a better name.”

  Zee sunk farther down in her seat. She hated the girl.

  “What’s that?” Liza asked.

  Fuming, Zee sat up in her seat and spun around. “Yeah, Nellie, what’s that?”

  Nellie cocked an eyebrow, and the two girls stared at each other for several beats before Nellie smiled and said, “Ghost Girl.”

  Liza exploded in a peal of laughter. “That’s perfect!”

  Unable to come up with a retort, Zee rolled her eyes and slumped down in her chair. The chatter started immediately. Someone at the back of the bus asked what Nellie and Liza were laughing at, and before she knew it, the whole bus was asking who Ghost Girl was. She tried to put on an air of disinterest, but inside it burned. It burned through her belly and up her throat. Then the b
urning moved to the back of her eyes, where it threatened to spill out.

  By the time they got back to school, the whole bus was in on the “Ghost Girl” thing. Zee beelined it back into the building as soon as Mr. Houston finished the head count. She went straight to her locker to pick up her books for last period, determined to somehow get through this day.

  “Ghost Girl?” Elijah said as he slid up next to Zee at her locker after last bell.

  “Stop,” Zee said. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “What happened?” he asked, adjusting the bag on his shoulder.

  “Nothing happened, okay?”

  “Zee,” he said as they headed down the hall toward the main lobby. “It’s me you’re talking to.”

  Someone passed and bumped Zee’s shoulder and then let out a bone-chilling “ooooohhhh!” and the rest of the lobby started laughing.

  Zee and Elijah didn’t talk much on the bus ride home, but when they got off and it was finally just the two of them heading down Hickory Lane, Zee opened up.

  “There was this guy, in the stacks. He said his name was Paul. He said that he worked for the library.”

  “Okay, so he probably did.”

  “Right, but when Nellie showed up and flipped on the timer lights, he was gone,” Zee said. “Just completely gone. He was standing right next to me and the light went out and when it came back on a second later he was gone.”

  “He probably just left. Maybe he had work to do,” Elijah offered.

  “Maybe,” Zee said, hoping she could arrange her face to make it look like she agreed. It wasn’t that. Paul didn’t seem old enough to even work there. And the way he was dressed. The way he talked. Zee shook her head and put it out of her mind. She was letting Nellie Bloom get to her.

  “Anyway,” Elijah continued, “even if . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, as if somehow saying it would make it seem too real. “You know what’s the great thing about being Ghost Girl?”

  Zee scowled. “Um, nothing.”

  “Nah. Now you get to haunt them.” He held up his fist, and Zee smiled as she bumped it.

  4

  ELIJAH AND ZEE DROPPED THEIR SCHOOLBAGS BY HIS FRONT DOOR and beelined for the fridge.

  “This whole Ghost Girl thing is going to blow over,” Elijah said. “Don’t even worry about it. I know how to handle these people.”

  But Zee was worried. Nellie was determined to make her sixth-grade life as miserable as possible.

  “I mean, I don’t care,” Zee said, trying to sound casual. Elijah gave her a look, and she frowned. Was it that obvious? That was the thing about Elijah. He had his fair share of bullies, but he always seemed to be able to stay one step ahead of them. For Zee it felt like she was drowning in a sea of Nellie hate.

  “Off topic, did I tell you about Mrs. Mamson, the shop teacher?”

  “The egg drop?”

  “Yeah. This is not going to work. I’m going to fail.”

  “Elijah, you’ve never failed anything,” Zee said, but she knew Elijah was worried. Everyone in sixth grade had to go through the egg drop. Elijah’s turn was in less than two weeks, when Mrs. Mamson was going to climb out on the roof of the school and drop an egg—literally—off the side of the building. It was the job of the student to build some kind of container so that the egg would land safely and not crack open when it hit the sidewalk.

  “My first attempt involved a parachute, but in test runs it failed to open. Now I have a capsule that’s padded. I just don’t get it. How is this the kind of thing the administration deems useful?” Elijah asked as they headed into the kitchen. “I hate shop. Building things is not my strong suit. I like solving puzzles and sorting things out. Real problems that affect real people.”

  Elijah yanked open the fridge, and he and Zee stared into the near empty shelves. “Problems like ‘Why are there never any snacks in this fridge?’” Zee said.

  “Exactly,” Elijah laughed.

  “Hey, how was school?” Elijah’s father asked from the doorway. Mr. Turner was a big guy, muscular and tall, and he filled the doorway in a way that made Zee feel trapped. She wondered if that was the way Elijah felt all the time.

  Zee watched Elijah exhale slowly. “Fine, Dad.”

  “Hi, Mr. Turner,” Zee said. Elijah’s father gave her a once-over, a tight smile, and then turned back to his son.

  “You going to pick something or just waste all my electricity?” he asked, taking a seat at the table and opening the newspaper. Thankfully, Mr. Turner was too far away to hear the things Elijah muttered under his breath. “Let’s go. Pick something or close it.”

  Zee remembered when Elijah told her how much a room changed when his father was in it. The kitchen was a place where Elijah and his mother used to bake and cook and listen to music and laugh. But now that his father spent more time in the kitchen, it was the opposite of all that. It was a joyless place. No air. No laughter.

  Zee could see why.

  Elijah often said his dad still liked to talk about one specific game against Derby High that they would have won if the coach hadn’t pulled him out in the last quarter. Now that he couldn’t play football, Martin Turner loved nothing more than cars. He worked at the mechanic shop in town. As a kid he used to drag race them. He and his friends would work on the engines, souping them up, and then they would race, hitting the brakes hard at the end, leaving a trail of burnt rubber. Elijah told Zee all his dad’s stories. He only appreciated things you could do with your body, and your hands. It was the same thing with the egg drop and shop class. It was everything Elijah was not. And that was the problem.

  “Come on, let’s go to my room.”

  As they passed him, Mr. Turner said, “I was thinking of hitting the gym this evening. You interested?”

  “No,” Elijah said.

  “You didn’t even need to think about it, eh?”

  “Nope,” Elijah said, moving toward the door.

  “Look, Elijah. I was once . . . like you.” Elijah froze in place. Zee could see in his eyes that he was begging his father to stop. She wished she could make them both disappear. “I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be like this. We can get you jogging. Or spend a couple hours on the weight machines. Zee can come with us! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Neither Zee nor Elijah responded.

  “It’ll feel good. Doing something with your hands. Breaking a sweat. It changed my life. . . .” Here he just trailed off.

  Elijah broke the awkward silence. “Dad, we have a project to work on, so can we talk about this later?”

  “I’m just saying that I understand, okay? I do. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Where’s Mom?” Elijah asked, changing the subject.

  “Your mother is lying down,” his father said, breaking eye contact and turning the pages of the paper without reading. “Best not to bother her.”

  Zee knew that Elijah’s mother had been lying down for a few weeks now. At one point, Elijah even said he was afraid that she was dying. It scared Zee too, thinking about him losing his mother, especially because they had always been so close. And she understood why. Mrs. Turner had been fun. She made up holidays and decorated the house for no reason. She let him stay up late to finish the books he was reading. She would even pick a random day during the school year when Elijah didn’t have to go to school. It was their special day to do whatever he wanted. In Zee’s eyes, Mrs. Turner was the best mom in the world. She was jealous of what they had.

  What she could never have with her own mom.

  Elijah headed down the hall as his father called after him, “Don’t bother her.”

  “Bother?” Elijah repeated softly, just so Zee could hear. “How am I a bother?” At his parents’ door, Elijah turned to Zee and whispered, “I need you to keep watch.”

  “What?”

  “Just keep an eye out for my father. Let me know if he comes down the hall.”

  “Maybe I should just go wait in your room.”

  “I never
ask you to do anything for me,” Elijah said. “I’m asking now. Please. Just let me know if he’s coming.”

  “Okay.” Zee nodded.

  Elijah opened the door, and Zee could see that the small light on the nightstand was on. A dehumidifier hummed in the corner of the room. All Zee could see was a lump in the bed. A snatch of loose brown curls.

  “Mom?” Elijah whispered. “You up?”

  Even from the doorway the air smelled stale. Waxy. Zee could see a pile of balled-up tissues on the nightstand.

  “Mom?”

  The lump in the bed stirred. Zee watched Elijah kneel down.

  She must have opened her eyes because he smiled and said, “Hey, Mom. You doing okay?”

  But she didn’t answer. Or at least, not from what Zee could tell.

  “Mom?” he said, shaking her shoulder gently. “You awake?” Zee read once that sometimes people opened their eyes while they were sleeping. It was a creepy concept. It made her think that they would look dead, like someone who should be in a coffin. But even from the doorway Zee could see that Elijah’s mother didn’t look dead.

  She looked hollow.

  Like her body was still there but the thing that made her his mom had floated too far away to find its way back to her eyes.

  Like a light had been switched off.

  “Mom?” he said a little louder.

  But she didn’t respond. Elijah rubbed his eyes.

  “Hey,” his father hissed from right behind her, causing Zee to nearly jump out of her skin. “What did I say?”

  Elijah stood up and crept out of the room. His father closed the bedroom door behind him. “What did I tell you?”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s tired. She just needs some rest.”

  Is she dying? was the question Zee wanted to ask, but instead she said, “Is she going to be okay?”

  “Yes. Of course. The doctor came round while you were at school. Gave her some new pills. He said they would help.” His father clamped a wide hand on Elijah’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring shake. “You know your mother. She’s always doing too much. She needs to slow down. That’s what the doctor says the pills are helping her do. She’ll be fine soon.”