Ghost Girl

by Ally Malinenko

  Zee turned, heading for the nearest tree. As she bolted, she reached down and scooped up a handful of rocks from the path. She scrambled up the tree, catching and swinging her foot around the last limb just as the hound that had been chasing her reached her, its jaws snapping as it clawed at the trunk. Zee kept climbing until she was on a branch that stretched over a mausoleum. She hopped down onto the roof. She could see Nellie, stock-still and shaking. The dog was low to the ground, circling her. Zee squeezed the rock in her hand and pitched it forward with all her might, hitting the dog squarely in the flank.

  It swiveled its head in her direction. From here she could see the blood running from its eyes. She tossed another rock, and this one landed right on its muzzle. The hound fled.

  “Nellie, run!” Zee yelled. Zee scrambled across the branch and dropped to the ground. The hound that had been following her was also gone.

  “Where did they go?” Nellie said, barely over a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Zee said, her eyes darting from tree to headstone to shadow. They couldn’t have gone far. They were waiting. Zee could feel it.

  Suddenly, Elijah came barreling toward them down the hill.

  “You guys okay?” he asked, breathless. He looked all right. Muddy. Shaken. But, Zee realized with relief, still in one piece.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

  “The Southern Gate is locked. That’s where I went.”

  Locked? The gate was never locked. “We can’t go back to the Northern Gate. It’s too far.”

  “What if that one is locked too?” Nellie asked. “Are we trapped in the cemetery? Zera, did you get us all trapped in the cemetery?” Her voice was rising in panic.

  Zee needed to think. The dogs were gone, for now, but if the Southern Gate was locked, there was good reason to think the other might be. They had to find another way out. The wrought-iron gate of the cemetery was easily nine feet tall and ended in a series of unpleasant spikes. The spaces between the bars were too small to squeeze through.

  “We’ve got to make a run for the Northern Gate. That’s our only chance,” Zee said. They set off at an easy trot, trying to make as little noise as possible to not draw attention to themselves. By now the sun had completely set and the shadows in the cemetery were long and lean and far too wolfish.

  “Zera Puckett, if this gate is locked and we are trapped in here, you are in so much trouble,” Nellie said.

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you stopped messing with me all the time, I wouldn’t have to do things like this.”

  “Me mess with you? What, like, bully you? That’s a laugh.”

  “Nellie, you are on my case all the time. In gym, you hid my clothes. Then—”

  “Only after you put gum on my combination lock.”

  “I didn’t . . . well, that was only after you got me detention.”

  “Yeah, after you nearly broke my nose.”

  “Could the two of you please shut up?” Elijah said. “In case you already forgot, there are wild dogs in here. I’d like to not see them again.”

  “Elijah, she’s—”

  “Zee, now is not the time,” Elijah interrupted.

  They jogged in silence, everyone’s eyes darting from shadow to shadow. Zee could just make out the edges of the Northern Gate. They were almost there.

  Just a few more feet and they would be free. From behind them came a barking howl. Every hair on Zee’s arm stood on end. She turned and there were the hounds, about a hundred feet behind them, waiting, their bleeding eyes staring right at them.

  “Run!” Zee screamed, booking it toward the gate. The dogs gave chase. The looping, pounding thud of their paws on the ground sounded more like horse’s hooves. One of the dogs leaned toward Elijah, the other toward Zee, the third toward Nellie, driving them apart.

  Zee realized with sickening dread: they were hunting them.

  She kept running, pulling a hard right as the dog next to her snapped its jaws. She wasn’t far from the Northern Gate—if she could just keep going, she would make it to the other side. But the dog had other plans.

  He came for her, claws digging into the soil only yards behind her, and she sped up as much as she could. Her chest burned from running. Her muscles felt like they were screaming at her to stop, but terror kept her moving.

  In the darkness blurring around her Zee couldn’t see Nellie or Elijah. There was only her and the dog, driving her forward as she dodged and swerved around tombstones. And then something terrible happened.

  She tripped.

  Zee lay on the ground gasping, desperate to get some air into her lungs. Where was Elijah? Where was Nellie? The cemetery was stone-cold silent. She could hear the dog snuffling around her, the crunch of dead leaves under its massive paws. It circled her, and Zee kept her hands over her head to protect herself. The muscles in her legs were coiled, ready to kick at anything that touched her. Once she could breathe again, she flipped over so she was no longer on her belly, and she saw the creature standing at arm’s distance, teeth bared, lips curled back from a tangle of sharp teeth. Her fear ratcheted up her spine, filled her throat. The scream she had died in her lungs.

  The dog opened its mouth, and she heard it again.

  The voice, different from the howl, coming from the dog but also not coming from the dog. It slithered out of that muzzle like something terrible was inside.

  “Hoooowww much loooooonnnggeeerrrrrr?”

  Zee shut her eyes, the words slinking into her ears and filling her.

  “Boys!” someone yelled in the distance. “Come here, boys! Where have you gotten off to?”

  Suddenly, the dog leaped away. It let loose another earsplitting howl and took off like a bullet flying up the hill. Zee managed to turn over just in time to watch the dog dash up the hillside, joined by the other two. In the distance, she could see Elijah and Nellie, struggling to get up.

  “Oh my goodness, children, are you okay?” someone yelled from the gate. It took a minute before Zee realized it was Principal Scratch. What was he doing here?

  Elijah and Nellie joined Zee, all three of them looking dazed and disheveled as Principal Scratch came down the hillside, a tote bag on his shoulder. Zee exchanged a look with Nellie and Elijah.

  “What . . . what are you doing here, Principal Scratch?” Nellie asked.

  “What am I doing here? What are you three doing here?” he said. “This is not a playground. And it’s a school night.”

  For a moment, no one spoke until Nellie said, “We were looking for my dog, sir. I searched everywhere like you said, and then Elijah here”—she dipped her head toward the boy—“thought he saw him here in the cemetery.”

  “But we were mistaken,” Zee added. “So we’ll just be going now.”

  She tried to walk forward, but Principal Scratch held out a hand. With a chuckle he said, “Wait one second.”

  “Sir,” Elijah said quietly. “We really must be going. My father will be worried.”

  Principal Scratch nodded and clasped his hands. “Oddly enough I too seem to be missing my dog. Well, dogs. Plural. We were just walking past the gate here and something spooked them and they just took off. The leash went right out of my hand. But,” he said, shifting the tote from his shoulder, “I think you did a good job of focusing on what you wanted, Nellie.”

  Principal Scratch reached into the tote, which Zee realized now squirmed with something. A bundle of black-and-white fluff came out.

  “Max!” she yelled as the dog darted out of Principal Scratch’s hands and into her arms. She scooped him up as he licked her face. “Oh, Principal Scratch, thank you thank you thank you.” Zee watched the principal clamp a firm hand on Nellie’s shoulder and inhale deeply. He looked very content.

  “I went to your house earlier but you weren’t there, so I figured I would take him on home tonight. That said, I’m in a bit of jam myself. You three haven’t seen any other dogs? Big, goofy things?”

  Elijah and Zee exchanged a
look. Nellie was too busy hugging Max to care, but Zee felt something terrible stir inside her.

  “What did they look like, sir?” she asked.

  “Oh, there they are! BOYS!” Principal Scratch yelled, and then whistled. Up on the ridge, they could see the silhouette of three dogs. They barked and then raced down the hillside. They were shaggy and medium-sized as they crowded around Scratch and he pet them. “This is Luci, Belle, and Levi. They’re a bunch of goofballs. You can pet them if you want.”

  Zee caught his eye when he said that, the way his grin seemed stretched far too wide. “That . . . that’s okay,” she stuttered. Those weren’t the same dogs that had chased them, she knew that. These dogs were smaller, cleaner, less wolfish, but something told Zee not to trust what she was seeing. Something told her there was more happening here than she understood. “We should be heading home.”

  They headed toward the gate. Elijah was quiet. Nellie was gushing over Max’s return. But Zee kept her eyes on the principal, and he, in turn, smiled at her. It was a cold smile. A knowing smile. His dogs stood next to him, stock-still, unnervingly still. They watched her too, and something inside Zee shifted.

  She did not trust Principal Scratch at all.

  11

  AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, ELIJAH FOUND ZEE AT HER LOCKER. “WE need to talk to her.”

  “Talk to who?” Zee said, trying but probably failing at sounding casual.

  “Nellie. You know what I’m talking about. Something weird happened in that cemetery. Those hounds . . .” He trailed off with a shudder.

  “I know that, but . . . why does she have to be a part of it?”

  “Because she is. There were three of us. There were three hounds. It was like they picked us or something.”

  “Look, Elijah, if you really want to talk to Nellie Bloom about this, I’ll go with you,” Zee said, shutting her locker. The bell rang as students raced through the hall to get to their classes. “But I’m telling you it’s a bad idea. She’s not our friend.”

  Zee and Elijah found Nellie at lunch.

  “Hey, Nellie, can we talk to you?” Elijah said. She was at a table with her friends, all of whom turned their eyes toward Zee and Elijah. One wrinkled their nose; another snickered.

  “Just for a second,” Zee said through gritted teeth. She hated that Nellie, of all people, was a part of this—whatever this was. She also hated that it was her fault that Nellie was a part of it. If she had just left her alone, hanging up her stupid signs for her stupid dog that the stupid principal found anyway. If she had just ignored being called Ghost Girl. If she had just ignored literally everything about Nellie Bloom, then she wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “What do you want?” Nellie said.

  “Just one second.” Elijah gestured that they should move away from the table.

  “Fine.” Nellie paused, exchanged a look with her friends, and with a laugh said, “One. Oh! I guess time’s up.”

  She picked her apple up off her tray and took a large bite, chewing slowly as she stared at Zee and Elijah. Zee turned to walk away, but Elijah grabbed her arm.

  “We need to talk about what happened in the cemetery,” he said.

  “OMG,” Clare Jennings, one of the girls at the table, said, “were you hanging out with Ghost Girl, Nellie? Is your hair going to turn white too?” The table fell into peals of laughter.

  “Of course not!” Nellie said, a touch too loudly. “Could you imagine? I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with these freaks. Even if that’s the sort of friends they prefer.”

  “Look, either we’re going to talk about the dogs in the cemetery last night or we’re not,” Elijah said. “They each picked one of us. And it means something. We need to figure this out together.”

  “Or not,” Zee cut in. “I’m perfectly fine with it being just Elijah and me.”

  The rest of the girls at the table fell into silence, staring at Nellie as she nervously laughed and tried to act like she didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “Okay, enough, I’m done,” Nellie said, trying but failing to sound casual. She got up, picked up her bag, and waltzed out of the cafeteria with Elijah hot on her heels.

  “Elijah, let her go,” Zee called after him. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Yes, it is,” he shot back over his shoulder. “Come on.”

  They followed the girl out of the cafeteria and down the hall when Nellie whirled around and whispered, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “We’re trying to talk to you,” Elijah said.

  “You just come waltzing up to me during lunch like that? Talking about cemeteries? What is wrong with the two of you? Are you ever normal?”

  “Oh,” Zee sneered, “did we embarrass you? Want me to go back and tell your friends about the hounds?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nellie said, and with a flip of her hair, she headed down the hall.

  “Forget her,” Zee said.

  “No, she’s a part of this,” Elijah argued. Zee watched him run after her, a mixture of frustration and anger bubbling inside her. She didn’t need Nellie. She and Elijah would figure this out on their own. What was the point of bringing Nellie into this? So she could mock them? Call her Ghost Girl? Give Elijah an even worse nickname? Zee watched Elijah catch up to her. Watched her turn and listen to him talking. She could see the anger starting to wick off of Nellie. Elijah was good like that. He knew how to calm people, set them at ease. He made sure they knew he was listening. He was the softness to Zee’s hard brittle edges. Which explained why she was back here and he was up there actually getting something done. After a few more minutes, she watched Elijah stick out his hand, and slowly but surely Nellie’s crossed arms unfolded. She shook his hand before casting one more scowl at Zee and heading down the hall.

  “And?” Zee said when Elijah returned.

  “She’s on board.”

  “On board?” Zee snorted. “The only thing she’s on board for is to make us the laughingstock of the school.”

  “No, she isn’t. Look, regardless of what she said in front of her so-called friends, she’s scared. She’s just as scared as you and I are. We’re all in this together, Zee. We have to fix it together.”

  Zee looked down at the ground. She hated all of this. “So, what did she agree to?”

  “To finding out what the heck happened last night. Where those dogs came from and what it means if we’re . . .”

  “If we’re what?” Zee said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.

  “If we’re . . . chosen.”

  Zee thought about the dog’s sharp fangs. The way that everything went cold, the way her whole body felt like it had been dunked in ice.

  For a brief second, Zee wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it all meant.

  When they got to Elijah’s house, they were surprised to see the door was unlocked.

  “Weird,” he said. “My dad was supposed to work late.”

  Zee wondered if maybe his mom was doing better but didn’t dare bring that up. She understood the way hope can turn on you, growing teeth, when it doesn’t work out.

  The door creaked open.

  “Hello?” Elijah said tentatively. There was no answer. The foyer looked the same as always, a pair of sneakers at the door, mail on the table, the coatrack and umbrella stand. He peeked toward the kitchen. “Dad?”

  But it was empty in there too. A few dishes in the sink, the fading light streaming through the windowpane over the sink. A bowl full of apples on the butcher-block table.

  “Dad?”

  “In here, son.”

  Son? Zee thought. Elijah’s father never called him “son.” They followed the voice into the living room and were shocked to see Elijah’s father on the couch. To his right, in the other chair, was Principal Scratch. The sight of him, after last night, made Zee’s stomach flip. Were they in trouble?

  Elijah’s father stood up, wearing a sort of dazed look. “How yo
u doing, sport?”

  When his father reached out and hugged him, Elijah instinctively took a step away.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  “Mr. Scratch and I were just talking.”

  “Good to see you again, Elijah,” Principal Scratch said. “Hello, Zee.”

  “Talking about what?” Elijah asked. Zee stood at the back of the room thinking about how Principal Scratch was the one who found Nellie’s dog.

  “About focusing on what you want. We are going to talk about your goals. There is a lot of power in thinking about yourself, Elijah,” Principal Scratch said. Mr. Turner took his son’s hand and closed his eyes, motioning for Elijah to do the same. But Elijah stood there, nervous and confused.

  “It’s okay, son,” his father said. “All you need to do is think on the thing you want the most, like winning a football game, and he will help you get it.”

  “But, Dad, I don’t play—”

  “Hush, son, come.” His father pulled Elijah down toward the couch. His grip on Elijah’s hand looked hard and, for a brief moment, painful. “Everything you want, you can have. You just have to want it more than anything else.”

  Zee looked at Elijah’s father, at the sort of dazed sheen in his eyes, the way they darted around the room, seeing but not really seeing. The way his hairline was matted with sweat. She looked up at Principal Scratch, who now stood over them: unimaginably tall, his dark hair, his sunglasses, his black clothes.

  What was happening?

  “This is really for Elijah and his father, Zee. It’s best if you go home,” Scratch said, looking at her. “We have work here to do. Now”—he turned to Elijah—“Elijah, you’re a young person, with energy and creativity and brains. I can feel how creative you are. Your imagination is your greatest asset. Search your heart. Find what you want. See it happening.” Scratch reached down with that red-gloved hand, the leather crackling, his grip on Elijah’s shoulder firm. “Hold that picture in your mind. See it. Hear it. This is your mental rehearsal for the moment you obtain exactly what you want.”

  Zee made her way to the door but didn’t leave. She knew Elijah was frightened. So was she. But she also knew that Scratch was doing something. Something that made people trust him. The way he told Abby to visualize what she wanted and then the phone rang. The way he told Nellie the same thing and then appeared with her dog. If he really could do that kind of stuff, this was her chance to find out. As she slipped toward the door, just out of their line of sight, her heart racing, she heard Scratch say, “Imagine yourself in a movie theater watching the movie of Elijah. See yourself on-screen getting what you want the most. Now get up and approach the screen. There is a door. Step inside the movie. . . .”