Ghost Girl

by Ally Malinenko

  She had to get out.

  Blindly, she started to run. In the dark, the trees loomed up at her. So she ran with her arms outstretched, pushing branches away from her face. Twigs broke underfoot and sounded like the snap of jaws at her heels. She couldn’t figure out which way was north anymore. She was too far now from the creek. As she ran, she yelled for her friends.

  Did they leave her here? Did she leave them?

  Were they trapped, alone and lost in these terrible woods?

  Her foot caught on a branch, and Zee went down hard with a thud that nearly knocked the air out of her lungs. She tried to steady her breathing, even as she gasped. Calm down, she told herself. You have to calm down or otherwise you’re going to be really lost. She remembered her father’s advice: panic is in your head. She made herself take some deep breaths like he taught her.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  After she was able to breathe, she sat up, brushing the dirt and mud off her palms and knees and the front of her shirt. A few more breaths and she was just on the verge of breathing normally. With a small degree of relief, Zee noticed that the fog seemed to be lifting. She could see better, able now to make out the woods around her. When she called out for Elijah and Nellie, her voice actually carried instead of being snuffed out. Even the chill was lifting. Her arms and legs didn’t feel like they were dipped in freezing water anymore.

  “Zee!”

  She looked back, and Nellie came charging through the grove of trees to her right. With relief, Zee could see that she looked okay, no more frazzled and panicked than Zee herself probably looked. In an unexpected move, Nellie hugged her and then helped her to her feet.

  “Are you okay?” Nellie asked.

  “Where’s Elijah?” Zee asked. And then, feeling terrible, followed up with, “Yes, I’m . . . fine. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I mean . . .” Nellie glanced around the woods. “As fine as I could be. I don’t know where Elijah is. I got separated from you somehow when the fog came down. I kept hearing someone calling my name, but it sounded weird.”

  “Like it wasn’t coming from a person.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Me too. We have to find him.”

  They walked, side by side, calling for Elijah. It was a strange reality. If someone had told Zee yesterday that she would be here, with Nellie Bloom, she would have called them a bald-faced liar. But here she was. It didn’t matter right now that Nellie said those things about Abby. It didn’t matter that Zee kicked her in the nose. All that mattered was finding Elijah. And then finding their way out. That’s the thing about fear: you either conquer it or succumb to it. It offers no middle ground.

  They kept calling for Elijah over and over again, their voices bouncing off the trees and echoing back at them. It was a lonely call, one that offered no response but the eerie quiet of the woods. It felt devoid of all life, other than the hearts that still beat inside Zee and Nellie, and somewhere, hopefully, inside Elijah.

  “What is that?” Nellie said, pointing.

  Off to their right there was a small flicker of light, and then another. For a moment, Zee feared it was a forest fire, the way the light seemed to dance like only a flame can, but it was too controlled. Too small. Gingerly they took another step toward the light source.

  “Probably the same teenagers who did the eye trees,” Zee said, ignoring the quiver in her voice.

  “Yeah, probably. Nothing to worry about,” Nellie added. Zee was struck by how thankful she was that Nellie was here. That she believed her. That Elijah was smart enough to bring her along and that she wasn’t alone in these woods searching for her only friend.

  Unless, maybe, now she had another.

  They followed the light as it morphed and flickered, becoming increasingly clearer. They entered a break in the forest, a weirdly perfect circle of trees. On the ground there was a circle of candles burning. Zee realized this was the light she and Nellie saw from a distance. On each tree in this perfect circle hung a mirror.

  And at the center of it all was Elijah.

  14

  “ELIJAH!” ZEE SHOUTED, BUT HE DIDN’T RESPOND. HE SORT OF swayed there, slack-jawed and not moving, his arms hanging at his side, his eyes locked on his reflection in the mirror across from him.

  “Elijah, can you hear me? Wake up!”

  He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He just stared into the mirror in front of him.

  “Elijah!” Zee yelled. “Wake up.”

  She reached up to shake him, when Nellie yelled, “No! Don’t touch him. What if it’s not safe?”

  “We have to help him!”

  “What’s he looking at?” Nellie asked. She followed Elijah’s gaze to the mirrors. “We’ve got to knock them down,” she said, approaching the mirror nearest to her. She poked and prodded, trying to tip the mirror off whatever kept it fastened to the tree. But the thing wouldn’t budge.

  “Here, let me,” Zee said. She already had a tree branch in her hands like a baseball bat. She might not be good at much, she thought as she angled herself, but she was great at breaking things.

  She swung with all her strength, and the glass shattered with a crash loud enough to hear back in town. The glass rained down, glinting against the leaves and sticks. The girls turned to avoid the shards.

  “That was . . .” Nellie started but then just stood there, her mouth opening and closing.

  “Look, we don’t have time . . .” Zee said, but Nellie waved her hands in the air, shushing her.

  “No, that was incredible.”

  Zee smiled, weirdly proud of herself and weirdly enjoying the fact that she had impressed Nellie. It felt good. Better than kicking her in the nose, that was for sure.

  “Let me try,” Nellie said, picking up another broken branch. She squared her feet and propped it up on her shoulder.

  “Swing with your hips,” Zee said. “It gives you more leverage.”

  Nellie followed her advice, nailing the next mirror with all her force. It exploded in a shatter of glass that made the girl step back, both fearful and delighted.

  Zee smiled. “It feels good to break things, doesn’t it?”

  “You have no idea,” Nellie said with a grin. “In my house . . . we don’t break things. In fact, breaking things is not . . . acceptable.”

  Zee hefted her branch over her shoulder. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re not in your house, then.”

  Nellie smiled and turned toward the next mirror. The girls both swung with all their might, allowing cries to escape their lips, feeling the burn in their shoulders and necks as the branches made contact with the glass and it splintered under their strength. Zee thought about her teacher telling her that girls didn’t behave this way, about how people expect girls to be nice and polite and small. What garbage. She was never interested in small. She was interested in the stories her mind could invent, the tales her tongue could tell, and the power her body held.

  Small? she thought. Forget small.

  Zee was going to be huge.

  With that in mind, she put a touch more effort into her swing, let out a cry, and the last mirror shattered with a satisfying crash.

  “That’s all of them,” Zee said, turning toward Elijah, hope fluttering inside her.

  But the boy was unchanged. He was stock-still, his face slack and unresponsive.

  “It didn’t work,” Zee said, looking at Nellie. “Why didn’t it work?” Her voice was both angry and desperate.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Nellie said.

  “We don’t have time for this. We have to save Elijah,” Zee said again, approaching the boy. She shook him this time by the shoulders, ignoring Nellie’s warning.

  “Wake up!” she yelled as loud as she could. What was wrong with him? Why wasn’t he waking up? They had smashed all the mirrors like Nellie said, but Elijah just continued to stare into the void of space with that slack gaze. What was happeni
ng in these terrible woods?

  “Maybe it’s the candles,” Nellie said.

  Zee looked down and stomped on the first candle, which collapsed in a hiss under her boot. Nellie took out another one with a satisfying thud. Zee scraped her boot down on the next one, dragging it along the ground in a mess of wax and leaves.

  For a second, nothing happened. Zee reached out a nervous hand to her friend’s shoulder. “Elijah? Can you hear me?”

  She shook him harder. “Wake up, Elijah!” Zee yelled, her voice bouncing off the trees and back at her.

  Suddenly he collapsed, as if cut from strings, and hit the ground hard.

  The girls dropped to the forest floor next to him, anxious and concerned, watching the small rise and fall of his chest.

  “Elijah, please wake up,” Nellie said, sounding desperate and sad. She held his hand. Zee fought back fear and something under that. Something that made her feel just a tiny bit jealous. Something that wanted to remind Nellie that Elijah was hers.

  When he lifted his head, he blinked at them. “Zee? Nellie? What happened? There was this terrible fog, and I lost you both. Someone . . . something led me down here. I can’t remember.”

  “It’s okay,” Zee said, pulling him to his feet. They brushed the leaves and dirt off his clothes.

  “I don’t understand,” Elijah said, sounding more like himself. “I was holding your hand, and then, suddenly, I couldn’t see you anymore even though you should have been right next to me. But I still could feel your hand tugging me this way.”

  “Same thing happened to me,” Zee said.

  “And me,” Nellie added. “Something in these woods is trying to separate us.”

  “Trying to stop us,” Zee added.

  A cold wind whipped the leaves around them, scattering the twigs and rolling what was left of the candles. “What happened here? Is that glass?” Elijah asked.

  Nellie sighed. “Yeah, you were sort of stuck in some kind of weird void that possibly had your soul trapped in a mirror universe.”

  “It sounds worse when you say it like that,” Zee said.

  “Trapped in a mirror universe?” Elijah said in horror as he stepped gingerly away from the glass and ruined candles.

  “I think it’s time to find our way home,” Zee said. She wasn’t giving up, but this was all too much. The eye trees, whatever tried to separate them, the fog, the darkness, and now Elijah getting trapped like that. She wanted to help Deanna, but she knew when it was time to stop and regroup.

  “Elijah, did you see anyone? Do you remember anything?” Nellie asked.

  “No,” he said. “We were together, and then someone was calling my name. I thought it was one of you and I followed the voice down here and then the next thing I remember is you guys waking me up.”

  “Who would have built this?” Nellie wondered.

  “Probably whoever killed Deanna Jameson,” Zee said. “Probably the same person that put the eyes on the trees. They’re trying to stop anyone who’s looking for her. Guys, I think we need to go home.”

  “No,” Elijah said. “We’ve already gotten this far.”

  “You could have been hurt,” Zee said.

  “But I wasn’t. I want to go on. I want to finish this.”

  Zee looked at Nellie. She nodded back and said, “We’ve come this far. Whatever force is trying to stop us from finding Deanna’s bracelet hasn’t won. We can’t let it.”

  Zee was surprised by Nellie’s bravery. But then again, it seemed there were a lot of things about Nellie that Zee didn’t necessarily understand or know. And also a lot of things she wished she hadn’t assumed. Nellie was right. Zee did do more talking than listening, and here, in these dark woods, she promised herself that was going to change.

  “Okay,” she said with a nod. “Onward, then.”

  She stretched out her hand, making a fist, and Nellie and Elijah bumped hers.

  “What we need to do first,” Elijah said, “is find the creek. That leads to the bog.” He looked at the ruin around him again and shivered. “Trapped in a mirror. That’s not the kind of thing you’re going to forget.”

  Nellie breezily added, “It was nothing really. You were just, um, a little distracted.”

  “Yeah,” Zee said with a smile. “No big deal.”

  “Sure. You’re both a bunch of liars,” Elijah said with a smile, and Zee and Nellie exchanged a small secret look. Yes, Zee thought, it’s time for some change.

  The trio headed back toward what they hoped was the path. They continued walking, and while the fog had lifted, they were still lost.

  “There’s got to be a way to figure out which way is north,” Elijah said.

  “Oh! I can do it!” Nellie said, excited. “I just need a stick and some sun.”

  “Sticks we got,” Elijah said, kicking at the ground. “Not so sure about the sun.”

  Nellie scrounged around, picked her stick, and jammed it in the dirt so it stood upright. She brushed some leaves and twigs away to make sure the ground was level. The tree cover and clouds were not as thick here, and you could just make out a small weak shadow.

  “Get me a rock,” she said, not taking her eyes off the shadow. Elijah handed her a nearby stone.

  “Okay, we just have to wait a few minutes,” Nellie said, still watching the shadow.

  Elijah caught Zee’s eye. She knew that look. It was one of those aren’t-you-glad-I’m-so-smart-and-brought-along-someone-who-could-help-us? looks. Normally, Zee would have smirked, but instead she said softly, “Thank you.”

  “What’s that?” Nellie said, still staring at the shadow.

  “Nothing,” Zee and Elijah both answered.

  Nellie placed another rock to mark the edge of the shadow now that it had moved a bit. She drew a line between them.

  “Now,” she said, standing, “the first rock is west and the second is east.”

  “Which means,” Elijah said, pointing, “that would be north. Absolutely brilliant.” Nellie beamed as he hugged her. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Girl Scouts. One of the many activities my mother insisted on.”

  “Well, thank goodness she did,” Elijah said.

  “Indeed. Tennis would have been a lot less helpful,” Nellie joked. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Zee was struck with a warmth, something almost like a hug as she followed her friends. At first it was gratitude. She was thankful for Nellie’s smarts and thankful for Elijah for bringing her along. But as they walked, it morphed into something else. Like a beacon that was telling her they were going in the right direction. She was warm all over. It felt like a nice protection against the cold woods.

  Within a few minutes, they heard the babble of the creek next to them. Excited, they jogged down a hill toward it, relieved that the light down here felt like the warm October light. No one wanted to mention it, but it felt like they’d escaped some sort of trap, like whatever cursed that part of the woods held no sway here.

  Again, the ground softened, and Zee knew they were almost there. When she was younger, this was the line that she couldn’t cross. Her father let her play in the woods, but he always told her that once the ground started to sink under her feet, she had gone as far as she could. There was a lot of freedom in her household when it came to her father’s rules. But this was an uncrossable line. Bogs were dangerous. It was easy to get stuck in the mud and muck. It was easy to get turned around, and even now as the ground bowed under her, she could hear her father’s voice telling her it was time to come home.

  Come home, Zee. Come home.

  The words were whispered on the breeze, which lifted her white hair.

  “Are we almost there?” Nellie asked.

  “Yes,” she said with confidence. Because Zee wasn’t a little girl anymore. And this time it wasn’t about games. She was, after all, trying to save a soul.

  The trees morphed from oaks and maples to smaller shrubs. On the edge of the bog was a massive weeping willow tree, whic
h reminded Zee of the one in the cemetery—the one she stayed away from—and she shivered even though it no longer felt November cold.

  They stopped about twenty feet from the tree.

  “Spread out, and be careful. The bracelet could be anywhere, but that bog is no joke,” Zee said. The three of them started searching the ground, turning over leaves and kicking up dirt. After thirty minutes, it seemed they had searched everywhere but found nothing. They were tired and cold, and their boots no longer seemed to protect them from the ooze of mud.

  “Maybe this is the wrong place,” Nellie offered.

  “Something—or someone—was trying to stop us from getting here, though. This has to be it. Didn’t Deanna tell you this was the place, Zee?” Elijah said.

  “Sort of. She didn’t know where she was, but . . . she said it was cold and wet. This makes sense based on what she described. I just don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do,” Nellie said. “Close your eyes and think about it. You know.”

  “I don’t.” Zee felt her frustration rising.

  “Zee, you have a gift. Use it. Listen for her.”

  Zee closed her eyes and exhaled long and deep. She listened hard, beyond the forest and beyond her own breathing. She listened with her whole body. And then she heard it. Faintly at first but a humming. A song. A song about a Wild Rose. The same song Elijah’s mother was singing. And then above that she heard Deanna.

  “Look up, Zee,” her voice said in Zee’s head. “Just look up.”

  Zee opened her eyes, and the voices and the song faded away. She lifted her head, gazing up into the willow tree, and spotted a glint of silver. Her breath caught. There it was. Deanna’s bracelet, hanging from one of the tree branches like some kind of marker. Zee reached up and pulled it down, held it in her hands. Nellie and Elijah gathered around her, and the three looked down at the trinket in her hand. Engraved on the front was the name “Deanna.” On the back it said “I will always love you.”