Ghost Girl

by Ally Malinenko

  “Zee,” a voice called to her, sending a shiver down her spine.

  “I need all of you,” Principal Scratch was saying, “to work with me. I need all of you to visualize a future for this child. One that does not involve fighting and failure. One that shows her the path. Join me, friends, to see the way.”

  Zee felt dizzy and confused. How did she get here? How long had she been here?

  “Zee.”

  The voice that called her sounded familiar, like something from a dream she had a long time ago.

  “I see you,” Principal Scratch said. With a keen horror, Zee realized that he didn’t sound like he was talking to the crowd because she could still hear that like background noise. This voice, this new Scratch voice, was inside her head. “I see what you want. I can taste it,” he said. “Your fear tastes sweet.”

  Zee squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get this voice out of her head, willing herself to stand up, to get out from under his glove and to get out of the gym.

  “Yes,” he continued, “I see what you fear. What you are so afraid of is true. You think you were a killer from the day you were born.”

  And then again, faintly, someone called her name. “Zeeeee.”

  She opened her eyes, and before her she could see the crowd, the way they all seemed entranced as they applauded what he said. As they smiled through tears, moved by his love for this community, which Zee knew was, above all things, the most terrible lie.

  “Zeeee.”

  Zee pulled her eyes up and scanned the gym. She could see others on the bleachers, clapping, she could see the long hardwood floor leading up to the door. A door she desperately wanted to get through.

  And then she saw something else.

  In the corner of the room, something flickered by the team banners. It shone bright and then faded, then reappeared, winking in and out.

  “Yes, Zee, it’s me.”

  And with a cold gasp she realized it was Deanna.

  “You freed me, Zee, so now I’m going to help free you. That man is the one that took my bracelet and left me in the water. He is not what you think he is. You must get out of here as soon as possible.”

  Zee’s head started to swirl. Principal Scratch killed Deanna Jameson? It didn’t seem possible. Why? Why would he kill her? She looked over at Deanna again.

  “He charmed me, took my bracelet, and left me behind. He left me to die,” Deanna whispered right into her ear. “Then he painted the eyes on the trees to keep watch for anyone getting close. It is a dark magic that he wields. It unleashed his powers. He cannot be beaten. You must leave at once. If you let his dark words inside you, he will start to control you. That is what he does. He has a dangerous tongue. He used me to get this position at the school. He shows people what they want, and then he feeds off them, slowly draining them.”

  Again she heard Scratch in her head. “This is why your father has left. Your poor sister’s life has been ruined. This is what you fear the most—that you are a terrible person.”

  “That’s not true,” Zee said, squeezing her eyes, even as the tears escaped and dripped from her cheeks to the hardwood floor.

  “Zee,” Deanna said. “Get free and get out. Now.”

  Zee strained with all her might, pushing against whatever force was keeping her frozen, with his hand clamped on her. She pulled and pushed. She felt Scratch clamp down harder, his fingers digging into her shoulder, trying to will her to stay put.

  “You won’t get away that easily. You must tell me the thing you want the most. Say it.”

  “Zee, you have to try harder,” Deanna said.

  She tried to push his voice out of her head, but it was no use. Scratch was stronger than her. Even as she pushed away, his voice sounded louder and closer.

  There was a loud shout, a stampede of feet, and Zee was knocked to the side, free of his grip.

  Elijah had tackled Principal Scratch to the ground. The crowd started to panic. Suddenly, Nellie was there too, grabbing Zee’s hand and pulling her off the floor. Without a word spoken, they ran straight for the doors.

  “Come back, child! You have so much potential!” Principal Scratch screamed at the top of his lungs. They didn’t look back. Nellie threw open the gymnasium doors, and the three of them raced down the steps two at a time and they ran and ran and ran.

  17

  “GUYS, STOP,” ELIJAH SAID ONCE THEY REACHED THE PLAYGROUND near the entrance to the woods. The three of them stuttered to a stop, hands on knees, breathing heavy. Zee’s heart was beating hard, and the sweat that covered her body suddenly made her shiver in the cool air. She sat down on one of the swings.

  She couldn’t stop thinking of how easily Scratch got inside her head. How he knew her deepest fear, plucked it right out, understood it, and then used it against her. There was a hard, bitter pit inside her stomach. Something that would never be filled.

  How did he get inside her head? How could he possibly know? She never talked about these fears. Not to anyone.

  A sob escaped her lips when she thought about her sister just sitting there. Abby was supposed to protect her. Was it possible that what he said was true? Did she really ruin Abby’s life? Did Abby resent her because she had to drop out of school? Did her father go upstate because he couldn’t look at her? Because she looked too much like her mother? Because she was the reason for her mother’s death? Was that why he was gone?

  And why was she the only one in town who could see what Scratch was doing?

  Once they had all caught their breaths, Elijah said, “Are you okay?”

  Zee nodded, wiping away the tears she only now realized were still flowing down her cheeks.

  “That was terrifying,” Nellie said as she suddenly grabbed Zee into a hug. Without thinking about it, Zee relaxed into her arms. Elijah wrapped his arms around the two of them, and they stood there in a little huddle for a few minutes.

  “Oh my goodness,” Elijah said. “I just realized I pushed my principal to the floor. I’m one hundred percent in trouble. Detention for life!”

  Zee broke from the hug and looked at her friend. Was this another thing she caused? Another way she poisoned everyone around her? But when she saw the big smile on Elijah’s face, she couldn’t help but laugh herself. “My hero,” she said.

  “Nah. You don’t need a hero. You’re the hero, Zee.”

  “We’ll all be heroes,” Nellie said. “Once we figure out what is happening.”

  “Guys, I spoke with Deanna again,” Zee said. “She appeared in the gym and told me who killed her.” Zee took a deep breath because even saying it out loud seemed crazy. “Principal Scratch.”

  “What?” Elijah said at the same time that Nellie said, “No way.”

  “She told me that he was the one who brought her to the woods and took her bracelet.”

  “He must have made the eye trees,” Elijah said.

  “What is he?” Zee asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s human. I’m afraid he might be something worse. My aunt, the one who’s like you, she warned me about this, about all kinds of things,” Nellie said, “until my mother found out, and now we can’t see each other. Things at home are not great.”

  Zee watched the look that Elijah gave Nellie as he said, “Still as bad as the other week?”

  “Yeah,” Nellie said, her eyes down.

  A twinge of jealousy went up Zee’s spine as she watched this exchange between the two of them. How much time did Elijah spend with her? Did they . . . like . . . each other? Zee furrowed her brow. And no, it wasn’t that she liked Elijah like that either. Most days Zee wasn’t sure who she liked or didn’t like. Sometimes she thought that one day she might like boys. Sometimes she thought about liking girls—but not the ones at school because they were mean to her. Most of the time she liked no one and wanted to live in a castle at the edge of the sea and do nothing but write stories and own a thousand cats. But just the idea of someone else spending time with Elijah . . . made her fe
el, frankly, weird.

  “Is there any way we can talk to her?” Elijah said. “To your aunt? Ask her questions?”

  “If we can somehow get up to the New Castle library.”

  “Wait, she works there?” Zee asked.

  “Yeah. I mentioned it like five thousand times when we were there. You don’t remember?”

  Zee dropped her eyes. “I maybe sort of blocked out anything that had to do with you back then.”

  Nellie let out a honking laugh. “Same, Ghost Girl. Same.”

  Zee smiled. It was amazing how words could change over time and with experience. Something that used to feel so harsh and cruel before was now said with so much love and friendship. How experiences could change you, how people were so much more complex than you assumed.

  “But how are we going to get up there?” Elijah asked. “Can Abby drive us?”

  Zee cringed. She’d forgotten all about Abby. Her sister was probably so worried after she just took off like that. Then again, Zee thought, maybe she wasn’t worried at all. Maybe she was so far under Scratch’s spell that she didn’t care about anything else.

  “No, she’s . . . not well. She’s not herself. There’s the phone thing where she thinks she’s talking to Dad, but also she’s just obsessed with Principal Scratch. How come you guys were able to get out from under his spell?”

  Nellie and Elijah both looked nervous before Nellie said, “I don’t know. The spell . . . whatever he’s doing didn’t latch on right. I believe Principal Scratch gave me something that looked very much like Max, but . . . he’s not my dog. I don’t know what he is, but he’s not mine. Everything about him feels off. He’s mean. He slinks around the house like he doesn’t belong there. He’s some kind of terrible copy. Made to look like Max, but . . . wrong.”

  Elijah nodded. “Same. The person in my house is . . . not my mother.” There was a catch in his voice before he cleared his throat and went on. “I want it to be, so badly, but that doesn’t make it true.”

  “We’ve been talking about it,” Nellie said, pointing at herself and Elijah. “It was hard to come to terms with, but when you know someone . . .”

  “In the same situation,” Elijah added. “At some point, you need to face the truth even if it’s not what you want.”

  Zee considered this. If Elijah and Nellie were able to counter whatever Scratch had done, why couldn’t Abby? Was she that desperate for their father? Or was it all just too much for her? Zee always thought of Abby as a grown-up because she was so much older than her, but maybe twenty-one isn’t that old after all. Maybe it’s far too young to have to drop out of school, raise your little sister, and work yourself to the bone. Zee instantly regretted all the times she’d been so thoughtless and mean to Abby. Of course she believed it was their father. She was still kind of a kid herself.

  “So,” Elijah said, “how do we get to the library?”

  “Easy,” Nellie said. “Bus tickets.”

  Zee looked at her. “Yeah, sorry, I don’t have money. Like at all.”

  “I know,” Nellie said. “I do. I got all three of us.”

  “Won’t your family notice you’re gone?”

  Nellie dropped her eyes. “No. They won’t.”

  There was a beat before she added, “Zee, I’m sorry about what I said at recess before our fight. I made it all up. I was . . . mad.”

  “At what?” Zee asked.

  “At you,” Nellie said. Her voice dropped as quickly as her eyes. This was not the confident Nellie that Zee had known. There was something painful in her face. “At what you and your sister have. Everyone who goes into that diner knows she’s bragging about how great and clever you are all the time. I was jealous. I don’t have anyone doing that in my house. No one fawns over my grades. No one surprises me. Yes, we have money, but that doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t stop people who are supposed to love you from reminding you how much you disappoint them. All I had was Max, and now I don’t even have him.”

  Nellie and Elijah exchanged a look and something passed between them that Zee realized she would never understand. Whatever was happening between Nellie and her family was clearly akin to what Elijah was going through with his dad. Nellie was right. Zee had so much more than she realized. So much that she took for granted. She had Abby, who gave up everything to make sure she was happy, and her father, who loved her enough to trust her to take care of herself. She had Elijah, who listened to all her talking without asking for anything in return.

  And now she had Nellie.

  “I didn’t know you could start such a great friendship by kicking someone in the nose,” Zee said.

  Nellie burst out laughing. “Isn’t that how all the great friendships start?”

  Elijah hooked an arm around both girls’ shoulders. “Stop being so mushy, you two.”

  They met up at the bus station an hour later, tickets in hand, and boarded the next bus to New Castle. On the ride, they lined up all their facts and figures so that they had as much information as possible. They needed to get to the bottom of this.

  “So what else did your aunt tell you?” Elijah asked.

  “Mostly stuff about balance.”

  “Balance?” Zee said as they rumbled up the road.

  “Sure. How the universe is balanced. The way good forces come up against evil forces.”

  Zee laughed, but when Nellie looked at her, she stopped. “It’s true, Zee. There is evil in this world. It corrupts people, makes them harm others. It’s toxic.”

  “Do you think Scratch has been corrupted?” Elijah asked.

  “No,” Nellie said after thinking about it for a minute. “I think he does the corrupting. I think he’s like . . . water coming up against iron. He’s the agent that does the damage.”

  “He’s what causes the rust,” Zee said, and Nellie nodded.

  “Do you think your aunt will be able to help?”

  “Absolutely. She’s seen it all. Ghosts, hauntings, creatures that would make your skin crawl.”

  When the bus wheezed to a halt outside the library, the trio got off. They climbed up the wide steps and entered the library. At the front desk, Nellie asked for her aunt and was told she was at the reference desk in History and Religion on the second floor.

  They took the escalator up, and Nellie spotted her right away. Nellie’s aunt looked up. For a moment, she looked frozen in shock, but then she ran around from the desk and hugged Nellie as hard as she could.

  “Aunt Betty, you’re going to squeeze my insides out,” the girl laughed.

  “I’m just so happy to see you! Wait, what are you doing here? Is everything okay? Did something happen at home?” Aunt Betty said in a rush. She was so excited her curly hair full of clips and a few errant pencils bounced.

  Nellie held up her hands to slow down her aunt. “Everything is fine.”

  Aunt Betty’s squinted. “Is your . . . mother here?”

  “No,” Nellie said, and they watched Aunt Betty noticeably relax.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “These are my friends. Elijah and Zee,” Nellie said, hooking a thumb back toward of each of them. “Zee has . . . um . . . a gift. Similar to yours.”

  Aunt Betty’s eyes went wide, and she smiled at Zee. She ran a warm hand over Zee’s head and touched the side of her face. It was a comforting touch.

  “Oh my, what a powerful gift you have, Zee. You’re absolutely humming with it,” Aunt Betty said. “How exciting!”

  Weird, Zee thought, it’s like being a part of a strange little club.

  “Wait,” Aunt Betty said, and stopped. “I know you. I know this gift.” She gasped then and said, “You’re Laura Ann’s baby.”

  “I told you they were friends,” Nellie said.

  “You knew my mother?” Zee said just above a whisper. Her voice catching on the M-word.

  “I did. She was a dear friend of mine and a talented Seer. I miss her every day. You look like her.”

  “Everyone says
I look like my father,” Zee said, hardly able to control the hitch in her voice.

  “You do, but you look like your mother too. You have her smile. And her talent.”

  “Yeah,” Nellie said, “we wanted to do a little research about that.”

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Aunt Betty asked.

  “Not really. But if they knew I was here, they’d just refuse to let me see you. You know how they are! Besides, we really need your help.”

  Aunt Betty fixed Nellie with a look. “Just a few hours and then you’re going back home before they send the police after me, okay?”

  Nellie nodded.

  “What topics are you interested in?”

  “Ghosts for sure. Maybe demons.”

  Elijah and Zee exchanged a look, and Elijah mouthed, “Demons?” He looked very anxious.

  Aunt Betty exhaled deeply. “That’s an intense order.” She looked at Zee and said, “Have you gotten yourself mixed up in something?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s just research,” Zee lied at the same time Nellie said, “Yes.”

  Aunt Betty made a face and crossed her arms. “So which one is it?”

  Nellie looked at Zee and Elijah. “You can trust her. I promise.”

  Zee and Elijah exchanged a look and then both gave Nellie a nod. She told Aunt Betty everything. From the storm to the cemetery to Max to Elijah’s mother to Principal Scratch. Hearing Nellie lay everything out like that, Zee realized how much they did need help, and she was thankful that even if she didn’t know how to ask for it, Nellie did.

  “So, can you help?” Nellie asked.

  “Of course I can. I’m not only an expert in Seeing; I’m also a librarian!”

  Zee and Elijah and Nellie spent the next two hours poring over the books that Aunt Betty pulled from the paranormal section. They wrote down notes on scrap paper.

  “It says in here,” Elijah said, pointing at the thick tome before him, “that sometimes you can get good spirits to fight on your behalf. Do you think we could ask Deanna?”