Prologue
She is standing precisely on the edge, her toes kissing the air. It’s a cool October night, and the stars are concealed by the clouds. She wraps her arms around her slender body and shivers as she takes a deep breath. This is her doing what is right. She’s not confused. She’s not afraid. But she is cold. Her pyjama shorts are flimsy, and she forgot to put on shoes. The soles of her feet will be bruised and dirty when they find her.
One more step.
A thrill shudders through her body at the sound of his voice. He is not here, nor in her mind, he is everywhere, filling every void that has ever been left open in her life. He is what is right with this world. Everything is him and she is his. Completely and utterly his.
“I’m coming to you,” she whispers.
That’s right. Join me. Take that last step and be with me forever.
“I want to be with you,” she says. “That’s what I want more than anything.”
She stares down at the road below. It’s so far. She’d followed her feet as they took her here, to the bridge over the ring road outside Ashforth, and she’d climbed over the protective barrier and stood precariously on the edge as she waited for him. Now he was here, all around her, and it was her time to do this for him. To do it for them.
Then jump. You won’t feel pain. You won’t feel anything but joy. And then you will be with me, and we can walk this world together forevermore. We will be together.
She gasps as she feels the whisper of his caress against her cheek. Again, she cannot see him, she only senses his presence. His soft touch runs down her jaw, along her collar bone and down her shoulder. She tilts her head back and sucks in the cold air, closing her eyes to savour his touch.
“We’ll be together.” She’s laughing. She can’t help it, she has to laugh. She’s happier than she can ever remember. The dark thoughts have gone, all those moments wasted by depression. She’d felt so alone before he came to her. No one understood her, not like him. She’d been so lonely, so afraid of the world. But now she was strong and capable. She had a purpose, and that purpose was to be with him. Forever.
She looks at the ground once more. It’s so far to fall. But she won’t feel pain. She will only feel love for him. Then she will be with him forever.
He doesn’t have to push her. She jumps from the edge.
When her body hits the ground, the pain is excruciating, but it’s gone almost as quickly as it came.
Chapter One
LACEY
You want to know the worst thing about being a fucking ghost? When I was alive, I tried to kill myself. What is that? Irony? Some Alanis Morisette nonsense? I tried to do it five times. I was fourteen when I first tried. I was sick of Mum. I was sick of all the addicts in our dirty house, and of scavenging leftovers like some orphan in a third world country. I didn’t mean it. I just wanted her to help me, I guess. I tried with a razor blade, but I cut the wrong way and not deep enough. I didn’t even need stitches.
That was the first time I stayed in Magdelena.
The second attempt was with a rope. I tied it to the curtain rail in my bedroom and jumped from my bed. Mum walked in as I was trying to hook my foot onto the windowsill to save myself. She helped me down and then broke three of my ribs with her fists. Luckily, I didn’t get a neck bruise, so the hospital sorted my ribs and I went back home.
A few months after that I went back into Magdelena, and I hardly came out until I met Mary. That psychiatric ward was more of a home than I ever had with the meth addict. Still, I tried to die three more times. I won’t go into those attempts. They were crude, embarrassing, violent. I have the scars to prove it.
And then I died for real.
When I went to help Mary face Gethen, I did it without thinking I would die. I was actually afraid to die at that moment. But I did it for her, because she was my only real friend.
And I would do it again.
She’d do it for me, too. It’s funny saying that, because I’ve had a rejection complex my whole life. I’ve never felt that anyone would go out of their way for me until I met Mary. Now I know she would risk her life for me. She did it in the basement of her house when I was being sucked into the Athamé. We faced Little Amy together. She fought bravely against Tasha MacIntosh. Is it possible to be closer to a friend than your real family? I hope so, because that’s what I feel for her. We’re sisters, but we’re not even both alive.
“Okay, I found it.”
I like to pretend that the sound of Willa’s voice doesn’t do anything for me, but it makes me feel lighter. I love being around Mary, but she’s always been a good friend and an anchoring presence. Willa makes me lighter. She makes my spirit—which is all that’s left of me—soar. Sometimes my feet even leave the floor.
“Let me see.”
When she stands next to me, the electric current of my being crackles. If she notices, she doesn’t let it show. What amazes me is that I can smell her. She’s all forest. Cool pine and musky wood. The first time I saw her I thought she looked like a girl on one of those paintings you see in museums. When I was alive I never went anywhere like a museum. Now I go all the time. I go when they’re shut and look at the beautiful art. It makes me cry. Why didn’t I see all this when I was alive? I took it for granted, all of it. Now I could go at any moment and leave it all behind.
“It’s the only photograph I have of me as a child,” she says. The breeze from her open bedroom window lifts her hair and sweeps it over her face. She brushes it away. One thing I know about Willa is that she always sleeps with her window open. She says it’s because she grew up in cold barns and communal rooms. She needs to feel the cold and hear noise. “Look, that’s Jack. That’s my mother.” Her voice breaks a little. She blinks away a tear and shakes her head. “And that’s my little brother Alfie.”
“Do you miss them?” I ask.
“Oh yes,” she says with a smile. “So much. Especially Alfie.” She clears her throat as I examine the photograph. It’s bent and tattered. The edges are torn. It looks like it has been kept in a wallet or a pocket. Willa must be about eleven or twelve years old, Jack around the same age. Willa’s face is speckled with freckles, Jack’s eyes are dark and serious, but he’s smiling, which is a rarity for the Jack I’ve come to know over the last month. Willa’s smile is open and bright, her eyes shine. The little boy, Alfie, has his hand wrapped in Willa’s. And the woman behind them is so like Willa is now, that it almost takes my breath away. She has the same strawberry blonde hair, the same open face, the same wide smile. “Alfie died not long after that.”
I glance at Willa in shock. “The little boy?”
She nods.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She wipes another tear from her eye. “I think you should do this, you know.”
“Do what?” I ask.
“You should get something from your past, a photograph or a keepsake, and you should keep it to remind yourself of who you are.”
“Who I was, you mean,” I say.
But Willa fixes me with her deep blue eyes. “No, who you are. You are still here, you exist, you’re a person. I think you should gather some of your old things and remember what it was like for you when you were alive.”
This is the point where I usually say something sarcastic. Where I laugh it off and mention the drug addict mother. But I can’t. She’s right. There are moments, terrifying moments, where I’m slipping away and I can’t keep hold of myself. It’s like the particles that make me whole are coming undone and I can’t hold them all in place. Maybe reminding myself of who I am will help stop parts of me from slipping away.
“What’s the point though?” I say. “Isn’t all this just going to make it harder for me when I have to leave?”
Willa bites her lip as though contemplating something. Then she places the photograph onto her bed and says, “What if you don’t have to leave? At least not for years and years. What if you stayed here, and you stayed grounded and connected with the world? What if you lived with us, grew up, and lived your life—”
“As a ghost?” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “Why not?”
I can think of so many reasons why not. I’m not supposed to for a start. But then maybe Willa and Mary aren’t supposed to see ghosts either. Maybe what’s real and what isn’t doesn’t apply in this world.
“I think I can help you stay connected with the world,” Willa says. “And then you can live just like the rest of us.”
*
MARY
“I’m not alone, Emmaline. There’s someone else like me now. Is that wonderful, or is it weird? Why is the universe doing this to me?”
Emmaline laughs. “The universe doesn’t care about you, my dear girl. The universe is indifferent to you and your joys or your suffering. I told you before, energy attracts energy. Willa wandered into your orbit. Now you are together.” She shrugs. “Make the most of it, or don’t. The universe doesn’t care. Now drink this.”
“What is it?”
“Peppermint tea. It’s time you started to learn self-preservation, my girl. You need to learn how to protect yourself with the offerings of this world.”
“What are you talking about?” I sip the tea from Emmaline’s china tea cup. The handle is one of those ornate, uncomfortable ones that you can’t fit your hand through.
“I’m talking about herbs. I’m talking about natural goodness all around us.” A shadow falls over her face. It’s not late, but the sun has gone down. Emmaline lives in a state of near darkness, with only lamps on in her home.
Murphy barks from the living room and I start, spilling a little of the tea onto Emmaline’s table. She tuts and wipes the liquid away with a tea towel.
“Don’t get jumpy on me, girl. It’ll only be my dear brother paying a visit,” she says.
I shudder. Emmaline’s brother is a particularly nasty ghost who likes to taunt Emmaline about the fire from her childhood that scarred her face. “Why don’t you Athamé him? I can do it if you like.”
She shakes her head. “No, I can’t. Not yet, anyway.”
I have a sneaking suspicion that Emmaline would like to be a ghost herself, and that’s why she’s learned so much about the spirit world and hosts her monthly séances. I would never broach the subject with her though.
“Here. Read this. It’s all about herbs and their healing properties. You can cleanse a house with smudge sticks. Ravenswood could benefit from a cleanse.” She raises her eyebrows.
“I agree,” I say. I may have cleared the old house of ghosts, but it still has a certain aura of darkness about it. Sometimes I wonder whether all the spirits are completely gone.
“A smudge stick should do it,” Emmaline says. She hands me a plate with a large chunk of chocolate cake on it. “Here, you could do with this.”
“I’m not complaining, but why?” I ask.
She pats me lightly on the nose like a parent might do a young child. “Don’t you think I see that long face? I see that look in your eyes. You need cheering up. Now eat your cake.”
“Thank you,” I say, smiling at the older woman. I’d never thought I could have a friendship with a woman in her fifties, but here I am sharing cake with Emmaline like two good friends. Of course, I also have a best friend who’s a ghost and a mum who was possessed by a dark spirit. I suppose you could say my life is extraordinary.
As I’m finishing my cake, Emmaline reads the newspaper. It’s a local, Ashforth, newspaper, and on the front cover is a picture of a young girl, perhaps sixteen years old. She has mousey brown hair and braces. Her smile is sweet, but it doesn’t meet her eyes, which makes me feel very sad all of a sudden. I can’t quite read the headline, because Emmaline’s fingers are covering it.
“What happened to the girl on the front page?” I ask, hoping that she won an award or got on X-Factor, or something.
Emmaline turns the paper back to the front page and frowns. “She committed suicide by jumping from the bridge over the ring road. Tragic.”
My blood runs cold. There’s something about this girl that makes me shiver. Maybe it’s the thought of someone who looks so sweet taking her own life. Maybe it’s something else.
“She was a troubled girl,” Emmaline says with a sigh. “Mental health issues, unfortunately.”
“What kind of mental health issues?” I ask.
“It doesn’t say.”
I cut another piece of cake and try not to think about the girl jumping from the bridge. I’ve walked over that bridge. She would have to climb over the barrier. It’s always windy up there. I imagine the cold metal of the barrier against my legs as I climb over. It’s almost as though I’m there. I suppress a shudder and try to eat the rest of my cake. Do I recognise her? Did she go to my school? I don’t think so, but then I still don’t know everyone at Ashforth Comp. Maybe she was there at Travis’s party. Maybe she was possessed…
“I should be heading home,” I say. “It’s getting late and my parents will be wondering where I am.”
“You’re quite right.” Emmaline stands up. “Now, you be careful on the walk back. Take Murphy with you. He knows his way home.”
I agree, glad of the company. Murphy is a sweet old dog and I doubt he would be able to protect me against a true predator, but the thought of walking the short distance through the woods on my own leaves me cold.
I say my goodbyes to Emmaline and head down the small path from her house to the woods that lead out to the back of Ravenswood. Murphy trots happily along with me. Every now and then I bend down to stroke his ears. Pulling my cardigan tighter, I brace myself against the cold wind. Now that it’s October, I need to start wearing more of my winter clothes. I’m reluctant to. I want the summer back. These long nights are the last thing I need after everything with Mum and Travis. When I go to sleep at night, I see them all. I see everything that has happened.
The temperature drops suddenly. My breath comes out in a vapour. I know what is going to happen before it occurs, so I take hold of Murphy’s collar just in case he tries to bolt. The ghost appears before me, but it is only there for an instant. Her face is white and drawn. I take a step back, still shocked even though I knew a ghost was near. I can read the signs now.
“Help me,” she says.
I open my mouth to speak, but she’s pulled back, as though yanked into some other dimension. Her hands reach out for me as she disappears into the night. I gasp, shocked by her sudden disappearance. Her scream echoes through the woods. I stand there, trying to process what happened, trying to calm my beating heart. What did she want from me? Who pulled her away? Where did she go? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I do know one thing for certain: it was the girl from the newspaper.
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