Liv, Forever (23 page)

“No! I will
not
be your proof!” she yelled, instantly enraged. She grabbed him and pulled his shirt, trying to strangle him, but as he stumbled backward, gasping for air, she faded back to her ghost self.

Kent spun around, looking for her. She’d disappeared to him. But I could still see her, once again airy and immaterial.

Kent, invigorated, turned and raced back in the direction we’d come from, leaving me alone with her. I looked around. Malcolm was long gone. By now he’d probably reached the cemetery, so I took a moment to understand what had just happened.

“He could see you. He could
touch
you.”

“That was my deathday. For once, I almost got to use it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every year on the day you were murdered, you materialize. Briefly. Right at the time you died.”

“Every year?”

She nodded. “But just for a moment, right at that special time.”

I realized that must have been what I’d seen in the cemetery that Headmaster Holiday night, when I was still alive. I
had
seen Mary—Miss
Jackie O
—it had been her deathday.

“I saw one once,” I told Ruth. “When I was still alive. In the cemetery. And …” I hesitated, “I think I saw you, too … in my dream.”

She nodded. “You did. I was trying to warn you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seemed about time, perhaps, for another death. I was attempting to spare you. But I didn’t say enough … or do enough.”

“But you warned me about Malcolm. Why? Do you know something about him?”

“Not him. Not him
specifically.
But I’ve observed the scenario before. Too many times now. I thought I could help this time.”

“Will you come with me to the cemetery?” I asked. I’d never before had to appeal to a girl with a slashed throat. She still frightened me, but I needed her. She had answers, and she seemed willing to share them. “We need to know everything. We’re trying to figure it all out.”

“Minerva doesn’t want me to speak to you. Or anyone. She forbids it.”

“She keeps you all apart?”

Ruth nodded.

“We have to figure out
why
, Ruth. Please come,” I begged. “We’ve gathered so much information. We’re so close.”

She perked up. “
We
?” she asked. “I knew it! Can one of those boys I’ve seen you with
hear
you?”

I nodded yes. She smiled, almost exhilarated by the possibility.

“
Please
come. Together maybe we can fix this.”

She looked around nervously, then nodded. And together, we—two dead girls—walked to the Wickham Hall cemetery.

BY THE TIME WE
got there, Malcolm and Gabe were both waiting. Through Gabe, I explained to Malcolm why I’d abandoned him and what had happened with Kent, which we all agreed was only further proof of his guilt. Then I introduced them to Ruth, and she told us her death story, involving the anonymous note. The weeping willow. Getting pinned to the tree from behind. Gabe relayed the story to Malcolm, who was scribbling notes into a spiral notebook.

We flooded her with questions. What grabbed her? Was it a man? Who? Why? What had she observed over the years? The details were blurry. She was confused about time. She knew things were different when she had died—girls dressed differently and people spoke differently—but she didn’t seem to understand it had been nearly a hundred years. She had noticed every so often, a female student, someone on the fringe, had died. Usually after mingling with Victors. She had spotted me and for the first time, attempted to intercede. But she didn’t know how or why the girls died. She didn’t have any details. One thing she did know: her strength had diminished, except at
that magical moment on her deathday once a year. But she never knew how to anticipate or exploit her brief power.

“What do you mean your strength diminished?” Of course I’d felt it myself, but I needed to hear it from her.

“When I first arrived, I could affect the real world if I tried very hard. But it’s very painful. I know you know what I mean. I can see you still have power because you’re not as faint as we are yet. But your energy is limited. Each spirit has only a finite amount.
Every single time
you affect the real world—every time you do something that interacts with it or changes it—you get fainter, weaker. It is painful, and you lose reserves. I am now powerless. All I can do is give a chill. I have been this way since I can remember. I think all the other girls have lost their energy as well.”

“What about going through things? It hurts, but it doesn’t use my power, right?”

“No, going through an object—if you don’t affect it—doesn’t use your strength. We can all do that. And if you just release yourself—open yourself to the object—it won’t hurt anymore. Not at all.”

That’s why the other ghosts could easily pass through walls without even flinching. And when that Third Former had crossed through me from behind, it hadn’t hurt because I hadn’t even known it was happening. Now it made sense.

I had to try. I reached out to a tree branch nearby. I tried to relax my arm and move it through the dangling leaves. I recoiled. It still stung.

“You must open yourself. Completely,” she instructed.

I closed my eyes and tried my hardest to feel open, to
feel free, and swept my arm up. As I opened my eyes, I saw my arm pass though the leaves and branch painlessly. I smiled, sighing with relief.

“But your power—your ability to change things, to
do
things in the world of the living—is precious,” Ruth urged. “Save it.”

All my efforts flashed in front of me like slides in art history class—trying to lift the leaf that first night outside Skellenger, shaking the crime scene investigator’s table, writing in the steam on the window in the library, making the butterflies flutter in the Headmaster’s Quarters, writing on the steam on Malcolm’s window … Each of those actions was marching me closer to total powerlessness. How much energy remained? There was so much left to do, but I had no idea how much power I still had. I was beginning to look almost translucent, like the others. I exchanged a look with Gabe. He could see my concern.

“Can you tell us about the other ghosts?” Gabe asked.

She shrugged. “What is there to say? We don’t talk. Minerva forbids it.”

“Does she say why?”

“She told me they’re angry and dangerous … not to be trusted. She told me to stay away from them. And she’s frightening. Powerful. So I just go about my own business. I sing. I watch the clouds. Time is all a blur.”

I knew what she meant.

Gabe reported the information to Malcolm, adding, “Minerva must not want them to talk for a reason. If they all talk they might figure something out. And she doesn’t want them to.” For someone so exceptionally skilled at
concocting far-fetched theories, this one actually sounded plausible.

“That’s why we’re going to bring them all here,” I said.

“Now.”

RUTH WAS NERVOUS ABOUT
the plan. She’d gone so many years without talking to the others. I understood. It was overwhelming. She was terrified of them. We all were. I pointed out that if we were scared of them, then maybe they were just as scared of us. After all, I’d been terrified of Ruth until I met her. Maybe that was part of Minerva’s plan. Finally Ruth nodded, agreeing to proceed.

We didn’t want any of the living people to hear us, so Gabe and Malcolm remained silent. I sprung up to the roof of the Founders Tomb so that my voice might boom all across campus. I shouted out each girl’s name, turning to face in the direction where I knew she resided. “Clara! Florence! Mary! Lydia! Brit! I’m speaking to
all
the dead of Wickham Hall! You were
murdered
! You are stuck here—lingering—and I am, too! I need to know why! Why us?! I want to free us so we can move on! Please come! Talk to me! Talk to us! Tell us your story!”

Silence.

No ghosts. I couldn’t blame them if they needed more convincing. Years,
decades
of fear must run deep. I jumped down off the crypt and looked to the notebook Malcolm held open for me with notes about each girl.

I started with Mary because I knew she lingered right there in the cemetery.

“Mary! Do you hear me?! Did you really cut your own wrists because you were depressed? Unable to hack it here at Wickham Hall? Seriously?! You were on the honor roll, and you couldn’t take it here? What a lie! They said the same thing about me! Are we going to let that be the record forever? That we were quitters and losers?! I don’t believe these stories! None of them! Do you even know what they said about you?!”

Gabe stepped back, staggered by my force. I was surprised, too. I hadn’t planned this speech. It just barreled out of me, fueled by my anger at my own death and its cover-up, Ruth’s death … 
all
these senseless deaths. Anger I hadn’t even known I had bottled up.

“Florence! Were you really so clumsy that you slipped and fell off the top of Skellenger? You were a dancer. You were graceful, weren’t you? And Clara, you were a smart girl. Did you really just go out in the lake alone at night?! I don’t believe it! And Brit, you did kill yourself, didn’t you? But
why
? What did they do to you?! And what about the rest of you?! Where are you?! Come out! Tell us your stories!”

As I shouted, shadowy figures peeked from the trees. They started to surround us, but none drew close. Each was still dressed in her period clothing—a flapper dress, a sixties suit, a Victorian bathing costume, skinny jeans and flats—it was like being encircled by an exhibit at The Met, “150 Years of Style.”

Finally, Mary, who had been lurking in front of the Founders Tomb, stepped forward. But she kept silent.

Then Florence appeared. “I was not clumsy!” she
insisted. All at once she was raving about Willfred Pinfolds and the Skellenger cupola—how he’d been disgusted with her immigrant status and challenged her to climb to the very top. Did he push her? Did she slip? She wasn’t certain. The details were blurry. She’d had something to drink that night. A few somethings. He might’ve come up behind her. She might’ve slipped. She wasn’t at all sure.

At some point Nature Preserve Girl arrived. I saw now that she was clearly from the seventies—with bell-bottoms and long flowing hair. But she lurked in the shadows behind the others, with her arms clutched to her chest.

Then Brit approached. She told us her story. It was devastating, but none of the other ghosts understood what MySpace or cyber-bullying was.

Then Clara—still in her Victorian bathing suit—appeared, attempting to cover herself although the bathing costume concealed practically every inch of skin.

They all hovered around us. I was partly grateful to see them and still partly afraid. But so were they. Which made me more certain that Minerva had somehow orchestrated all of this.

“And, Lydia, did you know they found ten hits of LSD in your system and said you broke your
own
neck, high on drugs?! Do you really want your family to think you took those drugs and died that way? Do you want to be remembered like that? And let people get away with murder?!”

Lydia was suddenly there. She remembered the bitter taste as Cyrus Huckle had kissed her; he’d slipped her LSD. As she lay dying, LSD was pouring into her system. It seemed to stick, making her eternally aggressive and crazy.
She was enduring every teenage druggie’s nightmare: the never-ending acid trip. At least now she understood why she felt this way, as much as you can understand anything while on ten hits of acid.

I turned to them all. “What about the rest of you?!” I noticed Nature Preserve Girl slip off into the night. I continued, louder; I needed as many as I could get. “Do we want to be remembered this way?! Will we accept these murders?!”

Lydia screamed, “NO!” Then there came a chorus of
NO
s. Ending with Mary just shrieking, silencing everyone.

“I was murdered,” Mary said. And the others chimed in, speaking over one another.

“As was I,” Clara vowed. “They drowned me. They pushed me under.”

“I can tell you one thing for certain,” Florence insisted. “I did not jump!”

“And,
mon dieu
!” Ruth added. “I did
not
cut my own throat!”

I saw relief wash over Gabe. He’d spent so long fearing—even tortured by—these girls. He’d finally heard the truth: we were all victims and had no intention of hurting anyone. Not yet, anyway …

The chatter ended when Mary said, “I saw who did it. His name was Samuels. Burr Samuels. He looked me in the eye as he cut my wrists.”

Gabe and I exchanged a look. “Burr Samuels is still alive,” Gabe told her. “He’s here on campus. Right now.”

I watched Mary fill with rage—unsure what we could say or do to calm her—so I didn’t notice we were surrounded until it was too late.

It all happened so fast. There were more police officers than I’d ever seen in one place before. And campus security guards. And Headmaster Thorton. And there, skulking at the very far back of the crowd, was Kent.