“Chloe, wait!”
I turned to see Alex’s face twisted in a strange expression. He wasn’t standing up tall the way he usually did. In fact, he seemed to be wilting in front of me.
“Hey, are you alright?”
“No.” He was breathing heavily. “It is happening again, right now. I cannot stop it.”
“Stop what? What’s happening?” I was confused for a moment until I remembered what he’d told me earlier and my eyes went as wide as saucers. “Wait, are you saying you’re about to disappear?”
“That is exactly what I am saying. But do not be alarmed; it is only temporary.” As he spoke, his eyelids drooped and he leaned forward as if falling into a trance.
This was not good. The main study area was teeming with people. How would they react to somebody keeling over and evaporating like smoke?
“Holy crap!” I said. “We have to get out of here. How long until it happens — five minutes, ten?”
“More likely sixty seconds.” Alex threw out an arm to support himself against a shelf.
I needed to get him out of sight and pronto. But where could we go with so little time?
I grabbed his hand. It was buzzing with static and he was starting to look completely disoriented. I moved in front of him to shield him from view, but it was useless. We were bound to be seen!
That was when I spotted it … The janitor’s closet, just across from the library’s entrance a few feet away. We could make it if we moved fast.
“Can you hold on for just a few more seconds?” I asked.
But Alex was fading at the edges. His hand had already disappeared and I found myself holding an empty sleeve. I slipped what remained of his arm over my shoulder, trying to look casual and not like I was helping a wounded soldier to safety. By now we were attracting curious looks, and the librarian on duty seemed to have singled us out as potential troublemakers.
By the time we reached the janitor’s closet, Alex was the consistency of jelly — jelly that was crackling with electrical currents. I pulled open the door and hauled us both inside, knocking over mops and buckets that clattered to the ground. I released Alex for a second to shut the door behind us. The only light now came from the cracks around it, and the sounds from the hallway were muffled. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the gloom.
“Can you hear me?” I asked, extending my hands to locate Alex’s face in the dark.
There was no answer.
“Alex?”
A weak flash lit up the interior of the closet. It was pale green and lasted only a second before vanishing into the air. As it faded, I realised I could no longer feel Alex by my side. He was gone.
I hated to be apart from him with so many still-unanswered questions looming. But at least this time I believed he’d be back. And I knew where to find him.
I decided to wait until the crowd in the hallway had thinned. Dashing into the janitor’s closet with a member of the opposite sex would have looked suspicious enough. Emerging alone would just fan the flames of gossip. So I sat on an upturned bucket, with the smell of cleaning agents giving me a headache behind one eye, until the voices faded. When I thought everyone was gone, I opened the door a crack only to see a face staring back at me.
“Ugh!” I jumped back, tripping over the bucket and landing painfully on the tiles.
When the door opened fully I instinctively shielded myself, but it was only Miguel’s startled face staring down at me.
“I am sorry, Miss Chloe,” he said. “Are you okay?”
My alarm quickly dissolved into plain and simple embarrassment. I pushed aside the broom that had fallen on top of me and quickly got up, tucking my hair behind my ears.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I know this probably seems pretty strange, but it’s just a silly misunderstanding.”
“Of course,” he said tentatively. “So what happened?”
“What?”
“How did you end up in here?”
“Oh, I was playing a silly game and hiding from someone. I thought this was a classroom — oops!” I let out a terrible fake laugh. “Anyway, sorry to get in your way. I’d better go.”
I ducked past him, my ears burning. He must have thought I was a total freak lurking in the closet like that.
“Wait,” he called after me and his tone was kind not angry. I turned to see him holding out a small card. “Please, take this, Miss Chloe.”
It was a holy card, the colour of parchment and carefully laminated. On one side was an image of the Archangel Michael, his mighty sword poised over his head ready to slay the dragon in one swift motion. His expression was completely unmoved. When I flipped the card over, I saw that the other side held a prayer for protection against evil.
“It’s very sweet, but you can’t give me this, Miguel,” I said, trying to hand it back to him. “It looks special.”
He refused, shaking his head and stepping away. “I want you to take it,” he insisted. “You need it more than I do.”
Before I could ask why, he gave me a sympathetic smile that seemed to say I don’t envy you and walked away with his cart.
I stared down at the card. Things just kept getting weirder. Why did Miguel think I needed help? Did he know something that Alex and I had missed? As I turned the card over in my hand, the last line of the prayer seemed to float in front of me: And all the evil spirits who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The ruin of souls … That hit just a little too close to home.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Slipping the card into my back pocket, I headed for the bathrooms. I was feeling a little light-headed and hoped splashing some cold water on my face might help. It was surprisingly cool in there and I was grateful for the silence while I deliberated what my next move should be. Something had to be done, but what? I wasn’t good at sitting around being idle. Alex had sure chosen a bad moment to pull a disappearing act. I sighed, knowing it was beyond his control. It probably frustrated him as much as it did me. But now he might not appear again for hours … even days.
I thought about heading home, but my car was still at Zac’s. That made things tricky. Perhaps taking refuge there hadn’t been the smartest idea after all. Should I spend another night at his house? And if I did, how would Alex feel about that? Maybe he wouldn’t care given the bigger problems we had to face.
The constant stream of questions made me want to scream. The cold water wasn’t helping much so I turned off the tap and that’s when I heard something creak. In the bathroom mirror I saw that one of the stall doors had swung open. It was the last one, tucked into a corner, a little narrower than all the others.
I froze. I could have sworn I was in there alone. Until now there had been no indication of company; not a single sound. I waited for the mystery occupant to emerge, but nobody did. Were they embarrassed or deliberately trying to frighten me?
“Hello?” I called out hesitantly. “Anyone in here?”
The silence stretched for another long minute before I heard someone crying with jerky, gasping little spasms, as if they were too upset to answer.
I edged closer, wishing they would say something. “Do you need help?” I asked.
A reedy wail filtered from the cubicle.
I decided to bite the bullet and look inside. What I saw disturbed and confused me. A child with a shaved head and scuffed shoes sat huddled on the grubby tiled floor clutching a dirty handkerchief. It was sobbing, knees drawn to its face, so I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. But I knew it was dead and that was all that mattered. All the signs were there: the air had dropped several degrees in temperature, the child’s outline was ever so slightly blurred, and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. I was about to beat a hasty retreat when it occurred to me that ghosts might be the only ones able to shed some light on what was happening around here.
“Why are you crying?” I asked softly.
The child looked up, a sob catching in its throat. I s
aw then that she was a little girl, with blue eyes as deep as the ocean and wearing a tattered coarse dress that barely covered her matchstick limbs.
“They cut off my hair,” she hiccuped. “They said I had to be punished and they took it all away!”
“Who did?” I asked. I felt overcome with pity for the poor kid even though I knew she wasn’t really there.
“That wicked Mrs Marsh! Don’t let her catch me again!” She broke into a fresh wave of tears and looked up at me imploringly. “I want to go home. Won’t you help me?”
“I … I want to,” I stammered. “But I’m not sure I can. What’s your name?”
“Amelia,” she answered, getting to her feet but still hugging the cubicle wall. “Amelia Alcott.”
Only once she was standing did I see the little flames licking almost innocently at the hem of her dress. “Oh my God!” I cried as they climbed higher, fanning out and snaking around her knees, eating away at her skin.
Amelia seemed oblivious to her scorched limbs, now crackling like spindly tree branches. “Take me home!” she demanded as the fire reached her hands. It looked as if she was holding great fistfuls of flame.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away. “I’m sorry,” I choked out.
“Take me home!” she continued to shriek as the blaze consumed her.
Her little body rushed at me then and I reeled back, hands flying up to shield my face. But just before she reached me she evaporated with a hiss, leaving nothing but a tiny scorch mark on the floor.
Her screams still echoing in my head, I bolted for the door. You’d think I’d be accustomed to seeing spirits by now, but every time I did my heart felt like it was beating right out of my chest.
In the empty corridor, I yanked my phone from my pocket. Involuntarily my fingers flew over the keypad and I realised I was calling Zac.
“Hey, Chloe,” he answered. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” I panted. There was no time for formalities.
“At the gym. You don’t sound so good. Is something wrong?”
“You have to meet me at the library. I need access to those archives right now. It can’t wait.”
“Okay, I’m coming,” he assured me. “Just take a breath, alright?”
“I would if I could. I’ll see you there in five minutes.”
It was rude to hang up on him, but I didn’t even think about it. My nerves were shot from jumping from one drama to another. When would they end? Or would they just intensify until I reached breaking point?
Something sinister was happening — that much I could feel. But too many pieces of the puzzle were missing, which meant I was in the dark. It was the worst feeling to know danger was just around the corner, especially when any new information I received only served to confuse me further.
Zac arrived at the library in his sports gear and we got straight down to business. I hovered anxiously behind him as he used his magazine committee keycard to unlock the filing cabinets in the restricted room behind the checkout desk. On the back of the door hung a black and white photograph of Sycamore High on the day it was founded in 1941.
I was expecting to be questioned, but the librarian didn’t bat an eye when Zac sailed past her.
“Hi, Mrs Willis,” he said breezily.
“Hello, Zachary dear. Are you having a nice day?”
“It’s always nicer when I see you.”
“Oh, aren’t you sweet. There are some brownies on my desk if you’re hungry.”
Wow, I guessed being on boring committees really did have some perks.
Zac collected an armful of files — just enough not to raise suspicion — and carried them to a secluded corner of the library. We tucked ourselves in at a table with our backs to the communal couches. The place was pretty empty on a good day, but this afternoon we had almost total privacy. There was only one other student there, plugged into headphones and hunched over his computer.
“So are you going to tell me what happened?” Zac asked as I began leafing through the documents. Some of them were quite old and had to be handled with care.
“I saw another one,” I replied.
“Another what? Oh, man, you’re not talking about ghosts again, are you?”
“I’m sorry to bore you, but it’s true. There was a little girl in the bathroom. She was on fire and asking for my help. Don’t you see? There’s a pattern emerging. Something terrible happened here once and we have to find out what.”
He looked at me searchingly, conflict scrawled all over his face. Unlike Alex, Zac wasn’t able to hide what he was feeling. Or maybe he didn’t try. I could tell he genuinely wanted to help me but was also wondering what he was getting himself into. For some reason Zac’s opinion of me mattered and I didn’t want him thinking of me as a nutcase.
“Let’s get started then,” Zac said finally.
I blinked. “Does that mean you believe me?”
“Let me put it like this: I know crazy and you’re not crazy, Chloe. So if you tell me something happened, I’m going to take your word for it. And we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
He picked up a folder and began searching in silence.
“Thank you,” I said. “Most people in your position wouldn’t be this cool.”
“Well, I’m not most people.” He smiled. “And we both know I can’t resist a challenge. Now what exactly are we looking for?”
“Anything related to the history of the school.”
He leafed carefully through a bunch of documents for several minutes, then pulled a sheet of paper from one of the folders. “You mean like this?” He read the contents aloud. “Sycamore High School was founded in 1941 by Mr Robert G Sycamore of San Diego, California, who bought the property after it was neglected by its previous owners. At the time of sale the property had been badly damaged by a fire only six months prior that killed a number of victims.”
“I knew it.” My whole body was trembling. “That’s why they’re always burning.”
Zac glanced up from the page; he looked pale. “So people did die here.”
“Does it say anything about who they were?”
His eyes flew over the remainder of the page. He sighed when he reached the end. “Nope. Nothing.”
“The information must be in there somewhere,” I said.
“True. And I can think of a faster way to find it.”
He tucked the document back into the folder and motioned me toward a row of computers. We huddled together at the end one even though the only people nearby were two exchange students absorbed in study.
“It’s times like these that make me thankful for the digital age,” Zac said. He typed SYCAMORE HIGH SCHOOL FIRE 1941 into the search engine. “Bingo,” he said as the very first item to pop up contained the information we were looking for.
“Thank God for technology,” I agreed, my eyes already flying over the article.
April, 1941. On Tuesday night, tragedy struck the Alameda Orphanage in Southern California when it was destroyed by a devastating blaze that claimed the lives of several children and their devoted caretakers. The cause of the fire remains unknown, although authorities suspect it began in a room on the second floor of the building. There were thirty-seven children in the care of the orphanage, ranging in ages from five to twelve. Twelve of the children were unable to escape the inferno in time and perished alongside their nurse, Miss Sarah Boyle, and the headmistress of the orphanage, Mrs Agatha Marsh …
I stopped reading. Agatha Marsh. As in the Mrs Marsh the girl in the bathroom was so scared of? The woman who’d cut off her hair? I scrolled down, combing the article for clues, only stopping when I came across the photographs. The dead children stared at me, solemn as tombstones in black and white. It was unnerving to look at people who had probably died not a stone’s throw away from where Zac and I were now sitting.
There she was, in the bottom right-hand corner of a photo: Amelia Alcott. I recognised her even though she looked comple
tely different with a smile on her face and a gentle curl in her golden hair. She looked nothing like the terrified and shivering entity I’d seen in the bathroom.
My gaze lifted to the photograph above hers. It was a stern face, with eyes that held little emotion. I didn’t have to read the caption to know this was Agatha Marsh. But where had I seen her before? It took a moment for the penny to drop, for everything to click into place. When it did, I stifled a gasp.
“What is it?” Zac asked eagerly. “Chloe? Tell me.”
But I couldn’t articulate my thoughts. I couldn’t explain what was happening because I didn’t understand it myself. I had first seen Agatha Marsh in the vision of the burning building before she melted into the fire. Like Amelia, her face would be forever emblazoned on my memory. But why was she appearing to me? Why had some kids and a woman who had died more than seventy years ago suddenly returned to haunt Sycamore High?
Zac followed me and kept watch while I made copies of the relevant documents. They weren’t supposed to be removed from their protective plastic covers. We were probably the first people to look at them in years.
I wanted to go someplace more private to study them without fear of being interrupted. I wanted to make sure there was nothing we’d missed. My plan was to compile all the information I could get my hands on, even though I suspected it probably wouldn’t be enough to answer my and Alex’s questions.
“Well?” Zac asked.
“Well, what?” I replied.
“Seriously, Chloe, you have got to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Making discoveries and not telling me what they are.”
“Okay,” I said, realising he was right. Zac had gone out of his way to help me and that entitled him to some explanation. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“I haven’t liked a lot of the things you’ve told me, but I’m still here, aren’t I?”