A sign at the end of Penniton Row, letters scratched and a few obliterated by teenagers with spray paint and nothing else to do, was the makeshift perch for Marcie. Had been for the past few hours. Freddie was sleeping over with a few friends and she had found herself walking down here. Her garage lay just a handful of steps away. The old Mustang under the tarpaulin called to her. Even if she couldn’t get it to run in this town, the work was scientific, methodical. A brake light didn’t come on and the bulb was probably burnt out. The gear box starts failing and the side bearings needed replacing. Everything could be thought through and fixed. It might get messy but it was always worth it. And she couldn’t stretch her hand to her hip for the keys. A few doors down was the carcass of a tattoo shop. The place had held some shocks for both her and Katie a few days ago.
Noting was going to be the same.
The old saying was true – the one about the only constant in the world being change. It was nearly ten and the night was inky and thick, almost claustrophobic. It was also getting cold enough that Marcie shivered through the hoodie she was wearing. Plain and grey and frayed at the seams. She blinked up at the sky, breathing in the frosty air and hoping the clear sky might encourage a clear mind. It didn’t. Clutching her keys like a weapons, the woman strode towards her garage.
And stepped over a twisted steel girder. Shattered safety glass littered the floor of the former Ink Exchange. Marcie stepped over all the debris, trying not to think about the terror that had swirled through the room.
“Jesus!”
She stumbled and threw a hand out to land on the mostly intact counter. Unfortunately, the heat of the fire and the current cold blast of autumn, had weakened the glass surface and it shattered under her weight. A sliver of glass sliced across a palm in such a rapid movement that the razor edge seem to simply score a line across her palm. No worse than a long paper cut – which said nothing; paper cuts were evil. The hurt hand sprang away from the broken counter and Marcie took a few staggering steps to get her balance on the uneven floor. How could this amount of destruction happen here and not even touch the other buildings on the street? The stationery shop had so much paper in it that it would have burnt like kindling. But it only had a few soot-blackened bricks at the edges. That made it seem worse in a weird sort of way. Because the fire had had nowhere to spread to, its entire, blind hunger had been contained in this one shop... and that terrified her. It had been on the news – the flame and smoke pouring out of the blown-out windows and doors, the way it had just stopped, died out as if some giant was just snuffing out a candle. She had heard there had been people trapped inside; a passer-by had left an anonymous tip that at least on of them had sounded like a child. God, what if it had been Freddie? A mother allowing her young son to go to a tattoo parlour he was ten years too young for and get caught up in a fire he was a lifetime too young for. Not what she called responsible parenting. Her hand stung and Marcie flexed her fingers once or twice to get some feeling back. The sting got worse. It wasn’t just a line of pins and needles across her palm now – it was spreading, a rippling of tingles rolling outwards. Then there was a pleasant warmth moving over her hand. Marcie raised her hand but it was so dark, she could barely see. Angling towards the faint moonlight shining in, the sight made her gasp so loudly that the whole world might have been drawing breath at the same time. What she saw was not a hand with a thin slice through it, it might not even been a hand at all under all the oil. Thick and dark and multicoloured. It seemed to move over her delicate skin. Sometimes purple, sometimes a toxic yellow, sometimes a pearlescent blue, but always blacker than the night could ever be. Watching the colours change and merge into one another was hypnotic. This was what she had always loved about cars when she learnt about them as a child. The oil making mesmerising patterns as leaks formed pools underneath whatever car her grandfather was trying to fix. When no-one was home, a little girl would sneak into the garage and pour a few drops of Castrol onto the floor and sit there, watching the black viscous liquid swirl and shine for hours on end…
“Wake up!” A voice cut through the air and Marcie blinked. But she couldn’t wake herself from her memories. Wouldn’t. “Wake up now, Marcie! Before it’s too late.” It was high and crystal clear. And not enough to bring the woman back. “Please. Give me one. Give me one person I can save.”
Marcie looked around sleepily. For a moment she had thought that voice might have been Katie but of course it wasn’t. Katie’s dead and she’s not coming back. It was all in her head. Her head was in a nice place.
“You’re too lost, Marcie. Lift your arm.” Dumbly, Marcie obeyed, her gaze turned inward on oily colours, and raised her right arm. Her body was obeying simple instructions but her brain… no, her brain was somewhere altogether different and it wasn’t polite to intrude on other people’s memories. The voice knew that now. “No, higher than that. So the blood-“
“Not blood. Oil.”
“Red oil? Okay, so the oil drips down your arm.”
Marcie lifted her hoodie over her head and rolled it over her arms, dropping it to the floor in a mechanical movement. It wasn’t a conscious action. She resumed the position – hand raised high over her head and blood threading its dark way down into the crook of her elbow. She was dimly aware of a crunching noise under her feet. Walking somewhere. She wanted to go where-ever the voice went. And oil was making rivers along her arm and weaving pretty tattoos all of waves and twisting streams. From fingertips to – a barely healed cut, an unfinished lightning bolt on her skin. Ten year old Marcie hadn’t had that. Ten year old Marcie never got ill or injured.
“Ten year old Marcie isn’t here now. Thirty year old Marcie is. And she needs to wake up.”
And as the blood hit the freshly healed gash, Marcie did. Two sights met her and it was impossible to know which of them sent her screaming from the shop – the ghost-girl hovering in front of her, a mess of blood, tears and torn flesh. Or the bones at her feet; blackened, charred, unmistakeable. Maybe it was a combination of both.. there was an irrational moment when it was Katie. But Katie’s not blonde. Wasn’t. Wasn’t blonde.
“You shouldn’t even be here!” Shimma wasn’t quite shouting but he was freaked out enough that he wasn’t far off it. He had been standing in the main room of his club and fiddling with some loose bulbs on the blue and green fairy lights that covered the walls when Katie had snuck up on him and started shouting. It was confusing for the kid. She thought she was falling into the safety of death and the end of everything, and now she was here. And Shimma was the natural choice for some help. He had lent her a Tazer last month and had armed her friends against the danger they had faced just today.
Of course she would come to him for answers. Too bad he couldn’t give them to her.
“What? You have a policy against former employees or something?”
“Former? You’re not coming back to work then?”
“Dude, I’m a ghost. Can’t really lift trays if they’re going to fall right through me.”
He ran a hand through his platinum hair. “Jeez girl. That sucks.”
Katie shrugged. The full range of things she could no longer do hadn’t really hit her yet. She was trying to stave off that moment for as long as possible because she knew that was going to be a crushing second. I’m really dead. “It’s been six hours. I’m getting used to it.” Or, rather, she was just avoiding the fact for the moment. Dead was just a word. If she didn’t think about it too much then it wasn’t really true.
“Why did you come here?”
“Mostly because this is where I remember being last. I remember my friends being here. They stood in a circle with me. And then I died. They tried to bring me back,” she said, and winced at the acid memory, “but I said no. I don’t know why I said that.” Katie reached out and pointed at one of the bulbs. “There. That one’s blown out.”
r />
Shimma glanced over and fingered the section of wire. “How’d you know that?”
Another shrug. “Call it a weird feeling.”
He wondered if she was right although, deep down, he had no doubts.
“I don’t know… this doesn’t… there’s no sense to anything. I mean, I saw my body here. I watched you mop up the mess and open the club. Everything went back to normal.”
“How could anything go back to normal without you, Katie? You don’t know,” what I risked for you, “how important you are.”
Katie looked at him doubtfully. Had he been about to say something else then? Shimma stood up and reached a hand out, as if to touch her shoulder and comfort her, then hesitated and dropped it. That was okay. Katie was not in the mood for empty gestures and silent promises. “But I saw it.”
“It never happened. Your brain invented those things because that’s what makes sense. A horrible thing happens, we watch it, fight it, clear up the pieces. That’s logical, right. But haven’t you learned it by now?”
“Northwood doesn’t work that way. This town… I can feel the heart of the town, Shimma. It survives on emotion and strength, life and death, nothing outsiders can ever understand.” There was a sad truth in it. Something that hit her like a punch in the gut. The academy had not invited her here to train on athletic talent alone – it was because her memories of Jack had never been truly erased. Even though her first meetings with him were a sucking black hole in her mind, she knew huge chunks of her days and nights couldn’t have just not happened, so there must be something that needed hiding from conscious thought. And when those thoughts had begun to surface, Levenson Academy had somehow lured her here. Because she knew too much.
But I don’t know anything at all.
“Are you feeling brave?” The absence of reply was taken as a confirmation. Shimma disappeared for a minute and a ghost of a girl was left standing in the middle of a practically deserted and cavernous club, increasingly frightened that Shadow Boy was going to creep through the darkness. Creep up on her and whisper innocent/sinister words she didn’t know the meanings of. Then harsh fluorescent lights lit up the corridor over to the right and the few aqua tinted overhead lights came up, bathing the club in a soft sea green glow. A light that chased the dark away – but Katie knew, she knew, it was always going to be able to get her if it wanted…
Then Shimma was back at her side. “You should see this.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned away and walked off. Katie followed him to where he had stopped still roughly in the centre of the dance floor. He seemed to be staring straight at her and Katie looked down, intimidated by his intense silver stare. What colour were his eyes? They couldn’t be silver, honestly and truly. Could they? Maybe they were grey and the light was making them glitter.
Stop avoiding what’s right in front of you.
Although that was a sensible course of action because, on the floor, there was blood. A pool of it. Glowing dark ruby and black all at once. She said the first thing that came into her head. “It’s still wet.”
“And it’ll never dry.”
“I’m going to hate the answer to this but it’s mine, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry girl.”
“No. No. It can’t be.” But she knew it was. It didn’t make it any better. “it doesn’t fit in my head. Physics. Logic. I bled out here seven, eight hours ago. It has to be dry.”
“You didn’t bleed to death, girl.”
“So, it can’t be mine. Somebody else came in here and left that… that horrible stuff. It’s fake blood. They can keep it looking wet for hours.” The excuses sounded weak to even her own ears.
“Katie. Don’t make this harder for yourself. Touch it. It belongs to you.”
Unbelieving, she crouched and reached her hand out, willing her fingers to touch it. It was like imagining her own clothes on. She didn’t expect it to work, or maybe she just hoped it wouldn’t, so there was a strange mix of relief and disappointment when it did. “How?”
“It’s yours. As long as you’re still here, your blood will be. You’re in control.”
Instead of being pleased, maybe even shocked, at that news, Katie just felt overwhelmed. She sat back on the floor and drew her knees up under her chin like a little child. The position was good for stretching the hamstrings when warming down from a run. Not that I’ll ever need to worry about that again. Tears burned behind her eyes. Her fingers were trembling. A thousand questions raged in her brain. And they all came down to one: “Why am I still here?”
“I can’t answer that.”
It wasn’t until much later that she noticed Shimma had not said he didn’t know. All that mattered right then was, ”You’re the only proper grown up I know. You have to know.”
He took up a lotus position on the floor, facing her, and tried to catch her broken brown eyes. “I can’t give you all the answers, Katie. I wish I could.”
Yeah, she wished that too.
“Has anything weird been happening to you today?”
Let’s see. There was a smackdown with the man who killed and kidnapped my boyfriend, I died and somewhy decided to stick around, a man started to do a post-mortem on me before I was whisked off on a magical mystery tour to the Dead World, and now I’m sitting here with a mortal – human – you – who can see and hear me even though no-one else can. Define weird. “Not really. I mean, we’re staring at a pool of my blood that will never dry…. That’s it.”
“You haven’t… seen anything strange?”
“You’re damn right I have!” a familiar voice shrieked. Katie looked up at the red haired woman stalking across the wooden floor, the wooden staff door in the corner swinging in her wake. “You left the door open. Why were you talking to yourself?”
It took a long few moments for her to become Marcie Cross. One of the first friends she had made outside her housemates in Northwood had become almost a surrogate mother here – the one she could tell all her troubles to and not be judged, the cool one who let her have the odd drink at weekends. And that made it hard to sit here and watch the woman she had known as a strong, independent lady, bringing up a son by herself look so frightened. Her clothes were raggy at the edges, she didn’t have her hair brushed perfectly back from her face like usual, and the absence of any makeup made her look pasty, haunted. So dramatic was the change was that Katie had to stand up and back away to stand by the bar.
“I wasn’t. I was talking to… some-one. You can’t see them.”
“Ghosts again?” Marcie sounded bored, as if this was an age-old question. “This isn’t normal, Shimma. You scare me at times.”
He raised his eyebrows at her in a question.
“I worry about you. Ghosts and Shades and spirits. Where-ever they are, you seem to be there too. I don’t want you to get hurt. Now,” she held up her hand to quiet him when he opened his mouth to protest, “I know you’re big enough to protect yourself and – God knows, probably half the town as well – but a girl died here today and I know you blame yourself for it.”
“I armed everyone who came to help her. And I gave her nothing.”
Marcie stepped over the puddle of blood carefully, scared to touch it in case it sucked her under and never let her up for air, and sat on the floor next to the man, white and red spikes of hair mixing like a Tippexed heart, coffee and milk skin touching just barely. “It’s not your fault, Shimma. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You thought she was strong enough. We all did.”
It wasn’t self punishment that worried him. He knew how much hate he could turn on himself before it started affecting those he cared about. No, it was the thought of what might be done to him if his bosses ever found out what he had done, how many rules he had broken. “I thought wrong.”
“No, you didn’t. Never think that. You were right to let her go because…” and it almost choked her to say th
e next words, “Maybe dying is the strongest thing Katie ever did.”
Katie stared across the room at her friends sitting together and blinked once or twice. No. Her eyes… the dark… the club was still washed with gentle green light but it seemed… dimmer. No, that wasn’t right either. It was Shimma. He was glowing. A pure white line of light began to outline his figure, getting wider and brighter with every second. Such a brilliant light. And it wasn’t human. She glanced at Marcie to see if she could see it too but the woman gave no indication that she noticed anything odd going on. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s because I’m dead. Though that was a leap of logic her brain wasn’t quite ready to bullet point just yet. A bit of distance might clear her head enough to think properly. It was pitch black outside, walking around out there didn’t seem like the cleverest option so she picked up and headed off to the ladies toilets. Bleach and disinfectant did wonders. Katie was on her way and didn’t notice him suddenly turning to track her departure, nor did she hear his final words, uttered with soul-deep sorrow.
“I made her stay.”
Somewhere not too far away there was a conversation going on that Katie had no desire to be part of. It may or may not be about her but she didn’t want to risk getting stuck in the middle. Her head was swimming with bright colours as she dawdled down the harshly lit corridor, past a couple of storage rooms and Shimma’s office, down to the end where the ladies and gents stood opposite each other. Just outside the flaking red door to the toilets, a draft blew down the walkway. Something pressed gently inside Katie; a whisper of suggestion. It was too random to be called an idea. She turned on the spot and stared straight ahead at the bottle green fire door, remembering being shot there, understanding that this club was a hub of supernatural activity, that door was more than a way of getting from inside to out. It was a portal to other worlds, other dimensions: it was where the wall was thinnest. Why here though? Why pick the club where hundreds of Levenson Academy students danced and drank every week?
Shrugging, Katie twisted back and faced the closed door. Yes – closed. Could be a problem.
Well, I am a ghost I should be able to- Without giving herself time to think herself out of it, Katie stepped forward and squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the door smacking her face. It didn’t happen. Instead, a weird sensation of walking through setting jelly worked across her body, and then she was standing by the bust hot air hand dryer in one corner of the clean but well-used ladies toilets.
“God, what a mess,” Katie said to the mirror, putting her hand up to the mad cloud of brown hair her mop had become. “This is so crap.” Looking at her reflection, at the girl she had turned into, was enough to send her hurtling over the edge. Well, it would have been just a few weeks ago. Now… now her soul was cracked so wide open that another fracture made little to no difference. Yes, her spirit had been ripped apart and this shadow of her former self was the patch trying to hold it all together. Just until that got worn out too and the kindest thing to do was throw the whole thing away and start all over again. The ghost in the mirror – the girl who looked too old to be sixteen, too broken in, the girl with the wide, frightened eyes and the ‘everything’s-okay-because-I’ll-just-pretend-it-is’ smile - is she really me? The child with scars all over and nowhere to go – that can’t be me. The door swung open just as Katie was putting her bands to her face and Marcie strode in.
“Hey,” the older woman muttered to the reflection and walked up to the mirror, fumbling in her hoodie for a tiny tube of peach lip gloss attached to a bunch of keys.
“You can see me?” Katie asked, hardly daring to hope.
“Ka-“ and she turned, halfway through re-applying the gloss. The frown creasing her forehead made it obvious that she couldn’t really see her. Back to the mirror and the frown softened to confusion. Her face darted back to the mirror. She thought she had seen a girl there when she had come in but it had only been for half a second and then the girl had vanished into nothing. And now there was nothing. Her imagination. It was in overdrive and the emotions in Marcie seemed to be crackling all around the room in little blue sparks. After seeing those things in the old body art shop, her mind was playing tricks. Bones – the skeleton of a woman, the bare cage of the building, ghosts. It was a miracle that Marcie was still on her feet. Katie watched as her friend gripped the edge of the sink row hard enough that her fingertips turned jaundice yellow and utterly bloodless, and very nearly wasn’t.
“SHIMMA!” Katie yelled, not even pausing to wonder why he should hear her. Panic spread through her and she reached forward on instinct to steady Marcie. Well, that was a great idea. It worked so perfectly. As in not at all. Her hand passed straight through but – but Marcie felt something. She must have done because she went even paler – if that was possible – and her knees buckled underneath. “Hurry the fuck up, dude,” Katie muttered and yelled his name again. Spurred on by a senseless need to help she stepped behind the woman who was fainting in ultra slo-mo and threw her arms out, either to hold her up or to break the fall. Katie didn’t know, didn’t care. All that rang in her mind was that stern sergeant voice. Don’t let a comrade fall. Hold her, save her, carry her if you have to. But never let her fall. And, somehow, for just a moment, it worked. Warm body weight pressed down on her hands and Katie was so shocked that her focus broke and Marcie slipped through her arms. And then a dark flash scooped Marcie up and power-slid across the floor, laying Marcie across his lap.
“She’s fainted.”
“Uh-huh. Why?”
Shimma had to know. It was his club. It was his job to know the hows and whys of everything that went on here. It made perfect sense.
He just shrugged. “You were here. Don’t you know?”
“Me?” He thought she might have something to do with this? “She was doing her make-up, and then she was trying to hug the ground. I put my arms out to stop her but she fell through because… non-corporeal, so I shouted you. And now it’s now.”
“You touched her.” He made it sound like an accusation. Shouldn’t it be a question asked in appropriate awe and wonder? Or hailed as a miracle? “You touched her and now things are going to get ugly.”
What? Where had fun-loving, smiling Shimma gone? The Shimma who was always there with an easy joke or a snarky comment. The Shimma who pretended he was Jamaican, accent and everything, although his family had moved to Britain with the slaves. Who was this serious and sombre man sitting here in his clothes and wearing his face? Because it wasn’t the guy Katie knew and liked. The new Shimma actually frightened her a little with his intensity. “You’re blaming me for this?”
“It, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is-“
“But it’s mine,” Katie finished for him. “You can’t be serious! After everything I’ve been through, you’re honestly making this my fault. Because I obviously don’t feel crappy enough.”
Shimma bent his face to Marcie, pressed his lips to her temple and stroked her hair. “Ssshhh baby. You just sleep.”
Marcie raised a hand and tried to bat him away, not even opening her eyes. then her breathing grew deep and even and her head lolled to one side. Nothing more than asleep. Katie frowned and got onto her knees to peer at her friend for any sign she might be faking. She had not looked the least bit tired when she had stormed into the club a short while ago – just incredibly highly strung. But there was nothing to see there. For all the world, Marcie had just decided to take a nap on the bathroom floor.
“I’m not blaming… you didn’t know… crap, I screwed up. I’m sorry, girl.”
“I was trying to help.”
He stood up, picking Marcie up as if she weighed no more than a stuffed toy. We’ll leave her in my office. Then we can talk. Katie didn’t know what shocked her more – the fact that he was talking to her, mind to mind, or that he was suddenly not the tiniest bit angry at her. Mr Emotional 180 or what?
Shimma smiled slightly. If he hadn’t been able to hear the words, he seemed to have taken one hell of a good guess.
The door to his sparsely furnished office swung open before his toe nudged it, and he lay Marcie down on the battered loveseat he had dragged in to replace the couch. Red wine did not just wipe off cream leather, no matter what the adverts said. Well, maybe if you wiped it off straight away instead of waiting the weekend out.
There’s an old coat of mine under the desk. It should work as a blanket.
She did not question him. Just backed up and peered under the desk. Oh yes, there it was. Grabbing for it and only coming back with thin air, Katie growled in frustration.
“Girl, you growled.”
“Get too close, I bite too,” she warned. Fine. Stand back and think logically. But Shimma was staring at her with something like irritation turning silver eyes to steel. He made a hurry up gesture. That helped. There was a coat she couldn’t get that needed to go over a woman she couldn’t touch. So, now we know the problem, work the answer. Katie closed her eyes and calmed her mind, remembering what Jaye had taught her earlier that day. Imagine… she could think about the coat and it would be hers, to be placed where she wanted. Okay, rules, she had to actually own the item before she could touch it. Hmmm- but it was a riddle that had an answer if she only thought sideways. The rules didn’t say anything about moving something from one place to another, bypassing her altogether.
It might work.
And it did work. It was suspiciously simple but she wasn’t about to complain.
As the long dark coat – about two sizes too big for Shimma – settled over the woman, Katie walked back over and squinted down at her friend, evaluating. Everything seemed natural but… “Is she going to be okay?”
“Yeah. I just put her to sleep.”
“Like a dog?” The Cartwright family dog had been put to sleep six years ago and Katie had curled up and slept in the dog basket for weeks – just so she could be close to Fuggly. That was what the phrase made her think of.
Shimma glanced over her shoulder. Not that there was anything worth looking at over there unless filing cabinets were your thing (decidedly not) but he just couldn’t look at the girl standing in his office, looking at him like he was God and the devil all rolled into one. It was too hard. She needed somebody to take care of her, to help her through whatever came next. And that person couldn’t be him.
“I haven’t told you everything.”
Silence followed, silence and a vague awareness that they were trudging through the bright corridor and into the main club. Where there was… no. no, she could go near that spot again. Couldn’t see her own lifeblood or touch the echoes of her death – murder? It wasn’t real – couldn’t be real. Not if Katie was still here, walking and talking. And yet… it was calling to her like her broken body had called in the hospital. The call had no distinctive words, no sound at all, in fact. It was just there: a crawling/urgent urge to go and look – just to see. To see what? Katie mentally shrugged.
“Everything? You haven’t told me anything!”
Shimma held out his hand to her, looking a bit worried. There were soft green lights all over him now, washing his dark skin a pale, sickly colour. “No, and I think-“
Then the world exploded-
Chapter five