I'd never believed in the afterlife, heaven or hell. Nor did I believe in ghosts, ghouls, vampires, fairies or gods, much to my father's distaste. From my view, anything that hadn't been seen and proven with scientific clarity just didn't exist. Easy. Straightforward.
It was for this reason that by the following Monday I'd managed to convince myself the séance was all a hoax orchestrated by Sarah. I hadn't managed to speak to her about it yet since she was pulling a sick day, but I had cornered Dani and Ashley earlier this morning before school started. They were adamant Sarah had no hand in the night's events, but with the three of them being such close friends, I knew I couldn't trust their words with complete certainty.
Another part of the mind – where I filed away the memories of flying tree branches and supernatural ghosts – couldn't imagine the three of them working together to organise the séance. Sure, they were gossipers and quite exclusive at school, but they weren't creative enough to pull a stunt like this.
I didn't even want to think about how the 'spirit' could have known about the Mickey Mouse costume. Not even Cammy had been inside my parents' bedroom. Since her passing, my dad had turned it into a shrine for my mother.
I looked over my reflection in the mirror of the school bathroom, desperately wishing I hadn't. My amber hair had lost all its fieriness and was matted against my pale forehead. I'd lost all of the colour from my face and my lips were dry and pallid. Even my eyes, that were so usually a bright and inquisitive blue, had lost their vibrancy.
The thin red scars on my arm from the lanterns' shattering glass caught my attention. They taunted me, daring me to believe the séance had been real.
The bell for first period rung overhead and I ran some water over my face in the hope that it would wake me up. I'd been sleeping terribly the past couple of nights, never getting more than a couple hours' of shut eye at a time. I'd resorted to staring at my laptop screen instead, going back and forth between researching spirits, and then throwing my laptop away from me.
With some reluctance, I collected my books before heading to English. I spied Cammy sitting near the back in our usual spot, not too close to the teacher, but not far enough that you couldn't see the white board.
It wasn't surprising that we had most classes together. Milton was so small it was rarer to not be in the same class. New students were hard to come by. Most people who lived in Milton only did so because the generations before them had.
Besides the Town Centre that held the necessities such as supermarkets, the mall and local stores, there weren't many hangout spots around town. That was of course, if you excluded the numerous hiking trails and outdoor scenery.
"Hey," I whispered to Cammy, sliding into my seat. I tried to be as quiet as possible. The teacher was already scrawling something across the whiteboard. "Did I miss anything?"
"Besides the other students teasing me about the supposed 'séance' prank? Nothing." She exchanged an annoyed look with me. Since Friday night, the story had spread like wildfire, with non-believers laughing at our supposed attempts to scare the rest of the student body.
I settled in my seat and started copying down what was written on the whiteboard, feeling the curious glances of other students settle on me. By the time class finished, I was so sick of everyone's gazes and shushed whispering as they threw us secretive looks that I barrelled out of my seat and out the door with Camilla, towards our lockers.
At least I have P.E. next and I can get out some of my anger with some much-needed exercise, I thought.
I entered the code to my lock and heard it click open. I reached to open the locker, but the door swung open of its own accord, banging into the locker next to mine. I gasped and almost dropped the books clutched in my arms, looking around to see if anyone else had seen the same thing as me. No one else was around, I'd been too quick to get to my locker and Camilla's was in a different hall.
Surely the locker hadn't just opened itself. I blinked my eyes a few times, wondering if I was losing my mind. Perhaps technology had just become so advanced that the Principal decided to install automatic lockers? No, that was stupid.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and after a few seconds, reopened them. The door just hung there. Wide open, silently mocking me.
I was clearly losing my mind.
With some hesitance and before the locker decided to slam shut on me by itself, I quickly exchanged my books for my P.E. gear and shut it, fumbling to close the lock.
"Hey Serena," someone said from behind. Weird, I hadn't heard anyone walk up on me. I swung around and almost collided with Derek, feeling woozy. Instinctively, he reached out to grab my arm and steady me.
His brows furrowed in concern. "I just wanted to check if you were okay, after..."
"I'm fine," I replied quickly, trying to keep my voice level. "It was probably just Sarah pulling a prank."
Derek looked unsure. "Yeah, maybe. I've never been into the whole ghost thing, but that seemed kind of real, didn't it?"
"Yeah, it did. Weird, huh?" I broke eye contact, looking off down the hall.
"Do you think, you know...it was actually your mum?"
My breath hitched. It had been incredibly difficult not to have my mum on my mind, but I was still surprised to hear someone mention her aloud. Having someone speak about her made me frazzled, like I'd have to admit to her actually being the spirit.
"I'm not sure." Feeling uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was headed, I motioned to the gym clothes in my arms. "Well, I have to get going. I should get to class before Ms Davidson kicks my ass."
He chuckled understandingly, but I could hear the hesitance from him. He was wondering whether he'd gone too far.
"Sounds like a good idea. We all know she has a reputation for making late comers run extra laps."
Waving a quick goodbye, I hurried down the corridor, not looking back at Derek and trying to ignore the pressing concern that the séance had been very, very real.
~~~~
In P.E. class, Ms Davidson had us complete a circuit of activities on the athletics track. Normally, my physical endurance was fine. I'd been a dancer for as long as I could remember. Yet today, whether it was because of my lack of sleep or existential crisis, I was not up to par. I came last in every sprint, jump and throw. When the class finished, I'd managed to trip over my own feet, get a calf cramp, and accidentally drop a shotput on a classmate's foot.
It was safe to say Ms Davidson had not been happy.
As everyone headed back into the school building, I wiped off the sweat lining my forehead, embarrassed at the fact no one else looked as tired as I did. Smiles lined their faces as they huddled around one another, their endorphins high from the exercise.
I trailed behind them, feeling the lactic acid build up in my legs. Every step felt like I was dragging a weight behind me. It wasn't even a hot day, but my body was on fire. I made a mental note to take Panadol when I got back to my locker, hoping my fatigue had more to do with a fever than anything else.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as laughter called out from ahead, making me to look up. A boy named Josh had just said something funny – but what it was, I had no idea. Then, I caught sight of something that made me freeze. It was the ethereal black and shapeless fog, drifting in between the students!
Appearing more like a three-dimensional shadow than anything else, it hung around their calves, circling them like a predator would their prey.
Why hadn't they noticed it yet? It was right in front of them! As if the shadow sensed my thoughts, it froze. I got the vague impression that it was looking back at me. I stood there frozen for what felt like hours but was probably seconds, worried that if I moved it would decide to attack them.
Common sense kicked in and I was just about to call out to the group of students to run when the fog sped off across the track and skittered over the school's fence line, out of sight. Still feeling like something was watching me, I scanned the grounds to see if there was another of its kind – but found nothing.
My heart beat so fast it felt like it was in my throat, and I got the sudden urge to be sick. I kneeled over, placing my hands on my knees to try and steady my breathing and blurred vision. When I looked up, I was standing on the track alone, scared and doubting my sanity.
~~~~
Later at lunch, I robotically played with my food and failed miserably to engage in conversation with the girls. While they talked about dresses, parties and classes, I thought about delusions, fatigue and potentially hearing from my mother in her afterlife. The idea of eating food made me feel sick, yet next to me Camilla ate a burger and skulled a milk drink with ease. If possible, I felt my face pale even more.
"S, you have got to try this," Camilla said between mouthfuls. "This burger is delicious."
"You know when it's delicious that it's not café food," Dani quipped with a grin.
"I wouldn't–" Camilla swallowed, "–dare touch any of the café food."
The others laughed.
I stuck my fork in my Caesar salad, twisting it and slowly shredding some of the lettuce. Sighing, I placed my fork down in defeat and pushed the food away from me. After I saw Camilla's gaze cling longingly to the dish, I pushed it towards her and she grinned in delight.
"Thanks," she verbalised between chews. She did a double take at my expression, and swallowed. "Are you feeling alright, S?"
Everyone at the table turned to face me, frowning.
"You don't look too good, Serena," Dani commented.
"Maybe you should go to the sick bay," Ashley said.
On the verge of tears, I didn't know how to answer them. They'd been my closest friends since the beginning of primary school, yet somehow, I just couldn't imagine them understanding what I was going through – what I was hallucinating. They'd think I was crazy and ostracise me. And in a town as small as Milton, the last thing you wanted was to be ostracised–
"Seriously Serena! What's up?" Camilla asked. "You've been acting really weird today."
Well, where do I start? The fact that my mother was potentially the spirit that contacted us from the dead because there was no way anyone else knew of my first birthday outfit? Or the fact that besides the shit show that happened on Halloween, I'd been seeing strange and ghostly shadows from the afterlife? Or the fact I'd just seen one of them at school and might mean I'm psychotic since no one else has seen them?
Yeah, there was no way I was blurting all of that out.
"I've just gotten no sleep lately," I said. "Family drama, you know what it's like."
The others bought my lie. Little did they know, I hadn't even seen or talked to my father over the weekend. His research trip came with bad Wi-Fi and he wasn't returning until the end of the week, and so I had the entire house to myself. Normally, I'd see this as a blessing. Now, it felt more like a haunted house than anything else.
Saved by the bell to give any further explanation, Dani, Ashley and I moved off to maths class, waving goodbye to Camilla. But when I got there, my heart dropped.
The teacher was separating the desks, placing papers on each one as she moved. I'd completely forgotten – I had a maths test today! Dani and Ashley didn't notice my hesitation and moved to find seats. Someone squeezed past me to sit at a desk, nudging me forwards. I had to move myself mechanically to a spot in the back row, hoping I would just sink into the background and disappear.
The window sat on my left, so I knew I'd have the outdoor sun to taunt me while I was stuck inside, trying to solve complex quadratic equations. My leg started bouncing up and down and I felt the urge to burst into tears. These tests were essential for my university applications and I'd consistently scored highly this year. If I flunked this test, I'd be bringing my whole grade down.
"Now I'll admit this test is quite hard," the teacher said, fuelling my dread even further. "But just return to the basic skills we learnt in class and you'll get through it. Your test begins now."
I opened up the test and stared at the first question. I could hear the scratches of pencil against paper as everyone else scribbled away, but no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't get my mind to focus on the question in front of me. This was going to be hard. Sighing, I signed my name on the top of the paper, grateful that I could at least get that right.
Halfway through the testing period and after a handful of scribbled attempts, I heard the crescendo of a soft hum coming from outside. I glanced out the window, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was soft and alluring. It sounded like...
Like the siren call from during the séance!
At this thought, my heart sped up to one hundred miles per hour.
"No," I whispered, shaking my head to try to knock myself out of the trance. This wasn't happening.
It's all in your head, I told myself, trying to focus on the test. The teacher started to notice that I wasn't focusing, so I forced myself to stare at the paper, scribbling nonsense even while my mind raced and the appeal to look outside was ever-present.
But, no matter how much I tried, the high-pitched call drew my attention. Stuck in a trance and unable to avert my eyes, I stared back at the outside world. Something out there was waiting for me – beckoning me. Yet, as I watched in a daze, the deepest part of my mind shouted at me to run. Black, ghostly substances were forming across the landscape, moving towards the school. Moving towards me!
"No," I whimpered, pushing back against my chair. "Don't come any closer!"
Faintly, I heard the murmuring of other students. But I didn't care – the unrecognisable forms were slinking forwards in a sort of dance, teasing me. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and my clammy hands gripped the edge of the table. I tried to run, but my feet were glued to the floor, heavier than ever. Just when I thought the blackness wouldn't be able to come into the classroom, they proved me wrong. They moved through the glass, coming towards me.
My mind felt detached from my body. I heard myself scream from a far-off distance. It was like I was watching the scene unfold – but I wasn't a part of it. The forms crawled forward, blocking out the surprised and concerned faces of the other students.
I indistinctly heard footsteps running around the classroom and someone shouting. It didn't matter to me. I could see nothing but swirling darkness. It felt like the shadows were trying to claw their way into my mind. I tried to stop them by putting up mental barriers – trying desperately to remind myself that this was all my imagination – but the darkness came forward relentlessly, like an intruder breaking down a front door.
It was exhausting. They were unrelenting in their attack. Every time they pushed, a panging headache rung through my head and immobilised me. I pushed at the door with all my might, but their fingers had worked their way around the side of the door, the first sign of their victory.
It was all too much. I couldn't separate reality from fiction. I was losing the will to keep on fighting. I let the front door open, succumbing to the shadows that swept through me.