Haunting You - Molly Zenk Page 0,1

I don’t feel that way,” I say. “I’m not any different from anyone else just because Dad started this school. I don’t think we need to stand on formally. I mean, formality. We can just be cool. No need to call me ‘miss.’ I’m Meredith. Just call me Meredith.”

Abigail’s whole body relaxes as if my words give her permission to just be a girl instead of Mayor of Formal Town. She glides across the room and settles onto the edge of my bed. At first, she doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands when they’re not cleaning something. She settles on clasping and unclasping them in her lap.

I motion at her hands. “Still nervous?”

“I have a job to do,” she replies.

I shake my head. “Not anymore. Why don’t we talk? You’re my age, right? Sixteen?”

Abigail bites her lower lip as if unsure if she should talk to me or not before nodding. “Yes, miss—I mean, Meredith.”

“Then let’s do what normal sixteen-year-old girls do. Let’s gossip.”

Abigail laughs. I bet she hasn’t had a good gossip session in years and years. I open my mouth to ask when was the last time she talked to someone besides me before deciding to change the topic to the number one interest to girls throughout history --Boys.

“So, Jay is kind of a pain. I mean, I know we’re, like, together, but he seriously signed up for all the same classes as me. I mean, who does that? Especially when they’re trying to graduate on time.”

Abigail smiles and leans back on the bed, melting into the wall a little. “Jay is so handsome. You’re very fortunate he is your fellow.”

I snort. “Sometimes, I think handsome is about all Jay has going for him.”

“And that’s a problem?” Abigail furrows her brow, confused.

“Well, not usually, but it can be.” I glance across the room to my framed picture of me, Mom, and Dad. It was our only all-together pro shot, taken three years ago right before what I call The Night That Changed Everything. The night before I first had the Mercy dreams. “No matter how frustrating Jay can be now, he has helped me through a lot these last three years. I got to give him credit for that.”

I’m not sure if Abigail answers or not. I’m too lost in my own thoughts. That night—The Night That Changed Everything—is as clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday instead of three years ago. One minute Mom, Dad, and I are driving along a mountain switchback singing Christmas carols, the next we’re skidding off the cliff. The only things that stopped us were pine trees and luck. Jay was there for me when all Dad wanted to do was ignore the grief and throw all his time and energy into the school. Sometimes I feel I lost both my parents that night. Yet another reason to escape my supposedly perfect life.

The lights flicker. Abigail appears to flicker with them. “Oh, no,” she whispers. “It’s happening again.”

The “again” gives me a jolt of something I can’t quite name. Vertigo? Déjà vu? I’m not sure what it is, but one minute I swear it feels like I’m dancing under the bright candlelight of the chandeliers in the grand-ballroom-turned-dining-hall, wearing a fancy blue dress and old-fashioned shoes; the next, I’m back in my room still sitting on my bed.

Abigail stands. “I need to go. I need to help. I can’t let it end like last time. I can’t.”

Before I can stop her, Abigail walks through the door. I don’t mean she opens the door and then walks through it. I mean she literally walks through the door. Abigail, like so many others in this hotel-turned-school, is dead. To someone like me who can see and hear ghosts after the accident, she looks as solid and real as anyone going to school here. Sure, she wears turn-of-the-century clothes and isn’t exactly tied to our physical laws—what with sitting on my bed one minute and walking through the door the next—but Abigail and all the others are not just a fun story to scare tourists with. To me she’s real. I found out within hours after the accident that ghosts can exert enough energy to move physical objects and touch the living. (There’s a crazy amount of spirits hanging around a hospital.) That shivery feeling you get when no one else is around? That’s a ghost reaching out. If I tried to touch one in return, my hand would