"I've never had anyone to guide me, but that's never stopped me. One day, I just got tired of avoiding the empty stares from the shadows, and I started to stare back. I looked into their dead eyes and said, 'Hello?'. That isn't an experience I ever thought I'd share with anyone."
----------------------------------------
The ride home with Mom is quiet. The topic of Dad is still tough for either of us to discuss. Besides, it's hard to talk to her when all I want to do is scream at her for hiding so much from me. It isn't until I tell her Hannah and JJ are coming over that her face brightens. Hannah invited JJ so we can catch up on what they found at the library. Maggie will be so excited to talk to someone other than me.
Once we're home, I rush upstairs to my room to get ready before they get here. It's quiet in my room, but I can feel Maggie near.
"Maggie?" I ask.
I get no reply. I change out of my stiff church clothes and into a baggy sweatshirt. I check myself in the standing mirror and spot Maggie's cold face behind me. A shiver runs down my spine, and I jump in shock.
"Maggie!" I shout with frustration.
"Got you!" Her eerie giggle echoes in my skull. "I knew I'd get you eventually."
"Fine." I smirk. "I guess you don't want to talk to Hannah and JJ."
"What?" Maggie straightens. Her face is painted with anticipation.
"Yeah, Hannah and JJ are coming over." I cross my arms with a cocky smile. "I may have mentioned something about meeting you."
"Oh my God!" Maggie hops with excitement. She pushes through me to stand in front of the mirror and brushes her fingers through her hair. "Is my hair okay? How do I look?"
I chuckle. "Dead."
She turns and looks at me with exasperation, but it fades to excitement, and she wraps her cold arms around me. "You're the best!"
The doorbell rings, and I head back downstairs to answer it, but Mom beats me to the door.
"Oh, hi, Mrs. Everly," Hannah says. "We're here to see Autumn. I'm Hannah, and this is JJ."
"It's nice to meet you both," Mom says, waving them in. "Do your parents know you're here?"
"Yes, I stopped by the house first, and JJ picked me up," Hannah answers, gesturing to a beat-up old van painted a vomit-brown gold.
"Is that your van?" I ask. I can't hide my grin.
"It's a hand-me-down," JJ grumbles.
"We're just going to be upstairs," I say, grabbing Hannah's hand.
"I'll heat up some pizza," Mom says.
"Thank you, Mrs. Everly," Hannah says politely as I drag her upstairs.
I quietly close my door, leaving only a few inches open to follow the no-closed-doors rule. Maggie is sitting on my bed. An anxious smile is stretched across her face, but her nerves are undeniable. I've never seen her this shy before.
"I never put it together that your Mom was the Mrs. Everly," Hannah says. "I see her campaign signs all over town. That must be tough to live with."
"Yeah, she's a real treat," I reply. "But that's not what I want to show you."
"Is someone else coming over?" JJ asks.
"No." I smile. "Because she's already here." Maggie stands beside me. "This is Maggie." I stand in silence, pointing to Maggie with excitement.
Their eyes narrow with confusion.
"I don't get it," Hannah says.
"Right." My shoulders drop as I realize what an idiot I am.
JJ doesn't say anything. He drops his backpack and pulls out his EMF reader. He flips it on, and an array of lights flickers across the screen. Maggie steps forward and places her hand on the reader. Immediately, the red lights begin to flash, and loud beeps fill the room.
"Autumn, is your room haunted?" Hannah asks.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I smirk. "Maggie's been with me since we first moved here. She's been the only friend I could count on since I was little."
"You're BFFs with a ghost, and you never thought to mention that?" Hannah scoffs, her voice is laced with astonishment.
"Yeah, well, most people would think I'm crazy." I pick at my fingernails.
"Ew, do we look like most people? JJ, get the camcorder out." JJ scrambles to set up the camcorder and starts recording. Hannah looks around the room, expecting to see some sort of apparition. "Hi, Maggie. I'm Hannah, and this is JJ." She speaks slowly, as if talking to a scared puppy.
"I'm right here, silly," Maggie giggles. I smile at her.
"What did she say?" Hannah demands.
"She's standing right in front of you." I point to Maggie's position a few feet in front of Hannah.
"Right here?" Hannah slowly reaches out her hand toward Maggie.
Maggie reaches out her hand and gently touches Hannah's.
"JJ, feel right here. It's so cold!" Both of them reach out their hands.
Maggie giggles as they wave their hands through her body. "It's nice to meet you too!"
"Okay, let's ask some questions and try to get a response." Hannah steps back and pulls out her recorder. "Maggie, can you hear me?"
"Yep."
"She says yes," I repeat.
"How old are you?" Hannah continues.
"Well, I died when I was sixteen, so technically I'm twenty-six."
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
"She died when she was sixteen, but that was ten years ago."
"Hmm." Hannah stops the recorder with disappointment. "No skeptic will take this as proof. They'll just say Autumn is answering my questions."
"Maggie," JJ speaks up. "Can you move something in the room?"
"I can try." Maggie fades until her figure completely disappears.
"She said she's going to try."
We wait. A moment passes. Then another. Maggie reappears with a frustrated face.
"It's not working," she finally says.
"You've done it before," I reply.
"Yeah, but that's just when I'm excited or really mad."
"What's happening?" Hannah asks.
"I think she can only move things when her emotions spike," I say.
JJ thinks for a moment, then steps toward my bookshelf and pulls a comic from the shelf. "These are her comics, aren't they?"
"Sort of," I explain. "I buy them for her. She loves Miss Mystic."
A slight grin grows on JJ's face. "In the shadows of Hell, I stand illuminated—"
"I am the beacon in the dark," Maggie joins JJ, repeating her favorite line from the comic. My heart thumps in my chest as I feel her excitement rise. "The voice of the forsaken. I am the guardian of the unseen, champion for the silenced. Fear will know my name. For I am the queen of souls."
JJ and Hannah look around the room as my lights glow brighter and brighter, buzzing with energy. Maggie looks at her hands as light floods the room and slowly dims.
"Well, that will work," Hannah smiles. "Wait, I have another idea." She pulls out some headphones and plugs them into my radio. "Here, put these on." She doesn't wait for my response and places them over my ears with a confident grin.
Immediately, the memory of what happened in the graveyard flashes into my mind. I'm not eager to listen to static again after the horrifying vision I had. Was that a vision? That woman was so scared of me. I thought echoes couldn't see me.
"What do you want me to do?" I ask nervously.
"Just listen to some music and turn it up so you can't hear us," Hannah says.
I do as she says. The local station overpowers every other sound, muting Hannah's voice. I can see her mouth moving but hear nothing. I look at Maggie and notice her talking, too, but I can't hear her.
"I can't—" I catch myself talking too loud and lift the headphones from my head. "I can't hear Maggie now," I say.
"What if Maggie touches you?" JJ asks. "Maybe there's some kind of connection."
I put the headphones back on, and all sound drowns out again. Maggie steps beside me and laces her fingers between mine.
"Can you hear me?" Her voice lays on top of everything, like another station interfering.
I nod my head, "I can hear her."
"Thanks for doing this, sis," she says.
I feel my cheeks flush with warmth. I'm not sure she even noticed what she called me. Hannah runs around my room, reorganizing it and preparing it for television. She closes my blinds to dim the lighting and kneels in the center of the room. I feel the weight of JJ's camera pointed at me. Nervously, I try to fix myself up a little. I never really considered I'd be the one on camera.
"Hannah says just to repeat my answers exactly," Maggie's voice crackles through the radio.
"Okay," I reply. I close my eyes to focus only on her voice.
"Maggie May," she says.
I repeat Maggie's name. I guess Hannah is just getting the basics down to establish the identity of the person she's talking to.
"Oh, I have red hair, green eyes, and lots of freckles. I'm five feet three inches, and I love comic books."
I relay her answer to Hannah. It's hard for me to imagine Maggie with green eyes. Like every other specter I see, her eyes are hollowed out and black.
"Tell her I love her hair," Maggie says.
"Tell her I love her hair," I repeat exactly.
"Smart ass!"
"Smart ass!"
I open my eyes, giggling. Hannah doesn't seem as impressed.
"Sorry," I say and close my eyes again.
"I died outside on the swing set," Maggie says.
I guess asking how a ghost died is the obvious question for most people. It was one of my first questions when I met Maggie.
"No, I hung myself."
I wait a moment before repeating that last answer and look at Hannah.
"I hung myself," I say.
Hannah's face sinks solemnly. This was a bad idea. Hannah was just mourning her sister. Why would talking to another girl who killed herself ever be a good idea? I don't have to hear Hannah. I can read her lips as the words come out. "Why did you do it?"
"I just thought I was doing the world a favor."
Maggie's painful words come so easily to her, but I can't bear to repeat them. I take off the headphones.
"We should stop, Hannah," I plea.
"What did she say, Autumn?" Hannah demands, her eyes already beginning to swell.
"Maybe some other time," I stammer. "There's a lot we need to discuss, anyway."
"Autumn." Hannah's voice now a soft beg.
I look at Maggie. Her face is painted with guilt, but she nods with confidence. "The truth isn't always comfortable."
"She thought she was doing the world a favor," I say solemnly.
"That's ridiculous!" Hannah shouts. I quickly try to hush her before Mom hears. "You had people who loved you."
"I did," Maggie says coldly.
Hannah continues before I can repeat Maggie's answer. "You could have reached out to someone for help." Hannah's frustration overtakes her. "You robbed someone of a friend—of a sister!"
"I did."
I grab Hannah's shoulders. Her eyes meet mine, and I can see the pain boiling inside her.
"Hannah, stop," I demand.
She huffs and stammers to find the words but eventually gives up.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers. "I just—"
"I know," I say.
Hannah takes a deep breath, and her anxiety washes away. I step back and suddenly hear beeping. I look down and notice I'm standing over JJ's EMF reader.
"Interesting," JJ says.
"What?" I ask. "It's probably just freaking out because I'm next to it."
"Perhaps," JJ says, picking up the reader and holding it close to me. "But humans don't have this high of an electromagnetic field." The meter beeps again. Red and yellow lights blink on and off.
"I think I can explain that, actually." I walk to my bed and grab Dad's box from under it. "I'm not exactly human," I say nervously.
"What?" Hannah laughs with disbelief.
"Well, I went to see Dr. Ward to ask why he was in the woods that night."
"What did he say?" Hannah narrows her eyes.
"He was hunting the monster."
"Hunting it?" She scoffs. "That thing was like three stories tall!"
"He's a reaper, like me," I say, anxiously looking at Maggie for any sign that I should stop talking.
"Like the bony dude with the scythe and the black cloak?" Hannah mocks.
"Well, it's not actually a scythe." I open the box and pull out the gold-plated hilt. Its ornate engravings shimmer in the light. "My dad gave me this. It's a focus to channel the energy of the dead."
"You have a magic sword?" Hannah gawks.
"I guess, but I can't get it to work," I admit.
Hannah looks in the box to see the other strange items it contains.
"Salt, iron, silver… Was your dad some kind of monster hunter?" Hannah snickers.
I don't say anything.
"Holy shit, he totally was." Hannah's disbelief is now laced with excitement.
"Technically, we're supposed to help the dead cross over," I correct her. "But, apparently, we also protect the world from monsters sometimes."
"You're a badass," Maggie says.
"So you're saying you might be able to kill that thing," Hannah says.
"I—" I grasp for words.
"She needs to train first," JJ interrupts. "You said you can't get the sword to work. We can't go up against the creature until we understand how your powers work." JJ pulls out his notebook and flips through it. "You created a light shield in the woods when you rescued us. Have you been able to do that again?"
"I—" I haven't even thought about that. "No. I haven't."
"I wonder if your emotions are connected to your powers, much like Maggie." JJ pulls out a bundle of papers from his backpack. Printed on them are scans of old illustrations of Cedar Hollow, the town that Greenfield is supposedly built over. "We didn't find much on Cedar Hollow at the library, but from the pictures, it looks like much of the old town follows the swamp. So, most of the ruins are likely deep in Thicket Grove."
"Guarded by a giant creepy monster," Hannah sighs.
"But there are plenty of old houses right here in Greenfield that are rumored to be haunted," JJ continues. "You could come with us on some ghost hunts to try and activate your powers."
"Do I hear a training montage?" Maggie sings.
"Yeah," Hannah adds. "You'll be a lot safer than in the woods, and your powers might even bring out more haunts."
"Wait," I hold up my hands. This is getting ridiculous. "Spirits sometimes get violent around me. It's like my presence amplifies their powers or something."
"It likely does," JJ replies. "It's believed that spirits feed on energy. You emit a high electromagnetic field. They could be pulling from it somehow."
"Listen," I try to stop them before they get too excited. "Getting you two involved in this could get you killed. What if I can't protect you?"
"Don't worry, he'll protect me," Hannah jabs JJ.
"Guys, I'm serious," I reply.
"Reaper or not, you're not doing this alone," Hannah says. "You're stuck with us now, Spooks."
"Mija," Mom calls from downstairs. "Pizza's ready."