Dreaming of Amelia (27 page)

Some people agreed with Lyd and Cass—that it must be a hoax.

But others were convinced of the ghostly connection.

‘It's so
obvious
,' Astrid said. ‘She died by falling out of a window?! Hell
o
? How much more
suss
do you guys need? And now she's trying to tell us she was murdered and we're not going to hear her cries for help?'

‘There isn't a ghost,' I said.

Astrid ignored me. She said she thought we should have a seance. (Sometimes Astrid is very ‘hands-on', as my mother would say. She's a ‘go-getter', as my father would say.)

We should sneak into the Art Rooms around midnight one day, she said, and bring a ouija board, and call on Sandra.

‘We'll ask who pushed her out the window, get that person put away if they're still even alive, which, who knows, they might be. And then poor Sandra can be at peace. It's so, like, effin
simple
,' Astrid said.

Then Seb said, surprisingly, ‘Let's go now.'

People turned to him with slow
why not
? expressions building on their faces.

I didn't think it was a good idea. ‘No,' I said. ‘How could we even get in?'

Again Lyd and Cass looked at me with surprise. (We can get in anywhere.) (Cass has a talent with locks.)

So we tumbled into cars.

I was pleased to see that Lyd got into Seb's car and off we went.

27
.

And now, here, in the final twist of this tale—a twist of epic proportions—on the very day that I lost all belief in the ghost—and in myself—well, the most terrifying event of them all took place.

You will be paralysed with fear.

I suggest that you run to the bathroom now, before the paralysis sets in.

The hair will stand up on the back of your neck!

(But if you have hair on the back of your neck you should get dialysis. Is that the right word? Maybe not. Remove it anyway.)

Listen! Come closer! Closer!

Okay, not so close. Have a little respect for my personal space.

Close your eyes, picture a ghostly, shimmering effect, and then? Startle yourself with an image of me and my friends, filing into the Art Rooms auditorium late at night!

(We drifted straight there as it's where we usually go for rehearsals.)

At first there were a lot of joke-like calls for Sandra, Sandy, Santa, Willski and other terms of disrespect. Nobody had any candles to light, and not a ouija board in sight, so conversation and people scattered around the room. Some people leaned against the window ledges, breathing mist onto the glass. Others climbed over rows of seats, or searched for lost treasure underneath the seats.

I overheard Seb say he was going to his car to get something.

Seb left the room.

I saw Lydia, across the room, follow him with her eyes. I felt my hope grow bright. I am a very intuitive girl and that moment, as I stood and watched Lyd's face, well, it became clear to me that she wanted Seb back. I also saw that she had decided to tell him this. (Do not doubt me. This is what I saw.)

I was feeling quietly pleased about this, and lost in my own thoughts, when I realised that Astrid was beside me.

I was surprised. It's uncommon to stand beside Astrid and not know she's there.

She breathed in slowly. It was clear she wanted to say something. I thought maybe she had another boy to talk about.

I was right.

She did.

I just didn't know it would be this boy . . .

‘Em,' she said in a very low voice. ‘Can I tell you a secret?'

Of course. I love secrets.

‘I just, kind of like, can't stand keeping this a secret any more,' she said, and then: ‘Well, you know, Seb? He and I are together. We hooked up at a party a while ago, and we're kind of like secretly together now.'

[I leave you space to recover.]

[Maybe a bit more.]

I wished that I had some space like that of my own, actually, but Astrid was standing very close.

‘You probably guessed already,' she added.

Well. As I said a moment ago, I am a very intuitive girl, but no, I had not guessed.

The idea of Astrid and Seb together was as distant from my mind—as unrealistic—as a moon that revolves around a nonexistent black hole.

It took all my strength of character not to take her by the shoulders, shake her like a ragdoll and scream, ‘ARE YOU
OUT OF YOUR MIND
?!!'

‘Wow,' I said instead. ‘Um . . .'

Which is unlike me. I usually have a lot to say.

‘But I can't seem to get him to commit,' she murmured, in a sighing breeze of a voice. ‘And it's really ripping my heart apart.' Then she looked around her.

‘He's gone to his car, hasn't he?' she said. ‘You know what? I'm going to go find him now.'

Her determined, go-getter look appeared, and she left the room.

I stood in a state of horror.

I watched the door close behind her.

I continued staring at the door.

I was vaguely aware of Riley approaching the same door, opening it and leaving the room.

Still, I could not move my eyes. The sight of Astrid leaving to find Seb—to
hook up with Seb
—that image was still imprinted on the door. As if the door was now haunted by Astrid and her determined hair. It was too much for me. I considered hyperventilating.

But I was transfixed by the door.

Someone else approached, opened it and left.

It was Lydia.

I stood in my trance, still thinking:
Astrid and Seb
—

And then a cascade of horror crashed upon me:

I just saw Lydia leave the room—I know exactly why she did—she is going to track down Seb—she plans to tell him she wants him back—

She is going to find Seb with Astrid.

There was nothing I could do.

I screamed.

It was my biggest, most powerful and magnificent scream, and I apologise to all those whose eardrums I destroyed.

The fact is, there was nothing else to do.

I had to stop Lydia somehow.

The scream had to reach her wherever she was, and divert her from her anguished destiny.

Of course, it was not necessarily the best plan, because it meant that people came rushing to my side, wanting to know what had happened, looking around in horror and picking me up in protective bear hugs. I was trapped.

I could only hope that my scream had summonsed Lydia back, or at least stopped her in her tracks, because I couldn't run after her now.

I needed an explanation for my scream. Luckily, I can be inventive at times, so I said that I had just seen a girl in a white tennis dress crossing the stage of the auditorium. I said
I had seen her jump, as if to hit a ball, and then she had faded away.

Now, maybe I was strangely convincing, or maybe it was the fact that it was late and dark, or maybe the ghost of my powerful scream was still sounding in everybody's ears—I don't know what it was . . . but everyone believed me.

There was a moment of complete, blinking silence as everybody turned to the stage and stared.

They were all seeing it—my imaginary ghost in a tennis dress—

And then it happened.

The building screamed right back at me.

I cannot explain it any other way.

It was the most anguished, terrible, furious shrieking sound you have ever heard—and it was coming from just down the hall.

There was something human in its emotional depth
but it was not human
.

There is no doubt—it was a ghost.

As one, we ran from the auditorium and out into the carpark. We ran—we pounded—away from that place of evil.

But as we ran, even in my horror, I felt a flicker of hope. Because Mr Ludovico was
wrong
—there
was
a ghost in that building. And if he was wrong about that, then maybe he was wrong about me?

And here, I am sorry to say, my story ends.

We were safe—we all got home that night.

The next day was the last day of term, and we avoided the Art Rooms (including the exhibition) if we could, and I avoided Mr Ludovico's eyes. We did not say a word about the ghost. Partly because we couldn't admit to breaking into the
Art Rooms, of course, but it also felt impossible to talk about. As if the anguish and anger of that scream was too much to contain in simple words.

Then it was holidays. Now I am writing this. And tomorrow Term 3 will begin.

I cannot promise that I will stay safe. I suppose, if you are reading this I was safe for long enough to hand it in. That is a relief.

I do not know for certain whether the ghost is Sandra Wilkinson—that sweet girl who fell from the window—but I am now certain that there
is
a ghost.

Maybe Sandra was a gentle ghost, scattering memories like books, feathers and handkerchiefs as she wandered the building. Maybe my scream has awoken something darker within her? Or awoken
another
ghost? Her murderer, perhaps?

Come closer—for I am whispering now:

I have awoken an angry ghost
.

Riley T Smith

THE STORY OF TERM 2 AS A GHOST STORY

In Term 2, this happens:

Three male residents of a local assisted-living facility for the mentally ill are out on a therapeutic exercise. One hacks another to pieces with an axe and heads home.

Blood and brain dripping from the axe. The resident is hungry. Puts the axe in the corner, asks for potatoes.

In Term 2, also, this happens:

A girl across the table says something like, ‘Colder than the Danish Alps!'

This is maybe the first day of the term. In a café, on the way to private school.

The girl across the table is named Astrid.

Funny thing is, the first time I saw Astrid she was hot. Clothes like clingwrap, eyes like lime zest.

There are no alps in Denmark. No mountains, no hills, no slopes, not even any angles. Just Danish children, sleds beneath their arms, looking sad.

The café is the Blue Danish. So that's what's happened—that word ‘Danish', it edged its way sideways into Astrid's brain.

The human brain is folded. Not so much folded. More like a
towel that you've scrunched up to press into your backpack. If you pulled out your brain, shook it hard. If you spread it out to dry in the hot sun. It would be bigger than you realise. Look at me. I'm holding out my arms. I'm showing you the size of your brain.

That girl across the table named Astrid. I don't know that her brain is folded up.

Amelia beside me in the rain.

This is also in Term 2. A week or so after the café.

It's raining, but it's not. The sky, trees, path, road, are slick and shocked with just-rain, edgy, strained with almost-rain — but this is the moment in between. We're walking in the now.

Bright and suspenseful, the now.

We're walking to her place. We'll talk and while we talk she'll stroke her long, fine hand along my inner thigh. We'll take that stroking pace a while, the swimming, stroking pace. Rain will stroke the window. The words, our hands, the words, our hands, our legs entwine, our bodies. A braiding until words dissolve, and then I'll take things faster.

She'll cover her face with her hands.

Another day, early in Term 2: I'm waiting to pick something up from the office of our private school.

There's a leather couch to wait on, studded with bronzed gold. Carpet quiet. Behind the desk, a woman with gold loops in her ears. Her fingers softly, softly on computer keys. A swoop of white camellias in a vase.

A flat-panel wall-mounted screen twists and turns discreetly between images of upcoming events: the Ashbury-Brookfield Art Exhibition; the athletics carnival.

Antique pieces whisper. Original artwork on the walls.

Two women float from behind glass and wood.

‘I've been burned a couple of times before, that's all,' murmurs one.

‘Mmm.'

‘Because the thing is,' says the first, ‘people don't think. They just forward things. Emails are so easy to forward.'

On the polished wood of the table before me,
The Illustrated History of Ashbury High
, two copies of the
Financial Review
, and the
Ashbury Collected Recipes
.

Smoked trout, strawberries, lemon meringue pie.

I laugh to myself, but silently.

There's a terrible silence in absence. The absence of a person. All the noise around you, all the clanging, words, rules, an elbow in your windpipe, manic laughter, flushing toilets, heavy feet on staircases, chairs scraping vinyl, all the noise is shadowed with a silence.

That's what a ghost is.

The silence of the one you want—

sounds clash with the silence—

there's your ghost.

One night, Term 2, a party at the home of a girl called Lydia.

Trapped inside a closet, people talking shadows.

Lydia says that shadows are the dark side of your soul.

A girl named Emily talks about the shadow games her parents played on walls when she was little. Peter Pan sewing his shadow to his feet. Chasing friends' shadows. I wonder when she'll stop. (Talking, I mean.)

A boy named Toby talks about approaching a black hole.

These people.

Sitting in a network of closets. In a house with a master suite that spans a single floor. Masterpieces hanging on the marble walls of bathrooms. A guest suite, home theatre,
library, billiards room, gym. Kitchens and swimming pools in pyramids of star-spangled glass. A tennis court, topiary gardens, swimming pool—plus a lap pool and spa on the terrace.

These people talking shadows.

They've never even seen one.

Later, Amelia says to me: I think the topiary gardens used to have shadows but the family got them steam-cleaned.

What they don't know about Amelia:

She grew up fighting with her mother,