Haunting of Lily Frost (17 page)

‘Lil? You love steak,' says Mum, as she stops the plate going anywhere.

And again. Another statement I already know that I'm supposed to find a surprise. Mum is totally outdoing herself tonight. ‘Max can have it. I'm not hungry.'

‘Right. Well, next time I won't bother cooking you a piece,' she says.

‘Mum, don't do that. I'm not dissing your food. I'm just not hungry.'

She starts attacking her plate with this ridiculous anger, cutting the steak like it's still alive and then shovelling it into her mouth. Even Dad's a bit freaked out by her attempts to prove to me how great the meal is.

‘Well, even if I'm not hungry,
I'll
still eat the dinner that someone's cooked for me,' she says through a mouthful of meat.

‘But you cooked it yourself, so that doesn't make sense.'

Max laughs, which is surprising, because he doesn't normally side with me. And Dad raises an eyebrow, which is his way of saying to lay off and leave Mum alone. Mum pushes her chair back with such force that she flips it over, swears, and then starts banging the plates and grabbing all the cutlery, while people are still eating. I must have really touched a nerve tonight.

‘If you're not eating dinner, Lil,' she says, ‘then go to your room.'

I start panicking at the idea of going to the attic. I don't want to be there with Tilly. ‘Sorry, Mum.'

‘I don't care if you're sorry. You need to learn some manners.'

Sending me to my room is basically the worst thing Mum can do tonight. Tilly will be waiting for me, and I was hoping I could hang down here till it's really late and I'm so tired I'll fall asleep.

But she's stacked up all the dinner plates and I know there's no arguing with her when she's made up her mind. The only way I might be able to stall a bit is if I tell them I think there's a ghost in the attic, though Mum will probably assume I'm mucking around anyway.

While she and Dad are busy talking to Max about basketball positions or something equally boring, I dash into the lounge room and grab the laptop. If she's going to banish me upstairs, then I can at least do a bit of research. As I trudge up the stairs, the cold is worse than ever. The room's freezing and as I move closer to my bed, looking for my pyjamas, I see the red hoodie. It's lying there, dirty and marked from the muddy banks of the river. How did it get back here? I start to sense it: there's something in the room with me. Jasper scurries in, but just as he gets near my bed, he stops and hisses wildly. I bend down to scoop him up under his soft belly but he lashes out and claws my face. Swearing, I drop him and he bolts out of the room. There's something here that I can't see, and now my face is smarting from the swipe of his sharp claws.

I don't know where to start, so I Google ‘ghosts'. There are hundreds of websites with all sorts of entries with everything from ‘real' photographs to reasons why ghosts would haunt you. Nothing's much help. Most of the photos look like someone has just tricked a shot to seem like there's a shadowy presence, not the sort of full-bodied girl that met me at the river. I click on the feed of stories about hauntings and start reading. There are lots of mentions of cold air, the sound of breathing, objects being moved and pets being too terrified to enter particular rooms. It's pretty much everything that's been happening to me since I came here, but no one can give me a reason why a ghost might be haunting me.

I type in Tilly's name and start searching. Aside from all the pages about her missing, there are only a couple of mentions of her from before. There's one photo of her with her netball team after they won the Under-12 final, and Julia's right next to her, with her long shiny hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail. Tilly's the only one not smiling at the camera. She looks like she did down at the river, but alive. Sad, though. Her eyes are glazed. Maybe she had a feeling something was going to happen to her and she couldn't stop it.

I had that feeling. The morning before I drowned. I remember looking at Mum, her stomach all swollen and pregnant, the skin so tight it looked like it would burst, and thinking something was coming, but I didn't know where or what. Afterwards I realised it wasn't that I was scared about the baby coming, but that I knew something bad was going to happen to me.

I stare at Tilly holding the netball, the only unsmiling face in the middle of a team of grinning girls, and I wonder what it was she knew and why she feels she has to come looking for me.

I must fall asleep because when I wake up, it's really dark in the attic. Straining to see out the little round porthole window, I notice the sky is moody with clouds and that's why it's so black in my room. I listen for the night noises. But outside is quiet. The whole of Gideon's sleeping except me. And maybe a ghost, but then I guess ghosts don't sleep.

Fidgeting in my bed, I try to get comfortable. Waking up in the middle of the night is never good; often it means I'll lie awake for hours until I drift off just as the sun's rising and I'm supposed to be up for school. I don't want to be awake in this room at night.

Before sleep comes, noises flood up from downstairs. It's like someone's talking. I check my clock and it's 3.00am. I'm not sure why I want to go down there, but the idea that someone's talking loudly at this hour is strange – to say the least.

The stairs creak as I tread on them. The TV's still on but it's faint and all the lights are off. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I walk down the hall to the lounge,
past Max's room. His light's off and I peep in to catch him
reading under the doona, but he's snoring. I can hear
him even before I can make out his shape in the bed.

Mum and Dad's bedroom door is open, too, but no light's coming from there either. Dad's snoring loudly like a train and Mum's making little groany sleep noises. Maybe she's dreaming about how annoying her daughter is.

I keep heading for the lounge, feeling more and more terrified as I tiptoe along the floorboards. The lights are off, so the room looks dark, but the TV light spills across the floor. I don't know what Dad was watching when he forgot to turn it off, but it's Tilly's face on the screen! Big and animated and the voice belongs to a reporter, who explains that she's missing. It's the clip I watched on Mum's computer. Why would it be playing at three in the morning, nine months after she disappeared?

I grab the remote, flick the TV off, but nothing happens. The reporter's walking around the showgrounds where Tilly was last seen. It's creepy watching footage of somewhere I've been. That's never happened to me before. As I move closer to the screen, I realise how close the river is to the back of the oval where the show was. What if that's where Tilly was off to that night?

There's a surge of power or something and the screen plunges into black. The room's so dark I can barely see my hands. Then there's a laugh, like someone's playing a trick on me. I jab at the remote, trying to turn off the sound, but still the laugh pours out of the black TV screen. Tilly's laughing at me. With a sick feeling in my chest, I pull the aerial cord out, disconnecting the TV completely.

For a second the laughing stops and I let go of the breath I've been holding. Then just as I'm about to go upstairs again, there's a flash of coloured light and she's back. Tilly's face bright and smiling – and staring straight at me.

I run back upstairs, throw myself on the bed and turn on all the lights. She can't find me in the light. I lie as still as I can, knowing I won't sleep now. She's dead, dead, dead. She is a ghost. I don't understand what she wants. What do ghosts want?

Suddenly the overhead light clicks off. I look around, desperately trying to see what's caused it, but there's nothing.

Then the bedside light. On, off. On, off. On – like some crazy morse code. Then it snaps off and the room is thick with black. Darkness creeps into every space and I'm lying like a pin, so frightened that I can't move a muscle. Then my door slams shut and the cold pours in as I feel someone tightening the sheets over my chest. I want to scream, but even that's gone. I'm too scared to do anything. The sheets are being tucked in all around me, until I'm still and snug, and rigid in my bed.

‘What do you want?' I whisper. ‘Tilly, what do you want?'

Is this because I went to see her mother? Is she angry with me? ‘Tilly, tell me what you want? Please!' My voice is tiny. Terrified. I can hear her breathing. So lightly, just near my face, like she's sitting too close. And then something wet presses onto my cheek. I think it's her hand. Her freezing wet fingers are touching my face and it's all too much.

‘Dad!' I scream so loudly, that her hand releases me. The weight's gone from my bed. ‘Dad!
Dad!
'

Finally I hear footsteps rushing up the stairs. There's a crash, the door swings open and he bursts in, flooding the room with light. ‘Lil? You okay, honey?'

‘Yep.' But I'm not okay, because big fat tears are rolling down my face. My sheets are still so tucked in that I can barely move and he grabs me up and out and clutches me like he did after I drowned. I'd forgotten how nice it is to feel safely squashed between his strong arms, although all it does is make me cry even harder.

‘Sweetie, what's wrong?'

‘Bad dream.'

I sob against his t-shirt, smearing it with snot. ‘Dad, do you believe in ghosts?'

‘Nope.'

‘Not even a bit?'

‘Is that what's wrong? You think the house is haunted?'

‘I don't know. Where do you think people go after they die?'

‘Lil, is everything okay?'

‘Yeah. I just wondered. Do you think they can talk to you, or send messages or make you feel a certain way?'

‘Well, after my mum died, I believed she was talking to me for a long time. I could hear her voice whenever I was about to make a decision.'

‘Really?'

He nods. ‘Mmm. I'd be buying socks and just as I was about to pick up the green pair, I'd hear this little voice reminding me to be practical. Before I knew what was happening, I was buying the black ones.' He grins and I realise how much I like him, even if he has dragged me away from everything I love. Or nearly everything.

‘Does that help, Lil?'

‘Does it mean you do sort of believe in ghosts?'

‘Not really, no.'

That's as much as I can let on, because he pushes me away slightly so I can see that he's smiling.

‘Darling, there's no ghost here, I promise you. It's just a new place. Hard getting used to – and I should know because the blokes at the pub asked me to come rabbit shooting and I had to pretend I was suffering from one of those city-fella migraines.'

Dad's always been able to reassure me, but I can still feel the cold air thick around me and I know that she's here, somewhere in this room.

‘It's so cold in here,' says Dad as though he's noticing it for the first time.

I jump on his words. ‘It is, isn't it, Dad? It's so cold.'

‘We should get you one of those bar heaters – as long as you promise not to run it day and night. They chew up electricity, those things.'

‘But why would it be colder up here? I thought hot air rises,' I say, hoping he'll pick up the clue.

‘Old house. Lots of draughts getting in, probably. Maybe we can patch it up a bit for you.'

‘Yeah, whatever.'

‘It takes a while to fit in,' he whispers.

‘I don't want to fit in.' I know I sound like a whingeing brat, but I don't care. ‘I don't like it here, Dad.'

‘I know, honey.'

‘Do we have to stay?'

‘For the moment we do.'

‘Why? Can't we just go home to the city?'

‘Lil, you know when I went away last year?'

‘Mmm.'

‘I had a breakdown.'

‘What? I thought you were in Hong Kong.'

‘No. I had a breakdown. It was all too much and coming here was a way to change our lives.'

‘Why didn't you tell us?'

‘You were just kids. I didn't want to worry you.'

‘I
was
just a kid? And now I'm what?'

‘You know what I mean.'

I don't. I thought I was still a kid. Is he telling me because he thinks I'm old enough to cope with the information? I don't want to know this sort of thing about my parents. They're supposed to just be there.

‘So we're stuck here, Lilian. Sorry.'

‘Lilian?'

‘Yeah. That
is
your name.'

‘Only when you're cross with me.'

‘It's three in the morning. I'm tired.'

I try to shrug Dad's arms away, because I don't want him crowding me anymore. ‘Okay, thanks. Or not thanks. Whatever. I just want to go to sleep now.'

‘Sure, honey.'

As he walks out, why do I feel like I'm drowning all over again and that his strong arms and lungs won't do anything to save me now? It's just me here, and a ghost with an agenda that I don't understand. There's no point trying to tell my parents anything, because their big plan is making a new life in a small town and trying to fit in.

11

looking for answers

Dad and I are driving along in silence. All I can think about is the fact that Tilly is a ghost. She must be a ghost, which means she must be dead, which means that she didn't run away like Danny said. She died. And if she died then surely her friends have to know more about it than they're admitting to, because they're the ones who told everyone she ran away.

I'm not sure what Dad's thinking about, but I'm really glad he's letting me just sit. Normally in the car he'd be playing some awful middle-aged radio station and making us suffer through him singing along with some tragic song he loved when he was young, but today even that's off.

Driving back to the city from Gideon is just like it was when we'd been away on an overseas holiday for a month and home didn't feel so homely for the first day or so. It's not that Gideon seems like home, but ten days away from my old house has shifted the way I see it.

The grass is patchy, the outside walls need painting and it looks bare and unfriendly. Almost like the new house did the first day we saw it. There's a FOR SALE board out the front, with glossy, cleverly angled photographs of the kitchen (much smaller than it looks), my bedroom (much rattier than it looks) and the backyard (much narrower than it looks). There's some stuff too about lifestyle and family and it being the ultimate house close to all the right schools and parks.

As Dad stops the car, he reaches out and grabs my hand before I can make a run for it. ‘Why don't you go and see Ruby, while I talk to the estate agent?'

‘I can see the agent if you like,' I say, giving him my sweetest smile. ‘And then whisper loudly in a couple of ears about all the stuff that's wrong. You know – crazy neighbours, rising damp, termites – and see if people are still interested in buying. What do you think?'

I
thought it was funny, anyway. But he looks irritated and lifts up his sunglasses to make sure that when he talks to me, I'll be able to see his eyes. ‘Get out of the car.'

‘Yes, sir,' I say and salute him.

I have to walk past the long line of people waiting to look through my house, and as I do I check them out. Boring, boring, yuppy, too posh, boring. The idea that one of these people will take up my old space, stick posters up on my walls, snore in my bedroom, dream in my house,
is
more upsetting than I'd expected.

I scan faces, trying to find someone I'd be happy to let it go to. And there's a kid – a girl with short-cropped hair. She's holding a bunny, a ratty-looking thing, and standing behind the legs of a man. She looks about four. Stripy leggings, spotty top, a pair of shorts with flowers. Nothing quite matching, like she's dressed herself in all her favourite things. She's about the age I was when we moved into this house. About the age I was when I drowned in the next-door neighbour's pool. She'd be no threat. Ruby wouldn't be her friend the way she made friends with me. She can stay. She can have the house.

When I look away, I see Ruby smiling at me. She's obviously watched me checking everyone out. Before I can even make it to her front door, she rushes at me with a big fat Ruby hug. ‘Finally! I've been waiting all morning.'

‘Dad drove really slowly and we kept getting stuck behind trucks full of animals.'

‘Nice.'

‘Enough to put you off eating meat.'

She keeps squeezing me. I guess maybe she's missed me as much as I've missed her. ‘Come on, let's go inside.'

We both start talking at once, gabbling over each other to get our apologies out.

‘I'm sorry,' I start.

‘No. I am,' she says.

‘I'm more.'

‘Me too.'

‘How's Tom?'

She grins at me, her big brown eyes shining. I guess that's what love looks like.

‘So you don't like him then?' I say trying to mess with her.

‘Who would've thought?'

‘I'm happy for you.'

‘I know you are.'

‘Is it good?'

‘Yeah. So good. He's kind and funny and really hot and all the things I always thought he was.' She looks over my shoulder, like she's seeing him while she talks.

‘That's a relief. It would've been a bummer if you'd wasted ten years thinking he was hot, only to find out he wasn't.'

‘Even Mum likes him.'

It's strange how before all this – before me moving away and her hooking up with Tom – Ruby and I could talk non-stop for hours about anything. Now I feel weird hearing about it. It's like it only happened because I wasn't here. ‘Looks like I left at the right time.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I gave you space—'

‘Oh, Lily, that's crap.'

‘Is it?' I say under my breath. I know I'm angling for a fight. It's what I do when I'm hemmed in and mad at the world, even though I understand it's not Ruby's fault.

‘It's true, though. You and Tom might never have got together if I'd been around.'

‘Please. I haven't seen you for ten days. Could we just not do this?'

‘Okay.' I shrug as if I'm agreeing to have chocolate ice-cream instead of pistachio.

As we head down the hallway I stop. Something's different. It's all changed. The couch is where the brown velvet chair was, the paintings are gone, and there's a big red lumpy-looking lamp in the corner of the room.

‘Mum's been cleaning –'

‘Oh.' And this is what happens. I leave and everything keeps going. Soon I won't know how anything looks, because it won't be the way it was.

‘Are you crying?' she says.

‘No. It was really glary in the car.'

‘Crap.'

‘It was. I forgot my sunglasses.'

‘They're on your head.'

‘I forgot they were on my head.'

‘Just because the couch moves doesn't mean anything,' Ruby says quietly.

‘It does.'

‘It doesn't. It's just a couch. If it had moved while you were still living next door, you wouldn't have cared. In fact you probably wouldn't have even noticed.'

‘But I'm not next door. And soon one of those skanky people out there
will
be.'

‘It's just a couch,' says Ruby, because really what else is there to say?

‘I know.' And I wipe the tears away using my sleeve.

‘Please don't blow your nose on your sleeve,' she says.

‘I won't. I'm not five.'

‘Sometimes you act like you are.'

‘Just because you've got a boyfriend –'

‘Just because you haven't,' she says meanly.

‘I don't want one,' I say, trying to defend myself.

‘Whatever.'

Why don't I tell her about Danny? Why don't I share what happened and find a way to make sense of it with her. We sit on the edge of her bed, not quite touching. It's like we're just getting to know each other all over again.

‘So do you want to hear about Tilly's ghost?'

‘Yeah.'

‘It was down at the river. It, she – she was dead – dripping wet skin – she took the hoodie off me.'

‘You sure it was a ghost?'

‘Totally. She had bluey-grey skin like she'd been dead for ages. And there were patches peeling off her face, and her hands were freezing.'

‘Lil –'

‘Yes, I know what you're going to say. You're going to tell me I'm making it up or something because I'm bored. Well I'm not. It happened.'

Ruby stands up and walks over to the window. She leans her head on it and watches what's happening outside.

‘Ruby?'

‘They've all gone,' she says.

‘Who?'

‘The skanky people next door.'

‘Oh. Right. So Dad'll be here in a minute.'

And he'll take me back to Gideon and leave my best friend here because I can't tell her I want her to come with me. I'm just angry with her.

‘Look, I didn't think I'd be seeing ghosts,' I say, ‘and I didn't think you'd be hooking up with Tom, or that I'd be living in Gideon. I didn't think any of this would happen. I thought I might get to go to camp, maybe paint my nails green and look forward to crashing some party. That's as far as I'd got.'

‘That's enough. You're being a bitch. I didn't cause any of this.'

‘I know that.'

‘And?'

‘I'm sorry.'

She bangs her head softly on the window and I see her smile, like she's trying not to, but it's sort of bubbling out. And then she whirls round and laughs at me as I try not to laugh back.

‘You're pathetic,' she says.

‘I know.'

‘Jealous? Really! Tom is a boy. He's way cute and hot and I really like him, but you're Lil. You're my bestie. Don't be jealous.'

‘You mean it?' Again with the tears. What's happening to me?

‘Don't cry.'

‘I'm not, really.' But we both know it's so not true.

She walks back, sits on the edge of the bed and tries to lean her head on my shoulder, but she's so much shorter than me that it almost ends up on my waist. ‘So you saw a ghost.'

‘Yes. And she's pissed off about something. She made me go down to the river and see her.'

‘The river? Why?'

‘Well ghosts haunt places that have some sort of signifi
cance to them,' I say, hoping Ruby will make the leap.

‘Oh, Lil, the river – she drowned. Didn't she? She's not just missing.'

I nod, so relieved it's not just me thinking this. ‘That's why I feel fingerprints and water marks on my body. She's touching me. She's dripping.'

Ruby looks horrified. ‘She drowned that night and no one ever thought to look?'

‘And I have to find her body. That's what she's come back for.'

‘I think you should go to the police. Tell them you think she drowned.'

‘But what evidence have I got?'

‘Tell them it's a hunch.'

‘Like they're going to believe
that
.'

‘Make them.'

‘Do you believe me?'

She nods, her eyes wide.

So she did drown. Like I could have. Should have.

She slides down onto the floor and drags her suitcase out from under her bed. It gets stuck and she belts it twice until it comes loose. Flinging open the lid, she starts piling crap into it. Whatever's around her on the floor: clothes, shoes, books. Random stuff.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm coming.'

‘To Gideon?'

‘That was the plan anyway, wasn't it? Till you went loopy and decided you'd punish me.'

‘I wasn't punishing you. I just thought you'd rather hang with Tom for the weekend.'

‘Oh please. Does it hurt to be such a martyr?'

‘No. I like it. It suits me.'

She laughs at me then and it's almost back to the way it was before I left.

‘Do you really want to come and find a ghost with me?'

‘Can't think of anything I'd rather do.' She grabs the leather jacket her dad used to wear and zips herself in, then swings round with her hands out, pretending, I think, to hold a gun. ‘There. Scary enough?'

‘Is that supposed to be a gun?'

‘Might look like my hand, but it's quite effective.'

‘I've got to tell you something.'

‘Now what? Too much information today.'

‘Danny kissed me.'

‘What?'

‘He did. At the river.'

‘When?'

I think about lying and telling her it was yesterday, but she'll just find out and then I'll be in real trouble. ‘Couple of days ago. I know, I should have told you.'

‘Was it a boyfriend kind of kiss?'

I nod.

‘What aren't you telling me?'

‘I don't know. It all went a bit wrong. I kept asking questions about Tilly and he freaked out. I'm worried that he only kissed me because I look like her.'

‘Yeah, right, that makes sense.'

‘Well, it does. Why else would he kiss me?'

‘Oh, poor little Lil. No one wants to kiss her unless she looks like a dead girl.'

‘He doesn't think she's dead. No one does, except me, you and her mum.'

She cocks her head as she takes in what I've just said and I realise I've gone too far, because she'll work it out. She knows me so well.

‘You didn't go and see her mum, did you?'

‘Look, we should go. Dad'll be waiting.'

‘You
did
. Terrific. That's a great thing to do. How did she take it when you told her that her daughter was dead?'

‘Oh you know –'

‘No. I don't.'

‘She cried, but she agreed with me. She thinks she's dead too.'

‘Terrific. Well, then, of course she is. Who needs evidence when you've got Lily Frost unpacking the facts?'

‘Point taken, it was dumb I know. I felt bad. I wouldn't have done it if you'd been with me, so really it's your fault that I'm alone and doing rash stupid things.'

Ruby fishes around in her pocket and pulls out her phone. She holds it up like she's a model displaying all the features. ‘This is a
phone
. It rings people. Even 196 kays away. And then when they answer, you can ask their advice before doing stupid things like visiting someone's mother who you don't even know.'

Just as the sermon is almost finished, her phone actually rings and we both laugh as she tosses it into the air in fright.

‘It's Tom.'

‘Well, answer it.'

‘Not in front of you.'

‘Yes in front of me.'

‘No. I'll call him later.'

‘Ruby – you're making me feel bad.'

‘I'm sorry. I'm just not ready to talk to him in front of you.'

Sighing, I stand up, zip her suitcase shut, drag it out of the room and slam the door behind me so she can talk to her boyfriend in private.