Written for the Creative Writing Ink Prompt for January 18th, which was to write a story inspired by this image. Photo belongs to Sydney Rae.
Maria first saw the dead girl during double science on a Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Whittaker paced between the battered desks, handing out worksheets. Maria squidged her hands between her knees and tried to stop shivering. The mobile classrooms were always cold; melting frost dripped from the window frames. She hated winter, hated biology, and she hated –
‘Heart structure.’ Mr. Whittaker slapped a piece of paper on her desk. ‘Everyone has their topic, now I want you to do a presentation on it in two months’ time. Teach each other! You know you need good grades this year, or you won’t get into college and – ‘
And you won’t have a future. Maria looked down. Her paper was wet with condensation from the metal table. She was going to fail everything.
‘Cheer up, at least it’s not DNA replication!’ The girl next to her leaned in to peer at the sheet.
Except that Maria didn’t sit next to anyone. And the girl, along with the chair she sat on, was transparent and floating a few inches above the floor.
She glanced around. Mr. Whittaker was still lecturing whilst the class moaned about their presentations. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.
‘I’m Rose. I’m a student here – well, used to be.’ Her curly hair stuck out from a messy bun, and silvery freckles dotted her cheeks. ‘I died in this classroom… just about where you’re sitting actually.’
Maria shuffled to the edge of her seat.
The ghost grinned. ‘I’m your new work partner!’ She nudged her with an elbow that passed straight through her arm. ‘Oh, and you’re being haunted. Surprise!’
♥
Maria slammed the front door behind her in a flurry of snow.
‘Ooft, manners.’ Rose drifted through the door after her. ‘Nice place ya got.’
This was a nightmare, it had to be. ‘Why are you still here?’ she snapped, dumping her satchel on the floor. Textbooks spilled out.
‘Duh, I’m haunting you. I don’t make the rules.’ She drifted into the living room to inspect the DVD shelves. ‘What year is it? Is Friends still on?’
She was talking to a ghost. Or her own imagination. ‘Only re-runs.’
‘Bummer.’
‘Whatever you are, I have enough problems this year. Why are you haunting me? I didn’t kill you!’
Rose rolled her eyes. ‘Look, some ghosts haunt houses and creepy dolls. I just happen to haunt the heart structure module of GCSE biology. You’re my hauntee until the big exam day.’
Maria laughed. ‘I’m definitely dreaming.’
The ghost smiled. ‘Oh really?’ She floated to the window, and frowning with effort, drew lines in the condensation on the glass.
Maria gaped at the wonky heart diagram, complete with labels. ‘How…’
‘And you know it’s real, because you couldn’t have drawn that.’ Rose stuck out her tongue.
‘Yes I could! With all the valves and arteries and – and stuff,’ she finished lamely.
Rose clicked her tongue. ‘Hoo boy. We’d better get started.’
♥
‘See, if you know the order of the blood vessels you can imagine them on a diagram. Vena cava, pulmonary artery, aorta, pulmonary vein.’
Maria stared unseeingly at the textbook on the kitchen table.
‘I get that it’s been a weird day for you but it’s really not hard.’ Rose did slow cartwheels in the air. ‘Go on, you try.’
Maria wondered if she meant the diagram or the cartwheels. ‘Can’t you just come into the exam and tell me the answers?’
‘Newp. Not how this is going to work. Now, vena, artery, aorta, vein. Remember it like that. Any questions?’
‘Yeah. How did you die?’
Rose paused upside-down. ‘Rude.’
‘Um, sorry.’ She picked up a highlighter and pretended to read. ‘It must be hard being… dead.’
‘You think? Try having a spot you can never pop. Ever.’ She turned upright and pointed to a ghostly zit on her cheekbone. ‘Now come on, vessels, chop chop!’
♥
It turned out that Rose wasn’t a hallucination. She followed her to school, attended every lesson and even helped her when she was stuck. Most of the time.
Mr. Whittaker pointed at her. ‘Maria, what is the double membrane around the nucleus of a cell called?’
‘Dare you to say Sidney.’ A ghostly hand waved in front of Maria’s eyes. ‘Dare ya. For me. Please.’
‘Um…’
‘I’m picking your nose right now. Whatcha gonna do about it?’
‘The nuclear envelope.’
‘Correct! Well done. Now Thomas, what is the first stage of mitosis…?’
♥
Presentation day arrived, and Maria recited her notes from memory as she held up her poster. Rose provided exaggerated gestures and a theatrical flourish at the end. Maria got top marks.
Rose was an expert at science, but she knew a lot about other subjects too. Every night they’d spend hours testing each other – but Rose always insisted she never skipped meals or stayed up late revising. She also thought an episode of Friends was the finest reward for a good day’s work. Maria humoured her.
♥
Summer became autumn. Maria revised every night until finally, the exam day arrived.
On the walk to school, something fell out of a tree and narrowly missed her.
‘Shit!’ muttered a voice in her ear. ‘I just possessed a squirrel by accident. Sorry.’
‘At least it wasn’t a pigeon this time.’ Maria brushed leaves off herself and stepped over the squirrel lying dazed on the pavement. ‘I’m nervous enough as it is. Don’t give me a heart attack.’
‘Maybe it’d jog your memory. How are your arteries doing?’
It was cold outside the sports hall. Maria waited with her class, clutching her notes and listening to them all speculating about the exam.
‘Remember what I said.’ Rose hovered beside her, hair unruffled by the autumn breeze. ‘They make a big deal out of all this, but if you fail the world doesn’t end.’
‘Row A!’ a teacher called from the open doors. A third of the class shuffled in.
Vena, artery, aorta, vein. Systole, diastole. So many steps for a single heartbeat.
‘I was going to be a doctor,’ said Rose softly. ‘Which meant I needed top grades in everything. So I joined every homework group, spent every night revising… drank so many energy drinks because I was tired all the time.’ She scratched at a spot on her chin. ‘Literally worried myself to death over this stupid exam. Never got to take it.’ The wind picked up, and dead leaves swirled through her body.
Maria swallowed. ‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘Ghosts stick around because they have unfinished business. Unavenged murder, et cetera. Mine was taking all this too seriously.’ How old would she be now if she was still alive? Twenty? Thirty? ‘But I think my work is done here, don’t you?’
‘Row B!’ the teacher called.
‘What do you mean?’ Maria’s notes crumpled in her hand. She turned away from the sports hall. ‘I’ll see you after the exam, won’t I?’
Rose shook her head. ‘My mojo’s all better now. Time for my spirit to rest or whatever the hell it does next.’ Her ghostly body looked pale and washed out in the weak autumn sunlight. ‘Even us ghosties got things to do.’
‘Row C!’ The last of her class began to file in.
Maria opened her arms. ‘I’ll miss you. So much.’
‘Hey, don’t get mushy on me.’ Rose did the same. ‘Watch some Friends for me when you get home, yeah?’
Hugging a ghost was like hugging fog. Maria felt nothing, but the air around Rose felt heavier with the weight of her presence. ‘Thanks for everything,’ she whispered.
‘No, thank you. Now go be awesome.’
When Maria stepped back, Rose was gone. She turned towards the sports hall. The class had gone in, and the teacher was watching her strangely.
If she failed, she could retake. The future wasn’t a dead end. Summer followed winter, just as one heartbeat followed another.
A ghostly scraping along the ground behind her. She looked back.
A piece of chalk rolled to a stop at her feet. On the rain-darkened concrete, three words were etched in capital letters, the autumn leaves already settling around it.
YOU GOT THIS.
Maria smiled and walked inside.
Thoughts?