Ever since Tessa’s death the end of the week before, there’d been a weird atmosphere at college. No one seemed to know what to say. Nobody had ever experienced the death of a peer or student in such a brutal way before.
More details had come out about what had happened, although many were still just rumours. The police had, at least, confirmed it was murder. Which meant the rumour mill was going mad, and the police had questioned Josh and Maggie. I’d only heard bits about what had happened from Maggie, but I did know the police had decided Josh was innocent, which was something.
Josh wasn’t, however, entirely free. Tessa was still haunting him, and it was getting harder and harder for me to ignore her. English class was the worst. Josh didn’t sit next to me anymore – because he’d moved after getting with Tessa – but it was hard for me to not look over at him. As much as I didn’t want to, I still had feelings for him. He’d been my best friend for most of my life, and being in such close proximity but unable to talk to him, and now totally devoid of friends with Dominic gone, made me feel more isolated than ever.
Most of our lessons currently compromised of revision or mock exams, which meant the classrooms were quieter than usual. The lack of background noise just made everything that was going on in my head even louder.
As usual in English, Tessa hovered over Josh’s shoulder, trying to tell him the right answers as he scribbled things on to his piece of paper. I couldn’t tell what he was writing, but, judging from Tessa’s tone, I had a feeling she disagreed with his answers. Even though I disliked her, I couldn’t dispute how intelligent she was. She had to be: she’d wanted to be a lawyer.
Her hopes and dreams didn’t matter anymore, though. Whatever they were, she’d never get to fulfil them.
Tessa reached out to try to grab Josh’s pen. Her hand went right through him. He didn’t even flinch. She looked so crestfallen, like she really just wanted to help him and all her ideas were backfiring. If I’d liked her, I might’ve felt sorry for her.
Mrs Mitchell, who’d been patrolling the class, pulled out the chair beside Josh. Tessa hovered over Josh’s shoulder to listen in on the conversation. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘You know.’ He shrugged. He’d never been that talkative with teachers. After everything he’d been through recently, he wasn’t all that talkative with anyone.
Tessa shook her head. ‘Ask her for help! You’re never going to do well in exams otherwise!’
Some confidence she had in him. He wasn’t that bad at English.
‘Give me a shout if you need anything, all right?’ said Mrs Mitchell.
Josh nodded but didn’t look up.
Mrs Mitchell got up and walked over to someone else.
Tessa noticed the chair Mrs Mitchell had vacated was still pulled out. She went to sit on it, the same as she would’ve done when she was alive. And she went right through it, falling partially into the floor below before she could stop herself.
I scoffed.
Realising what I’d done, I turned away.
‘Something funny, Edie?’ said Mrs Mitchell.
‘Just…uh…a bird flew into the window over there,’ I said, sounding like a massive sadist. I figured they wouldn’t believe me if it was the window to the classroom we were in because others would’ve heard it. But if it was in the corridor the classroom looked out on to, it would’ve made more sense if other people didn’t notice it.
Mrs Mitchell just nodded and went over to talk to Melanie.
Tessa, on the other hand, looked up at me and met my eye. ‘You can see me.’
I pursed my lips, turning away from her.
‘I know you can see me.’
Keep reading. Make notes. Ignore her.
I really hoped that she didn’t try to grab me or the pen I was holding. That would mean real trouble. She may not have been able to do that with Josh, but to me, she’d feel corporeal. Anything I touched was fair game to the ghosts who wanted to interact with me, annoyingly. Which meant Tessa could take hold of my pen if she wanted to. And I couldn’t stop her without looking like a total freak.
Well, I’d look like a freak anyway. Either from trying to stop her from grabbing my pen or because she’d managed to take hold of my hand. What a scene that would cause in the middle of a quiet room where everyone was concentrating or trying to look like they were. I’d be shipped off in no time.
I was hoping she wouldn’t want to risk embarrassing herself enough again in front of me to try it.
‘LOOK AT ME!’ Tessa shouted.
I had to admit, I was pretty impressed at my resolve. I was staring at my paper, totally ignoring her.
She moved from beside me, wedging herself between the chair in front of me and the desk. She knelt down, trying to force herself into my line of vision. ‘Do you know who did this to me? Can you help me?’
I felt bad not answering that one. She deserved answers about her death, at least, so I gave a small shake of my head. Just once. Nothing anybody would notice. If they were watching me, it would’ve looked like I was flicking my hair out of my eyes.
Her lips curled into a snarl. ‘I always knew there was something weird about you. You’re a witch, aren’t you?’
I sighed. Of course she’d jump to that, because apparently we’d gone back in time three hundred years.
Opting to ignore her instead of encourage her hysteria, I tightened my grip on my pen and continued to read my textbook.
‘Witch! I’m going to tell everyone you’re a witch!’
Well that plan had backfired.
Sigh.
I looked up and met Tessa’s gaze, my eyebrow raised, challenging her to tell someone. Who would she tell? She could scream it, but the only people who’d be able to hear her were other ghosts and necromancers. And I was pretty sure they wouldn’t care.
‘Witch! Wiiiiiitch!’
‘Excuse me? Mrs Mitchell? Could I go to the loo, please?’ I said.
Mrs Mitchell nodded, gesturing with her hands to the door. She was busy helping Melanie with something and didn’t want to be disturbed. It worked for me.
I jerked my head at Tessa, hoping she’d take the hint to follow me. The toilets were only a couple of doors down. I didn’t know how far away from Josh she could travel, so somewhere that close felt like a good place to talk.
Thankfully, nobody else was in there when I walked in. I checked under the stalls just in case, but the only thing present was the faint aroma of someone’s lunch disagreeing with them. Gag.
Crossing my arms, I leaned against the sinks and waited for Tessa. She floated through the walls and looked like she wanted to spit fire. Finally, I had the power over her. And it was glorious.
‘Can you find who did this to me? Please?’ It looked like being so polite to me was killing her. Again. But I was more inclined to be helpful if she was trying to be nice to me. At least she had enough people smarts to know that.
‘I’m not a police officer or a private investigator. It’s out of my skill set. I’m sorry.’ Mostly.
She clenched and unclenched her fists. I really hoped she didn’t plan to use them. ‘Then why can you see me? What are you?’
‘I’m a necromancer.’
It wasn’t like she’d be able to tell anyone who didn’t already know. It was surprisingly freeing to say it so bluntly.
Tessa laughed. Why was that less believable than me being a witch? ‘Sure you are.’
I shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter to me what you believe. Just leave me alone.’ I went to push past her, but then realised I needed to give her a wide berth so that she didn’t notice she was corporeal to me.
‘Wait,’ she said, a note of desperation in her voice. ‘If you’re really a necromancer – and I’m not saying I believe you – but if you are, does that mean you can bring people back to life?’
All right, now I felt bad for her. I uncrossed my arms and lowered my shoulders. ‘In theory. I’ve only done it once.’
‘So you could help me?’
‘No.’
The anger was back. ‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because you were murdered. And possibly dismembered. The police have your body. Parts.’ Gross. ‘There’s a media circus around your family. I couldn’t get to your body to bring you back, and even if I could, it may not all be there. And it’s not like you’d be able to go back to the life you once had on the off-chance I could resurrect you. You’d be poked and prodded and treated like a freak because you did the impossible. People would want to know how you did it to help other people, and if you didn’t help them, they’d see you as selfish.’
Not to mention I wasn’t sure if I could even do it anymore, now that Fadil was borrowing some of my power. Or the impact resurrecting her would have on my powers and psyche. But since she only cared about herself I didn’t think that was worth mentioning.
Tessa lowered her head. ‘I always knew you were selfish!’
That was rich, coming from her.
‘Whatever.’
This time, I really did leave. Tessa chased after me, shouting things and trying to goad me, but I planned the rest of my day in my head to block her out.
The bell rang as I walked back into the classroom, so I packed up my stuff as fast as I could. Tessa was still trying to get in my face, but I continued to ignore her.
Before I could leave, Mrs Mitchell cornered me. ‘Edie, have you thought any more about uni?’
‘Um…no?’
Her face fell slightly, but she tried to hide it.
Tessa eavesdropped from just behind my teacher’s shoulder. I tried not to look at her, but I really wanted to tell her where to go.
‘You need to get your application in by the end of term. You know that, right?’
‘But what if I don’t want to go to uni? What if I want to take a gap year, or do an apprenticeship, or something else?’
Why was there so much pressure to have everything figured out when I was barely eighteen? Why couldn’t I take some time to figure out my life? What was so wrong with that?
‘It’s still worth filling in an application, that way you at least have the option if you change your mind.’
Great. More stuff to do. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
She seemed to take the hint, as she returned to her desk without saying anything else.
Tessa sneered at me as I slung my bag over my shoulder. It almost looked like she was jealous of me. Could she really be?
After one last glare her way, I scurried out of the classroom to get to the opposite side of campus and as far away from her as possible. I just hoped that would be far enough away from Josh that she wouldn’t be able to follow me.