She heads for the car and I crouch low, toward the frozen earth. A spray of black hellebore grows by Alex’s headstone. I offer a thin smile. Hellebore, in witchcraft, is used for banishment and exorcism. If Alex’s body were in fact here, maybe the presence of that flower would have been enough to keep her spirit confined.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the grave. It feels so inadequate. It feels like a lie. “I…I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared. I tried to save you—I tried. I tried to help, but you…you weren’t…You have to understand.”
I can practically hear her voice: I don’t have to understand anything.
“It was the séance. Margery Lemont cursed us, because we trapped her in our world.”
Saying it aloud here, to Alex, it sounds insane.
I get down on my knees, tilting forward to press one hand against the cold dirt. I try to summon her spirit. I wish I had wormwood or dandelions, herbs good for evocation. Not these god-awful hellebore, taunting me in an ironic twist of fate. I’d tear them up if it weren’t for the fact that touching hellebore is bad luck—and irritating to the skin, besides. Some part of me feels guilty, too, at the prospect of ripping up the only flowers that adorn Alex’s grave.
Please, I think in the direction of that darkness that hovers, omnipresent, on the fringes of my awareness—the darkness I’ve come to associate with Alex’s ghost. Please listen to me.
Silence answers.
At last I sigh and settle back onto my hips, opening Ellis’s book in my lap. The pages are hard to turn; age has stuck them together and stiffened the binding.
“Chapter One,” I read aloud. “There Is No One Left.”
I glance toward the headstone again, as if to see if Alex is paying attention. The stone is as gray and faceless as before.
I keep reading anyway, all through chapter one and well into chapter two, until my throat starts to feel dry and hoarse. I close the book and, after a beat, lean forward to rest it against the headstone. Another gift to a girl who has no need for gifts. Not anymore.
Something painful catches in my chest, and I press my brow against the chilly soil, eyes clenched shut. A tear leaks past my lashes and drips onto my fingers. Useless, this is all so…I’m so useless.
I shouldn’t be here. Alex was always the smart one. Alex was going to be somebody. You could tell by the way the instructors fawned over her work, how effortlessly everything came to her. She would write an essay overnight, drunk with a joint in one hand, and next thing you know she’s won the English department’s Best Paper Award. Alex was applying to the Ivy League. We all knew she’d be accepted anywhere she wanted to go.
Not like me. I’m the spoiled rich girl who lurked at the fringes of Alex’s halo, stealing her light.
The crunch of frozen ground breaking makes me look up. Ellis stands by the stone with her weight braced against the handle of a shovel.
“I think we should dig her up.”
I gape at her, my heartbeat suddenly beating hard and high enough that it feels like I’m gagging on blood.
“What?”
Ellis is as placid as ever. “You said the grave was empty, right? So there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no body to desecrate. Maybe seeing that for yourself will give you closure.”
I stumble to my feet, dirty hands tangling in my skirt. “No. Absolutely not.”
“You can put the book in her coffin,” Ellis suggests in a very rational tone. “You can perform a spell to put her spirit to rest.”
“Ellis, digging up Alex’s grave isn’t going to fix anything.”
“And ignoring the problem will?”
I can’t. I can’t do this. I turn away from her, staring out into the forest instead, the blackness of night somehow more complete now than it was when we first came.
“Where did you even get the shovel?” I say. I’m aware of how my voice sounds: wild, hysterical, cracking on the word shovel like I’m a breath away from total delirium.
I make myself twist back toward Ellis, who’s still standing there like this is a perfectly normal conversation to have in a graveyard past midnight.
She gestures vaguely over one shoulder. “The caretaker’s shed. The lock was easy to pick.”
I’m not hearing this. This is absurd.
“You’re insane.”
Ellis shakes her head very slightly. “I’m not the one who’s seeing things, Felicity. I’m not having breakdowns in the woods and warding off ghosts.”