"I'll check that one more place, and that's all. Then I'm leaving. " The knife casing in my boot rubbed reassuringly against my ankle. I thought about pulling it out, but then I thought about being stopped by a cop and I decided against it. Better to appear unarmed, if caught. Besides, if there were only hobos or other humans present, they would have made their presence known; and any other unknown watchers were unlikely to be intimidated by a four-inch blade.
"I'll leave it there for now. One more place, though, before I go. Just the one. "
I couldn't be sure if I was talking to myself anymore. I knew there must be ghosts—surely there had to be ghosts in a place where two thousand people had died a hundred years before. Yes, there had to be ghosts, and therefore I should be unafraid if they wanted to watch. What harm had ghosts ever done to me?
Leslie.
My mother's name. No. I was focusing on it. I was only imagining it.
Leslie.
The second time I knew I'd caught it, each consonant sliding out from an ectoplasmic throat. I took a deep breath. No, I'd never come to harm from a ghost, but the only ghosts I knew were Mae and her sisters and Cora's easily dissuaded specter—and they were surely not the only dead people, so I could hardly consider them representative of the spirit world as a whole.
"Who's there?"
My question invited the presence closer. Something was different about this entity. Something about its voice, or its touch, suggested more strength than mere spirit had ever shown me. I clenched my fists and held them against my thighs, refusing to move. A faint, chuffing gust of air came and went close against my skin. It was sniffing me, smelling me—tickling the sticky inside crooks of skin at my elbows and under my chin.
It snorted a hard puff of stale air against the side of my face. Not Leslie. It didn't sound pleased.
"No," I admitted. "Not Leslie. "
It drew close again, dusty breath rasping against my ear and ruffling my hair.
But I know you.
"No. I don't think so. "
I know you, it insisted.
"You don't. " My fright-induced patience was growing strained. "Go away. Let me alone. I'm not here for you and there's nothing you want from me. "
Ah. It withdrew. Now I do know you. And I will do as you command, for it was you that brought me here. A hateful laugh, distinctly audible, bounded throughout the clearing and echoed itself into nothingness.
I felt alone again. Shaken, confused, and suspicious, but at least alone. I didn't care who the being thought I was, so long as it left me.
While I still had the nerve to do so, I sought out my last conquest.
Brach Hall was situated down the hill behind the gymnasium. It had the same run-down brick-and-white exterior as the other buildings, but it lacked the decorative columns and the sense of architectural frivolousness. The door to this one was attached, but unlocked.
I stood on the landing and half expected a cold burst of wind or will to shove me back, but nothing of the sort greeted me, so I let myself inside. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Inside waited a hallway with a dozen or more doors standing ajar and a big open room down at the end. Sunlight gushed and fractured through the jagged shards of glass that lingered in the windows, and even though this place was as filled with forest and human garbage as the rest, it seemed bright and almost friendly in comparison to the rest of the places I'd checked. Best of all, it held the four tall filing cabinets up against the wall. A fifth had toppled to the floor and splayed its contents across the room, so I knew they were full of files and folders.
All I had to do was find my mother's.
It took some time. The files were not so alphabetically arranged as they should have been, and they were organized according to some grouping system that I didn't understand—possibly by age or by classroom standings. By the time I pulled Leslie's up out of the others, the flood of natural light had dimmed into a late afternoon stream, or perhaps it had grown cloudy. It had certainly grown quiet, and in light of my earlier supernatural greeting, quiet couldn't possibly be good. I climbed to my feet and stretched my stiff legs, wondering after the comforting hum of bugs and birds that had been my background noise all day.
I wiped at my sweaty neck and listened.
Still in the distance water leaked and tapped, and down on the road below a car zipped by. I didn't hear the low, rhythmic pulse anymore, or the jagged breathing, but its absence wasn't enough to set my mind at ease. I could tell myself it was my imagination, but deep down I knew better than that. I wasn't welcome here. Whatever eyes were watching, they didn't belong to my late mother.
Without opening it, I lifted the lightly stuffed folder.
Another engine roared down the winding road at the foot of the hill. This one slowed as it approached the gravel turnoff, and I thought I might have been discovered. But then the engine revved high again and left.
Back in the hallway I kicked aside the beer bottles and filthy, mildewed clothes and boxes that clogged the floor. Somewhere above I heard a muffled snap, and I froze, straining my ears. I heard it again, then again. It could have been a shutter flapping. It could have been a squirrel working on some nuts. I gripped the folder against my stomach and went back towards the front door.
Just before the last turn before the exit I stopped, my attention snagged by an open office. The nameplate on the door read M. Finley, and it was in surprisingly good order. On the wall to my immediate left was a classroom-sized chalkboard.
SHE KNOWS SHE WAS WRONG, it read.