The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books)

I stood there under buzzing fluorescents, smelling Moira’s cedarwood perfume, my purse heavy on my shoulder. I hadn’t even set down my briefcase yet. My hands had turned slippery, and I scooped up the front section of the paper. I hid it in my briefcase like a criminal. Just like I’d hidden the pendant in my Chanel knockoff.

The day passed in a blur. Gracie and Emily invited me to lunch, and I think we gossiped, as always, about who was sleeping with whom and which lawyer was the worst to work for. Everyone agreed Chaggs was the worst, and Emily preened.

A smooth glass ball of calm had descended over me. So what if Moira was dead? There was nothing I could do. So what if she’d looked me up, told me she had to meet me, and given me what was probably an antique? I’d earned it, hadn’t I? I’d written every goddamn paper she ever turned in. I’d driven her home after every drunken party, tagged along whenever she needed the ballast of a plain-Jane friend, cosseted her and basked in her borrowed glow. I’d been the battery so she could shine, and what did it get me?

Two months before graduation she’d run off with some older guy. Probably the same billionaire she ended up with. She was always cut out for it, our Moira.

My Moira. Who left me adrift.

The trip home on the filthy dark subway was the usual, and the elevator in my building was still out of order. So it was four flights up in my heels, my back killing me, and five full minutes of fucking with the locks before I could get into my own little shoebox. I shut the door, flipped the locks, dropped my briefcase, and decided to go for a bath. I left a trail of clothes, banged my elbow on the bathroom door, flipped on the light, and screamed.

Moira’s ghost stood in the white glare of my tiled bathroom, a river of burn marks charring one side of her body and blood dripping scarlet over her bloated hands. She was livid-pale, her hair wet, smoke-crisped draggles, and completely naked.

I hit my head on something as I fell, and blacked out for a few merciful seconds. But not nearly long enough. When I woke up, I found out just how much everything had changed.

Traffic whooshed outside. It had started to rain. I held the icepack to my temple. “This is just temporary insanity,” I told her. “Probably brought on by stress. You don’t exist.”

Her blue eyes had turned a murky grey, the whites yellowing and swelling like eggs. Her head lolled drunkenly, and the nakedness was distracting. A short but jagged appendectomy scar sliced up her abdomen, vanishing into the cracking, charred flesh gripping her whole side. I remembered driving her to the hospital through knee-high snow, the doctor swearing in wonderment, her being whisked away to surgery. I’d missed an exam and my grades took a hit, but Moira had pulled through.

Just like always. Even though the infection should have killed her.

“You were the only person I could think of.” It was Moira’s voice, certainly . . . but flat and uninflected, a straight line on a heart monitor. “That might help me.”

The pendant lay on my secondhand mahogany coffee table, its chain spilling away, a river of brightness. Ice crackled as I shifted the pack against my aching head. “Head trauma. No, stress. Work’s been really bad lately.”

“You’re probably angry. I would be too. I just dropped you for years, and now this. I’m sorry.” Her usual apology, meaningless. The blood dripped, coating her hands, bright red gloves. Pearls of smoky water clung to her high firm pallid breasts. The tiny scars from silicone implants were purple-livid, and stippling ran down her back, her buttocks cupped with bruised darkness.

That’s where the blood settled, because she was on her back for a while. The thought sent a hot bolt of sourness through me, and I leaned forward, dropping my head. That just made it hurt more. I moaned.

“I look bad, too.” She made a short tsking noise. “All that money spent on maintenance, but once you go over and you can’t rest, you start looking like Frankenstein. I’m sorry, Georgie. You were the only choice.”

The apologies, again. She must need something. “Shut. Up.” I peered at her under one barely opened eyelid. “Am I insane? I’ve gone round the bend. Loony-bin time.”

“Nope.” One corner of her mouth twitched. It was a ghost of her famous smile, back when she’d been the redheaded college party terror. “You’re sane, you’ve accepted the Seal. You’re seeing my ghost, babydoll. I can’t pass on without your help.”

“Great,” I moaned again. “I should just take your word for it? Tautology, Staufford.”

“It’s Hannigan now. Or maybe I can take my maiden name back. This qualifies as a divorce.” Those clouding eyes fixed on me, and a spark of red lit in their depths. “He killed me, Georgie. My cheating, lying sorcerer of a husband. He wanted the Seal.”

“Which is that thing on the table.” I eyed its innocent silver gleam, balefully, and wished for a nice big jigger of Scotch.

“Right.”

“Sorcerer?” This time I eyed Moira’s ghost. The blood dripping from her hands and the water dripping from everywhere else vanished in midair with little popping crackles, a slow steady sound like a loose, sizzling faucet. She, however, stayed nice and solid. Or apparently solid. I didn’t want to touch her and find out either way.

Thank God I couldn’t smell her, too.

A short, very characteristic Moira nod. Water splatted dully from her lank, crisped hair. Her eyebrows were singed, and soot clung to her cheeks. “Right.”

“Right.” I hauled myself to my cold, bare, shivering feet. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, kiddo.”

If only it was that easy.

I gave up trying to sleep and switched the light on. She hadn’t moved. Still standing there next to my bedroom window, dripping blood that vanished in midair and staring at me with those clouded, accusing eyes.

She could always outwait me. I’d found that out the hard way.

So I went ahead and admitted defeat. “Fine. What am I supposed to do?”

A slow, twitching grin, her purpling lips pulling back from shocking-white teeth. “First things first. Put it on.”

“Bring me my purse, then.” I pulled down the hem of my tank top.

A roll of those discoloured eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’m a ghost, I can’t carry your shit.”

Which was what I’d wanted to know. “Just checking.” So of course I had to get out of my nice warm bed, pad out into the living room, and fish in my purse until I found the pendant. I worked the chain over my sloppy dishwater-brown ponytail. The metal was ice-cold for a brief second before warming, almost obscenely, against me. The pendant fluttered a little, caressing the skin over my breastbone, and the world rippled a little. “Whoa!”

“That’s what I thought when I put it on.” Moira smiled, another faint echo of her old devil-may-care grin. “Gramma Staufford’s probably rolling in her grave that I didn’t spawn a little girl to give it to and ruin her life.”

You mean, just like you’re ruining mine? But I didn’t say it. It was no use. She wouldn’t see it that way. Moira never did. “So you could see ghosts?”

“Not all the time. Grams died right before midterms, remember? I went to the funeral and my mother had a cow because she couldn’t find the Seal. Turns out Grams had taken it off and mailed it to me. Chose me over Mom, and that was not a happy cupcake, let me tell you. I was always Grams’s favourite.” Moira moved a little, restlessly, the water on her rippling. “You can’t die while you’re wearing it. But if you have someone in mind, sometimes you can take it off and give it. As a gift. Don’t do that unless you’re ready to die, though. I’m serious.”

“Were you? Ready, I mean?” I touched the pendant gingerly, with one fingertip. Christ, how was I going to wear this all the time? It went with absolutely nothing.

“Dying was preferable to being married to Ryan.” A shiver went through her. She blurred like a television image, static bursting through her almost-solid outline. “He’s a sorcerer, Georgie. He kept experimenting. Trying to get it off me, trying to make it obey him. Seeing the dead is the least of its tricks.”

“So . . . he reached out all the way from Europe and gave you a car crash?” I grabbed the chenille throw off the back of the ratty old couch an ex-boyfriend had helped me haul home from Goodwill, and wrapped myself up. “Come on, Moira. Give the rest of it.”