Hellfire

who she was, or that she’s even here.”

“But who is she?” Peggy pressed.

Beth turned to look at Peggy, and there was something in her eyes that made Peggy feel suddenly nervous.

“She’s my friend,” Beth said.

“Y-your friend?” Peggy repeated. “But … but I thought she was dead.”

“She is,” Beth agreed. “But she’s still alive, too. She lives in the mill.”

“The mill?” Peggy echoed. Suddenly she felt a small knot of fear forming in her stomach.

Beth nodded, her mind racing now. “I think she must have worked there,” she said, her voice quiet. “I think something terrible happened to her, and they buried her up here. But she’s not up here. Not really. She’s still in the mill.”

Peggy watched Beth warily. Something seemed to have come over her now. Though Beth was looking at her, Peggy wasn’t sure her friend was seeing her. And what she was saying didn’t make any sense at all.

In fact, it sounded crazy.

“B-but what’s she doing in the mill?” Peggy finally stammered. “What does she want?”

Beth’s eyes darkened. “She wants to kill them,” she said at last. “Just like she killed Jeff Bailey.”

As the words sank into Peggy’s mind, the knot of fear grew, reaching out into her arms and legs, making her knees tremble.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would she kill Jeff?”

Beth heard the words, and as her eyes remained fixed on what she was now certain was Amy’s grave, she began to understand. She remembered the party, and the way Tracy and her friends had treated her.

She remembered the humiliation, and the pain.

“Because he was mean to me,” she said softly. “He was mean to me, so she killed him.” The words became the truth in her own mind even as she spoke them. For her, Amy was real now. “She’s my friend, Peggy. Don’t you understand? She’s my best friend.”

Peggy felt her heart beating faster. “But she’s dead, Beth,” she protested. “She’s not even alive, and you don’t even know who she is. How can she be your friend?”

But Beth wasn’t listening to her. In fact, Peggy wasn’t even sure Beth could hear her anymore. Slowly, one step at a time, Peggy began backing away. If Beth noticed, she gave no sign, for her eyes were still fixed on the depression in the ground that she had decided was a grave.

But it wasn’t anything, Peggy told herself. It was just a little dip in the ground where the grass seemed dried up, not bright green like the rest of the meadow, and there wasn’t anything there. Nothing at all.

She backed up another three steps, then turned and fled from the meadow back into the woods, hurtling back along the path toward the “No Trespassing” sign. But when she got there, she didn’t turn right, up the hill toward the mausoleum.

Instead, she turned left, and began thrashing her way down the hillside toward the river below.

Beth stood rooted to the spot, staring at the grave. Unaware that Peggy was gone now, she began telling Peggy about the dream she’d had — the dream that was like a memory.

“I saw it,” she said. “I was in the mill, under the stairs. And I heard something, and waited. And then Jeff came down the stairs, and he … he died. But it wasn’t me that killed him. It was Amy. There’s a little room under the stairs, and that’s where Amy lives. But she came out of the room, and she killed Jeff. And I wasn’t scared,” she finished. “I watched Amy kill Jeff, and I wasn’t scared at all.”

And then, as she tore her eyes away from the grave and looked around for Peggy, the silence of the forest was shattered by the sound of laughter.

Tracy Sturgess stepped into the little clearing, her mocking eyes fixed on Beth.

Beth, her own eyes suddenly clearing, felt herself flushing red with humiliation. Had Tracy just gotten there, or had she been following them all along, listening to them and watching them? “How long have you been there?” she asked, her voice quavering now.

Tracy laughed cruelly. “Just long enough to find out you’re crazy!” she said.

“I’m not crazy,” Beth flared. “There’s a grave here, and Peggy saw it too! Didn’t you, Peggy?” She turned around, and discovered that Peggy was no longer there.

Tracy snickered. “She left. And you better get out of here, too. If you don’t, the ghost might get you!”

Beth looked frantically around, searching for Peggy, but there was no sign of her. “Where is she?” she demanded. “Where’s my friend?”

“She isn’t your friend.” Tracy sneered. “When she found out how crazy you are, she ran like a scared rabbit.” Then, her mocking laughter echoing strangely in the bright morning sunlight, she disappeared back into the woods.

Beth stood still, her eyes flooding with tears of anger and humiliation. Then she sank down into the coolness of the grass, drawing her knees up to her chest.

They didn’t believe her. Peggy didn’t believe her, and Tracy thought she was crazy.

But it was true.

She knew it was true!

Her sobs slowly subsided, and finally she sat up. Her eyes fixed on the small depression in the earth, and she tried to figure out how she could prove that she was right.

But there wasn’t any way. Even if she dug up the grave and found Amy’s bones, they still wouldn’t believe her.

Almost unconsciously, her fingers began probing at the soft earth, as if looking for something. And then, a moment later, her right hand touched something hard and flat, buried only an inch below the surface.

She began scraping the dirt away, exposing a weathered slab of stone. It was deeply pitted, its cracks and crevices packed with the rich brown soil, and Beth at first had no idea what it might be. But then, as she scraped more of the earth away, the slab began to take shape.

One edge was rough and jagged, but from that edge, the stone had been worked into a smooth, clean semicircular curve, its edges trimmed in a simple bevel. After a few minutes, Beth had cleared the last of the dirt off its surface, and managed to force her fingers under the stone’s edge. When she tried to lift it, though, it held fast, and all she succeeded in doing was to break a fingernail, and bare the knuckles of her left hand. Wincing with pain, she wiped her injured hand as clean as she could, then held the smarting knuckles to her mouth. While she waited for the pain to ease, she searched the clearing for a stick, and finally found one that looked thick enough lying a few feet from the mouth of the trail.

She picked it up, and returned to the stone slab. Forcing one end of the stick under its edge, she pressed down on the other end. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the stone came loose. Dropping the stick, Beth crouched down and turned the slab over.

The other face had been polished smooth, and Beth knew immediately that her first feeling about it had been right — it was the top of what had once been a headstone.

With growing excitement, she rubbed the dirt away from the shallow engraving just below the upper curve. The letters were fuzzy, almost worn away by the ravages of time. But even so, she was able to read them:

AMELIA

There was nothing else, nor could she find the rest of the broken gravestone.

But it was enough.

Amy was real.

Beth thought about Tracy, and her mocking laughter.

And Peggy, who hadn’t believed her, and had run away from her.

But she had found the proof. Now, no matter what they said, they wouldn’t be able to take Amy away from her.

If they tried, she knew what would happen to them. Amy would do to them what she had done to Jeff Bailey.

For Beth and Amy were friends now — best friends — and nothing would ever be allowed to come between them again.