Fiona Bell lives in tropical Cairns with her husband and four children. When she’s not writing short stories or young adult fiction she can be found with a whiteboard marker in one hand and a classic novel in the other, trying to inspire teenagers to love English as much as she does. Waterhole is her first book.
www.fionabellauthor.com
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For Stephen, James, Grace, Laura and Cate.
There are spirits living in the creek near my home. It’s a beautiful place, but deadly too. Time has carved deep channels and tunnels in the rock. People come to enjoy the cool, clear water, but they underestimate the strength of the current. They get trapped in those deep caverns. And they drown. I’m not sure how many souls still linger in that place, but it’s many. We call it the waterhole, and we swim there anyway.
They say the five stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
You’re supposed to progress through them in a predictably human way. You’re supposed to. But it took me a while to get to number five. It wasn’t completely my fault. Whoever designed this model didn’t take into account what happens when the dead person hangs around for a while.
Let’s get something straight – I didn’t believe in ghosts and all that spiritual stuff. I wasn’t the kind of person who liked creepy stories. I’d heard lots in my time, like the tale about the old lady in the nursing home who hears her departed husband calling her from the graveyard every night, or the one about the teenaged drunk driver who killed himself and four of his friends and forever paces the dark highway moaning in a guilt-wracked eternity.
I never believed in any of that. I didn’t believe in much at all.
But then Mum died.
The first time something unusual happened, the first time I realised things were not quite right, was the last day of school before Christmas break. Most of the other boarders had left and I’d decided to kill time in the library before I had to see the counsellor, Mr Greenwood. He wanted to ‘check in’ with me before I caught the bus home. I wasn’t your classic library nerd or anything, but the library had become a haven for me. It was church-quiet and after the hordes of daygirls went home each day it was pretty much deserted.
‘Good morning, Sunny.’ The librarian, Mr Fletcher, sort of sighed my name as I walked past the front desk. He angled his bald, wrinkly head to the side as if disappointed in something I’d done. I’ve since realised that this is the look people reserve for waifs or orphans, or whatever you want to call people like me.
‘Morning, sir,’ I muttered, hurrying past.
‘Taking some books home for the holidays?’ he called after me.
Now that I was sixteen I was allowed to do that – one of the few privileges of being a Saint Clarence’s senior.
‘Yeah, maybe, Mr Fletcher.’ I ducked into the fiction section to avoid any chance of further chitchat. Conversation avoidance had become my modus operandi. I’d found it to be the easiest and most efficient way to get through the school day and could go from breakfast to bedtime without saying more than a couple of words to anyone. Mind you, having a recently deceased mother was like having a sign around your neck saying, ‘Please do not disturb’.
I found my way to ‘S to U’ and, keeping one eye firmly on Fletcher, because even though he walked with a stick he was lightning-fast at getting around the library, I pulled down The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. I knew exactly where it was on the shelf. It was my go-to book.
The main character, Holden Caulfield, was the closest thing I’d ever had to a boyfriend. We had a lot in common because he felt kind of alone in the world too. But he didn’t feel sorry for himself, not in the way you’d think; he was just bewildered by humanity. I’d always thought that if we’d met, Holden would’ve liked a girl like me. He was a harsh judge of character, and for that reason alone I reckon we’d get on pretty well.
I sat, cross-legged, halfway down the aisle and flicked through the yellowed pages. I always felt a kind of peace in the library, like there was protective power in the books surrounding me. It’s not like I wanted to read them all, but I found comfort in the fact that the people living between those pages had lives that were far more tragic and pathetic than mine.
Despite my connection with Holden, he wasn’t getting through to me that day. I wasn’t really taking in the words, just turning a page every now and then so Mr Fletcher wouldn’t get suspicious about my behaviour and tell the counsellor. It was bad enough I was having a fictional relationship with a fictional boy, but according to the teachers I was a little unstable. They’d been helicoptering around me since Mum died so I had to remember to act normal at all times.
As I sat there pretending to read, the skin on my arms suddenly shrank two sizes too small for my body. It was at that precise moment I had my first, what I would call, ‘experience’. A kind of shudder went through me. It was like when someone walks up behind you and you feel their presence. The hairs on the back of your neck fan up and you have an overwhelming urge to turn around and look behind you.
Someone was there. No, not just someone.
My mother.
I wanted to confirm it with my eyes, but at the same time I knew it didn’t make sense.
‘Mum?’ I took a deep breath and with a racing heart I made myself look around.
Shelves, books, green carpet.
I
