Anna made sure it never worked. With her stunning smile and kind demeanor, no one ever questioned her.
I certainly hadn’t in the beginning. I’d fallen for her act just like everyone else. I’d been a fool, too.
“What happened to her?” the chipper girl asked. I wondered if I sounded like this to Essic, if he’d had the same inner monologue that was dancing through my mind. I imagined he did.
“Sad story. Poor thing. She killed a little girl. Hit and run accident,” she whispered, eyeing me from her position.
My ears perked to attention at this. It was the first time she’d offered this information. How had she uncovered it? I told my heaving chest to settle. I tried to calm my breath. It was coincidence, certainly. She couldn’t know. Could she? Had she done her digging? And if she had, could it possibly mean someone was looking for me? I squashed the flame of hope before it could grow and smolder.
“That’s terrible,” the girl said, turning to look at me as if I were a museum exhibit and not a living being. Maybe, in some ways, she was correct in her assessment.
“Yes. It made her go more than a little crazy. Poor thing used to work here with us before we knew. She actually went insane and stabbed someone on the floor a few years ago. Such a tragedy. Luckily, the state sentenced her here, where we can help her,” Anna offered, smiling weakly. I turned at this and shot her a glare. She didn’t budge her face.
I thought about attacking the new girl, about shredding her to pieces with my teeth. At least it would be a mercy if I tore her throat out here. At least she wouldn’t fall for the same trap I did. At least she would escape. Even death is an escape at this point.
“That’s so sad,” the girl murmured, turning to study me with both pity and suspicion that ignited more rage in me. I kicked my feet against the stone.
“It is. But at least she has Redwood for her home. At least there’s that. And who knows, maybe someday, an even better place will come open for her. I have a feeling it will.” Anna smiled, and when the new girl nodded and turned to the door, she winked at me.
I shook my head. But as I opened my mouth to shout, I closed it again. My eyes landed on another sight.
She had returned. I shuddered, backing against the wall.
Her face was still mashed in, her features unrecognizable. But I’d know her anywhere. I had known her since that moment our lives were thrown together.
It was her fault, after all. It was her death that rocketed me on this path that led to Redwood. It was as much her fault as mine that we were trapped here, one spirit and one empty shell waiting for a redemption that would probably never come.
As Anna and the new girl walked toward the door, more figures wandered in. At least I was never alone anymore, although sometimes I wondered why I was so bothered by solitude. It was a constant struggle, battling between the horrors of solitude and the nightmares of the haunting spirits that plagued me. I clutched at my head as they all started talking, mumbling, shrieking. I could understand their moans, their cries. I could hear their words after so much time being confined. The thought wasn’t comforting in the least.
They crowded around me. The kids of 5B, in all of their horrifying glory. I never got accustomed to it. Josephine from floor five, her words a sad story of how she died here. A black-haired being holding scissors, rage her signature emotion. The elegant figure who took Yellow’s hand, murmuring about being careful and penance. Figures old and new, familiar and unfamiliar. They dance in and out of my life like a demented carousel of hauntings. But at the front of them, just like always, Yellow stood, her red pigtails splotched with blood.
I shrieked and grabbed my head. I knew what they would say. I knew the ghoulish monologue by heart. She graced me with it every night, every week, every waking minute. Who would hear my pleas? Who would help me find her body? I tried to help 5B. Who would help me?
The spirits of 5B’s kids still showed up from time to time. Even with his death, they did not find peace. I wished I could have helped them find a sense of rest after death. Could things be different for me if I had?
The voices of the spirits in my room spoke to me as they often did.
We warned you to be careful. There are many of us here, living and dead, who don’t belong. We don’t belong Jessica. I can help you. We all can.
But I didn’t want help. I just wanted peace. That’s all I ever wanted, even before the entire Redwood saga. I flailed on the cot, burying my head in the pillow and wishing I could smother myself once and for all.
I heard the voices beyond the spiritual ones, Anna and the new nurse standing at the door observing.
“You weren’t kidding, she is a nutjob,” the new girl announced.
And even though it hurt my heart and my head, I removed my face from the pillow. I looked past the grabbing hands and the melted faces and the tortured souls who plagued my room. I raised my voice above their ghostly whispers. And I told the new nurse what I should have told myself all those years ago.
“Run.”
Nevertheless, there is no one to listen to the words of a girl who has gone mad.
The Ghosts of
