198318344X

  Copyright ©2018 Jo Ho

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Jo Ho.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A ll that was left of the shattered streetlamp now lay on the grass as the moon painted the surrounding area in an eerie silver glow.

  Marley kept her eyes fixed on the crumbs of glass hoping that the mundane act would somehow bring her out of her head where she was desperately trying to tune out his voice. The voice that she shouldn’t be hearing at all.

  Marley was having an episode again.

  She knew she must have lost it big time because standing in front of her, incensed beyond all reason, looking better than he had any right to, was the guy she had just accidentally killed.

  Christian stalked around, waving his arms, yelling at her about how stupid she had been though Marley couldn’t hear his words anymore. She couldn’t hear them above the loud buzz of panic that reverberated in her mind. It had started the second he had said his first words to her.

  It was only her first day of college; she was supposed to be partying and learning to live without a parent for the first time… so how had any of this happened?

  Although it had only been a few hours since the attack at the church which had led to Christian’s untimely demise, every second that had passed since seemed like forever. Was this how murderers felt? Was she a murderer? Marley could feel the hand of a ticking clock, moving towards her capture. At any moment, the police would discover what she had done and arrest her. She’d be thrown into prison, never to see sunlight again.

  Although they had been cautioned not to leave the dorm at night on their own, she was standing just outside the building. Feeling stifled and needing time alone, Marley stepped out to make a call. She wanted to speak to her dad, to hear his familiar voice and be comforted by that. Even if she knew she couldn’t tell him what had happened.

  Suddenly the streetlamp above had exploded, raining glass around her before Christian had appeared looking somehow different then when she had seen him.

  She couldn’t hear what he was saying her stressed out mind wouldn’t take any of it in. Deep down, Marley knew that what she was seeing wasn’t real. The doctors and shrinks had been right. She was schizophrenic after all, and Christian — ghost or not — wasn’t there.

  Why then did he seem so real?

  Despite his rage, she could see the golden flecks in his green eyes that made it seem as if they were almost glowing. While she had thought his hair was originally blonde, close up, she could see the roots bore more of a bronze shade. He wore a white shirt with the first few buttons unbuttoned. Just beneath the shirt, Marley caught a glimpse of the top of an intricate tattoo on his chest. Drawn to the sight of it, she had to shrug away her immediate instinct to reach out and touch it. If he was a figment of her sick mind, surely he wouldn’t be quite this detailed?

  “Are you even listening to me?” Christian demanded, cutting into her thoughts.

  “What?” Marley replied somewhat defensively, unable to help herself.

  “I asked you why you killed me!”

  “It was an accident, I didn’t mean to,” Marley replied, trying to decide whether she wanted him to believe her innocence more or for him to just disappear. Although her subconscious knew he couldn’t really be there, the sight of him standing before her filled her with the kind of stomach-twisting fear that seeing someone who wasn’t real always did, though this sick scenario was much worse than any other she had experienced before.

  “You stuck your hands into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped. I’d say that’s a pretty big accident. Some might even call it murder.”

  “I have no idea how I did that. I’ve got no idea how any of this is happening!” She wished she didn’t sound quite as out of control as she felt.

  “Oh, so you just happened to be in that church, right when I was putting a stop to Michael. You and your friends just turned up and used your powers to stop me?” Contempt turned his eyes dark.

  “I guess, yes. That’s what happened,” she finished, knowing she sounded lame even to her ears.

  He stared daggers at her, not giving an inch. “How stupid do you think I am? You’re obviously working with him, but what I want to know is why? Do you have any idea what kind of person he is?”

  It was all too much. Her head felt like it was going to implode. Marley threw up her hands as frustration, fear, and exasperation all mixed into one big emotion. “No, I don’t know what kind of person he is BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS MICHAEL IS! Can you get that into your thick skull?” She gulped in a lungful of air, hoping it would help with the sensation of drowning she was feeling. She felt as if she were treading water but try as she might, she was unable to stay afloat. At any moment, the water would wash over her but she would welcome it. Anything to stop what was happening here.

  Christian must have sensed she had reached her limit for crazy as he finally fell quiet, staring at her with those intense eyes. Marley squeezed her temples, trying to make sense of everything. “I miss the days when it was just hanging women I hallucinated,” she mumbled to herself. Unfortunately, Christian caught it and was apparently unwilling to let the comment slide.

  “I’m not a hallucination! I’m as real as you are. At least, I was,” he said before letting loose some choice expletives about her idiocy.

  “Oh yeah? Let’s see what the others have to say about that,” Marley snapped back, unable to bear it anymore. Wincing at his continual tirade and terrified at what the others might say yet knowing she couldn’t hold if off any longer, she started back inside.

  Sliding her keycard into the reader, she stepped through the automated doors. She didn’t even look behind her, not particularly interested in how Christian might enter the building knowing that the laws of physics probably didn’t apply to figments of a sick imagination. Hurrying back upstairs to her room, she found Tyler and Cassie still in the same positions as when she had left them. They looked up at her appearance, relieved to see her.

  “We’re no closer to any answers if you were wondering,” Tyler began.

  “Can you see him?” Marley interrupted, pointing at Christian as he followed her through the doorway. Tyler and Cassie turned to stare in his direction but saw nothing unusual. They looked back at Marley, their eyes dark with confusion.

  “See who? There’s no one there,” said Cassie.

  “You can’t see Christian?” Marley asked. Even though she already suspected what the answer would be, she had to make the point clear, for herself if no one else.

  “Er, no,” said Tyler her eyes wide and round, her puzzlement almost palpable.

  “Wonderful. It seems you’re the only one who can see and hear me,” Christian said glumly.

>   “That thought doesn’t exactly fill me with glee either,” Marley snapped back, sick of his attitude already. Tyler and Cassie watched her, growing increasingly more concerned by her bizarre behavior.

  “Let me get this straight, you can see him?” Tyler asked.

  “Yes. Standing right in front of the desk. He practically jumped me when I was outside and hasn’t shut up since,” Marley replied.

  “Jumped you? Please, you’re not my type,” Christian said. “I like my girls strong and silent.”

  “Deaf and dumb, more like. That’s what they’d have to be to put up with you.” She might have killed him, but Marley wasn’t going to let him get away with talking down to her all the time.

  “Well, this is weird,” Tyler said. “It’s like I’m watching a show where I can only hear the punch line.” She looked over at Cassie to see if she agreed with her assessment of the situation but was surprised when Cassie didn’t reply. The other girl gripped her hands together, fidgeting uncomfortably as if she were fighting an inner battle with herself. Her brow furrowed into a frown as she struggled for the right words. When she finally spoke, it was to Marley.

  “Are you sure he’s there?” Cassie said carefully. “I mean, could he just be in your head?”

  Something about the cautious manner she used had Marley on edge. She had heard this tone before, many times. Whenever she saw or heard something nobody else could see, they would adopt this careful and slow manner of speech when they questioned her, as if they were speaking to a child. It drove Marley mad to hear it and reminded her of all those times she would be made to feel stupid — or worse… insane. That she heard it in Cassie’s tone now meant only one thing.

  She knew.

  It didn’t seem that Cassie was very good at hiding her thoughts as she snuck a look at the pillow on Marley’s bed, where one of the vials of her meds was hidden.

  “You’ve been snooping through my things!” Marley gasped. Though they hadn’t known each other very long, what they had already been through in that short space of time had brought them together — or so Marley had thought — so the betrayal cut deeply.

  Cassie paled, unnerved by the accusation, but she didn’t dispute it.

  “I only did it because I saw you hiding things from us and it made me concerned! You should have told us about your condition, Marley, especially me. I’m your roommate, I’m the one who has to live with you!”

  Having no idea what either of them were talking about, Tyler tried her best to calm things down. She reached out her hands, gesturing for peace.

  “I’m sure whatever it is, it’s not as bad as it seems. What condition do you have?” she asked Marley.

  Faced with the question, Marley opened her mouth to respond when her throat went dry. She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. If she didn’t say the actual words, it made the whole thing seem less terrible somehow.

  “She’s schizophrenic,” Cassie finally finished for her, torn by needing to tell the truth while also desperate to remain her friend. Her voice dropped lower, anxious now about exactly how much she should reveal. “She’s on Thorazine for it.” Finished with her reveal, Cassie chewed on the end of a finger.

  Whatever she might have expected to hear that wasn’t it. Tyler gaped at them, staring at Marley as if she should be able to see her disease. Marley stood in the center of the room, feeling awful and small. This was like all those times in the past. Just when she thought she’d made a few friends, as she began hoping that things would work out, her dark secret would be exposed and she would become the school pariah. Tears rushed to her eyes that she tried to blink back. Christian, who she had all but forgotten about, had been listening throughout their conversation but now spoke up.

  “Perhaps not Marley. What you see and hear could be part of your gift. Your power.”

  Marley snapped her head at him, a flare of hope rising in her chest.

  “My power? I have powers?”

  “Well, you’re the only one who can see and hear me aren’t you?” Christian said. “Look, I might be able to explain some of what’s happening here but I’m not going to do it twice. Where’s the other one?”

  “The other who?” Marley asked.

  “The other girl, the Black one with all the makeup?”

  “I’ll think you’ll find it’s African American and her name is Eve,” Marley retorted, bristling.

  Unable to make sense of what was happening in front of her, Tyler couldn’t stop the question from leaving her mouth.

  “Wait, what about Eve?”

  “Christian says he can explain some of what’s happening but he won’t do it until we’re all together. And that includes Eve.”

  “Even if what you are saying is real,” Tyler began hesitantly, “it’s not like we have a way of contacting her.”

  “No, but we have her address,” Cassie suddenly supplied. Taking out her phone she opened the Uber app and tapped on the last job. A map appeared with an icon above Eve’s location.

  “So you believe me now?” Marley asked with more bite than she actually intended. Though she understood why Cassie had exposed her, she didn’t have to like it.

  “I don’t know, but I do know I need to find out what happened, and if this is the only way we’ll get any answers…” Cassie answered honestly.

  “Well, I hope Eve likes uninvited guests,” Tyler said.

  Marley shot an irritated look at Christian. “If I have to deal with them, so can she.”

  Chapter 2

  Deathly silence hung like a cloud.

  Though they wanted nothing more than to plague Marley with questions, the girls mutually decided it would have to wait until they were at Eve’s house and didn’t have a witness who could overhear them. As it was, their Uber driver kept shooting curious glances at them, wondering why it was so quiet in the car, obviously not used to this odd behavior from three girls. Christian was gone, apparently meeting them at the location somehow. No one knew how that would work, least of all Marley. In the end, they had decided how he — if indeed he were real at all — would get there was the least of their concerns.

  They arrived in the area known as the South End. Marley took in the colorful grocery store displays catering to its Irish, Jewish, African American, Asian and Greek customers.

  A Chinese store whizzed by as Marley found herself staring at the promotional posters on the windows with their alien writing. Though she was half Chinese, Marley didn’t feel connected with that side of herself at all; when her mother had left, she had taken that part of the culture with her too.

  As a reaction to her mom leaving, Marley found herself fiercely against anything Chinese, to the point where she couldn’t even eat the food, deriving no joy from it whatsoever. When a martial arts movie came on the television, she would change the channel. When everyone else celebrated Chinese New Year, Marley always stayed at home so she wouldn’t have to fake enthusiasm for the festival or answer any personal questions. Most of all, however, she stayed home so she wouldn’t have to deal with the idiots who would come up to her on the street asking “ni hao?” — Mandarin for “how are you?” which she’d only learned after typing it into an online translator.

  She turned away from the store, noting that the car was slowing down, pulling up to a rundown house.

  Peeling paint and windows with weathered frames cried out for attention. The two-story Victorian house had clearly seen better days and was now lacking in love. A light was on in one of the front rooms upstairs, though the rest of the house was shrouded in darkness.

  Piling out of the car, Marley lead the way up the overgrown front path to an old wood door set with two distorted glass panels to give privacy. A rusty bell sat in a half-rotten frame. She pushed it with a finger and waited. Nothing happened. She stabbed it again, harder, but still, there wasn’t any sound from inside.

  Guess the bell isn’t just old, but broken.

  Seeing an iron knocker above her, Marley grabbed it and knocked three
times, cringing at loud it seemed in the otherwise silent night.

  Moments later a light came on in the hallway as footsteps approached the door. A shadow fell over the doorway, hesitating on the other side of the glass.

  “Eve, it’s Marley. Tyler and Cassie are here too. Open up!”

  The muffled sound of a curse came from the other side of the door followed by what could only be Eve reaching for an excuse to slink away. When she couldn’t come up with a believable one, the door finally opened until the security chain that was latched onto it stretched taut. Eve’s face appeared in the crack though it was now devoid of makeup. Without it, Marley was struck by how pretty she was. She was also hit by the thought that she looked vulnerable too somehow.

  “What the hell are you all doing here?” Eve demanded, that vulnerability Marley had thought she had seen vanishing immediately.

  “We need to talk.”

  That might well have been the understatement of the year. Reading their tense expressions, Eve saw immediately that something else had gone down.

  “I barely left you half an hour ago, what else could have happened?”

  “Plenty,” Marley said. “Let us in.”

  Eve hesitated, reaching desperately for an excuse but her thoughts were one big cloud of fog. Reluctantly, she unchained the door, allowing them inside.

  They followed as she led them into the living room where they sat on a frayed but comfortable couch covered in a faded sunflower print. Above the open fireplace were framed photographs of Eve and her family. Marley saw what must have been her older brother and parents. They stood in front of this house and a catering truck painted with the Jamaican flag.