The Swallow (6 page)

The name of the cemetery,
NECROPOLIS
, was carved into the stone archway above my head. It meant “City of the Dead.” People had been buried here for nearly two hundred years.

Famous rebels, writers, politicians, and ordinary people too: whole families, children, mothers and babies. Too many babies. Hundreds of ghosts, all clamoring for attention.

I peered in. The road lined with gravestones wound through tall old trees. There was no sign of the girl. There was no sign of anyone living.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the white light forming a suit of armor around me, a hard shell that would keep the ghosts out. My fingers and toes began to tingle with warmth.

I opened my eyes and walked through the gates. I moved quickly past the gravestones and down the hill to the mausoleum and sat on the steps, desperately muttering, “White light, white light” over and over again. I kept it up until a girl appeared in front of me, her eyes wide behind her tortoiseshell glasses. Her tight red coat stood out against the gray cemetery like a beacon of light.

THE GRAVESTONE

Polly

“Rose?” I asked in a high, squeaky voice.

The figure stood up and moved towards me. She was shorter than I was, wearing a long black cloak with a hood. She slowly stretched out her hand—
JUST
like Amanda’s ghost in the book! I gasped and took a step backwards.

The girl stopped and rolled her eyes at me. Not in a ghostly way—more in a “I can’t believe you’re so dumb” way.

“I was just going to shake your hand,” she said, her little mouth twisting in what could have been a smile. “To show you that I’m not a ghost.”

Oh. I hesitated for a moment, watching her strange, big eyes, and then held out my hand. She gave it a sharp little squeeze and didn’t let go. Her hand was very cold.

“Convinced?” she asked.

“I guess so,” I answered, finally pulling my hand free.

“Oh no you’re not,” she snapped back at me. “You still think I’m a ghost. You think my hand is unnaturally cold and I’m weird-looking.”

That was exactly what I was thinking. This girl was spooky.

“Let’s walk,” she said abruptly, looking over her shoulder and then hustling me down the road.

I looked back to see what she had been looking at. The angel hovered above us. Just underneath it the name of the family buried in the mausoleum stood out in large stone letters:
MCPHERSON
.

“What did you say your name was?” I asked her, trying to keep up. For a short person, she sure walked fast.

She flicked me a look and gave an impatient little shake of her head.

“Yes, that’s my family’s mausoleum,” she said. “I’m Rose McPherson and there are three generations of McPhersons buried inside that hill.”

I started to grin. “This is so exciting!” I said. “Tell me again you’re not a ghost!”

Rose

“Rose?” said the girl in a squeaky, scared voice.

She was wearing a double-breasted red coat with six white buttons. It was too tight and the arms were a little short for her. Her tortoiseshell glasses turned up in little cat’s-eye points that gave her a look of constant surprise. Straight brown hair and an eager puppy-dog expression. I could read her like a book. She really wanted me to be a ghost. She saw it as a game.

I wanted to get out of that cemetery as fast as possible. Outside my faltering circle of white light I could feel the ghosts
straining to get through. The girl trotted along behind me, grinning like an idiot.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not a ghost. But I do see them all the time. It’s not fun.”

“wow,” she breathed. “You really see them? Do you see some now? Because I’ve got this really creepy feeling like they’re all around us.”

I walked faster. “Yes. They are.”

Suddenly I felt a tug at my cloak, and I looked down to see a small child with a mass of blond curls, dressed in an old-fashioned white nightgown, looking up at me, pleading.

“Mama?” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Vicky wants her mama.”

I shook her off impatiently and began to run. Polly came bumping along behind me, calling my name, but I skittered around the corner and headed towards the gates.

The fastest way to get out was to cut across an overgrown corner near the cemetery wall. The custodian hadn’t bothered to cut the grass there for a while, and a few old gravestones rose up from a tangle of weeds. I leapt over a couple and dodged around a taller one, and then a crash behind me and a shout from Polly stopped me. I turned, gasping for breath. She had tripped on a gravestone and lay sprawled along the ground.

From the corner of my eye I saw movement, as white figures began to rise from the graves and seep towards me, just like in my dream.

“White light, white light, white light,” I muttered desperately, stumbling back towards Polly. I had to get out of there.

I reached down to haul her up but she didn’t move. She was staring at a gravestone, transfixed.

I looked at the stone. It read
WINNIFRED ROSE MCPHERSON
, 1910–1923.

DEAD

Polly

Everything went very quiet. A deep silence seemed to rise up from out of the ground around us. The ghost looked shocked. The color drained from her face and she began to sway.

Up until then I had been half-pretending. I don’t think I really believed it. But when I lifted up my head after I fell, and her name was right there staring me in the face, I was convinced. She really was a ghost and she needed my help.

Rose

Suddenly it was silent. I could no longer hear the rustling of the wind in the trees and the hum of traffic on the expressway. My world shrank to those few words carved in stone: “
WINNIFRED ROSE MCPHERSON
, 1910–1923.”

My name. Me? I felt like I was falling. I couldn’t breathe. The gravestones and the trees started to spin, and then everything went black.

A string of pictures flickered through my brain, almost as if I were having a dream.

A bridge at night. The lights of the city, far away. A boy’s face that looked very familiar. A screech of brakes and a thump—then a dizzying drop into nothingness, a fall that went on and on. A horrible thud.

“Rose? Rose? Are you okay?”

Polly’s voice came from a long way off. Someone was pulling at my arm.

I opened my eyes. I could see the tracery of black tree branches against the gray sky. I was lying on something damp and hard. Polly was leaning over me and her fingers were digging into my arm.

“Rose?” she said again with a little squeak.

I focused on her rosy cheeks and the feel of her fingers through my coat. I took a deep breath. I could feel the cold air filling my lungs. Surely, surely if I were dead I wouldn’t be able to feel that? And the damp leaves soaking through my stockings? And a stick poking into my leg?

I sat up. The gravestone was still there, with those words leaping out at me as if they were lit up in neon lights.
WINNIFRED ROSE MCPHERSON
.

What did it mean? I didn’t feel dead. Not at all.

THE MYSTERY

Polly

“There’s some mistake,” said the ghost, scrambling to her feet and taking off again towards the cemetery gates. “I’m not a ghost.”

I ran after her, watching my feet a little more carefully this time. She was out of the cemetery and off down the street by the time I caught up. “You do kind of look like a ghost,” I panted. She was walking quickly now, casting glances over her shoulder every once in a while and muttering something to herself.

“And it’s a bit of a strange coincidence, don’t you think?” I went on. “Finding a grave with your exact name on it?”

Then she turned on me.

“I’m not … I’m not!” she said. “I’m alive. I’ll prove it to you.”

She was nearly crying. I felt so bad for her. Imagine, suddenly discovering that you’re dead!

“How?” I asked.

Rose

“I don’t know. But it has to be a mistake!” I repeated. “She could be a relative or from another branch of the family.”

“What I wonder,” said Polly thoughtfully, “is why aren’t you buried in the mausoleum with all the other McPhersons? Why is your grave all by itself, shoved in a corner?”

I stared at her, remembering the brief vision I’d had before I fainted. The bridge. The fall. The thud.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No!”

I started running again, but Polly grabbed my cloak and held me back.

“Rose,” she said. “Just stop.” Her face was full of concern.

“It’s not true,” I whispered.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not dead. Let’s find out, together. I’ll help you.”

For a moment I was tempted, but something in her eagerness made me suspicious. I broke free of her grasp.

“Leave me alone. You’re still playing your stupid ghost game. If you only knew how horrible it really is to see ghosts, you wouldn’t be so silly about it.”

That’s when she surprised me. Instead of snapping back at me her face lit up with a grin.

“I am silly, I know. I’ve just always had this thing about ghosts. But this is a real mystery, and it would be fun to find out what’s going on. Don’t you think?”

I stared at her. Fun?

“But what if it’s true?” I croaked. “What if I really am a ghost?”

She put her arm through mine and started dragging me down the street.

“If you are, it’s not so bad, is it?”

The wind was picking up now, whistling through the trees in the cemetery. The bare trees loomed over the street, forming an archway. Lights were coming on in houses and I could smell wood smoke from a fire. I felt the warmth from Polly’s arm through my coat. She skipped a bit as she hurried me along, almost bouncing.

“No,” I said slowly. “It’s not so bad.”

PROOF

Polly

At least I wasn’t alone anymore. I liked Rose. I mean, maybe she was a ghost or maybe she wasn’t, but either way, she was someone to talk to. She was kind of grouchy, but that didn’t bother me. The great thing was that I was having a real adventure, just like a girl in a book.

Before we got home we decided on a plan of action. Rose was going to find out everything she could about the Mysterious Winnifred. Maybe she was a distant cousin or something like that. Privately, I still thought that Rose could be Winnifred, and she could have been haunting that house for years, thinking that she was alive and going to school and everything, but all the time she was really dead. I’ve read stories like that. And maybe the reason Rose could see all those ghosts was because she was one herself. But I didn’t say that.