Say Her Name (6 page)

Chapter 8

Bobbie burst into room E7, the door clattering against the back of a chair that had been left too close. ‘Can I help you?’ asked Mr Carlos with his trademark pout and an arch of his over-plucked brows.

Bobbie pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘Yes. I’m sorry … but Dr Price needs to see Naya at once.’

Naya caught her eye and knew immediately this was a lie. Mr Carlos dismissed her with a flourish of his arm. ‘Okay. You’d better go and see what she wants.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Naya tucked her chair under and swung her bag onto her shoulder. Bobbie was steered back into the corridor – one of the sterile, plastic-smelling ones in the new annex. The Millar Wing had opened during her first year at Piper’s – it was all exposed brick and inspirational posters:
YOU ARE EXCEPTIONAL
.

‘What’s going on? You look like you survived something,’ Naya said with a swish of ebony hair.

‘Naya, I know what happened to Sadie.’

‘O and M and G. I knew you were hiding something!’

Bobbie dragged her away from the classroom, and any eavesdroppers, towards the stairwell. ‘I think … I think it was Bloody Mary.’

Naya waited for the punchline. ‘Say what? Is this what you were babbling about last night?’

Bobbie sighed, frustrated. ‘I’m serious. Five days ago Sadie said “Bloody Mary” five times into her bedroom mirror and now she’s gone. After we did it, I saw a message in the mirror that said “five days”. I wish I were kidding. I’m not.’ Naya’s face fell before she shook it off. The taller girl giggled under her breath. ‘What?’ Bobbie prompted.

‘No way. Just … no. This must be the final part of Sadie’s little joke. Girl, when I see her, I’m gonna … ’

Bobbie knew at once there was something more. Naya was many things, but an effective liar was not one of them. ‘Naya, what is it?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Naya … ’

Naya reached into her cotton tote bag. She pulled out her lesson planner. ‘Look. Some moron graffitied on it.’

Bobbie took the diary from her and turned to the current week. In small, scratchy ink letters were the words
five days
. It was written in the box for Sunday – the same day she’d got the mirror message. Bobbie inhaled as if winded. ‘Oh God.’

‘Oh come on – this could all be part of Sadie’s … ’

‘No!’ Bobbie snapped, louder than she meant to. Her cheeks flushed. ‘Can Sadie mess with my eyes too? And my dreams? I am
seeing things
, Naya.’

Naya rolled her eyes before taking hold of Bobbie’s tie and leading her down the first-floor corridor like a dog. When they reached the vending machine, Naya slotted in some coins before a can clattered into the dispenser. She handed Bobbie a Coke. ‘Here. Have this. Your eyes are doing a weird bulging thing and it’s wigging me out.’

Bobbie accepted the Coke and took a sip. She hadn’t realised how badly she needed the sugar. There were some padded chairs outside the careers office and Bobbie fell onto one, her legs feeling hollow. ‘Thanks.’

Naya sat alongside her. ‘Let’s regroup. You genuinely think a ghost killed Sadie? Bob—’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. People don’t just vanish. Oh God, poor Sadie … she must have been so scared.’

‘Bobs … ’

‘I know. It sounds all fifty shades of crazy. But you know that bit in the films where you just want everyone to hurry up and accept that the seemingly impossible thing is a possibility? Well … that.’

Naya managed a wry laugh. ‘I hear that. But … it’s a bit of a reach. I don’t even believe in ghosts.’

‘Neither did I until I saw one.’ Bobbie sipped on the Coke. ‘It’s all too much. The day after we said her name we
both
got messages. We
all
got nosebleeds. I saw a girl downstairs … Mary. I dreamed about her … in the dream I
was
her. Talking about ghosts
is
pretty stupid, but so is denying what’s right in front of you.’

Naya took a theatrically deep breath. ‘Okay. Let’s suppose for a second I buy all this. What do you wanna do about it?’

‘I don’t know. We only have until Thursday … ’

‘Until?’

‘I don’t know.’ There was a spiky lump lodged in her throat. ‘Until whatever happened to Sadie happens to us.’

The truth finally seemed to hit Naya. Her cheeks lost their glow, fading from the colour of coffee to the colour of very milky tea. ‘Oh God.’

It was Bobbie’s turn to be the supportive one now. She gripped Naya’s arm. ‘No, it’s okay. That means we still have nearly four days to stop her. I hope. Last night, if she’d wanted to hurt me, she could have, but she didn’t. For whatever reason, she’s given us five days.’

‘To say goodbye.’

‘There’s the spirit,’ Bobbie chided. ‘I think she
wants
something. Look, maybe if we can work out who she was … is … what happened to her. There
has
to be a way to stop her.’

‘What? You reckon we can talk her out of ripping our skin off or whatever?’

Bobbie winced. ‘She
might
be a friendly ghost … like Casper.’

‘Honey, tell that to Sadie and anyone else fool enough to do what we did.’

Bobbie squeezed the Coke too hard and a fountain sprayed onto her tights and the chair between her legs. ‘Naya, you’re a genius.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes. This has happened before.’

With the school in utter chaos – fluorescent police jackets flashed in and out of classrooms and the houses like wasps – no one noticed or cared that Bobbie and Naya hadn’t returned to their classes. Girls were being pulled out of lessons at a steady rate for questioning about Sadie so they took full advantage of the madness.

They went to the library reading rooms, knowing that two Uppers wouldn’t look too out of place – for all the librarian knew they were on free periods. Bobbie checked no one was watching before logging onto the system and accessing the internet. ‘What are you looking for?’ Naya asked. Bobbie ignored her and typed MARY WORTHINGTON PIPER’S HALL. The first few searches were about the ‘oldest hall in Ohio’ that had apparently been owned by a Mary Worthington. The next ten or so all referred to a character on the TV show
Supernatural
. The legend of this girl was worldwide. Most of the Google hits were Facebook pages for modern-day, real-life Mary Worthingtons. ‘Anything?’ Naya prompted.

‘Nothing useful. Oh wait … look at this.’ Bobbie clicked on a link. It was one of those awful ‘ask anything’ websites where people post questions before members log on and answer. Bobbie read the original post aloud. ‘“Watched the Bloody Mary episode of
Supernatural
. Is this like a real thing? Well scary LOL!” There’s a load of answers and then someone said this: “I heard from a friend in the UK that it really happened at some fancy boarding school
.
”’

‘Holy crap.’ Naya pulled her chair closer. ‘That’s us.’

‘Yep.’

Naya leaned in. ‘What about the alumni page on the school website? If she was a student here … ’

Bobbie could have kissed her – why hadn’t she thought of that? ‘See, that’s why I love you. You’re beautiful
and
clever.’

‘Snap!’ Naya grinned.

Bobbie found the Piper’s Hall website and then clicked on the link to the alumni pages. It was divided up into sections – decade by decade. ‘There must be thousands and thousands of girls on here.’

Naya chewed her lip. ‘Was there anything in your dream? Like were they all in flares and stuff?’

‘No.’ Bobbie took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. ‘At a guess I’d say Thirties or Forties.’

‘Worth a look.’ Bobbie did so, also checking the 1920s and 1950s as a precaution, but there was no record of a Mary Worthington amongst the lists of former pupils. ‘That’s weird. In the dream, I – I mean she – was definitely a student. I was in uniform.’

‘In the story, she committed suicide,’ Naya said. Bobbie altered the search to PIPER’S HALL SUICIDE. This time there was a positive result, but it concerned a Piper’s girl who’d killed herself in the Nineties while at home. Bobbie disregarded it and Naya shrugged, at a loss. Another idea occurred to Bobbie. ‘Can you remember? On Saturday night, Sadie said something had happened while her sister was here.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you know
her
name?’

Naya shook her head. ‘No – the middle sister was here at the same time as us, but the eldest one had left by the time we got here. Just look for Walsh – it can’t have been too long ago.’

Bobbie looked through the last two decades. Sure enough there was a Claudia Walsh who’d graduated four years before and was now at Oxford, and then there was a Tabitha Walsh who’d left thirteen years earlier. That was quite a bit older than Sadie; Bobbie wondered if perhaps they were stepsisters. Bobbie brought up the alumni list for Tabitha’s graduating year. She scanned the names until something caught her eye. ‘Oh that’s weird. Look.’

‘What am I looking at?’

Bobbie pointed at the two names at the very end of the list.

Abigail Hanson and Taylor Keane – always in our thoughts.

‘Well, what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Let’s find out.’ Now in full-on detective mode, Bobbie googled ABIGAIL HANSON PIPER’S HALL and hit enter. ‘Jackpot.’

This time they’d struck gold.

Police escalate hunt for missing schoolgirls …

Parents’ plea to missing pair …

No evidence of foul play in double disappearance …

Each story came with an accompanying picture of the two girls. Abigail was a devastatingly pretty brunette with cheekbones to die for while Taylor looked like a cheerleader or something, all bronzed skin and tousled off-blonde hair. ‘How have we not heard about this?’ Bobbie wondered aloud.

‘If there were no bodies, I guess there’s no case.’

Bobbie opened one of the news reports. It
had
made the national news, but at the time she’d been only about four and living in her limited, childish world. Both girls had vanished from their homes: Abigail in London and Taylor on the Welsh borders. That made no sense. Apparently it hadn’t made a lot of sense to the police either. Two girls vanishing on the same date, miles apart. From what Bobbie could tell, the only lead was that the two girls had run away together, although neither took any belongings.

They’d vanished. Just like Sadie. A jagged, icy feeling chilled Bobbie from inside out, starting in her spine and spreading through her bones. ‘I would literally bet anything in the world that five days before they vanished they were in front of some mirror … ’ She didn’t need to finish.

‘Try searching for more missing girls,’ Naya suggested. Bobbie did so and there was only one positive result – another Piper’s Hall girl some eight years before Abigail and Taylor. Same story – another girl who seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Naya puffed her cheeks out. ‘I bet there are more – from before everything was online. Why don’t we all know about this? My mom might have sent me to a different school … ’

‘Who’d believe it?’ Bobbie’s eyes were wide. ‘Bloody Mary is a ghost story. Hundreds of kids must do it every day … only the ones who do it
here
vanish in a puff of smoke. And do you know what the really funny thing is? We can’t say we weren’t warned! Sadie told us exactly what was going to happen.’

‘Bobbie. We’re going to disappear aren’t we? Something’s going to come for us.’

Bobbie wanted to say,
Yes, it looks pretty likely
, but she couldn’t – she couldn’t say it to Naya and she couldn’t admit it aloud. It felt like quitting. ‘No. We still have three and a half days. We can … stop her somehow.’

‘How?’

‘I … I don’t know. I’ll think of something. I’m sure we’ve been given five days
for a reason
. In my dream … I … she didn’t
feel
evil. She mainly felt
sad
.’

‘Maybe if we spoke to Sadie’s sister or something … ’

The final search on the first Google page caught Bobbie’s eye. ‘We might not have to. Look.’

Haunted Piper’s Hall. The TRUTH about Abi and Taylor.

Bobbie clicked on the link at once. It was a pretty basic online journal. In the pursuit of a single-minded obsession, no creativity or thought had been taken with the layout of the blog. Every post was about Bloody Mary. The most recent post, at the top of the page, was little more than stream of consciousness.

The more I say the less people believeme I don’t know why I bother or howmany timesi can say it … what they don’t undersatdn is that she is in my head. She is watching me too.

The blog’s author was one Bridget Horne, according to the banner at the top of the page. Even the most recent post was almost ten years old. Bobbie scrolled down. The older the posts got, the more cohesive and sane they seemed. Naya stopped her. ‘Look at that one.’

I told the police everything I knew. I told them about the dare. I told them about BM. I’m sure you can guess what their reaction was. I don’t know what else I can do except warn people. Never, ever say her name.

‘A bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Bobbie tugged her hair off her face. ‘Wait! If this Bridget was a Piper’s Hall girl … ’ Bobbie switched tabs back to the Piper’s Hall alumni pages. Sure enough there was a Bridget Horne on the list. One click and it brought up her contact details. ‘Ta-da!’

‘You think the contacts are kept up to date?’

‘They should be – they send out a newsletter and invites to the yearly luncheon and stuff. You know the motto … ’

‘
A lasting, lifelong sisterhood
.’ Naya did a pretty good impression of Dr Price.

‘It’s worth a go.’

They went to lunch as normal, aware they’d missed the entire morning session. Bobbie couldn’t bring herself to swallow even the smallest amount of food. The one mouthful of soggy pasta bolognese she attempted turned to cardboard on her tongue, requiring a gulp of water to force it down. She was like a dog with a rag. Her foot tapped impatiently under the long dining bench, waiting for the bell for the afternoon session to sound so she could continue with her mission.

This afternoon she had a proper free period, but Naya once more had to cut class. It was getting a little risky.