Ballad for a Mad Girl Read online

  ‘Right,’ she says. ‘You need to tell me if you feel agitated or upset at any time. Where would you like to begin?’

  ‘The drawings…’

  She runs her pen down the page. ‘You’re a bright young lady. Your art teacher said it was evident the talent was there. She—and others—agree that you have an uncanny knack for mimicry and the ability to excel in any subject when you put your mind to it.’

  ‘But I drew faces I’ve never seen before.’

  She crosses something out. ‘The subconscious is a powerful storage bank of incredible detail, so much more powerful than the conscious mind. It’s likely that you have seen them before.’

  ‘How about the night I couldn’t move because something was sitting on my chest?’

  ‘Sleep paralysis is my theory. It’s a reasonably common occurrence—harmless, but frightening.’

  ‘What about the visions—the thing in the hallway and the person crawling by the side of the road? What about when I saw Hannah Holt in the boot of William Dean’s car? And the birds in the pool?’

  ‘An overactive imagination and catastrophic thinking can be symptoms of extreme anxiety. That thinking can result in you seeing signs and warnings—it’s a way of convincing yourself that you can prevent tragedy if you follow a specific process. It can be a guilt-based response.’ She pauses. ‘We discussed this. You remember how guilty you felt that you didn’t notice your mother was missing? You’ve been obsessed with looking for a missing girl—because she’s still missing it means she isn’t dead, and that fits with your need to avert another tragedy.’

  I shake my head. ‘But it was over twenty years ago. I didn’t know her. I wasn’t emotional about it—it wasn’t my emotion. I was looking for her body. That doesn’t fit with what you’re saying…’

  ‘And if it happened that you found her body by accident and sheer bloody-mindedness, Grace, there’s no telling the damage it might have done. You’d have failed again, and the damage might have been worse. You convinced yourself you were moving forwards, but you were regressing.’

  It’s like I’m sending tiny, hopeful bubbles into the sky and she’s shooting them down with cannonballs.

  ‘If you were receiving thoughts and images from a ghost, ask yourself why the ghost didn’t just tell you—better still, show you—where Hannah Holt’s body was buried.’ Her voice gets lower and lower the more she unpicks the stitches of my reality.

  Under the desk, the scarf is coming undone. And so am I.

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Grace, it’s because you don’t have the information,’ she says softly. ‘And every motivation began with you, the source. You got so far on curiosity and, dare I say it, guts—but then you hit the same wall everybody else did.’

  I wipe tears from my cheeks with my sleeves.

  She passes me a box of tissues. ‘Would you like to break?’

  I know what comes next: phones get hacked and dogs have bad moods and the factories that make glowing plastic stars have faulty moulds that turn out a billion rejects—only one girl carries the reject around in her pocket and thinks she’s special. I’m not sure which is worse—that none of it happened and my mind is broken, or that it did happen and I have to keep living in a world where nobody believes me.

  ‘No. Keep going.’ There are more things she has yet to cross from her list. ‘What about my abduction?’ That was real. I didn’t teleport to the quarry; I didn’t bind my wrists with tape. I couldn’t have done that. Could I?

  She covers one of my hands with her own. ‘This is a truly awful thing with an earthly explanation. It was a prank.’

  A prank? I’m cold all over.

  ‘A girl…’ She consults her notes. ‘Amber Richardson—she has admitted she used her phone to trace yours that afternoon, but she denies being directly involved. She was under the impression they were planning a harmless joke, but of course it wasn’t. As soon as she heard they had left you at the quarry, she called your father.’

  ‘Who are…they?’ I stammer.

  ‘It was several Sacred Heart Year Twelve students. I can’t reveal their names, but there will be repercussions. The police are involved.’

  Whoever they were—and I’m willing to bet Tamara Fraser was the ringleader—they couldn’t possibly have known that they were replicating the nightmare I’d had about Hannah Holt in the boot of William Dean’s car. It was a freak convergence. And it was retribution, pure and simple, not a replay of the past.

  ‘And Dad came to pick me up?’

  She nods. ‘He said you were calm and lucid—physically unhurt, apart from the cut on your finger, which you told him you had done yourself. He took you straight to the hospital to get checked out and stitched up.’

  ‘I said that?’

  Dr Nichols closes her notebook. ‘Amber also took responsibility for breaking into your home and taking some things that belonged to you.’

  Waldorf and Statler. Amber’s cap on the roof—it proves she was there, and it sure as hell explains her expression when I gave the cap back.

  Dr Nichols pushes away from her desk. ‘That’s enough for today. You’ve done well, Grace.’

  While I wait for Dad to pick me up, I order a pot of tea and a slice of carrot cake at the cafe on the ground floor. I sit at a table outside in the sun.

  My entire body is relaxed. I look down at my bandaged finger on one hand. I have the ball of scarf yarn still clutched in the other. I should probably feel confused, or angry, or bitter, but I don’t. I feel relief. I don’t remember anything after the ash: not Dad, not the trip to the hospital. Everything that happened before is in full colour, and the truth is grey or missing, but for the first time in months I have answers.

  I’m ready to let go of the remaining questions.

  I’m painting my bedroom walls green.

  Dr Nichols said the colour green has a calming effect. She also said that, a long time ago, scientists believed germs couldn’t travel across a green surface because the colour was on the sensitive end of the light spectrum. But that’s not why I’ve decided it’s time for a change—it’s because of the ghost effect. Under fluorescent lighting, if the walls were painted white, surgeons would be distracted by ghostly mirror-images; if they painted the walls green, the ghosts disappeared.

  Kenzie’s helping. The floorboards are covered with sheets and we’re spattered with paint. It’s the first day of the mid-year holidays and Kenzie’s dancing, singing along to a new song. I can only watch—I don’t know the words.

  I’m so out of touch. I’ve missed almost the whole second term of school. I’m resigned to repeating Year Twelve when I’m better. I glance at the corner: it’s already painted over, and the shadows are ordinary shadows.

  I am better. I’m just not ready.

  ‘Do you want to do your wardrobe the same colour?’ Kenzie has her brush poised over one of the doors.

  ‘I guess so.’

  She opens the doors. ‘Ugh. I can’t even look at this without wanting to throw up.’ She pushes the formal dress aside, tucking it behind a heavy coat. ‘I still can’t believe you took the fall for those pictures of me with my face in the dirt. And I can’t believe everybody fell for it. Get it? Fall? Fell?’

  I snigger. ‘Given what was going on at the time, it was really nothing.’

  She blushes. ‘I tried to put it right. Nobody would listen.’

  ‘Forget it. It’s done. My record was screwed anyway, but you, you are destined for greatness.’ I rest the paint roller in the tray and wipe my hands.

  She turns around, her expression serious. ‘It’ll be okay.’

  ‘You keep saying that.’

  She nods at the tank. ‘Rexy got bigger. I bet you’re glad to have him back.’

  Rex is clawing at the glass. He’s bloated. He was probably fed every time there was a class changeover. He’s on a restricted diet, and that makes him cranky.

  ‘I am. I miss the other guys, though.’

 
; I’m talking about Waldorf and Statler, but I also miss Gummer and Pete. They haven’t been around much—Gummer has a part-time job at EB Games after school and Pete has drifted in with a new crowd. Mitchell is ever-present, except for today. I’m learning to live with him. There’s still a lot left unsaid between Kenzie and me, but we’re working on it.

  ‘Remember how we always used to dream about our apartment?’ She laughs. ‘And the boys?’

  I try to think of something funny to say, but I can’t. ‘I don’t think we dream the same dreams anymore, Kenz.’

  Kenzie tucks my clothes away and closes the door. The hinge jams and, when she opens the door again, something falls off the hanger. She bends down to pick it up. ‘I’ve never seen this. Very shabby-retro.’ She slips the battered leather jacket on, flapping the too-long arms and giggling.

  The shaking starts instantly. I didn’t know Dad had brought the jacket home from the hospital. He must have assumed it was mine and hung it in the wardrobe. ‘Take it off,’ I say through clenched teeth.

  She looks hurt. ‘Sorry. Was it your mum’s?’

  ‘No,’ I bark. I take a step towards her.

  Annoyed, she shrugs off the jacket and tosses it onto the bed. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing. Yes, let’s do the wardrobe the same colour so it matches.’ I pick up the roller and give the doors a few frenzied swipes. The only noise is the sticky splat of paint and the sound of an engine revving in the street.

  Kenzie regroups: she arranges a smile, picks up her brush and starts on the edges of the door. ‘Mitch and I were thinking we should get away for a few days. With you, too, of course,’ she adds. ‘What do you think? I know three’s a crowd but no hanky-panky, I promise.’

  I don’t answer.

  Dad’s bellowing. ‘Grace! Come down here!’

  I sigh and put down the roller again. ‘You coming? They probably want lunch.’

  We run downstairs. Diesel’s barking and turning circles. He accepts the sock I give him and shuts up, wagging his tail.

  Dad’s standing in the open front doorway with his hand on his hip. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  Mum’s old Celica is finished. It’s parked in the driveway, engine running, and Cody is writhing on the bonnet like a model on the cover of Autobabes magazine.

  It’s so out of character, I laugh until my face hurts.

  ‘What do you think?’ Cody says.

  I think I haven’t seen him or Dad so relaxed and happy in a long time. ‘It looks good. Different.’

  Mum’s banged-up red Celica is gone. This one is brand new and shiny, like a poisoned apple.

  ‘It’s yours,’ Dad says.

  I burst into tears.

  *

  Kenzie and I drive around town for hours. We’ve got the windows down. She’s singing along to songs I don’t know, but I don’t mind.

  It’s Grace and Kenzie, Kenzie and Grace.

  It’s way past dark when I drop Kenzie home. I park the Celica in the garage, eat ice-cream on the couch, check my messages, and head upstairs to shower.

  ‘I’m going up.’ I kiss Dad, who’s falling asleep in his armchair. ‘It’s been a good day.’

  He mumbles goodnight, smiling. The crease in his face is less noticeable, or it could be the light.

  Diesel follows me halfway up the stairs, and lies down. He’s almost there—six more steps and he’ll be wondering why it took him so long, and probably disappointed that there’s no heaven at the top. I give him a pat, kick open my door, run the shower and get some clean pyjamas.

  My room stinks of wet paint. I plan to sleep on the couch.

  The bathroom fills with steam. Everything is so white. I sling a towel over the shower rail and step under the water, staring at the pale moon of my make-up mirror, letting the water run over my thin body with its old scars. I close my eyes and the ghost moon is there, behind my eyelids. When I open them, it’s on the white tiles, too.

  The ghost effect. Real. I smile.

  I lather my hair twice to get rid of the paint; the second time the shampoo runs into my eyes and stings like hell. I tilt my chin under the spray to rinse, closing my eyes, thinking of my new old car, the unexpected sweet-sad emotion I felt when I got behind the wheel, and the expression on Kenzie’s face when I misjudged a roundabout—for a second we were airborne.

  I reach for the towel. My fingers touch cold glass. I open my eyes, batting at the steam, to find the towel on the floor and the image of a face on the wall: hollow eye sockets, a thin mouth, a shock of black hair.

  Heart drumming, I wish it away.

  There are tricks to keeping the hateful thoughts at bay. Over the past few weeks I’ve mastered them. It’s simple: don’t listen. Don’t open my eyes if I hear noises in the middle of the night. Even if I miss feeling joy and misery, keep taking the medication, because it gives me an even-keeled feeling of blah instead. Go to bed early and try to sleep, even if I’m just lying there, pretending. The more I take care of myself, the less I lose myself. Screw up? Start over. It’s like dieting or exercise—I can’t let one bad day ruin the master plan.

  It’s turning out to be a bad day.

  I dry off and put on warm pyjamas. Gummer has sent me a message: a simple, sweet Goodnight, Grace. I pick up a stray wet paintbrush and stand it in a jar of water, grab my pillow, and pull my quilt off the bed.

  And William Dean’s jacket falls onto the floor.

  I kick it under the bed. It has no hold over me now—nothing from the past does. I know what’s real and what isn’t.

  But as I’m passing through the doorway, the quilt in my arms grows impossibly heavy, taking the shape of a slumped body: a head, lolling over the crook of my arm, the curve of a spine against my ribs, long legs, banging against my own. I shudder. I try to blink it away, but this time it won’t go. I can’t hold it; I drop the quilt and stagger back.

  Not real. Not real.

  I think I hear Cody talking downstairs, but I realise the voice is coming from inside my head.

  My heart is a room with an unwelcome visitor.

  I put my fingers in my ears. ‘Don’t look. Don’t listen.’ But I can’t block it out. Supposedly there’s a rational explanation for everything—surely it counts as progress if I go looking.

  I unplug my ears and crouch, pressing my cheek to the quilt on the floor. I reach under the bed and touch the toothed edge of the zipper. I drag the jacket out. Cross-legged, I drape it across my knees and run my hands over the leather.

  I put it on.

  Every song is a ballad to her.

  I feel around in the pockets. Inside the lining of the pocket closest to my heart, I find a square of cardboard the colour of tarnished gold. It’s a label, torn from a packet of Dunhill cigarettes. I turn the piece over—on the reverse side, the word ‘Saoirse’ is written in William’s spiky handwriting.

  I put it aside and slip my hands deep into the hip pockets. In one, my fingers touch something soft, like powder; I take a pinchful and rub it between my thumb and forefinger. It’s ash: fine and silvery, still smelling faintly of my mother.

  I’m sitting at my desk, working on an overdue essay. I’ve been staring at the first sentence for over forty minutes. Most nights I try to stay awake until twelve; my first few hours of sleep are heavy and dreamless, but after that I slip in and out, waking every hour.

  It’s only nine o’clock.

  I save the file and close it. It’s no use; I’m too distracted. The push-pull of reality versus unreality is exhausting. William’s jacket is hanging back in my wardrobe for now, but I know I’ll have to get rid of it—that, and the pinch of ash sitting on the torn piece of cigarette packet next to my keyboard.

  I sigh. My breath stirs the ash. I want to preserve it before it disappears.

  ‘It’s only dust.’ I blow. The dust turns into a cloud and floats away. For a second I feel as if I’ve lost something precious, but my phone pings and it’s Kenzie,
texting goodnight. I smile. Except for Mum, everyone I love is still right here.

  I smother a yawn and pick up the piece of cardboard. The word ‘Dunhill’ is embossed; the gold lettering catches the lamplight. A layer of fine ash has settled in the spaces in between. Nothing is ever really gone. Push-pull.

  ‘Dunhill.’ I turn the cardboard over. ‘Saoirse.’

  Surse. Say-urse. Sour-seh. However I say it, it doesn’t sound right. And I’m talking to a ghost again, but William can’t answer because he only exists in my mind.

  Push.

  Pull.

  ‘What is a Saoirse?’

  I type the sentence and run a search. Seer-shah. It’s a name, of Irish origin, and it means ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’. It’s also the name of an actress and a Celtic folk band.

  Dunhill. I flip the piece again. Saoirse.

  The lamp flickers. Dr Nichols’s voice is in my head now and it’s telling me to stop, but I’m not listening. I type the two words, transposed: Saoirse Dunhill.

  My pulse begins to race. I wasn’t expecting a hit.

  Two people share the name: one, a musician who died in 2005, the other a Clairvoyant, Tarot Reader and Intuitive Healer who lives on the other side of the country in Broome, Western Australia.

  A clairvoyant. I click on the link.

  The website is kitschy, with an animated header showing a cartoon gypsy running her hands over a crystal ball. Saoirse Dunhill offers face-to-face, phone and Skype tarot readings, and prepares administer-it-yourself healing spells for faraway clients. She’s only been practising for fifteen years. That throws me—if they were connected, why would William Dean have written her name so many years ago? Does he want me to contact her? Does she have a message for me? Or perhaps the two words are unrelated—I’m clutching at bones again.

  I scroll through a page full of poorly written testimonials from people who have been cured of arthritis and diabetes, who have found missing pets and jewellery, or contacted loved ones on the other side. The same words cropped up over and over—amazing, uncanny, brilliant, the-real-thing—and I wonder if she wrote them herself.