DEAD GIRLS DON’T TALK

Sandra J. Paul

© 2023

DEAD GIRLS DON’T TALK

First published: October 28th, 2023

© 2023 Sandra J. Paul

© 2023 Hamley Books Publishing

Cover design by Sleepy Fox Cover Designs

Interior design by Design by Lotte

ISBN 9789464661606

NUR 285

Theme Code: YFCB 15+

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DEAD GIRLS DON’T TALK

... but this one does (syl’s story)

What if, after you die, you get one chance to share your story with the rest of the world?

This is the story of Syl.

Syl may be dead, but she isn't gone yet.

She gets one chance to share her story with the world with the help of a psychic and social media influencer, and she’s going to take it. She wants the world to know what happened between her and Viola, before it’s too late. And she wants the world to know about the one that died one year ago. The one that she loved more than life itself.

But is Syl telling the truth? Because dead girls can still omit the truth. Dead girls can still lie. Dead girls can still tell tales that may or may not be true.

There are always two sides to a story.

Will you read Syl’s version of events first? Or will you decide to start with Viola’s story? If you choose to go with Syl’s version of events, please continue to read. If you decide to go with Viola’s, please turn this book around and start reading there.

In the end though, you will discover what really happened in the middle of this book.

Whatever you choose, the truth will reveal itself in the end.

Trigger Warnings

Dead Girls Don’t Talk contains mentions of the following situations:

Graphic scenes describing a car accident

Graphic descriptions of a deceased person

Verbal and mental abuse, ghosting and gaslighting

Brief mentions of possible suicide by a secondary character

Mentions of paranormal and spiritual beliefs

Drug abuse and alcohol addiction

A non-graphic LGBTQIA+ relationship

Mentions of racism towards the LGBTQIA+ community and people

This story will deal with these topics in a subtle way. It is not the intent of the author to shock or harm the reader. Conversations that may seem hurtful are spoken between two characters in the book and are not the opinion of the author itself.

All relationships, both heterosexual and LGBTQIA+, are treated equally and respectfully, but as mentioned, may be treated differently on occasion in the story.

If any of this is not your cup of tea, please refrain yourself from reading this book.

If any of these topics may harm you in any way, please be advised. If you need any help regarding any of these themes, please find help near you.

Prologue

What a mess. What a terrible, terrible mess.

Viola’s car lies in ruins against the tree that broke in half. Her beautiful new Toyota is beyond repair. Ruined. Destroyed. Shrapnel. Odd really, that metal and glass can create such an artwork.

The car is ruined.

Just like I am.

The moment that I regained a sense of what has happened, I could feel that this was absolutely, horrifyingly wrong. Looking at the car and my own body, I know I’m not mistaken about the gravity of my situation.

Dead. I. AM. DEAD.

Seventeen, going on eighteen, and human shrapnel.

Destroyed.

A body beyond fixing.

I was killed and left behind in that car.

And Viola is gone.

The Dead Girl Sitting on the Crooked Chair

Annie Jones sits down on the same comfortable couch I’ve been using twice per week when I was still alive. It’s an act that surprises me. She usually takes the chair sitting on the other side of the coffee table with the tattered upholstery, and springs that creak when she sits down. She makes a small waving gesture towards the chair, even though she can’t see me.

“It seems fitting that you take it.”

I sit down. The springs don’t creak when I do, and the upholstery doesn’t bend under my nonexistent weight. I don’t feel the fabric beneath my fingertips, nor do I really touch the chair. I can’t. It still feels comfortable though, being here, in this familiar room, with Annie as my only lifeline to what I’ve left behind.

Annie moves a heavy standing lamp over the carpet and sets it up so that the area around the chair is lit. I don’t blink, the light doesn’t bother me. It’s like it’s not even there.

“There,” she says. “Much better. Now I can see you.”

“You can?” I say, surprised.

“Yes, I can’t explain it, but now I can catch a glimpse of you. You’re vague though, as if you’re a shadow made of colors. I know you’re not really there, or at least not your physical form, but it’s as if I can see your soul.”

“That must be strange.”

“It is.”

“Aren’t you afraid of me?” I ask curiously. “I am, after all, the proof that your ability exists.”

“No. There was never a doubt in my mind, and you know that I have some experience with situations like this.”

“Yes, and it seems that us being here in this odd situation is the very proof of that too.”

Annie pours a glass of water from the bottle that is sitting on the coffee table, but she doesn’t drink. She’s obviously nervous, even though she tries to hide that from me. If the situation was reversed, I would be too. I was when I first walked into this room nine months ago, asking her for help. Before that day, I had never set foot in this house. I’d only seen parts of her home on Instagram, where she freely shares photos and videos of her lifestyle.

When I walked into this room nine months ago, I had looked curiously at the tattered chair I’m now sitting on, because it seemed so out of place in her otherwise modern, renovated house. The piece of furniture didn’t seem to fit at all with the rest of her carefully selected things, unless it was some sort of statement about combining the old with the new. Her house has white walls and lofty ceilings, and colorful drapes that stand out against the stark white, which fall fluently from ceiling to wall without a single creak. You could eat off the floors with its beige tiles.

Not a single object feels out of place. Even the books on her shelves are obviously deliberate choices, but not the types of reads that an average person would pick from. Science and psychology are entwined with rare editions of classic authors. All organized by genre and then by color. If I still could, I would bet my life on the fact that she hasn’t read one of them.

Being a social media influencer and writer brings in the big bucks, but not warmth that I used to crave when connecting with people. I never clicked with her, not once, but I still returned to her like a moth to a flame. This is a cold place, just like she is. Truth be told, she is the only one I can turn to right now, so we’re stuck with each other.

Annie Jones was born and raised in Love Hill, like I was, and a typical product of this town’s cold and emotionless behavior. She doesn’t need to work if she doesn’t want to. She has plenty of old money and a lot of ambition, and she’s not afraid of flaunting both around. As an influencer, she leads a public life that is riddled with social media extravaganza—vigorous followers accept every word she says, and sponsors pay her to do so.

She wrote a couple of books about the paranormal, sprouting from her own experiences—which, I suppose, I can now confirm are true. During our previous conversations, I had always questioned her abilities and saw her more like a mentalist, observing people and using their grief against them. But truth be told, she has always been fervent in her convictions about spirituality and life beyond death. She has weekly online discussions with people who believe in the paranormal, people who think that spirits are amongst us. Who support her convictions and stories about her own experiences.

Nobody dares to mock Annie Jones openly. She’s extremely popular. Most of all, she has tons of emotional baggage that makes her even more lovable to the outside world. People love a good drama, and if someone as young as she is, barely twenty-six, has lost everyone that she held dear, she will be embraced by society, no matter what she blurts out.

During those nine months that I came by on a weekly basis, Annie became my mentor during the craziness of my own existence. She was my confidant during the psychological trip that led me through my personal warzone. She didn’t help much, to be honest, but it was something. I distrusted her and could never shake that feeling off that she was just waiting for me to tell my story and then use it to her own benefit.

But when I walked into that study nine months ago, looking for something, and saw that crooked chair, there was something that drew me to it. In some ways, that chair was the reason why I always kept on returning to this house, this room. Even now I can’t explain what I felt. She saw me gazing at it and she smiled as she ran her hand over the wood. It was a tender gesture, as if she loved that chair more than life itself.

“I will never part with this thing,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked, and my voice sounded crooked and tattered, just like that chair.

“Because it was my sister’s. She still uses it sometimes. She likes to put her feet up on the coffee table, even though I tell her all the time that she shouldn’t do that. It’s not how I raised her.”

Annie’s words had a deep emotional impact on me. The chill that ran down my spine was quickly replaced by something more surreal, a form of acceptance about the odd situation we found ourselves in. There we were, Annie Jones and I, talking about her dead sister, as if it were all so damned normal to accept that the deceased weren’t gone yet. It should have surprised me, but it didn’t. It felt right somehow.

That chair is the reason why I am here today.

“Do you talk to her?” I asked on that first day.

“I do.”

“What about your parents? Do you see them too?”

“I was too young to realize the nature of my gift when they passed away,” Annie said, and she suddenly didn’t sound so cold and distant anymore, if only for a moment. She sounded as if she was still mourning her losses.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Because I didn’t act on the signals they gave me. I didn’t know anything about death, or how to deal with it, so I pushed away all the signs. I still regret that every day. It would have made my life easier and their passing more acceptable.”

“And you know everything about death now?”

“Enough to be able to communicate with my sister.”

Annie Jones had lost her parents and her sister in less than four years. Her parents died in a boating accident, right here in Love Hill. A stupid tourist-caused incident. Annie was eighteen and took custody of her sister, until the girl died under tragic circumstances too. She fell out of a tree when she was only twelve years old. People went crazy for less, but Annie? She picked up the pieces and moved on, or at least it seemed that way to the outside world. Now that I saw her for who she really was, I realized that she hadn’t moved on at all, or her sister wouldn’t still be here.

“Do you miss her?” I asked.

“More than I can ever tell anyone.”

“Where is she now?”

“Oh, she’s sitting right next to you on the couch.”

I looked aside, but nothing changed. Nothing happened. I couldn’t see her. I wouldn’t know how to do that. And I regretted not having the gift. I would have given an arm and a leg to be able to see the one I’d lost, if only for a few moments.

Annie smiled. “She says it’s good to see you here. If you feel uncomfortable sitting with her here, we can move to another room, or I can ask her to leave.”

“That’s fine. I don’t mind,” I found myself saying. Annie smiled when I said that, and her eyes fixated on a spot next to me.

“She asks why you’re not afraid of her.”

“I don’t know,” I’d said.

“Your mind is open for this, I can tell. It’s interesting. You’re not faking your lack of fear.”

“Why should I be?” I asked.

“You’re right, there is no reason to be afraid. Besides, she won’t be around for too long anyhow. She’s fading away finally.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Her time’s up. She’s been keeping me company for a while. She felt that I needed it, after all I’d been through. She said I needed that extra bit of comfort, and she has taught me how to communicate with spirits. But now that I’m doing fine and can stand on my own two feet, she’ll be leaving me. It’s high time too, she’s tired.”

“So you haven’t been faking all of that stuff on your socials?” I blurted out. “I always thought it was a load of crap to be honest.”

Annie laughed. “No.”

“You’re a conduit, right? You get messages from the dead.”

Annie didn’t laugh this time.

“If you believe in such a thing, then yes, maybe I am. Or at least, I might be when it comes to my sister, because so far, she’s been the only one I can see. I do feel them, and I am waiting for the moment when someone else will be able to communicate with me. If that moment ever comes.”

Annie leaned forward and placed a gentle hand on my wrist and looked at me with the concern of a mother, while in truth, she was not that much older than I was.

“I’m not sure if this is going to work. You’re the first one to ever walk into my house, begging me for help. I haven’t done this before, so you’ll have to forgive me if I fail.”

“I have nothing left to lose,” I said. “So let’s get on with it.”

We never spoke about her sister again. Except for that one moment, several weeks later, when she told me that she was gone. She was sad about that.

I did come to realize that I didn’t like Annie much. She was an opportunist, cold at heart and eager to learn. To thrive on my sadness and despair. She spoke about me on her socials, without naming me. But everyone in town knew it was me she was talking about.

A month ago, I had given up on Annie after a long and lengthy argument with her. I told her to go to hell. Had shut the door to this very room. Had sworn I would never come back.

And now I’m here, taking her sister’s seat. The irony of it does not escape me.

“Are you okay?” Annie asks, and then she smiles sadly. “I guess that’s a stupid question to ask to a dead girl. What I meant to say was—”

“How am I holding up, now that I’m dead?”

She smiles. “Yes, I suppose that’s what I wanted to ask you. It’s an odd question, I know.”

“I think I’m okay,” I say. “I don’t know really. It’s the first time I’ve died. No references and such. No going back, that’s for sure. There’s nothing to go back to. My body is gone.”

Even if all of this was a fluke somehow and I was meant to go back to my former human form, I wouldn’t be able to do so. It’s as if I never existed at all, and it’s odd to think that soon, I will be gone from this room too. The fading that she spoke of has already begun. I can feel it; it’s the one thing I can feel. It’s like a tugging at my soul, a warning that I won’t be here for too long, like her sister was. Whatever holds me here, has already started pushing me away too.

“Why are you here, Syl?”

“I don’t know that either.”

I think about Viola and know that this is a lie. I’m here because of her.

“Syl?”

“Viola, I think,” I blurt out.

“You came to me because you need to find her?”

I shake my head.

“No, I know where she is. I won’t be able to communicate with her. She’s beyond my reach.”

“You know where she is?” Annie says surprised. “Everyone is out there looking for her. Can you help?”

“No,” I say. “It’s not up to me to find her. I don’t have time for that.”

“Then why did you come to me?”

“You know why. You are the only one I can talk to.”

“Do you want me to pass on a message to your parents?”

I think about that question.

“No.”

“Then maybe, you just feel the urgency to tell me your story. This might be all you need to do in order to move on.”

“What is there to tell?” I say with a shrug. “I died tonight. I was killed in a car crash, you were there, you saw me dead. And yet I’m still here. Why is that you think? Why am I still around?”

“Because you have unfinished business to address,” she says.

“Isn’t that a cliché?”

“I don’t know,” Annie says. “Why else would the dead still linger around, if not to tell their story?”

“What would be the point? It won’t bring me back.”

“But it might relieve you from the pain you’re feeling right now.”

That is true, I think.

Annie leans back. “Well, there obviously is a reason why you’re still here and we don’t have much time, so let’s get started. Let’s start at the beginning.”

“And where might that be?” I ask.

“Your fairy tale.”

“My ... fairy tale?”

“Yeah, the story of Syl and Viola. The one that everyone in town believes in.”

I laugh. “I’m not so sure if I would call that a fairy tale. It used to be when I was young and oblivious.”

“And you’ve grown up since then?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

Annie doodles on her notepad.

“Okay. Let’s talk about tonight, then. Why she did what she did.”

“You mean: why she killed me?”

“Did she kill you?” Annie asks. “Is that what you’re saying? Because right now, nobody’s even sure what happened in that car. There are those who believe you were behind the wheel.”

“I wasn’t. She moved my body.”

Annie frowns.

“Why would I lie?” I say. “It’s not as if I can be punished for it. I’m already dead.”

Annie doesn’t reply.

“She drove that car, but I don’t know if she did it on purpose,” I say. “I do know that she abandoned me after the crash. That hurts more.”

“And you still feel nothing? No anger? No hate towards her?”

“No. I have no emotions left. They died with me.”

“Do you know why she might have left you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to share that with me?”

I lean forward. “Do you want to hear the whole fairy tale, even when it turns dark? Are you prepared for what I have to say, even if it’s not what you want to hear?”

“Yes. I’m curious as to how you perceive your situation. I wanted to ask you if I may share this tale with the rest of the world?”

“How would you do that?” I ask curiously.

“I could record everything and put it on socials. Everyone would go crazy.”

“Why would I want that? They wouldn’t even be able to see me. And you know how we parted. It wasn’t exactly fun to be mocked.”

She doesn’t flinch.

“The situation is different now. You know that. Maybe they’ll be able to see you, maybe not. Maybe just a few people, maybe all of them. In that case, the joke’s on me. But I do know this: this is your one and only chance to get your story out there, Syl. I’m offering you an opportunity, but it’s up to you to grab it.”

“And make you even more famous than you already are on social media?” I state.

She smiles. “Or have people lock me away for talking to an empty chair.”

“True,” I say.

“Look, this could bring justice to you. Viola’s still out there, and she did awful things that she should be punished for. Don’t you want that?”

I think about Viola and say nothing.

“Listen,” Annie says, leaning forward again, as if she wants to grab my hand, only realizing then that she can’t. “You can trust me. You know that already, or you wouldn’t be here. You chose to show yourself to me, I didn’t ask for this.”

She is right about that.

“Okay, then,” I say. “Record it, but no filming, that would be pointless. See what happens, if you can catch my voice on tape. Make notes for all I care. As long as you do something with my story later on. Just remember that people might not believe you.”

“What do you want me to do with your story?”

“Tell my parents. Tell the world.”

“I swear I’ll do what’s right,” Annie says. “Why don’t we start with the crash and how it was for you when you realized that you had passed away, and then move on to what happened before? Would that make it easier?”

She places her telephone on a stand in front of the two seats that we are sitting in, facing each other. The light is still quite bright. Annie makes sure that I am in sight, whatever that might mean to her.

“Ready when you are,” she says.

“Ready.”

She starts recording our conversation.

“Alright, then,” I say. “I will tell you everything about my unhappy ending. Hope you’re ready for it.”

I close my eyes and tell her the story of my death, and what happened afterwards, while her phone tapes my tale for the world to hear someday.

Part One: The Ballad of Syl Jameson’s death

When you’re sad and you’re lonely

And you haven’t got a friend

Just remember

That death is not the end

Nick Cave

Chapter One

What a mess. What a terrible, terrible mess.

Viola’s car lies in ruins against the tree that broke in half. Her beautiful new Toyota is beyond repair. Ruined. Destroyed. Shrapnel. Odd really, that metal and glass can create such an artwork.

The car is ruined.

Just like I am.

The moment that I regained a sense of what has happened, I could feel that this was absolutely, horrifyingly wrong. Looking at the car and my own body, I know I’m not mistaken about the gravity of my situation.

Dead. I. AM. DEAD.

Seventeen, going on eighteen, and human shrapnel.

Destroyed.

A body beyond fixing.

I was killed and left behind in that car.

And Viola is gone.

She was with me when we crashed. It was her car, her precious Corolla that still smelled new because she hadn’t used it much. Her mom had given it to her, she was going to move to Princeton with it. She could drive it around there, have a sense of freedom while she was away from home. An expensive hybrid model, not yet full electric. Modern, with a dashboard that resembled a cockpit, or so it seemed these days. My dad had a similar car, with even more fancy stuff in it. There were too many features and buttons to push that would distract anyone while driving. Bose speakers.

Viola liked dance music, the 90s or Tomorrowland festival type of music. Hard, thumping techno beats that raged through the car as we moved at high speed over the dark road with its narrow lines and sharp curves. It circled around the hill where we used to go in the summer to camp out, looking up at the stars whenever we wanted to.

She would sometimes turn up the volume, and it felt as if we were cruising the dark roads alone, with nothing but a DJ encouraging us to go even faster. We would not speak, and I would try to ignore the sharp undertones of the music while gazing outside. I didn’t have a car of my own, not after last year, and she would always be the driver. She was a control freak and wouldn’t allow me to drive anyhow. She would make sharp remarks if I were sitting behind the steering wheel of any vehicle.

Tonight we weren’t listening to anything that even remotely resembled a crushing, thumping beat. She had turned the beats off the moment we had gotten into her car. We had been arguing, and the car’s speed had increased by the second. We spoke fiercely, verbally fought, discussed, snapped. Cried, or at least I did. I don’t remember seeing tears coming from her. Then again, she wasn’t the teary-eyed type of person, never had been. She was always harsh, cold, sober, and argumentative.

We were complete opposites, which had become painfully clear over the past two years, when we started drifting apart. She hardly cared about politics and climate change like I did, or about the way that racism and inclusion were still hot topics in our community. Or about the fact that former presidents used social networks to stir up crowds that could be considered dangerous.

She liked to argue about everyday things. Love Hill and its residents. Things that she felt were inappropriate. She talked a lot about our parents, about how they had ruined our lives. She openly discussed my life and the things I had gone through, but she always avoided to talk about last year’s tragedy. When I brought up the subject tonight, she became really upset. She didn’t like how I saw things differently than she did, and she wouldn’t accept the fact that I was angry, sad, and upset, and ready to tell the world the truth.

“Let it go,” she snapped. “All of this is your fault anyhow. You’ve done this to yourself.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did, and if you don’t shut up about it now, I’ll make your life a living hell.”

“That won’t work with me anymore,” I said. “I’m tired of your threats and antics.”

“Well, I’m tired of you being such a bitch. I’ll be glad to see the last of you when we’re finally on opposite ends of the country. I’ve had it with you and your ridiculous sense of justice. Get over it already. It’s over and done with, and nobody’s the wiser. Why stir up trouble now?”

“I can’t forget about it. I won’t,” I had said. “I want it out in the open. It’s eating me up.”

“Bullshit. You just want to get rid of your own guilt.”

“Am I not entitled to?”

“No.”

“I’m not like you,” I said. “I’m not mean or vengeful. I want to lead a decent life without any guilt overwhelming and suffocating me every single day of my existence. I’m done with you. Our friendship is over.”

She didn’t speak again. Her hands were clutching the steering wheel, her knuckles were white, and I could see the stress displayed over her face. She sped up. And I got scared. I realized I had to get out of that car and away from her. The past had torn us apart, but my words had done so even more.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I asked.

And that was the last thing I ever said.

Chapter Two

Viola’s car is beyond repair, and so am I.

Even if a thousand experienced doctors were here to try and keep me alive in the heart of the accident that sent me off my merry way, they wouldn’t succeed in doing so.

I am dead.

That is quite something, really. Almost fascinating.

Ironic too.

I was supposed to go to Stanford MD. Stanford Medical Division. I wanted to become a trauma surgeon, to save people who came into the ER all shattered and beyond repair. Only the best of the best would be able to save them. Ironically enough, I had wanted to be that person.

I had envisioned myself leaning over someone being brought in from a car crash, given up by everyone, digging my elbows deep into blood and tissue, while trying to figure out how to fix all the broken bones and torn arteries in my mind’s eye.

And there I was. Here I am. A victim that no doctor would be able to save. My body is located on the driver’s seat. She must have done it. I wasn’t driving her car, never did, never wanted to. Never in my life would I sit behind that steering wheel, gazing at all those fancy things, not knowing what to do with that.

There are sirens in the far distance. Police, EMTs, and fire trucks are headed this way. They will be too late. No one to save here. Trauma surgeons won’t be able to fix this broken girl.

I notice my body, lying crumpled in the car. Trapped between the seats and dashboard of Viola’s Toyota, shattered into a million pieces that are only held together by the skin that surrounds my bones. Crashed, shattered, bruised, battered, trapped. Seventeen, no longer going on eighteen. That will never happen now.

I’m standing next to her car looking in on myself and barely recognize who I was as a person. My face is all messed up, but I can still see it’s me. My eyes are open, my skull cracked. Brain matter leaks through my bloodied and twisted long, ruined hair. My arm, leg, foot, and pelvis are obviously smashed. Internal bleeding is drowning my organs.

The moment the car crashed into that tree, my heart had stopped. Or it could have stopped the second my head smashed into the dashboard and cracked my skull open. Or when I was thrashed around, hitting the window, the door, the dashboard.

There is smoke billowing from the hood of the vehicle, but the car is not on fire. I realize that this won’t take long now and that the flames will consume my body.

For a moment I wonder if I am not entirely dead yet, despite my broken, open eyes and the fact that I can see brain matter seeping through my cracked skull. Perhaps there is still a bit of life in me, and I am in limbo, lingering between this world and the nether, waiting for that miracle trauma surgeon to save me, which would end up being a worse fate than if I would just die. I would be a vegetable until the end of days.

This is better. This death, whatever it may be. Unless I’m supposed to stay here forever, that is.

This death of mine was inevitable, come to think of it. The perfect closure to a life that wasn’t even supposed to be.

I’ve always known my parents didn’t want me. I’ve felt it from the moment I could retain memories. I could feel it in the way my mom barely acknowledged me, often ignoring me, as if she wanted to show me the hard way that I was not supposed to be part of her life.

I don’t know why she didn’t just abort me. Often, I would think that would have been less hard on me. I wouldn’t have felt, experienced, realized that I was not meant to live.

Of course I’ve always known why she wouldn’t have an abortion. Living in a place like Love Hill means existing in a glass house where people know everything about you, and every moment is examined to such detail that it would have been impossible to keep it a secret.

I was my mother’s daughter. I came from her womb. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that I was my father’s natural child. I was his spitting image, from the eyes to the chin, the nose and the ears. I resembled him.

I was their daughter for sure, but the love that I was supposed to receive from them was nonexistent. It had never been there from the day I was born.

I wonder how they will feel about me now.

Chapter Three

I wasn’t wearing my seat belt at the moment of impact, even though I had been strapped in before. I had unbuckled it, believing that the best thing to do is to escape Viola’s wrath by jumping out, believing also quite naively that she would slow down when she saw it, but the car hadn’t slowed down at all.

I never saw the tree, hadn’t felt the impact on the car and me. The world had turned dark in the blink of an eye. There was nothing that gave a warning sign against the collision, or what came next.

There was no pain, just oblivion. Until I regained some sort of consciousness as I stood silently by the car and realized that I was dead, but not gone. And that Viola had left me there, after realizing what she had done.

I don’t know why I’m here. This could be some twisted sense of humor coming from whatever divine entity that is supposed to carry my soul into the next world. Something is trying to tell me that I shouldn’t move on without the truth being revealed. What if I am supposed to do things that I can’t do when I’m dead and gone? Whatever reason there is, I need to figure this out.

I lean into the car and study myself. I guess I should be repulsed by the sight of my corpse trapped awkwardly in that car with its broken limbs and twisted skull, but I’m not. I don’t mind seeing myself in death at all. It’s like watching someone else, like being witness to a gruesome movie where the victim is on graphic display.

I don’t feel emotionally impacted, it’s like I feel nothing at all anymore. There is no pain, neither physical nor emotional. I can’t sense the wind blowing through the trees during this dark night, or the pebbles stuck beneath the thin soles of my shoes. I did feel them before I stepped into that car, too much in a hurry to pry them from the gaps in the soles.

I touch the car but can’t feel the metal. I touch the leather seat but can’t feel the fabric beneath my fingertips. I know what it should feel like, but it’s like it’s not there. I touch the fabric of the coat I’m wearing in death and don’t feel it. I was cold when I stepped into that car, but now there is no sense of warm or cold at all. My dead form’s clothes are torn, but mine aren’t.

When I look at my “ghost hands,” I see no broken skin. My legs aren’t fractured and hidden beneath jeans that have not endured the crash. My face doesn’t feel smashed, and my hair is still the same.

I can’t say the same for my dead form. I touch the already colder skin, but it’s like I can’t feel the human frailty at all. It’s like there’s nothing to touch. Like my fingertips are made from some strange fluid substance like liquid metal that bounces back. As if I’m floating on air and can’t even sense the wind that is undoubtedly here on this cold and stormy night.

Sounds mingle; sirens are approaching fast now. I debate what to do next. Staying here seems to be the only thing I can do, really. If I leave, I’ll need to start my search for Viola, and I’m not ready for that yet.

I hear noise behind me, a cry, and a hiss. Someone trying to catch air while forcing to compose herself. When I turn around, I see her. Annie Jones. Of course. Of all people I had expected here, I had somehow always known that it would be her. She’s stumbling over to the car; her eyes are fixated on the wreckage.

She trembles visibly and looks white as a sheet, as if she’s the one who just passed away. She looks right at me. I freeze and gaze back at her, daring her to see me, remembering her words about her sister, whose spirit was still lingering in her home study. I challenge her to see me too, but she doesn’t. She’s trying hard to look away from the vehicle and my body but fails miserably.

Death has an odd impact on people. They want to ignore that it exists, but realize at the same time that it cannot be ignored at all. I know exactly how she feels. Today, one year ago, I was her. I was standing right here, looking death in the eye too. It was awful.

I should feel sorry for Annie, but I can’t. I’m emotionless. She holds a hand in front of her mouth as she approaches the vehicle and holds in a muffled scream. So many memories must be overwhelming to her. It almost feels like death is a constant in her life.

I had said goodbye to Annie about a month ago to focus on my departure for Stanford. I had been working hard all year to get there, to get high scores on my SATs, to study for the necessary tests that I passed with flying colors. I had said to Annie that I would not come back, and she had been sad about that.

“We’ve made such good progress,” she had said. “Why say goodbye now? We’ve still got a month before you go.”

“I don’t have time and I’m not interested in being used anymore,” had been my cold statement.

She figured out at that moment that I had seen her posts about our conversations, even though she had always assumed I wasn’t interested in social media.

“I’m sorry,” she had said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“To have people mock me? Make fun of me? Tell me to my face that I’m an idiot?”

She didn’t say anything else and let me go.

I had pushed her out of my mind to focus on Stanford. I had visited campus twice on my own, had signed up for a dorm room, had filled out all the necessary paperwork, had cleaned out my bedroom—which meant I had been living out of boxes for half of the summer—and had mentally prepared for a new life there, where no one knew me and I could believe that I would be a regular student for once. I wouldn’t have to endure the sad gazes and the accusing glances, and I would not have come back to Love Hill once.

I had already thought of ways of telling my mom that I wouldn’t come back for Thanksgiving or the Christmas holidays. I would have told her I would be celebrating them with other people, even if that were not the case and I would have been forced to stay at Stanford throughout the festive season. Everything would have been better than a quick Christmas dinner with the three of us, and an expensive gift that was supposed to replace all the lack of attention and love. The only person that I would really miss seeing, was Marie, but we were in constant touch with each other, and she had promised to fly over to visit for the Christmas holidays.

My parents would have been relieved about my absence. They hated the holidays. My dad always worked on Christmas Day. As soon as he could, he was out of the house, living his own life again. Drowning himself in work was the only way to forget what had led to this point in his life.

My mom would be happy to spend Christmas Day watching movies and pretending to be warm and cozy under a blanket while munching on all the things she didn’t allow herself to taste all year. This was the one day she would allow herself to eat more than vegetables and grains. My dad’s absence meant he would take all the bad memories with him, but also that she wouldn’t have to pretend to love him. She used to do that most of her adult life, but the past year, she no longer did.

Annie Jones is talking to someone on her mobile phone, I’m guessing a 911 operator. This is why the sirens are already so close. Not because of the smoke billowing from the engine or because other drivers saw the crashed car as they passed by. This is a quiet route, and one only takes it when one needs it, but Annie does, every single day of her life. She lives just down the road, in her father’s house with the tattered chair in her study.

“I think she’s dead. No, I know she’s dead,” she says, speaking with a hoarse and emotional voice. “No, she’s alone.”

She looks up suddenly, flinches, turns around and looks me in the eye, without really seeing me. She can’t. She’s confused. She trembles.

“Syl?” she says dazed.

“I’m here,” I say softly.

I know she can hear me. Her eyes open wide, her hands shake, and she nearly drops her phone when she pushes the off button while the operator is still speaking to her.

“Syl. Oh my god. I can’t see you, but you’re here, aren’t you? Say something.”

“I’m here,” I repeat. “I’m standing next to you.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I am a conduit,” she whispers.

She has a million questions and so do I, but then I hear something, a strange, sharp sound that makes me look up and feel that something’s off. The smoke has turned black; a hissing sound is audible in the air. Danger lingers around her.

“Annie, run!”

She looks at the car and realizes at the same moment as I do what is happening. She starts running away over the slippery surface, back to her own vehicle. She kneels beside it with her hands covering her ears, just as the Toyota explodes.

When it happens, I don’t feel a single thing. The car, with my body still inside, is blown to smithereens, and I still feel nothing. No change in me, no white light or soft voices dragging me to eternal bliss. I’m still here, and so is Annie, hovering behind her own vehicle. She will have nightmares about this for the rest of her life, I’m sure.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She looks up dazed with fear in her eyes, but she seems unharmed. She sits up and looks at the wreck. I’m standing between her and the burning car. The flames brighten up the area.

“I’m okay,” she says. “Oh my god, I can see you standing in the light.”

I look at her surprised. She doesn’t elaborate, but from the way that she sounds, it seems that she was never able to do that with her sister.

“You can?” I say. “How do I look?”

She smiles. “Like an angel, but without the wings.”

I can’t help but laugh. Perhaps all emotion is not gone just yet.

Chapter Four

I don’t believe in divine intervention or a god that is somehow lingering over our world, watching and protecting us. Never have, never will. Not even when my soul is waiting for something.

I haven’t seen a bright light. Haven’t heard a divine voice. I was alive one moment and dead the next. And I am expecting that death, whatever that is supposed to be, will come, and take me away at any given moment now.

That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? People are supposed to move on. But that’s not happening, not even when the car explodes in my face and I feel nothing of the heat and flames, or the smoke that is now circling up high in the dark sky.

I’m here, and so is Annie, but she is human, and I am dead. She’s also feeling the rain that starts to pour down on us. I don’t, I can’t feel it at all, but she can. When it starts coming down in buckets while cars move towards us, she doesn’t flinch or hold back. She waves at the fire trucks and the ambulances and the cops who have arrived at the scene. There’s nothing more to salvage, not a single ounce of hope left for me, which is obvious in all its ugly facets of course, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to salvage as much of the scene as possible. And there is a possibility that the car might explode a second time.

I imagine someone like that pathologist from that television series where they investigate bones showing up to piece together what is left of my body, for whatever good that would do. It’s obvious what happened. Car crash. Explosion. One person inside the vehicle. The flames are out quickly thanks to the rain and the help of the fire department, which means there is still some material to work with, and then the cops start investigating the wreck, placing yellow tape around the whole area. In the meantime, it’s now starting to rain with a vengeance, as if the gods themselves are weeping along with people who might actually mourn me.

Annie obviously doesn’t tell anyone about her experience or conversation with me, or of the fact that I just saved her life. She is surrounded by people who care for her and take her away to a waiting ambulance, where she tells her story while they deal with her wounds.

“Syl Jameson,” Annie says. “She was already dead when the car exploded.”

“Are you sure it was her?” a cop asks, when one of his colleagues carefully removes the license plate of the burned vehicle and matches its registration to Viola. “This was not Syl’s car. It was Viola Harrison’s.”

“Viola wasn’t in the vehicle, it was Syl.”

“You’re very positive about that?”

“I am.”

“So she was alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Why?”

The cop clears his throat.

“Syl was sitting behind the wheel, and Viola is not here. So we must assume that Syl might have taken the car without Viola knowing it.”

“Viola drove,” I whisper, and Annie doesn’t flinch. She looks both men straight in the eye.

“Syl would never drive that car.”

“Why not?”

“Because she didn’t drive.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“Everyone in town knows. Syl didn’t drive since—you know, what happened last year.”

“Hm.”

Officer Jensen, the cop who is holding the license plate, makes a humming sound and shares a glance with Officer Smith, his colleague.

“I’m telling you that she would not drive that car,” Annie insists. “Viola must have been with her.”

“Then why was Syl sitting in the driver’s seat? And where is Viola now?”

“She put me there,” I whisper in Annie’s ear. “She took off because she was scared. She wants to put the blame of my death on me.”

“I don’t know. But I do know that Syl would not drive that car,” Annie stubbornly repeats.

“Hm.”

Again that humming sound. It annoys me. The cops don’t say much more to Annie, who remains seated inside the ambulance, in the rain that is now slowly starting to subside a bit. Knowing our climate, it won’t take much longer now for it to die down altogether. I decide to follow the cops, Jensen and Smith, I read off their tags.

“Damn,” Jensen says, wiping the rain off his face.

“You think she was right about the not-driving part?” his partner asks.

“Yep. Everyone in town knows that Syl Jameson would not drive anymore. So that can only mean that a) Viola was driving, and b) she put her own best friend—who was already dead—behind the steering wheel to make it look like she was alone, and c) took off. This is pretty bad.”

“Oh yeah,” Smith says. “When word gets out, this will become major news. People in town will talk about this, most likely more about Viola’s behavior than Syl’s death.”

“You mean the gossips are going to have a field day with this,” Jensen remarks.

“Obviously,” Smith says. “But look, the whole scene does look like an accident. She must have been in shock, why else would she take off like that? They were best friends, right? We have to track her down fast, before anyone else does. We don’t want a lynch party on our hands.”

“Do we treat this as an accident?” Jensen asks.

“You don’t think it was?” Smith says surprised.

“Can we tell for sure? What if she did this on purpose? They might have had a fight. She might have pulled at the steering wheel. She might have crashed her car against that tree to end both their lives. Or she might have deliberately crashed it so that Syl would not survive.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Look at the wreck, the seat belt, the tire tracks,” Jensen says. “The forensic team will see this too. That girl didn’t slow down whatsoever, there are no skid marks or brake trails. She drove her car into that tree in such a way and position that the blunt of the impact was taken by Syl’s body. The driver side is unscathed; she may not even have a scratch on her. What if she crashed her car on purpose?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Smith comments. “We need to find this girl fast.”

“And how are we going to do that without alarming the rest of this crazy town?” Jensen says. “You know what they’re like. They’ll be like vultures, scouring their pray.”

The cops sigh at the same time, which would have made me smile in any other circumstances. This was spot on, and they knew it, had seen it and experienced it before.

“We’ll keep her identity a secret for as long as we can,” Jensen says, looking at the license plate in his hands.

“As if that’ll work.” Smith frowns. “The paramedics already know, and they love to gossip. Remember what happened last year? They’ll tell others, I’m sure they’ve already done so. That’s how this town works.”

“Hopefully, we’ll have enough time to find that girl before she’ll be lynched by an angry posse,” Jensen says.

“What about Syl’s parents?”

“Leave them to me.”

More cars approach the scene. The area fills up with private cars, followed by more official vehicles, and a lot of people. In the center of all the buzzing activity is Viola’s car’s burned wreckage. People get out and start walking towards the area, despite the yellow striped tape that should be holding them back but doesn’t.

We all know that the truth never stays hidden long in Love Hill. It’s only a matter of time before everyone here will find out why Viola killed me. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Chapter Five

A small white truck parks itself amongst the other cars and people come running out with cameras and phones. The local press. Vultures. These days, they don’t need to set up a lot of equipment, thanks to the invention of mobile phones. I debate going back to Annie Jones, or to listen to what those creeps have to say.

“Officer Jensen! Is it true that Syl Jameson died here tonight?” a woman in a gray suit shouts.

I recognize her as Joan Lind, the local town gossip, who pries upon drama and unethical means of getting to said drama. A lot of people avoid her, and that is saying a lot, unless they have a score to settle with someone else. Then she suddenly becomes the town’s most interesting person to have a chat with.

Jensen and Smith share a glance and a sigh.

“No comment. Adam, can you please get rid of them?”

Another police officer walks over to the camera crew and talks to Joan with a grave look on his face. The reporter and her camera operator are pushed back to behind the yellow-and-black striped tape, much to their frustration.

“You have no right to stop us!” she shouts. “It’s our duty to report about this tragedy to the public.”

“Shut up,” someone in the small crowd yells.

“You shut up!”

“Have some respect for the dead. This is a crime scene,” a third person says, which runs a shock through the crowd.

“A crime scene?!” Joan responds, aiming her assistant and his camera at the person talking.

“Yeah, what else?”

The police officers, standing at a short distance, obviously realize the urgency of the matter. If it hadn’t become clear by now, this conversation pushes them to hurry up their investigation.

“We should call her parents now, before they find out from someone else,” Smith comments.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jensen says. “Get those people out of here. The forensic crew will be here any minute and I don’t want people hovering nearby to catch a glimpse of the car and the girl. Just move them away, okay?”

I know what he means. I’ve seen what is left of me in that car and it’s not a pretty sight.

“Will do,” Smith says.

Jensen and Smith part ways. While Smith walks over to the crowd and asks them to leave, Jensen reaches for his phone, calls the police station, and requests my father’s address and number.

Don’t bother, I want to say, but of course he can’t hear me. Something tells me that my parents already know and are on their way. Everyone here is aware of the fact that the only heir to the Jameson throne has passed away tragically. Which means that one bystander, or several, have already used their phones. It’s only a matter of minutes before my parents will arrive.

I don’t know what to do next, I still have no clue how to leave this mortal coil. Finding Viola won’t do me any good. She won’t be able to communicate with me, nor I with her, but there might be a way to do so. I look at Annie, sitting in the ambulance, and realize that I have been given a gift. If I can communicate with her, she can talk to Viola and pass the message on. But what will I say? What would that message even be?

Hey, you killed me, but just wanted to let you know that I forgive and understand why you did it. Yep, that’ll work.

My thoughts are interrupted by another car arriving at the scene which causes a lot of stirring and grabs everyone’s attention. Two people rush out of the vehicle and run towards us. The woman is stopped by Jensen, while Smith runs over to the man who screams my name as if he cares about my fate. My parents.

I look at them in wonder, and for one startling moment, it’s as if they can see me too. My mother looks as if she has seen a ghost, but she blinks, shakes off Jensen’s grip and walks right through me.

My dad looks like he’s ready to fall apart at the seams. He’s different from how I’ve always known him, emotional and distraught. He screams and shouts and clutches Smith tight, who is standing between him and the vehicle, who prevents him from running towards the car to see something so gruesome that it will give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

“You shouldn’t see this,” Smith gently says.

My dad is forcefully turned around and weeps. My mom almost collapses where she’s standing. And I can’t help but look at them in wonder and think that they did love me a little bit. Here I am, always believing that I’ve always been a burden on their shoulders. What if I had been mistaken all this time?

“Is it really her?” my mom speaks, and her voice breaks. “It is my daughter?”

“We’re not sure yet, but yes, it does look like it,” Jensen says. “Ms. Annie Jones identified her. She saw her before the vehicle—”

My mom runs to Annie Jones. I tag along.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Jameson,” Annie says in tears.

She says this before my mother can speak, and that’s the moment that my mom seems to realize that it’s true. It’s the first time that I feel something too. Sorrow. Sadness. Regret. Pity.

“No,” my mom says. “Please tell me that it wasn’t my Syl. Please tell me you’re mistaken. It can’t be! It has to be Viola.”

“I’m sorry, but it wasn’t.”

My dad is there too, and he holds my mom tight. It took my death to reunite them again as a couple, I think sadly. What a big price to pay.

“Was she alone?”

“Yes.” Annie says. “Viola’s gone, they believe that she was driving and are looking for her. I told them that Syl would never drive someone else’s car.”

A change hangs in the air. My dad turns toward the cops with balled fists and his voice is harsh, rough, and dark.

“What happened to my daughter? Where the hell is Viola?! Did she do this to Syl? Tell me what is going on!”

His words come out as growls. Jensen looks desperately at Smith, but before he speaks up, a third cop in a fancier uniform arrives. The police commissioner. He’s a big shot around town, and he’s friends with my dad.

“Alex,” he says, placing his hand on my dad’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do, I will do it, but this is not the time nor place to talk about Viola. We’ve got it under control. Concentrate on your wife right now. She needs you. Let us help you.”

My dad is obviously not in the mood for pity and sympathy. He looks at him angrily, brushing off his grip.

“Don. Please tell me that you are doing everything you can. Where is Viola? Did she kill my daughter?”

“We are figuring this out, Alex. You know me, I’ll get to the bottom of this. As soon as I found out about the accident, I jumped in my car. How did you find out so quickly?”

“This is Love Hill.”

“Of course.” A sympathetic smile appears on the commissioner’s face. “I know you’re grieving, why don’t we take you home?”

“Not a chance. What happened to my daughter?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Was Viola here?”

“We really cannot say yet, Alex.”

“Is she at the hospital? Was she hurt?”

The commissioner clears his throat.

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean: you don’t know? Where is she?!”

“She took off.”

“Where to? Are you sending people to her house?”

“We’re trying to find her as we speak. Several of my people are out there looking for her. We’ll find her.”

“So she was in the car?”

“We have every reason to believe that she was. But we don’t know yet for certain if she drove.”

Jensen and Smith are obviously surprised that the commissioner knows all of this, but hey, this is Love Hill, like my dad said. Nothing surprises anyone around here.

“Don’t give me that, Don,” my dad says, and the volume of his voice increases. “My daughter would never have driven Viola’s car and you know it! She hasn’t gotten behind the wheel of any car in a long time, not after what happened last year.”

“Alex, you need to calm down,” the commissioner hushes. “We are doing our best to determine the cause of the accident. Right now, there is nothing you can do. Why don’t we take you to the police station? We can talk about Syl then. Not here, where everyone is eager to listen to our conversation.”

I follow my parents as they are being led away from the scene by Don. God, how I hate that guy, especially after last year’s tragedy. I remember every detail of what he has done to me vividly. I remember him treating me as if I was a suspect. I remember him asking me all these sensitive questions, if I had something to do with her death.

“No!” I had said and known that he didn’t believe me. He only let me go because I was my father’s daughter. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have believed me either.

Chapter Six

I’ve never been in a coma, or sick. I haven’t broken a single bone in my body, have never visited a hospital once. All I know from hospitals is what I learned from other people or on television. Hospitals are places you don’t want to go to unless you really have to. I’ve never had to.

My parents are standing near a group of several police officers while Don has left, who are doing their utter best to comfort them without really knowing what to say. Behind us, others are working the scene. People in white suits who look like they are exploring the remains of the car.

My dad doesn’t want comforting. He wants justice. He wants to know where Viola is, it’s the only thing that matters to him. He’s angry, more than he’s sad. The cops must sense that too, because they have stopped consoling him about the loss of me.

“Other people are looking for her,” Jensen says. “Where could she be? Did the girls have any specific places they would go to when together?”

“Not particularly,” my mom says. “I’m not sure if she would go there anyhow. Not when she’s facing time in prison.”

“Why would she be?” Smith asks curiously.

“She hurt my daughter. Left her. Killed her.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Jensen says. “You have to be careful with these accusations, Mrs. Jameson. We don’t know the whole story yet.”

“Even if it was an accident, she still left my daughter in that car to die. Syl could still be alive right now, but she didn’t do anything.”

“We believe that Syl was dead on impact,” Smith speaks softly. “Ms. Jones said she was—”

He doesn’t say it out loud.

“Listen, people do crazy things when they are traumatized,” Jensen continues. “She might be in shock, out here in the night, without any recollection of what has happened to Syl. That’s why we need to know where she could be. The commissioner is on his way to her house now.”

“Good, then stop asking us about it,” my father barks. “Do you know how we feel? No, you don’t. No one does.”