School Spirits | I Don't Do Friends

23 Interest

Short chapter but it's my first one back so I think it's impressive given this stories been dead (lol) for a whole.

Also at first a wrote it with Caroline's name being y/n. oops! I have other stories that use Y/n and I completely forgot there's an OC in this book. Thanks to edmundhasmyheart for pointing it out!

Nearly 20 years passed since her last conversation with Wally. If you could call it that. Usually, after a while they'd make up. Live and learn. Grow, even. Not this time.

Time didn't even pass the same way anymore. Group was a distant memory. She'd disappear, no one knew where to. Not even herself. Then pop back up somewhere between a loop and a whisper.

She knew who she was, why she was there. Sort of. It was a memory, an echo, a ghost. She took to other outsiders like herself. Like Dawn, or Mina.

Dawn had expressed her concerns and tried to update the rest of the dead of Caroline's condition. Everyone was worried she'd fall in a loop herself.

Once she got tired of the constant worrying from Dawn, she turned to the rafters. She'd been in the back row of the theater when Mina was crushed with the stage light. She always wondered how Mina could ever believe she was alive. Now she knew it was just easier.

"Open the traveler." Mina pointed at her, positioning a light center stage.

"Sure thing."

Joining the "stage crew" gave her something to do. In between the reading and wondering of the past few decades it was nice to pretend she had a purpose.

She pulled the required rope. Mina was too busy to notice the curtain actually opened and continued messing with switches and barking orders to nobody.

"Hello?" Caroline heard a voice say. It was probably someone who wondered into the theater. There's been enough disembodied tomfoolery caused by Caroline to explain it.

"Just your friendly neighborhood ghost!" She quipped as she usually did. No one could hear her anyway.

"Who said that?!" The voice echoed throughout the hall.

This piqued her interest. She made her way to the ladder that goes backstage. "I'm taking 5 Mina!"

She walked out to the middle of the stage and saw a girl. Blonde, tall, confused.

Another unfortunate soul.

"Who are you?" She asked taking a step back.

It's been 20 years since she last tutored someone in the afterlife. She was a little rusty. But she hopped off the stage and walked forward.

"Caroline Wispe. Probably know me by another name though." She circled her. The years of monotony interrupted by another death turned her into something else. Something that wasn't the girl who died in 84'.

"What? What do you mean? I've never seen you before." The girl stepped around to face her. Around and around and around.

"Well no one ever sees the Split-River Bitch." She chuckled. It was true. But she always made her presence known. Oh how long she's been waiting to introduce herself like that.

A small moment of recall flashed on the girls face. Then realization. Then she scoffed. "That's a ghost story."

"And?"

"So you're saying you're a ghost?" She raised her voice. Caroline shushed her.

"Not so loud, Mina's sensitive."

"Who's Mina?"

"Died in 87' stage light fell on her head. Could never really accept it." Caroline shook her head with something like pity as she stepped forward. The girl stepped back. "So who are you?"

The girl looked to be contemplating an introduction. "Maddie Nears."

Caroline nodded and hummed. She didn't keep many tabs on the living anymore. But she seemed to be a student. "And how did you die?"

"I'm not dead."

"Okay, well... I am. So either you are too or you're some impossible acceptation. Which is... impossible." Caroline thought about her words carefully.

"Then prove it." Maddie challenged.

"Fine. Follow me."

That's when she heard creaking in the rafters. It was Mina.

"Rehearsals at 5! Don't be late!" The theatre club was performing Romeo and Juliet next week. Tonight was the first dress rehearsal.

"I'll be there!"

Maddie followed her out the door into the hall. "Who was that?"

"Mina."