Free Say Her Name by James Dawson

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