Chapter Text
Well, this sucks.
As far as last words go, Violet really could have chosen better. She can’t decide if it’s more or less embarrassing that those weren’t even her last spoken words, but rather her last thoughts. On the one hand, at least no one heard her say it – not that Kate Argent seemed very cognizant of anything at the moment – but on the other hand…really? Really?
Violet is aware of the kind of life that she lives – lived. She isn’t naïve enough to think that her last words would be some parting wisdom, or that her last thoughts would be some sweet exhale of peace. She just kind of expected a little better from herself.
She also could have done without the utter indignity of getting arrested, and then kidnapped from being arrested, before being accidentally killed in a slip of werejaguar control that could best be summed up with, “oops.” All things considered, ending things on, well, this sucks, was actually pretty fitting.
The only problem is, Violet doesn’t seem to be dead.
She isn’t naïve. She knows that she died, no question. No one could survive a throat slash that deep, and Kate wasn’t an alpha, anyway, so there was no chance of Violet being turned. Plus, there was that whole out-of-body experience that she had, floating above Kate Argent throwing an extremely bloody hissy fit over Violet’s now-dead body. And then there was a phantom hand closing around her throat, and twin red lights shining so brightly that she had to close her eyes – and then she was here.
If here is supposed to be the afterlife, Violet is very disappointed. It looks an awful lot like a high school locker room. Boys’ locker room, she decides, after sniffing the air. She taps the wall behind her experimentally, and it feels solid and wooden and awfully real. She pinches herself – it hurts – then to the mirror and examines the unbroken skin of her throat. Huh.
The faint ting of metal on metal echoes from outside the locker room, so Violet shrugs and follows its echoes into the hallway. A teenage boy – freshman, Violet guesses, although he looks so cockily pleased with himself that he could be a sophomore – steps into the hall and walks right past her, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. Violet frowns after him, then quickly ducks into the room he’d exited before the door swings shut.
She finds herself in a music room. Huh. She used to love – she’d been pretty good in music class, before. Picked up the violin like she was born to play it, then the viola with the same ease, then struggled to reach the right notes with her tiny fingers when she tried the cello. The struggle had been fun, to stick with something that challenged her when so many things came so easily. But that had been before, anyway. She hasn’t touched an instrument in years. If this room is supposed to be some sort of afterlife subconscious, then it’s really damn stupid.
The click of a cello case echoes behind her. Violet turns around to find herself staring at a teenage girl, all dark hair and pale skin and eyebrows arching in utter disdain. Oh. Maybe this room is her afterlife subconscious, after all.
Then the girl opens her mouth and says, “If you’re one of Derek’s friends, I don’t actually care, okay? Just leave me alone.”
So much for her subconscious. The girl’s clothes are completely hideous, too, now that Violet looks closer. She glares and snaps back, “What the hell are you talking about?”
As far as witty retorts go, it’s pretty lame. But the girl doesn’t seem to notice, as her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, jeez, I’m so sorry,” she says, and actually sounds apologetic. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It’s…it’s been a pretty weird day.”
Violet laughs. She can’t do anything else but laugh at the girl’s words. It’s been a pretty weird day. Violet got her throat torn out today. Yeah, it’s been pretty weird. For some reason, though, her crazed cackling laughter seems to put the girl at ease, since a genuine smile breaks across her face and she sets down her cello case to step closer. “I’m Paige,” she says, holding out her hand.
Paige. Like a page in a book. Violet had always loved reading. “Violet,” she says, shaking Paige’s hand.
Or, well. Her hand closes around Paige’s, then keeps closing until it slides right through it. Paige gasps, arm jerking back involuntarily, then she reaches forward and tries to touch Violet’s hand. Violet can feel Paige’s fingers passing through her hand, sort of, like an odd sort of tingle. The faintest echo of a burn. “You’re-” Paige gasps, staring at her with wide eyes, and Violet realizes that this world she’s been dropped into isn’t hers at all.
She sighs. “Well, this sucks.”
“So, you’re a ghost,” Paige says.
Violet snorts. “Apparently.”
They’re sitting on Paige’s bed – on it, not through it, and Violet supposes she should be grateful for whatever sort of ghost logic allows her to sit on furniture and floors instead of sinking all the way through the Earth’s crust. She isn’t, though, because she is apparently a ghost. Her actual death had been humiliating enough, and now she gets to spend her afterlife floating around the stupid town that killed her.
And that’s another thing. She can’t float. What’s the point of being a ghost if she can’t even float? Violet resolves to try harder at floating when Paige isn’t looking. She hasn’t tried jumping into the air yet, but she also doesn’t want to look like an aimlessly hopping moron while Paige can see.
Paige glances around her room, fingers tapping awkwardly on her knees. “So…can anyone else see you?”
That boy in the hallway hadn’t seemed to notice her, and Paige’s parents hadn’t batted an eye when Violet stuck her head through the window. “No,” she says, then admits, “I haven’t been around many people yet, though. I’m a – a new ghost. I guess.”
Paige nods easily. She hasn’t freaked out once since she’s realized that Violet was an undead ghost, and Violet is more than a little disappointed. What’s the point of being a ghost if she can’t scare people? “And you said you…appeared…in the school, right? Maybe that’s important.”
“Doubt it,” Violet says. “I showed up in the boys’ locker room.”
“There has to be a reason, though,” Paige says, as if she actually knew anything about undead ghost logic. “Ghosts stay in places that mean something to them, like-” Her eyes widen, and she abruptly falls silent.
“I didn’t die in the boys’ locker room,” Violet says flatly. She rolls her eyes and mutters, “I’m no Moaning Myrtle.”
Paige’s eyebrows fly up her forehead, then she lets out a loud giggle. “No,” she agrees, hiding her laughter behind her hand. “No, I think you’re more of a Nearly-Headless Nick.”
More like the Bloody Baron, Violet thinks. She doesn’t say it out loud, though, because Paige is still smiling at her, completely at ease and under the misguided impression that Violet is actually here for some sort of purpose. She seems to believe that Violet is a good, likable person, and…Violet doesn’t want to tell her truth. Not just yet. “I always liked the Grey Lady the most,” she says instead.
“I knew it. You’re a Ravenclaw, just like me.” Paige hops off her bed and grabs pajamas from her dresser. “I still think there’s something important about the school,” she says as she disappears into the bathroom. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
“Going out of your way to help a ghost, that’s pretty Hufflepuff of you,” Violet calls through the door.
“You kidding me? I just want to make sure I’m around when something weird happens.”
Violet snorts. She waits until the faucet starts running, then moves to the middle of Paige’s room and jumps. Then jumps again. Then takes a running leap and falls through the door and into the hallway. She stomps back into Paige’s room, then freezes when she sees Paige grinning from the wide-open bathroom. “No-go with the floating?” she asks.
Violet glares and swats a brush off Paige’s dresser. It doesn’t have the effect she hoped for, especially since her hand passes clean through it without the slightest disturbance. Paige laughs.
“I still don’t get what you see in him,” Violet says, glaring across the quad at Derek. She’s been watching him and Paige for weeks, and she still has no idea why Paige seems to like him.
She also has no idea why she has apparently been transplanted back to an entire decade ago. The trees loom overhead, crackling and bare with their last leaves rotting under the tables. One decade ago. The cherry tree outside her house had just begun to blossom when a man came to kill her parents. Violet tries not to think about how close she had come to seeing her parents again, and yet fallen so far short.
She isn’t naïve enough to believe that the past can be changed, though, so she refuses to let it bother her. Nothing about her current predicament makes any sense, no matter how much Paige tries to reason through it. Paige and Derek make even less sense, though, and Violet is determined to get to the bottom of that.
Paige just smiles. “There’s just something about him,” she murmurs, ducking behind her book so that her classmates can’t see her talking to herself. It’s weird enough that she sits all by herself at lunch, despite dating hotshot basketball jock Derek Whatshisface. (Paige has told Violet his full name a million times, but Violet always tunes out when she mentions him. It’s probably something boring and forgettable, anyway.) “He’s…nice.”
“Nice,” Violet snorts to herself. There are plenty of nice boys in the world. It’s hardly a distinctive virtue. “Why’s he hanging out with that old guy?”
“That’s his uncle. Peter, I think.” Paige glances at Derek’s lunch table – completely empty except for Derek and his uncle, probably because of his uncle. Violet doesn’t know what high school was like a decade ago, but she’s pretty sure that lunchtime visits from family members long past high school age have always been creepy as hell. Paige can do better than a nice boy with a creepy, old, high-school-stalking uncle.
As if on cue, Peter turns towards their table, staring at Paige with narrowed eyes. Violet scoots along the table until she blocks the creepy old uncle from Paige’s view. She can’t do a thing to stop Peter from looking, but at least she can stop Paige from having to see him stare. “He’s creepy. I don’t like him.”
Paige chews her lip, then quickly gathers her books and leaves the table. Violet tosses Peter a vindictive glare – he doesn’t notice, of course, but she imagines that he looks a little less comfortable – and follows Paige into the music room. “Yeah,” Paige finally says, not quite meeting Violet’s eyes. “I’m not so sure I like him, either.”
Great. Now Paige looks upset, in that quietly contained way that makes Violet’s stomach twist into ugly little knots. She sinks down into the chair next to Paige. “I’m sure Derek’s nothing like him.”
“Yeah,” Paige says again. She stares at the floor for a long moment, then perks up. “You’re coming to the recital tonight, right?”
She’s all false cheer and forced positivity, so Violet doesn’t feel too bad about bursting her fake bubble. “Can’t,” she says. “I have to do…ghost stuff.” Actually, what she has to do is follow Derek Whatshisface all night, since he apparently isn’t going to Paige’s recital, either. He’s Paige’s boyfriend; he’s supposed to go to these things and, like, toss roses onto the stage or whatever. It’s suspicious that he isn’t going.
Plus, Paige had looked really bummed out when she broke the news to Violet. No one has any right to make Paige look bummed out, least of all Derek.
“Oh,” Paige says. “Right, yeah, of course.” She nods understandingly, but looks even more bummed out. Her hands twist in her lap, and she asks, “Do you need any help? With the ghost stuff?”
Violet blinks at her. “You can’t miss your recital,” she says. “You have that solo thing. You’ve been practicing for months!”
Paige shrugs. “There’ll be more recitals. And I’m the only one in this entire town who can see you. Or hear you.”
The knots in Violet’s stomach twist even tighter. She is the worst ghost ever. “You have to go,” she says firmly. “You made me help you pick out a dress last week, and if I had to sit through hours of shopping, then you had damn well better wear it.”
Paige smiles a little. “Okay, fair enough.”
She still looks bummed out, so Violet hears herself add, “I’ll try to be there for your solo. It’s the last piece of the night, right?”
“Yeah,” Paige says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, though. Really. Your ghost stuff is way more important than a silly recital.”
“I love listening to you play, though.”
Paige blinks. She ducks her head, but Violet catches the blush spreading across her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “Thanks.”
It turns out that Derek Whatshisface is a werewolf.
Honestly, Violet could kick herself for not figuring it out sooner. She does kick herself, actually, slamming the tip of her boot into her ankle when she finally pieces together the full moon shining overhead and Derek hiding out in the Preserve with clenched hands and a mouthful of too-long teeth. Creepy old man uncle Peter is there, too, watching Derek with an expression that could almost look like concern. It’s a little hard to tell with the glowing eyes, though.
Violet hurries back to the high school, wishing that being a ghost could let her move faster. Honestly, being undead and hanging around the limbo of yesteryear is a huge disappointment. It had taken her two months to be able to move a single piece of paper. Whatever reason she’s stuck here for, she hopes that it happens soon.
It isn’t so bad with Paige around, though. Violet is going to miss her, whenever she moves on to a real afterlife. (Or maybe one day she’ll just sink through the Earth’s crust. Who knows.) She has no idea why Paige is the only person who can see her, but…she’s glad that it was Paige.
She steps through the auditorium wall just as Paige takes a seat with her cello at the center of the stage. Paige glances around the audience, smiling blandly, then she sees Violet and lights up into a genuine smile.
Violet’s stomach twists – not into knots, not like before. No, it’s more like a…a swoop, sort of. It’s just the trick of the stage lights, bathing Paige in an ethereal glow and making her pretty dress shine – the dress that Violet had picked, and her stomach does another weird swoop – and her smile. Violet wants to keep her smile forever. She steps forward, because no one but Paige will see her, and lifts her hand in a wave—
And Derek steps right past her. Violet’s arm burns as he brushes against it, and she has to hang back and watch as he stops at the edge of the aisle, slightly out of breath with a bouquet of roses in his hands. Paige beams at him – her smile had always been for him – and takes her seat, and the conductor lifts his wand to begin.
Violet isn’t naïve, and she knows that she can’t be upset. She can’t be upset, and she can’t be jealous, and she can’t even hate Derek Whatshisface as he watches Paige with starry eyes. She knows this, because she knows that no matter what she wants, no matter how much her stomach swoops or Paige seems to care about her, there is no competition between Violet and Derek. Derek is alive, and Violet is dead. It is as simple as that.
Violet closes her eyes and lets the music wash over her. At least she’ll always have this. She loves listening to Paige play, after all.