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The first rays of early morning sunlight filtered through the trees, the fresh-fallen snow glistening in its light. The leaves carpeting the forest floor were crispy with frost, covered in a light dusting of snow from the night’s fall. There, hidden among the trees, the sunlight gently falling on her snow-covered body, was Lucy Gray.
Her body lay, unmoving, not at all dressed for the cold weather that had swept through the town overnight. The tips of her fingers and nose were pink with cold, and her once bright skin was dulled. She lay gently, like a painting in a gallery, still beautiful in the early morning light, but unmistakably dead.
Lucy Gray opened her eyes and squinted in the bright light. She didn’t remember falling asleep, much less falling asleep outside. In the middle of a forest she didn’t think she’d ever seen before in her life. What happened last night? How did she get here? She had very little memory of anything before waking up, but she knew it wasn’t right. Something was severely amiss.
She sat up, taking in her surroundings. All things considered; it was a lovely sight to behold. It must have snowed during the night whilst she was sleeping – a light dusting of powdery snow covered the ground. Although if it had been snowing, surely it would be colder? She couldn’t even see her breath clouding in the air. She was still wearing her sleeveless dress from the night before, yet she couldn’t even feel a chill on her bare arms.
It was strange. She had woken up in the middle of the woods with very hazy memory and unable to feel the cold that was surely in the air. She thought hard about the night before. It was a vague blur of glitter and dim lights and music, laughter and singing her voice hoarse with her family. A glimpse of red hair in the audience, eyes fixed on her as she twirled around on the stage. A sharp breath of cold air and the heavy mists of the midnight darkness as she’d stepped outside… and the girl. She’d been there, too.
The girl who’d haunted her show. Lucy Gray had never seen her before, but her cousin Barb Azure said she’d seen her around, hanging out in the shadows, always watching intently. Something about her had just entranced Lucy Gray, and she’d found herself drawn back to her icy stare all night. She’d felt a strangely empty space when the girl had left before their encore but hadn’t thought too much of it – she had a show to put on, and if performing wasn’t her number one priority then she was six feet under.
She buried her head into her hands. She was missing something. Something had happened when she’d gone outside after the show, something important, and she couldn’t for the life of her think what it was. It was a hazy blur, like a long-forgotten memory of the past – except it had only happened last night. God, she didn’t think she’d even drank a drop last night either.
Absently, she realised she should probably phone Barb Azure. Her cousin was always stressed, and Lucy Gray’s sudden albeit random disappearance would have sent her crazy, Lucy Gray was sure of it. She was about to reach for her cell when she realised that she was still in her performance outfit – she didn’t have pockets. She didn’t have anything of value on her, as a matter of fact. Just her gemstones glinting in the morning sunlight and the feathers in her silky hair. She sighed. What was the use sitting on the snowy forest floor all alone with hazy memory when she could be on her way home? What did it matter what had happened last night, anyway? She’d rather be tucked up in a blanket by the fire with a steaming cup of cocoa right now than sat in what she supposed was the freezing cold.
Coming to this conclusion, she stood up, dusting off her skirts and adjusting them. Her legs were bare other than her boots, and it still confused her that she wasn’t cold. She looked around, trying to gauge her surroundings, wondering which way might lead to home. She looked back to where she’d just been sat and stopped short.
Lucy Gray was still lying in the snow, like a pretty painting she remembered seeing in a gallery. Except Lucy Gray couldn’t be lying in the snow, because she was stood right there. Staring at her own body. Was she… dead?
All of a sudden it seemed clear to her. The weird haze covering her memories cleared, and she remembered. She remembered going outside after the show, cold biting her bare arms. She remembered talking to the girl, her cold hands hovering over Lucy Gray’s… it was her. She had done this. Her and her icy gaze and her aura of mystery that had lured Lucy Gray in, trapped her, taken her. Lucy Gray was going to find her. If she had taken Lucy Gray’s very life, then god damn it Lucy Gray was going to haunt the hell out of her.
She turned away from her body, shuddering. She knew she should probably do something about it – but what could she do? She didn’t know the limits of her newfound ghostliness yet – could she even touch anything? Plus she didn’t really want to think about her own lifeless corpse. The girl must have dumped it after killing her – Lucy Gray was starting to like this girl less and less. It was unfortunate that she was so oddly entrancing. But Lucy Gray wouldn’t fall to her ever again.
Now she was vaguely sure of who had caused her death – but how had she died? Her memories from the night were still kind of fuzzy, but she didn’t remember being attacked, and she hadn’t eaten or drank anything that could have been poisoned. Shuddering, she realised that to find out her cause of death she’d probably have to take a much closer look at her own dead body. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was to get any closer, even if it was technically… herself? Did she really want to know that badly? For all she knew, she could’ve just drunk something bad and stumbled into the woods before passing out – that would explain her hazy memories. Perhaps it had been the girl from the bar, perhaps not, but Lucy Gray was determined to find out. She had no idea how she was going to track her down, however.
Looking around at her surroundings, Lucy Gray figured that her best bet was to just pick a direction and hope for the best. She didn’t recognise this forest at all, but it couldn’t be too far from the village. The snow covering everything didn’t much help either. As she surveyed the scene, she realised that the snow added yet another possible cause of her untimely death. If she’d somehow ended up passed out in the woods in her performing clothes on the night of the first fall of snow, she could have very easily frozen to death. She decided the most likely route was to walk back the way she had been facing and hope she came across a landmark.
She began walking, leaving her snow-covered body behind. She didn’t leave any footprints – it was as if she wasn’t even there. In fact, she wasn’t sure what her circumstances actually meant for her. Would anybody be able to see her? Or was she trapped alone between the world of the living and the world of the dead forever? At least now the lack of cold made sense, she thought. She started to make a mental list of what she could and couldn’t do now she was a spirit haunting the woods – and physical feeling was not one of them.
She trudged out of the snow-covered forest (being able to float was still a little too weird for her) and stumbled upon the tiny graveyard that was home to pretty much everybody who had ever died in this little town. Including her, soon, she thought. Lucy Gray still hadn’t completely come to terms with the fact that she had quite literally died last night. She always thought she’d go out in a more dramatic way – dropping dead on stage after someone slipped something in her drink, tragically dying from a bullet wound, hell, she’d even thought the stories of gladiators dying in the arena wouldn’t be a terrible way to go. Not drained of her blood in the back of an old bar after a show, fading into nothing more than an old folk tale about the girl who disappeared.
The wind whistled in the air around her as she lamented, blowing the leaves into a swirl toward the middle of the graveyard. Thank goodness she’d reached a landmark she recognised. At least now she knew where she was – not far from the village at all. Her mission was still to find the girl from the bar. Lucy Gray didn’t know if finding that girl would answer any of her questions, but it was a start.
In the centre of the graveyard stood an old crumbling mausoleum, covered in moss and vines of ivy. The village people rarely visited the graveyard, only when they absolutely must, so the mausoleum had quickly fallen into disrepair. Nobody knew how old it was. Behind the overgrown walls of foliage were two large wooden doors, the lock rusted shut. It was impossible to enter – if there had been a key, it was surely long gone. Whatever had once resided inside the building, if anything at all, was a mystery, and not one anyone was eager to uncover anytime soon.
Lucy Gray stopped outside the mausoleum. Somehow, between her waking up in the snow and her arriving at the graveyard, an entire day had passed, and the sun was beginning to set in the distance. Momentarily, she debated going inside the creepy old mausoleum. She could pass through walls, surely. The night-time was not the best time to track down the girl that may or may not have caused her death, either. She didn’t even know what she was going to do if she ever found that girl – would she even be able to see Lucy Gray? What kind of a ghost even was she? As she sat on a bench contemplating her existence, the wooden shutters on the mausoleum window creaked, as if trying to open. She watched them warily. Surely it was just the wind, or the creaking of an old, dilapidated building?
Her theorising was immediately dashed as the shutters slammed open. Outwards, as if someone had pushed them from the inside. Was whoever was buried there awakening from the dead? Lucy Gray supposed she couldn’t talk, having woken from the dead only that morning. Her eyes fixed on the newly opened window, she watched as a hand emerged and grabbed the ledge. A body followed, and soon a figure emerged, jumping from the window, and landing gracefully on the stony path. Lucy Gray stared in disbelief. Did somebody… live in the mausoleum?
She barely had time to get over her initial shock of the creepy old building being inhabited when she finally got a good look at the person.
“There is no way…” she murmured to herself. She was almost certain that the person happened to be the very same one she was focused on trying to track down. The girl from her show last night. The girl she thought might have killed her.
A wave of anger washed over her, clouding her vision. She got up from her bench and stormed over, to the girl’s visible shock.
“What is this?” she proclaimed angrily, hoping that she was the visible kind of ghost. Luckily, from the shock and horror on the girl’s face, it seemed that way. “What the hell did you do to me? I know it was you.”
The girl stared at her. She was dressed head to toe in black, as if she had been trying to blend in with the shadows. She certainly had not been expecting a verbal attack in the middle of a graveyard. She blinked slowly, as if to make sure she was seeing things properly.
“What the fuck is going on…” she muttered to herself, loud enough for Lucy Gray to hear. Louder, she responded. “I could ask you the same question… how are you even here? You’re not supposed to…”
“Supposed to what? Be alive?” Lucy Gray snapped.
“Well…” the girl held up her hands in surrender. “Yeah, I suppose not.”
Lucy Gray sighed angrily. “So you did kill me last night, huh? Didn’t expect to have to deal with the consequences of that?”
Her hands were still up as she gestured suddenly at Lucy Gray’s words. “Woah, woah, woah. I’m gonna need you to slow down. If you’re dead, like you’re supposed to be… why are you here? How are you here?”
“Well, I’d imagine I’m some kind of ghost.” She said, rolling her eyes. “Unless, you know, I just imagined the whole thing.”
The girl still looked confused – in fact, more confused than Lucy Gray had expected. She began muttering under her breath again, yet still not too quiet for Lucy Gray to not be able to hear.
“I have never heard of this happening before…”
Before? Lucy Gray could hardly believe her ears. This implied that this girl was a repeat offender – an experienced killer. The only reason she had suspected her in the first place was because this girl had been the last person Lucy Gray remembered seeing – that was all. She would never had guessed that she was practiced in the act of murder. Sure, her whole vibe was kind of mysterious and edgy, but Lucy Gray had just assumed that was some kind of persona. But now she was hanging around in a graveyard talking about her previous accounts of murder… who was this girl?
Lucy Gray interrupted the girl’s musings quickly. “Hold on. You know who I am. But who the fuck are you? My cousin said she’d seen you around the bars before, and now you’re telling me you’ve killed people before…”
The girl laughed. “What makes you think I would tell you anything about myself?”
“Well, you did kill me. I think I’m kind of entitled to it…”
She paused for a minute, and a look of guilt flitted across her face, her eyes darkening. She sighed. “Fine. My name is Coral. And I’m not a murderer. I kill for necessity.”
Coral. Such a pretty name. Such a shame a pretty name and a pretty face was wasted on a monster, Lucy Gray thought.
“Necessity? How can you even begin to justify literally taking people’s lives?”
“I need their blood to live. Is it not obvious?”
Lucy Gray thought about it. Barb Azure had only ever seen her in the bars, at night. She had such a dark aura about her that Lucy Gray just hadn’t been able to forget. She had met Lucy Gray out the back of the bar, in the frosty air, alone, with nothing but her cigarette – and Lucy Gray hadn’t been able to feel any kind of pain from a wound. Now here they were, in a graveyard, of all places, talking about how Coral needs to kill to survive.
“I know what you are.”
“Say it. Out loud.”
“…vampire.”