The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker Read online

Felix raised his eyebrows. “I call it being gay. What do all those new letters stand for?”

  Harriet explained the most recent terminology to them, including something called demisexuality. Felix still didn’t know what to make of her – he didn’t really understand her at all – but there was something warm in his chest at the thought that she wasn’t straight. He was no longer the only one who was different. She was like him. However strange she was – that, at least, made him grateful she was here.

  Kasper jogged up to the window and climbed out onto the fire escape.

  He must have been running laps up and down the corridors, because he was shirtless. There was a scattering of small freckles across the tops of his shoulders, his collarbones and curling down the back of his neck. Remnants of a past life spent in the sun. The marks were so beautiful that Felix felt the pit of his stomach turning to liquid.

  “You all right?” Kasper asked them, panting, as he stretched out his hamstrings. Glowing pink, he wiped sweat off his brow with one forearm.

  “We were just talking about bisexuality,” Rima told him. “You know, being attracted to both men and women?” She watched Kasper carefully.

  Felix was amused. She clearly wanted Felix to deal with his thing for Kasper, but did she think this would help? Was she expecting Kasper to say, “Yes, Rima, you know, I am in fact bisexual myself. I also have a crush on Felix. I am going to kiss him!”

  Felix bit his lip, flushing. Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad. “You’re my universe, dude,” Kasper could say, maybe. Not that Felix had thought about it much.

  It had always been weird to him that you could think about someone as much as you wanted and they would have no idea. How could Kasper not see it on his face at every moment?

  Kasper shrugged, too busy looking at Harriet to pay attention. “I’ve, er, heard of it. I guess.”

  When Harriet met his gaze, his body language went … softer.

  Felix rolled his eyes at Rima, feeling exasperated.

  Harriet completed the image that Kasper wanted to present to the world: a sporty lads’ lad with an attractive girlfriend. This whole infatuation was just based on appearance – his own, as much as Harriet’s. Kasper was terrified to step outside the norm in any way.

  “I’m looking forward to our date tonight,” Kasper told Harriet. He rubbed at the hair on the back of his head, fluffing it up with his fingers. “Can I use your phone before the party starts? I want to make you a mixtape.”

  “Oh. Er, my phone’s battery died. Such a shame,” Harriet said in a voice so flat that it was almost a monotone. “A mixtape would have been lovely.”

  “Oh.” Kasper deflated. “Did the Shells break it?”

  “The Shells?” Harriet frowned, then sat bolt upright. “Oh. Oh. I have to go.”

  Seconds later, she was gone. Kasper collapsed onto the fire escape in a sulking heap. Felix tried not to watch him mope. He hated this.

  Let’s go back to the day that Rima, Kasper and Felix met, when Felix knocked Kasper’s alarm clock to the ground on moving-in day. Afterwards, Oscar had to persuade Felix not to delay uni and take a gap year to recover from his shame.

  When Felix got back to his room, the door to the bathroom was half open. Someone had moved into the adjoining bedroom.

  I was watching, of course. It would have been impossible to drag myself away. I’d been waiting for centuries. Nothing could have made me take my eyes off every move they made, trying to understand what was so special about these people.

  Kasper stuck his head around the door and said hello, making a joke about how organized the bedroom already was, compared to Kasper’s own. His friendly grin disappeared when Felix turned around.

  They both recognized each other at the same time. Kasper said, “Oh,” and Felix visibly blanched.

  “Listen,” Felix said, rubbing his palms on his thighs, “I’m so sorry about bumping into you earlier. I can pay for anything that broke.”

  “Forget about it. What are you studying, then?”

  “Computer Science. You?”

  “Art History,” Kasper said.

  “Um…” Felix wrinkled his nose. “What kind of job are you going to get with that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sounds like something you only do if you’ve not got to worry about money.”

  Kasper glared at him. “So you’re a snob, are you? I bet you think it’s only for dumb rich kids.”

  Felix folded his arms. “Well…”

  “You’re calling me stupid, too? You know what, you can pay for the clock after all,” Kasper bit out, his eyes hard. “It was thirty quid.”

  Felix grimaced. There was only a ten-pound gift voucher for WHSmith in his wallet. “Actually … I just put all my money on my uni account for meals.”

  Kasper snorted. “I should have known it was an empty offer. Thanks for nothing.”

  Three nights later, Felix lay in bed listening to the sound of Kasper and a girl through the thin wall. When Kasper ran into Felix the next morning, Felix couldn’t help but snap out a sarcastic comment about keeping the noise down next time. Kasper responded, “Just because you aren’t getting laid, doesn’t mean the rest of us need to hide it.”

  Felix had stopped talking to him completely after that. He hadn’t told anyone that he was gay yet. He’d got a pin badge at the university freshers’ fair that had PROUD to be at Warwick written in black curlicue letters over a pink triangle. He took it out every few nights. A few times, I saw him pin it onto his coat, leave it there overnight and then take it off and put it back in his drawer just before he left the room for his morning lectures.

  He was still waiting for the right person to tell when he’d died.

  HARRIET

  Striding up the stairs, Harriet left the group sunbathing on the fire escape. After the Tricksters had told her that she could steal a power from another ghost, they had sent her up to the fifth floor with a telekinetic ghost, who apparently owed the Tricksters a favour. The ghost had made her phone levitate, walking down to the basement with it.

  Harriet had only the smallest tinge of regret about losing the phone. It was a useful thing to have, but the information she had obtained in exchange was better. Though she couldn’t quite remember how she’d come to make the deal with Rufus and Vini. It was all a strange blur in her memory. At least Greg had been there to support her.

  Rufus had asked Harriet, with a smirk that she had refused to let scare her, whether there wasn’t anything which might make her consider staying in the basement with them. He had mentioned an intriguingly vague selection of “services” that she was “welcome to make use of”, if she stayed. She hadn’t asked for further information, shaking her head so vigorously her hair fell out of its bun.

  Ever since then, she had been wondering whether she could take a power from another ghost. It sounded easy and painless, but taking energy from another person was so personal. It was invasive. She had to get home though. She’d been telling herself for days that she’d do anything it took to get back to her family – and now she was backing out because it was suddenly getting too real? Her gran would disown her if she could see how pathetic Harriet was becoming.

  “Don’t let anything stop you, once your goal is in sight,” she had once told Harriet. “Other people will stomp you into the ground if they get the chance. You have to make sure you beat them to it.”

  She had still been wrestling with her dilemma when she’d found Felix and the girls. She was aching with curiosity about what had led to Claudia stealing someone’s energy, but hadn’t found a way to ask about it.

  She had surprised herself by actually enjoying the conversation. She hadn’t meant to reveal so much about herself to them. There had even been a moment when something had shifted in her chest, a strange bubbling sensation that she’d thought might be affection. Unnerved, she’d pushed it away. She couldn’t let herself grow closer to them. She might have to steal a power from one of them.

&nbs
p; Felix’s power would be useful, but he seemed to distrust her already. He wouldn’t even let her get close enough to give it a shot.

  Rima’s shapeshifting would be a handy power to have. But Rima had all these connections with people like Qi that might be useful, if Harriet kept her on side. Plus, she could get animal spirits for her if Harriet asked nicely.

  Meanwhile, Leah had said her power was too weak to work any more, and Kasper hadn’t even told her what his power was yet. He just kept staring at her with those big doe eyes, like he was inventing a love story in his head.

  She was going to have to let him down gently, if Felix had a thing for Kasper. She should have been paying better attention – she hadn’t even noticed that he liked him, but it made total sense now she knew.

  She could kick herself. Knowledge like that was invaluable for negotiations. She’d been focused on getting Rima and Kasper to help her by offering them the things they wanted most – friendship and romance. But in doing that, she’d forgotten to think about what Felix wanted most in all the world.

  Well, if Felix wanted Kasper, then he was welcome to him. She would have to turn Kasper down after their date. Felix’s hypnotism made him more useful than Kasper, in the long run.

  None of their powers were worth stealing. That left Claudia. The baby was apparently the only ghost here who’d taken someone’s power. All that wasted potential was just waiting for someone to come along who would appreciate it.

  While she was considering the awful possibility of taking Claudia’s energy, Kasper had mentioned the Shells. She’d completely forgotten about them. There was her answer, right in front of her. She had a ready-made power supply waiting on the fifth floor.

  The Shells couldn’t even use their powers any more. It wasn’t like it would hurt them, if she took some of their energy away. They might not even notice it. The Tricksters had said she would need to take all their energy, if she wanted to steal a power. But the Shells were so old and weak it would probably be easy.

  It would be fine, she was sure of it.

  On the fifth floor, wind gusted through broken windows, sending dust into spirals. Harriet herded the Shells into a crowd. There were eight in total. She had no way of knowing what powers they had, so she’d just have to choose one at random and hope for the best. Any power was better than nothing at all.

  Before she could chicken out, she grabbed a girl with curly hair, sucking down her energy, open-mouthed. It was like a dam had been released. The energy rolled in a wave through her body, and it kept coming and coming and coming.

  She shuddered, tilting her head back. The golden haze of potent energy thrummed in her blood. How would she know whether she’d taken the power yet?

  The girl convulsed, and a high-pitched, pained whine burst from her throat. Harriet held on tight, desperately trying to chew down more energy.

  She had only meant to take her power, but now her mind was blissfully blank. Even as it poured into her in an endless gust, it wasn’t enough to sate her. The Shell’s chest collapsed in on itself, a wormhole of swirling atoms that disintegrated under Harriet’s touch. A grating noise of pain was still coming from the girl’s mouth.

  Harriet tore at her neck to get more energy. It pulsed under her skin, starting to burn now, like the shocking heat of a hot bath when you first step into the water. Her nerves were on fire, but she kept going. She couldn’t stop.

  Around them, the other Shells wailed in a chorus of mournful commiseration. Harriet shook their fingers off her shoulders. The Shell was almost gone, and she couldn’t stop until she’d gathered every last drop.

  Too quickly, it was over. The Shell disintegrated, her atoms spreading through the air. Harriet’s arms were empty. The girl with the curly hair, a long-forgotten student of Mulcture Hall, was nothing more than a memory and a boost in Harriet’s cells.

  She threw the other Shells across the room, with a strength she’d never imagined possible. Her skin was bursting, like it would split under the swollen richness of the energy.

  Harriet stumbled across the wrecked room to the window, gasping down cold, fresh air. The buzzing feeling inside her had changed from thrilling to frightening. She fell to the ground, wishing she’d asked Rufus and Vini how to control the energy before it fried her flesh.

  Curled in a shivering ball on the floor, Harriet braced herself against the painful burn. She was going to disintegrate. She couldn’t possibly survive this. What had she done?

  This is what the Tricksters do. They lend you enough rope to hang yourself, and then charge interest on it. Harriet thinks she’s forging her own path, but these moments have been planned for a long time. Nothing can be done to stop this now.

  My father used to say that you have to find what people fear the most and focus your attention there, even if there are easier, weaker links. He said that it’s worth spending the time trying to break people open in a way that will last. Then you only have to do it once. He planned everything he did meticulously, and then made it look like it was all a spur-of-the-moment decision. People would carry on underestimating him, that way.

  Harriet isn’t at that level yet. She’s trying, but she lacks experience.

  The Tricksters clearly had their reasons for telling Harriet how to take a power. I’m not even sure they gained anything from this chaos, except for the visceral satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re responsible for another person’s destruction.

  I’ve known Rufus for a long time, and he’s always been this way – just like his brother. If other people are unhappy, then he’s satisfied. By the end of all this, he’s going to have made Harriet truly miserable.

  Chapter 9

  HARRIET

  When Harriet opened her eyes, days or hours or minutes later, the sky was dark. Her entire body ached, like her flesh had been attacked with a meat tenderizer.

  She tried to move her arms, but a searing, scalding pain ran down her muscles. She wanted to sleep for three months. This must be what being electrocuted felt like. Being electrocuted whilst running a full marathon. Dehydrated. Post-surgery. Her mouth tasted of chemicals. She fell back into a deep sleep.

  When she woke up a second time, the pain had gone. This time, she felt … fantastic. Better than fantastic – invulnerable. The thrilling feeling had come back once more. Harriet let out a giddy, overjoyed laugh; shouting it into the night sky.

  She had done it! She had absorbed a Shell’s energy!

  She had done it.

  The Shell had disintegrated, which was disappointing. She’d expected to be able to pull the Shell’s power free, leaving the girl to drift aimlessly around the fifth floor like before. Instead, the Shell had dissolved into nothing.

  But … they were brain-dead anyway, weren’t they? It was euthanization, really. If she gained a new power from it, then it had to be a worthwhile sacrifice. Anything to get home.

  The Shell had tasted so good, too. Better than anything she’d eaten when she was alive. Nicer, even, than that first rat spirit. Harriet had always struggled with food. Her gran had never been a good cook – leaving meat slightly raw and drowning food in bizarre sauces and gravies that she’d invented. She’d just said Harriet had a sensitive stomach and certain things made her feel woozy, but Harriet had never managed to pin down what exactly she was allergic to. The Shell’s energy had been a revelation.

  Closing her eyes, she tested her control to see if she had gained a power. Nothing was different, but then, her body was still exhausted. Meanwhile, her mind was racing.

  In the distance, the university tower’s clock struck eleven. Somehow, she had found her way onto the remains of the concrete-clad rooftop, alone under the stars. It was peaceful, with only the sound of the wind blowing through the rotting rafters.

  She was supposed to be meeting Kasper for their date at the Halloween party soon. A party suddenly seemed like the best idea ever. She needed to do something with this high of victory and energy and adrenaline. She had never felt this good.r />
  KASPER

  Kasper felt light enough to float up to the ceiling. He was actually going out with Harriet on a legit date. Squinting into his cracked bathroom mirror, he readjusted his fringe so that it stuck up, then nudged it so it fell over his eye. He wished he could still use hair gel. It was so much harder to sculpt without it.

  Ineffectually, he tried to pat the creases out of his shirt and peered out of the window to see if it had stopped raining. The Halloween party had to go perfectly. He’d been preparing all day. Rima had helped him to memorize the patterns of the constellations, and he was ready to point them out to Harriet.

  He’d also managed to make a trade with one of the ghosts who lived on the floor below him. In exchange for a future favour, the third-floorer had grown some of Harriet’s favourite flowers to decorate the room. Basically, it was gonna be freaking flawless. It would be right in a way that things had never been with any of the other girls in the building.

  There was a space inside him that craved and ached for someone who was his. Someone who turned to him first; who loved him most. He had been consumed with a low-level loneliness for so long now that he had forgotten how anything else felt. Sometimes his stomach fizzled just talking to Felix, which had to be a sign that he needed to start dating again.

  Maybe Harriet needed someone as much as he did. He had only known her for a few days, but she was special.

  They had arranged to meet in his room. When the clock tower struck eleven, a deep fear rose from where he’d buried it. What if she stood him up?

  To his relief, she stuck her head through the door a few minutes later. She had dressed up, too. She was bright with energy – in fact, she was almost glowing with it. She’d somehow transformed her grey shirt into a more elegant formal look; tying her scarf around her waist like a belt and adding some sort of twist to the side of her shirt.

  “Your, er—” he waved at her hair, which she’d managed to manipulate into a plaited twist. “Looks nice.”