purple-black. It completely obscured her face, like a ghost in a scary movie, and when she brushed her hair to the side, she didn’t look at him. “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
A few seconds later, she returned. She showed him a Polaroid picture of her bedroom. “Have you ever heard of an author named Nathaniel Olmstead?”
“Yeah,” said Timothy, unsure what the author had to do with the Polaroid. “I’ve read some of his books. Totally creepy.”
“I used to be obsessed with them. My favorite was The Revenge of the Nightmarys.”
“I didn’t read that one.”
“It was about this gang of evil ghost girls. The book was so popular, they came out with trading cards. I collected them all.”
“I saw those once at the comic-book store with Stuart,” said Timothy, handing the photo back to Abigail. Suddenly, Timothy felt guilty, like he should be at the hospital. “I think he actually bought a pack. What do they have to do with anything?”
She plopped herself down on the edge of the bathtub and pulled the lighter out of her pocket. She lit it. “My father’s lighter,” she said. “I wanted him to stop smoking, so I stole it from him before we left New Jersey. I didn’t actually think it would change anything. Fire is one of the easiest things in the world to find. I guess it was more of a symbolic gesture?” The flame flickered as she breathed on it. “Like, if he realized that I was the one who took it from him, he might know that I still think about him every day, and even though we don’t see each other anymore, the fact that I stole it would matter to him so much that he would stop smoking altogether…. Stupid.” She held the flame underneath the Polaroid. The paper slowly caught fire. “The funny thing is, he hasn’t mentioned that it’s missing.” She tossed the photograph into the bathtub behind her, where it curled up, black and dead. Seconds later, the flame fizzled out in a hiss of weak smoke.
Abigail finally looked up again. Her newly black hair hung down at either side of her face. Her eyes seemed to change, to sharpen. She smiled, and whispered, “I’m such an idiot.” She waited a moment, then, as if an afterthought, hitched a quick breath and added, “I thought I could hide.”
That last sentence gave Timothy chills. “Hide?” he said. “From who?”
“That’s the real reason I dyed my hair.”
“You dyed your hair to hide from your father?”
“No, Timothy. I’m telling you something else now. You told me, and now I’m telling you.”
“Telling me what?”
“About the Nightmarys.”
18.
Growing up in Clifton, New Jersey, Abigail Tremens actually had friends—not many, but enough to keep busy after school.
Things changed the summer before sixth grade, when two new girls moved into Abigail’s neighborhood. They both happened to be named Mary. Oddly, Mary Brown was white, and Mary White was black; they were both beautiful. The two Marys formed an immediate bond. They liked the same music and food and clothes. They seemed to know each other’s thoughts. Abigail had never shared anything quite like it with any of her friends, and she wondered what it might feel like to be that close with someone.
At the beginning of September that year, the two Marys began to make their mark at Clifton Middle School. For some reason, they ignored Abigail. Unfortunately, the girls in her class listened when the Marys spoke. The boys with whom Abigail usually played games after school stopped inviting her to join in. Abigail began to feel as invisible as air. Soon she was sitting by herself at lunch and walking home from school alone. Together, the Marys were an entity, the likes of which Abigail had never seen before. She didn’t like it, and she decided she didn’t like them. So Abigail gave them a taste of their own medicine.
She made up a nasty name for the two girls: the Nightmarys, of course. To Abigail’s horror, the girls liked it, and it stuck. They wore it like a badge of honor. Abigail quickly grew tired of the nickname. The Nightmarys request your attention during lunch period, Janet Holm had told Harriet Lincoln during English class. The Nightmarys told me I look pretty today, Beth Reid cooed to herself in the bathroom mirror. The Nightmarys told me to tell you that they’re having a party, and you’re not invited, Mike Swenson had cruelly informed Abigail one Friday afternoon. She’d gone