scarymary.sahunter.netScary Mary

Welcome! You've arrived at , an online young adult novel about a high school girl who hears ghosts. There are several ways to read this story. The easiest and most immediate way is accessing it through this site, starting at Chapter 1 . There is a table of contents on the sidebar, and all chapters link to the next for easy navigation. If you like, comment posting is also available. No account is needed. I try to respond to comments in a timely fashion. You can also download the story for FREE from several different vendors. First there's Smashwords who has several different formats of available. There's also Barnes and Noble for the Nook. The iBookstore has it too for your Apple devices. Finally you can get it on your Kindle from Amazon. What are people saying about ? "Color me hooked." Indie Paranormal Book Reviews. "Go read this now." Donna Sirianni, Web Fiction Guide "I fell in love with Mary Hellick on page one." LK Gardner-Griffie, LL Book Review "The story is finely crafted, solid entertainment," Clayton Bye, The Deepening And here's an interview I did at Books and Bites about . And here's an interview I did over at ErgoFiction . WARNING: Comments may contain spoilers! I've had some copyright issues lately so am forced to put here: © 2012 by S.A. Hunter This work may not be duplicated or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Posted by S.A. Hunter 45 comments Chapter 1 Hello, Leave Me Alone Mary’s steps echoed down the locker-lined hall-way. Doors whisked shut as she passed. She caught snippets as the doors closed: Welcome back for a new school year; hope everyone had a nice summer; please turn to page sixty-four. She’d been in one of those classrooms; bored out of her mind and doodling pentagrams onto the cover of her spiral notebook. She wished that she still were. When she shoved the door to the guidance counselors’ suite of offices, it bounced off the door stop and startled the attendance secretary Mrs. Higgins. Mary marched past the scowling secretary to Mr. Landa’s office. She raised her hand to knock, but it opened before her fist could fall. Mr. Landa greeted her with an already weary smile. "Welcome back, Mary." She put her fist on her hip. “Who gets called to the guidance office on the first day of freaking school?” Mr. Landa’s smile didn’t falter as he held the door open for her. She rolled her eyes and ducked by him. From behind the desk, a disembodied female voice said, “I’m so sorry, Mary. I tried to stop him from summoning you. I hid his pass pad. Made all of his pens leak. I even banged his knees with the desk drawers. I can’t believe he had the office secretary call you over the P.A. system. Whatever happened to student confidentiality?” As she took a seat, she flashed a smile toward Mrs. Brown, or at least, where she thought Mrs. Brown was judging from where her voice emanated. Mary couldn’t tell exactly because she couldn’t see her. Mrs. Brown was a ghost. She haunted Mr. Landa’s desk. Mr. Landa didn’t know his desk was haunted. He just thought it was a vexing piece of junk. Mrs. Brown had been a school nurse. The desk had been hers when she’d been alive. It wasn’t unusual for schools to reuse furniture. It also meant that it wasn’t unusual for schools to have ghosts. Once, Mr. Landa turned on the white noise machine by the door and flipped his sign to ‘In Session’, he took his seat. “I called you down here because we need to talk. Ready for the new school year?” Mary slouched down into the chair. “No, but ready or not, right?” Mr. Landa shuffled the papers on his desk. “I hope this year is good for you. What did you do over the summer?” “The usual. Talked to ghosts. Cavorted with demons. Worked on my tan.” Her answer made him pause. He took a moment to process it and looked at her. Her skin was pearly white. “Well…I’m glad you had a productive summer. I called you in today because I wanted to touch base with you on a few things.” She frowned at him. “And you couldn’t wait until after the first day of school?” He gave her a wry smile. “I did wait. It’s second period. I thought about calling you out of first.” "He’s not joking.” Mary slouched down further in her chair. Mr. Landa flipped open her file. “All right, let’s not have a repeat of last year, shall we? First, no beaning boys in the head with soft balls.” She shrugged. “I can’t help it that he didn’t duck.” Mrs. Brown tsked. “You broke that boy’s nose.” “No spiking girls’ milks with Ex-Lax .” “Did the janitors ever manage to unclog that toilet?” “No more threatening to shrink freshmen’s heads.” Mary’s eyes snapped up. “Now come on! You’ve got to leave me something!” Mr. Landa closed the file. “This is a warning Mary, either shape up, or you’ll be expelled and that would be a terrible shame, seeing how you’ve made it to your junior year. Your grades are good. We know you deserve to be here. Try to work with us.” “I heard Mr. Landa talking to Principal Hoke. She wants to expel you. He had to promise to keep a very close eye on you.” This was one of the problems with Mrs. Brown haunting Mr. Landa’s desk. Sometimes there was justification for the guidance counselor’s meddling, though Mary would have been happy not knowing it. “I’ll do my best,” she said, but her voice didn’t hold much promise. Not all of Mary’s transgressions were strictly her fault. Her bad deeds were not done to innocent victims. She’d broken the football player’s nose with the softball because he’d been ragging on her for the past four days. He’d been asking her if she liked corpses. Did their cold bodies make her hot? Did she drink her own menstrual blood? Disgusting stuff like that. The coaches had heard a lot of it, but they didn’t tell him to quit it. Fact was some of them had snickered at his comments. When she’d seen her chance to shut him up, she’d taken it. He never asked her any more questions. Ditto for the girl and freshmen. They should’ve listened when she told them to shut up. “Very good. You know people would be a lot nicer to you if you let them.” Mrs. Brown took in a sharp breath. Even she knew that was a lie. Mary’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened. “You want ME to be nicer? Nicer to the teachers who ignore everything until I do something? Or the vice principals who always assume I’m the troublemaker? Or maybe you mean my classmates who are all oh so friendly and nice as they sneer and insult me?” “Mary...” Mrs. Brown warned. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Mary, have you ever tried just telling those that upset you to stop? I know it sounds too simple and couldn’t possibly work, but maybe you should try it.” “Oh, just ask nicely and say please?” He nodded. “What could it hurt?” Mary straightened and dropped her jaw in fake amazement. “Wow! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll just say please and thank you, and the world will be a better place!” He peered over his glasses at her. “Tell me, has what you’ve been doing worked any better?” She crossed her arms and looked away. “Just try it once and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, you’ll at least know for sure.” “I have tried being nice. ‘Please don’t call me that. Please give me my teddy bear back. Please don’t push me. Please don’t kick me. Please stop throwing rocks at me.’ They just laughed, and the teachers just watched.” “And how old were you when all that happened?” She hunched over and stared at the floor. “I was six.” “Don’t you think they’ve changed by now?” “No, they’ve just gotten bigger rocks.” “Now, I know children didn’t actually throw rocks at you while your teachers watched.” Her jaw tightened. This was another reason why seeing Mr. Landa was stupid. He rarely believed her when she told him real stuff. “They did.” “No teacher would stand by and watch a child be abused like that.” “You’re right. Mrs. Haversham turned away when it began.” He shook his head. He didn’t believe her. She clenched her fists to keep herself in check. It wouldn’t do to get emot...