The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill
Sandra McDonald
Copyright 2003 by Sandra McDonald
Smashwords Edition
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Dead girls in Rumney hang out at the old mill behind the oil farms that line the creek. Dead boys haunt the abandoned paint factory down where the water widens and circles the airport. Come down to the mill or the factory and you might feel the squeeze of our fingers on your hand or hear the wind sigh as we argue over who cheated at hopscotch or rock-paper-scissors or hide-and-seek. Come when the tide is high or the moon is full, and maybe you'll even see faint shadows in the shapes of our profiles.
To the living, the mill is a decrepit old dump with blood-colored paint flaking off the sides. To us it's a dreamy maze of secrets. Sunlight and moonlight stream through windows that are sometimes broken and sometimes intact. The grindstone never moves, except on the nights when the mill itself travels back in time and workers with long beards appear out of nowhere. They barrel up spices, load up their wagons and drive off into dark mists. Sometimes the city of Rumney disappears entirely, leaving behind skittering crabs, red-tailed hawks and the occasional rustle of Pawtucket Indians in the grass. And us, of course.
My name is Pauline. I was thirteen when my asthma got so bad that I stopped breathing right in the middle of history class. Sheila's fourteen and she likes to pester the night watchman over at the oil farm by moving his keys or rustling his newspaper. Eight-year-old Lisa accompanies her sometimes, always carrying the doll her parents gave her when she got sick with diabetes. The twins, Wendy and Peggy, died a year apart back when measles used to kill a lot of children. (Peggy will often scratch at her face and neck until we make her stop.) Younger than the twins is the Silent Girl, who wears a hair cap, keeps to the shadows and never speaks.