Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading this story and reviewing and alerting it. I'm glad people seem to enjoy it. I'm loving all the theories and questions I'm getting. I can't answer them, but I like them haha. As always, I hope you enjoy and please do let me know what you think.
Chapter Four
"Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse."
H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature
Rachel Berry quickly decided that both the library at school and the library in town needed new reading material, particularly regarding the paranormal. All she had found was a handful of books that told her virtually nothing about the situation she was in with Santana and a working but useless knowledge of Helltown, Ohio, a place she hadn't even known existed. The internet had also been of very little help. Rachel wasn't even sure what she should be searching for.
dead classmate walks among the living; ghost with a body that can only be seen by one person; being haunted by someone who hated you when they were alive; can you physically touch ghosts; dead but not really; what do you do with a dead person; hallucinations; mental instability
Rachel was completely out of her element and she knew it. She wasn't even sure how to define what Santana was and how she even existed; she didn't know how to explain it, let alone how to find answers to her unexplainable questions. All she had really found were stories from people seeing apparitions and scary spirits, anecdotes from ghosthunters about hauntings and murderous otherworldly creatures, stories from men and women who saw their dead spouses wandering through the house and heard them whispering in their ear at night. None of these applied to Santana, not as far as Rachel could tell – Santana was definitely dead, but she wasn't see-through and she wasn't murderous (well no more than she had been while alive); she didn't drift into Rachel's bedroom at night and knock on her walls from inside them.
She walked towards the cemetery slowly, kicking up the fallen leaves in her path. They were a mix of browns, reds, yellows, and oranges and she was captivated by the sight of them swirling in the wind and crunching beneath her feet.
Did Santana have unfinished business? she wondered. Should she call a psychic or a medium? That's what they always did in horror movies, after all. Rachel considered it, but then she realized that she didn't even know if Lima had anyone with claimed connections to supposed other worlds.
Sighing, Rachel pushed the gate open, grimacing when it creaked embarrassingly loud. She didn't know why the sound bothered her, but it seemed unnatural that there should be such noise in such a sacred place. Cemeteries were meant to be quiet and serene places, places where people could come and grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones without interruption or distraction.
There was an old man standing over the grave of someone – his wife maybe – with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets. He was whispering to himself, praying, and Rachel weaved around him, walking as silently as she could amid the crispy fallen leaves scattered across her path. She was rows away from him, but when she passed him, he looked up at her. He had clear blue eyes and they made her think of the sky in spring time, when the first sign of green grass and flowers start to appear and the world feels like hope instead of sunless sadness. He nodded at her, his cap sliding down his head a little bit, and left as she continued to walk past him.
Looking around, Rachel didn't see anyone. "Santana?" she called out. There was no answer. She made her way to Santana's gravestone, trying to decide once again whether or not she was losing her mind. She was also trying to decide whether or not to talk about her graveyard encounters with her therapist, who would likely either give her cognitive perspective on what she was experiencing or throw her in an institution.
And then she spotted feet, ankles peeking out from the other side of Santana's tombstone. All she could see were black flats standing out against the brown-green grass on the other side of the granite. She took a deep breathe and steadied herself. Something was wrong, something she could feel in her gut.
Rachel took tentative steps towards the stone. Slowly, the length of the legs started to become more visible the closer she got. They were an ashy white grey color, the skin loosely hanging on to the bones below it. Closer still and the legs disappeared under the hem of a skirt. It was plaid, a mix of warm reds and oranges and browns meant to capture the essence of fall.
It was familiar. It was too familiar.
She paused, smoothing down the pleats on her own skirt, a plaid mix of warm reds and oranges and browns meant to capture the essence of fall. Rachel took a deep breathe, steeling herself. She stood there and the leaves crunched behind her. But she hadn't moved – she was completely stationary and there were leaves being stepped on behind her and god, that was her skirt, the one she was wearing.
"Hey."
"Oh my god," she cried, whipping around and putting her hand over her heart.
Santana raised her hands up. "Whoa," she said. "Easy there, Berry."
Rachel exhaled shakily, inhaling again several times. She glanced behind her, seeing only dying fall grass behind the tombstone with Santana's name on it. The feet, the legs, the skirt – they were all gone.
"You okay?" Santana asked. "What was that about?"
Rachel shook her head uneasily, looking around. She saw no other bodies around them, living or dead. It was quiet and solitary, as a cemetery should be. "It was nothing," she said. "I've just been feeling a bit spooked lately."
Santana shrugged. "Yeah, well," she paused. "That's life?"
"So it appears," Rachel said. "Things have been infinitely stranger since you showed up here."
"Oh, sorry about that," Santana quipped, crossing her arms. "My first thought when I realized I was dead was 'hmm how can I use this to mess with Rachel Berry?'"
Rachel crossed her own arms, biting back a reply. She felt colder the longer she stood with Santana and wished that she had worn something besides a skirt and tights. "I think I've just been reading too much about ghosts and the supernatural. While I wouldn't say that any of the stories particularly scared me, they have left me a bit on edge."
Santana's expression changed from annoyance to a sort of casual interest. "Did you find anything out?"
Rachel's response was solemn. "No," she said. "I tried all the books at school and at the public library. I even tried searching online. But to be honest, Santana, I'm not entirely sure what I should be looking for. I don't understand anything about what's happening."
"Well I know about as much as you do," Santana answered. At Rachel's look of doubt, she bit her lip. "Really, Rachel, I'm about as lost as you are."
Santana shrugged again, her gaze drifting towards the ground. She kicked at a few of the leaves in front of her and Rachel saw that Santana really was just as lost as she was. Maybe the taller brunette was even more lost, Rachel thought, because after all, she wasn't even supposed to be there.
"Maybe you could tell me a little bit more about what things are like for you?" Rachel tried, knowing that what she did know was infinitesimal and led nowhere. "For example, are you always here, in the cemetery? I didn't see you when I came in and you didn't follow me and Quinn yesterday."
In what was becoming a familiar pattern for the two of them, they sat down on the grass near Santana's tombstone. Rachel decided then that she was definitely going to have to start wearing pants, if only so she stopped ruining her tights. Santana tore some of the grass up, twisting it in her fingers and ripping it into pieces.
"I – I don't know. I guess I'm always here," Santana said, "maybe."
Rachel's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"
Santana looked thoughtful for a moment. "I guess I'm always here," she mused. "It's hard to tell. Sometimes, I'll see you or I'll see Quinn or Tina or someone else, and then you'll leave. And I'll be by myself for a bit. And then it's –" she stopped.
Rachel waited patiently for a moment, watching Santana's face scrunch up. "It's," she drawled out, prompting her.
"You know how when you go to bed at night and you lay there for a little bit with your eyes closed and you start to drift off?" Santana asked. Rachel nodded. "And like, you're kind of awake and asleep at the same time - your eyes are closed and maybe you're starting to dream but you're awake and you can feel it? And then suddenly, you're opening your eyes again and it's morning and you didn't even know that you'd fallen asleep in the first place?"
"It's called hypnagogia, I think," Rachel said. "It occurs while you're transitioning between the states of wakefulness and sleep."
"Well, it's kind of like that," Santana responded. "I'll see one of you and then I'll just wander around here for a bit. And then I'll close my eyes and when I open then, there one of you is again. But you're wearing different clothes and there are more leaves on the ground than before."
Rachel had to admit that what she was hearing intrigued her. If she was going to be dropped in the middle of something strange and unnatural, at least it was interesting something. And Santana's voice was surprisingly smooth. It was still raspy, the way it had been when she was alive, but there was a different quality to it, something more soothing. Santana had a nice speaking voice, Rachel thought, when she wasn't using it to snap at people and curse.
"So you don't know what happens when you close your eyes?" Rachel asked. Santana shook her head, still twirling grass in her hands. "And it doesn't happen every time you close them, either," she noted, "because you've been blinking and you're still here."
"I really don't know what the fuck is happening, anymore," Santana said.
"But you're always in the cemetery?" Rachel pressed on. It was almost thrilling, to have a mystery sitting in front of her, to have something to focus on that didn't involve wondering why some people died so young and so tragically.
"I can't leave. I try all the time," Santana answered, staring at the ground sadly. "I can't open the gate; I can't climb the fence. I even tried following some old guy the other day, but when I tried to get out the open gate, suddenly I was on the other side of the cemetery and it was already closed. I can't get out."
The wind picked up, blowing up some of the leaves near them. A few got caught in Santana's hair and she picked them out. Rachel tucked her hands underneath the legs, trying to warm them. Goosebumps rose up on her arms, despite the fact that she was wearing a jacket. It was an unusually cold October in Lima.
"Are you cold?" Santana asked. In a move that looked like it surprised Santana as much as it did Rachel, she reached out and ran her hands up and down Rachel's covered arms, pressing down on them as she did so. If the taller brunette had been alive, it would have helped.
But she wasn't alive and Rachel shivered, pulling away apologetically. "That doesn't really help," she said softly. "That makes me even more cold."
Santana's hands dropped back to the ground. "Oh," she said, her voice quiet. Her face had fallen and Rachel thought she might have looked hurt. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Rachel answered, sending her a small smile. "I appreciate the thought."
The decidedly less alive brunette shrugged. Silence settled around them and Rachel wondered what to fill it with. Santana looked to be deep in thought and so Rachel started thinking, too. She wondered if she could tell Santana about the dreams she had been having lately or about the lower limbs of the body she had seen earlier that day. But it didn't seem right for her to drop her own unsettling thoughts on someone who already seemed as unsettled as any person, alive or dead, could be.
No, she would tuck those things away in her mind for now. She needed to figure out what was happening with Santana before she could worry about her own troubled mind.
Rachel's phone rang, cutting through the silence. She mouthed 'sorry' to Santana as she answered. "Hello?"
"Rachel, where are you?" her dad Leroy asked.
Rachel checked her watch. It wasn't terribly late – the sky was still light – but he sounded worried. "I'm at school," she lied. "I've been practicing, of course." Santana was watching her, confused.
She heard him sigh. "Rachel, I'm at the school right now. There's no one in the choir room or the auditorium."
"I –" she stuttered, realizing that it would do no good to lie to him now. "I'm at the cemetery."
"Your father and I are really worried about you, baby," he said. "We don't think it's healthy for you to spend so much time there."
"Daddy, I'm fine," Rachel answered. "Really."
"Just come home, sweetie. We can make some of that spiced tea that you like and watch a movie," Leroy told her.
"Daddy –"
"That wasn't a question, Rachel," he said. "Come home."
Rachel pursed her lips. She was tired of everyone trying to look after her. She knew they were all watching her – Mister Schuester and the rest of the glee kids, her fathers. She could practically feel their eyes on her at all times, making sure that she was "okay." Her fathers had been keeping tabs on her every move, it seemed. She was growing increasingly frustrated with all of them.
"Fine," she shot back, her voice hard. Across from her, Santana raised an eyebrow at her. Rachel hung up and threw her cell phone on to the ground. "My dads want me home right now," she told her.
Santana huffed. "So? Just ignore them and go home later," she said.
"I can't do that," Rachel responded. "They'll send out a search party if they think I'm taking too long."
"That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard," Santana said harshly, obviously annoyed.
"They're just worried about me," Rachel muttered, picking her phone up and stuffing it in her bag. "They want to make sure that I'm okay."
Rachel stood up slowly, throwing her bag over her shoulder. Santana stood up with her, glaring as she did so. "You're almost eighteen. You're practically an adult," Santana cried. "Now that I think about it, Quinn was pretty eager to shuttle you home yesterday."
Rachel shuffled in place, smoothing down the hair that hung out from underneath her hat. "As I have already explained, they just want to make sure I'm okay."
"Okay, your dads I get. But Quinn Fabray?"
Rachel bit her lip and her eyes slid closed. She could feel the memories bubbling up again, hoping to force themselves up into her conscious mind. They were trying to escape and she pushed them back down. A lump built in her throat and she felt guilty for holding the worry of her friends and family against them. "I should go," she murmured, opening her eyes.
Santana's annoyance had been replaced to something akin to worry. She sighed, her eyes darting away from Rachel. "Will you come back?" she whispered.
Santana looked sad, lonesome and lost and suddenly very small, standing amid large slabs of granite and fallen leaves. Rachel felt tears build up in her eyes. "Of course I will," she said.
"Okay," Santana told her, and tears might have built in her eyes if they could have. She nodded, her lower lip trembling. "Good."
Rachel unzipped her backpack, pulling out a couple of books. She held them out and Santana took them from her, their fingers brushing. A burst of cold shot up Rachel's arms from the point of contact and she shuddered. Santana sent her a look of apology and Rachel waved it off. "In the meantime, maybe you could read through these and see if you find anything?"
Santana nodded, thumbing through the pages of the book on top. Rachel had already been through both of them and she knew there was nothing useful in them. But Santana just looked so dejected at the thought of being left by herself that Rachel felt like she had to do something.
Rachel smiled, putting on the bravest face she could. She honestly didn't want to leave. Santana wasn't alive and there was something to that – odd things were happening that made no sense to either of them. Rachel should have been scared, and sometimes she was, but she realized that Santana was the only person in her life who treated her like she always had. She didn't look at Rachel with worry and pity in her eyes; she didn't inquire about her whereabouts every minute of every day; she didn't try to pick Rachel's mind apart and re-compartmentalize the mess that was left.
"I have an appointment after school," Rachel said, "but I'll come back as soon as I can."
Santana smiled at her gratefully. "Bye, Rachel."
Rachel returned her smile and started towards the gate. When she exited, she turned back around to close it, looking past the lines of tombstones to the one she knew better than anything. She half-expected the other girl to be gone, but she could see Santana sitting on the ground, her back up against her own gravestone and her knees up to her chest. Rachel waved and then smiled when Santana returned the gesture.
A loud noise woke Rachel up around one a.m. She sat up, startled, and looked around wildly. Her room was as it should have been, tomorrow's clothes set up neatly on her desk chair, her backpack sitting beneath it. The moon was almost full, pouring in through the window and bathing everything in silver.
No, she amended, not everything was as it should have been. The window was open, a light breeze blowing through the curtains. Or had she left it open when she went to bed?
"I must have forgotten to close it," she told herself, rising up out of bed and striding towards the window. She didn't recall ever opening the window in the first place, but that was a minor detail that she was willing to overlook as simple forgetfulness. She did have a lot on her mind.
Rachel reached the window, looking outside briefly as she pushed it closed. The moon was bright and it looked impossibly close, almost like she could reach out and touch it. She rubbed at her eyes and grabbed the curtains, pulling them back together to keep the light out.
Something caught her eye – a movement on the ground below her. Something flashed near the base of the tree outside her window and she felt like she could reach out and touch it, too. And so she did try to touch it.
Rachel pulled the window back open, the nighttime cold rushing in her room and sweeping over her. She reached her hand out. There was movement again and she saw dark hair whipping around, blowing out from behind the tree. It was dark and it looked impossibly soft, like liquid obsidian flowing somehow upwards out of nothing. Rachel wanted it, wanted to wrap strands of it around her finger and keep them there forever.
She climbed out the window in her pajamas, her bare feet finding purchase on a branch. The wind blew again and suddenly the hair was gone. Something caught her eye down the street, and it was silver and shining and Rachel suddenly wanted it, too. She wanted to run her hands through it and slip into it and never leave.
So she started climbing down the tree, scraping her limbs across the bark. She didn't care about that, though, and she moved as fast she could. The blackness hadn't waited for her and she knew that the silver wouldn't either. Before she knew it, she was on solid ground, cold sliding up her legs through the soles of her bare feet.
Rachel looked down the street, catching glimpses of silver in the light of the moon. It was moving. Colors danced across her vision as light caught the essence of what she was following. She wanted all of them, all of the colors dancing in the moonlight ahead of her. She was moving, she realized, walking after them. She wanted to crawl up inside the light and the swirling everything and sleep in the glow of the moonlight.
The movement was faster, suddenly, and she hurried to keep up. Rachel broke out into a run, speeding after it. The colors were moving too fast now, blurring together into patches of blackness, and she had to be fast if she was going to catch them.
She could almost touch it now, the miasma of dancing silver that caught the moon in reds and oranges and greens and blues and purples. She could almost taste it. She was so impossibly close. She reached out as she ran, her fingers outstretched.
And then they were gone, the blackness and the silver and the dancing echo of lights and colors.
They were gone and Rachel suddenly realized that she was freezing, that it was incredibly cold outside and that she was in her pajamas and had no shoes on and the cold was seeping through her skin and creeping through her blood.
"Rachel? What the hell are you doing out here?" she heard.
She looked around, trying to find herself and trying to find the voice. She was in the cemetery again, she realized. The moon was still bright, illuminating the gravestones and the girl standing in front of her, but it seemed very far away. Which was odd when she considered how close it had been before.
"Santana?" Rachel asked suddenly.
"Jesus, Rachel, you're going to freeze to death," she heard and hands slid up over her arms, rubbing them. Suddenly, they pulled back and she was no warmer or colder than she had been before.
And was she on the ground? Rachel could feel grass beneath her palms and dirt collecting on her hands. She was on all fours in front of Santana's grave, the other girl looking at her in shock and concern. She felt arms slip underneath her armpits, pulling on her, bringing her to her feet.
"Rachel, you need to go home," she heard. Rachel could see Santana's eyes shining in the moonlight and she forgot how to stand up. "What's wrong with you? Fuck, Rachel, come on. Get up. If you get sick, you won't be any good to either of us."
Was that what she was supposed to be doing? Standing up? Being good?
"But the light," someone muttered, and it sounded like her (if she were shivering and shaking.) And she realized that it was her, because she was shivering and shaking. Santana was still trying to pull her up and Rachel looked up at her through her eyelashes, watched the moonlight catch her hair.
And then she was gone.
When Rachel woke up, she was in her own bed, several blankets covering her body. She was warm and there was a light sheen of sweat sticking to her skin. It was daylight and sun was shining in through the window. Had she been dreaming? she wondered. Had she overslept and missed school?
Her father Leroy came in as she was trying to untangle herself from all the sheets wrapped around her. He looked disappointed and Rachel didn't understand why. "Rachel, what the hell were you thinking?" he cried.
"I don't – what happened?" she asked.
"I'm waiting for you to tell me," he said, sitting down on her bed. She tried to remove some of the blankets on top of her but he stopped her with a firm hand.
"I don't remember," she said earnestly. "Did my alarm not go off?"
Leroy shook his head, taking one of her hands. "No, Rachel," he told her. "You weren't in bed this morning. We thought you might have gone to school early, but your things were still here." Rachel stared at him, confused. "Sweetie, the police found you in the cemetery this morning, shoeless and in your pajamas. They said that you were lying on Santana's grave."
The cemetery. Yes, she had been there, she realized. She had been there in the dead of night when the moon was at its highest and brightest. She remembered Santana and she remembered something about light and something about darkness and wanting to cradle both of them in her arms.
And then she shook her head and forgot again. Maybe. Until her father asked her again what she was doing there. Rachel didn't have an answer for him. She kept forgetting what the question was. She did remember that she preferred the nightmares inside her head to the nightmares outside her head.