Chapter 4

 Before Clover could take a breath she was cometting down into the school courtyard. She lands feet first, breaking the hard dirt under her feet. She slumps over and takes a deep breath, putting a hand over her fast beating heart.

“Okay Clover” She stands up “calm down” she looks down at her white gloves with sparkly ribbons “This is so friggin WEIRD!” Deep breath “but it’s okay.”

“Good landing!” That voice cheers, Clover jumps! the ghost stands outside the newly made crater, clapping her hands rapidly. She brushes her long bluish hair over her shoulder “Hai there” she waves.

“AH!” Clover stumbles back, tripping over a loose rock, and pulls out the whip she used earlier, frantically swinging it. The whip hits a tree, slicing it in half.

“Woah!” The ghost looks impressed “That was a strong hit! And you just started today? AMAZING!”

“W-who are you?!” Clover demands, aiming the limp whip in her direction. “What are you?”

“I’m-” The ghost stops, tapping her chin “...not sure?... I do know I'm not really alive anymore… but it doesn’t really seem like I’m dead either…” she laughs and looks down at her body, pulling on her clothes “..I guess I’m a ghost?” she shrugs.

“Okay, Ghost.” Clover still holds her whip in front of her with both hands and in a shaky voice, “Leave me alone.”

The ghost stares at her, she has an aura of glowing blue around her, the same shade as her transparent skin.

“That doesn’t really feel like it's going to happen.” The ghost says. “It looks like you have yourself a new friend!” She exclaims!

Suddenly, in a flash of blue light, Clover stands in her drenched clothes and hair, no whip in hand. The two look at each other.

“You smell really bad,” the ghost says, “HEY! I can smell!” She points at her small nose.

Clover sprints! Running for the dorms, her school bag at her hip heavy with water and papers. She doesn’t stop. Rushing up the stairs! And to her dorm! Fumbling her key as fast as possible!

Once inside she flicks the light switch and is reminded that all the lights are out!

Because of her!

She looks down at the whip in her hands, “Frick!” she yells! and frantically flings it across the room not caring where it went.

She uses her phone light, grabs the lamp off her side table, and corners herself on her bed. Getting a view of the whole room. And only when the sun begins to rise, and the dark sky lightens just a bit, and the birds begin chirping, does she dare close her eyes.

The sound of loud knocking makes her jump!

“CLOVER!” Someone yells “OPEN THE DOOR!”

Clover quickly gets up, her vision blurs, and she has to use the bed to help her stand up. The knocking continues, she quickly shakes it off and goes to answer her door. Her eyes catch the whip hanging off the second desk in the room. She presses her lips together and looks at the door.

“CLOVER!” her friend yells again.

Quickly Clover grabs the whip and shoves it into one of her dresser drawers, under all the clothes out of sight. Then she goes to answer the door for her frantic friend. Flicking the light switch, she’s relieved when it comes on.

The moment she opens it, Chris leaps forward in a mess of frizzy blond hair, giving Clover a arm pinning hug “Are you okay?!” Chris yells. “We were worried about you! You’re okay, right? Last night was so scary!”

“I’m fine.” Clover reassures her, attempting to pull her arms out of her grip and take a step away, Chris hangs on tight.

“Are you sure? You never made it to the restaurant last night!” Chris states. “We didn’t know if you were okay!”

“I’m good, I…” she thinks for a second “...I was just barely leaving when things started, and I made it back here as quickly as possible.”

Chris pats down Clover's arms, feeling for any wounds, Clover shifts uncomfortably trying to shake her friend off without being rude, Chris sniffs her and her nose scrunches up. “You smell like fish.” she looks at the red head's clothes. “And why are you covered in glitter?”

Clover looks down at herself, glitter is dried into her clothes, she looks at where she was sitting on her bed, more glitter.

“Uhhhh, I got stuck in the rain, and then one of the magical girls flew right over me.” She laughs nervously.

“Which one?!” Chris asks impatiently.

“The … blue one?” she says.

“THE NEW ONE?!” She yells “EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT HER!” She says “When I got service again this morning, I saw her everywhere!”

“Everywhere?”

“EVERY. WHERE. news stations are going crazy for her wondering who she is, and people are asking so many questions. Tell. Me. EVERYTHING.” Chris looks her in the eyes.

“Uhhhhhh….” Clover grabs her phone out of her pocket, it doesn’t turn on “She just flew right over me… and away” Clover looks Chris in the eyes, waiting for her to say anything.

“So why do you still smell like fish?” Chris asks.

“I uhhh… was too freaked out to go shower when I got back and the power was out” She wipes her sweaty palms on her pants.

“UGH That power outage sucked! We were stuck at the restaurant with a bunch of people, Taylor was freaking out the whole time, she was crying and wanting to go home the whole time, but I sat there and held her hand the whole time.” She says triumphantly with her hands on her hips.

Clover pressed her lips together to keep herself from chuckling at that, she had a hard time believing it was Taylor who was the one crying, and that she wasn’t the one doing the hand holding “yeah I bet that’s how it went.”

“Taylor can get so scared sometimes” she laughs, suddenly she turns serious “I’ve been trying to keep up on all the news” Chris walks farther into the room, smelling the air, and looking at the mess, “there’s no confirmation on how the Kraken made it into the middle of town, it’s miles from the ocean!”

“They don't know?” Clover attempts to play it off like she doesn’t already know.

“Yea it appeared out of nowhere and just started attacking the town! Which is so weird, Krakens don’t like coming to the surface of the ocean, but this one snuck onto land and started attacking, that’s weird.”

“Oh really?” Clover laughs nervously “I didn’t know that” she looks at the glitter stuck to her bed sheets.

“Yeah! Krakens don’t do that. They don’t just rampage” Chris scrolls through her phone and flashes Clover, a wiki about Krakens before scrolling to the next thing about magical girl sightings.

Clover spots a flash of blue before Chris shoves her phone in her pocket.

“And we got it to stop!”

Clover jumps.

Behind Chris, the blue glowing ghost pops out of the closet door. Clover stares at her wide eyed.

Chris notices her reaction and quickly looks behind her “What?!” Then back at Clover.

“Y-...” Clover just stares between the two “...you don't see it?”

Chris does a double take. “No, what?”

The ghost smirks.

“Sorry girlie pop, they don’t see me.” She chuckles. She floats out of the mirror and stands next to Clover. “It’s just you.”

“Clover!”

Clover looks at Chris.

“Are you okay?” Chris asks, looking concerned.

“Um… I just thought… there was a spider.”

Ghost chuckles. “Heh, good cover, you don’t want your friends to know you’re seeing a ghost, good idea, they might think you’re crazy.”

There’s another knock on the door. Startling Clover.

“That’s Taylor, she went to get some work from a teacher.” Chris says with an eye roll, and answers the door for her.

“Oh, okay.” Clover rubs her head, daring to take one more look at the ghost in the room.

The ghost winks.

Chris swings the door open “Taylor finally!”

“It didn’t take that long.” The taller sister sighs. “So, are we going?”

The ghost floats over getting between the sisters as if she’s part of the conversation.

“Oh I didn’t even ask yet.” Chris admits.

“You didn’t even ask yet?” The tall one looks at her sister annoyed.

Chris laughs “Right, Clover, do you want to sleep over at our place tonight?”

“Oh ummm…”

“Since there's no classes for the rest of the day, and we figured it might be a little freaky staying on your own after what happened, we thought it’d be nice to invite you over.” Taylor continues.

She glances at the ghost between them.

“I-I would love to!” She says cheerfully.

“YAY!!!” Chris cheers.

“Great!” Taylor claps her hands together, “We were just stopping by here, but we can wait for you if you need.”

“We gotta wait,” Chris chuckles, “she's gotta shower.”

Clover's face goes red, and suddenly she’s overcome with the stench of sewer water and seasalt.

“Right… that won't take too long.” She says quickly grabbing her bathroom things and plugging her phone in.

“I’ll get ready quickly.”

“Don’t rush.” Chris flops down on her bed, avoiding the most glittery parts.

“You were supposed to stop here early so you could give her a heads up.” Taylor pokes Chris's nose. “And careful, don’t track that glitter home, it’ll get everywhere.”

Chris just laughs.

Clover quickly does what she has to do in the bathroom, brushing her hair and teeth in front of the mirror.

“Your friends seem really nice.” The ghost shoots out of the tiled floor, and sits on the next sink.

Clover goes still with the tooth brush in her mouth, and stares intently at the faucet.

“You can’t ignore me forever, Clover.” She stretches her arms out, and rests them behind her head.

Clover watches herself in the mirror intently, and keeps brushing her teeth.

While packing her backpack, Clover keeps glancing at the drawer where she shoved the whip. Hidden under her clothes.

“I’m good to go.” She slings her bag over her shoulders.

“Great! We’re going to stop at the convenience store on the way home and get a bunch of snacks!” Chris cheers!

Suddenly Clover can feel her very light wallet in her pocket.

“S-sounds good.”

Clover follows behind the sisters.

“You left it.”

Clover doesn’t turn to the voice.

“It’s not good to leave important things behind.” The ghost adds. Clover resists looking at her, making a point to look anywhere else.

Outside smells like seasalt, and feels like warm sunshine. The humidity is like a thick cloud in the air. Clover stretches and yawns. She looks up at the sky, a flock of large birds fly by, a feather the size of her arm slowly falls and gets picked up by the breeze, into the road, where it gets run over by a car.

“It’s so nice out,” she smiles.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t rain anymore, it's going to flood after that Kraken” Taylor comments mostly to herself.

“You look ready to sleep already,” Chris chuckles. “you’re not allowed to do that until after we play Mario Kart.”

Chris pulls Clover by the arm, so she’s walking next to them.

Clover laughs, “I’ve never played before.”

“Perfect” Chris’s smile gets bigger, and she rubs her hands together. “Fresh meat.”

“She will kick our butts, we will lose.” Taylor notifies her.

“Can’t wait!” Clover says.

They stop at Zapgas, the gas station all the students use to get their snacks. It’s packed, everyone decided today to come get more snacks, and Clover could hear everyone.

“I missed the end of the broadcast! My phone died before I could see what happened” says someone in the chip aisle.

“That new magical girl just flew off without saying anything!” Someone responds to them.

“She looked kind of familiar, don’t you think?” Someone asks.

“I don’t know, I can't tell any of them apart.” Someone else comments.

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen someone new showup.”

“I’m kind of excited! I'm trying to find them on Sparkleapp, but none of the other girls are following her.” Someone says.

Clover quickly takes out her phone, just barely at 10%, to check Sparkleapp.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” Says the ghost.

Clover doesn’t listen, she goes right to Ember's page, and sure enough on her latest picture of her, a selfie with an ant -like view of the city under her. #protectingOceanside. All the comments are asking about the new girl! Who, what, where, why, how?!

She keeps scrolling.

“Stop reading those,” The ghost says again.

“Clover!”

She jumps, Chris has an armful of different chip bags.

“Which one of these are your favorites?” She holds them all up higher.

Taylor’s grabbing one at a time, attempting to put them back.

“I’m good with any.” Clover says.

“...” Chris narrows her eyes. “...which one is your favorite, though?”

“Any-”

“FAVORITE!” She yells.

“Doritos!” Clover replies, “Doritos are good.”

Chris gets a bag of both flavors.

“Are Doritos your favorite?” The ghost asks.

Clover doesn’t reply, but takes one last glance at the barbeque flavored chips. They move onto drinks, getting a few different things.

The girls wait outside to catch the bus. While watching someone push a massive raccoon off their car, who has gnawed through their car tire. The ghost stands next to Clover, the icy presence of hers giving the girl goosebumps. She shivers.

“Are you cold?” Taylor asks.

“No, I'm okay.” Clover responds.