White is for Magic by Laurie Faria Stolarz

recognize it anywhere. But it can't be. Maura's dead. She's been dead for four years.
    "Stacey," Maura's voice repeats.
    Tears roll down the sides of my face. My stomach bubbles up in fear and pain. I want to be sick.
    I hold my gut and try to calm the quake in my stomach.
    "Whatsa matter?" she asks. "Tummy ache?"
    The shadow of the loop continues in a perpetual motion, from top to bottom, and then rotates around, like a jump rope. I move up to the door. But no one's there, just the jumping shadow.
    And I can hear her voice, singing that "Miss Mary Mack" song I taught her--except the words are much different:
    Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. She has a knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She cannot cry, cry, cry.
    That's why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die, die.
    "Who's there?" I cry out. "Who's doing this? Why is this happening?"
    The singing stops, but then I hear Maura scream. I pound and kick against the door, but I'm going to be sick. I can't hold it in.
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6i
    "Stacey," a male voice whispers through the door crack. "Will you keep your promise?"
    "What?" I shriek. "What are you talking about?"
    "In less than one week," the voice says.
    My mouth arches to scream but instead fills with bile. Vomit. Spurting out my mouth.
    "Stacey!" I feel a tug at my arm.
    "She's in there!" I blurt out when my throat clears. "Jumping rope."
     
    "Stacey!" Amber repeats, shaking me out of dreamland, to my senses.
    I look around, finally coming to, my heart thrashing in my chest. We're still in yoga class.
    Keegan hovers over me, the silver ends of her long, dark corkscrew hair hitting against my arm, giving me the chills. 'Are you okay?"
    "Yeah." I wipe the vomit from the corners of my mouth and see a puddle of it on the sticky mat beside me. "I guess something just didn't agree with me."
    She nods. "Why don't you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up?"
    "It's like I always say," Amber begins, "cafeteria food mixed with body contortions is so not a good idea."
    I get up and make my way to the bathroom, noticing I've interrupted even the most dedicated yoga practitioners from their corpselike Savasana. I close the door behind me and splash some water on my face, doing my best to ease my senses, to wash out my mouth with my finger. I look in the mirror and stare deeply into my golden-brown eyes--
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    eyes just like my grandmother's. Hers held strength and courage, and weren't afraid to see. But mine are simply covered over with redness, angry veins stretching across the pupils. I look down at the amethyst ring she gave me--a square and chunky stone that almost reaches my knuckle.
    And then it hits me.
    I have less than a week to figure out why I'm dreaming about old ghosts. Because if I don't, someone could end up dead.
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    w

ten
    Amber and I are back in our room, sitting crosslegged on my bed, and I've just guzzled down practically a whole two-liter bottle of ginger ale.
    Amber refolds the dampened rag and hands it to me. "So--we need to talk. Drea's not here.
    What's going on for real?"
    "What do you mean?"
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    "Look, Stacey," she says, rolling her eyes. "I'm not stupid. I know you fell asleep in yoga class.
    And I know that sleep plus weird bodily functions equals some serious bad kitty for you."
     
    "Huh?" I rub at the throb in my head.
    "Don't go getting all denial on me about it. Between this afternoon and this morning's freak show in the common room . . . What's going on? And what, can I ask, was up with that twisted little song you were singing?"
    "What are you talking about?"
    "In yoga class ... I assume when you fell asleep. You were singing some dirgeful version of 'Miss Mary Mack.'"
    "I was?"
    She nods. "Like straight out of the Addams Family show tunes."
    This time I tell her everything--all the details about the nightmare I had in yoga class and how, yes, it's true, my nightmares have been making me sick to my