Say Her Name by James Dawson

which she didn’t feel like her head was exploding, this would have all been pretty sexy. As it was, Caine’s lips, biceps, chest and dimples (although very much in her bedroom) were the least of her worries. On the plus side she didn’t feel awkward and tongue-tied any more. All that shyness seemed so inconsequential now, not to mention immature. ‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.
    ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ Bobbie dragged a reluctant brush through her knots. ‘You go first. What did you see?’
    ‘I only really noticed today. At first I thought I was imagining it – like my eyes were playing tricks on me or something, yeah?’
    Naya suddenly looked more concerned now that
two
people had seen something weird. ‘You’re actually serious? What did you see?’
    ‘Have you got a mirror? I’ll show you.’
    ‘Sure.’ Naya climbed off her bed. ‘In the wardrobe.’ She opened the cupboard to reveal the mirror on the inside door. Each room had an identical wardrobe – a bulky wooden unit big enough for the clothing of two or three girls.
    ‘Come and see.’ Caine crossed the room and Bobbie followed. The three of them were reflected together, just as they had been on Saturday night.
    ‘What am I looking at?’ Naya appeared unimpressed. Caine angled the door, taking in different views of the room.
    ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Can you open the door a bit?’
    ‘No! What if someone sees you?’ Bobbie remembered the last girl who’d smuggled a boy into Piper’s Hall. Dr Price had only just stopped short of branding a scarlet letter on the poor girl’s forehead.
    ‘Just for a second.’
    Naya exhaled noisily, but did as told. She held the door open. Now the mirror also held the reflection of the Brontë House corridor. It was gloomy, but their lights cast a sickly pool down the landing. In the mirror, Bobbie could see the last two rooms and the fire escape. ‘There,’ Caine whispered, not moving, the way you do when you don’t want to scare a timid woodland animal. ‘Can you see it?’
    ‘See what?’
    ‘Look at the very edge of the mirror. In the corner.’
    Bobbie squinted. At first glance there was nothing to see, but then she looked harder. In the darkest recess of the corridor next to the fire escape, as far away as possible, stood the girl. Entirely still, she waited just outside their dorm. The thinnest sliver of light hit her skin. She held her pale hands together in front of her body, her hair once more hanging over her face. Bobbie gasped and whirled around, stumbling into Caine as she did so. The real corridor was deserted. She looked back at the reflection. As if startled, the girl with the black hair inched further into the shadows. ‘Oh God.’
    Caine held Bobbie tightly, his warm fingers wrapped around her upper arm. He squeezed her like he
needed
to be believed. ‘She’s in
every
mirror. If you look close enough, she’s there.’ His eyes widened. ‘Serious. I can see her on the side of the road in my wing mirrors. She’s in shop windows when you walk past them. She’s e
verywhere
.’
    ‘Oh God,’ was apparently all Bobbie could say any more. She could taste tears at the back of her throat – not sad tears,
scared
tears. The girl in the mirror still waited.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Naya stomped back to the mirror. She angled it inwards, elongating the view down the corridor. Mary, if that’s who she was, shied away from the light, edging into the darkness. Naya dropped the wardrobe door like it was hot. ‘No way! No effing way!’ Naya’s fingers shot into her hair as if she wanted to scratch the image out of her head.
    ‘Naya, keep it down,’ Bobbie urged, closing the bedroom door.
    ‘But it’s impossible! How can she be in the mirror but not … ?’ The taller girl tugged her hair off her face, stretching the skin into a mask of alarm. ‘I mean, how? How can it be real?’
    Bobbie took her hands and steered Naya towards her bed. If she didn’t calm down Mrs