Strange things can happen when you stray from the path. Short story.
I shouldn’t have drifted away from the group, but I had my friend with me and that made me brave. The coach had stopped in a layby just off the forest road. We were still an hour or two away from the castle so our teacher said we could get out and stretch our legs for half an hour.
The other girls stayed near the coach where there were some rocks to sit on, but I walked down to the trees, where a rough fence of untreated logs marked the car park’s boundary. I preferred being away from them because they thought I was strange when I talked to Elena. It wasn’t my fault they couldn’t see her, or that I preferred her company. When she had been alive, I couldn’t always trust her but after she died she was always truthful, which is more than I can say for the living.
“Don’t wander too far,” called Miss Shirley, “we’ve only got thirty minutes here and then we’re off again.”
Elena rolled her eyes and I giggled. Miss Shirley was one of the wettest teachers ever — nobody listened to her and she had a hard job instilling any kind of discipline. One time, back at school, a group of year tens had locked her in the stationery cupboard and only let her out when she started to cry. She was so embarrassed that nobody even got punished for it.
