18.

Growing up in Clifton, New Jersey, Abigail Tremens actually had friends—not many, but enough to keep busy after school.

Things changed the summer before sixth grade, when two new girls moved into Abigail’s neighborhood. They both happened to be named Mary. Oddly, Mary Brown was white, and Mary White was black; they were both beautiful. The two Marys formed an immediate bond. They liked the same music and food and clothes. They seemed to know each other’s thoughts. Abigail had never shared anything quite like it with any of her friends, and she wondered what it might feel like to be that close with someone.

At the beginning of September that year, the two Marys began to make their mark at Clifton Middle School. For some reason, they ignored Abigail. Unfortunately, the girls in her class listened when the Marys spoke. The boys with whom Abigail usually played games after school stopped inviting her to join in. Abigail began to feel as invisible as air. Soon she was sitting by herself at lunch and walking home from school alone. Together, the Marys were an entity, the likes of which Abigail had never seen before. She didn’t like it, and she decided she didn’t like them. So Abigail gave them a taste of their own medicine.

She made up a nasty name for the two girls: the Nightmarys, of course. To Abigail’s horror, the girls liked it, and it stuck. They wore it like a badge of honor. Abigail quickly grew tired of the nickname. The Nightmarys request your attention during lunch period, Janet Holm had told Harriet Lincoln during English class. The Nightmarys told me I look pretty today, Beth Reid cooed to herself in the bathroom mirror. The Nightmarys told me to tell you that they’re having a party, and you’re not invited, Mike Swenson had cruelly informed Abigail one Friday afternoon. She’d gone home in tears.

In March of the next year, Abigail learned that she and her mother would leave Clifton for New Starkham. When they arrived at her new home, Abigail realized that she had finally managed to get away from the Nightmarys—something she had wished for the past two years. Despite everything else, she was happy about that.

She had been at Paul Revere Middle School for a week when it started.

One night, while finishing her homework in her bedroom, Abigail saw movement through her window. A blur of white. Outside was a stretch of patio. Something had crossed it. Abigail bolted upright on her mattress. After a few moments of quiet, she dismissed the movement as a seagull. There were plenty of those in New Starkham.

But the next night, it happened again. A little after midnight, she awoke to a soft tapping on glass. Before she even opened her eyes, Abigail feared what she would see at the window—two faces, smiling at her. Instead of looking, Abigail crawled out of bed, shielding her eyes as she made her way to the hallway. She shuffled to her grandmother’s bedroom and slipped under the covers next to her.

Over a bowl of cereal, it was easier to toss off these occurrences as being influenced by the dark and the unfamiliar. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She was only nervous that there were “Nightmarys” at her new school. Things would work themselves out if she continued to be invisible, something she was already good at. At school during the day, she stayed by herself, tried to be inconspicuous. At night, she tucked her blanket over her head.

It worked … until the night she awoke to find the two girls standing in the corner of her room near the record player. This time, she could see them much more clearly. They looked like the girls from Clifton, but they were also different, as if half sisters with the creatures from the Nightmarys trading-card collection. Their hair hung limply from their heads. Their feet were bare. They wore matching dirty white lace dresses, which hung from their thin bodies like sacks. Abigail cringed in her bed, too frightened now to even make a sound. The spot where their faces should have been was simply blurry, like a shot of fast motion caught on still film. When Abigail stared too long, she saw things in the blur—things that should not have existed in place of their eyes, nose, and mouth—things too disturbing for her to later recall.

“Don’t shout,” said one. Mary Brown’s voice.

“We want to be your friends,” said the other. Mary White.

“I—I,” Abigail managed to stammer, trying to keep them at bay. “I don’t want any friends. Please, leave me alone.”

The girls laughed as they stepped forward. “But we’re lonely,” said Mary White.

“Remember what that feels like, Abigail?” said Mary Brown. “Come play our game.” Their voices were hypnotizing.

“But it’s the middle of the night. My mom would hear.”

“We’ll take care of your mother … and your grandmother.” The way the girls spoke snapped Abigail wide awake.

She grabbed a book she’d been reading before bed from the nightstand. “Stay away from them,” she shouted, and threw the book at the descending shadows. When the book hit the far wall with a thump, Abigail realized that the girls were no longer there. She quickly turned on the bedside lamp and filled the darkness with light.

Since then, Abigail slept with the lights on. This, however, did not stop the girls from coming back. Again and again. Begging her to follow them into the night. To play their game. To be their friend.