The Marigold Game

My grandmother used to say that the dead linger where they left something unfinished — a promise, a debt, a game. I never understood that until I was seven, in the autumn of 1987, when the world tilted and I fell into a crack in the ordinary.

I was at St. Anne’s, a crumbling brick school with wide hallways that smelled of floor wax and old rain. My friend Cora and I had been allowed to stay after hours because my mother, a janitor, was waxing the floors. Cora was ten, two years older, with a wild laugh and a dare in her eyes. We were playing a game of hide-and-seek in the dimming corridors when she called out from the top of the stairs, ‘You check the basement hallway, I’ll cover the upper floor.’ I didn’t want to go down there — the basement had a boiler that groaned and shadows that shifted — but Cora had already vanished. So I went.

The hallway was lined with lockers, each door dented and painted a sickly green. The only light came from a single bulb at the far end, flickering like a trapped moth. I took a step, and behind me, a footstep echoed. I spun around. Nothing. The air was cold, the way it gets just before a storm. I kept walking, and the footsteps followed — three more times, each time closer. My heart hammered. I turned to run, but there in front of me, not three feet away, stood a girl.

She was small, no older than twelve, with long black hair that hung straight as wet silk. She wore a tattered red dress that must have been pretty once. Her eyes were dark, deep as the bottom of a well. I staggered backward, tripped over my own feet, and fell hard on the linoleum. She didn’t move, just watched me with a quiet tilt of her head. Then she extended her hand — thin, almost ghostly — and said, ‘Can we play?’ Her voice was soft, but it filled the hallway. I was too shocked to cry. I took a shaky breath and, despite everything, nodded. Her smile was small, almost sweet, and she helped me up — except her fingers passed through mine like smoke. I nearly fell forward, but she seemed sad about that, apologetic.

Her name, she said, was Himiko. She’d been a student here long ago, a girl from China who spoke with laughter in her voice. She liked games — tag, hide-and-seek, jacks. That day, we played in the dim hallway until my mother called from upstairs, her voice sharp with worry. Himiko vanished before I could introduce her. I ran up, breathless, and told my mother about my new friend. She laughed and said, ‘You’ll make friends anywhere, Maggie.’ But I knew Himiko was different.

Over the next few weeks, Himiko appeared everywhere. At recess, she’d stand at the edge of the playground, near the old oak, her form flickering like a bad television. At lunch, she’d sit across from me at the empty table, though other kids whispered about me talking to the air. She was fun — she knew riddles and could make patterns with pebbles that moved on their own. ‘Please, just five more minutes,’ she’d say, and I’d play until the bell rang. But I started to notice things. The temperature dropped whenever she was near. My shadow sometimes moved without me. And once, I saw her fade, her edges blurring like a photograph left in water.

One day, during a game of hide-and-seek with my classmates, I hid in the storage closet — a tiny room filled with old books and sports equipment. Himiko appeared, her eyes bright. ‘Play with me here,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s play real hide-and-seek.’ She began to count, her voice echoing off the walls. ‘One, two, three…’ I crouched behind a dusty basketball, holding my breath. When I finally burst out, expecting to see her grinning in a corner, the closet was empty. But on the floor, there was a small white marigold — the kind my grandmother used for offerings to the dead. I picked it up, and the door slammed shut. The lock clicked.

The room went dark. I screamed and pounded on the door, but no one came. The air was cold, so cold. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I turned, Himiko was there, her face inches from mine. ‘You found me,’ she said, but this time her smile was too wide. ‘Now you have to keep playing.’ Her fingers closed around my wrist — and this time, I felt them. Ice cold, but solid. I yanked away, scrabbling at the door until my fingers bled. Then, as suddenly as it started, the lock clicked open, and the door swung wide. The hallway was empty. The marigold had turned to dust in my hand.

I didn’t want to go back. I told my mother I was sick. But that night, I dreamed of Himiko standing at the foot of my bed, her dress now stained dark at the hem. ‘You’re it,’ she said, and vanished. The next day at school, I found a note in my locker, written in shaky script: ‘Tag, you’re it forever.’ I never told anyone the full truth — they’d think I was crazy. But I started carrying a small tin of marigold petals in my pocket. My grandmother’s words echoed: ‘They stay for the games they never finished.

It’s been eleven years now. I’m eighteen. I’ve moved cities, changed schools, thrown away the dress I wore that day. But Himiko still finds me — sometimes in a reflection, sometimes in a dream. She never asks for much, just, ‘Can we play?’ And sometimes, when I’m alone at night, I hear her footsteps behind me, and I turn, and she’s there, holding out her hand. Her game has no end. It’s simply waiting for me to join her on the other side. I don’t know how long I can keep running. Because the marigolds only grow where the dead have walked, and I’ve been walking in her garden for a long, long time.