Sisters Of Salt And Iron
Kady Cross
Wren was right about me—I distrusted ghosts. I never tried to hide that fact. I would really, really like to be wrong about them just once.Lark Noble is finally happy. She's trying to move on and put the events of the past behind her: the people who avoided her because she talked to the ghost of her dead twin sister, the parents who couldn't be around her anymore and even the attempt she made on her own life. She finally has friends—people who know her secrets and still care about her—and she has Ben, the cute guy she never saw coming.Wren Noble is lonely. Unable to interact with the living, she wants to be happy for her sister's newfound happiness, but she feels like she's losing her. It doesn't help that Kevin, the very not-dead guy she was starting to fall for, seems to be moving on.Then Wren meets Noah, the spirit of a young man who died a century ago. Noah is cute, he's charming and he makes Wren feel something she's never felt before. But Noah has a dark influence on Wren, and Lark's distrust of him drives the sisters apart for the first time in their lives. As Halloween approaches and the veil between the worlds thins, bringing the dead closer to the world of the living, Lark must find a way to stop whatever deadly act Noah is planning, even if it means going through her sister to do so.
Lark Noble is finally happy. She’s trying to move on and put the events of the past behind her: the people who avoided her because she talked to the ghost of her dead twin sister, the parents who couldn’t be around her anymore and even the attempt she made on her own life. She finally has friends—people who know her secrets and still care about her—and she has Ben, the cute guy she never saw coming.
Wren Noble is lonely. Unable to interact with the living, she wants to be happy for her sister’s newfound happiness, but she feels like she’s losing her. It doesn’t help that Kevin, the very not-dead guy she was starting to fall for, seems to be moving on.
Then Wren meets Noah, the spirit of a young man who died a century ago. Noah is cute, he’s charming and he makes Wren feel something she’s never felt before. But Noah has a dark influence on Wren, and Lark’s distrust of him drives the sisters apart for the first time in their lives. As Halloween approaches and the veil between the worlds thins, bringing the dead closer to the world of the living, Lark must find a way to stop whatever deadly act Noah is planning, even if it means going through her sister to do so.
Sisters of Salt and Iron
Kady Cross
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
This book is for Kenzie and Zoe.
I hope you grow up to be best friends as well as sisters.
And for Steve, because I couldn’t do this without you.
Contents
Cover (#ud4a03dec-723b-5aff-b825-594bdfd615cf)
Back Cover Text (#u977f0bc7-7870-5dfe-8f13-f2124193bf75)
Title Page (#u197dddba-ba19-5add-b4e2-900990d5f38e)
Dedication (#u0c5f79a6-204b-5711-9220-156a7bab6a92)
Chapter One (#uda9cf16f-4fd8-5e73-b6ae-3e9f1414f89e)
Chapter Two (#u18ba9c60-c448-5fe7-a78e-d2a100527c6e)
Chapter Three (#udbe72568-6a69-5139-b707-77730d97070f)
Chapter Four (#uf97718ac-7d1c-5cd0-82a1-7bd89d7bad12)
Chapter Five (#u84441736-a18c-59d1-a599-358af90c57d7)
Chapter Six (#u72f5837d-8128-54e7-b5a0-14b3e485c4cc)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
(#ulink_91dd47ef-1455-5a72-8165-89e43999ee3b)
LARK
Ghosts are such douche bags.
My sister, Wren, was the exception to this rule, but other than her I’d never met a ghost that wasn’t a colossal pain in the ass. And this one was starting to seriously piss me off.
I hit the wall of the girls’ locker room hard, my head cracking the plaster. Fortunately, I had a hard head, and a high tolerance for wraith-inflicted pain. I dropped to the floor on my feet, and came at her swinging as the DJ in the gym played a bass-thumping dance song that shook my joints. My fist connected with her face hard enough to knock her off her feet—which was funny, because it wasn’t as though her boots actually touched the floor.
Truth be told, I wasn’t much for school dances, and I wasn’t a huge fan of Halloween, given that it was the one time of the year that the worlds of the dead and living merged. The veil weakened in the spring as well, but human celebrations and lore had given All Hallows’ Eve even more strength. Still, I would rather be dancing with my friends than getting the snot beat out of me by an angry grunge girl who had been dead longer than I’d been alive.
I was covered in salt dust, ghost-juice and plaster, and bleeding from a cut above my eye where she’d rammed me headfirst into a locker. I was dressed like Harley Quinn from Batman, so it only added to the costume.
“Listen, Courtney Love, you can’t be here. Why don’t you just move on? Whatever’s waiting for you has to be better than this.”
Really, who haunted a high school Halloween dance? No, wait—who haunted a high school at all? Seriously, you had to have lived a pretty lame life if the place that held the most pull for your spirit was Samuel Clemens High.
The ghost—her name was Daria Wilson, and she’d died when she crashed her car into a tree after the Halloween dance in ’91—rose up. “Says who?” she demanded. “You?”
I smiled, trying to ignore that I could see her brain glistening through the crater in her skull. Her hair was almost as white as mine beneath the blood and gore, but mine was natural. “That’s right.”
She glared at me, her eyes nothing but bottomless black pits. She opened her mouth, unhinging her jaw a good twelve inches. In the dank, yawning cavern of her mouth, her teeth were jagged razors, and her tongue rippled and writhed like a worm. She roared.
The scream of a vengeful spirit was like having your eardrums punctured while being tossed around in a tornado of rot. Her rancid breath burned my skin, and I could feel something warm and wet trickle from my left ear. My nose, too. I staggered forward as my left knee began to buckle.
She was not going to take me down.
The scream stopped abruptly. I almost fell down anyway from the release of it. I grabbed at the wall to steady myself.
“You can’t make me go, bitch,” she snarled, moving toward me. “If you could, you would have already.”
I lifted my gaze, swiping my hand under my nose to wipe the blood away. “I’m working on it, skank.”
Where the hell was my sister? Wren and our friends had gone off in search of the item that was so important it kept Daria here rather than where she was supposed to be.
Don’t ask me where we go when we’re dead. I’d only died once, and I didn’t get any farther than the halfway mark between this world and the next before getting pulled back. But I knew how to banish ghosts from this plane, and that was good enough for me.
Daria grabbed me by the throat, her fingers like steel clamps. I wheezed for air as my toes left the chipped tile floor. She lifted me like she wanted to hold me up to the light and get a better look.
I seized her wrist with my left hand, holding myself up to ease the strain on my neck. Then, I shoved my right hand into the hole in her head. Wet tissue and sharp bone filled my palm as I closed my fingers into a fist.
Daria cried out.
I fell to the floor, this time landing on my knees. Hard. I was too busy sucking in air to cry or even swear.
My hand burned, ectoplasm sizzling as it met the salt residue on my skin. Ghosts didn’t like salt.
My phone made a noise—like a groan. I took it out of my boot and risked taking a look while Daria was keening in the corner. The text screen came up. It was from Wren—we’d been working on her communicating through electronics since we couldn’t actually project words at each other.
On my weight. I hoped that was a typo. I shoved the phone back into my boot.
If my knees had been capable of sound, they would have sobbed as I pushed myself to my feet. I limped to the sink and turned on the faucet, shoving my hand into the cold water. The pain rinsed away with the salt—thank God.
Something grabbed at the back of my neck. I looked up into the mirror and saw Daria behind me. I twisted, just in time to avoid having my head smashed into the glass, and threw a wide punch into the side of her head—the gooey side again.
She stumbled back, giving me room to come at her again. This time, I hit her as hard and fast as I could before drawing back and landing a solid kick to her chest that sent her crashing into the same wall she’d knocked me into just minutes before.
She recovered quickly, shaking it off. When she stared at me, her blacked-out eyes sparked with rage. She looked murderous.
And scared. I got that a lot from ghosts. Ones that had been around for a while usually figured out how to mess with humans in one way or another, but they were always surprised to meet one who could mess back. I didn’t know why I could do these things, no more than I understood why I could interact with my dead twin. It didn’t matter—I could.
The parts of Daria’s bleached hair that weren’t matted with blood started to lift off her shoulders—like the static electricity experiment I’d done as a kid by rubbing a balloon against my head. I’d been lucky up until now—she was just having fun. If she manifested, I was going to be in trouble.
Ghosts in their natural form were one thing—I could interact with them, and we were on fairly even footing, but when they gathered enough power to take form in the real world—to gather mass—that’s when things got serious. I would still be able to fight her, but I was going to get hurt, and the locker room was going to take some damage—not to mention what might happen to all the people out in the gym if Daria decided to get her party on.
The hair on my arms lifted. The back of my neck tingled. Oh, hell. This wasn’t good.
I punched her in the face. A little reminder—to both of us—that I was the one in charge. Unfortunately, my heart didn’t get the message. Damn thing hammered against my ribs like it was trying to get out.
Daria lifted her hand to her nose. I’d drawn blood, a little payback for the coppery taste in the back of my throat.
“What are you?” she demanded. Surprise laced her raspy voice. She probably hadn’t felt pain since the night she died.
“I’m Lark Noble,” I informed her as I hit her again. It was the best explanation I had.
I’d knocked her jaw off center. She pushed it back into place as her eyes—still filled with wisps of black—widened. “Sister of the Dead Born?”
Okay, so I hadn’t been expecting that. “I think of her as my sister—I came out first.”
She stared at me. “The Living-dead.”
“Uh, no. Just living, thanks.”
She drifted closer. The smell of her filled my nose and throat, coating them like oil. “You shared a womb with death. You died, but you live.”
I wasn’t comfortable discussing my suicide attempt with a stranger. “I shared a womb with my sister, not death.”
She smiled. I’d seen a similar expression on Wren’s face before. It usually meant something really, really bad was about to happen. “I wonder what would happen if I ripped your throat out?”
“You want to kill me?” I challenged. I was afraid, but not like I should have been. Death wasn’t scary. The act of dying was, but if you were lucky, that didn’t take too long. “Go for it. I could hang out here for eternity. With you.”
Obviously she didn’t like the idea of a roommate, judging from the way she screwed up her face. Her hair fanned out from her face as she drew back. I could see the spot where the vertebrae in her neck had splintered and shattered. One of her shoulders hung lower than the other, limp and disjointed.
“There won’t be enough of you left to haunt anything.” Her voice had deepened, the words coming to me on air that had dropped several degrees. My nose was cold, and my fingertips tingled. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the mirror on the wall frost over.
I stepped to the right, keeping my eye on Daria as she grew as dark and ominous as a thunder cloud. That gaping crater in her head glistened with black ooze—the same black that filled her eyes. I reached into the shower stall nearest me and felt along the wall until I found what I wanted.
It was a wrought-iron rod. Nothing too fancy, though it had a bit of a twisting pattern along its length. My boyfriend Ben had given it to me a while ago, and it was still my favorite ghost-beatin’ stick.
Normally I avoided salt and iron because of Wren—all ghosts have a sort of allergic reaction to both. Maybe because they were of the earth, where the dead were generally buried? I didn’t know. Didn’t care.
I stood facing the ghost, the iron rod in my hand. This was normally the time I’d make some kind of snarky or smart-ass remark. To be honest, I was biting my tongue. I wasn’t supposed to bait her—just keep her busy and distracted.
She was going to pop any second. Then I was going to have to fight her and hope that everyone at the dance continued on in blissful ignorance. I’d been warned when I came back to school after my time in Bell Hill Psychiatric Hospital that I was only there because of my grandmother, and that I’d better not make trouble.
Wrecking the girls’ locker room counted as “trouble.” The ghost didn’t matter. It never did. People always found a way to explain the supernatural, and in my experience the favorite explanation was that I was a troublemaking, attention-starved emotionally unstable delinquent.
Which, actually, wasn’t too far from the truth.
I glanced in the direction of the door. The line of salt I’d poured a few feet away from it was still whole, as were the lines in front of the opaque windows. They weren’t infallible—Daria could possibly create enough energy to break the lines, and then she could get out—but for now it was just me and a drunk ghost.
C’mon, Wren.
Then I sensed it—the subtle shift that might have been just in my head but felt like it was outside of me. My sister was there, and everything clicked into its rightful place.
“About freaking time,” I told her.
“The others are coming,” she replied, coming to stand beside me. Wren and I were identical except for two things—my superior fashion sense, and the fact that my hair was almost snow-white while hers was a comic-book shade of red.
She had her hair in pigtails and was wearing a blood-soaked pinafore and blouse, tights and Mary Janes. She looked like a demented rag doll.
Daria looked impressed—or as impressed as someone with only part of a head and drunk out of her mind could look. “Dead Born.”
My sister frowned at her. “I don’t like that name.”
The two of them watched each other with the same amount of hostile wariness. Wren’s anger wavered around her like heat off pavement. She wasn’t immune to the approach of Halloween either, and that made me wonder, just what the hell did I intend to do if both of them manifested?
“Did you find what’s keeping her here?” I asked.
Wren glanced at me. “Yes, but it’s not what I expected.”
Daria chose that moment—when Wren’s attention was distracted—to attack. She hit my sister square in the chest. Wren barely moved. Daria’s surprise would have been funny in any other situation.
“You are so stupid,” I said. Now she’d gone and pissed off Wren. If I made it out of the locker room unsuspended and alive, it was going to be a miracle.
My sister is usually a gentle soul, but she’s a ghost and ghosts have notoriously short fuses. Wren’s eyes had already gone black, and I could feel her spectral energy reverberating in my bones along with the new song playing in the gym.
I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t.”
Her head whipped around. My heart jumped into my throat. There was nothing so terrifying as Death wearing your face. I held her gaze and her arm, watching as the darkness slowly left her eyes.
The door to the locker room opened—the music from the dance increased in volume for a few seconds, then faded back to its muted thumping.
Three familiar faces came into view—my friends, Roxi and Sarah. Well, I wasn’t completely sure if Sarah was a friend or not, but whatever. They had the history teacher, Mr. Fisher, with them.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Busted.
“That’s why she’s still here,” Wren whispered.
“Him?” I looked at Mr. Fisher. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Fairly young.
She nodded.
Mr. Fisher turned to me. “Who are you talking to?”
“Her.” I pointed at Roxi. “Did you tell him?”
Roxi’s big brown eyes widened. “That he was needed in the girls’ locker room.”
“That’s it?” I demanded. She nodded. Great.
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Fisher demanded.
Daria stood up and walked toward him with a stupefied look on her face. “Danny?”
“Your name’s Daniel, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “One of you girls had better tell me what’s going on. Why did you bring me here?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a girl named Daria, would you? Smashed into a tree a few years back on the night of the Halloween dance?”
He went white. “What do you know about Daria?”
I could try to lie—make it sound less crazy than what it was—but I was pissed off at having to be doing this instead of having fun with my friends. “You believe in ghosts, Mr. F.?”
He looked at me—saw the salt dust on my clothes—and the lines of salt on the floor. He looked at Roxi and Sarah, both of whom shrugged. A lot of help they were.
“He’s gotten so old,” Daria remarked, walking around him.
Mr. Fisher shuddered. “It’s cold in here,” he said. “You girls are in a lot of trouble.”
I glanced at the ghost. The way she looked at him froze my blood. She reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. Frowning, he turned around.
Daria shoved her hand into his chest.
He looked so surprised. He looked down at his chest, then up again. “Dee?” His voice was little more than a gasp.
“You’re the reason I’m dead,” she snarled. “It’s all your fault.”
She was so close to taking form I was terrified I was going to end up with a dead teacher to explain. Never mind suspension; they’d lock me up and throw away the key.
There was no doubt that Mr. Fisher could hear her. “I tried to stop you,” he protested, as his dead girlfriend held his heart in her icy fingers. “You ran away.”
Daria actually growled. “Because I found you screwing my best friend!”
“Wren?” I glanced at my sister. “Little help?” This was going to hell fast.
Daria turned her attention to me. “This is between me and him. One step and I’ll crush his heart.”
“Isn’t that what you plan to do regardless?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yeah, but if you make me do it quickly I won’t enjoy it as much.” The smile faded, morphing into something that was going to wake me up at night for weeks to come. “Now, back off, bitch.”
Everything happened in a blink. One moment my sister was beside me, and the next she was on Daria, shoving the teacher aside as she threw herself onto the other ghost.
Sarah gasped. Roxi stared. Mr. Fisher made a small mewling sound in the back of his throat as he sank to the floor, clutching his chest. I ran to him.
“What do you have of hers?” I demanded. When he gave me a blank look, I added, “Of Daria’s!” Who else could I possibly mean?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. There was an aged brass D hanging from it. D for Daria, not Daniel.
I fumbled with the keys, trying to pull the large letter off the ring. Freaking hell! Who invented key rings, anyway? Couldn’t they have thought of a more user-friendly setup?
Wren and Daria smashed into the row of shower stalls, buckling the metal frames.
Finally, the letter came free. I pulled a plastic baggy partially filled with salt from my pocket and opened the seal, dropping the letter charm inside.
A few sparks, but other than that, nothing. Shit. If it wasn’t the letter anchoring Daria to the world of the living, then what was it?
Anger. Vengeance. I didn’t know how to break that, and Mr. Fisher wasn’t going to fit into a sandwich bag of salt. If I didn’t do something fast, Daria and my sister were going to wreck the locker room.
Mr. Fisher, Roxi and Sarah were on the floor near the wall of lockers, huddled together. They looked terrified, and I didn’t blame them. I dropped to my knees in front of them as Daria flew toward me, crashing into the lockers above my head.
“Get out,” I ordered. “Get out now!”
I didn’t have to tell them twice. They scrabbled across the floor, keeping low until it was safe to stagger to their feet and run for the door. Mr. Fisher paused and looked back at me.
“Dee, no!” he shouted.
My brain froze, but my body didn’t. I dropped to the floor, twisting so that I landed on my back. Daria leaped onto me like a cat on a mouse, all darkness and stink and sharp teeth.
“Hold her!” I cried.
Wren seized her, fingers like talons as they restrained Daria’s arms. I tried not to look at her. I didn’t want to see my sister looking like something out of a horror movie. I ripped open the bag of salt and shoved my hand inside, scooping up the sharp grains and the charm. I looked up into the ghost’s fathomless eyes; there was no shred of humanity left.
“Do it,” my sister growled. Her voice was like the drag of a shovel across a gravestone, and it was all the encouragement I needed to end this shit storm fast.
I bolted upright, slamming my fist into the gaping side of Daria’s skull, burrowing my hand deep into the ectoplasm of her brain. I gagged.
It’s not really her brain. She’s dead. A ghost—she has no brain, not physically. Telling myself that was the only thing that got me to open my fingers and release the salt and charm inside her. She reared up, screaming.
I fell back on the floor, hands over my ears. It felt like my head was going to explode. I gasped for breath as tears streamed down my cheeks.
And then, it was quiet. No other sound but the muffled music from the dance, reverberating through the floor.
Daria was gone, and my sister sat beside me, her back to me, legs splayed and shoulders slumped.
“Wren?” My voice sounded small.
She held up her hand—it still looked like claws. I knew not to say another word. Instead, I sat up and took that hand in my own. Once we made contact it didn’t take long for it to morph back into its usual state. I didn’t understand my effect on my sister any more than I understood any part of our existence, but it didn’t matter. I was the one thing that could bring her back from a manifestation.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes. You?”
“I’m covered in salt and ghost-goo, but, yeah, I’m okay.” I was sore, but that would be gone by morning—another side effect of this whacked-out life.
“This room’s a mess.”
I glanced around at the damage. It was too much for me to undo. “We need to get out of here. Is she gone?”
Wren nodded. “She’s gone. How did that even work?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“We need to start figuring these things out.”
“Yeah, but not tonight.” I pushed myself to my feet. She followed—much more gracefully, of course. “There’s one thing we need to do before we go home.”
“What’s that?”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s dance.”
(#ulink_e49aca49-68de-5720-a2a0-05d80f15ffea)
WREN
There really wasn’t any reason for me to stay at the dance once Daria moved on, but I knew it bothered Lark sometimes when I manifested, and that had been happening a fair bit lately. I couldn’t help it—Halloween was coming, and my ties to the world of the living were already abnormally strong. I knew Lark was having a difficult time with the number of ghosts she had to deal with, but I don’t think she realized how hard it was for me to try to remain hidden when All Hallows’ Eve demanded I come out and show myself.
Anyway, I stayed at the dance so that Lark and I could have a little fun together—not that she paid that much attention to me. She had her boyfriend, Ben. And now that she had real, loyal friends, she didn’t need me so much. I was happy for her, and I knew I could hang out with her group anytime I wanted. But being in a room with people who couldn’t see or hear you seemed more like punishment than fun.
I danced a little with Lark and our friends—she insisted they were mine, too—to a few faster songs. Even though Lark and Kevin—who I was trying to avoid—were the only ones who could actually see me, I still enjoyed myself—laughing as they took silly selfies and made what Sarah called “duck lips.”
“Oh, my God,” Roxi said, as she looked at the screen of her phone. “There’s Wren!”
Everyone crowded around to look. I drifted between Sarah and Kevin, knowing they’d feel the chill of my presence. Kevin looked right at me. I ignored him. He’d hurt my feelings and proven that he wasn’t the person I thought he was. I was having a hard time forgiving him for it.
“That’s so weird,” Gage, Roxi’s boyfriend, remarked. “She looks so real.”
I glanced at him at the same time Lark said, “She is real.”
He rolled his dark eyes. “Realer, then.”
Roxi kissed his cheek. “I think you mean tangible.”
Gage shrugged. “Whatever. It’s just cool to see her, that’s all.”
Everyone else agreed, and I smiled. Lark smiled, too.
But then everyone broke into couples for the slow dance, and Kevin looked at me. “It is good to see you,” he said. No one else would ever hear him above the music, his voice was so low, but I could hear it, and he knew it. It took all my strength not to stick my tongue out at him—or rip his eyes out.
I left instead. I couldn’t trust myself to be around him, not when that dark and angry part of myself was so close to the surface. I might hurt him, and I didn’t want to do that, no matter how much he’d hurt me.
I let myself drift through town, wandering aimlessly along the dark streets. My kind were everywhere—strolling along the sidewalks, peeking in windows, sitting on benches. Tomorrow there would be even more of them as even the weaker ones gathered strength.
Halloween was still days away, but that time of year has always been hard for me. This year it seemed even rougher. The veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead grows thinner as the calendar counts down to the end of October. It’s our holiday—when we can cross between dimensions and interact with the living if we wish. We can be our true selves. Those who have become violent or despondent remember who they were, and decide if they want to try moving on, or give themselves over to the darkness.
A lot give up, but there are an equal number who move on.
But not me. I stayed exactly where I was. I don’t think I had a choice.
Halloween’s approach had to be hard on Kevin, as well. He was a medium, and his abilities had only gotten stronger since our encounter with the ghost of madman Josiah Bent at Haven Crest Hospital.
I liked Kevin, and I thought he liked me, but then he told me we shouldn’t spend so much time together since we could never really have a relationship. Then I caught him kissing Sarah—Mace’s girlfriend. Mace, his best friend. That had stung, but the disappointment I’d felt was worse.
I kept drifting. The town of New Devon wasn’t very big, and there wasn’t much more for a ghost to do there than there was for a living sixteen-year-old. I didn’t feel like going home, but I wasn’t going back to that dance.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself at Haven Crest. The abandoned asylum was incredibly haunted from years of treating those who were considered insane or were locked up by their families. The graveyard on the property contained hundreds of cremated remains—and those were just the ones the families hadn’t claimed.
Haven Crest was full of, as Lark would put it, her people. Though, unlike Lark, most of the residents really were insane. If they hadn’t been when they went in, they had been by the time they died. It made for a lot of spectral energy in one spot, and like any ghost, I was drawn to it, because no one lived at Haven Crest anymore—they were all ghosts, and that made them my people.
I stood on the lawn facing the main building—a large, redbrick building with a wing on either side of the central block and a large white domed-roof tower. It had staging and construction materials piled up in front of it. The town was in the process of reclaiming as much land and buildings as they could, turning them into offices and public spaces.
Because what could possibly go wrong when disturbing the ghosts of more than a century’s worth of mental patients?
On the light post near my head someone had recently stapled a poster: One Night Only—Dead Babies!
I frowned. Why would anyone in their right minds want to see deceased infants? In my experience that kind of thing was very disturbing to the living. As a ghost, a baby was just another ghost. I hadn’t seen one myself—they tended to move on quickly.
Oh. Wait. Dead Babies. Yes, this was a musical band that Lark enjoyed listening to. I remembered dancing around our bedroom one night pretending to play a guitar while she sang into a hairbrush. I smiled at the memory. We didn’t do things like that anymore. Lark was always with Ben, or there were other people around. The times we were alone were rare and usually when she had homework to do, or needed to sleep. I would never actually say it to Lark, but sometimes I wished we could go back to a time when she didn’t have friends, and people stayed away because they thought she was crazy.
Dead Babies was going to be holding a concert here at Haven Crest on Halloween night. I’d heard Lark and Ben talk about a concert that Lark proclaimed was “a farking bad idea.” This had to be it. All that music and energy at a place like Haven Crest? The dead wouldn’t be able to resist, and there would be so many living to interact with—who wouldn’t think anything of a peculiarly dressed stranger dancing next to them. It would be Halloween, after all.
I would have to attend this concert. It might be fun. Or dangerous. If I was lucky, maybe both. All those warm, breathing bodies, ripe with fear, practically begging to be terrified. Delicious.
“Hello.”
I didn’t jump. It’s a well-known fact that ghosts don’t scare easily. I turned my head. Standing there beneath the lamp across the drive from me was a boy who looked to be a little older than I was. From the way he was dressed, I’d say he was actually a century older than I was. Young men didn’t wear suits much anymore, especially not jackets with tails.
“Hi,” I said.
Hands in his pockets, he crossed the pavement toward me. He was tall and pale with thick black hair and bright blue eyes. He had a nice smile—the sort that made my heart flutter. I might not actually be alive in this dimension, but I was fully intact in my own. Even if my heart didn’t actually beat, I was still capable of the sensation of physical response.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he remarked.
I folded my arms over my chest like my sister did whenever she felt defensive. “I haven’t seen you, either.”
He stopped right in front of me, still smiling. “I’m Noah.”
“Wren.”
His left eyebrow lifted. “An unusual name. One I’ve heard before. You wouldn’t be the ghost who helped destroy Josiah Bent?”
I stiffened. Bent had been a terrible creature, and he’d hurt Lark’s—our—friends. Because of that, and because I believed he needed to be destroyed, it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone at Haven Crest might harbor resentment for us getting rid of him.
But I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.”
His grin widened—he had nice teeth. “I have to thank you for that. Bent was a first-class bas—uh, scoundrel.”
“You can say bastard in front of me. Women aren’t considered delicate creatures anymore.”
His smile turned rueful. “That is a pity. Still, I’m happy to see that the loss doesn’t extend to beauty nor grace.”
Was that a compliment? “Are you flirting with me?”
Noah leaned a little closer. “Perhaps. Is it working?”
“I think so.” I smiled at him. I liked this game. It was fun, and it made me feel silly and light. “Maybe you could do it some more just to be certain.”
His dark eyes brightened. They were like a night sky—I could see stars reflected in them. “I’ve met many girls on these grounds, and you’re the first with whom I wanted to flirt.”
I laughed. “I don’t believe that.”
Noah’s head tilted as he shot me a bashful look. “Fair enough, but you’re the first one I hoped would flirt back.”
Oh, he was good. Lark wouldn’t trust him. In fact, I could hear her making retching noises in my head. But my sister wasn’t there. I was alone with a cute boy who wanted to spend some time with me, and there wasn’t any drama around it. We were both dead, so what was the worst thing that could happen?
I smiled. “I don’t really know how to flirt.”
He made a clucking sound with his tongue. “For shame. I would be happy to instruct if you are in want of a teacher.”
We were so close I could feel his spectral energy mingling with mine. It was like a warm breath on bare skin. We weren’t tangible to the living, or in their world—unless we manifested—but to each other we were solid. Real.
My gaze drifted to his mouth—he had perfect lips—before rising to meet his. God, those eyes! “Do you really think you could teach me?” I asked with a smile.
He arched a brow. “I think you have a natural talent for it.”
I laughed. “Maybe you’re just so good that I’m learning already.”
A bright smile parted his lips. “That may be true.” He offered his hand. “Would you care to dance with me?”
I said the words that I’d heard said countless times in romantic movies—“There isn’t any music.”
As though on cue, the sound of a cello and violin playing together in perfect harmony drifted around us, soft as a breeze.
“How did you do that?” I asked, looking about. I actually expected to see a couple of ghosts nearby, playing for us.
“When you’ve been around as long as I have been, you learn how to tap into lingering spectral energy.”
I nodded. “You found a looper.”
A looper was a common kind of ghost—the kind that are stuck, either knowingly or unaware, in a particular moment or action. Some are doomed to jump off that bridge night after night, or walk the same stretch of road, scream the same blood-chilling scream. They’re like ghost-zombies, mindless and driven only by compulsion. Sad, really.
“There are quite a few of them here,” he said. “I’ve just brought them a little closer. I’m not hurting them.”
The concern in his tone made me like him more. “I hadn’t thought you were.”
Noah looked relieved. “You’ll dance with me, then?”
I nodded. “I’m not very good. I’ve never really learned.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “Something else for me to teach you.” He held out his hand. I took it and put my other hand on his shoulder as his arm went around my waist.
“Just look into my eyes and follow me,” he instructed.
I did. The next thing I knew we were whirling and twirling around—easier to do when your feet didn’t have to touch the ground. Following really wasn’t all that difficult once I realized there was a pattern to the steps. It was fun.
There were ghosts in the windows of nearby buildings watching us. Some even came outside, but they didn’t approach us. A few found partners or danced by themselves, but they didn’t try to interrupt. Noah spun me over the top of the security patrol car as it drove by, and I laughed as we flew up into the air.
Lark reached out to me an hour or so later. It wasn’t a summons, just a gentle prod to make sure I was all right. We really did have the whole twin-ESP thing going on, but I didn’t know if it was because we were twins or because I was dead. The why wasn’t really important, it was convenient to be able to feel one another when we weren’t together. My sister had a habit of getting into trouble—though she’d probably say the same about me.
I let her know I was fine, and she seemed to respect that because she didn’t summon me—a command that I didn’t seem to be able to ignore, and Lark only used it when it was urgent. She was probably with Ben anyway.
“What’s it like to have lived?” I asked as we danced.
His smile seemed almost sad as he whirled me around the chimneys of one of the older buildings. “Terrible and wonderful. Anxious and joyous. Things hurt and stink and rot. And then, you’ll find the most perfect flower, or watch the sunrise, and every pain will have been worth it.”
I felt hollow inside. “I wish I could experience it.”
He looked me in the eye. “My dear girl, you don’t have to be alive to live. There are plenty of living people in this world who sleepwalk through it and never hate or love any part of it. You are more alive than almost anyone I’ve ever known.”
Noah and I danced and talked some more. We flirted and we laughed. And then, the sun peeked its head up over the horizon.
We were sitting beneath an old tree that still had most of its leaves—which were almost as dark a red as my hair. Noah lifted his head.
“You should go,” he said. “Your sister will wonder where you’ve been.” Of course he knew about Lark if he knew who I was.
He was right. She’d worry if I wasn’t there when she woke up, even though she wouldn’t be up for a while yet. It was Saturday, after all.
“Is the daylight difficult for you?” I asked. It was a known fact that most ghosts were weakened by the sun. I wasn’t one of them, though I did feel more “alive” at night.
He glanced away—as though it was something to be ashamed of. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
I placed my hand over the one resting on his thigh and gently squeezed. “Don’t be.”
Suddenly, his face was right there in front of mine, and his fingers touched my cheek as though I was made of the most delicate glass. “If I could I would spend all the hours of this day and the next, and all the others that follow, in your company.”
My throat tightened. Lark would have thought of something witty to say at such a time. Me? Not so much. “Me, too.”
His face brightened. He rose to his feet, helping me stand at the same time. He held both my hands in his. “Will I see you again tonight?”
I nodded. “Yes. If you want.”
“I can think of nothing that would give me more pleasure.”
He talked like something out of a romance novel—like Mr. Darcy. I loved it. I grinned. “Well, I would hate to deny you.”
A slow smile curved his perfect lips. “I was right—you do have a natural talent for flirting.” His smile faded. “I must go. Until tonight.”
I started to say something, but he cut me off by pressing his mouth to mine in a quick, firm kiss. Then, he was gone, leaving me standing there, stunned.
I pressed my fingers to my mouth and smiled. I felt light—ridiculously happy. Who knew that boys held such power in their lips?
I spun around, laughing out loud as I whisked myself away from Haven Crest. As I drifted away I saw two leaves fall from the tree. They drifted down to the ground where Noah and I had sat. They each fell alone but ended up together on the grass, stems entwined. Somehow, they’d found each other.
I danced all the way home.
LARK
I woke up late, a little sore from the fight with Daria, but otherwise fine. I would have been up earlier, but I’d stayed out late with Ben. Memories of how we’d passed the time made me warm all over. God, that boy knew how to kiss. Where to touch...
What the hell was that sound?
Slowly, I pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked out into the dimness of my room. There was Wren dancing and singing under her breath in front of my mirror. She kept changing her outfits and hairstyles like a movie montage. All she had to do was think it, and she could look it. I hated that about her. It took me forty minutes to get ready. It took her four seconds.
I’d never seen her like this. She was grinning like an idiot, and I’m pretty sure she was singing a Taylor Swift song. She was also wearing a dress exactly like the one Belle wore to dance with Beast in the Disney movie.
“That yellow clashes with your hair,” I grumbled, beating down the blankets.
She yelped, and so did I. What the hell? I’d never startled her before.
“Are you okay?” I asked, frowning at her. She looked...sheepish. I guess I would be, too, if I’d been caught in that dress.
“I’m fine,” she chirped. “Just bored waiting for you to wake up. It’s about time.”
My gaze narrowed. There was definitely something up with her. “Where did you end up last night? I was surprised you weren’t here when I got home.”
She shrugged and looked away. “I went to the Shadow Lands for a while. Nothing exciting.”
My ass. But, hey, if she didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t like it when she nagged me, so I wasn’t going to nag her.
Except... “You’d tell me if you were in trouble, right? Like if something awful happened?”
She frowned, dark red brows lowering over eyes that were exactly like mine. “Of course. Just because I wasn’t with you doesn’t mean something terrible happened.”
But something had. I was willing to bet it was Kevin. He’d left the dance early, too. At the time I’d assumed a high school dance wasn’t all that interesting for a guy in college, but now I suspected he’d run off to hang out with my sister. If he broke her heart, I was going to break his head.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Wren demanded, the ball gown melting away into leggings and a long, slouchy sweater.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to punch me in the face.”
“Sorry. It’s not you I’d like to punch.” I threw back the covers. “Gotta pee.”
She came into the bathroom with me, phasing through the wall. Ghosts didn’t have the same personal boundaries as the living. Wren never had a full bladder, the cow, so she didn’t get that emptying it was often a private thing.
“Did you have a good time last night?” she asked, sticking her fingers through the shower curtain as she turned her back to me. At least she gave me a little privacy.
“I did—obviously after we got rid of Daria.”
Wren frowned. She looked disappointed. “I was so sure that it was her love for Mr. Fisher that kept her here, not revenge.”
“When love goes bad, it goes bad. Happens all the time.” I flushed and washed my hands. “Not like they had a chance at happiness with her being a ghost.”
“You know, for a girl with a boyfriend, you’re terribly cynical about love.”
“No, I’m not.” I pulled on my pink fuzzy robe. “I just believe it works better if both people are on the same side of the veil.” I gave her a pointed look, hoping my meaning hit home.
She thought about it. “Well, that certainly makes intercourse easier.”
I stared at her. Gaped, actually. “What?”
Wren looked at me like I was slow. “Intercourse. You know, interaction between two people.”
“I think you mean discourse. Intercourse means sex.”
“Oh.” A look of understanding took over her face. “It really would make that easier, then, wouldn’t it?” Then, she burst out laughing and so did I.
Our grandmother wasn’t home when we went downstairs. Sometimes Nan and a couple of her girlfriends went shopping on Saturday mornings and then went for tea afterward. I didn’t expect to see her anytime soon.
The coffee was still hot. I filled the biggest mug I could find and dumped in some flavored sweetener until it was the perfect color. I drank it while waiting for my bagel to pop.
“That’s a lot of cream cheese,” Wren remarked when I sat down at the table, breakfast in hand.
I picked up half the bagel and took a big bite. I could feel cream cheese smear against the outside edges of my mouth. I had been a little heavy-handed. “It’s the best part.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.” Wren had experienced food before. Sometimes I’d let her possess me so she could experience things, but while she enjoyed the taste of cookies or chocolate, or even hot wings, she didn’t understand eating for pleasure. To her a little cream cheese was the same as a lot.
I actually felt sorry for her when it came to that.
“Hey, can ghosts have intercourse?” I asked as the coffee kicked in. “The sex kind, not the conversational type.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “We have all the same parts the living have, so I have to say yes.”
But she didn’t know for certain. My sister was still a virgin. The idea that she might remain that way forever was a little...depressing. It wasn’t any of my business, but sometimes... Sometimes it was upsetting thinking of all the things I could experience that she never would.
Then again, I’d never know the sublime pleasure of being able to scare someone so effectively their bladder never worked properly again.
“Mostly ghosts merge their energy,” she continued. “It’s more of a literal ‘becoming one’ with one another.”
“What if everything gets all mixed and you, like, leave part of yourself in the other ghost?”
She frowned. “I don’t know.”
Yup, virgin. I finished the first half of my bagel. “Hey, I want you to practice with my phone a bit.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Do we have to?”
“Yes. If Kevin hadn’t been at the dance last night you wouldn’t have been able to lead them to Mr. Fisher.” I didn’t add that the less time she had to spend around Kevin, the better. “The message you sent me was wrong. You need to be able to communicate with people, and electronics have always been a popular medium of supernatural communication.”
Red brows shot up. “You’ve been watching those ghost hunting shows again.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “They’re ninety percent crap, but they get the electronic stuff right. Most of the time. Look, I’m not expecting you to download any apps. I just need to know that if something took me out, that you could talk to someone.” I held her gaze, even though it was uncomfortable.
When I’d cut my wrists in a much-regretted suicide attempt, Wren had had to find a medium in order to get help. That medium had been Kevin. If she hadn’t found him—and if he hadn’t called my neighbor, Mace—I would have died for sure. As it was I had been technically dead for a few seconds.
It had felt much, much longer.
I wasn’t in any hurry to die now, and I needed to make sure she could get help if it was needed.
I set my phone on the table. “Okay, go.”
Wren sighed, but she didn’t put up a fight. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. A few seconds later my phone vibrated, and the text notification came up. I swiped my finger over the screen and brought up my new messages. One was from Ben, but the other had no name attached. Even though I was pretty confident it had worked, I held my breath as I opened the text.
BOO!
I looked up. My sister sat there grinning like a freaking idiot. “Really?” I said. “That’s the best you can do?”
She shrugged. “You’re sitting right next to me. What was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know. Something a little less stereotypical?”
My phone vibrated again. I looked down. A new message.
BOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOO.
“Ass,” I said. Wren laughed. “Fine, you can use a phone right in front of you. Now I want you to send a message to Ben—and try to put a little more thought into it, please.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes again, and I started in on the second half of my cream-cheese-laden bagel. I checked my email as I chewed.
I was scoping out the latest designs on the Fluevog website—I loved me some shoes—when my phone buzzed yet again.
It was Ben. His first text said that he’d dreamed about me last night, followed by a bunch of winky faces. The second read, How is Wren able to text me? And why did she ask me if you and I have ever had intercourt?
Intercourt? I started laughing. Auto-correct spared no one, not even the dead.
Wren smiled. “Is that from Ben?”
I set my phone aside. “He said to tell you that he’s saving himself for marriage.”
“Saving himself from what?” she asked. I didn’t know if she was serious or not.
“Forget it.” I took another bite of bagel. “You’re good with text. Next we work on actually making a phone call.”
My phone rang almost immediately. I glanced down at the display and sighed. Wren started laughing.
“Cow,” I muttered.
On the screen, underneath Calling, it simply said: BOO.
My twin was still chuckling to herself when my phone buzzed again. I looked down expecting to see another message from Wren the comedian, but the name that came up was Emily, and the message read: Darkness is coming. You must save her.
My heart skipped a beat. I only knew one Emily—we were related, and she’d been a twin, as well. She was also dead.
Save who? I typed, then hit Send.
No reply. Awesome. Who the hell was this mysterious “her”? But more importantly, what did she mean by “darkness is coming”? That wasn’t cryptic or anything.
God. Ghosts were such douche bags.
(#ulink_ef7bf1ab-1583-5dd0-b2e4-2a3850410d0c)
LARK
We met at the local Goodwill later that day to shop for Halloween stuff. The dance the night before had just been the beginning of what Roxi was calling “The Halloween Season.” There was a party tonight at Kevin’s because his parents were on a cruise—his parents were away a lot—and then there were a couple of ghost walks through the week that I’d probably bow out of, leading up to thte Dead Babies concert at Haven Crest on Halloween.
I’d already let everyone know what a bad idea attending the concert was, and we had all agreed to go anyway, despite the fact that ghosts from the hospital had tried to kill us. Were we mentally deranged? Probably, but Dead Babies were awesome. One of my favorite bands. Yes, enough that I’d risk going to see them at the most haunted place I’d ever visited, on the night the barrier between the realms of the living and dead was at its thinnest.
I justified it like so: I had to be there in case anything happened. It was my duty as someone who could combat ghosts to protect the concertgoers—and the band—from spectral harm. I had told my friends—and myself—so many times I almost believed it.
Bottom line—I wanted to go more than I was afraid of the ghosts. And that was stupid. No getting around it. I was the chick who went into the dark basement to find out what had made that scraping sound, armed with nothing but a pair of nail scissors. The idiot who decided to help the creepy little bare-footed, black-eyed kid who wore a tattered nightgown and stank of stale well water.
Hey, at least I owned it.
So, we were at Goodwill getting last-minute items for tonight, and also for Halloween night.
“I think you should go as Daenerys Targaryen,” Roxi remarked, holding up a pink stuffed dragon.
“Ugh,” I said, digging through a rack of dresses. “Do you know how many times I’ve been called ‘Khaleesi’ since that show started? Too many.”
“But your hair is perfect for it.” She looked genuinely upset that I didn’t jump on the idea. “And I found a dragon.”
I sighed as she wagged the toy. “Throw it over.”
She grinned and tossed it over the racks. I caught it with one hand. “It smells like puke.”
“It will wash,” she chirped.
Roxi was one of those people who were almost always happy. I could hate her for it, but I think she kept me from being too emo. She was a little shorter than me, with long dark hair, a tan complexion and big brown eyes. She said her mother was Romanian and her dad was half-black. It didn’t matter much to me, but she was gorgeous all the same. My mother was a bitch, and my father was a half-ball-less wonder. I was jealous that her parents even liked her, let alone loved her.
“I think I’m going to go as Cleopatra on actual Halloween night,” she announced, holding up a long white dress that might have been fashionable in the late ’70s. It was hideous by way of fabulous.
Her boyfriend, Gage—cute, dark-eyed, needed a haircut—bounded up beside her. “Does that mean I can be a gladiator?”
The way they smiled at each other made me turn away. PDAs were not a spectator sport as far as I was concerned.
Ben walked over. We’d been dating for almost two months, and I saw him almost every day, but I still smiled whenever I saw his face. Call me biased, but he’s one of the hottest guys in school. Funny, smart—and he knows how to kick ghost-butt. His grandmother was Korean, and she’d taught me how to make pujok—basically a protection sigil against ghosts and evil spirits. I thought she liked me, but sometimes she looked at me like she wasn’t quite sure what I was.
I got that a lot. I’m a teenage girl with stark-white hair whose mental state had been seriously questioned, and who could interact with ghosts the same as the living. I probably wouldn’t like Ben’s granny nearly as much if she just welcomed me with open arms.
“What are you wearing?” I asked, trying not to laugh.
Ben grinned and did a little twirl in front of me. “Do you like it? I might get it.”
“It” was a full-length silver fur coat that was too big for him and too short in the arms. My guy was tall and lanky, and for a former chubby kid, he seemed to have no issues with self-confidence. One of the things I liked about him was that he was comfortable in his own skin and rarely worried about what other people thought of him.
“It’s a little big,” I said. “But it’s a good look.”
“I feel sexy.”
“You smell like mothballs.”
He sniffed his shoulder and made a face. “Yeah. Who even uses those things anymore?”
I shrugged. “People against moths, I guess. I have no idea what to wear to the party.”
“You could go as Elsa,” he suggested, slipping the coat off his shoulders. “You’ve got the hair for it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Me and my damn hair.”
He hung the fur up and stepped closer. He took a piece of my hair and wrapped it around his finger. “I like your damn hair.”
Oh. When he lowered his voice like that and smiled that little smile...
“Get a room,” Mace growled.
I turned around and shot him a grin. Mace was tall with light brown hair and hazel eyes. He was gorgeous, and someone I never thought I’d be friends with, especially after he found me bleeding to death and called 911. But we were friends. In fact, he was one of my best friends, though I doubted he knew it.
He had a fedora on his head. It actually didn’t look too bad. “Who are you supposed to be?” I asked.
He made a face—like he’d bit into something sour. “Sarah wants us to be Bonnie and Clyde.”
“We’ll look fabulicious,” his girlfriend called from four aisles away. “Stop making that face.”
Mace made the face again and went back to pawing through the racks.
Suddenly, Wren popped out from between two dresses in front of me. It was so weird seeing her do that and the clothing not move. She was so real to me that it was easy to forget she was no more substantial than breath in this world.
“Haven’t you figured out what you’re going to be yet?” she demanded. “I’ve had my costume sorted out for weeks.”
I wasn’t feeling quite snarky enough to inform her that no one but me—and possibly Kevin—would be able to see it. “Yay, you.”
Ben glanced at me. “You talking to me?”
I shook my head, glancing around to make sure no one else was paying attention.
He smiled. “Hey, Wren.”
She waved, even though he couldn’t see her. “Hi!”
“You could help me look for a costume,” I told her.
Her eyes lit up. If she clapped her hands I was going to slap her. Instead, she turned around and whipped down the aisle toward evening wear. Mace shivered as she flew by. He turned to me. “Was that...?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
He grinned. “I knew it.”
My chest tightened. I looked from Mace to Ben, to Roxi and Gage, and even to Sarah. Kevin hadn’t come because he was prepping for the party, which was just as well. Each of these living, breathing people made an effort to acknowledge or be kind to Wren. They were thoughtful of her, and that meant more to me than any of them could ever know. After years of being told my sister wasn’t real, that she was only in my mind, it was so freaking good to know that not only were they wrong, but that Wren had become real—in her own way—to others.
I blinked back tears.
“Lark!” Wren cried a few seconds later. “I found it!”
Had she ever. It was a vintage pink slip-dress from the ’70s. Normally such a piece would be fairly expensive, but this one had slight stains on the front and was only five bucks.
I knew exactly what to do with it.
Half an hour later we left the store. Everyone but Ben had a plastic bag full of items. He’d bought a pair of sunglasses and that was it. He still hadn’t told me what he was going as that night, so I decided to keep my costume secret, as well.
I crossed the parking lot, swinging my plastic bag, as I laughed at a joke Gage had made. I turned to say something to him, but he was gone. They were all gone. The cars and the parking lot—the box stores that made up the rest of the plaza—everything was gone, and I was standing on cobblestones in a world where everything was muted and soft. The street I stood on seemed taken right from the pages of a BBC historical production, with gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages rattling along.
A woman in Edwardian clothing stopped on the opposite side of the street and stared at me. She looked scared. I glanced up and saw another woman peeking out a window from behind a curtain. Her mouth was open.
“Lark?”
I turned toward the familiar voice. It was Wren. She stood right beside me. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, taking my hand. “Come with me. Now.”
I entwined my fingers with hers and stepped toward her. My ears popped, and suddenly the other world was gone, and I was back in the Goodwill parking lot, with my sister and all of my friends staring at me in concern.
“What happened?” Ben asked, pulling me in for a hug.
“I don’t know,” I replied. I was shaking, and there was no hiding it. “It felt like I stepped into another world.”
“You did,” Wren informed me. She had a strange expression on her face. My sister wasn’t easily frightened, but she looked worried. Not just that, but she was looking at me like she didn’t quite know me. “Lark, you were in the Shadow Lands.”
I frowned at her. “I couldn’t have been.”
“Couldn’t have been what?” Roxi asked, looking from me to the empty space occupied by my sister.
“In the Shadow Lands,” I replied. “It’s impossible. Only the dead can go there.”
“You were dead,” Mace reminded me softly. “Once.”
I shook my head. “It had to have been my imagination.”
My sister stomped up to me, so close our noses were almost touching. Of course, no one else could see it. “It was real. You were between both worlds.”
Like her. Our gazes locked. I didn’t have to say it for her to understand. This was weird. And it was big.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked, giving me a squeeze.
I nodded, looking away from my sister. “It’s probably because Halloween’s so close.”
“Maybe,” Wren allowed. “Or it might be something else.”
I ignored her. “We’d better get going.”
In my pocket my cell buzzed. I had a text. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and glanced at the message.
We’re going to talk about this whether you like it or not.
I shot Wren a snotty look. She didn’t look impressed, but I didn’t care. I’d been to the Shadow Lands when I died for, like, two seconds. It felt like a lot more time there. And with the veil thinning it made sense that I’d be sensitive. Last year I was still in Bell Hill, so the meds might have kept me from experiencing the same thing then.
“Want to grab some lunch?” Mace asked us. “Mexican?”
A big plate of cheesy nachos was exactly what I needed. “Sure,” I said. And then to Ben, “Unless you need to go home.”
“No. Lunch sounds good.”
Everyone else left ahead of us. Wren said she’d meet us there. I didn’t know where she was off to, but I suspected it was the Shadow Lands. I got into the car.
Ben opened the driver-side door and slid in. He put the key into the ignition, but instead of turning it, he turned to me. “Be honest. Are you okay?”
I leaned my head back against the seat and smiled. “Yeah, I’m good.” It was mostly true. I mean, yeah, it was weird, but my whole life was weird. If I freaked out every time something strange happened, I’d spend 99 percent of my time a basket case.
He leaned over and kissed me. For those few seconds I didn’t think. I didn’t worry about anything.
Like what those two women in the Shadow Lands saw when they looked at me. Or why my sister had been afraid.
WREN
“She just didn’t look right,” the woman with the cockney accent explained. “There were something dreadful odd about her, for such a pretty girl.”
She looked odd because she was alive, but I didn’t say that. I only asked this woman—and the one who had been on the street when Lark had popped into the Shadow Lands—about what she’d seen because I didn’t want it getting around that my sister had slipped past the barrier.
It made sense that if the dead could easily cross at this time of year, then the living could, as well. It felt strange, though. I’d never heard of it happening before, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t. I wished our ancestor Emily—who had reached out to both Lark and me before—would decide to show up and give us some advice on how this living/dead twin thing worked, but we hadn’t seen her since the night she helped Lark tap into her ghost-fighting abilities.
I hadn’t had any glimpses of her sister, Alys, either—who had occasionally shown herself to me at my grandmother’s house. It was frustrating, because I felt like their appearances meant something. Shouldn’t they have moved on?
I wanted to find Emily and Alys. I wanted them to tell Lark and me why we existed. What was the reason? What was our destiny? I wanted answers. But it seemed that Lark and I were destined to wind up with nothing but an endless list of questions.
The one thing that struck me as I left the woman to wander the streets of shadow-Edwardian London, was that neither of Lark’s witnesses had remarked that she looked like me. That meant that she looked different here—maybe like how I looked when I manifested in the living world? No wonder the women had been afraid of her.
What would happen if Lark manifested here for any length of time? We spent so much time trying to make sure I didn’t cause harm in the living world with my abilities, but we’d never considered whether she could be a danger to the dead.
And why hadn’t we discussed it? I’d seen her punch a ghost. Seen her hurt a spirit. Those ones had deserved it, but what if she went after someone who didn’t? She might hurt someone, just like there was the danger of me doing harm when I manifested among the living.
I was getting ahead of myself. There was no need to get anxious. This might have been an All Hallows’ Eve aberration. Yes, that was the best way to think of it for now. If it happened again, I’d consult the Shadow Lands library.
I drifted back into the earthly realm. I spent more time among the living than I did the dead. It wasn’t completely because of Lark and our friends, but because I found the living more interesting.
The Shadow Lands was made up of bits and pieces the dead had assembled—not quite Heaven, but a more idyllic version of what their lives had been. There wasn’t the amount of emotion and drama going on that there was in the living world. Lark turned her nose up at many of the reality shows on the television, but she didn’t seem to realize that, to me, her life was a reality show! Even the simple act of shopping was interesting to someone who only had to “think” her appearance and make it so.
I ended up at Haven Crest. I didn’t wonder why—I wasn’t totally vacuous. It was obvious that some part of my mind had been thinking about Noah. Other than Lark’s realm-jumping, I hadn’t thought about much other than him all day.
It was late afternoon, and while the daylight hours had shortened considerably in New England, there was still an hour or more of daylight left. Noah wasn’t a young ghost, so there was a chance he might be about, especially if I could find the spot he haunted.
Finding another ghost wasn’t easy in a place like this. The dead recognized each other’s energy, so if I was in a house with one or two ghosts I could probably seek them out without much trouble. A place like Haven Crest, though... Well, there were so many ghosts that trying to find just one was like that old saying about needles and haystacks.
Maybe not quite that hard. I had interacted with Noah. Our spirits had brushed together. That would make it a little easier to find him once I found the right spot—just like Lark knew the scent of Ben’s soap, I would recognize Noah’s energy.
Based on the way he’d been dressed I knew he had to have died in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. There had been fewer buildings back then, and of those only the main residence and one other had been used to house patients. I knew this because, after Josiah Bent, Lark and I both wanted to make sure we knew as much about this place as we could. Haven Crest was so haunted it was practically a spiritual entity itself. That was something that needed to be watched.
I moved toward the main building, where there had been a wing for male patients and another for female. A building to the left of that, some distance away—closer to the forest and former garden—had been segregated in a similar manner, but with one difference. It had been for the wealthy patients. The wealthy white patients. I’d learned that the “colored” inmates had been divided by gender and affluence and were housed in a separate building.
Lark had tried explaining racism to me in the past, and while I understood the concept, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the sentiment behind it. People ought to be judged by their character, not their color.
Based on the fact that Noah had fair skin and had been well dressed, it was probably a valid assumption that he haunted the upper-class residence, so that’s where I went. Thankfully, this was not where Josiah Bent and his followers had haunted, because I probably wouldn’t be welcomed there by many of them. As an outsider, Dead Born and free to go wherever I wanted, I was going to be resented, regardless.
That knowledge didn’t keep me from entering the old building. Its once beautiful windows were mostly broken and boarded up. The large, double doors were locked but hung loose on rusted hinges, dirty white paint peeling. It reminded me of photos I’d seen one time Lark was browsing some internet site—photos of celebrities who had ruined their looks with drugs and alcohol. This building had been beautiful once, but it had been abandoned to the ravages of time and neglect.
I walked through those sad doors and stood in the middle of a reception area with a high, vaulted ceiling. It looked as though there had been some plasterwork on the walls at one time, but it had been pried off. Broken pieces lay scattered on the dirty hardwood floor. Not just neglected, this building had been pillaged, as well.
Vandals. Their kind had no respect for anything. How terrible it must be for those who haunted this place to see it slowly stolen away. It hurt me—offended the deepest part of me.
In response to my anger, the building cried out. To living ears it would have sounded like a low groan—creaking floors or old pipes. To me, it was an anguished wail.
Yes, Haven Crest was more than just a collection of old wood and stone.
“Wren?”
I turned my head. Standing on the stairs to my left was Noah. He looked concerned. “Is something wrong? I felt...a disturbance.”
I shook my head, but my heart was full of sorrow. “This place must have been beautiful once.”
“It was.” He continued down the stairs. He was wearing different clothes today—a white shirt and gray vest with black trousers and boots. His thick hair was tousled as though he’d been running his hands through it. He was beautiful. I just stood there and watched as he approached me.
“Would you like to see it as it once was?” he asked.
I didn’t know if seeing its former glory would make what I felt better or worse, but I knew that I wanted to see it. “Yes.”
“Take my hand.”
I slipped my hand in his, feeling the warmth of his fingers around mine. Slowly, the faded wallpaper gave way to a beautiful pale blue damask. The plasterwork reappeared as frames on the walls and bouquets of flowers in the corners of the ceiling. The wood floor gleamed, the stairs, as well, and they were covered by a strip of cream carpet with roses printed on it. Above our heads a sparkling chandelier hung, its brass chain shining. Even the reception desk was a thing of beauty. And the windows! They were flanked by pale gold velvet curtains, pulled back to let in the sunlight.
“It’s prettier than I thought,” I said, my voice a little hoarse.
“This is how I choose to see it,” Noah told me. “Rationally, I know that it’s a ruin now, and that soon it will either collapse or they’ll tear it down, but in my heart, it will always be a grand old girl to me.”
“What will you do if they tear it down?” I asked.
“I suppose I’ll have to learn to like whatever they build in its spot, or find someplace new.” He smiled, but I could tell it was forced. “Perhaps I’ll move on. Whatever happens, I suppose it shall be an adventure.”
I think I fell in love with him at that moment, watching him trying to be brave when faced with losing everything he had left in the world. Someday, everything I held dear would be in ruins, as well.
I squeezed his hand in mine, and in that moment I made a decision. I looked him in the eye and smiled. “Would you like to go to a party with me tonight?”
(#ulink_fbe8f5e5-f476-56b7-af2a-d52f24a8ac7e)
LARK
“Oh, my gawwwwd!” Roxi squealed. She was dressed in a Day of the Dead costume complete with elaborate face makeup and roses in her hair. “Your costume is amazeballs!”
I did a little twirl on the back step of my grandmother’s house. I was wearing the long pink slip dress I’d bought earlier that day. It was covered in fake blood—fabric paint, so I didn’t have to worry about getting red on everything. I was also wearing a “blood”-splattered long strawberry-blond wig, a tiara and a sash that said Prom Queen.
“Did you do the makeup yourself?” I asked as we climbed into Nan’s car—a purple Volkswagen Beetle with flower-shaped brake lights.
The wreath in her hair brushed the ceiling of the car. “Yeah. I watched a couple videos online first.”
I fastened my seat belt and started the engine. “What’s Gage going as?”
“Baron Samedi,” she replied. “I know it’s hokey to do the matching thing, but it was his idea.”
“I think it’s cute.” And it was, which suited the two of them.
“What’s Wren’s costume?” she asked as we pulled out onto the street.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “She said she’d meet us there.” To be honest I thought it was really weird that she wasn’t with me now. She’d been acting a little off lately.
“Oh, hey. I meant to tell you that she showed up in a few more photos from the dance. Like, fully visible.”
“Really?” My mother used to accuse me of doing “something” to make it look like there was someone beside me in photos when we were kids. She never believed me about Wren. She thought I talked about my sister to upset her.
“Yeah, she totally photo-bombed a couple of shots. Want to see?” She started digging through her purse for her phone. The purse wasn’t much bigger than a tablet—how hard could it be to find a phone in it?
I pulled into the local middle-school parking lot. I wanted to study what Roxi had to show me, and I couldn’t do that and make sure I didn’t drive into a tree.
I turned on the dome light just as Roxi found her phone. It took her a few seconds to get into the photo album and find what she was looking for, but finally she handed me the phone.
The image on the screen was of me, Sarah, Gage and Ben dancing. Mace was out of frame. And there, just behind me, was Wren dancing with wild abandon.
My throat tightened. I don’t know why it choked me up to see her, but it did.
“Scroll to the next one,” Roxi instructed. I did.
And burst out laughing.
It was the whole group of us, clustered in for a dance-floor selfie. There, sticking her head in by mine—while standing practically in Roxi—was Wren, making duck lips.
How the hell did she know about duck lips?
Roxi grinned as I handed the phone back to her. “Awesome, huh?”
I nodded. “Can you text that to me?”
“Already on it.”
I was still smiling as I steered the Beetle out of the lot and back onto the road.
New Devon wasn’t a big town—like most places in Connecticut it just sort of melded with the other small towns around it. Kevin lived not far from Haven Crest and the town cemetery, where he used to take care of Wren’s grave. He didn’t do that anymore—I did. I never asked Wren why he stopped, and she never offered to tell me. Kevin’s house was in a neighborhood that had a lot of space between homes, which was great for a party. The brick house with its white trim was supposed to look warm and homey, but it still screamed money! which I found a little intimidating. Not that I’d ever let Kevin know that.
There were already several cars parked in the drive and on the street when we arrived. I pulled in behind Mace’s car.
Kevin answered the door a few seconds after Roxi rang the bell. He was dressed as the main character from Kick-Ass. It suited him. He grinned when he saw us, but he didn’t hold my gaze. “You guys look awesome,” he said, stepping back so we could enter.
A Taylor Swift song was playing when we walked in. I arched a brow. I hadn’t taken Kevin as a fan, but when we walked into the living room and I saw Sarah by the stereo system, shaking her head and butt to the beat, I understood who was in charge of the music. Sarah was dressed like an old-time female gangster. Not far away was Mace, looking very gangster-ish. Bonnie and Clyde had won out after all.
I looked around the room. There were easily twenty or so people there already—an assortment of “sexy” cops, Disney characters, superheroes and guys dressed as horror-movie villains. What—or rather who—was Ben? I didn’t see him. I had offered to pick him up in case he planned to drink, but he’d turned me down.
It made me anxious. Was he tired of me already? My heart told me that was stupid, but my head couldn’t help it. I didn’t trust in good things. And I didn’t trust myself to be able to keep a guy like Ben around. He was good and nice, while I thought of myself as something of a hot mess—emphasis on mess.
Gage—or rather, Baron Samedi—showed up and claimed Roxi, leaving me standing alone by the snack table. The huge bowl of chips looked so tempting now that I was all anxious. I grabbed a can of soda from the cooler instead and made myself walk away rather than dive headfirst into salty, greasy temptation.
“Nice costume,” came a familiar voice as I leaned against the wall—far away from food.
I turned to smiled at Mace. “Thanks,” I said. “You, too.”
He made a face. “When Sarah gets her heart set on something, it’s easier sometimes just to go with it.” He gestured at my head with his own soda. “Weird to see you with different hair.”
Self-consciously, I touched the “blood”-soaked wig. “Weird-bad, or weird-good?”
Mace shrugged. “Weird-different. You always look good.”
I blinked. The compliment was so unexpected I wasn’t sure how to take it. “Oh. Thanks.”
He looked away. I followed his gaze and saw that Sarah and Kevin were standing together by the stereo, and she was laughing at something Kevin had said. Mace didn’t look too happy about it.
“I hate Taylor Swift,” he said, turning his gaze back to mine. I could tell he suspected there was something between his best friend and his girlfriend, but I wasn’t going to ask. Not here.
I watched as his expression brightened. He was looking at a point over my shoulder, a grin spreading across his face. “That’s too cool.”
I turned. Practically everyone had stopped to watch the guy who had just entered the room. He was tall and dressed entirely in black as Neo from The Matrix. The costume was perfect—long black coat, boots with silver buckles, cargo pants with weapons strapped on. His black shirt was snug enough to cling to his defined chest and abs. Even the hair and sunglasses were perfect.
A “sexy witch” and a “sexy Freddy Krueger” straightened up as he walked by, eyeing him with obvious interest. But “Neo” didn’t even give them a glance. In fact his attention was focused on just one person.
Me.
If it had been anyone else, I would probably say something sarcastic about the amount of detail in the costume, but this was Ben. My Ben. And he looked freaking incredible.
“He wore that to New York Comic Con last year,” I heard Mace say. “He’s got new sunglasses, though. Killer costume.”
That was one way to describe it. I would also describe it as “hot” if I were capable of speech.
“Hey,” Ben said when he reached me. “You look amazing.”
“So do you,” I replied.
As if to prove my point, Gage walked by and slapped him on the back, saying, “Awesome costume, man.”
Ben smiled. “I kinda feel like I should give you my coat. There’s not much to that dress.”
It was a thin material, but it wasn’t like I was naked underneath. It was October in New England, after all. That said, spaghetti straps don’t provide that much warmth.
“Keep it,” I said. “Enough girls are staring at you already.”
His grin grew. “Jealous?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.” And then, with a smile, “Maybe.” It was true. I liked knowing other girls thought he was gorgeous, but I didn’t like feeling that someday he might find someone he liked better than me. Certainly there were girls out there who were less work and weren’t always getting into fights with dead people.
He laughed and put his arm around my shoulders—he was so warm!—pulling me in for a kiss.
“Get a room,” Mace drawled—as he always did—before walking away. I flipped him off, but he didn’t see the gesture. Ben gave me a hug before letting me go, but he took my hand in his.
“So, Carrie, huh?” he asked, giving me the once-over again. “Points for going with the original.”
“Thanks. It was an easy costume—Wren found the dress.”
“Is she here?”
“Not yet. I’m not sure she’s going to show. It’s getting harder for her to keep herself hidden. She showed up in a lot of Roxi’s photos from the dance. She might not want to risk other people seeing her.” It was weird, but after years of wishing people would believe my sister was real, I was suddenly very worried about what might happen if they did.
More people began to arrive, and we gravitated toward what I considered my main group of friends. I was eating chips—my willpower having evaporated—when Wren arrived. Chewing was the only thing that kept my mouth from falling open at the sight of her.
She looked amazing. She was dressed in a gorgeous gold ball gown—the kind they wore in the Victorian era—and her hair was all piled up on top of her head with pins that glittered in the light. She looked like a princess.
She turned her head and said something. That’s when I realized that the guy standing next to her, dressed in a tux with tails, was also a ghost.
And they were holding hands.
My breath caught. How had she managed to bring him with her? I didn’t even know she could do that. Ghosts could travel, but it required some sort of connection with a person or object. Josiah Bent had been able to follow us to the hospital after hurting Gage because he’d gotten a “taste” of us. Normally the dead were bound to the place they haunted. Wren didn’t have a haunt and wandered about as she pleased at times. She wasn’t a normal ghost, and this only made that all the more clear to me.
But I had more important questions than how she’d managed to bring another ghost with her, such as who the hell was he, and why didn’t I know anything about him?
And why did that hurt so much?
WREN
My sister was not happy to see me. I suppose I ought to have told her that I was bringing a date, but asking Noah to come with me had been an impulsive thing, and I hadn’t really given Lark much thought while I was with him. It wasn’t as though she told me everything she did.
Lark didn’t like surprises, and Noah was the second of two I’d just sprung on her. The first being that I could tether to another ghost. It wasn’t a big deal. Not like Noah could come here without me afterward. It wasn’t that easy either, though the fact that it was almost Halloween helped. It also helped that I was me. I could do things that other ghosts couldn’t, and what was the point of it if I didn’t take advantage on occasion? All I had to do was share a little of my energy with the other spirit.
I knew from the look on Lark’s face that she was going to have a lot to say to me later, and I admit that I felt a little guilty, but I was allowed to have my own life, wasn’t I? Maybe life wasn’t the best word. I was allowed to have something of my own. Did she think being invisible and mute to the people she called “our” friends was fun for me?
Lark jerked her head—which was covered by a reddish-blond wig that looked like she’d sustained a major head wound—toward a doorway that led to a quiet corridor. If she intended to give me a hard time, she was in for a surprise. I was ready to fight it out with her, and I couldn’t blame the sudden aggression entirely on Halloween. I rarely told Lark how to behave, but she was always ordering me about like a dog.
“Come meet my sister,” I said to Noah, tugging on his hand. He was the most handsome of any of the boys there, I thought a little smugly. It was just too bad that I couldn’t show him off to anyone but Lark.
“This is extraordinary,” Noah remarked, his head slowly turning from side to side as he took everything in. “There aren’t any chaperones. In my day this amount of young men would never be allowed to socialize with these young ladies without supervision. It would be ruinous for the females, their very virtue called into question.”
I loved the way he spoke, the words he used and how they rolled off his tongue. I held his arm as we followed after my sister. “Are you telling me that you never managed to sneak off with a girl at a party?” I teased. “Never stole a secret kiss?”
He smiled coyly. “Maybe once. Or twice.” The smile faded. “But still, had we been caught, there would have been serious consequences.”
“Would you be grounded?” Our parents had subjected Lark to such a punishment once for insisting I was real despite all their attempts to make her say otherwise. We were ten at the time.
“Grounded?” he repeated. “I’m not familiar with the term. No, we would have been forced to marry. I would have been duty-bound as a gentleman to save her reputation.”
Married! I tried to think of Lark having to marry Ben because they’d been caught making out in his car. My sister would probably rather have her reputation ruined than be forced to do anything—even if it was something she might enjoy.
“Did that happen a lot?” I asked, swerving to avoid walking through a girl wearing a ridiculously skimpy costume. She shivered as I passed. I resisted the urge to run a finger down her spine just to watch her do it again.
“Occasionally.” He nodded at the girl. “I remember when women wore more clothing than that to go swimming. The world has changed so much since my death.”
There was a sadness to his voice that made me want to hug him. I squeezed his arm instead, drawing another one of his smiles. “Do not worry yourself about me, Miss Wren. It happens to all of us eventually—whether we be living or spirit.”
We crossed the threshold into the corridor where my sister paced. She was halfway down the length of the hall when she stopped, back stiffening. I didn’t know how she sensed us, but she did. She always did. She pivoted sharply on her high heels and stomped toward me.
“She looks ill-tempered,” Noah remarked.
Lark shot him a glare. “And you look like a butler.”
I don’t know which surprised him more—the insult or the fact that she had heard what he’d said. Noah had said he’d heard of me before, so I assumed he knew about Lark as well, but he obviously didn’t know as much as I’d thought.
“She can see me?” he asked, incredulous.
“Even when it’s not Halloween, Mr. Darcy,” Lark retorted.
I frowned at her. “Don’t be rude.”
She looked as though she could cheerfully punch me. What was wrong with her? She needed to get over it, and quickly.
“Noah’s my friend,” I informed my sister. “I asked him at the last moment to come with me so I can talk and dance with someone who isn’t you. Someone who can see me. Someone I can touch.”
Lark’s expression could only be described as annoyed contrition. She wasn’t happy about the situation, and I knew part of that was because she distrusted any ghost that wasn’t me. I couldn’t blame her—she had an awfully violent history with many of my kind—but Noah wasn’t like that.
“You should have told me,” she said. “What if someone sees the two of you? It’s too close to Halloween for surprises.”
“What if someone does see us?” I asked. “You’ve spent most of your life trying to prove that I’m real.”
She looked surprised at the question. “Because I don’t know what people would do to us if they figured it out.”
People could be such...douche bags. “They can’t do anything. Not to me.” The words felt hard in my mouth, but they slid out anyway. “And I don’t care if someone sees me. I’m not afraid of a bunch of teenagers.”
My sister stared at me. I didn’t like the suspicion in her gaze. I hadn’t meant to upset her, but I was through behaving as though I was something to be ashamed of. Tugging Noah with me, I turned around. “Let’s go dance.”
“Hey, Lark,” Roxi cried from further up the corridor. “Smile!”
A flash went off, and for a second all the world was sharp and bright. The eyes of the dead don’t need to physically respond to light or dark, so the light didn’t blind Noah or myself like it had Lark.
Roxi stared in my direction, her eyes wide.
“Something wrong, Rox?” Lark asked.
The dark-haired girl shook her head. “No. I thought I saw something, that’s all.” She shook her head, and her normally cheerful expression returned.
In the next room the music for “Thriller” began to play. I pulled Noah out into the small group dancing in the middle of the living room, leaving Lark behind. She could be as upset as she wanted. I was going to have fun, and if my sister didn’t like it she could...well, she could just not like it all she wanted.
I spotted Kevin talking to Ben and Gage. Was it wrong of me to wish he could see me with Noah? I wanted him to know I wasn’t crying over him. That I didn’t miss him, because I didn’t.
“This music is strange,” Noah remarked. He gestured to the small group around us. “Is this what qualifies as dancing these days?”
I laughed. He looked horrified. “Just move to the music,” I instructed, raising my arms over my head and moving the rest of me to the beat. “Do what feels right.”
He was awkward, and a little stiff, but the best part of being a ghost meant that very few people could see you make a fool of yourself.
But this was Halloween week, and I’d forgotten what that meant. I bumped into a girl—and felt it. She didn’t go through me. And when she turned around, she looked surprised not to see someone there. I moved away. Maybe dancing wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“I’m sorry about my sister,” I said to Noah as we drifted away from the dancing.
He shrugged. “She’s very protective of you. I cannot fault her for that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need protection. I’m supposed to be the scary one.”
“Scary?” He frowned. “Is that what she thinks of you?” The look he shot my sister was one of indignation. Thankfully, Lark was paying attention to something Ben was saying and not my date.
My date. I never thought I’d call someone my date. Never thought I’d ever meet a boy who was a ghost like me.
“No,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “Lark doesn’t think I’m scary at all.” That was a lie. There were times when I knew my sister found me terrifying, but she loved me anyway. I never understood why I was so frightening until I saw Lark in my world. Sometimes people didn’t have to be hideous or monstrous to be frightening. In fact, simply looking “not right” could be disturbing enough.
Noah relaxed. “Good.” He turned to me with a soft smile. “I cannot imagine anyone thinking you anything but perfect.”
“Oh.” That was the only word I could remember at that moment. He was so handsome, and so tall, and so saying everything I wanted to hear. Lark would tell me he was too good to be true. That I shouldn’t trust him.
Sometimes, my sister didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Are you having fun?” Noah asked. “Do you want to stay? Or can I steal you away?”
I glanced around the room. I was having fun—sort of. As much fun as a dead girl could have in a room full of people who couldn’t see her. But then my gaze fell on Kevin.
He was staring straight at me. Or rather, he was staring at Noah. With the veil between worlds thinning, his abilities as a medium were magnified. My wish that he could see me there with another boy had just come true.
He looked like someone had punched him in the throat. I had hoped for regret, not pain. The satisfaction I had thought I’d feel wilted under an emotion I couldn’t quite identify.
I turned away, facing Noah, who thankfully hadn’t realized we had an audience. It wasn’t too difficult to smile at him. “Let’s go,” I said. “This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.”
Noah took my hand, and then we were gone, back to the grounds of Haven Crest where we talked and danced to our own music for hours. And I concentrated all of my attention on the boy I could have, rather than the one who could never be mine.
(#ulink_c651095b-1080-58b2-bca0-d01bf54e9e75)
LARK
Wren had taken off with Casper the Friendly Douche a few hours earlier, and I hadn’t seen her since. It wasn’t like her to just disappear on me, which meant she was all twitterpated over Mr. Darcy. Noah. Whatever.
I was not jealous. I was, however, worried. What if this guy was a jerk? Wren didn’t know anything about relationships outside of TV and movies, and Noah had spent at least part of his existence among the living. Any guy that polished and pretty had to be a player as far as I was concerned.
I really wanted to be wrong, but something about him bothered me.
I was not—repeat—not jealous.
A few of us stuck around after the party to help clean up. It wasn’t a terribly late night. Mace and Ben volunteered to drive those who’d had too much Halloween “spirits” home.
Carrying a recyclable bag full of soda cans, I walked into the kitchen. Sarah and Kevin stood in front of the sink. He leaned back, slightly, as though trying to put as much distance between them as he could when she had him practically pinned between herself and the counter.
“He’s my friend,” Kevin said, his voice low, his hands gripping the edge of the sink behind him.
“What am I?” Sarah demanded.
Okay, I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what was going on. “The friend’s girlfriend?” I volunteered. Was this any of my business? Nope. But Mace had saved my life, and had become a good friend. I felt strangely protective of him, and in the hierarchy of friends, both Kevin and Sarah were near the bottom of my list.
Sarah jumped back, putting several feet of distance between them. She looked pissed. Kevin looked guilty—and maybe a little relieved? Sarah must have seen that relief as well, because she made a noise of disgust and pivoted dramatically on her heel. She shot me a glare as she stomped past me and out of the kitchen. I raised a brow and said nothing.
I took the bag of cans over to the blue bin and set it inside before turning to look at Kevin. He was flushed. “Thanks.”
I tilted my head. “For what? Keeping you from becoming even more of a jerk?”
He laughed. I hadn’t expected that. He laughed so hard, his eyes watered. Or maybe those were tears. I couldn’t tell. He was a hot mess.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod as he wiped at his eyes. “For that.”
I never understood what Wren saw in him, but at that moment I felt bad for the guy. He looked really effed up.
“Do you really like her?” I asked, moving closer to him.
Kevin shrugged. “Not enough to lose Mace over her. He’s been my best friend since elementary school.” He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Did Wren tell you about us?”
Both my brows shot up. “Wren knows?”
“Shit.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “She didn’t tell you that she saw us kissing?”
“Uh, no. Otherwise I would have taken you aside and kicked your ass long before this.” Wren was keeping all kinds of secrets, it seemed. Didn’t she trust me? Or did she just not want to hear what I might say? If she’d told me about Kevin and Sarah I would have shot my mouth off, and I would be the first to admit just how much of a bitch I could be.
Or worse, my sister had felt too awful to even talk about it—which really made me want to take a swing at him. No wonder she’d grabbed onto Mr. Darcy.
Folding his arms over his chest, Kevin looked me in the eye. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just wanted to connect with someone.” He laughed again. “God, I sound so pathetic, don’t I?”
I frowned. “No, not really.” And then, as the thought occurred to me, “You love my sister, don’t you?”
A look of horror washed over his face. “Is she still here?” He even glanced over his shoulder as though he expected to find her standing there.
“No, she’s gone.”
His shoulders slumped. “Good. Stupid, right? Not like we can ever be together.”
I shrugged. “Not until you’re dead.”
This time when he laughed, it seemed more out of a sense of amusement. “Something to look forward to.”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Kevin’s brows drew together. “Who was that guy she had with her? Do you know him?”
“You saw him?” It had taken Kevin a long time to be able to see Wren, and even then it had taken a lot of focus for both of them. It made sense, I guess, that with Halloween’s approach his abilities would sharpen.
“Yeah. He looked familiar. Who is he?”
“Noah,” I replied. “That’s all I know. I called him Mr. Darcy.”
He grinned. “You would. His clothes were more Victorian, though.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Sixth Sense.” He hated when I called him that. And when had he become a historical fashion expert? “If you don’t want to discuss your feelings for Wren with me, that’s cool.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, I don’t see the point. You’ve figured me out, and talking about it just hurts. She hasn’t told you about this new guy?”
“No. I just met him tonight. I don’t think she’s known him long. She’s just thrilled to find a cute dead guy, I think.”
“I know him from somewhere, though.” His frown deepened. “You think he’s cute?”
Somehow, I managed not to laugh. I smiled, though. “I think she does, though my sister seems to have a thing for dark hair and blue eyes.” I didn’t mention that I actually thought Noah and Kevin looked a bit alike, because pining over a dead girl was no way to spend your life.
Kevin nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, thanks.”
“If you remember where you know Noah from, let me know, okay? Wren hasn’t been exactly chatty about him.”
“Sure.”
“Hey—” I felt the sudden need to change the subject “—you want some help taking this garbage out?” I knew from previous visits to the house that his parents put the recyclables and garbage in bins in a little shed out back to wait for pickup.
“Yeah, thanks.”
We each had two bags as we walked outside. Everything at the party had been disposable to cut down on dishes to wash—and to narrow the margin on dishes that idiots could break.
It was dark out and chilly. It had been a warm fall, but October nights in Connecticut were going to be cold, no matter how warm the day had been. I had my arms wrapped around myself as we hurried back to the house.
There was a guy standing right in front of the door, blocking our path. It took me a moment to realize he was a ghost—they looked as solid as real people to me for the most part, but there was a weird “feel” to them that I couldn’t quite explain.
This guy had been in his late twenties when he died. He had long shaggy hair and was wearing bell-bottoms. I was going to guess he died in the ’70s, and from the smell of patchouli, sweat and vomit that seemed to cling to him, I figured it had been an overdose that did him in. Although, he looked pretty clear-headed now. And angry. And all of that anger was staring at Kevin.
“Hey, Woodstock. What’s up?” I chirped, trying to draw his attention.
His dead gaze flickered to me and then dismissed me, as though I were nothing more threatening than a mote of dust.
“Kevin McCrae?” he asked.
Kevin was still, tense, but his expression was blank. “Yes. Who are you?”
Woodstock grinned, revealing teeth that had seen better days. “Death,” he replied.
And then he lunged.
WREN
“Who was that boy?”
I glanced up at Noah. We were back at his building at Haven Crest, dancing to the music that lingered from many, many years earlier. Spectral energy was like that—it hung around long after it was created, waiting to be discovered. It was like tuning a radio station to the right frequency.
“What boy?” There had been so many at the party.
“The one in the strange green long johns. I swore he looked right at me.”
Oh. Him. “That was Kevin. He’s a medium.”
“Ah. That explains it. This time of year must be difficult for his kind. What is this Kevin’s last name?”
I didn’t want to tell him. I don’t know why, but talking about Kevin with him felt wrong. “McCrae.”
“Irish.”
“American.” Kevin’s family had come over from Ireland so long ago it hardly mattered anymore.
Noah gave me a little smile. “Still Irish, dear girl.”
I arched a brow. Dear girl? “Are you still English?”
“Of course,” he replied. “A man’s country is all he has. It’s what defines him as a man.”
“I thought it was character that defined a man.”
He laughed. “Cheeky girl. You have me there.” He glanced over my shoulder at something I couldn’t see, his gaze narrowing. He nodded once. When I was able to glance in that direction, there was nothing there.
“Beg your pardon,” Noah said. “I was just shooing away another resident who thought they might join us.”
I smiled. I liked that he wanted me all to himself. “I’m sorry that the party wasn’t more fun for you.”
He whirled me around. “I don’t understand most modern social behaviors, but it was pleasurable to me to simply spend the evening in your presence.”
“I could listen to you talk all night,” I told him with a sigh. “Hurray for English boys.”
“Hurrah for the Melinoe.”
“What’s that?”
He smiled, and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Just an old Greek term for beautiful girls. For you.”
I couldn’t hide how that made me feel, so I glanced away. I didn’t know much about boys and dating, and flirting. I couldn’t even tell if he was being sincere.
I wanted him to be sincere.
The tall grandfather clock against the far wall chimed the hour. It was midnight. I felt a frisson of energy race up my legs to swirl in my stomach. In my arms, Noah seemed to glow a little brighter.
“Did you feel that?” he asked. “One day closer to All Hallows’ Eve.”
“I’ve never felt a jolt like that before.” My fingers tingled.
Noah grinned. “It’s because you’re here. You don’t spend much time with the dead, do you?”
I shook my head. “Not really, no. And if I do, it’s in the Shadow Lands.”
His handsome face darkened. “That place. They expect us to skulk about there, while we’ve as much right to this world as the living. Did we ask to perish before our time? To be made monsters in our own home? How is it we ‘haunt’ a place while the living reside there? Or worse, cast it aside like trash to wither and decay?”
He was so angry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Suddenly, the tension drained from his face, and the Noah I’d come to know was there again. “Forgive me. Sometimes I give into the unjustness of my plight rather than appreciate what I have.” He smiled flirtatiously. “Such as the company of a beautiful young lady.”
I preened under the compliment, lowering my eyes to hide the joy his words inspired. Only Kevin had ever called me beautiful before.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Noah suggested. “I want you to see how the grounds once looked.”
He held my hand as we drifted through the peeling wooden door, out into the night. Outside, the exterior of the Haven Crest campus looked as it always had to me—old and run-down. Its beautiful architecture abandoned and left to rot, feeding the malevolence and despair of all the souls bound to it.
“It doesn’t look any different,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment.
Noah squeezed my hand. “Close your eyes.”
I did as he said.
He kissed me—his lips soft and warm against mine. My soul fluttered. When he pulled away, my first response was to pull him back, but he didn’t go far.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered.
I did, choking back a gasp at the sight that met my eyes. The electric lamps that had flooded the grounds with light had been replaced by flickering lanterns in glass cases on high black poles. The grass was thick and rich green. The trees were shorter, and gravel paths replaced cracked asphalt. But it was the buildings that were truly spectacular. Redbrick with gleaming white trim. Windows lit from within with golden light. Steps unbroken and straight, some with columns that stood straight and smooth rather than pitted and peeling.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“Horrible things have happened here,” Noah said softly. “But there were good things as well, things that unfortunately have been forgotten by many.”
Other spirits had joined us—ghosts from across the ages. Some were male, some were female. Some were young, some old. There were people of different ethnicities and backgrounds standing together—class didn’t matter to the dead. We were all transfixed by the sight of Haven Crest in its prime.
“You did this?” I asked, turning to Noah.
He shrugged. “I merely made it possible for you to see it in another dimension. The Haven Crest you know still exists, but this is how it sees itself. I think this version is much prettier, don’t you?”
I nodded. The jolt I’d felt and all this beauty only made me more certain that Haven Crest was its own entity. “It’s like something on Masterpiece Theatre.”
“Masterpiece Theatre? Never heard of it.”
I laughed. “No. It’s a little after your time.” I gripped his hand tighter. “Noah, thank you for showing me this.”
He smiled. “It’s important to me that you see this place as I do, that you understand why those of us who choose to be here are reluctant to go.”
My gaze was still busy taking it all in. How different it looked! “I wish Lark could see this.”
“The living are incapable of it. They see only death and decay.” He said it with a sneer.
“Lark isn’t like most of the living,” I informed him—maybe a bit defensively. “She would be able to see this, if it was shown to her.”
“Well, then, maybe we’ll find a way to make her see.”
The thought of the look on my sister’s face when she saw this beautiful place made me grin. “I’d like that.”
“I would do anything to make you smile exactly as you are right now. I’ve never seen anything as lovely in all my days—alive or dead.”
“You’re a flirt,” I accused, practically fluttering my eyelashes.
“You inspire it in me,” he replied with a wink. “Shall I show you about the grounds?”
I hesitated. The last time I’d been in the main buildings Josiah Bent had tried to bend me to his will and badly injured my friends.
“I assure you no harm will come to you,” Noah comforted me. “And the man who once tormented you is gone from this place—forever. Your sister saw to that.”
I believed that. When Lark put her mind to banishing a spirit, she did a pretty good job of it. I did, too, come to think of it. The last time being on these very grounds. “Won’t some of them hate me for getting rid of Bent?”
“Josiah Bent was a terrible man, and we’re glad to be rid of him. He thought of nothing but himself, and had nothing but blatant contempt for this place and those of us who had been here long before he showed up. Come with me, you’ll see.”
I let him lead me up the gravel path toward the main building. The ghosts around us came closer. Some of them reached out as though they wanted to touch me. Others smiled and shied away. But they all looked happy to see me, as though we were old friends. They would never look at Lark like this, not with her belief that most ghosts were evil.
I smiled back at them, and for the first time in my existence, I was happy that my sister wasn’t with me.
(#ulink_1b3d1c8e-3888-5450-992e-c59f02468ab8)
LARK
I punched Woodstock in the face. The blow knocked him back.
The second ghost I’d hit in twenty-four hours. That had to be a record, even for me.
“I can see him,” Kevin said dumbly. “Like, really see him.”
I kept my gaze on the ghost, fists clenched, ready. “It’s almost Halloween. Hasn’t this happened to you before?”
“No.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw him slip something on his fingers—iron rings. I’d yet to find a better weapon against ghosts. “But since you and Wren came back to town, my sensitivity to the dead has increased.”
Made sense. Lately I’d been thinking more and more that if I was around people who were in tune to ghosts, I acted as a kind of magnifier for their abilities.
The ghost had shaken off my punch and came back for more. He hit me in the face so hard my vision blurred. I kicked him between the legs. Dead or not, a guy’s still got his junk.
I shook my head and delivered an uppercut to Woodstock’s jaw. “Do you know this guy?” I yelled at Kevin.
He landed a punch on the ghost, as well. “Never seen him before in my life.”
“Well, he knows you.” I managed to get the words out before the hippie slammed his shoulder into my gut. “I thought you guys were peaceful!” I shouted as I hit the ground. My head slammed into the paved drive. Black swarmed my vision, followed by an array of stars that spun so fast I thought I might puke.
“You can’t run from me, little man!” the ghost shouted with a cackle. I heard Kevin’s footsteps pounding against the ground. Through blurry eyes, I saw Woodstock start to follow after him. I reached out and grabbed him by the ankle, pulling hard.
Off balance, the ghost fell, his other foot slamming into my shoulder. I grunted and tried to roll away, but he grabbed me by the hair and yanked me back. My eyes watered at the pain, but I didn’t make a sound.
Woodstock straddled my chest. Swimming in and out of focus, he leered at me. The smell of patchouli and pot filled my nostrils. “You’re not as pretty as your sister,” he told me. “We can still have a little fun, though.”
How did he know Wren? And was that a ghost-boner pressed against my stomach? A little tingle of fear raced down my spine. He could rape me if he overpowered me. I’d heard of people being sexually assaulted by ghosts before. Not something I ever wanted to experience.
“Fuck you,” I growled.
His expression turned angry. He shifted his weight to lean closer. God, the smell of him was all over me. His movement let me pull my arm out from beneath his knee. I moved fast, grabbing him by the throat and squeezing with all my strength.
Not to brag, but I’m strong—especially against ghosts. I can’t explain it and I don’t care. It’s enough for me that I can fight the dead. I’ve been a match for most that I’ve gone up against, and Woodstock was no different. His fingers curled around my arm and hand, trying to pry my fingers loose.
I kept squeezing. Not like I could kill him, but the iron on my finger would hurt him.
Suddenly, I was pelted by a spray of pebbles. No, not pebbles, I realized as one hit my lip with a hard sting. It was salt. The kind you use in winter to melt snow. It hurt as it rained down on my face.
Woodstock howled and exploded into mist, leaving me holding nothing but air. I pushed myself up onto my arm, coughing out pellets that had gotten in my mouth. When I looked up, Kevin stood above me, holding a large bag that was still half-full of the noxious salt. I felt grimy from it—itchy.
“You couldn’t have just thrown handfuls at him?” I asked. “You had to dump the whole damn bag over his head?”
“It wasn’t the whole bag,” Kevin retorted, scowling. “And you’re welcome.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it, letting him help me to my feet. I was going to be sore tomorrow. Hell, I was sore now. “Hey, it wasn’t me he was after.” Then, in seriousness, “You’re sure you’ve never seen him before?”
Kevin nodded. “Never.”
I frowned as something occurred to me. “He said your name like he was asking for confirmation. He didn’t know you, either.”
“Lark, what’s going on?”
I looked around. The salt had scattered the ghost, and usually that was good for a while, but some strong spirits could get it together pretty quickly, and at this time of year all bets were off. I took him by the arm and pulled him toward the house. “Let’s get inside. We need to ghost-proof your house for when he comes back.”
“You think he’ll come back?” Kevin asked as we stepped inside.
“He was sent here to do a job, and he failed. I’m pretty sure he’ll be back, yeah.”
Kevin set the bag of salt against the wall. “What job?”
I met his gaze. He already knew the answer—I could see it. But he wanted to be wrong, and he wanted me to back him up. “I think he was sent to kill you.”
* * *
For someone with a spectral hit out on him, Kevin took the news fairly stoically. Instead of freaking out, he went immediately to work securing his house against ghosts. Roxi, Gage and I helped. Sarah had apparently left immediately after I walked in on her and Kevin in the kitchen, so she didn’t know about our surprise visitor.
I called Ben. He’d want to help, and I knew he’d be upset if I waited until morning to tell him what happened. His family was as comfortable with the existence of ghosts as mine was, so he wasn’t going to get in trouble by staying out half the night helping to protect a friend from a nasty spirit. I gotta say that made life a lot easier for me.
I reached out for Wren, figuring she would want to join the rest of us in determining why the ghost had come for Kevin and who had sent it, but she didn’t answer. That was weird. I waited a few minutes and tried again. This time I opened myself up to her. My connection to my sister has always been more soul than mind. We could pick up on how the other was feeling more than what she was thinking, although there had been times when I could’ve sworn we were telepathic.
I wish I hadn’t opened myself up when I realized what she was feeling. It’s a little uncomfortable realizing your twin is having warm tingly feelings for someone. Especially some ghost wearing a cravat. I mean, come on. A cravat?
Here’s what bothered me more, though. Wren chose to stay with her douchey Mr. Darcy instead of answering my call. Being a ghost, it was way easier for her to simply “pop” to wherever I was than for me to get to her. Still, if she called me, I’d go, because I’d know it was important. Maybe if she felt that I was in a state of panic or in pain she’d come. Of course she would. I was a cow to think anything different.
But she didn’t come. And I didn’t feel her reaching out for me, to gauge my emotional state.
I shook my head. So my sister was being a selfish teenager. Get over it.
“Do we think this had anything to do with Bent?” Mace asked, his voice coming from the speaker of Kevin’s phone. He couldn’t justify going out again to his folks, so he was at home.
“Woodstock didn’t mention Bent,” I said. Ben shot me an amused glance at my nickname for the ghost. I shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“How was he able to come here if he didn’t know Kevin?” Roxi asked, looking around at those of us gathered around the kitchen table. “Isn’t that, like, against the rules or something?”
“Usually,” I replied. “But this close to Halloween, I don’t know. The dead can travel around All Hallows’ Eve. Maybe this ghost came in contact with us at Haven Crest when we took Bent out. Bent was able to follow Gage to the hospital, so maybe this guy could follow Kevin home.”
“And he waited a month and a half to do it?” Kevin asked. He was still in his Kick-Ass costume. I had to admit he looked halfway cute in it. “Does that make sense?”
“It does if he wasn’t strong enough before,” I replied. Then, I shook my head. “No. This guy didn’t just randomly follow you home. He came here for a purpose. He was sent.” I was certain of it. Maybe I was just paranoid, but the explanation felt right.
“Who would do such a thing?” Gage asked, his big brown eyes even wider than normal. He was such a puppy. “And why?”
I glanced at Kevin. “Piss any ghosts off lately?” I asked. Okay, maybe I smirked when I asked.
He met my gaze. “Only your sister.”
Snap. “Wren wouldn’t send someone after you,” I informed him—and the others. “She’d come for you herself.” They didn’t look comforted. Were they still scared of my sister? “It wasn’t her.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Ben said, holding my hand. But they were all still looking at each other. Suddenly, it all made sense. They didn’t blame Wren for this.
They blamed me.
I looked at each of them. The only one who seemed comfortable meeting my gaze was Ben.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. My voice shook a little, and that pissed me off. “You’re thinking that if you’d never met me you wouldn’t have to worry about some crazy-ass ghost coming after you. But you guys came to me, remember? When you’d already poked around in places you had no business poking.” My voice rose. “Bent would have come for each and every one of you if I hadn’t been here, and he probably would have gotten every one of you with the exception of Ben, who at least knew something about ghosts. So don’t you freaking dare blame me for this. You’d still be wandering around thinking I was crazy if you’d stayed away from Haven Crest. You go looking for ghosts, you’re going to find them, and surprise! Now they’ve found you. So, why don’t we shelve the blame and try to figure this out?”
Silence. All of them looking anywhere but at me.
“She’s right.” The voice that made everyone jump was Mace’s, loud and sharp, coming from the phone in Kevin’s hand. Out of all of them he probably had the most reason to resent me—after all, he’d found me bleeding to death after slitting my wrists. He’d saved me, and I’d...
Well, I saved him, too, that night at Haven Crest. So we were even.
Roxi nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Lark. I know this isn’t your fault. It’s just kind of freaky.”
“And Daria wasn’t?” I asked.
She smiled. “She was just a tiny girl, and she didn’t come looking to kill any of us.”
“Yeah, well, you could have fooled me. You weren’t there when she tried to off me.”
Her eyes widened. “I would have hit her with some salt if I’d been there.”
“I know you would, Rox.” I turned to Kevin. “Are you sure you haven’t made contact with any ghost other than Wren lately?”
He shook his head. “None.”
I stared at him. “You’re sure?”
He frowned. “No, because I channel in my sleep all the time, just like that chick on Medium.”
“Dude, I loved that show,” Gage piped up.
I stared at him, ready to rip him a new one, but he looked so goofy and harmless. He genuinely loved the show, I guess. I laughed. And then, everyone else did, too.
And just like that, it felt like we were good again, and I was glad. It had been a long time since I’d had friends I could just be me with, and I wasn’t in any hurry to lose them.
“Okay,” I began once we’d all stopped chuckling. “So right now, all we have is the Haven Crest connection. Do we know if records from the ’60s and ’70s are available online?”
“They are,” Gage said. “I downloaded all the accessible records after we dealt with Bent.” He saw us all staring at him and shrugged sheepishly. “You know, just in case.”
“I could kiss you,” I said, and I meant it. “Seriously, you’re a rock star.” And so much smarter than he looked, but I didn’t say that.
He blushed as Roxi hugged him. “They’re on my computer at home.”
“There had to be a lot of guys during that time that looked like our ghost,” Kevin said, killing my buzz. “How are we going to narrow it down?”
“Description, photos.” I shrugged. “Homicidal tendencies.”
Kevin actually smiled at me. “A penchant for patchouli.”
I grinned, though how either of us could find the attack funny I had no idea. “The hospital would have started photographing patients by then. There were photos of some of the people we thought the ghost could have been before we discovered it was Bent, right?”
“There are pictures,” Gage confirmed. He wrinkled his nose. “Some are kind of sick. Wounds and stuff.”
Unfortunately, that sort of thing might give us even more information. “Can you email them to each of us when you get home, or in the morning?” I asked.
“Sure. The sooner we figure this out, the smaller the chance that Woodstock comes for the rest of us.” Gage rose to his feet. “I’ll go do it now if we’re done here.”
I looked around. No one protested. “Yeah, let’s go home,” I said. “Everyone, salt your windows and doors, and keep iron nearby.” Not that I thought the rest of them were in danger, unless our hippie ass-hat was going to visit each of them one by one. My gut told me Kevin had been his one and only target.
They all agreed that they would take precautions, and our little group broke up. Mace said goodbye and disconnected, promising to let Sarah know what was going on. Funny that no one had thought to call her. But then, Sarah didn’t feel like part of the group. It was pretty obvious to me that if she wasn’t Mace’s girlfriend, she wouldn’t have anything to do with any of us. He could do so much better.
I made sure Kevin was okay with being left alone before Ben and I walked out to our cars.
“Do you blame me for this?” I heard myself ask.
Ben shook his head. “You were right. We went looking for ghosts, and we found them. Had nothing to do with you. Now stop talking and kiss me.”
I smiled as his lips touched mine. Leaning against Nan’s car, we kissed until my head felt light and the world melted away. If Wren reached out to me at that moment, I don’t know if I’d answer her either.
“I’ll be over at noon,” Ben told me, when he finally let me go. “We’ll look through the records together, okay?”
I nodded, still a little dizzy. “Okay. Good night.”
He grinned and kissed me again. “’Night. You make sure you protect yourself, as well. This guy’s gotten a taste of you, too.”
I didn’t want to think about just how much of a “taste” Woodstock had wanted. “I will.”
“I’ll ask my grandmother if she has any advice,” he added. “An attack by a vengeful spirit is right up her alley.”
“She’s going to want you to break up with me. No one wants their grandson involved in this kind of crap.”
He kissed my forehead. “She’d rather have me knowledgeable than ignorant. Besides, she likes you.”
I arched a brow but didn’t argue. I would just have to take his word for it.
Gage had taken Roxi home, so I was on my own for the short drive back to my grandmother’s, where my mother had dropped me two months earlier. Dropped me and walked away. I tried not to think about it. Being abandoned by your own mother because you “broke her heart” sucked.
Wren didn’t pop into the car. She didn’t meet me at the door when I walked into the house. And after I tiptoed upstairs, I found my room empty. She was still with Noah, I guessed.
I felt strangely alone. I suppose it would be a normal feeling for most people, but not for me. I had no connection to my sister at all, and I hadn’t felt that since all the drugs at Bell Hill when I’d actually believed that I was crazy after all, and that Wren was just a product of my sick mind.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth and changed into a tank top and pajama pants. Then I slipped between the sheets and tried not to think about Woodstock. I was getting better at not letting ghosts get to me. Ghosts, I could handle.
I fell asleep in minutes, replaying Ben’s kisses in my head.
I dreamed.
There was nothing but darkness, and I was in the center of it. All around me I could hear voices crying out. Something brushed by me, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I struggled through the dark until I caught sight of a glimmer of light. I tried to chase it, but it was like swimming through a sea of rubber bands. I had to reach that light. I had to break through to the other side, to the place where it began.
The Ruiner is after you, a voice whispered. He won’t be satisfied until you and your sister are destroyed.
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