“I… I don’t know.” Susanna shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
Jack scowled. “Go back up the stairs.”
“What?”
“Go back up. We’ll find out.”
It was on the tip of Susanna’s tongue to tell Jack that he could go up the stairs himself if he was so intent on testing it out, but she bit it back. If their theory was right, they needed to know – and she needed to stay on Jack’s good side.
One flight up, she felt OK. A glance down showed Jack watching her, eyes dark in the harsh yellow fluorescents. A floor up and she lost sight of him. The dizziness started to set in and she had to grip the bannister, use it to haul herself up. Another floor and saliva flooded her mouth, her stomach somersaulting. She turned at the beginning of the next flight, contemplated the steps.
“That’s enough.” Jack’s call from below made her sigh in relief. By the time she’d made it back to his side he was sitting up, but his skin was waxy, coated in a light sheen of sweat.
“Satisfied?” she asked, feeling resentful that he’d made her go through the ordeal twice in the space of five minutes.
“Help me up.”
She held her hand out and braced when he used it to haul himself to his feet. He wobbled a bit but then steadied. Wrapping a hand firmly around her arm, he started back up towards his flat.
“So what does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” Susanna shrugged. “I guess… I guess we’re connected somehow. It must be a consequence of coming back through from the wasteland together.”
Silence as Jack considered this.
“You mean we’re stuck together forever?” he asked darkly. “We can’t go a hundred feet without each other?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She took a deep breath. “I mean, it seems so.”
“Did you know this would happen?”
“What?”
“Did you know this would happen?” He advanced on her, all menace. “‘I’ll get you back in your body’, you said. ‘Just take me with you’.” He was right in front of her, just inches separating them, but still he kept moving forward. Susanna had no option but to retreat. “You said I’d never have to see you again. That was our deal.” A thump as Susanna hit the wall. Jack pressed forward until she had absolutely nowhere to go. “Were you lying to me?”
“No, I—”
“Did you plan this? Tricking me into helping you across without mentioning that I’d be stuck with you?” He yelled the last bit, right into her face. Susanna couldn’t hide her flinch.
“No,” she repeated, much more quietly. “I didn’t lie, Jack. I didn’t know what would happen, I thought we’d be able to go our separate ways. I swear to you.”
Jack didn’t speak. Susanna was desperate to read the thoughts in his face, but she couldn’t seem to lift her eyes from where they were currently burning a hole in his chest.
Finally, when the tension became unbearable, she looked up.
He glowered back down at her. “You need to find a way to undo this.”
TWENTY-ONE
“Out with it.”
Dylan slammed her tray down onto the cafeteria table, causing little corn kernels to jump out of the main segment of the moulded plastic, right into the custard of her sponge pudding.
“Out with what?” Tristan placed his own tray down much more carefully – he’d sweet-talked the dinner lady into letting him buy chips and cake. No vegetables, no main. It was definitely against their health-promoting school policy, but Tristan had smiled at the server, and she had given him what he asked for. She’d then proceeded to give Dylan extra vegetables to make up for it.
“You’ve been really weird since last night.” He’d spent most of this morning’s history lesson trying to look out of the window, and he’d been so distracted as they’d walked to the portacabins for science that he’d actually fallen over. Even more annoyingly, nobody had laughed at him, though he’d sprawled flat on his face, books and bag flying everywhere. Mark and Dove had even paused to help pick his stuff up.
Had Dylan made a spectacle of herself like that, she’d never have lived it down.
“There’s nothing wrong, Dylan.”
“You’re lying.” There was an angry edge to Dylan’s voice, because anger was better than hurt – and if she let herself feel hurt then she might just cry. Which she was not going to do in the middle of the heaving cafeteria. So. “Out with it.”
Tristan took her measure, must have realised how deadly serious she was, or maybe he caught the sheen in her eyes, no matter how much she tried to convince herself that she was angry. Angry, dammit!
“Don’t do this to me, Tristan,” she said, tears thick in her voice. “Don’t keep things from me again. You promised.”
“Not here,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”
“Trust me, no one’s listening,” Dylan contradicted him, getting ahold of herself now that he seemed willing to talk. “What is it?”
He pursed his lips. “It’s that weird feeling again.”
“Like someone’s watching us?”
“Yeah, but I can’t explain it. I get this prickly, strange feeling at the back of my neck, but then when I look, there’s nothing.”
“Who d’you think it could be?” she commented.
“I’m starting to think it’s not a who – I’m starting to think it’s a what.”
“A what?” Dylan frowned, then she felt her stomach drop through the seat of her chair. “A wraith? You think a wraith is stalking us?”
“No.” Tristan shook his head at once. “A wraith wouldn’t do this. They don’t think like that. Well, they don’t think.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know.” He grimaced. “That’s why I’m worried. I was wondering about—” he hesitated.
“Go on,” Dylan gently kicked him under the table.
“I was wondering about those beings you said you met, when you crossed the line. Remember?”
Remember? She wasn’t exactly ever going to forget. She’d been heartbroken, devastated. Tristan had lied to her, betrayed her, abandoned her at the line – and this… thing had turned up and told her she had to come with it. Caeli, its name popped suddenly into her head. It had looked sort of like a man and sort of like an angel, only without the wings or halo. Bright white light, that was her most enduring memory of it. She’d never been able to quite focus on its face, its features, but she had thought it beautiful.
“What would one of them be doing here?” she wondered. “Do you think it just found the hole and wandered through?”
“No,” Tristan shook his head. “They don’t venture into the wasteland. Until you told me about it, I didn’t know they existed.”
“Well, what would it be doing here, then?”
“Looking for us?” Tristan’s expression darkened. “Or, more specifically, for me.” He saw her confusion and went on. “Because I’ve absconded my post. Abandoned my duties. Perhaps it’s come to drag me back.”
“Tough,” Dylan snapped. “It can’t have you.”
She didn’t need to see the grim set of Tristan’s mouth to know it wasn’t that simple. “I might not have a choice, Dylan.”
Dylan thought for a moment about Caeli, tried hard to put her vague impressions into words. “The thing is, Tristan, maybe your experience of the wasteland is skewed by the wraiths.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, on the other side of the afterlife, it was amazing… Caeli made me think of an angel. I was safe.” She shrugged. That was the best she could do. “It didn’t seem like the kind of place that would send someone to punish you for loving someone. Does that help?”
“Yes and no,” Tristan said, his face folded over into a deep frown as he considered her words. “This feeling I get, the eyes on me. They don’t feel friendly. They feel dark and angry.”
“So it might not be one of those things at all.”
“Yeah,” Tristan agreed
. “It might be something else. Somethingnew.”
“Well, what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes were dark with worry. “But I think… if I can close the hole we made between the worlds, fix the damage we caused, that might help.”
“All right. As soon as we’re both well enough we can head there again and try to fix it. If we can get away from my mum.” Dylan thought of Joan, who had been watching them like a hawk since their last debacle, tracking their every move. “I haven’t been able to sleep right, thinking about wraiths out in the world.”
“Me neither.” Tristan pressed his foot into hers, clearly conscious of onlookers in the canteen. “Your mum’s letting us go to the Halloween dance tonight still, maybe she’s starting to loosen off.”
“Maybe,” Dylan said. “I guess in the meantime we just keep an eye out, see if we can catch this thing in the act. And if we do… I don’t know. Maybe we should confront it.”
Tristan nodded thoughtfully and Dylan knew his worry hadn’t abated. Hers hadn’t either, not entirely, but getting Tristan to open up about his worries was a big weight off her shoulders. The thought that he’d still been keeping secrets from her had been her greatest fear. He was her soulmate, her everything. She needed him to trust her, to believe in her – like she believed in him.
***
“Is this really necessary?”
“Yes. It is.” Dylan tore off another strip of Sellotape and glanced up. “Stop fidgeting, these need to be straight or they won’t look right.”
Attaching the final piece, she straightened up and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
“Well?” Tristan looked like a martyr about to be sent to the gallows. Actually, he looked like a martyr about ten years after the gallows. The long white strips Dylan had taped onto Tristan’s body looked great, but for the full effect—
“Hang on.” Reaching across to the wall, she flicked off the light. The strips glowed in the dark, and Tristan’s black clothes disappeared, giving the impression of a moving skeleton. Well, a motionless skeleton with his arms folded in an irritated fashion. “Perfect!”
He grunted in response, and when Dylan turned the light back on his expression was still just as grumpy.
“I gave you a choice,” she reminded him. “You could’ve been the Grim Reaper and I would’ve been the skeleton.”
“No,” Tristan bit back, just as he had when she’d first suggested it. “I don’t ever want to see you as a dead body again, not even as a joke.”
“Or we could have gone as Bert and Ernie.” That had been Dylan’s back-up choice. She grinned as she remembered Tristan’s face when she’d shown him a picture of them.
“Only for you would I do this.” Tristan eyed himself in the mirror, his expression caught between horror and resignation.
“And I love you too.” Dylan squeezed his hand and laughed. “It’s a Halloween dance. Dressing up is mandatory.”
Actually, it wasn’t. But most people would be wearing costumes, and this was her first actual dance, so she intended to go all out. Besides, her costume – a little black dress with a hooded robe over it – looked fine. And Joan had given her permission not to use her crutch at last, which made her happy. She could always use her scythe.
“Let’s get this over with,” Tristan sighed, but he winked at her as he tugged her out of her bedroom.
“Picture!” Joan squawked when they tried to head down the hallway. She shuffled them in front of the fireplace in the living room, camera in hand, and for once, when she looked at Tristan, it was with approval. Gratitude. Dylan knew her mum worried about her at school – how she didn’t seem to have many friends, wasn’t involved in any of the clubs or teams, didn’t go to any school events. Taking Dylan to a dance was earning Tristan major brownie points. And, hopefully, a little more freedom. “Smile!”
“Death doesn’t smile, Mum,” Dylan reminded her.
“This one does!” Joan retorted. Then she wiggled the camera. “I promised to show your dad.”
When, exactly, was Joan having all these conversations with her dad? And why? They hated each other’s guts. Shrugging it away, Dylan slipped her arm around Tristan’s back, cosying in as he hugged her shoulder, and she pasted a smile on her face.
She felt incredibly foolish.
And she also felt deliriously happy.
Tonight, she was going to a dance with a boy and she was going to have fun. Tonight, she was going to forget about wraiths and murders and holes in the veil between this world and the next. Tonight, she was going to be normal.
TWENTY-TWO
It wasn’t a cold evening so they walked through the darkened streets towards school for the second time that day. They joined a host of pupils on their way to the dance, decked out in weird and wonderful – no, mostly just weird, costumes. A horde of zombies pranced in a far-too-lively fashion on the other side of the road from them, and just in front, three demons in skin-tight costumes struggled to walk in sky-high heels. Cheryl and her friends.
At the door to the assembly hall, McManus, their history teacher, had clearly been dragged in to supervise and keep out miscreants. He was also clearly unhappy about this turn of events.
“Tickets?” he barked at them.
Tristan produced the two pieces of card from the depths of his trouser pocket.
“Where’s your costume, sir?” one of the zombies called out from behind Dylan.
“He’s wearing it,” another zombie snickered. “He’s come as a relic!”
McManus was decked out, as always, in a pair of brown slacks and a tweed jacket. He had a thick moustache and a bow-tie, almost as if he wanted students to take the piss. All he needed was a pipe and he could be a school master from the Victorian era. Especially with that dour, unforgiving expression.
He didn’t laugh at the zombie’s joke. “McCormack! Consider your access revoked!”
Dylan didn’t stop to listen to the argument past McCormack’s indignant “What!” – she was too busy taking in the assembly hall in all its glory. The lights had been dimmed and multi-coloured spotlights flashed on and off in rhythm with the pounding music, illuminating the ghouls and monsters and gravestones that decorated the walls, all adorned with mock cobwebs.
“What do you think?” she hollered in Tristan’s ear.
“I think I love you,” he hollered back. “I must!”
She grinned and shoved him playfully. He might complain, but Tristan was thirsty to drink up as many real-world experiences as he could. This might not have been what he had in mind, but it was definitely a better experience than a microwaveable meal in front of the television.
They ditched their coats in the cloakroom, and despite her fantasies of beheading Cheryl with her scythe, Dylan left that there too.
“Let’s get some drinks!” yelled Dylan.
The refreshments were Halloween-themed as well. There were cupcakes topped with fondant spiders and candyfloss masquerading as cobwebs. A huge bowl of ‘monster’s blood’ fruit cocktail waited on a table beside a high tower of paper cups.
“There are probably more E numbers in this than you want to know about,” Dylan warned Tristan, scooping up a cupful for each of them.
“E numbers?” Tristan asked, but Dylan took a big swig, indicating that he should do the same. It was just as sugary as she’d expected… though that wasn’t what had her choking as she tried to swallow.
“God almighty!” she spluttered, holding her cup up high. “It’s spiked.”
“Poison?” Tristan asked, an alarmed look on his face. He put his hand out to take Dylan’s cup away from her, but she curled it into her chest, out of reach.
“Probably vodka,” she laughed, glancing around to see if any teachers were within hearing distance. With the music thumping away like it was, they’d have to be standing pretty close. “You really are from another world, aren’t you! It won’t kill you – it’s cheap booze though, so it might taste toxic.”
&nbs
p; Shrugging, he took a drink, made a face and then downed the whole thing. Waving goodbye to her taste buds, Dylan did the same.
“Dance with me.” Tristan grinned, took her cup and placed it down with his.
Dylan didn’t dance. To be fair, she’d never had much opportunity, but whenever it had been on the cards she’d strictly been a take-a-seat-and-watch kind of girl. Now, however, she let Tristan lead her out into the middle of the floor and held on as he twirled and spun her around.
“How do you know how to do this?” she hollered when he yanked her in and whirled the two of them around. “Were there dances in the wasteland?”
“I don’t,” Tristan shouted back. “I just like the excuse—” he flung her out and hauled her back in again, “to hold on to you in public.”
Dylan couldn’t disagree with that. They’d been careful in school, restricting touches to under-the-table footsie, the occasional platonic hug and surreptitious handholding when they thought no one would see. It had rankled heavily with Dylan, who had to watch the likes of Cheryl and her friends drool all over Tristan. She’d already caught them eyeing him tonight.
Well, they could dance with him over her dead body. Except they couldn’t,’cause he was hers even when she was dead. She smiled at that.
“Another drink?” Tristan asked in the brief interlude between songs.
Dylan could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She nodded eagerly, but when they got back to the refreshment table the spiked punch had been confiscated so they had to make do with juice.
“I’m sweating!” she declared, waving her hand in front of her face. It was sweltering in the hall with so many bodies crushed in, and Tristan had been flinging her about for – she checked her watch – over an hour.
“Fresh air?” Tristan asked, indicating the fire door, which had been propped open to try and cool the place. He grinned wickedly. “I promised you a little private time, didn’t I?”
He had.
Dylan didn’t even hesitate. Letting Joan decide Tristan could be her ‘cousin’ was the worst decision she’d ever made.
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