by Kady Cross
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.”
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 inste
ad. 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 i
t.”
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.
