“Besides,” I tell Malachi, “I’ll be in there with you guys as soon as Timothy has the gate cleansed and I have the ghosts’ memories.”
Malachi’s jaw tightens. “That’s not making me feel any better.”
Nothing will make any of us feel better at this point. Hugging Malachi, I say, “Just keep him safe and I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”
He merely grunts in reply and squeezes me even tighter before stepping away. I watch him sit on the couch to wait. Mrs. Bridger promised to keep Timothy awake as long as possible, but kids tend to drop off with little notice. Timothy knows to pull Malachi in as soon as he gets to the Field of Reeds, though. All we can do is wait now.
Wait and finish preparing.
I leave Malachi and walk back toward Kyran. He’s dusting chalk off his hands, staring at the circle of protection he just finished. Holden is studying it intently as Zara steps up behind me and starts fiddling with my hair. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Braiding it,” she replies. She yanks my head this way and that a few times. “Kyran doesn’t want any part of you getting outside the center of the circle. Hair included.”
That takes my fear up a notch, but I only nod.
When Zara finishes, Kyran approaches. His jaw is set, and he has chalk smudges across his forehead. My fingers are quivering when I reach up to brush it away. Kyran barely seems to notice my touch. Worry creases his forehead as his gaze travels up to the headband his aunt made me. I try to quell the spike of fear thinking about it brings, but I can’t.
Forcing myself to stay calm, I inhale slowly as Kyran reaches behind my head to where the headband ties at the back of my neck. I’ve only taken it off a few times since he first put it on. Nothing good comes of taking it off, but I can’t let the ghosts share their memories with it there blocking them.
“You’ll put it back on as soon as I’m done, right?”
Kyran slips the salt-containing headband from my hair and sets it aside. “The second the Key is full.”
I nod, thankful, but still scared. He recognizes that and pulls me into his chest. “You can do this. You both can. You’ll lock them back up, everything will be fine, and that will be the end of it.”
I scoff. “It will be far from the end of it.”
“It will be the end of this part.”
How many more parts are there? I wish I knew.
Pulling against Kyran more tightly, I try to soak up some of his optimism before pulling back so I can get to work. He lets me go reluctantly. Griffin is there to take his place almost immediately.
“Stay focused. Stay calm. I’ll do what I can to help with the calm part. The rest is up to you.”
Isn’t it always? I put my pity party on hold and focus. It took me most of the evening to find Liza—a longstanding ghostly companion—and get her to put the word out that I need help. That alone probably wouldn’t have inspired much of a response. After all, I spent the majority of my life purposely ignoring them. So, I sent Liza out not simply as a messenger, but to broker deals.
Give up a memory, receive an I.O.U. message delivery once this thing is over.
I have no idea what this will end up costing me later, but I have to do whatever it takes right now. Hopefully the Key will fill up before I end up in debt to too many needy ghosts. When have I ever been that lucky? Let me see…oh, wait, that’s right…never. Sighing, I step carefully over Kyran’s chalk-drawn circle of protection and sit in the empty center. After making sure every part of me is within the line, I look back at Malachi.
All I can see is the top of his head, but I can tell he’s still awake. No Timothy yet. Hopefully that means his mom found something to keep him awake and not that the Devourers got him the second he arrived. Morton will be monitoring Malachi the whole time, even though Malachi doesn’t know by what method. Knowing both Griffin’s and Morton’s abilities is agony to keep secret, but it’s not my place to tell. They’re probably better off not knowing. Who wants to spend every second in their presence worrying about what they’re thinking or feeling? Besides, both promised they usually keep their abilities to themselves, for the most part.
When Kyran sits down across from me on the outside of the circle, I stuff all non-Key-related thoughts away. Clearing my mind isn’t easy. Kyran helps by walking me through another breathing exercise. When I open my eyes several minutes later, he’s not alone. Liza sits next to him, just barely outside the circle.
“Malachi just got pulled in,” Kyran tells me. “Ready to get started?”
I nod. “Liza’s already here.”
Undisturbed by that announcement, Kyran settles in to monitor whatever is about to happen.
Liza stares at me, nervous but anxious. I explained earlier why I needed their help, and she seemed to understand. Even knowing the costs, she’s the first to step up to help. She leans forward when I open my hand to reveal the Key of Life. Honestly, it doesn’t look like much. Just a trinket you might find in one of the thrift shops Malachi’s mom introduced me too. Liza seems to recognize the importance of it and regards it reverently.
Normally, I do not let ghosts touch me. I’m less than thrilled about making an exception now, but it’s the best way to get this done quickly. So, I reach my hand out toward Liza and try not to cringe when she does the same. Cold settles into the bones of my hand as her hand goes partially through mine. I have barely a second to notice the sensation before a memory pours into my mind. Pain follows with it, but not like it was with Archer.
Half free soul, half Devourer, Archer’s ability to connect with me was compromised well before he attempted to show me why he was stuck with me. Enough of his humanity had been corrupted that he couldn’t interact the right way. Even the smallest transfer of memory or knowledge was pure agony. Even though Liza has been hanging around me my entire life, she’s managed to retain much of her former self and she causes only minimal damage as a memory of her daughter plays out in my mind.
As soon as I can focus enough to process the memory, I realize why she likes hanging around with me so much. The pain grows to a dull throbbing as a little strawberry blonde girl chases a butterfly across a patch of grass. Her bare feet are clumsy as she toddles across the grass. She trips more than once, but keeps laughing as chubby hands clap at the butterfly and miss every time. Hands, seen as though they’re mine, open to reveal a second butterfly. It takes flight and flutters by the girl. She laughs and begs, “More, Mama, more!”
It’s a precious memory, a happy memory. As it begins to fade and I feel Liza pull back, something else flares. Heat in the palm of my hand. It draws my attention, but my eyes remain closed. The cold of Liza’s retreating touch is a strange contrast, her shared memory warm between the two extremes. The heat grows worse the longer I hesitate. It’s beginning to burn my hand, but I’m not sure what to do.
Instinct takes over when the heat becomes so bad I can barely hold the damn thing anymore. One of the meditation exercises my therapist tried to teach me was the focused relaxation of specific parts of my body. It seemed completely ridiculous at the time, but being forced to focus my thoughts like that makes thinking of the memory as a physical thing much easier. Instead of relaxing the memory, I push it, out of my head and down my arm. I barely get it halfway down my forearm when it is suddenly sucked up by the Key and the heat dulls to a more manageable level.
My eyes flutter open and I stare at the Key to realize it looks exactly the same.
“It kinda brightened, for a second,” Kyran says.
Great. This is going to take forever. Looking back to where Liza was sitting, I’m surprised to see another ghost in her place. George. Another of my longtime, silent entourage. Like Liza, George has never once approached me with a request for help. Were they just biding their time for a deal like this? I have no idea, and no time to ponder the answer. Extending my hand, I still flinch when he takes it and the cold hits me.
Bright orange leaves surround them. The girl can’t be more than
ten or eleven. Her cheeks are red from the chilled air as she leans toward George with her hand cupped to the side of her mouth. He tilts his head so she can get close enough to whisper her secret. Fear and excitement make his body rigid. He can barely breathe as the girl’s hand rests against his cheek and her breath washes over his skin.
“I’ll love you forever, George. Forever and ever.”
She turns just slightly, and presses a kiss to his cheek.
I expect the memory to end there, but it doesn’t. Or, it does, but a second memory follows quickly behind. Years later. Decades later. I recognize the woman’s eyes, now surrounded by deep wrinkles that tell not only of age but of pain and sadness. She can barely hold them open as she sits beside George and takes his hand, but they glass over with tears when George is too weak to return the touch.
She again cups her hand and whispers in his ear. “I’ll love you forever, George. Forever and ever...even past the end of this life.”
That end comes quickly. The memory fades alongside George’s mortal life.
The Key grows hot once again, but I take half a second to hold onto the experience of a lifetime of love and devotion, to memorize what that feels like. It’s not something everyone experiences. I highly doubt I’ll be one of those lucky few, so I put off moving the memory, ignoring the pain searing into my hand until I can’t stand it a second longer. Then, quickly, I shove the memory into the Key and open my eyes.
Ghost after ghost, memory after memory, I relive sacred moments with them…then tear them away. Guilt fills me when I take those bits of themselves they’ve been holding onto for years, but the beauty of each moment fills me with hope as well. Kyran’s words slip in between the memories, his comment about needing to balance good and evil in the Hall of Truth. It isn’t just there that needs balance. I realize, as I take memory after memory, that I need it too.
Exhausted, hand aching, drained in every possible way, I open my eyes and let my gaze fall to the Key. It’s glowing now, but I can feel the empty space still remaining. I need more, but worry over Malachi and Timothy steals my attention for a moment. I focus on Kyran and ask, “Anything from Malachi yet?”
He shrugs. “Morton says they’re nearing the gate.” He’s confused by how he could possibly know that, but I can’t stop to explain. “Are you close?” he asks me.
“A few more. Maybe two or…”
Kyran and I both stare at my suddenly foggy breath and my stomach drops. No. I’m not ready yet. I need more memories! The half-second of panic that froze us both ends with Kyran lunging for a canister of salt. “No!” I shout, even though I know it’s the only way to keep her out. “The memories! It’s not full!”
He hears me, hesitates for a split second, then flips open the top of the salt. Knowing this won’t work without the Key being completely full, I glance around, panic making me clumsy so I scuff the chalk drawing, and search the room for a ghost I can pull into the circle with me before Kyran can finish the salt circle. My breath catches painfully in my chest when I realize they’re all gone. Scattered. Terrified of what I can feel coalescing behind me.
I see Kyran complete the salt circle from the corner of my eye as I turn to face her. Her dark form congeals with every rapid breath I suck in. The power pouring off her isn’t normal. Neither is the rate of her descent into madness. Both factors combined makes me fear the salt circle won’t be enough. I squeeze the Key in my fist, pulling it to my chest with a chalk-covered hand. Cowering there, I scavenge through every bit of information I’ve collected over the past few weeks, desperate for an answer.
I just need a few more memories, or one powerful one. The Key has to be full or it won’t close the gate. I appreciate that the ghosts who came to help shared one memory at a time rather than attacking me with all of them at once like Archer did, but…. I gasp as an idea occurs to me. Unsure of whether or not it will work, I hurriedly settle myself back inside what’s left of the protection circle. Kyran watches me uncertainly as he draws a hasty circle of salt around himself, but he doesn’t say anything or try to intervene.
He can’t see Lucy preparing to attack me only a few feet away, so closing my eyes freaks me out more than a little. I don’t think I can do this without shutting out the possibility of my impending death. It’s easier than it should be to push that aside. Locked within the pretend safety of my own mind, I allow myself to think of Archer, something I haven’t done willingly since telling Malachi about the memories he’d given me and having him react by pulling away.
When Archer tried blasting me with his memories, very little stuck. After being hypnotized in order to uncover what had happened to Archer, he was there waiting when I came back to reality. He tried to tell me not to blame myself for what had happened to him. He told me he loved me, and proved it by not only kissing me but sharing five years’ worth of memories, five years of him staying by my side, comforting me when I didn’t even know he was there, keeping me from breaking when I was at my lowest and most scared.
Of all the memories Archer gave me in that moment, those are the ones I am most loathe to lose…the ones I have to send into the Key if I want all of this to end.
It feels like tearing away part of my heart to grasp onto one particular memory of him lying in bed next to me, stroking my hair as I cried until my entire body ached. It was the night my dad came home drunk and I knew he hated me in that moment for all the problems I had caused. I’d snuck back into my bedroom after he got home, convinced he would be gone in the morning and that it would be my fault. I had no clue Archer had been there, or that his presence had been what kept me from running or giving up, but I loved him long before he gave me the memory.
Hatred builds in me, for Lucy and the Devourers, for making me give this up, but as I push the memory toward the Key something odd happens. It’s almost as though I can feel Archer’s hand running over my hair as it did in the memory. The awfulness of that moment for me dulls in the face of his compassion. Pain and love balance out, neither one stronger than the other. As it sinks in that I cherish this particular memory so much not because of how painful it was for me, but because of the depth of Archer’s compassion, I don’t have to fight to get the memory into the Key. It pulls away from me and sinks into it, cooling the last of the heat and making it flare a brilliant white.
A soundless scream of rage blasts out of Lucy’s shifting black form. She flies at the salt circle, and is thrown back, but refuses to give up. “Kyran,” I beg, “get in here. Now!”
Startled, he hesitates for half a second, then jumps out of his circle and into mine. “What are you planning?” he asks. He hauls me into his lap and tucks us both inside the messed up protection circle and salt circle both. He has chalk in his hand, fixing what I smudged with his free hand while the other one is clamped around my waist.
“I have to go now,” I tell him. “Don’t let her get me, okay?”
He nods, then presses a hard kiss against my mouth. “Come back safe. There’s a concert I want to take you to next month. I already bought the tickets and don’t want them to go to waste.”
I almost laugh at his request, because we have so many more important things to worry about than concert tickets…but then I realize that’s kind of the point of all of this. What are we protecting the world for if not so people can create memories like the ones the ghosts just gave me?
“I will,” I tell him before closing my eyes and leaving my body in his care, three feet from a vengeful ghost who’s determined to kill me.
35: One To Go
(Echo)
I arrive smack dab in the middle of utter chaos. Timothy is scribbling furiously on the gate, using the Feather of Truth—which I have no idea how he got off his chest where it was embedded—working as fast as his little fingers can manage to write out the forty-two negative confessions. Malachi is trying to hold up a shield while flinging blasts of…energy?...out around the edges of the shield at the Devourers who slip past. I have no idea why he keeps touching h
is wrist before he does stuff, but I don’t have time to ask.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Timothy says between panicked breaths.
The second he writes something with the Feather, its pure gold trail of hieroglyphs fades to nothing. How he’s keeping track of what he’s written and where, I have no clue. I’m useless to help him.
“Is the Key ready?” he asks, still writing.
“Yes.”
He scratches out one more set of hieroglyphs and breathes a sigh of relief. “Good.” He points at the center of the gate he just finished writing all over. “When they’re all inside, use it to lock them in. The judges will have to take care of locking them in the cage.”
Someone else has some responsibility in this? Excellent. It’s about damn time.
Timothy motions for me to grab one of the big, brass door pulls. I do, and his little hands wrap around the opposing one. “Malachi,” he shouts, “on three! One, two, three!”
We all react in perfect synchronicity. Malachi drops his shield as Timothy and I yank the doors open. Then I watch as Timothy tosses the feather through the open doors, to where—is that Osiris?—waits to catch it. The second his fist closes around it, souls pour out of the feather. I can’t even count how many, but the massive influx of power sends the Devourers into a frenzy. Stripped of their humanity, the vicious creatures react on instinct to the pure power the souls represent.
Malachi yanks me out of the doorway barely a half second before the Devourers sprint through. Timothy was smart enough to get out of the way on his own. I stumble back, tripping over my own feet and falling into Malachi. He spins me, squashing me with his body as several Devourers who are less mesmerized by the souls decide to take a detour for our souls. Something rakes down my leg before Malachi manages to get his shield back up to cover us.
The Ghost Host: Episode 2 (The Ghost Host Series) Page 30
