My hands clenched, and I readied myself to shake the barn rafters, or maybe even cause an earthquake directly beneath Kaylen’s feet.
Kaylen, however, beat me to the punch. Joshua had just placed her hand back in her own lap when she darted in like a snake and planted her lips on his. She tangled her fingers in his hair so quickly I almost didn’t see her move, and she pulled him close to her.
Joshua made a small noise, in pleasure or protest I wasn’t sure. I didn’t have time to ask. At that incredibly inconvenient moment, the barn disappeared from sight.
Chapter
FIVE
For the second time that day I found myself gazing up at the ruins of High Bridge.
In the moonless dark it seemed creepier than it had this afternoon. More broken and hollow, like the skeleton of some giant, mythical creature. Above me the ribbons of caution tape fluttered in the wind. Otherwise the place was so quiet I could almost hear my nonexistent blood pumping from the surge of emotion I’d just experienced.
I’d accidentally materialized here the moment I saw Joshua kissing Kaylen. Or Kaylen kissing Joshua. Whichever. I didn’t exactly care about the specifics right now.
Gnawing furiously at my lip, I turned to stare at the darkened river. But instead of the water I could only see a wild blur of mental images.
Her hand on his leg. His hand on hers. Their lips pressed together.
Was I angry? Oh, yes. Angry, and jealous.
But the longer I stared at the river, the more quickly I realized my jealousy didn’t resemble that of a normal living girl. Not by a long shot.
After all, a living girl wouldn’t be jealous that her competitor could actually feel what she touched. A living girl wouldn’t be jealous that her competitor didn’t disappear when she kissed a boy. And a living girl wouldn’t worry that her boyfriend might—in fact, probably would have to—choose someone else because at least someone else could grow with him. Change with him.
A millennium could pass and I wouldn’t change with Joshua. I would never change, never again.
I felt my breath speed up, but I couldn’t seem to slow it. I couldn’t stop thinking these thoughts. Because, however much I disliked her, Kaylen was a normal, living girl. In fact, she probably wasn’t even that annoying once you got to know her. It’s not like she was intentionally going after someone else’s boyfriend, either. As far as she knew, Joshua was very available.
And however much Joshua might deny Kaylen now, she or someone like her would eventually break through his defenses. How could she not? Girls like Kaylen could touch him for longer than ten minutes, attend school with him, meet his family, laugh with his friends....
Girls like me couldn’t do any of those things. Girls like me just screwed things up for the living people we loved. One look at Joshua’s current social life proved it.
The evidence was everywhere: the way Joshua looked at me before telling someone “Sorry, I can’t talk right now”; the frequency with which he walked away from his friends, like he was afraid that even a minute spent around them might reveal my presence.
Joshua had intentionally limited our exposure to the living world. To keep himself from looking like he was crazy in case anyone caught him holding hands with thin air. To keep me safe from any unfamiliar Seers.
By turning away from the living people he cared about, Joshua thought he could protect us. And in the process he’d hurt himself.
I guess I should have felt grateful he hadn’t taken this mission so far as to start avoiding his family too. But would that day come? Would Joshua discover in five, ten years that he could no longer explain to his parents why they couldn’t meet his girlfriend? Why he couldn’t marry her and start a family?
Such questions didn’t matter, not today. I knew that’s what Joshua would say if he could have heard my thoughts.
But those questions would become reality soon enough. When you had a ghost for a girlfriend, you eventually had to choose between the living and the dead. Between a normal life and a haunted one.
He’d already started to make this choice with his friends. And I suspected he’d keep making that choice—with his family and his future—if I let him.
Which I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
In the end I would have to do something to make Joshua stop choosing me.
I suddenly felt the ache in my chest pull into itself, smothering-tight. I had to stop thinking about this. I had to focus on something else, fast. Trying to distract myself, I looked up at my surroundings for the first time since I materialized here. Then I blinked back in surprise.
High Bridge stood directly in front of me, so close I could almost touch it.
Without meaning to, I must have climbed up the steep embankment and stopped at the edge of High Bridge Road. Now my toes rested on the asphalt while my heels stayed on the grass, as if they knew well enough to keep me away from this place.
Up close, any sane person would see the bridge for what it was: dangerous. I had every reason to fear it now as much as I did in the past.
But suddenly I didn’t. I didn’t fear this place at all.
As I continued to stare, I felt my eyes narrow. My feet began to pull themselves completely off the shoulder and onto the road. Slowly, mechanically, my legs carried me forward until I was walking across the bridge. Just taking a calm little stroll.
Inside, however, I was anything but calm. With each step I took my anger grew. Anger at Kaylen, at Eli, even at Joshua. Anger at my whole stupid existence. But especially anger at High Bridge. It had ruined my life, and the lives of countless others.
“You know what?” I said aloud, addressing the bridge, a hysterical smile twitching at one corner of my mouth. “You really piss me off.”
“Still?”
The word drifted toward me no louder than a breath. Yet the moment I heard it, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I spun around frantically, searching for the speaker; but as far as I could see, I was the only one there.
Except …
I squinted, peering at the path I’d just walked. Something about the look of a particular spot seemed … off. As I watched, the air began to shimmer and shift until, floating above what had been an empty road only seconds before, something took shape. At first it hovered like a mist: pale and not quite translucent. But soon it solidified, and I could make out the contours of a human figure.
A man, sitting hunched, close to the railed edge of the bridge. His arms lay across his knees, and his hands and head hung limp, lifeless. His long, curly hair had fallen forward, hiding his face.
But I didn’t have to see it. I didn’t even need him to whisper another word. Because I knew exactly who had just appeared less than four feet away from me.
“Eli,” I gasped, taking a jerky step backward.
“Wait,” he said in that same choked whisper. “Wait.”
I didn’t want to wait; I wanted to get out of here. But I stood transfixed as Eli turned his head toward me and, with horrific slowness, rolled his eyes up to meet mine.
A small, strangled noise escaped my lips.
The mist blurred the rest of his features, but Eli’s eyes blazed an electric blue, like centers of impossibly hot flames. Bright, and ghastly.
I felt a surge of phantom adrenaline telling me to run. But I couldn’t look away.
“Eli?” I repeated. “Is … is that you?”
When he nodded, the gesture looked labored. Painful.
My mind began to race. Eli should still be somewhere in the darkness beyond the netherworld, imprisoned there by the demons he once called masters. If he was here now, in the living world with me, then that meant his masters were …
My head swiveled frantically, searching the bridge around us.
“Where are they?” I gasped. “Tell me.”
“No.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head. “No, Amelia, not here.”
“Tell me,” I demanded, my voice jumping an octave. “Tell me now, Eli.”
“Not here,”
he said. The words seemed to crawl their way out of him. “There.”
“‘There’?” I repeated, still hunting for any other sign of movement on the bridge. “Where’s ‘there,’ Eli?”
“The netherworld.”
I whipped my head back around to face him. “If that’s true, then how are you here?”
“I’m not here, either,” he said, still struggling to speak but gaining a little momentum with each word. “Not really.”
I twisted one corner of my mouth into a frown, confused. “What are you saying? That you’re … what? Still in the netherworld right now?”
“Yes. I’m projecting.”
“Projecting?”
He shook his head. “No time. They’ll find me soon, and—”
“So they are on their way?” I interrupted. “Then I guess you won’t mind if I don’t stick around to catch up. See ya, Eli.”
“Amelia, no! Please, wait—listen!”
I rocked forward, ready to jog, run, fly away from here if I had to. But the urgency in Eli’s plea made me hesitate. I paused long enough to see a glint of real fear in those unnatural blue eyes. Then I swore under my breath.
“Fine,” I said aloud. “Whatever you have to say, say it fast.”
He let slip a gravelly sigh that sounded almost relieved. “I’m here to warn you, Amelia.”
“About what?”
Eli’s eyes darted around, searching the bridge as I had. Then he met my gaze and lowered his voice even further.
“They’re weak right now, without a spirit like me to build their ranks. But they are coming, Amelia; and they’re coming for you.”
Something inside me clenched. “All the more reason to get the hell out of here, right?”
Eli nodded again. “Exactly what I wanted to tell you. It’s not going to happen tonight, but it will happen. Soon. I’ve heard them talking. They want you. And this time they’re willing to do their own dirty work to get you.”
“‘Dirty work’?”
“Killing,” he said. “They’ll murder everyone in this town if that’s what it takes to make you help them.”
I heard my own terrified whisper before I had time to think it.
“Joshua.”
Even through the shifting mist, I thought I saw Eli scowl. “Yes, him. And everyone else you care about. The more of your loved ones they take, the better. Think of them as hostages, to force your hand.”
Faces flashed across my mind: Joshua, my mother, Jillian, even Joshua’s parents and his friends. As easy to find in this small town as a Baptist church.
“Oh, God,” I moaned, and Eli responded with a coughing sort of laugh.
“God has nothing to do with these creatures, Amelia. At least, not anymore.”
A panicky sensation began to twitch along my neckline like a quickening pulse. “Then what do I do? What exactly am I supposed to do?”
“You have to get out of here,” Eli urged. “Tonight, if possible.”
“Away from the bridge?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch. “Just stay away from this place?”
I felt a slight twist in my core as I pictured my father’s face. How could I leave him here? But how could I not, if that meant protecting everyone else?
Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded. “I … I could do that. I could stay away. For a little while, at least.”
“No, Amelia, that’s not good enough,” Eli said. “You have to get away from Wilburton. From Oklahoma.”
“Okay. Okay.” I continued to nod mechanically, my mind racing. “I can do that too. We’re leaving tomorrow for Christmas break. That should buy me a few more days.”
“Still not good enough, Amelia. You have to stay away forever, especially from the people you care about. Otherwise, their association with you might get them killed.”
“‘Association’? I … I don’t understand.”
“My old masters aren’t omniscient, Amelia. They don’t know your every move, or every detail about your history. All they can do is follow you, study you, and then act accordingly. Whatever—whoever—they see with you, they will attack. But if you don’t give them anyone to hunt, then … well …”
My stomach dropped. “So you mean I have to leave everyone … permanently? Leave Joshua?”
“If you want him to survive this. If you want his freedom, and yours …”
As Eli spoke, he trailed off, distracted. After a moment of silence, his head jerked to the right. He stared intently behind us, at the empty bridge, as if there was something approaching that only he could see.
Which, I realized, was probably the case.
When he whipped back around to face me, his eerie blue eyes had widened. “I have to go. For your sake, Amelia, I hope I never see you again.”
Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw a trace of sadness in all that unnerving blue. “What about you, Eli?” I asked softly.
“Too late for me, I’m afraid,” he whispered. Then his eyes darted once more to the right; and, without another word or glance, he vanished like a puff of smoke in the wind.
Chapter
SIX
I didn’t wait to act. As soon as Eli disappeared, I did, too, materializing back to Joshua’s house instantly.
The next breath I took was a gasp, gulped noisily into my lungs while I hunched, doubled over, in the Mayhews’ backyard. I wrapped my arms tightly around me, but the gesture brought no comfort, no warmth. It just made me feel smaller, and more alone.
What if Eli had lied to me? Tried to trick me into doing something I didn’t want to do? It wouldn’t be the first time.
The difference was, now I didn’t doubt him. Not even for a second. Because everything he’d said made a perfect, horrible kind of sense.
How naive, how absolutely stupid I’d been to think that I’d managed to stay off the evil spirits’ radar. I’m not sure why—too much exposure to Joshua’s blind optimism, maybe—but I’d thought that, with Eli gone, the spirits would stay anchored to High Bridge until another servant willingly joined them.
If Eli told the truth, then I’d thought wrong. Very wrong.
By doing so I’d put everyone in terrible danger. Not that they hadn’t already been just by living in proximity to that horrible place. But now, thanks to me, they were potential targets in some demonic hunting expedition.
It made me sick, the idea that one of them might get hurt because of me. And the idea that I’d have to do as Eli suggested and leave? That idea terrified me almost as much.
Is that really what I have to do? I asked myself. Leave all the reminders of my old life, like this town and my childhood home? Leave the people I love?
Like my mother. Like Joshua.
“No,” I moaned quietly, fighting my newest wave of nausea.
How could I do it? How could I actually desert them?
And how could I not, if it meant keeping them safe? My protective glow, my poltergeist powers had vanished. If I stayed, if I tried to fight the netherworld creatures again, I would surely lose. The only defense I could provide them would be to stay as far away as possible.
But still: leaving? I couldn’t even imagine it. Not really.
It was one thing to wonder whether I might one day have to leave Joshua. To anticipate some dark day, at some indeterminate time in the future, when I couldn’t see him anymore. It was quite another thing to think that day might come tomorrow.
I tried to imagine it: a voluntary return to my old existence. Indistinguishable days and nights spent wandering in unfamiliar places. Never laughing with Joshua, never seeing his face. I tried to picture his midnight blue–colored eyes when I told him I had to leave and never come back. Doing so just made me nauseated all over again.
I forced myself to straighten up and breathe slowly. After a few even, methodical breaths I could think more clearly. More rationally.
What if I didn’t have to do it tomorrow? I could go with the Mayhew family to New Orleans, get myself and them far away from the bridge. No matter
what Eli said, that would gain me at least a few days to figure out where to go next.
And give me time to figure out what to say to Joshua. What words to craft that would break his heart, and keep him safe.
I’d just brushed that thought aside to deal with it later when another one took its place
My mother.
My stomach clenched again when I thought of her, alone and unprotected, living so close to the bridge. How long after I’d gone would the dark spirits find her?
She had to leave too, obviously. At least for a while. But I had no idea how to make that happen. I could hardly tell her myself, and I doubted she would listen to Joshua—an eighteen-year-old stranger—if I asked him to warn her.
Near tears, I marched up the wooden steps to the Mayhews’ back porch and began to pace, stomping noiselessly across the floorboards. Around me, fat snowflakes fell, undisturbed by my movements. As I continued to pace, I batted uselessly at them. There had to be another solution for my mother; there just had to be.
Suddenly I remembered something Eli said on the bridge: although powerful, the demons weren’t omniscient. They didn’t know everything about me. In fact, they may not know anything about me, not yet. So maybe they didn’t know my mother existed. Maybe Eli was right—by leaving this town and the people I cared about, I could keep them safe. Without my presence to give away their identities, my mother, Joshua—everyone—would stay anonymous, hidden from the dark spirits.
And all it would take was a gigantic sacrifice on my part.
I shook my head forcefully. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself; I needed to spend every second I had left either enjoying my last moments with Joshua or planning how to end them.
Most of all, I couldn’t let Joshua know what I intended to do. He would stay away from High Bridge on his own after I’d gone, so I had no worries there. But if he knew that I planned to leave—or where I planned to go—he might try to stop me, or follow me.
“God forbid,” I murmured, even though my brain knew this was the only way. The right way.
“God forbid what?”
The sound of Joshua’s voice, nervous and unsure, drifted toward me.