Without another sound I was running across the back lawn, leaping up the gazebo steps, and throwing myself into his arms, all before Joshua could even move.
After only a second’s hesitation, he pulled me to him, wrapping one hand around the nape of my neck and weaving his fingers through my hair. Just like when we’d kissed, I could feel it all: his arm around my waist, his fingers against my skin.
“Thank God you’re here. It’s late. I was worried . . . ,” he murmured. He lowered his head to my neck and ran his lips across the skin just below my jaw, all but igniting a fire there.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I panted. “It took forever to do what I had to do, and then I couldn’t find your house. I think I walked down about a million wrong driveways.”
Joshua chuckled—a rough, low sound that reverberated off the base of my throat.
“You’re not mad at me for kind of disappearing again, are you?” I asked hesitantly.
Joshua shook his head, the tip of his nose brushing across the soft skin of my neck. “No. God, no. I’m sorry about the other day, I really am. I was so stupid. If I’d just taken the time to think about what you are, and what you have to go through—”
“No!” I cut him off. “Don’t blame yourself! It was my fault, too. I could have—”
Now it was his turn to interrupt me by moving his lips to my ear. “Let’s just agree to make it up to each other, okay?” he whispered.
“I could live with that,” I whispered back.
Joshua’s fingers ran slowly up and down my spine, and I held him more tightly, relishing the tingles that seemed to have found their way over every inch of my skin. The sensation obscured every other thought in my head, made me trail off as I said, “You know, I really have so much to tell you about today. . . .”
“I want to hear it all, I do,” he said fervently, pulling his head back and looking into my eyes.
In this position—one of his hands still woven through my hair and the other wrapped around my waist, both of my arms thrown around his neck and our bodies pressed together—our lips were only inches apart.
We must have noticed this fact at the same moment, because we simultaneously began to tremble. Joshua’s breath sped; and I could actually feel it, warm and soft, on my lips. Our eyes were still locked, and I started to feel a little dizzy.
“I . . . I still want to kiss you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Me, too.”
“Can I . . . ? Can we . . . ?”
“I think so,” I nodded. “I just really have to concentrate, so I don’t disappear.”
Joshua’s fingers tightened in my hair, and he pulled my face closer to his.
“Concentrate, then,” he murmured, and pressed his lips to mine.
Just as it had before, our kiss threatened to melt every part of my body. Waves of hydrogen-fueled flames unfurled like petals in my brain.
But this time I paid close attention to more than just my passion. When I felt the blackness creep along the edges of my joy and when a tiny place in my core felt as though something were tugging on it with an invisible string, I fought back. I anchored myself to the present, holding on to Joshua and concentrating on the immediate feel of his mouth.
I didn’t disappear. I didn’t sink into the water. Instead, I kissed Joshua back, more ferociously than I could have imagined possible. I parted my lips and moved them against his, breathing him in, almost tasting him.
Eventually, we had to stop so he could breathe. We reluctantly pulled away but stayed pressed against each other.
“That was amazing,” Joshua panted.
Even if I’d wanted to speak loudly, I couldn’t. I could only whisper, “That was—”
“Beautiful,” a voice spat from behind us.
Still wrapped in each other’s arms, Joshua and I whirled around to face the same spot in the black tree line. The speaker remained invisible, hidden by the darkness.
“Who the hell . . . ?” Joshua began, but I already knew the answer.
“Eli,” I said flatly.
“Who’s Eli?” Joshua asked, turning back to me.
“My errand this morning.”
“Oh, I’m an errand, am I?” Eli stepped out of the shadows, his skin oddly bright against the black of the night.
“That’s far more than you deserve,” I said through clenched teeth. “And you know it.”
“I know no such thing,” he hissed.
“How did you follow me without me knowing?”
“I stayed far enough behind you. Then, at the right moment, I materialized.”
“I told you to leave me alone.”
“And I do not now, nor will I ever, take instructions from you.” As Eli continued to walk forward, the dead white of his skin left traces of light in the darkness around him.
“Amelia, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Joshua asked, frowning. “Is that . . . another ghost?”
Eli’s eyes darted to mine. “The boy—he can’t see me, can he?”
I shrugged angrily. “He’s a Seer, Eli. That’s what they do.”
“Well, make him stop.”
I couldn’t have been prouder when Joshua pulled back his shoulders and fixed Eli in a steely glare. “I can see you. But whoever or whatever you are, I don’t like how you’re talking to Amelia. So get off my property.”
Eli snorted. “Your property? How funny. Don’t you mean your parents’ property, boy?”
“Leave. Before I make you,” Joshua growled.
“And how do you propose to do that? I’m dead. You can’t even touch me.” Eli smirked, folding his arms behind his back.
“Do you see this beautiful girl in my arms?” Joshua threatened softly. “She’s dead, too. But I’m certainly touching her, aren’t I?”
For the first time, Eli’s expression actually scared me. Harsh lines crisscrossed his face, pulling his eyes into slits and tugging his lips up into a sort of rictus grin. In that moment, he truly looked dead. A malevolent dead thing that had suddenly locked his eyes on me.
“Amelia, I have to admit I’m impressed. You’ve been playing innocent, all the while trying to steal my things?”
“What are you talking about, Eli?”
Keeping that nasty smile, Eli jerked his head in Joshua’s direction. “I thought we were working as a team when he drove off the bridge. I thought our joint effort was the reason you finally woke up. But now the boy is here—alive—with you. So . . . you want to keep all of him for yourself, do you?”
Eli’s ability to think the worst never ceased to amaze me. Now he was implying that I intended to own Joshua, like Eli wanted to own me? Not likely. I sneered at the idea and opened my mouth to tell him so.
It was Joshua, however, who answered Eli first. “What Amelia wants is not your concern, because you’re going to leave. Now. I’m not going to say it again.”
“Please understand, boy,” Eli said without looking at Joshua, “that when I speak now, I’m not speaking to you. I’m not even going to acknowledge you from this moment forward.”
Eli’s voice dropped a low, chilling octave as he then addressed me. “Amelia, you know what I want. And you can only guess what I am capable of. Materialization isn’t my only trick. There are dark things in our nature, things you have yet to comprehend. I told you I control the dead, but I can do so much more than that. I have so many ways to . . . hurt . . . a living being, too.” His eyes flickered momentarily to Joshua and then back to me. “Especially one who can see the dead. I’m sure someone like that could be valuable. A nice addition to my little army.”
A guttural sound bubbled out of my throat. With a little more power behind it, the sound could easily become a snarl.
Joshua blinked at me, but Eli just chuckled.
“Amelia, Amelia. I was there at your second birth—how could any little noise you make frighten me?” He raised one eyebrow, and then his expression unexpectedly relaxed. The strange, feral creases around his mouth and eyes smoothed
, and his lazy grin slipped back into place.
“So,” Eli drawled, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Think about what I’ve said. There’s only one way you’re fated to spend your future. That is, if you want the boy to have any future at all.”
I began to snarl, but Eli cut off the noise.
“Tomorrow, at dawn. Your graveyard.”
He gave me a final, hideous wink and then vanished, leaving nothing but the darkness of the night behind him.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Chapter
Twenty-Two
Joshua hunched over his cup of coffee—the last remains of the pot he’d snuck inside to make several hours after his family had gone to bed. Neither of us felt comfortable falling asleep tonight, but unlike me, Joshua didn’t have the luxury of almost-permanent sleeplessness. He would have to make do with caffeine.
“No, Amelia,” he mumbled into his cup and then rubbed his tired eyes. He shook his head as adamantly as one could at four thirty in the morning. “I still think it’s a terrible idea.”
“Do you have a better one?” I snapped. I immediately regretted my tone, and I smoothed my hand down his arm in apology. “Sorry, Joshua, really. But I just don’t see any other options.”
If I spoke honestly, it seemed we were out of options in a lot of ways.
For starters, instead of lying curled up together on Joshua’s bed, we sat huddled on the bottom steps of the gazebo in the backyard. After Eli disappeared, Joshua and I had tried to enter his house, but something kept me from doing so every time I’d tried. A quick check of the ground revealed our culprit: a layer of chalky gray dust now bordered all the entrances into the Mayhew house, probably sprinkled there today by Ruth. The chalk barred my entry like some invisible wall; even when Joshua swept away the chalk, the magical barrier remained intact. As if I needed another reminder of the painful—and maybe permanent—exorcism that awaited me tonight.
Unfortunately, Eli currently took precedent over my Ruth problem since I didn’t doubt the sincerity of his threats against Joshua. I’d explained everything to Joshua: Eli’s mad need to own me, his staunch insistence that I was fated to turn evil and serve him, even his role in Joshua’s near-death.
Joshua, however, remained undeterred.
“How can meeting that guy—alone, in a graveyard—be our only option?” he demanded. “And how can you even think about giving in to what he wants?”
“How can I not?” I groaned as I flopped sideways onto the gazebo steps. I stared at Joshua, who had propped himself against a wooden post. “You know Eli’s not going to leave us alone until I talk to him again.”
“So? Just let him try and mess with us.”
“Joshua, that’s very brave of you and all, but could we please avoid pissing off a dead guy who can disappear at will? God knows what else he’s capable of.”
Joshua snorted. “Oh, disappearing. Real spooky.”
But even through Joshua’s sarcasm, I could hear a subtle hint of uncertainty. I pressed the point.
“Yeah, disappearing. At will. Something I can’t do yet. And I don’t think he was lying when he said he had even more tricks up his sleeve.”
Suddenly, Joshua was alert. He lurched forward and grabbed my hips, pulling me closer to him. When our knees almost touched, he stopped pulling but left his hands clasped around my waist.
“Exactly, Amelia!” he cried. “Don’t you see? That’s why you can’t go there by yourself to meet him. We have no idea what he’s going to be able to do to you. Like you said: even my grandmother and her friends haven’t been able to stop him from hurting people. So what makes you think you’d be safe?”
Joshua’s concern touched me, far more than I let him see. But no matter how Joshua felt, no matter that today was the deadline Ruth had set for my exorcism, I had to end this skirmish with Eli; I had to clear him from Joshua’s life before Joshua got hurt. I kept my expression rigid, firm.
“I’m not going to argue about this anymore. I’m going to the graveyard. That’s that.”
Joshua sighed heavily and closed his eyes.
“Amelia, Amelia, you are a stubborn girl.” He sighed once more. “If you’re going, then you’re not going alone.”
I opened my eyes and pulled myself from his arms. Joshua fell forward, too tired to react in time to my movement. He righted himself and gave me a baleful stare. I ignored him and shook my head forcefully.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “You’re not coming with me. We’ve already covered this, Joshua.”
“But—”
“But no,” I interrupted him. “I can’t give in on this one, Joshua, I’m sorry. Eli wants me. Just me. He wants to love me, or own me, or whatever . . . but I don’t think he’d actually hurt me. At least, not in a permanent way. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, though, if it meant getting to me. So you can’t be there. Period.”
“You’re right,” Joshua muttered. “I know you’re right.” He frowned and stared down at his lap.
His apparent surrender surprised me, and it momentarily caught me off guard. But when Joshua looked back up at me, I could see that he wasn’t surrendering. Not at all. His eyes showed nothing but absolute resolve.
“You are right, Amelia,” he repeated with an air of finality. “Which is why I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure neither of us goes to see that guy.”
Joshua clasped his hands back around my waist. I couldn’t feel his arms, but I could see them tighten around me. His grip on me, and his hard gaze, made his point perfectly clear: he would do anything humanly possible to keep me with him, and away from that graveyard.
So I would have to resort to inhuman tactics.
I gave him a soft smile. “Can you promise me something?” I asked quietly.
“Not if it has anything to do with you trying to go out there.”
I shook my head, still smiling. “Joshua, please. Just listen. I need you to make me a promise. If you don’t see me again, I need you to promise you won’t come looking for me, okay?”
“Amelia, what are you—,” he began in a panicked voice, but I cut him off with a firm kiss.
This kiss was entirely different from our first two. Now I kissed him roughly, moving my lips against his with a force that belied my desperation. Joshua was so surprised by this attack, he couldn’t help but kiss me back. And, of course, his reaction just made me kiss him more fiercely.
Then, without warning, I jerked away and shut my eyes tight. Before Joshua could pull me back to him, I concentrated on difficult thoughts.
Thoughts of my mother, lonely and alone inside her worn little home. Thoughts of my father’s face—a face I may never see again, in any of the afterworlds. And thoughts of Joshua. Not the happy thoughts of the last few days but thoughts of forever, as only my kind could understand it. Forever, spent without him.
On top of all these sad thoughts, I forced an overlay of one image: that of the graveyard in which I awoke after each of my nightmares. I squeezed my eyes tighter, burning the image onto the backs of my eyelids.
And suddenly, I couldn’t feel the pressure of Joshua’s arms around me.
My eyes shot open.
At first I couldn’t feel or see anything. Everything was numb, and black. Then, painfully, my eyes began to adjust to their new surroundings.
Wherever I now sat, it wasn’t entirely black, as I’d originally thought. This new place was just very, very dark.
A bird called out somewhere to my right, and my head jerked toward the noise. The movement brought into view dark shapes amassed all around me. As my eyes adjusted more, I could just make out the structure of the shapes. The tall ones were trees, drooping toward the ground. The shorter ones were less uniform: some of them, although wide at the base, narrowed into obelisks at the top; some formed squat half circles above a field of grass. Whatever their form
, all of these shorter shapes were unquestionably gravestones.
I’d done it.
I’d willed myself into the graveyard a few hours before dawn.
A sharp, bitterly cold wind slammed into me, whipping against my cheeks and whirling my hair up in the air. When the wind died down, a dry voice slithered out from the darkness.
“You’re early, Amelia Ashley.”
“Well,” I said shakily, trying my best to sound calm as I pushed myself upright. “What can I say? I’m a punctual girl.” Then I paused and frowned. “Wait . . . you just said my last name, didn’t you?”
Eli stepped out from the shadow of a tree, coming into dim view.
“Quite right, Amelia,” he said. “How do I know your last name? And how do I know this is the graveyard where you wake up after your accidental materializations?”
I felt my stomach drop.
In my haste to get this over with, and to spare Joshua in the process, I hadn’t even considered that detail. Your graveyard, Eli had said. He shouldn’t have known about my graveyard. Unless . . . .
“You’ve been lying to me again, haven’t you? You know more about my life than you let on.”
“Only a little bit.”
“How much is a little bit?” I demanded.
“Well, why don’t you turn around and look at the gravestone you’re practically lying on? That should provide some explanation.”
I didn’t want to look away from Eli’s face. I didn’t want to lose sight of him in the great likelihood that he had another nasty surprise planned for me. Yet my head seemed compelled by other forces. It turned slowly until I faced the grass and dirt just behind me.
I’d never wanted to stay in this graveyard long enough to study its headstones or search for my own grave. I merely assumed I’d been buried here, and the assumption was reason enough for me to run away from this place each time I entered it.
I also assumed that, should I stumble upon my grave, I would likely find it overgrown. I don’t know why I’d made this assumption. But in the long years since my death, I’d forgotten my parents and their love for me. To my depressed, lonely mind, it only made sense that whoever I left behind wouldn’t remember me or my grave.