Sisters of Salt and Iron

  All that mattered.

  “I’ll go to the Shadow Lands,” I announced. “I’ll see if I can find Emily, and if I can’t find her, I’ll see what I can find out about the void.” Iloana—an old woman I liked—might have some answers. There was also this library in my world that held the most wonderful books—some that had never even been written but only dreamed. If I couldn’t find something to help us there, then it didn’t exist.

  The lines in Lark’s forehead smoothed. I knew she’d sleep better knowing that one of us was able to do something. In the past twenty-four hours she’d been attacked by a ghost, destroyed him, gone into the void and had two spectral messages. She was due for a rest.

  “Thanks, Wrennie.”

  The weariness in her voice weighed on my shoulders. This was her life, and my death. Our burden. We didn’t know how or why, it just was. And there was no running away from it. Lark had tried that once, and it hadn’t been pretty for either of us.

  When she turned to me, her arms open, I stepped in and wrapped mine around her. It would probably seem weird to most people, but whenever Lark and I connected in some manner, it felt like I was whole. We hadn’t connected as much lately as we used to. She had Ben and school, and I had...well, I had my collection, my own interests and now I had Noah. Still, I needed the other half of my soul, and that’s what I honestly believed my sister to be.

  I tucked her into bed, stayed beside her, telling her stories like I’d done when we were younger, until she fell asleep. Then, I slipped between worlds, into the soothing, muted atmosphere of the Shadow Lands.

  I sighed, just like Lark sometimes did when she got all wrapped up in that fleece blanket she had. I felt centered and strong.

  Home.

  I really should spend more time there. But there was so much in the world of the living that I liked. My sister—when I wasn’t fantasizing about killing her. Noah. Reality TV shows that I couldn’t watch in front of Lark because she made fun of me and swore at the people on the show, despite my insistence that they couldn’t hear her.

  Iloana didn’t seem to be around—which wasn’t all that odd. If I didn’t find any information at the library I’d go looking for her.

  The first time I visited the library—and I’d only found out about it recently—I encountered Emily, our ancestor. She had white hair like Lark, but was a little older. She’d given me a book that allowed us to find out information about Josiah Bent. I eventually brought that book back, but Emily hadn’t been there. Neither Lark nor I had seen her in weeks, and then she sends me a message via a Haven Crest ghost? Why? Why couldn’t she contact me herself?

  Was Alys the reason Emily hadn’t moved on? It made sense. I wouldn’t leave Lark, either. But the void...that was not a place I ever wanted to see again. I’d never been so scared before. Never.

  I hated being afraid, and it wasn’t something I felt very often.

  The library was a large, looming building with columns and a huge front door. Inside, it was all dark wood and rich colors. It felt timeless, and like all things in the Shadow Lands, its outside dimensions were smaller than they ought to have been. The library was infinite. Unmeasurable.

  Today there was actually someone at the desk. That was new—not that I was any expert in the workings of this place. I approached the woman. She was tall and thin, with long thick hair that flipped out at the ends. She was wearing a lime-green minidress with white trim. Her tights and shoes were the exact same shade as her dress. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with black eyeliner that flicked up at the outer corners.

  Lark would love her look.

  “Can I help you?” she asked softly, smiling.

  I smiled back. “I need a book on Haven Crest patients between 1879 and 1899. And I would like the book on Emily Murray and her sister, Alys.” There was no harm in asking, was there? If there were books on other people in this library, surely there was one about my ancestors. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, handing me a leather-bound volume, “I can give you the Haven Crest book, but the other is part of Special Collections.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Was that smile stuck on her face? “It means that you can look at it here, but you can’t check it out.”

  This sort of thing happened in the libraries of the living. I knew this because of Lark’s various school projects that had required trips to various libraries. But how did those rules apply here? Surely if a book went missing, another would take its place? Or was there actually an author behind these countless tomes? That was too much to contemplate.

  “Fine. Where is Special Collections?”

  That smile never wavered. “It’s by appointment only.”

  “Then I’ll make an appointment.”

  She consulted a large book in front of her. It had gold-edged pages and had to be at least six inches thick. “The earliest appointment I have available is Wednesday at one.”

  The day before Halloween.

  “Is that Eastern Standard Time?” I asked sweetly, wondering if anyone would notice if I jumped over the counter, wrestled her to the floor and ripped her eyes out of her smiling head.

  Some of that must have shown in my face, because her smile wavered. “Yes. Would you like the appointment?”

  “I would, yes, thank you.” I held the Haven Crest book to my chest and returned her stare. “Don’t you need my name?”

  “Oh! Sorry, yes.”

  “Wren Noble,” I informed her, but I had a feeling she already knew who I was. It was a feeling I was beginning to grow very, very tired of. It had all started around the time Lark killed herself. She was only dead for a blink, but that’s when it seemed that suddenly people—especially dead ones—knew more about us than we did, and they weren’t keen on sharing the information.

  It was time for that to stop.

  “Wren Noble, one o’clock on Wednesday, October thirtieth for Special Collections,” she chirped as she scribbled in the book. Her smile was back in place. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. Then, still smiling, I leaned across the counter. “I just wanted to tell you what pretty eyes you have.”

  She giggled. You’d think we were the very best of friends. “Oh, thank you!”

  I flashed a little teeth. She wouldn’t be so pleased if she knew what I wanted to do with those chocolate-colored little orbs. But the thought gave me “a happy,” as Lark would say, so I took my book and left the library. I could have read it there, but if I had to spend another moment in the same room as that woman—no matter if it was one of infinite space—I was going to make some violence that someone would notice.

  When people already knew more about you than they ought, attracting notice wasn’t wise.

  I went back to the little house that had been mine for as long as I could remember. The thing about being dead—being a ghost—meant that I never really needed care. And what little I did need, Iloana had been kind enough to offer. My link to Lark had enabled me to drift between her world and this one, and I learned everything at the same rate at which she did—how to talk, how to walk. Thankfully I avoided the whole potty-training fiasco. That was just a lesson in humiliation, if you asked me.

  We helped each other, taught each other. We took our first steps together, holding each other’s hand. My mother used to laugh at how Lark always walked, ran—even danced—with one arm out farther than the other. She never saw me holding on to that hand, no matter how hard I wished she would.

  My mother never once realized I was there. My father, on the other hand... There had been a couple of times that I think he felt my presence, and maybe even saw me. Emily was his ancestor, so it made sense that he would have a bit of sensitivity like his mother—my grandmother. Those times that I thoug
ht he’d been aware of me, he’d had a little too much to drink, so my mother accused him of being drunk. I don’t know if he ever had a sense of me again, because he never mentioned it—at least not to my mother. Not when Lark or I were around.

  I called them my mother and my father. Lark at least called him Dad, but neither of us felt much motherly love toward the woman who couldn’t see me and then punished Lark because she could.

  Anyway, I had my little house. It wasn’t even that we needed shelter. There wasn’t any weather or temperature change in the Shadow Lands. And it was never night or even day—just perpetual twilight. Still, I guess the human mind clung to the idea of shelter, even a human who had never lived.

  I had my little box of treasures, but I didn’t look at it right now. There was a big, deep armchair in front of a fireplace that I had added after seeing one someplace else. That’s where I sat with my library loan, reading by the firelight. Not like I could ever develop eyestrain.

  I flipped through the Haven Crest book. I found the girl who had given me Emily’s message at Haven Crest. She was admitted in 1901, born in 1885. She would have been the same age as Emily, so her story rang of truth thus far. She had been admitted for hysteria—whatever that was. There was nothing in her record that would lead me to believe that she’d been lying about Emily’s message. There was nothing linking her to Emily at all. Didn’t they have a visitors log back then? They must have, but it wasn’t here.

  I kept turning the pages, nervously studying the grainy photos of patient after patient. Then I found it.

  Noah Andrew McCrae? I stared at the name written in faded cursive. I had to be wrong. It was McCain or something else, and it was just the handwriting that made me imagine Noah’s last name was the same as Kevin’s. But no, there it was. The penmanship was perfect, as were my eyes.

  Maybe they weren’t related. They couldn’t be, because I’d told Noah what Kevin’s name was, and he’d made that remark about being Irish, and that he was English.

  But England had controlled part of Ireland for centuries, and a family that started out in England could have moved to Ireland. Maybe it was a huge coincidence, but as I looked at Noah’s face, so young and alive, I could see a resemblance to Kevin that went beyond their dark hair and blue eyes.

  That would explain why I had been so instantly drawn to Noah. Just when I thought I was over Kevin I went and fell for his ancestor. Not a direct ancestor, of course, because Noah would have been too young to have had children. Wouldn’t he?

  I was jumping to conclusions. There was no reason for Noah to keep this from me, so either he didn’t know they were related, or they weren’t. It was that simple. His surname wasn’t what I wanted to look at anyway.

  Lark had accused me of not knowing anything about him. And she was right. It didn’t matter to me what he’d done, but given recent events, it would be wrong of me not to at least be curious.

  If Noah and I were alive, wanting to know his last name would not be strange. In fact, it would be strange if I didn’t know it. And if he had been mentally ill in life, that sometimes affected how the person was in the afterlife. You didn’t die and revert to a perfect version of yourself.

  I read through his record. It said that he had been committed to Haven Crest by his father, Patrick McCrae—so Irish!—on the seventh of October 1903 at the age of nineteen. The reason for this was “inconsolable grief.”

  Oh, no.

  Noah’s sister Maureen had died earlier that year, and it seemed that Noah had been unable to let her go. He’d told his parents that he could see her and still talk to her. They’d thought their son’s mind had broken. They’d thought he was mad, and the more they’d tried to help him, the more intense and violent he’d become that they wouldn’t believe him.

  My eyes burned with tears. I never had to pee, but I could cry, though I had no idea where the tears came from. They weren’t wet, but I could feel them trickle down my cheeks.

  Noah had been a medium. He and Kevin had to be related. That talent ran in families. How horrible for him. He could still talk to his dead sister, and no one had believed him.

  Just like how no one had believed Lark about me.

  LARK

  I woke up at five. Not because Wren was there, or because I had some sudden revelation about Alys, but because someone was bouncing on my bed.

  Groggily, I lifted my head, opened my sleep-crusted eyes and looked straight into the twinkling gaze of Joe Hard.

  “Rise and shine, J.B.,” he said.

  He was all hair and eyeliner, and it was a good thing ghosts didn’t have circulation, because his would have been cut off below the waist, his leather pants were so tight. He’d been a rock star back in the day, and even death couldn’t make him give it up.

  “What do you want?” I demanded. “And how the hell did you get in here?” I had a few protections up, but couldn’t use too many because they’d work against Wren. Still, the house was somewhat fortified against unfamiliar ghosts.

  “I knew your grandmother, remember? We have a connection.” He grinned. “Olgilvie is at the coffee shop down the street, so I decided to pop over. Your sister tell you I wanted to chat?”

  I stared at him. None of what he’d just said explained why he was perched on my duvet at this time of morning, looking as fresh as a dead metalhead could. “No, she didn’t. We’ve been a little preoccupied lately.”

  He nodded. “All Hallows’ Eve, yeah. It’s gotta suck for you. Nice to have a little freedom to roam, though.”

  I sat up. “What do you want to talk about, Joe?”

  The smile faded from his face, along with any other trace of pleasantness. “I need your help.”

  Yeah, so he was a little scary. “With?”

  “Making sure the police find a body before Olgilvie gets a chance to move it.”

  But Olgilvie was the police. Oh. Oh. “Laura.” Back when I’d first returned to New Devon, I’d been unlucky enough to cross paths with the human stain known as Officer Olgilvie, who Joe haunted. I knew it had something to do with a girl named Laura, and I figured that Joe blamed Olgilvie for her death. Now, I realized that Olgilvie had killed her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Near the grounds of Haven Crest. It’s why the bastard’s been supervising construction and why he does security there—so he can keep an eye on her. But with the work the town’s been doing, he has to move her or someone will find her.”

  “And you want to make sure someone finds her.”

  He nodded. “Her family—this whole fucking town—needs to know what happened to her.” I didn’t ask, but he told me anyway: “He raped her, and then he killed her when she tried to get away. He says it was an accident, but you don’t bury an accident in an unmarked grave and watch over it for more than two decades.”

  “He’s more of a monster than I thought.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. I wouldn’t even ask you to tangle with him if it wasn’t for Laura.”

  “Is she anchored to the grave?”

  “No. She moved on when he...when she died.”

  And Joe had made the choice to haunt her killer when his own death came, rather than move on with her. He must have seen my confusion, because he added, “I couldn’t be with her, knowing he’d gotten away with it. I loved her, and I should have been with her that night, but we’d had a fight. I thought she’d taken off to LA like she always threatened to do. It took ten years and me dying of an accidental overdose to discover the truth. She came for me, but I couldn’t go—not without making him pay.”

  “Dude, that’s messed up, but I get it.” I nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

  “You’re going to the concert?”

  “Yeah. Probably one of the worst decisions of my life, but I’m going.”

>   “He’s working security, but he’s going to move her during the show.”

  “Isn’t that risky?”

  “Yeah, but the show will provide some distraction, and give him access to the construction tools that have been stored on-site. The town’s going to start excavating the spot where he hid her next week. If he doesn’t do it now, they’ll find her.”

  It took me a moment to see what the problem was. “You want them to catch him in the act.”

  He nodded.

  I had no idea how I was going to make that happen, but I’d do it. “I need you to show me where she is.”

  “I can’t take you unless he’s there. I’m tethered to him.”

  I held out my arms and beckoned him to me. “One-time offer, Softie, my friend. Jump on board the Lark train.”

  A dark eyebrow arched high on his pale forehead. “Possession? How very 1973 of you.” He didn’t hesitate, though. He jumped into me like a flea onto a cat. It was like being hit by a car and knocked into the air, but without the pain and broken bones.

  My head was crammed with a series of images that sped through my brain like a high-speed train. A birthday party for a five-year-old boy, Joe’s graduation, cars and guitars and screaming fans. And there were a lot of images of him with the girl I assumed was Laura. They were smiling in every one of them.

  And then he showed me her grave, and everything went still—a barren plot of land, overgrown and neglected, covered in tall grass and wildflowers. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it had I walked by. The gentle rounding of the ground—the swell of dirt that concealed Laura’s body—wouldn’t have even registered with me as odd.

  I turned my head, and the Haven Crest campus came into view. I knew where I was now—where Laura was.

  And I could feel every emotion that Joe attached to her, and to her grave. More importantly, I felt his desire to make Olgilvie pay for what he’d done. That sensation lingered, even after Joe left my body.