So far each dream differed in content from the previous one. But they all shared a pretty common theme. All of them happened at night, when I shouldn’t have been sleeping, and all of them were incredibly disturbing.
In each dream I saw people for whom I cared but couldn’t speak to them, couldn’t touch them. Sometimes I saw Joshua, watching me with a cold, impassive expression while I begged him for help. Sometimes I saw Jillian drop to her knees in pain as Eli—the cruel ghost who had tried to acquire my soul for his demonic masters—tore the life from her.
Or sometimes I saw my father’s ghost, wandering lost beneath the ruins of the bridge I’d destroyed several months ago in an effort to protect Joshua and Jillian from Eli. In those dreams my father called out to me. He asked, in a broken voice, why I hadn’t yet freed him from the dark netherworld that waited just outside the living boundaries of High Bridge.
I hated those dreams the most.
Tonight’s dream, however, was a new one. Never before had I watched myself like some outside observer; never before had I seen myself hurting, maybe even dying, in a setting I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t exactly have the clearest memories of my life before death, but most things I recalled had at least a touch of familiarity to them. Nothing about tonight’s dream, however, seemed familiar—not the dark room or the shabby furniture. The only aspect of the room I recognized was the girl on the couch. Me, maybe.
So … what on earth was I supposed to make of that?
I shook my head and curled up beside Joshua without touching him. Joshua mirrored my position, facing me. My long silence didn’t seem to bother him, probably because I’d had so many of them lately.
“Well,” he finally said. “At least tonight’s materialization wasn’t a nightmare. But you did sit up screaming earlier. Do you want to tell me what that was about?”
My eyes darted down to the pillow beneath my head, away from Joshua’s intent gaze. I shrugged. “Another one of those weird dreams I keep having. This one was different, though. Weirder.”
I felt Joshua twitch beside me. “How so?” he asked.
I continued to study the pillow while I described the dream’s eerie details. When I finished, Joshua blew out a puff of air.
“That’s … well, that’s creepy, Amelia.”
“Very. And the even bigger issue is that I don’t sleep. The fact I’m dreaming at all makes me think these dreams are—I don’t know—important maybe? Tonight’s dream really makes me wonder. Everything seemed so real: the sounds, the smells.”
“And you’re sure you saw yourself alive in this one?”
“Well … not completely sure. The girl looked a lot like me, but there was something else about her. Something I can’t put my finger on.”
Joshua frowned, thoughtful. “Maybe the girl was just some, you know, manifestation. Of your worries.”
Despite my apprehensive mood, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow, Dr. Mayhew. Someone’s been doing his psychology homework.”
“My favorite elective.” Joshua chuckled goodnaturedly. Then he yawned.
I propped myself up on my elbow, glanced over his shoulder at his bedside clock, and fell back onto the bed beside him.
“We can talk more about this later,” I said. “It’s past four already, and you’ve got a calculus final today.”
“Don’t remind me.” He groaned, pulling his own pillow around his ears in a U shape. “Why sleep at all? I’ll probably get a better score if I just try to hallucinate the answers.”
“I’m not going to let you hallucinate your way through your last final. We’ve been studying for weeks. So … sleep.”
With the pillow still pressed to his ears, Joshua shook his head. But even through the fabric, I heard the muffled sound of another yawn.
I guess I didn’t need to give him any more commands or warnings because soon, without further protest, he began to drift off. Eventually, his breath deepened enough that I knew he’d fallen asleep again.
With an enormous sigh, I rolled over to stare blankly at the ceiling. For a while I tried to stay calm and restful. To run through a few of the calculus equations Joshua had struggled with the most. But soon, instead of numbers, my head started to spin with all the lingering questions that still plagued me.
Several months ago I thought I’d finally solved my greatest problems. I’d begun to piece together the sketchy details of my past and gain control of my ghostly powers. I’d prevented Eli from trapping me in the dark netherworld and forcing me to become a sort of grim reaper like him. Even Joshua’s grandmother Ruth and her coven of ghost hunters had left me alone as some sort of repayment for saving Jillian’s life.
So I’d earned a chance to enjoy whatever time I had left with Joshua, right?
Wrong.
Instead, my new, Eli- and Ruth-free existence had only become peaceful enough to allow another mess of problems into it. There were too many things to think about, too many issues I couldn’t resolve. Like the haunting image of my doppelgänger languishing in that dank room. Or my total inability to kiss my boyfriend for more than a few minutes. Or … or …
“Ugh,” I muttered in disgust, but then clamped my lips shut when I heard a small hitch in Joshua’s breath.
When he began to breathe evenly again, I carefully slipped off the bed and tiptoed to the broad window seat on the other side of the room. I curled up on the seat’s thick blue cushions, tucking my feet beneath me and pressing my forehead to the windowpane.
Right now I’d give just about anything to feel the glass, cold and soothing against my skin. No such luck, though. I felt only the numb pressure of the pane in front of me and the cushion beneath me.
Just two more objects in the living world I couldn’t really touch.
Forehead still pressed against the window, hair hanging around my face so I couldn’t see anything but the dark, icy view outside, I shook my head. Then I burrowed more fully into the cushions, settling in for another troubled night spent obsessing over the things I would never be able to change.
Chapter
THREE
A sharp clunk rang out beneath me as someone’s foot connected with the wooden leg of the chair in which I now sat. I looked up in time to see Jillian’s eyes dart guiltily down to her bowl of cereal.
I spared a quick glance at Joshua. He must have heard the sound too, because he glared at his sister across the breakfast table. I, however, just shook my head and pulled my elbows off the table. Obviously, I wouldn’t get to spend the morning sulking with my head in my hands as I’d originally planned. Instead, I would once again have to play peacemaker between the unwilling and the unreceptive. And these days I didn’t know which Mayhew sibling was which.
I placed what I hoped was a calming hand on Joshua’s arm, but he’d already begun to growl a warning at his little sister.
“Jillian, I swear …”
“Don’t swear, Joshie,” she taunted, the corner of her lips twitching. “Mom and Dad don’t like it when you swear.”
Joshua’s scowl deepened. “Seriously, if you don’t stop it—”
“Stop what?” she interrupted, raising her eyebrows innocently. She turned from one side to the other as if to solicit support from their parents. The older Mayhews, however, couldn’t have been more disinterested in their children’s fight. Joshua’s dad stayed buried behind his newspaper, and Joshua’s mom focused intently on her breakfast—almost too intently, as if deliberately avoiding any involvement in her son and daughter’s endless bickering.
So Joshua could have—should have—let the incident blow over. He could have ignored Jillian, like the mature older brother he was supposed to be. Unfortunately, our rough night had made Joshua as cranky as I was, and he decided to react.
Before I could utter the words Let it go, Joshua, I heard another sharp crack from under the table. When Jillian immediately yelped and bent down to grab her shin, Joshua grinned in triumph. Obviously his kick, unlike Jillian’s, had me
t its mark.
Upon seeing her brother’s grin, Jillian howled.
The howl echoed throughout the kitchen, nearly rattling the silverware and cereal bowls with its force. The sound was so piercing, Jillian’s parents had no choice but to pay attention. Newspapers and coffee cups dropped to the table as the older Mayhews let out almost identical, frustrated groans.
Rebecca focused upon Joshua first, fixing him in a gaze that could have frozen lava.
“One morning,” she said, shoving her mug farther away from her. “Just one morning I’d like to eat breakfast without having to break up a fight.”
I looked over at Jillian, who continued to moan in pain, albeit with a hint of glee in her hazel eyes.
“Sorry we bothered you, Mom,” she whimpered, intentionally quivering her bottom lip. “But Joshua just won’t leave me alone.”
“Are you sure, Jillian?” Rebecca asked. “Because I could have sworn I heard the first kick come from your direction.”
I had to choke back a laugh. Jillian, however, was less amused by her mother’s ability to simultaneously ignore and monitor her children. Jillian began to sputter wordlessly, a faint pink flushing across her cheeks as she came to the realization that her howls hadn’t fooled anyone. While she floundered for a response, her father tapped his fingers impatiently upon his discarded newspaper. He caught his wife’s eye and then shrugged.
“What do you think?” he asked her. “Ignore this stupidity or ground them both from the party?”
“Ignore?” Joshua offered, but not loudly enough to rival Jillian’s shriek of protest.
Her blush darkened to a livid red at the suggestion that she couldn’t attend tonight’s party, which promised to be the biggest of the semester. Worse, this was the first party that her parents had finally given her permission to attend—permission they’d only granted after Joshua and Jillian had both sworn, on penalty of military school or a nunnery, to stay far away from High Bridge.
This punishment was tantamount to social homicide, and Jillian knew it. So she blurted out what must have been the first defense that came to mind.
“I don’t know why you’re punishing me for anything,” she shouted. “Joshua’s the one who made Grandma Ruth leave—he deserves a lot worse than I do.”
The moment the words left her mouth, all the livid red drained from Jillian’s face. Just as quickly, an uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Each pair of eyes turned slowly, incredulously, toward Jillian.
To Jeremiah and Rebecca, such an accusation must have sounded outrageous, not to mention completely unfair. As far as they knew, Joshua hadn’t caused his grandmother to abruptly pack up her few possessions last month and move to New Orleans to live with Jeremiah’s sister and her family.
But Jillian and Joshua both knew the truth about what had really driven Ruth from this house.
Me.
Only a few months ago I’d inadvertently cost Ruth Mayhew almost everything she held dear. In doing so, I’d apparently taken away any reason she had for staying in Oklahoma.
Like Joshua, Jillian, and a surprisingly large number of people in Wilburton, Ruth was a Seer—a living person who, after some life-altering, “triggering” event, could see ghosts. But unlike Joshua (and, so far, Jillian), Ruth made it her mission in life to exorcise the dead. To banish them from the living world forever.
Ruth, and many other Seers, had moved to Wilburton expressly for that purpose, since High Bridge and the river beneath were such hotbeds of ghostly activity. Over time Ruth had earned her place as the cold, unrelenting leader of the Seer community, a role that she happily filled.
Until I came along and ruined everything.
Prior to my showdown with Eli on High Bridge, Ruth was constantly busy. Constantly surrounded by a mass of friends and obedient followers. But when she called off my exorcism so that I could save her granddaughter, things changed, in a way that made me think her mercy hadn’t sat well with her fellow Seers.
Soon after, Ruth spent most of her days sitting sullenly at the Mayhews’ kitchen table and most of her nights sulking in her bedroom. She almost never left the house, and the phone never rang for her. In fact, she hardly even spoke anymore. Sometimes she would toss a resentful glare in my direction; but, for the most part, she suffered her apparent banishment from the supernatural community in an angry, restless silence.
She only broke that silence last month when she announced her desire to move to New Orleans. Ruth packed all her possessions into a handful of cardboard boxes and hired a troop of professional movers. She claimed that boredom with Oklahoma had inspired the sudden move. But like I’d said, Joshua, Jillian, and I knew better.
Within a matter of days she left with nothing but a perfunctory good-bye to her son and his family.
The Mayhews’ initial reaction was one of disbelief. Even amusement. But shortly after the moving van disappeared into the thick line of trees at the end of the Mayhews’ driveway, a sort of hollowness began to echo through the house. Like something was missing.
No, not “like.” Something was missing. However badly Ruth might have treated me, she was still an essential part of this family, one whose absence had a profound effect on its remaining members. For Jillian to make such an accusation—that her brother had caused a dramatic rift in their family—was pretty serious stuff. Not something you just blurted out at the breakfast table in a last-ditch effort to avoid being grounded. Especially when the entire family would spend ten hours cramped in one car tomorrow, driving to the French Quarter to spend Christmas with Ruth.
So if anyone got the chance to respond to Jillian’s accusation, tomorrow would probably give new meaning to the phrase “road trip from hell.” Wisely, Joshua chose this, the tensest moment of an already-tense morning, to act civil. He cleared his throat and gave his parents a tight smile.
“Look, let’s just forget it.” He shot his sister a pointed look—one that said, Stop acting like an idiot or we’re both screwed. Aloud he said, “Sorry for the kick, Jill. Okay?”
In her first intelligent move of the day, Jillian caught the look and nodded. “Okay,” she answered and then, reluctantly, added, “I’m sorry, too.”
The apology lacked sincerity, but the fact that she’d delivered one at all bought her and Joshua a few moments to escape.
Joshua hiked his heavy winter coat off the chair and onto his shoulders with one hand. After sweeping his book bag off the floor with the other, he practically bolted from the table. Jillian scurried to follow. Jeremiah and Rebecca hadn’t even had the chance to reprimand Jillian for her combative comment by the time both of their children—and I—were out the back door.
Outside, Joshua and Jillian gave each other only the briefest of glares before dashing to their respective cars. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the brutal cold kept the two of them from lingering to fight some more. Within a matter of minutes, Jillian started her tiny yellow car and tore recklessly down the icy driveway without bothering to let her windshield defrost completely.
Joshua had already unlocked his driver’s side door and ducked into it to start the heater before he realized that I hadn’t followed him off the back porch. He looked up at me in momentary confusion, but then his face fell in recognition: he knew from my expression that I wouldn’t be joining him at school today.
He sighed and placed one hand on top of the roof of his truck. “Again, Amelia? Really?”
“I have to, Joshua. You know I have to.”
“No, I don’t,” he said, frowning heavily. “Besides, it’s freezing today.”
I shrugged. “So? It’s not like I can feel it.”
This time I heard a note of defeat in Joshua’s sigh. “Fine. But just be careful out there, okay? Don’t get too close to it.”
I smiled, but not very widely. “I never do.”
Pulling his door fully open, Joshua just shook his head. He didn’t even try to mask his disappointment as he slipped into the cab of the truck.
&nb
sp; Just before he slammed the door and started the engine, I called out, “See you back here this afternoon.”
Through the frost on the windshield, I caught one last glimpse of his face—still wearing that disappointed expression—before he backed the truck down the driveway and disappeared onto the main road.
Late that afternoon I stamped my feet on the ice-encrusted grass and rubbed my fists along my bare arms a few times. Then I made a little cave of my hands and placed them in front of my mouth so that I could puff air into them as if I could warm them with my breath. As if I even needed to warm them in the first place. Still, the gestures made me feel more normal. And normal was a feeling I desperately needed right now.
In front of me the river moved more quickly than usual, its waters swelled and muddied by all the sleet last night. The river, however, wasn’t the ugliest part of this scene. That honor went to the remains of High Bridge, only a few hundred feet downriver from me.
The ruined bridge stretched across the muddy water as bleak and stripped as the forest surrounding it. From here I could see the mangled girders and places where large chunks of concrete had fallen, leaving gaping holes around which someone had placed sawhorses and crisscrossed ribbons of yellow tape. More sawhorses guarded each end of the bridge, warning drivers to find some other route if they didn’t want their cars to become aquatic. Along the edges of the bridge, the metal railings tilted at crazy angles as if some enormous force had knocked the entire structure off-kilter. Which, in essence, it had.
At that thought I smirked. I didn’t feel one ounce of regret for wrecking the bridge. I hoped a strong wind sent the whole thing crumbling down into the water below.
I gave it a final scowl and then turned my attention to the barren trees across the river from me. Something about their skeletal branches, clawing at the gray sky, suited my current mood. And my current task.
I closed my eyes and began to breathe heavily, slowly, in an effort to calm myself. To focus. Against the black canvas of my eyelids, I pictured a scene similar to that of the living world today but even colder. A place much darker, too, and more menacing. An otherworldly place where rogue ghosts, enslaved wraiths, and demons waited.