Body & Soul

  “Really?” Holding on to Will’s arm for balance, I leaned around him for a look. Not that I’d be able to see anything. Even though I could apparently hear spirits—a side effect of being a spirit stuffed back into a body, or maybe because I’d been trapped in Lily’s body during a near-death experience, we weren’t sure—seeing them was not my forte.

  I squinted and all I saw were a few blurry, smudgy spots that had no discernible source. My ghost vision coming in? Or poor window cleaning on Malachi’s part?

  “Are you sure?” I asked Will.

  “A guy in a Lincoln-type top hat is talking to a woman in a nightgown and…” He leaned closer to get a better look in the window. “There’s some girl dressed for spring break at the beach, and a dude in the far corner is holding what appears to be a severed arm. His own.”

  I jerked back. “Ew. So Malachi is actually legit?” You’d think he’d have moved on up to the less skanky side of town, if so.

  “Unless this is a costume party gone horribly wrong…maybe.” Will turned to face me, tension now visibly thrumming through him. “Subtle has to be the key word here. We can’t go in there and let on that we can see them.”

  I shrugged. No problem for me.

  “Or hear them,” he added.

  I made an exasperated noise. “Fine, okay, whatever.”

  “Hey, I’m serious.” He reached down and tipped my chin up with his fingertip until I was forced to meet his gaze. “You aren’t my spirit guide anymore. We have no protection, no way to make them back off.”

  Ah, yes, another lovely side effect of this in-body disaster. Whatever bond we’d shared as spirit guide and ghost-talker was now gone. Or, at least, the most obvious sign of it. I didn’t show up daily wherever he was at 7:03 a.m., the time of my death. Good thing, because that might have been kind of tough to explain to the Turners.

  At one time, I’d also been able to freeze pushy ghosts in place by simply restating my claim on Will. These days, not so much. Actually, for all we knew, it might still work. But it seemed unlikely, given everything else, and it was too dangerous to try. It would mean revealing who I was inside this body and that I could hear the spirits. Then Will wouldn’t be the only one being overwhelmed by last requests.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he added, his gaze softening as he took in the scar on my face…Lily’s face.

  Lily. I jerked away from him. Will wasn’t immune to the effects of this bizarre situation, either. Even though he knew better, sometimes he looked at me and saw her. I know he did. And he’d never been as concerned about my welfare until it became tied to hers, it seemed.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “I will be fine,” I said curtly, doing my best to squelch the wounded feeling rising up in me. “Can we just do this already?”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, clearly thinking better of whatever it was. Smart. “Yeah. Okay,” he said. “I’ll go first. Stay right behind me.”

  I nodded, not about to argue that part of it. Among the other things we’d never tested was whether I’d bump into ghosts, as Will did, or pass through them, as other non–ghost-talkers would. I hadn’t found myself colliding with invisible people yet, but that was no sure indicator, as I knew from experience that ghosts avoided walking through the living whenever possible.

  He turned and opened the door, and I stayed on the heels of his worn Chucks as he walked in.

  Malachi the Magnificent’s waiting room looked surprisingly similar to that of a doctor’s or dentist’s, only darker, dustier, and reeking of way more incense. There were a bunch of chairs lining the outer edges of the room and in rows toward the middle. A door in the far wall led, presumably, to the back rooms, where the “magic” would happen.

  A book lay open on a desk next to that door, with a photocopied sign asking us to SIGN IN, PLEASE! Blah.

  Will wrote fake names—Milli Martin and Steve Vanilli—in the book without batting an eye. (Yeah, he thinks he’s funny.)

  But then he turned to face the waiting room again and hesitated. I followed his gaze, and for once, I understood. The blurry spots I’d seen before were not smudges on the glass. They were in here and moving. At least four of them, maybe more. The trick was how to avoid them without looking like we were avoiding them.

  I stood on my tiptoes, putting most of my weight on my good leg. “The chairs in the back left corner, maybe?” I whispered to Will. There weren’t as many blurry spots in that direction, though we’d have to pass several to get there. The noise seemed fainter in that direction, too. I couldn’t hear anything specific, just a low murmur of voices, but too many for the half dozen or so living people there, most of whom were sitting silently anyway.

  Will looked sharply over his shoulder at me. “You can see—”

  I shook my head. “Kinda, sorta. It’s…I’ll explain later.”

  He nodded and started toward the chairs I’d indicated, and I was right behind him…until someone caught my eye. A living someone.

  I stopped dead, certain that I could not be seeing who I thought, especially not here.

  Her normally glossy black hair was a dull and staticky mess gathered in a frizzy ponytail, and she was wearing a tank top and sweats—not the cute kind, either, but the baggy ones you only wear when you’re home with the flu. Still, it was definitely her. Huddled in a chair across from the receptionist’s desk and dabbing her eyes with a soggy tissue that looked about two tears away from disintegrating entirely, was my former best friend.

  A rush of homesickness for my old life swept over me. “Misty?” Her name slipped out before I could stop it. “What are you doing here?” It felt like the world had tipped a bit, sliding people into places they shouldn’t be. I hadn’t seen her in months, not since graduation. Not mine, obviously. But hers and Will’s and everybody else’s that I knew.

  She looked up, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Her gaze skated over my face, and she recoiled slightly, probably at the sight of the jagged scar on the left side, from my temple down. “Do I know you?”

  Oh, right. I tipped my head forward, letting my hair slide to hide the damage, and buying some time before I had to answer. I didn’t know what to say. She wouldn’t recognize Lily, probably, but…“I—”

  “What are you doing?” Will whispered to me, alarm in his voice. “Sorry, our mistake,” he said to Misty, and then started to pull me away.

  But it was too late.

  “Hey, wait,” Misty called after us. “I do know you.”

  In spite of everything—that she’d stolen my boyfriend and thought I was dead and gone—my heart jumped with the ridiculous hope that my oldest friend had somehow recognized me. I turned back to face her, but she was looking at Will.

  I fought against the unreasonable disappointment. It only made sense, I guess, that she’d recognize him. At least he was still in the same body as the one she knew him in from before.

  “You went to Groundsboro,” she said, pointing at him. “You’re, like, that freaky goth guy, right?”

  Uh-oh. I grimaced, and Will stopped, his shoulders stiff. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said with a tight smile. “Let’s go,” he said to me.

  “So…” She got up and edged toward us. “This guy is legit?” She waved her Kleenex-filled hand around at Malachi’s office.

  Now Will turned to face her with a wary look, and I could see his curiosity warring with the need to be cautious. We were starting to attract some attention. The noise level had dropped considerably, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a few of the blurry spots were drifting closer to us. “Why do you ask that?” he asked finally.

  To my complete shock, her face crumpled and she collapsed into her chair. “Because I need help,” she said in a squeaky, high-pitched voice between sobs. “And I thought you might know if this is actually going to work.”

  “This” presumably referring to her consultation with Malachi.

  “You’re, like, an expert on all this goth/undead stuff,
right?” she asked, sniffling. “And you’re here, so he must be good.…”

  Will looked at me, a little panicked. I tugged away from him and went to sit next to her, ignoring his glare of warning. No, Misty hadn’t always made the greatest choices—like stealing my boyfriend even before I was dead—but I’d forgiven her for that…mostly. She was the only one—before Will—who’d known the truth about my mom’s drinking problems, and she’d never told anyone or used it against me. I honestly couldn’t be sure if I would have done the same with access to that kind of ammunition.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, patting her shoulder gingerly. She looked sort of…unshowered. Clearly, something was going on.

  She took a deep hiccupping breath. “You guys remember my best friend, Alona Dare? She died?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she covered her face with her hands.

  I have to admit, it warmed my heart that Misty was clearly still upset about my death, even though it had been months ago. Now, this was the kind of mourning I’d deserved from the beginning.

  Will sighed heavily. “Yeah, I remember her.” To the trained ear, though, he sounded far more exasperated than sorry. I scowled at him.

  “So, you’re here because of her?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic while mentally sticking my tongue out at Will. See? Somebody missed me…even after stealing my boyfriend. Well, let’s just not focus on that part.

  Misty nodded, her head still bowed.

  Oh, how sweet. She wants to stay in touch with me. I gave Will a triumphant look, and he rolled his eyes.

  “I’m sure that wherever Alona is—” I began.

  “She won’t leave me alone,” Misty said, her voice muffled by her hands.

  “What?” I leaned closer, certain I must have misheard.

  “I said…” Misty lifted her head up and met my gaze, righteous anger burning through the last of her tears. “That bitch is haunting me, and I can’t get rid of her.”

  I’ve seen Alona in a lot of situations. A lot of messed-up situations, actually. Confronting angry ghosts who wanted to tear through her to get to me, discovering that her “friends” were mostly worthless jerks, and most recently, inhabiting the body of a girl she didn’t know.

  This, however, was the first time I’d ever seen her struck completely and utterly speechless. Her mouth worked, opening and closing several times, without a single word escaping.

  Misty looked slightly disconcerted by Alona’s fish-outof-water routine. She shifted away from Alona in the chair, like she half expected an explosion of some kind. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

  “Excuse us,” I said to Misty, hastily reaching down to grab Alona’s hand.

  I pulled her to the far corner, near the door to the outside, and fortunately, no one followed, though the ghost in the Abe Lincoln hat (thankfully, not the real deal, just someone who apparently favored the long-dead president’s taste in fashion) was staring at us now. Great.

  “So much for subtle,” I hissed at Alona.

  “She thinks I’m haunting her.” She sounded stunned.

  I raked my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

  “I’m not, though.” She shook her head as though clearing it, which made her wobble. I grabbed her elbow long enough to steady her, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

  “I mean, I did try it once,” she continued. “Back a few months ago, right after I died.”

  “Yes, I remember,” I said tersely. She’d almost disappeared for good then, thoroughly screwing both of our chances for survival.

  “But not since then, and I can’t now. I mean, look at me!” She gestured toward herself with distaste. “I’m all…bodified.”

  I gritted my teeth to keep from responding with any number of comments that would only make things worse. Yes, okay, her point was that she couldn’t be haunting anyone in her current condition, but it was more than that, I knew. Alona hated being trapped in a body that wasn’t her own or up to her previous standards—fine. But Lily was not exactly the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as Alona would make her out to be. Lily was cute, always had been, and yes, the scar on her face and the limp were noticeable, but they didn’t make her repulsive…not by any stretch of the imagination.

  But now was not the time for this argument.

  “Look, we need to focus on the situation at hand, okay?” I glanced over my shoulder. Severed Arm Dude and Spring Break Girl had joined the faux-Lincoln ghost, and they were now talking among themselves and gesturing in our direction. Well, half gesturing, in the case of the ghost with only one arm.

  Not good.

  I turned back to Alona. “We need to see Malachi the Magical or whatever, and figure out what he knows, if anything, and then get out of here.” Hopefully in one piece and without a trail of ghosts following both of us home.

  She jerked her head up to glare at me, and the all-too-familiar fierceness in her expression made me step back. That was all Alona. I could almost see her beneath the surface of Lily. It was…unsettling, to say the least. “Someone is pretending to be me, the spirit of me, to scare my best friend.” She jabbed a finger in my chest with the last three words. “How is that not a concern?”

  I sighed. “Or maybe her guilty conscience is finally catching up to her, and she’s seeing ghosts where there aren’t any because she feels bad.” It happened all the time. Sometimes picture frames just fall over. Doors slam shut, screws fall out, etc. Not all of it is the result of ghosts, but when people feel like they deserve to be haunted, that’s usually the first explanation they believe. “Which do you think is more likely?”

  With a sound of disgust, she shoved past me and limped back toward Misty, who honestly looked a little frightened at her approach. Faux Lincoln and Severed Arm Guy scattered to get out of her way.

  I groaned silently and hurried after her. This could not possibly end well.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Alona said to Misty, as she reclaimed the chair next to her. “You took me by surprise is all.”

  Misty gave a harsh laugh. “You don’t believe me.”

  Alona shook her head. “No, I do. Actually, we do,” she said, giving me a “go along with this or die painfully” look.

  Oh, good.

  “But I’m not sure why you think it’s Alona. From what I know of her, she would never—”

  “Wait.” Misty held up her hand with a frown. “Who are you again?”

  I held my breath.

  “Ally Turner. It was Lily, but I go by Ally now,” Alona said. “I was…I am a year behind you at school.” Her words sounded forced and false, but maybe only because I knew the truth.

  “But,” Alona continued quickly, “we have experience dealing with this kind of thing.”

  “We’ve been haunted before,” I added, lying to save our asses. Was she trying to get us killed? Why not just announce to all the ghosts in the room that we could see and/or hear them?

  Misty nodded slowly, as if that was not a surprise. Then she shook her head with a sad smile. “Well, whatever you know about ghosts, you did not know Alona. And trust me, it’s her. She…” Misty hesitated. “She was my best friend. But she wasn’t exactly the forgive-and-forget type, you know? Revenge. That was her thing.”

  Alona stiffened.

  Oh, crap.

  “Have you considered that maybe those people deserved what they got?” Alona demanded.

  I poked her and she swiveled to face me with a frown. Shut up, I mouthed.

  But fortunately, Misty seemed too lost in her memories to notice. “I took Chris from her. Actually, Chris and I…We just kind of found each other.”

  “Found each other, right,” Alona muttered. Hmm. Maybe she hadn’t yet completely forgiven Misty.

  “I didn’t think Alona knew before she died, but now I…I’m not sure. It wasn’t intentional for either of us,” Misty added defiantly.

  “And that makes a difference how?” Alona demanded.

  I cleared my throat sharply. “I
think what Ally”—

  I emphasized the name, glaring at Alona, who rolled her eyes—“means is, what signs are you seeing that make you think Alona, specifically, is haunting you, not some other random ghost?”

  “Oh.” Misty looked startled and then confused. “Why would there be a random ghost haunting me?”

  I was pretty sure there wasn’t a ghost involved at all, but trying to explain to Misty that she was likely haunting herself probably wouldn’t have helped. All I could do was try to show Alona that it wasn’t someone impersonating her. “There probably isn’t. But I’m just trying to understand why you think it’s her. Other than the fact you think she’d be angry if she knew about you and Chris, which she doesn’t,” I said, aiming my last words at Alona, who slumped in her chair and folded her arms over her chest.

  “Whatever,” she muttered.

  Misty lifted her hands in exasperation at my apparent idiocy. “Hello? Who else would it be? And why would it start right after Chris proposed?

  Alona froze. “Proposed?” she whispered.

  Oh, boy. With a sigh, I sat down.

  Misty gave an uncomfortable shrug. “He’s going away to IU and I’m staying here. He wanted us to be engaged first.”

  Alona sat up. “You can’t do that,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I think what she means is you’re young,” I said quickly. This conversation was going to kill me. “Can we get back to the signs, please?”

  Misty was looking back and forth between us like we were crazy, which wasn’t far from the truth today. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Picture frames knocked over, covers pulled off me in the night, footsteps in my room but no one is there, and sometimes, when I’m falling asleep, I hear someone call my name.” She shuddered.

  And…picture frames fall over, covers slip off, people often think they hear footsteps or someone calling them when they’re half asleep.

  “Oh, and she wrote her name in the steam on the mirror in my bathroom.”

  Whoa. I leaned forward in my chair. “You saw that happen?”

  She shook her head. “No, it was just there one day when I got out of the shower.”