“So they change into ghosts, just like that?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘ just like that.’ I gave you the simplified version,” Trip said, attaching another wire to his tricked-out calculator.
“What is that thing?” she asked.
“This—” Trip held it up proudly, “is an EMF meter. It picks up electromagnetic fields and frequencies, movement we can’t detect. The kind created by ghosts.”
“That’s how we find them,” Wes said, taking a swig from an old can of Mountain Dew. “Then we kill them.”
Edie was still thinking about that day in the garage when she smelled something horrible coming from outside. It was suffocating—heavy and chemical, like burning plastic. She rolled up her window, even though the air inside the Jeep immediately became stifling.
“Don’t you want to let some air in?” the blue-eyed boy ventured.
“I’m more concerned about letting something out.”
He waited for Edie to explain, but she didn’t. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” she said.
“If you believe there’s a ghost on this road, why are you driving out here all alone at night?”
Edie took a deep breath and spoke the words she had rehearsed in her mind since the moment he climbed into the car. “The ghost that haunts Red Run killed my brother, and I’m going to destroy it.”
Edie watched as the fear swept over him.
The realization.
“What are you talking about? How do you kill a ghost?”
He didn’t know.
Edie took her time answering. She had waited a long time for this. “Ghosts are made of energy like everything else. Scatter the energy, you destroy the ghost.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
Edie knocked on the black plastic paneling on her door. It was the same paneling that covered every inch of the Jeep’s interior. “Ghosts absorb the electrical impulses around them— from power lines, machines, cars—even people. I have these two friends who are pretty smart. They made this stuff. Some compounds conduct electricity.” She ran her palm over the paneling. “Others block it.”
“So you’re going to trap a ghost in the car with you and— what? Wait till it shorts out like a lightbulb?”
“It’s not that simple,” Edie said, without taking her eyes off the road. “Energy can’t be destroyed. You have to disperse it, sort of like blowing up a bomb. My friends know how to do it. I just have to keep the ghost contained until I get to their place. They’ll do the rest.”
Tommy glanced at the black paneling. “You’re crazy, you know that?” His arm wasn’t draped casually over the seat anymore, and his hands were balled up in his lap.
“Maybe,” she answered. “Maybe not.”
He reached for the handle to roll down his window, but it wouldn’t turn. “Your window’s—” He paused, working it out in his mind. “It isn’t broken, is it?”
Edie took her foot off the gas and let the car roll to a stop. “You didn’t really think I’d pick up a hitchhiker, on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere?” She turned toward the blue-eyed boy, a boy she knew was a ghost. “Did you, Tommy?”
His eyes widened at the sound of his name.
Edie’s heart felt like it was trying to punch its way out of her chest. There was no way to predict how Tommy’s ghost was going to react. Wes had warned her that ghosts could psychically attack the living by moving objects or causing hallucinations, even madness. His mom had walked off the second-story balcony of their house when Wes was in fourth grade. It was only a few weeks after she had started hearing strange noises and seeing shadows in the house. Wes’ father wanted to move, but his mom said she wasn’t going to be driven out of her house by swamp-water superstition. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Not until one killed her.
Now Edie was sitting only inches away from a ghost that had already murdered six people.
But he didn’t look murderous. There was something else lingering in his blue eyes. Panic. “You can’t stop here.”
“What?”
“There’s something I need to tell you, Edie. But you have to keep driving. It’s not safe.” He was turning around in his seat, scanning the woods through the windows.
Edie bit the inside of her cheek again. “What are you talking about?”
Before he had time to respond, the light outside flickered as a shadow cut through the path of the car’s headlights.
Edie jumped, jerking her eyes back toward the road.
There was a man a few yards away, waving his arms wildly. “Get outta the car now!”
“It’s too late,” Tommy whispered. “He’s already here.”
“Who?”
“The man who killed me.”
Edie didn’t have a chance to ask him to explain. The man in the road was still yelling as he moved closer to the car. “Hurry up! Before that blue-eyed devil skins you alive like the rest a them!”
Tommy’s ghost grabbed her arm, but she couldn’t feel his touch. “Don’t listen to him, Edie. He wants to hurt you, the same way he hurt me. And your brother.”
“What did you say?” The words tore at Edie’s throat like razor blades.
“I didn’t kill any of those kids that died out here. He did.” Tommy pointed at the man in the road. “I watch the road. I try to make sure no one stops near his cabin. I tried to warn all of them, but they wouldn’t listen.”
Edie remembered her brother’s last words.
I should have listened . . .
She had assumed he was referring to the stories—the constant warnings to stay off Red Run after dark. What if she was wrong? What if he had been talking about a different warning altogether?
“No.” Edie shook her head. “Those guys beat you to death—”
Tommy cut her off before she could finish. “They didn’t. That’s the story he told the police. And no one believed a bunch of drunk kids when they denied it.”
The voice outside was getting louder and more frantic. “Whatever that spirit’s telling you is a lie! He’s trying to keep you in there with him so he can kill you! Come on out, sweetheart.”
It was easier to see the man now that he was just a few feet away. He was about her dad’s age, but worse for the wear. His green John Deere cap was pulled low over his eyes, and he was wearing an old hunting jacket over his broad shoulders despite the heat.
He was shifting from side to side nervously, his eyes flitting back and forth between the woods and the car.
“He’s lying. I swear,” Tommy—it was becoming harder to remember that he was a ghost, not a regular boy—pleaded. “Why do you think I got in the car? I wanted to make sure you didn’t stop. He doesn’t like it when people get this close to his place. Especially teenagers.”
“You expect me to believe some old guy is killing people because they’re coming too close to his house?” Her voice was rising, a dangerous combination of fear and anger burning through her veins.
“He’s crazy, Edie. He cooks meth back there at night, and he’s convinced people can smell it. He’s always been paranoid, but after being cooped up in a tiny cabin with those fumes for years, it’s gotten worse.”
Edie remembered the nauseating stench of melted plastic. She never would have recognized it. Still. The man was pacing in front of the car, wringing his hands nervously. There was something off about him. But then again, he was facing off against a ghost.
Tommy was still talking. “That’s what he was doing the night I got lost in the woods, only back then it was something else. He’s been cooking up drugs in his cabin for years, supplying dealers in the city. I was looking for this girl who wandered off, and I got all turned around. I didn’t realize how far I’d walked. There was a cabin.” He paused, looking out at the man in the green cap. “Let’s just say, I knocked on the wrong door.”
The man stopped in the path of one of the headlights, a beam of light creating shadows across his face. “You can’t trust the dead. No
matter what they say, sweetheart.”
Edie reached for the door handle.
Tommy—the boy-ghost—grabbed her other hand. For a second, Edie thought she felt the weight of his hand on hers. It was impossible, but it gave her goose bumps all the same. “He beat me to death, Edie. Then he dragged my body all the way back to the party, and left me in the middle of Red Run.”
Edie didn’t know who to believe. One of them was lying. And if she made the wrong choice, she was going to die tonight.
Tommy’s blue eyes were searching hers. “I would never hurt you, Edie. I swear.”
She thought about everything Wes and Trip had taught her, which boiled down to one thing: You can’t trust a ghost. She thought about her brother lying in the road. I should have listened. He could’ve been talking about the man in the green cap—the one begging her to get out of the car right now.
What was she thinking? She couldn’t trust a ghost.
Edie threw the door open before she could change her mind. The smell of burnt plastic flooded into the Jeep.
“Edie, no!” Tommy’s eyes were terrified, darting back and forth between Edie and the man in the road. In that moment, she knew he was telling the truth.
She reached for the door to pull it shut again as the man in the green cap rushed toward the driver’s side of the car. When he passed through the headlights, Edie saw him grab the buck knife from his waistband.
Edie tried to close the door, but it felt like she was wading through syrup. She wasn’t fast enough. But the man in the green cap was, his arm coming around the edge of the door. His knife was in his hand, reddish-brown lines streaking the dull blade.
“Oh, no you don’t, you little bitch!” The man grabbed the metal frame before she could close the door, the blade of the knife waving dangerously close to her face.
Tommy appeared just outside the open car door, only inches from the man wielding the knife. Before the man had a chance to react, Tommy rushed forward and stepped right through him.
Edie saw the man’s eyes go wide for a second, and he shivered.
“Back up!” Tommy shouted.
Edie didn’t think about anything but Tommy’s voice as she turned the key, grinding the ignition. She threw the car into reverse, slamming her foot on the gas.
The man swore, his hand uncurling from the handle of the knife. He tried to hold onto the doorframe, his filthy nails clawing at the metal.
Then his fingers slid away, and Edie saw him hit the ground.
She heard the scream as the Jeep bucked and the front tire rolled over his body. Edie didn’t stop until she could see him lying facedown in the dust. She could see the crushed bones, forced into awkward angles. He wasn’t moving.
Edie didn’t notice Tommy standing next to the car. He pulled the door open, bent metal scraping through the silence, and knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”
“I think I killed him.” Her voice was shaking uncontrollably.
“Edie, look at me.” Tommy’s was calm. She leaned her head against the seat, turning her face toward his. “You didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill you.”
She knew Tommy was right. But it didn’t change the fact that she had just killed a man, even if that man was a monster.
Tommy’s blue eyes were searching her brown ones, their faces only inches apart. “What made you trust me?”
“Your eyes,” Edie answered. “The eyes don’t lie.”
“Even if you’re a ghost?”
Edie smiled weakly. “Especially if you’re a ghost.”
She looked out at the road. For the first time in forever, it was just a road—dirt and rocks and trees. She tried to imagine what it would be like to spend every night out here, so close to the place where you died.
“You’re the first person who ever believed me,” Tommy said. “The first person I saved.”
“Then why did you stay here for so long?”
Tommy looked away. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Edie remembered Wes telling her that most ghosts couldn’t leave a place where they had died traumatically. They were chained to that spot, trying to find a way to right the wrong.
When he turned back to face her, Edie noticed the sadness lingering in his eyes. And something else. . . .
Tommy was fading, flickering like static on an old TV set. He stared down at his hands, turning them slowly as if seeing them for the first time.
“I think you can move on now,” Edie said gently. “You know, to wherever you’re supposed to be. Red Run doesn’t need protecting anymore.”
“I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. But wherever it is, I’m not ready to go.” Tommy was still fading. “There are so many things I never had a chance to do.”
Edie ran her hand along the black paneling inside the Jeep, and looked at him. “Get in.”
Tommy hesitated for a second, smiling. “Just don’t take me to meet the friends who made that stuff.”
Edie smiled back at him. “You can trust me.”
As she drove away, Red Run disappearing into the darkness, Edie felt the weight of this place disappear along with it. “So where do you want to go?”
Tommy was still watching her.
The girl who wasn’t afraid to hunt a ghost.
“Maybe I’ll hang out with you for a while.” Tommy put his hand on top of hers, and she didn’t need to feel the weight of it to know it was there. “There are always things that need protecting.”
Things About Love
by Jackson Pearce
LAWRENCE
he thing about genies is they still act like it’s a big deal when they show themselves to me—even though I’ve been around them for almost three years now. They’re still offended when I roll my eyes at them.
“So you’re my new guard?” I ask as we pass the science building. I actually had to get a single dorm room, because I was worried a roommate might wonder about me talking to myself constantly. No way would a genie show himself or—in today’s case, herself—to a roommate just to make my life easier.
“Sort of,” she says. I try not to look at her as we enter my dormitory. I should call Viola and tell her there’s a new guard here. She’d want to know, as she’s the reason I’m mixed up in genies to begin with. She fell in love with one, I got involved, and boom—for “security reasons” the genie police send an officer down to watch me every few months. I don’t really know why it matters—what, do they think I’m going to hit the talk show circuit and gossip about invisible genies? Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.
The girl follows me upstairs, sidestepping a few lacrosse players who don’t see her. She has golden skin, like all the genies do, and long dark hair. She’s beautiful. They’re all beautiful, and with the exception of Jinn, the one Viola loves, they all seem heartless. She adjusts the straps of the blue satin tunic she’s wearing, straightens out the swirly I on the breast. It stands for ifrit. Ifrit: genie police. If they’d only show themselves to the cameras, I swear I could create a franchise bigger than Cops.
JULIET
Here are the things I know about love:
It involves kissing.
It changes you.
It’s never where you expect it.
I learned it all from the animated movies I studied before coming here. I asked the other jinn, the one who loves the mortal girl, to tell me more about love. He tried to describe it. He used words like beautiful, elegant, and peaceful, but I don’t really understand how all of those things combine to create an entirely new emotion. I wanted to ask the mortal girl, but he wouldn’t let me near her. So I pulled some strings and got myself assigned to this mortal instead, the girl’s best friend. He’s used to talking to jinn. He’s better than no help at all.
And I need his help. See, I’m not usually an ifrit—I’m really a historian, a keeper of records, the youngest one in ages. I know all the jinn lore, all the myths about why we exist. I know all the traditional tales about why our kind live in a pe
rfect world, yet are forced into subservience to mortals. We were too proud, we forgot compassion and caring and love. So we were punished. Exiled to another world, Caliban, and forced to serve mortals.
But we haven’t forgotten those things, clearly—or at least, one of us hasn’t. Jinn and the mortal girl, they’re in love. Everyone knows it. The Ancients don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what to do about it. Caliban doesn’t know what to do about it—their love has turned everything we know about our kind upside down. If we can love, should we have the choice to? Should we try to? Doing so would mean revealing ourselves to mortals willingly, which has long been forbidden. Will they want us only for our powers? Will they break our hearts, if we have them to begin with?
We don’t know what our truths are, not anymore.
So I decided to do what I do best: research. Study. Observe. Record. But I want to do something the other jinn haven’t: I want to study love by experiencing it. That’s the only way to really understand it, as best I can tell. I only joined the ifrit so I could come here and figure it all out, so I could be the hero that answers Caliban’s questions about love.
Based on what I know, I can’t exactly go looking for love. I need to be kissed, and something will change afterward—a notion that frightens me, but doesn’t destroy the excitement of figuring out what the rest of Caliban can’t.
“So here are the rules,” the boy—Lawrence, that’s his name— says to me as we enter his dorm room. It’s somewhat messy, bed unmade and philosophy textbooks piled high. He opens the blinds and daylight pours in. “One, no watching me change. Two, no practical jokes. Three, no talking to me while I’m in class.” He says them so sternly that I take a step back. Humans ordering their jinn around, that’s one thing. But I’m not his jinn. I’m not here to grant his wishes. Still, I nod.
“Four—most important of all—no magic on me. No magic on my friends. No tricking people into thinking or being however you want. If you’ve got to spy on me, fine, but that doesn’t mean everyone in my life is your magical playground. Understand?”
I feel my face fall—I guess it’s only natural he would include that rule. Another ifrit used magic on him once. It was justified, at the time, but still. I imagine it makes him wary. He’s staring hard at me, waiting for an answer.