Dust to Dust (20 page)

I turn away from him, bothered by his silly quoting habit, but also cut by the fact that this line, though he can't know it, has another meaning for me. If I died, I could be with Thatcher. I could fight the poltergeists by his side, and make sure that my friends were safe. Alive, I feel vulnerable, like I have no control over when or how they use me. They're invisible and powerful and lurking in secret.

Maybe Dylan's quote is right, though. Staying safe, staying alive, is the braver choice.

I look at Carson. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to her because I was feeling reckless or mad at Reena.
I'll wait
, I think.
At least until I get the ring back.

“How will I even know if I'm in a vortex?” I ask. “You said yourself the map isn't really reliable.”

“You'll feel it,” says Dylan. “When you're in a spot, you may experience a pull or a shock or something—”

The energy pulses, the waves of electricity . . . I know them all too well. “I've felt that,” I tell him.

“When you do, you have to leave,” warns Dylan. “Those are the spots where you'll be vulnerable and used. Very few people will
recognize their potency, but they're places where ghosts and the living mix.”

If I had Thatcher's ring, though, I wouldn't have to retreat. I could call on him and we could counterstrike together, like we used to in the Prism. But without it, I think I'm going to have to follow Dylan's advice, as much as it infuriates me.

“Okay,” I say. “I understand.”

“Do you think the upper Wando is a vortex?” asks Carson. She turns to Dylan. “We were there the other day, and I felt a weird energy thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I remember when we got to the river, and then just before we left . . . but I felt so exhausted by the time we went home, and I don't even remember most of the middle part of the day.”

Dylan tilts his head, interested, but I dismiss her.

“Sunstroke,” I say, remembering how Nick and Carson and I lay on the shore together during the picnic. Nick was weak and forgetful because Thatcher had taken his body, but Carson was just being dramatic.

“I don't know,” says Carson. “Maybe I can feel some of the ghost energy, too!”

There's a chance she's right. Wouldn't it make sense that she's becoming more sensitive to the spirit world, given how much time she's been spending around me?

“I have one more test for you, Callie,” says Dylan. “And Carson, you can see if you can feel some of Callie's ghost energy in this one.”

She beams and stands up as the faded bluebird clock on the
wall strikes one. It makes a crazy chirping noise and I vow not to stay until two. I don't think I could bear to hear that again.

“Guys, I really need to get home,” I say. “And you haven't even told me where the ring is.”

Dylan smiles. “I showed you.”

He points to his phone, still on the table, and I press Play again.

“Right there,” says Dylan, pausing it just as I'm about to slam into Eli-Leo for the third time. It's blurry, but I can see Eli's hand reaching out to take the chain.

Looks like my suspicions are confirmed.

“It was Leo who grabbed for it then,” I say.

“Yes. But it's an earthly object, and Eli may actually have it.”

“I asked him about it in the office later but he just pushed right past me.”

“He may not remember he has it,” says Dylan. “Like you said, it was Leo who took it.”

“This is getting confusing,” says Carson.

“I'll say.” I pick up my keys. “I need to go talk to Eli.”

Dylan points at the clock. “It's after one in the morning,” he says.

“I've got to get that ring back,” I tell him.

“We will, I promise,” he says, making it clear that together we're all a team. “But first, we should be sure you know what you're doing . . . in case the poltergeists show up again.”

I sigh in frustration.

“Your spirit-world instincts kicked in today,” says Dylan. “That's good. But it's even better if you truly know what to do and
how
you did it. And we can't be sure until we test you on the movement of living energy.”

I look down, impatient.

“Callie, it's important,” says Dylan. “I was reading about this and it's very rare—in fact, I can't find proof in any of the books I've read that a person could ever truly move living energy.”

I stare at Dylan, trying to read his eyes behind the lenses of his big glasses.

“You don't believe I can do it,” I say, sensing his doubt.

“I don't . . . ,” he starts. Then he pushes his glasses up his nose again. “There's just no evidence that it's possible.”

I give him a patronizing grin. He's like my father in a certain way. He believes in so much, but he needs proof, either in books or in life, to make him sure. Dad didn't even renew his faith in prayer until his own daughter had come back from near-death.

“You want evidence? No problem.”

I turn to Carson and focus my energy on her petite frame. She nods, signaling that it's okay to use her as a target. I move toward her slowly, not like I ran at Eli today, but still deliberately—I know what I'm doing.

When I reach out my hands to strike, I focus not on the edges of her physical being—her shoulders, her chest—but instead on the interior layer of energy that lies underneath.

Carson stumbles backward in response to my push.

“Oops,” I say. “Sorry.”

She smiles and spaces out her feet as she steps back onto her mark. “I'm ready this time.”

I try again, with the same results.

“You're not trying to move her physical body,” says Dylan.

I let out an annoyed breath. “I
know
,” I tell him, thinking that I'm a lot more aware of what's going on than he is.

“Okay; well, if you're already reaching beyond that with your mind, then it's just a speed issue,” he says.

“A speed issue?”

“Yeah.” He grabs his phone and presses Play. “Let's watch the part again where you rush at Eli. You did this thing where you stopped your body completely from moving just at the point where your hands could reach him . . . there! See how they pushed out like a shot, almost too blurry to register on the recording. Your hands burst out at him at high speed. That must be the trick.”

I tilt my head and watch it again. What Dylan's saying makes sense to me. The next time I back up, I make a point to stop myself right in front of Carson and see if my arms automatically do what they're supposed to.

My hands flash through her, almost like she's not there, and Carson's eyes immediately go blank. They lose their light. My best friend slumps over and Dylan reaches forward to catch her. But before she falls, her muscles spring back, like she's one of those wind-sock puppets that advertise used-car sales, and I see the light pop into her eyes again.

Phew.

I turn to Dylan with a smile. “It worked.”

“Amazing!” he says. He rushes over to Carson to make sure she's okay, but she's laughing already so I know she is.

“That was incredible,” says Carson. “Dylan, you better write this down for posterity.”

Dylan's still shaking his head in wonder, whispering to himself. “It must be because you've been to both sides . . . you have energy pulled from Earth and the Prism together. Or maybe it has something to do with . . .”

He raises his voice as I gather my things. “Callie?”

“Yes?” I turn to him, ready to get home and be alone with time to think about everything that's happened tonight. I need to figure out how to approach Eli tomorrow, and if there's some way I can get Thatcher to come to me without the ring. He should know everything I learned here tonight, and if this place is a fortress that ghosts can't penetrate, the only way he can find out is through me.

“Have you ever been close to anyone who died?” Dylan asks.

“Um . . . yeah, of course,” I say. “Carson didn't tell you about my mother?”

“She did; I'm sorry, by the way,” he says. “That's not what I meant though. What I'm trying to say is, have you ever been
physically
close to someone who died?”

I lock eyes with Carson, but then I realize that she doesn't know the details about what really happened on my mother's deathbed, so she can't have told him. I just found out myself that Mama died in my arms.

I don't want to talk about this. Not with someone I just met. I can't.

“No,” I say to Dylan.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

CARSON AND I SCOOT our way back down the narrow alley and onto the street, now glittering under a full moon that has emerged from the clouds. It rained while we were in the bookstore, and the cobblestones are slick and shiny.

I'm still shaking a little, wondering why Dylan asked about that—whether someone had ever died near me. I probably should confess what my father told me today. . . . Dylan knows a lot and he's helpful. But I just met him. How can I tell him about my mom's last moment, now that I know exactly what it looked like? It's too painful.

“Callie!” Nick's voice breaks the night's silence, and Carson and I both turn, startled.

He's standing twenty feet away from us, car keys jangling in his hand and dressed in the jersey shorts I know he likes to sleep in.
This is a long drive from where he lives.

“Give me a minute,” I say to Carson. I walk over to him, leaving her by the VW.

“I went to your house,” he says. “I saw you sneaking out with Carson and I followed you here. But then you disappeared. And I didn't see where you went. What the hell are you guys doing out here in the middle of the night?”

We were in the bookstore for over an hour. I look back to where the entrance is, hidden to the eye unless you know it's there. Nick must have been so confused. “You've been waiting all this time?” I ask, not wanting to fully answer his question.

“I had to see you,” he says. “You didn't answer my texts, and I had to be sure you were okay after the thing today with Eli. Which I didn't want to believe because it's absolutely crazy, but Hol—” He pauses for a moment, realizing his misstep. “I heard that it was true.”

I nod. I owe him an explanation. More than one, really.

I turn back to Carson and wave to her. “Go ahead.”

Nick gestures toward a bench, the one we used to sit on while we looked up at the pink house with the five perfect second-floor windows, the house I used to stare at after my mom died, where I imagined someone with a dream life lived. And I realize that the time is now. This is a good place to talk.

“What is going on with you?” asks Nick. “I know for a fact that you'd never attack anyone. Especially Eli. I can barely take that guy.”

“I'll tell you, but it's a long story and it's going to sound really weird.”

“I've got time,” says Nick. “And I'm already freaked out, so . . . go ahead.”

I take a deep breath. We stay quiet for a moment in the still of the night. I'm worried about what to say to him. But out here, in the dark, the truth has to come to light. And not just the truth about Eli.

“You were here without me,” I say finally, my voice barely a whisper.

“What?”

“Over the summer . . . you sat out here alone.”

“Being here reminded me of being with you.”

“That day on this bench, you were listening to Bon Iver.”

He laughs. “I guess I'm predictable. Either that or you know me really well.”

“You put out your hand,” I continue. “You whispered to me.”

Nick's body stiffens now and he turns to look at my face. I can feel his gaze, but I look straight ahead, at the pink house. It gives me comfort, still.

“I took your hand,” I tell him. “Our fingers curled together.”

I put my hand out now on the bench, reaching out to him like he did to me that day. But this time, we're both here in body as well as soul.

Nick places his hand over mine and our fingers intertwine—muscle and blood and bone.

“What are you trying to tell me?” he asks.

I can feel something inside him opening, a tiny door in his mind that I've unlocked. Because he does remember that day, and
he did feel my presence here, even though I was just a ghost in that moment. It's all I need, and I rush in.

For the next hour, my voice is a soft and steady sound on East Bay Street, laying everything out before him: the Prism, my haunting mission, the poltergeists and the danger they posed and are still posing. I tell him about Eli, how he has a ring that I need to keep us safe. About Dylan, how he and Carson are the only other people on Earth who know about what's happening here in Charleston—the vortexes, the possessions.

The only piece I leave out is Thatcher, because I just can't bring myself to explain to my sort-of boyfriend that I fell for someone else on the other side.

Nick's eyes flicker with doubt, but I keep talking to convince him with details, things I couldn't have known unless my spirit was with him.

“I saw you with the bottle of Jack Daniels in your room. I saw you drinking in the woods before Tim McCann's party. I was with you when you crashed your car in Mr. Dodson's field. And you remember this bench. I know you do—you remember feeling my presence here.”

“It's not that I don't want to believe you . . . ,” he starts. “Carson knows about some of those things, too, and maybe you're good at guessing the details. Maybe somewhere in your mind you even believe yourself . . . but none of this sounds real. You've been through so much.”

“You seriously don't believe me.”