Sisters Of Salt And Iron. Kady Cross
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coffee was still hot. I filled the biggest mug I could find and dumped in some flavored sweetener until it was the perfect color. I drank it while waiting for my bagel to pop.
“That’s a lot of cream cheese,” Wren remarked when I sat down at the table, breakfast in hand.
I picked up half the bagel and took a big bite. I could feel cream cheese smear against the outside edges of my mouth. I had been a little heavy-handed. “It’s the best part.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.” Wren had experienced food before. Sometimes I’d let her possess me so she could experience things, but while she enjoyed the taste of cookies or chocolate, or even hot wings, she didn’t understand eating for pleasure. To her a little cream cheese was the same as a lot.
I actually felt sorry for her when it came to that.
“Hey, can ghosts have intercourse?” I asked as the coffee kicked in. “The sex kind, not the conversational type.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “We have all the same parts the living have, so I have to say yes.”
But she didn’t know for certain. My sister was still a virgin. The idea that she might remain that way forever was a little...depressing. It wasn’t any of my business, but sometimes... Sometimes it was upsetting thinking of all the things I could experience that she never would.
Then again, I’d never know the sublime pleasure of being able to scare someone so effectively their bladder never worked properly again.
“Mostly ghosts merge their energy,” she continued. “It’s more of a literal ‘becoming one’ with one another.”
“What if everything gets all mixed and you, like, leave part of yourself in the other ghost?”
She frowned. “I don’t know.”
Yup, virgin. I finished the first half of my bagel. “Hey, I want you to practice with my phone a bit.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Do we have to?”
“Yes. If Kevin hadn’t been at the dance last night you wouldn’t have been able to lead them to Mr. Fisher.” I didn’t add that the less time she had to spend around Kevin, the better. “The message you sent me was wrong. You need to be able to communicate with people, and electronics have always been a popular medium of supernatural communication.”
Red brows shot up. “You’ve been watching those ghost hunting shows again.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “They’re ninety percent crap, but they get the electronic stuff right. Most of the time. Look, I’m not expecting you to download any apps. I just need to know that if something took me out, that you could talk to someone.” I held her gaze, even though it was uncomfortable.
When I’d cut my wrists in a much-regretted suicide attempt, Wren had had to find a medium in order to get help. That medium had been Kevin. If she hadn’t found him—and if he hadn’t called my neighbor, Mace—I would have died for sure. As it was I had been technically dead for a few seconds.
It had felt much, much longer.
I wasn’t in any hurry to die now, and I needed to make sure she could get help if it was needed.
I set my phone on the table. “Okay, go.”
Wren sighed, but she didn’t put up a fight. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. A few seconds later my phone vibrated, and the text notification came up. I swiped my finger over the screen and brought up my new messages. One was from Ben, but the other had no name attached. Even though I was pretty confident it had worked, I held my breath as I opened the text.
BOO!
I looked up. My sister sat there grinning like a freaking idiot. “Really?” I said. “That’s the best you can do?”
She shrugged. “You’re sitting right next to me. What was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know. Something a little less stereotypical?”
My phone vibrated again. I looked down. A new message.
BOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOO.
“Ass,” I said. Wren laughed. “Fine, you can use a phone right in front of you. Now I want you to send a message to Ben—and try to put a little more thought into it, please.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes again, and I started in on the second half of my cream-cheese-laden bagel. I checked my email as I chewed.
I was scoping out the latest designs on the Fluevog website—I loved me some shoes—when my phone buzzed yet again.
It was Ben. His first text said that he’d dreamed about me last night, followed by a bunch of winky faces. The second read, How is Wren able to text me? And why did she ask me if you and I have ever had intercourt?
Intercourt? I started laughing. Auto-correct spared no one, not even the dead.
Wren smiled. “Is that from Ben?”
I set my phone aside. “He said to tell you that he’s saving himself for marriage.”
“Saving himself from what?” she asked. I didn’t know if she was serious or not.
“Forget it.” I took another bite of bagel. “You’re good with text. Next we work on actually making a phone call.”
My phone rang almost immediately. I glanced down at the display and sighed. Wren started laughing.
“Cow,” I muttered.
On the screen, underneath Calling, it simply said: BOO.
My twin was still chuckling to herself when my phone buzzed again. I looked down expecting to see another message from Wren the comedian, but the name that came up was Emily, and the message read: Darkness is coming. You must save her.
My heart skipped a beat. I only knew one Emily—we were related, and she’d been a twin, as well. She was also dead.
Save who? I typed, then hit Send.
No reply. Awesome. Who the hell was this mysterious “her”? But more importantly, what did she mean by “darkness is coming”? That wasn’t cryptic or anything.
God. Ghosts were such douche bags.
LARK
We met at the local Goodwill later that day to shop for Halloween stuff. The dance the night before had just been the beginning of what Roxi was calling “The Halloween Season.” There was a party tonight at Kevin’s because his parents were on a cruise—his parents were away a lot—and then there were a couple of ghost walks through the week that I’d probably bow out of, leading up to thte Dead Babies concert at Haven Crest on Halloween.
I’d already let everyone know what a bad idea attending the concert was, and we had all agreed to go anyway, despite the fact that ghosts from the hospital had tried to kill us. Were we mentally deranged? Probably, but Dead Babies were awesome. One of my favorite bands. Yes, enough that I’d risk going to see them at the most haunted place I’d ever visited, on the night the barrier between the realms of the living and dead was at its thinnest.
I justified it like so: I had to be there in case anything happened. It was my duty as someone who could combat ghosts to protect the concertgoers—and the band—from spectral harm. I had told my friends—and myself—so many times I almost believed it.
Bottom line—I wanted to go more than I was afraid of the ghosts. And that was stupid. No getting around it. I was the chick who went into the dark basement to find out what had made that scraping sound, armed with nothing but a pair of nail scissors. The idiot