No, she mouthed, but Macy couldn’t hear anything. The woman’s purple hair started to fade to a pale lavender and then just a smoky gray. The red of her blood faded too. As she began to disappear, the ghost put her hand back to her neck and held it there. She kind of rocked back and forth on her heels.
“Wait,” Macy whispered. The woman just looked so surprised by it all. Macy wished that the woman could have just a few more minutes. Just a little more time.
Macy pressed her hand to her own neck, feeling her pulse strong against her fingertips. It took six heartbeats for the woman to fade completely away. Macy held her breath the whole time.
“I don’t think it was a suicide,” Macy said. She had gathered everyone around the kitchen table, including Jackson, who had to walk there from his house. By that time, they had read online about the woman’s body on the beach—that it was a suspected suicide.
“I saw her,” Macy explained. “Her ghost, I mean. She had a cut on her neck, but she didn’t look like she fell off a cliff. Wouldn’t she have broken legs? More cuts? But it was just her neck.”
“So you think someone killed her and made it look like a suicide?” Trev asked, not even trying to turn this into a joke. Trev being completely serious was kind of freaky. Ever since he told them about his dad, he had been acting like nothing happened—just joking around like usual—until now. Macy liked him better when he was joking. He was kind of like the canary in the coal mine. As long as he was joking, things couldn’t be all that bad.
“But is that really how it works? Do ghosts always come back looking like how they died?” Macy thought about Henry. He looked so—perfect. He didn’t look burned or broken. He just looked like a teenage boy. But Macy definitely couldn’t use Henry as an example. His existence felt like an oven she had forgotten to turn off. She couldn’t help thinking about him all the time.
Every time Macy saw Dom she almost told him about Henry. But something always stopped her. She didn’t want to make a mistake that could cost Henry his . . . life? Macy just wanted to be completely sure before she did something she couldn’t take back. And every day Henry was remembering more and more. He was bound to remember what he was supposed to be doing—what was so important that he’d crossed through the Door.
Sam nodded. “I think so. That’s how they’ve always looked to me.” Sam chewed on the edge of her thumbnail. “If you’re right about this, then that makes two people with cut throats. Dom, do you think it’s really a pattern?”
Dom had been staring off into space. Macy wasn’t even sure if he was listening, but then he said, “The other one . . . he had a cut throat too?”
“Among other things. He looked like he swam right into a boat propeller. That’s actually what the police think.”
“No one saw his ghost?”
“No,” Macy said. “I don’t think any of us were around when it happened. He must have faded away too quickly.”
Jackson spoke up. “Who else could possibly know about this ritual? Aren’t we the only ones who know about this stuff?” He seemed to look pointedly at Dom.
Macy scowled at Jackson. She was starting to regret that Jackson knew about any of this. First he almost got Sam killed with his stupid ghost hunt, and it constantly felt like she needed to babysit him. Jackson couldn’t even see ghosts and now he was practically accusing Dom of killing people.
At least that’s how it sounded to her.
She hoped that the others didn’t know what Jackson was hinting at, the way Macy could clearly see the thoughts churning behind Jackson’s eyes. And Macy was sure that Jackson didn’t even really think that—he was just always picking on Dom. Was Jackson jealous? Was that why he seemed to hate Dom? Well, he had fuck-all to be jealous about. Nothing had even happened between her and Dom. Not really.
Sam, who had stopped biting her nail and was now digging through a bowl of pretzels, answered Jackson’s question. “We have no idea who could know about a ritual. Lorna might not have been the only one in Grey Hills who knew something about the Doors, and we can’t exactly ask her, can we?” Macy remembered Lorna’s face as the ghost with the goggles wrapped his fiery arms around her. She still didn’t know if Lorna had been pulled through the Door or if she had just burned up completely. What if she was still alive somewhere—beyond the Door? What if she was trapped there?
“Okay,” Macy said. “Then what do we do? If it is a ritual, I mean? How do we stop whoever is killing people? How can we even find them?”
“Well,” Dom started, tapping his finger on the table. “I mean . . . do we stop them?”
Trev narrowed his eyes. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Just, what if this is the ritual? What if it works? Do we have any other ideas for closing the Door? I’ve been looking for weeks and I’ve got nothing.”
“No fucking way!” Trev knocked over the bowl of pretzels with the swipe of his hand. It went sailing off the table and pretzels scattered all over the floor. The bowl was just plastic, so it bounced, but it was still pretty surprising. Macy was so startled that she started to hiccup.
Sam, who still had a handful of pretzels, threw one at her brother’s head. “Fucking dramatic!”
“Fine,” Dom said. “So we go to the police and tell them that someone is murdering people. They ask us how we know. We tell them that we think there might be a ritual that will close the Door to the Dead. They tell us to get the fuck out and stop wasting their time, or they actually detain us and suspect that we’re some psychos who’ve been killing people. Is that your plan?”
“I don’t know,” Trev said. He ran his hand through his hair so it stuck up even more than usual. “But to actually root for this person to keep killing? It seems pretty fucked up.”
“I’m not saying we help this person. But . . . do we even have a choice? And it’s probably just a few really bizarre accidents, anyway. It happens. People doing stupid things all the time. People kill themselves.”
Macy shook her head. “That woman didn’t kill herself. She looked so surprised. And her neck. I don’t believe it.”
“Okay,” Dom continued, “so there might have been a completely unrelated murder and a crazy boating accident. All I’m saying is that we don’t really have a choice here. There’s nothing we can do anyway. But if someone ends up closing the Door, is that so bad?”
“I can’t even talk to you right now,” Trev said. “You sound like a fucking Vulcan.”
“You mean I’m being logical? I’m making too much sense?”
“It is kind of fucked up,” Sam said. “Aren’t we supposed to be saving people?” She popped a pretzel into her mouth and her crunching sounded extra loud because no one was talking. Macy kind of agreed with Sam and Trev, but she knew exactly what Dom meant. She wanted to show him that she understood. Macy tried to meet his eyes from across the table, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring through the sliding glass doors again, out to the water. It reminded her of Henry, which made her feel dizzy—like she couldn’t hold both guys in her head at the same time.
Since Nick’s funeral, Macy had been back to see Henry almost every day. By the end of the first week he had remembered his parents and his house and what classes he was taking when he died. By the second week the sense that he had to do something—stop something—had grown stronger and stronger. He often just watched the Door. “There’s something in there,” he had told Macy, when she saw him that morning before school. “Something that wants out.”
Macy knew they were supposed to want the Door to close, and she did—mostly. But a part of her still thought that, as long as it was open, her brother might come through. “What is it?” Macy had asked Henry. “What wants out?”
“I can’t remember.” He had put both hands in his hair and stayed that way, staring into the Door. He was still watching the Door when she walked away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jackson didn’t mean to follow Macy when she left the yellow house that evening. He was going t
o catch up and walk with her until she got home. Keep her safe in case there really was some crazy killer on the loose. But right away she turned down the wrong street, and Jackson wanted to see what she was up to.
If she hadn’t been so damn secretive in the past few weeks he wouldn’t have done it. But if Macy was going to act like a fucking secret agent, then he was going to find out why.
The Door didn’t even cross Jackson’s mind until he realized Macy was heading for the school. Sure enough, she went right past the entrance to the school and walked toward the path through the woods that would lead to the Door.
The whole time Jackson had stayed really far back—just close enough to see what streets she turned down. But now that he knew where she was headed, he figured he could beat her there and find a hiding spot. It was quicker to cut through the school. Macy was too short, but Jackson had no problem boosting himself over the chain link fence.
He tried to move quietly through the woods, but he kept stepping on shit like sticks and pop cans students always chucked over the fence. Littering fucks. Jackson had almost been enjoying himself earlier when he was following Macy. He was more than a little drunk off the whiskey that Sam had kept pouring, and he felt like a spy. But here, surrounded by trees and pieces of the dead school, Jackson was starting to get pretty pissed at Macy.
Why did she have to make everything so fucking difficult? What the hell was she thinking, wandering around at night? Macy was lucky he decided to follow her.
Jackson was right—he beat her to the Door. He couldn’t really see the Door very well. It just appeared to be a sort of faint light that vanished when he looked at it straight on. But he could feel it.
The hair on his arms and on the back of his neck stood on end. It felt like someone was squeezing his heart in an unnatural rhythm.
Jackson hid behind a tree a few yards from the Door and tried to catch his breath. The whole thing made him a bit panicky—like he should run and keep running until there were miles between him and the Door.
He heard Macy before he saw her.
“Hello?” she whispered.
For an instant Jackson thought she was talking to him, and he felt silly and almost came out from behind the tree. But then she kept talking. “I know. But you’re one to talk.”
Jackson realized she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to someone he couldn’t hear. He held his breath and peered around the tree, trying not to make a sound.
In the darkness he could see Macy standing next to the faint glimmer of the Door. He could just make out her face and the lines of her body. But he couldn’t see anyone else with her.
Macy sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees like she did when she was feeling uncomfortable. But her voice didn’t sound nervous. She laughed at something and shook her head, her ponytail swaying behind her.
Jackson wasn’t stupid. At this point, it was obvious that Macy was talking to a ghost.
He closed his eyes, willing them to just work better. It wasn’t fair that Macy could see ghosts and he couldn’t. Was there some hierarchy that determined how good you were at seeing ghosts? Was Macy’s loss of her brother somehow worth more than Jackson’s mom? That was bullshit. He couldn’t imagine anything hurting worse—not even a brother dying.
When Jackson had confronted Macy in the girl’s bathroom on the first day of school, she had told him that he couldn’t understand. Like, just because he didn’t have a brother, he couldn’t possibly imagine how it felt when Macy lost hers? But he did. He fucking did.
Losing his mother was like losing a leg you didn’t even know was holding you up and helping you walk. Like someone came by and just chopped it off and you had to keep hobbling along while you bled.
He knew exactly how Macy felt.
Jackson might not have a brother or sister, but he had Macy. Besides his parents, she was the only person in the world who felt like his own blood.
Not that she was like his sister. Otherwise it would have been pretty fucking gross every time he had imagined her naked over the years.
Not that he necessarily wanted her to be naked. With him. He didn’t know what he wanted from her.
Right now, he just wanted her back.
Kissing her had been a huge mistake. Big fucking disaster. It just seemed like what you’re supposed to do when a girl you love is sitting next to you on the couch, already sharing your spit in the beer you’ve been passing back and forth.
He thought it might change things and he might feel something that wasn’t either a scraped-clean emptiness or the too-full anger that sometimes came over him and made his eyes water.
Somehow he thought that he could love Macy in that other way, too. And kissing her would make him a different person. He couldn’t be the person he was before his mother died and he didn’t want to be the person he was after—pathetic and crumbling.
Jackson wanted to be something new. But kissing Macy was like the fucking Hindenburg. It just blew up his life in an entirely new way.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Almost an hour passed before Macy got up again. It was just past midnight and Jackson wondered if his dad would be angry that he wasn’t home already. Sometimes his dad didn’t even seem to notice when he came and went—like they were just roommates instead father and son. Other times his dad would overreact if Jackson was out past the nebulous curfew that his dad sometimes imposed. But, if tonight was like most school nights, his dad would already be asleep when he got back.
Jackson waited until Macy left before getting up from his hiding spot. He stood and faced the Door. “Nick?” he called out. “Is that you?” There was no answer, of course, and as hard as Jackson squinted, he couldn’t see anything other than the faint, wavy glow.
Jackson hopped the fence and ran towards Macy’s house. He knew just where to cut her off. She rounded a corner and he was already waiting, his arms crossed over his chest. “What the hell are you doing?” His voice came out a little harsher than he intended and he winced when she scowled at him.
“None of your fucking business.” She was so tiny—almost a foot shorter than him. He often forgot that because she felt like such an extension of himself. Or used to, before he kissed her and fucked up everything between them. He thought they were back to normal after everything that happened the night of the Lock-In, but she just kept closing herself off. It was like she was always pissed off at him and it just made him pissed off in return.
“I know it’s Nick.” Jackson was so sure that it felt like he knew. He could just picture Macy whispering with her brother in the dark. Plus, it was the only thing that made any sense. It had to be Nick. Why else would she be keeping this a secret? “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jackson tried to make his voice less judgey, but it just came out a little flat. “You could have told me.”
She closed the distance between them. “You followed me? Like some stalker?” Beneath the street lamp, Macy looked a little like a ghost herself—or what he imagined a ghost would look like if he could see one clearly. She had her hood up so her face was shadowed, and her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of her coat.
“And you’ve been creeping around in the dark like a fucking idiot.” Jackson tried to keep his voice low, but it came out as a hiss. “You could have been killed, you know that? Who just wanders around at night in a town full of ghosts? And now there might be a killer out here?” Jackson didn’t think Macy had ever kept a secret from him before. It surprised Jackson how much it hurt—like he didn’t even know her anymore. It was as if the old Macy—his Macy—had cracked open like one of those Russian dolls and a new Macy had stepped out. A dumber Macy.
Macy shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Do you have any idea how many ghosts I’ve killed walking by myself during the day? And it’s not like they’re asleep just because the sun’s out. Do you think they’re vampires?”
She hadn’t even mentioned Nick. Did Macy think Jackson would just forget who she was seeing because
she didn’t mention his name? “It was Nick, wasn’t it?” He put his hands out, palms up. “I totally get it. He’s your brother—you don’t want the others to do anything to him. But you could have told me.” He closed his eyes, trying to get his voice under control. “Just—you can tell me. You can talk to me, you know? I’m here.”
Macy shook her head again. But then she looked him in the eye. “If you tell the others, I’ll never forgive you. Not ever. Understand? You can’t tell them.”
“Yeah, of course. I won’t tell them.” He paused, looking up at the moths swooping around the street lamp. “And you’ll tell me, right? If . . . if you see her?”
Macy’s face softened. She even put her hand on his arm. “Of course, I’ll tell you.”
“I mean my mom.”
She sort of laughed—a sharp, quick exhale. “Jesus Christ. I know who you mean. If your mom . . . I’ll tell you right away. And I won’t let anyone touch her.”
They started walking together, heading towards Macy’s house. “So,” she eventually said, “did Claire tell you about the Halloween party at Trev and Sam’s house?”
“Yeah, Sam mentioned something about it.”
“Sam, huh?” Macy said, raising her eyebrows like it was a question.
“Yeah. Sam.” He didn’t know what else to say about Sam. He didn’t really want to talk about Sam with Macy.
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, then Macy said, “So, what are you gonna be?”
Jackson hadn’t actually thought much about Halloween. Every fucking day was Halloween as far as he was concerned. “I dunno. Maybe a ghost.”
Macy laughed her low, sort-of-laugh again. She sounded tired, but she had a teasing tone to her voice when she said, “And how would you know what one looks like?”
Jackson grabbed her around the waist and tried to swing her up over his shoulder—something he used to do on the playground when they were in middle school. He could usually cover about fifteen feet with her up over his shoulder, legs flailing, before a recess lady would come yell at him that it was “not appropriate playground behavior.” This time Macy wriggled out of his arms and started running down the street, shrieking and laughing. She almost sounded hysterical.
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