by Shaye Easton
Sara’s staring at the spot the man had been in shock. She blinks as her mind tries to make sense of what it has seen.
“Are you okay?” I croak.
She doesn’t snap any smartarse reply this time. She just nods.
I fight my way to my feet, wobbling and staggering. My ears are ringing and my eyes are blurry. I find I’m exhausted. It takes all my energy just to stay standing.
I search the smoke for Caden but still I come up empty-handed. The smoke has gotten in my eyes and they start to tear up, blurring my vision further. I blink against the light of the flaming car. I blink again. Finally, I see movement: a dark hazy shape on the ground shifting, increasing in size, rising higher, like a monster sculpting itself from ash.
I realise where I’m looking and what I’m looking at. And it’s not Caden.
Before my eyes, the man steps back up onto his feet, his eyes glowing through the haze with a fiery fury. All I can do is stand there, frozen once again in fear. Msy brain begging for me to move but my body refusing to budge. His hands light up, the sunset-coloured glow dispersing through the smoke.
Our cold, shadowy assailant starts his advance, and my heart grows wild in my chest, beating frantically, pressing up against my lungs and squeezing out the air. Sara shouts, “Melissa, you fuckhead, move!”
Finally, my body kicks into gear. I hurry backward, stumbling further and further down the road. He starts to speed up and I start running, barely looking where I’m going. I trip over a large piece of flung metal in my haste and slam into the asphalt. Panic spreads through my body like a disease, taking root under my skin. My heart pounds loud enough for the entire world to hear.
The man, silent and shadowy, face impassive and withdrawn, is striding towards me. His legs splitting up the smoke. His hands are fiery eyes and they rise to look at me. No, they’re rising to—
I throw myself to the side, ramming my bones into rock. I’m not fast enough. Even with my dulled senses, I feel the heat sear my shoulder as warmth with an edge. A cry rips from my throat, my skin throbbing, fear coursing through my bloodstream.
I’m on my side on the ground, one hand squeezing below my shoulder. I force my teary, smoke-filled eyes open. To my horror, the man is still on approach, and while he seems to be tiring, while blood rushes from his nose and saturates the front of his shirt, the fire in his hands is only growing brighter by the second. I know he’s going to attack again and I don’t have the strength to move. I’m trapped, much like Sara was, except this time, there’s no one coming to the rescue.
The eye-shaped inferno expands to the size of a basketball, and the man withdraws his arm in preparation to fire it. I squeeze my eyes shut.
And nothing. I open my eyes again to find the man missing, the fire gone. There’s just swirling smoke in his place, as though the universe has erased him from existence.
Soon enough, however, two dancing figures appear in the haze. A moment later, I realize they’re not dancing. Now they’re on the ground, one atop the other. The smoke clears enough for me to see a strong pair of hands wrapped around a throat. Then with just one hand while the other is drawn back. The man’s third-eye lightens with anger while his real eyes lack emotions. The light illuminates Caden’s face.
I cough, rolling up off the ground. There’s a scrap of metal bent away from the car frame. It’s blackened and glowing red-hot at one end. But most importantly, it’s sharp.
I don’t know why I think this. I will never reach it. I will never be strong enough to tear it from its frame. But that deep-buried part of my soul fixates on it, zeroes in on its joints and bonds, imagines them working loose, coming undone.
I can’t explain what happens next. Or more accurately, my mind can’t fathom it.
In the first second, the burnt sheet of metal shudders and comes free of the car with a grating screech. In the second, it’s in the air, shooting like a bullet. I squeeze my eyes shut at the last possible moment, but I don’t miss the sound that’s made as it lodges itself in the man’s back. Someone in the distance screams. At the same time, there’s a strangled groan, followed by a dull, meaty thud.
Silence descends. The smoke clears. Caden lies staring up at the sky with a hand on his chest, his breathing laboured. Next to him, the man’s body is face-down and lifeless on the ground. Sara’s gone.
Caden rolls over and pushes himself up. His clothes are singed and torn. He’s covered in blood and blistering burns. He mustn’t have gotten very far from the car before the explosion.
“Melissa,” he rasps.
“I’m alright.”
I somehow manage to get to my feet. I’m pretty sure my right arm is broken, and I know for a fact my shoulder is a burnt mess. But I don’t feel any pain. I barely feel anything besides my exhaustion. Caden says something else, but I can’t really hear him. My vision blurs and dizziness starts to take over, causing me to sway a little on my feet.
“Melissa?” Caden asks. Again, he asks something that doesn’t register. Everything is muted and foggy—more so than usual—and I’m so tired, I’m losing my hold on reality.
“Melissa?” This time I can’t be sure I even heard it. Suddenly everything is falling; there’s a faint whoosh of air, a brief moment of weightlessness and then something hard smacks up against my back. I can hear a voice but not words, can see colours and movement but not shapes.
Something touches my arm. There’s a word in my ear: stay. And then everything goes dark.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When I wake up, I’m confused and disoriented. I’m lying atop a maroon duvet in a room with a series of cracks running through its cream ceiling like a dark spidery web. There’s a bare dark wood chest of drawers opposite the bed, and above it, an old framed painting of a bowl of fruit. To my right, a partially opened window lets in a whisper of bruised light, the sun gone from the sky. A set of sheer white drapes with lace detailing dance in the gentle breeze, as if possessed by a ghost.
“You’re awake.”
Caden’s sitting in a chair, his upper body still sprawled across a square table as though he’d been sleeping on it. He’s changed into fresh clothes—a grey shirt, dark jeans—and there are white bandages peeking out from under the ends of his sleeves.
I sit up, and everything comes flooding back. I have memories of a hundred different yesterdays. Each day is like a room filled with pain, the doors to which have been left wide open, inviting me in like a history book left open on a random page. Come take a look at your past. A hand is waving me over. And I get—
Smoke rippling through the air. A shadowy monster slowly approaching. An orb of fire, burning like the eye of the devil.
I slam the history book shut.
“Where are we? What time is it?”
“Rand’s place. It’s been a few hours, but you’re healing well. The burns on your shoulder have closed right up.”
He’s right. My shirt may be a burnt and torn mess, but the skin underneath is new, shiny pink. While I’ve been sleeping, the burns have blistered and shrunk, scabbed and peeled off. I test my right arm carefully, tensing, stretching, and bending all the joints individually. There’s no pain. Whatever bone I broke is healed.
I look at him. Aside from the bandages on his arms, and a cut along his forehead, I can’t discern any other injuries. He notices my gaze. “I got a few burns and bruises here and there, but I got away clean for the most part.”
“Sara?” I’m almost scared to ask.
He shakes his head. “No sign of her. She must have fled during the fight.”
“Great,” I say dryly. “But wait—don’t you have her phone?”
Caden’s features morph with frustration. “Not anymore. I think it fell from my pocket at some point. She could have grabbed it. If she didn’t, then it’ll surely be picked up by the authorities. Either way, it’s not good for us.”
“The authorities? Why would they care—” It hits me way later than it should. A car blew up in the middle of
a suburban street. Residents would have called the fire brigade, an ambulance, the police. A whole swarm of people would have descended on us with their questions.
Caden explains, “The car was burned beyond recognition. Anything that could lead back to us is long gone. I had to carry you a couple blocks to wait for Rand—luckily I’d still managed to hold onto my own phone to call him—but I couldn’t risk waiting at the crime scene. If any authorities had found us, there’d have been questions we couldn’t answer. And they would’ve hospitalised you, which would’ve been awkward once you started to heal.” He pauses. “Sara’s phone could be a potential issue though. And witnesses.” He shakes his head. “The whole thing is a mess, really. Spectres aren’t meant to make such overt displays of themselves.”
“But this one did.”
“I think it was the same underwalker as the one who blew a chunk out of my car.”
“He must really hate that car.”
In spite of ourselves, we both laugh.
“Well, he got his wish,” Caden says. “I just can’t figure out how he could stand to use his abilities as much as he has. He’s an underwalker. He should be dead or he should have at least passed out before you had to kill him.”
Dark metal glinting as it flies through the air. The sound of a body falling lifelessly to the ground. Blood. Screaming.
I flinch, squirming within my own mind. I don’t remember reopening all the doors to my memories, but they’re open now, and I can’t get them shut.
“Melissa?”
“I’m fine,” I say, trying not to think too much. “It’s fine.”
But all of the afternoon’s events pour back in. A convergence of shock and fear and pain seizes my heart and starts a riot. A scene lights on the back of my eyelids: a scene of bodies tangled in darkness, of a girl smoking a cigarette, of black burning eyes and a grey spectral form rising into the dim light.
I launch off the bed. “We’ve got to go.”
Caden pushes himself up off the table with a frown. “Where?”
The invitation! I shoved it into my pocket yesterday, and sure enough, when I dig around I find it’s still there, crumpled and worn. I unfurl it and hold it up to Caden. “Here.”
He takes it from me, his frown deepening. “A party. You want to go to a party? Now, after everything that’s happened?”
“It’s my vision, Caden. Sara’s in danger.”
This gets his attention. He stands. “What did you see?”
“A ghost with . . . black fire in its eyes. It was heading towards her.”
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, let’s go.”
A couple of my things—my phone and jacket—are lying on the end of the bed. I don the jacket and slip my phone into the pocket as we leave the room. Everything else I left at school, which was probably lucky considering if I’d brought it, it’d be a smoking pile of ash right about now.
We head downstairs, and I can’t get down the steps fast enough. I’m at the front door in a flash, brimming with nervous energy.
“Rand!” Caden shouts. “We’re leaving!”
Rand pokes his head around the corner at the other end of the hall. “I’m sorry?”
“Sara Falconer’s in danger.”
He nods. “Okay. Don’t be stupid and get killed. And don’t be stupid and let her get killed.” He’s looking at me as he says this last part, and I wonder whether the ‘her’ he’s referring to is Sara or me.
“I won’t,” Caden replies, dead serious. Dead confident.
“Good. Now go.”
***
We take Rand’s car since we left Caden’s black and burning on a road. Kira lives in a particularly empty part of town. Her house is wedged between national parkland on one side and an old, half-demolished petrol shop surrounded by a chain-link fence on the other. The opposite side of the street is more populated, but only by a small amount. There’s a nondescript warehouse, a large fancy house surrounded by a tall brick wall, a few vacant blocks of land, and a couple cottages on the far ends of the street.
It’s the perfect destination for an out-of-control party.
Or a paranormal murder.
Caden parks the car and we hastily hop out. All the lights in the house are turned on and there are people everywhere: on the front lawn, on the sidewalk, crammed inside. Even in the freezing temperature, the snow melting at their feet, they still seem to be having a good time, chatting and drinking from plastic cups, sporting thick coats to ward against the cold. There are even people venturing into the bush by the side of the house, leaving a trail of steamy breath in their wake. The chaotic sight is accompanied by the loud, thumping base of the music, which spills out onto the street, pounding like the blood in my ears.
We run for the house. I ignore the eyes that follow my every move and the whispers that I can sense more than hear. I know what I must look like: singed clothes, messy hair, wild eyes. A large, muscular boy who had been standing in the doorway eagerly steps out of our way. He doesn’t say anything, and neither do his mates all standing by the entrance, watching Caden and I—but mostly me—with a sort of unhappy fascination. We breeze past them all and slip inside.
Immediately, my ears are assaulted by the loud music, the hammering rhythm taking the place of my heartbeat. In here, barely anyone looks at me, and those who do don’t look hard enough to realise who I am. Everyone’s busy talking, dancing, drinking, making out in dark corners or just about anywhere. A group of guys sit on a couch, passing a bong back and forth.
I hug my icy cold hands close to my chest as I weave through the crowd, pulsing in time to the music. It’s an ocean that ebbs and flows. It pushes against me as I push against it, heading deeper and deeper into the stuffy overcrowded house.
It takes way too long to get out onto the back porch, but we make it there. The backyard is more plastic cups and snow than grass, and there are people everywhere, their breath floating upwards in white plumes. It’s not as crowded as the house—and not nearly as loud— but it’s still heavily populated.
Cold washes over me. We’re in the presence of a ghost.
And all of a sudden, Lauren is there, an empty cup in her hand. “Oh my god, guys! You came!” She’s drunk. She’s also blocking my view of the backyard with her bouncing curls. Her eyes pass over me. “What’s up with your clothes?”
“Now’s not the time, Lauren,” Caden warns briskly. He nods at me, eyes widening, and it means Go. I push around her, out of the throng, stopping at the top of the porch steps.
And there’s Kira, tossing her cup behind a bush. There’s Sara, flicking at her cigarette before taking another drag. There’s the ghost, emerging from the shadows, burning in the dark, sliding towards her.
It’s my ghost. No doubt about that. Fear has me frozen to the spot, unable to do anything but watch as my vision plays out, watch as it rushes to its terrible conclusion. I open my mouth to yell a warning but no sound comes out. I wave my arms in the air, a signal, except my arms haven’t moved and I’m not waving.
I don’t let myself think it, but I’m expecting a death. I’m anticipating the backyard’s transformation into a graveyard. I’m waiting for the night to fill with murder.
Time has slowed down. The ghost is almost there, three strides from reaching her, a second away. But a second is now a minute, and it drags on agonisingly. It’s too much time. It’s not enough.
And then the unthinkable happens. Kira rushes forward from the back of the yard and throws an arm between the ghost and Sara. The ghost stops, head swivelling, burning eyes pinning the brave girl down. There’s some sort of silent exchange. Maybe Kira says something but I can’t see her mouth, and I can’t hear anything over the electronic music. Maybe she just uses her gaze. But whatever she does, the ghost visibly calms, the black flames in its eyes dying as it backs up, and then at last, disappears into the night.
I still haven’t moved an inch and I still don’t think I can. Dread has sunk its cold hands into my chest again. I
t grips my heart with an awful ferocity. To stop a ghost, you first need to able to see it. To see it, you have to be connected to the otherworld. Kira shouldn’t meet either criteria. But she may just have saved Sara’s life by meeting both.
Caden’s beside me. I don’t know how long he’s been there. “Did you see that?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are trained on Kira. He doesn’t blink.
“She saved Sara. I have to . . . we have to…” I trail off. I don’t know what we have to do, but I know I’m not hanging around to figure it out.
As I start down the porch steps, Caden stops me with a hand on my shoulder over my half-burnt jacket. “Melissa, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He still hasn’t stopped watching her. “She didn’t just see the ghost. She forced it to back down.”
“And?”
“And not just anyone can do that. To command a ghost, you have to be the one controlling it.”
Dread squeezes my heart tighter. It crumples into a ball. “You mean she—”
I can’t finish my sentence. I can’t even let myself think it.
Caden does it for me. “She’s an underwalker.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The night has suddenly grown. It’s expanded like a dark mouth with stars for teeth and wind for breaths. The ceiling of the ink sky has lifted. The ground has fallen away beneath me. Everywhere, the darkness has become alive; its hands have reached out and have clawed into my past. It’s spread hungrily for my future. I expected tonight to be dangerous. I didn’t expect to learn I was in danger before the night even started.
I realise I’ve frozen again in fear. Flesh made of mortar. Bones made of stone. I keep turning into statues of myself, lifelike carvings that watch my life plays out but don’t intervene. For it’s easier to pretend you’re not yourself when your existence is threatened.