Sisters of Salt and Iron

by Kady Cross

  Joe Hard looked at me, and his eyes went wide. “J.B.? What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I summoned someone else.”

  “Me,” came a voice from behind me. I turned. Standing there was a young woman with pale skin, dark hair and familiar blue eyes. She was beautiful.

  “Maureen.”

  She nodded and looked past me to Joe. “I’m sorry to have pulled you into this, but you were the closest spirit I could find to this girl that wouldn’t alert my brother. I needed someone to hide behind, you see.”

  “Interference,” I murmured.

  “Exactly,” she said, smile fading. “Noah knows my energy. He has some of it in him, and I have his. He’d know if I came here without the help of someone else.”

  “How can he have your energy if you moved on before he died?”

  Now she just looked sad. “He summoned me. Merged with me.” She looked away. “His love for me wasn’t...normal.”

  I did not want to know. I held out my hand to her. Her fingers were cold. When she pointed at Joe, I held out my hand to him, as well.

  He took it. And the world dropped out from beneath us so fast and hard my head swam. I opened my eyes and found myself standing near the table, holding hands with both Joe and Maureen. My friends stared at us.

  “Oh, my God,” Roxi whispered. She could see them, of course. Kevin and Maureen couldn’t seem to take their eyes off each other. The resemblance was obvious.

  Then Gage did something that made me blink. He reached out and poked Joe in the thigh.

  “Touching’s gonna cost extra, Emilio,” Joe informed him with a grin.

  “He’s solid,” Gage whispered, eyes like saucers. Then to Joe, “Dude, you’re real. Who’s Emilio?”

  “Estevez,” I answered. “He was popular in the ’80s.”

  “He’s not anymore?” Joe looked genuinely upset. “Damn, he was Billy the Kid, man. Why are you looking so freaked out, J.B.?”

  My mouth opened. Words, that’s what I wanted. Right, words. I looked at him, then Maureen. “How are you corporeal?”

  He shrugged. “It is pretty close to All Hallows’ Eve. Things get pretty funky around then—and around May Day.”

  “But I’ve never summoned anyone who was even remotely tangible before.”

  He smiled at me—a nice smile. “You didn’t summon me, sweetness. You came into the Shadow Lands and brought me back with you. Her, too.” He slapped his hand on his denim-clad thighs. “Feels weird to be in the world again.”

  I had gone into the Shadow Lands and brought him back. Okay, I could handle that. Wren had done it before with books and other small objects.

  I’d done it with a freaking person. Two of them. I’d summoned Maureen from the Beyond into the Shadow Lands, and then brought her here.

  Things were spiraling out of control faster than I could keep track. But, okay. It was nothing to panic over. It wasn’t bad.

  Holy shit. I took a deep breath. My knees buckled, but Joe and Maureen held me up. “If you let go, we’ll disappear,” Maureen informed me. “You are what anchors us to this place and this moment.”

  “Okay.” I sucked in a breath. “Okay. I can do this.”

  “Does this have to do with the concert on Halloween?” Joe asked.

  I nodded. “The band is going to try to raise you.”

  “They won’t be the first to try.”

  “But they’ll be the first on Halloween in a place already teeming with spiritual energy under the control of a nut job.” I glanced at Maureen. “Do you know what your brother’s planning?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to know. He was the reason I was vengeful in the first place. When Emily released me from this world, I left him behind me. I found peace for the first time in years.”

  I did not want to know what Noah had done to her.

  I turned back to Joe. “If I help bring you into this world, will you help us fight Noah?”

  He blinked. “Will you still help me get justice for Laura?”

  I nodded. “I’m on it.”

  “Then, yes, I’ll fight him.”

  Relief flooded my veins. “Oh, thank God.” I turned to Maureen. “Will you?”

  She looked horrified. “No! I won’t face him. You can’t make me.”

  “No,” I agreed, “I can’t. Don’t you want to make him pay?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m beyond that. I will tell you whatever you want to know about my brother. I will give you every weakness he has, but I won’t confront him. He is evil incarnate, and I will not subject myself to that again, not after finally getting away.”

  Pressuring her or trying to force her wouldn’t help. It would only make me feel bad, and make me like her brother in her eyes.

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell me how to fight him.”

  She stared at me. “You don’t. You can’t fight him. He’s too strong.”

  “I don’t believe that.” I couldn’t. “There has to be something.”

  “He’s afraid of the dark,” she said. “At least, he was in life.”

  Not terribly helpful.

  “He’s vain, and a bully.”

  Again, things I already knew. I had to try really hard not to be annoyed at her. She was as much Noah’s victim as Wren was—even more so.

  Maureen turned to Kevin. “He’s possessed you. I can feel it.”

  Kevin nodded, a bitter expression on his face.

  Maureen tugged on my hand, drawing me and Joe closer to Kevin. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his. A warm rush of energy ran through me as the four of us connected.

  “That was cool,” Joe remarked. “Kind of like the first time I stepped out onstage.”

  Kevin looked stunned. “What did you just do?”

  Maureen smiled. “I unlocked those things he would have you keep hidden. All the secrets he thought buried inside you are now yours to remember. I gave you some of my own memories, as well. Use them as you see fit.” She turned to me, her face pale. “I can’t stay here any longer. Please, release me.”

  I did. Hanging on to her would have felt cruel. She disappeared the moment we broke contact. Joe was still there.

  Kevin rose to his feet. “I have to go. I think I know where there is something that might help us.”

  Joe spoke, as well. “You’d better let me go, too, J.B. Can’t have you weakening yourself.”

  I felt fine. “I suppose it would be dangerous to let you walk around all corporeal. Women might start throwing their underwear at you,” I joked. But then it occurred to me—wasn’t this what Noah had planned? To make it so he was tangible, but with all the abilities of the dead? He would need a lot of power to do that.

  I was going to have to make sure I was well protected that night, because I was starting to think that I was like a big ole battery for ghosts. If he had me, Wren and Emily to draw power from, there was no telling what he might be capable of.

  No one would be able to stop him.

  WREN

  I thought I was stronger than this.

  I don’t think returning to Haven Crest was the right thing to do. Noah said I would feel better, that the infection wouldn’t be so bad if I returned to him. And now I can’t leave.

  I should have known he lied. He lies about everything.

  I ache all over. I want to run wild. I want to feel eyeballs pop free under my thumbs. I want to feel that rush I felt when we scared away those college students.

  I need that fear.

  I don’t know what he did to me.

  But I want more.

  LARK

  The next day was Wednesday—the day before Halloween. I went to school for the morning—not because Nan made me, but be
cause I wanted to talk to One-Shade-of-Gray again.

  He found me in the bathroom closest to my locker between first and second class.

  “Kinda pervy, don’t you think?” I said when he drifted through the wall.

  He looked around—all of the stall doors were open. “You’re alone.”

  That was beside the point. I shrugged. “You were right, there is something big happening tomorrow night.”

  “I told you!” He looked strangely excited. “All the campus ghosts are ready to join you. Larry in the cafeteria also haunts the hospital. He says there are some there who want to join in as well, especially when they found out you were involved. You got rid of a bully for them last month?”

  Bent. He’d managed to get to the hospital because of the infection he’d left in Gage, who we ended up taking to the emergency room. What he’d done to Gage and the others wasn’t like what Noah had done to Wren. Theirs had looked like angry wounds. Other than the veins, my sister didn’t have a mark on her.

  That I knew of.

  I hadn’t heard from her since she sent me the text. I kept hoping she’d get in touch again. I reached out for her before going to bed last night, but all I’d gotten was a head rush, and I’d had to sit down for a minute until the world stopped spinning. Maybe I’d overdone it with the séance earlier.

  Or maybe Wren was all kinds of messed up.

  She wasn’t gone, though. She was still here, still close and we were still connected. Until that changed, I could be concerned about her, but I couldn’t afford to panic. I concentrated on Noah, and all my fear, anger and frustration went into that little box in my mind with his name on it. Whatever he had planned for us wouldn’t happen until tomorrow, so I still had time.

  “I don’t know what is going to happen,” I told One-Shade. “But we believe a ghost named Noah McCrae is going to try to use the combined energy of the concert and Haven Crest to cross over. Permanently.”

  He actually shuddered. “That would upset the balance. There’d be chaos.” His gaze locked with mine. “You’ve seen what happens when the rules are broken—bad things happen.”

  I didn’t admit my ignorance by saying, “Rules? What rules? There are rules?” I just nodded. “I appreciate your help. I really do.”

  He smiled. Then two girls walked in, chattering away to each other as though they were in their own private bubble, and One-Shade fled through the same wall he’d used to enter.

  “Did you hear that Sarah and Mace broke up?” one of the girls—Beth was her name, I think—asked the other, whose name I didn’t remember.

  “Ohmigod, yes. Oh, the things I would do to him if I got the chance!”

  My eyebrows crept up my forehead.

  “What are you looking at, freak?” Beth demanded.

  It took a second for me to realize she was talking to me, because I was looking at the older man who had followed them into the bathroom. He stood behind the other girl—Lucy, that was her name—with his hand on her shoulder. I watched as that hand crept lower over her chest, settling over her breast. She shuddered. I didn’t blame her.

  The man glanced up—right at me. He didn’t move his hand. In fact, he brought his other one to the party as well, smirking at me the whole time.

  “Hey.” Beth snapped her fingers in my face. “I said what are you looking at?”

  I pushed her aside. I was bigger than her, and I was stronger than most girls my age. She staggered into one of the stalls, books falling to the floor.

  I didn’t apologize; I was too intent on Lucy and the man molesting her. “Who is he?” I demanded.

  She actually looked frightened of me, which was good, because if she’d called me a freak as well, I probably would have knocked her out just so I could deal with her abuser.

  “The old man that likes to touch you in ways he shouldn’t.”

  Her face went white. “I don’t know what—”

  Scowling, I looked her right in the eye. “Brown hair going gray. Blue eyes just like yours. Smarmy smile. Likes sweater vests. He’s standing right behind you. He’s the reason you feel cold, why sometimes you feel like you’re being touched when there’s no one there, and I’m willing to bet you dream about him and what he used to do to you. A lot. You thought it would stop when he died.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “My uncle Clark,” she whispered. “Oh, my God, do you actually see him?”

  “Blue shirt, gray sweater vest—argyle. Faded jeans and Top-Siders. Sound about right?”

  She started crying harder. Uncle Clark removed his hands. He didn’t look so confident right then. And seeing her upset made him shrink back.

  Beth—who had come out of the stall—put her arms around her crying friend. She looked at me with an expression that was half pissed off, half respectful. “It’s true what they say about you?”

  “Most of it,” I replied. I pulled an iron ring off one of my fingers. It was just an old nail a guy named Chuck had hammered around a mandrel, but it was effective. I also pulled a Sharpie from my bag. “Come here,” I said.

  Beth pulled Lucy toward me. Uncle Clark stayed back.

  I gave Lucy the ring. “Put this on. Now give me your other arm.” She was still crying, but she did as I asked.

  I pushed the sleeve of her sweater up, and then, with the marker, I drew a Seal of Solomon—it was easier than the Korean symbols Ben’s grandmother had shown me, and required less need for precision—on the inside of her forearm. “Redraw this if it fades or comes off in the shower. It will protect you. What’s his last name?”

  “Williams,” she replied, dabbing at her eyes. Her mascara was everywhere.

  I turned my attention to the ghost in the door. “Is he buried in the New Devon cemetery?”

  She nodded. Beth gave her a wad of toilet paper to wipe her face.

  I smiled at the ghost. “Touch her again and I’ll dig you up, salt you and burn you. That’s if I’m in a good mood. If I’m not, I’m going to take it out on you until I’m happy again. Sound fair?”

  He nodded, but he didn’t move.

  “If he comes to you again, you tell me, okay? I’ll end it once and for all.”

  Beth stared at me as Lucy wiped at her face. Slowly, she drew her friend toward one of the stalls.

  I put the marker back in my bag before heading toward the door. I needed to get some of this aggression out. I stopped long enough to kick Clark Williams hard in the nuts, and then drove my knee into his face while he was doubled over.

  If only every day could be freaking Halloween.

  I walked out into the empty corridor—class had already started. I went to my locker and grabbed my coat. Then I called Nan on my cell and asked her to pick me up.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” I told her, as I walked toward the stairwell. “I’ve just had enough of ghosts for the morning. I don’t think this was a good idea.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped my phone into my purse and slipped into my coat.

  I was on the bottom step when the ghost hanging in the stairwell moaned. “I’m so alone,” he said in a quivering tone.

  I glared at him. “Oh, fuck off.” And just to be a bitch, I grabbed him by the legs, pulled him toward me as far as he would reach and then pushed him away, so that he swung back and forth across the stairs like a man-sized piñata.

  He was just lucky I didn’t have a stick.

  Really, sometimes ghosts were such douche bags.

  * * *

  At home I tried to find out as much about Noah as I could online and in his Haven Crest file. I’d already been through most of it. I gave up at 12:45 p.m. I hadn’t really found anything useful, and I’d already figured that his sister was his big weakness. So I pushed awa
y from my desk and lay down on my bed.

  Okay. Time to go to the Shadow Lands. Both times I’d done it lately had been accidents, and I had no idea how to replicate the procedure.

  Just like Wren had no form here—except to me—I had no form in her world, so it was like astral projection. However, since I could interact with ghosts in this realm, I could in the Shadow Lands, as well—grabbing Joe had been proof of that.

  Had all those people at his concert been ghosts? I didn’t even want to think about it, or how pissed off they must have been when I’d kidnapped the headliner.

  I closed my eyes and thought about where I wanted to go. I thought about Wren, but I didn’t reach for her. Instead, I tentatively peered outside of myself for something that felt like her. She had once told me that she didn’t know how she’d first found me when we were babies, she just had. And now it was as natural to her as breathing was to me.

  In my head it felt as though I were drifting through darkness, a pleasant breeze moving through my hair.

  Only it wasn’t in my head. I really was moving through darkness. Oh, crap. What did I do now? I teetered on the verge of panic—but it wasn’t enough to send me flying back to my body.

  And then it wasn’t dark anymore, and I was standing inside a little house. It was pristine in its neatness, decorated with bright colors, throw cushions and lots of beads. I smiled. This place screamed of my boho, hippie-wannabe sister.

  In dreams, it was said that a house represented the psyche of the dreamer. This place had been constructed by Wren, and it was an extension of her—a reflection.

  The house was only a couple of rooms. It wasn’t like she needed to cook, sleep or use the bathroom, so there was the main room and a smaller room off it decorated in a similar style. This room had photographs of our parents, a baby rattle and a doll I recognized from when I was very young. Had Wren brought these things here? Or were they replicas she’d created?

  On top of an old dresser was a small lacquered box—the kind for keepsakes and mementos. It wasn’t any of my business what Wren kept in it, but I was curious. I’d never gotten a peek into her life before, not like she had into mine. She knew every detail of my life practically, except for when I was alone with Ben. And that was good, because her hanging around when we were making out would be just plain weird.