Body & Soul (Ghost and the Goth Novels) (9 page)

Startled, I looked up to see Misty on the front porch, wearing pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt with an image of a megaphone on it.

She frowned at us. “What are you guys doing here?”

Next to me, Alona forced a smile and waved. “We just wanted to check in with you after yesterday.”

Misty nodded warily and then tipped her head back toward the door. “Come on in.”

Pointedly avoiding even a glance in my direction, Alona started up the driveway.

I followed. “Just because the light sent you back doesn’t mean you’ve got a free pass to do whatever you want,” I said under my breath.

She ignored me and kept walking.

I should have just shut up. Some small part of me knew that. I was tired, overwhelmed, and more than a little freaked out. It was one thing for her to try to change Lily; I didn’t have to like that. But what was really bothering me was that I
did
. Lily had always been my friend. But
just
a friend, not anything more. And watching her walk up the drive a few steps ahead of me, I realized my problem wasn’t simply that Alona had changed the way Lily looked; it was that I liked the way she looked now more. She looked like Lily’s distant, more confident, more attractive cousin.

I felt like a complete shit for thinking that, disloyal to the core; and irrationally, I wanted to punish Alona for it, find some way of making her feel as bad as I did. Which was a stupid, stupid idea, but as unstoppable as a speeding car with burned-out brakes.

“You know, you can’t just use Lily to walk back into your old life. Haven’t you learned anything?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wished I could call them back.

She stopped, her shoulders stiff. Then she turned to face me with that haughty expression I recognized all too well. But what was eerie was how well it fit on this new face. This new version who was both Alona and Lily. A true Ally.

“Bye, Will,” she said with a coolness that reached into my insides. “Let me know if you buck the trend today and find out something that’s actually useful.”

Then she walked away.

H
ere’s the thing. I knew Will would be angry when he saw me. I’m not stupid. That’s the reason I had him meet me at Misty’s. I’d known there was a possibility he might storm off, and I didn’t want him leaving me at home…or across the street at the cemetery, as the case may be.

However, what I’d failed to estimate correctly was exactly
how
angry he would be. Mrs. Turner, once she’d gotten over her surprise yesterday, had been cautiously encouraging, excited to see her daughter attempting to interact again. This morning, she’d taken me to get the highlights I wanted, putting down her credit card without hesitation. Then she’d dropped me off at Misty’s house, requiring only Misty’s name and phone number in return. That was a big stretch in my freedom and could only mean she was pleased with my “progress.”

I guess I’d thought it would be the same with Will. He’d yell and kick up a fuss about the changes I’d made but eventually realize that I’d done a good thing. Lily looked better than she ever had. There could be no doubt about that. Okay, and yeah, I benefited, I suppose, but it wasn’t like it had come at her expense or anything.

And he knew that. Just as I knew he liked what I’d done but couldn’t deal with it. He was, once again, punishing me by holding me accountable for a past that wasn’t mine. Like it wasn’t hard enough to be Lily; I had to be Lily in a specific way to meet his expectations. Whatever.

Would it have killed him to admit, even grudgingly, that I looked nice? I felt my eyes well up. Being that mean was just uncalled-for and so not like him. He’d left me no choice but to walk away before he saw my reaction. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

“Are you okay?” Misty frowned down at me from the top of the porch stairs.

“I’m fine,” I said, wiping away a tear that had escaped, careful of my mascara. Despite my new look, I didn’t have any better control over the tear ducts. Lily had been and always would be faster to cry than me.

I climbed the steps, holding on to the rail, and the screech of Will’s tires on the otherwise quiet Sunday morning drew our attention momentarily back to the street.

“He’s kind of a jerk, huh?” Misty asked, cracking her toes against the floorboards, a habit that used to drive me crazy but now seemed nothing but achingly familiar.

I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Come on in,” she said, pulling open the screen door and leading me into the dim front hall. “You want to use the—”

Without thinking, I’d already detoured around her to the small bathroom just inside the door to grab a tissue for my stupid teary eyes.

“Oh, good, you found it.” She frowned at me.

“Sorry…My grandma’s house is set up like this,” I said. I was going to have to be more careful. I’d spent as much time at Misty’s house as at my own; probably more, actually. Remembering to pretend I was a stranger to it would be tough.

She gave me a strange look but nodded.

“This way.” She headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

I followed slowly, caught up in absorbing how little her house had changed from what I remembered. I couldn’t begin to count how many times I’d eaten dinner over here or stayed the night, and Dr. Everly, Misty’s mom, had included me with Misty and her three younger half brothers without batting an eye. Looking back on that time now, I suspect she knew things were not so great for me at home, though she probably hadn’t figured out exactly how bad, or she would have been on the phone with some kind of agency to get me out. For that reason alone, I was grateful that Dr. Everly’s new husband, Kevin, and the “Screaming Three,” as Misty referred to the three boys her mother had produced with Kevin, kept Misty’s professor mom pretty distracted.

Being here in this place from my past, one of the few left intact for me, breathing in all the same smells, a wave of longing for the familiar swept over me. Maybe it would be worth swallowing my pride, forgiving Misty, and trying to forget everything that had happened, in exchange for a small portion of the comfort and feeling of safety I’d once experienced here.

If I did that, though, I’d be doing exactly what Will accused me of—using Lily to walk back into a form of my old life. The larger question was, did I care what Will Killian thought when he so clearly did not care what I thought…about anything?

I might have gone on considering this question—and my various options—except that as soon we walked into the kitchen I received the clearest sign possible that the past was just that, and there was no going back.

Dr. E. and Kevin must have had the kids out somewhere, because the normally chaotic kitchen was quiet and empty except for a curly-haired girl standing in front of the open fridge in her pajamas, eating what appeared to be raw cookie dough from the tube with an oversized spoon.

Leanne leaned around the fridge door and raised an eyebrow at us, or, more specifically, me. “What’s this?”

Leanne Whitaker was now Misty’s go-to friend for weekend sleepovers? Seriously?

I struggled to keep the hurt and anger from showing on my face, knowing it would only make things worse.

When I’d been alive, the three of us had mostly gotten along fine, all on the varsity squad together. But Misty and I had been a pair, with Leanne a little on the outside. That’s just the way it was. I’d never particularly cared for Leanne. She was always too eager to enjoy someone else’s misfortune, which was, frankly, tacky. And I’d experienced that firsthand a few months ago, when I first came back as a spirit to find her talking trash about me.
Bitch.

I knew Will would have lumped the old me in with her, but I never saw Leanne and me as being anything alike. Yes, people thought I was cruel, but I think there’s a difference between giving a brutally honest assessment of a situation, which may cause pain, and causing pain so you can take some kind of delight in it.
Yuck.

That same trait made Leanne someone you didn’t want as an enemy, though, so a friend she was. But not the kind of friend you trusted. At least, I hadn’t, and I couldn’t believe Misty was being naive enough to do so.

Then again, Misty had never been a great judge of character. That had been my job in our friendship.

“Leanne, this is…” Misty looked at me. “What was your name again?”

See what I mean? She’d let a virtual stranger into her house. Not that I was complaining, in this particular instance, as it benefited me. “Ally Turner,” I said.

Misty nodded, rubbing her eyes like she wasn’t quite awake yet or hadn’t gotten enough sleep. “Right. Ally.” The dark circles beneath her eyes looked even more pronounced than they had yesterday.

Leanne cocked her head to one side, evaluating me.

Crap.
I held my breath. This would go a lot easier if I didn’t have to deal with whatever impressions they might already have of Pre-Coma Lily. Misty hadn’t recognized this body, of course.
I’d
barely remembered Lily’s existence. There was no way Misty would have. But Leanne…

Her eyes narrowed, and an evil grin spread across her freckled face. “I know you.” She slammed the fridge door shut with the bottom of her foot, sending the magnets holding the twins’ artwork to the floor, and pointed her spoon at me. “You’re that girl who lost her shit in front of everyone at one of Ben’s parties last year.”

Damn it.

“What?” Misty frowned at Leanne.

“Yeah, yeah,” Leanne said, waving her spoon around in excitement. “Ben was being his douchey self.” She rolled her eyes. “He showed up with his hands all over that freshman. Henley? Hanley?” She scrunched her forehead in concentration, trying to remember. “You know which one I mean. And this chick
freaked
.” She sounded delighted.

“Hello, standing right here?” I muttered.

Leanne ignored me. “Anyway, there was this huge scene. And then she drove off and crashed her car.” She paused to give me a skeptical look. “I thought you died.”

“I was in a coma,” I said tightly.

Misty turned to me. “That was you?” she asked, sounding worried for the first time that maybe she’d let someone who was less than stable into her home.

Thanks a lot, Lily.
I could feel my face burning even though I’d had nothing to do with any of that Ben Rogers stuff. I wished, for once, that I could remember this giant confrontation between Lily and Ben. I’d been at the party, but either I’d missed seeing it, or it hadn’t registered as anything out of the ordinary. And given the way Ben was, it might very well have been the latter. Girls were always either fawning over him or yelling at him, postfawning. Still, while I was wearing Lily’s face, it would be helpful to know if that scene had been as bad as Leanne was implying, or whether she was amplifying it for her own entertainment and my discomfort. I supposed I could have played the memory-loss card and had someone tell me exactly what had gone on, but finding a trustworthy eyewitness—in other words,
not
Leanne—was the trick. So I’d have to roll with it.

“That was a long time ago, and not why I’m here,” I said, shooting a death glare at Leanne, who grinned in response. “I came to make sure you were okay,” I said to Misty, which was kind of true. “You seemed really upset yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if Malachi was able to help you.…”
Gag.
Like Malachi was helping anyone but himself.

“She was at the psychic’s yesterday,” Misty said to Leanne, wrapping the end of her ponytail around her fingers, another nervous habit. “The one who’s been trying to help me?”

Leanne made a sour face that could have been in response to the fact either that I’d been somewhere with Misty or that Misty was going to a psychic. Apparently more than once, I realized, as her words clicked through.

“You’ve been there before?” I asked incredulously.

She shrugged. “He said it would probably take a few times before he could cleanse my aura.”

Such a scammer. “Please,” I said at the same time as Leanne, who gave me a disgusted look.

Whatever. She didn’t
own
the word.

“But he didn’t come back yesterday, like, not at all,” Misty said to me. “He missed the rest of his appointments.”

“Sweetie, I told you, he’s only after your money,” Leanne said with a condescending smile. “Someone was probably on to him, and he bailed.”

Wow. So Leanne and I actually agreed on something. Though she’d obviously let Misty go to Malachi in the first place, which I would not have allowed.

“No.” Misty shook her head vigorously. “I’m telling you he’s for real. He knew stuff about me and about
her.
” Her voice took on a hushed urgency. “Stuff he couldn’t have known.”

Leanne rolled her eyes and spooned another bite of cookie dough into her big fat mouth.

Misty turned to me. “You know,” she said defiantly. “You saw them. The ghosts in his office. The ones he says are his guides.”

Interesting that Malachi was apparently aware of his spirit companions. Maybe he wasn’t the fake he seemed to be. Or maybe he was really good at being that fake. Having spirit guides wasn’t an uncommon fact about mediums/ psychics. He’d probably just done his research.

“She was with that creepy dude from school, Will something. Remember him?” she asked Leanne.

I winced on Will’s behalf, and Leanne gave a noncommittal grunt.

“They were both seeing something that wasn’t there. It was the weirdest thing.” She gave a shudder and then turned back to me. “Ghosts, right?”

I hesitated before responding. I needed Misty to believe me if I was going to figure out what was really going on here. But if I spoke up now, I’d be cementing Ally’s reputation as a freak, which I might have to live with for a while.

What to do?

Finally, I nodded. Figuring out who was pretending to be me was more of a priority at the moment. Besides, I’d be out of this body before too long…probably.

Leanne snorted, and I hoped she’d choke on a chocolate chip. “Ghosts don’t exist, Misty. I told you.”

“Then why did you insist on sleeping in the guest room last night instead of my room?” Misty demanded.

Leanne focused on digging out another bite of dough. “Whatever,” she muttered. “It was warmer in there.”

Misty looked to me. “She’s here again. Alona, I mean.” She twisted her fingers together nervously. “Since last night.”

My ears pricked up. “She’s here now? How do you know?” I tried for a discreet look around the room and saw nothing out of the ordinary, no blurry spots.

Misty shook her head. “I just feel it sometimes. Like there’s someone watching me.” She smiled sadly. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m not crazy. I know it’s her.”

“Do you want to show me where that feeling is strongest?” I forced myself not to sound too eager. “Maybe I can take a look?”

Leanne smirked. “Miss Pathetic here suddenly has special spooky powers.”

Forget choking. I hoped that cookie dough was chock-full of salmonella.

“It’s called a near-death experience. You should try it sometime,” I said sweetly. “Maybe without the ‘near.’”

Leanne gaped at me.

I turned to Misty. “So?” I asked briskly.

She nodded, wide-eyed. “Uh, sure.”

I stepped out of the way and let her lead me back into the hall and up the stairs. I couldn’t help noticing the changed photos on the stairwell wall. I was no longer in any of them.