Dust to Dust (11 page)

“How long?” I ask.

“We're not sure, but it's a matter of days—a week at most,” he says.

“They'll try to take bodies again.”
Carson, Eli
.

“Yes,” he says. “In a way, they just did. But they failed.”

When he says the word
failed
, I suddenly remember the rule of three—Carson has already been possessed once, and if it happens twice more, Reena will take her over completely. Everything that makes my best friend—her beautiful, wacky soul—would cease to exist and Reena would have what she's always wanted.

The chance to be alive again.

“Carson. Is she safe?” I ask Thatcher, swallowing hard.

“We think so,” says Thatcher. “As far as we know, ghosts can't draw enough energy from living bodies for a possession. They won't be able to get to her. It's you I'm worried about—they can still mess with you and drain your energy.”

“But if they can't achieve possession, then what's the point?”

He doesn't answer for a moment, but then his voice comes, quiet and hurried. “Maybe there's a reason they believe it's possible. And they have limited time—they're getting more desperate, so they'll try anything, even if it's a one-in-a-million shot. I'm going to do my best to stay near, to be with you more than I have been.”

“But you can't be here all the time.”

“No,” he says. “Like I said, it's not good for you to be linked to anything from the Prism. Including me. I just wish there were some way for you to let me know if you sense them. . . .”

Thatcher goes quiet, and I reach into my pocket, taking out the selenite crystals and opening my palm up into the air with a smile. “Maybe I can use these to summon you when I'm in trouble?”

I'm trying to crack a joke, make things feel lighter, but Thatcher responds enthusiastically. “Good idea!”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me these things actually work?”

He laughs. He actually
laughs
, and the vibration makes my skin warm.

“No,” he says. “You can't call me with those rocks.”

“I'll have you know that they're selenite crystals! Carson gave them to me.”

“Of course she did,” he says, and I can hear a tender smile in his voice. “You'll have to tell her that, sadly, those crystals are just pretty rocks.”

“So why'd you get so excited just now?”

I can almost see his back straighten up as he says, “I need you to find Wendy, my sister.”

My eyes widen in surprise.

“She has something of mine,” he continues, “a talisman. It's an old class ring that our grandfather gave to me. I know it sounds strange, but it has a pull over me. If she's ever holding it and thinking of me, I know it. I can feel it, even from the Prism.”

“You want me to find your sister and ask her to give me your grandfather's class ring?”

“Yes,” he says. “You need to have it. It's clear that the poltergeists are getting close to you, and if they're near, the Guides and I should be able to take their energy and overpower them, which would force their return to the Prism. Wendy doesn't seem aware of what the ring does, and it's the only way you'll be able to call to me if I'm not with you when they approach—I want you to be able to do that.”

“I want that, too.”

“It's for emergencies only, Callie,” he says, his voice turning stern. “I mean it. The ring is only to be used if you feel you're truly in danger.”

“Got it,” I say. “Don't use the ring because I want to tell you how my day went, but if Reena and Leo corner me in a back alley, it's fair game.”

But Thatcher doesn't appreciate my attempt to lift the mood, which has grown solemn again.

“It's not a joke.”

“I know,” I say. “But how will I get Wendy to give it to me? I can hardly just walk up to her and tell her I know her brother who died ten years ago.”

“You're right,” he murmurs. “She won't give it to you. She'll probably . . .” He pauses, like he's thinking very deeply. Then he says, “Try first. Try with the truth of how we met in the Prism. Call it the afterlife—that's what the Living are comfortable with. Maybe by now she'll . . .” He stops talking again, and I hear the contemplation in his silence. “If she turns away, or gets angry . . . then tell her . . . tell her, ‘The treasure is in the tree.'”

“What?”

“If she won't listen to you, tell her, ‘The treasure is in the tree,'” he repeats. “I'm sorry, Callie, I have to end this dream.”

“Dream?”

“Yes. Forgive me. I need you to remember this interaction clearly—I'm going to push you now.”

Suddenly, I'm falling, falling fast. There's no ground under me and I'm flailing, moving through time and space and nothingness, without him.

I awake with a
jolt
, sitting up on the stiff bed in the nurse's office. I'm panting, the selenite still in my hand, clutched to my chest. It was one of those cliff-drop moments, where you wake up sweating and panting. I've had them before, but never like this.

“Lie back, dear,” says Nurse K. Her warm hand presses gently
on my shoulder and I look up into her kind hazel eyes. She's been our school nurse for years, and we all love her—she's young but it seems like she has an old soul.

“I'm all right,” I tell her. “Really.”

“I'm just going to call your father. You had quite a spell.”

“I feel better,” I say, putting my feet on the floor and standing up to head for the door.

Nurse K tries to hold my arm, but I turn and flash her a grin. “Really,” I say, “I'm okay.”

She calls out the door after me, “Callie, I still have to call your father!”

But I keep moving. I have to get out of here—I have to find Carson. Because I remember every word Thatcher said to me, and I
need
that ring.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

NOW MORE THAN EVER, my mind has to be clear.

The last thing I need is to be put back in bed by a bunch of doctors and given more pills to take. So yesterday I told Carson my fainting spell in the hallway was because I didn't eat enough at lunch, not because Reena and the poltergeists were stalking me at school. When I came home to my father pacing around in the kitchen, upset by the concerned voicemail he'd received from Nurse K, I gave him the same story too.

Thankfully, they believed me. Of course, I felt bad for lying, but not bad enough to stop myself from turning on the charm and convincing them that whatever happened to me was just a random, freakish thing. However, late last night I just couldn't hold back from Carson anymore. I called her and told her that Thatcher had contacted me and asked me to reach out to Wendy.

Immediately, she got carried away in some fairy tale version of my life, which she still seems to think is some kind of perfectly tragic made-for-TV movie.

“Oh God, that is so romantic! All the sacrifices and secrets and longing for what can never be!” she gushed.

I wanted to interrupt her and share the whole truth—about the danger I'm in, that she could be at risk, too. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I've been telling myself that I should keep the darker side of the Prism from Carson because she's such a believer in the good side of things, the Solus side, the heavenly side. She's the person who wants me to help Thatcher's sister finally cope with his death so he can merge into peace and light, and I didn't want to take that away from her.

But now that it's the next morning, and we're skipping school so we can drive to USC-Beaufort in her VW Bug, I think the reason I can't tell Carson there's evil and hate and betrayal in the next world is because telling her would make it all terrifyingly real. I'd have to admit to her everything that Thatcher said to me, and none of it was particularly reassuring. I'd have to tell her that I'm not sure how strong Reena is or what her powers could do to us. I'd have to tell her that I don't have any clue how we might protect ourselves, or whether there would be anyone else, like the Guides, to keep us safe either.

The only hope we have, really, is in an old class ring. Which I have to get from a total stranger. Maybe then, I'll be able to say the words out loud to her:

The poltergeists are coming for me
.

“I can't believe we're doing this, Cal,” Carson says as she backs the car out of her driveway. “I thought you'd given up on your wild, crazy ways.”

“Me, too.” I glance down at the plastic bag on the floor of the passenger side and nudge it with my foot. “What's all this?”

“Stakeout provisions,” says Carson, her smile stretching wide across her face. “I got something for every kind of craving. Salty, sweet, sour. You name it.”

I smile and take in a deep breath. The fresh air that hits my face when we pull out of our neighborhood feels good. I almost forget for a second or two that I haven't been able to sense Thatcher with me since the last dream I had, and haven't responded to the few texts Nick has sent me. I can almost see the waves of late August heat as we merge onto the highway—it makes the road's white lines look wavy and shaky, like we're underwater. I remember how everything looked
almost
real in the Prism, and I wonder about people like my dad, who always need things to be tangible, solid. I know that life isn't always that way, though.

“I wonder what Thatcher's merging ceremony is going to be like,” Carson says, her eyes flicking to the rearview mirror as she makes a turn. “Maybe there'll be harps or something.”

“I saw one actually.”

“You did? Tell me!”

And this is easy to share, because it's the good part.

“It was Ella Hartley's.”

Now Carson is truly rapt. She and I danced with Ella Hartley when we were little and everyone took ballet class, but Ella stuck
with it and was actually really good, I heard . . . until she got sick.

“Ella was super skilled at haunting,” I say.

“How did she do it?” asks Carson. “Did she do things like changing radio stations or did she do that other kind—the soul kind of haunting that Thatcher wanted you to do?”

“She did things the right way. She spent time around her family—I even saw them walking at the harbor one day. She'd been out on their sailboat with them, and the whole scene was really peaceful.”

I pick up the cloth Carson keeps on her dashboard, feeling its velvety softness between my fingers. I take off my sunglasses and clean them with it before I continue.

“Her merging ceremony was like nothing I've ever experienced,” I tell Carson. “It happened in a warm, lush place, like a rain forest. There was soft music playing, and all the ghosts gathered to watch, like it was a performance. Ella walked a path surrounded by white stones, up to a central platform where she lifted her face to the sky.”

As I say that, I do it. I close my eyes and raise my face into the sun, basking in its warmth in the way only the Living can do. It's a pleasure that feels even sweeter because I couldn't feel it—this earthly sensation—when I was almost dead. I let the rays soak into my skin, and run my hands through my hair. Carson's silent, still transfixed as she keeps her eyes on the road and her mind on my story. And I continue.

“There was a shining light, and thousands of sparkles dancing around Ella, enveloping her. The spirits were playing mbiras, these
instruments that mimic a rainfall and usher the dead into the next world.”

Remembering it all, reliving it in my mind, makes me long for that world as well, for that feeling of complete rest. Life and the After, both so rich and vivid, tug at my insides. “It was like magic,” I say. “I felt a tranquility, a peace I'd never known. It actually made me cry.”

“Wow, Callie. That sounds beautiful. I mean, angels-singing, gates-of-Heaven beautiful. But better.”

“It was.”

“So that's what all the ghosts do, eventually?” she asks. “They merge in this ceremony and then . . . what comes next? What's Solus?”

“It's a leap of faith.” I'm quoting Thatcher again, and for a moment it's like he's sitting in the backseat, happily going on this weird road trip with us. “Solus is the heart of the universe—it's where we all belong.”

“And that's where Thatcher will be, once we talk to Wendy.”

I feel a pang of guilt at not being straight with Carson, not telling her the real reason we need to see Wendy. But I tell myself I'm going to come clean soon, when we know more about what we're really up against.

“Hopefully.” I turn the radio up, not wanting to dwell on the thought of Thatcher merging. Maybe after the poltergeists are gone, maybe then, I can think about how to help him, and Wendy. But it would mean saying a true, final good-bye. And I'm not ready yet.

“You okay?” asks Carson.

I nod, just as my phone sounds—I silence my father's ring.

“Your dad?” asks Carson.

“Yup.” I glance at the clock: 8:04 and I'm not in homeroom. The school probably called him.

“Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission,” says my usually good-girl best friend.

“Carson Jenkins, you're becoming a badass.”

She smiles and raises her sunglasses, batting her eyes at me. “In the name of love? I'll do anything.”

Carson pulls up in front of a brick building with enormous old windows and a pretty garden out front. “This is Wendy's dorm,” she says.

I look around and the campus is flecked with palmettos, the South Carolina state tree, and the grass is trim and bright, welcoming students back to campus with a lush green spirit. The brick buildings give off a stately air, each entrance announced with regal white columns. There are some boys to our left throwing a football out on the quad and two girls in retro-style bikinis are applying more sunscreen on our right. I look out at the buzz of the campus, and a surge of gratitude washes over me—I will do this. I will go to college, and live my life. I feel sad for all of those who won't. For Thatcher, of course, but also Reena and Leo and everyone I met who died young.