“Oy, Sleeping Beauty! Rise and shine.” A hard poke in Wendy’s side jostled her awake.
Blurrily, Wendy squinted up at the figure hulking over her bed. Her head felt fuzzy, full, and her mouth tasted like a skunk had crawled in there and died in the night. The remnants of a horrible dream echoed at the edge of her waking thoughts. “Dad?”
“Already took off.” Another hard poke, this one just under her ribs, and with it came the smell of bacon. “Come on, Wendy, get up! Eddie’s waiting downstairs.”
“Jon, come on, cut it out,” Wendy grumbled at her younger brother, rubbing the grit out of her eyes. “Man, that was a crappy dream. Where’s Chel?”
“Michelle is downstairs making breakfast,” Jon said stiffly, taking a bite out of a truly gigantic breakfast burrito. He spoke around his mouthful with difficulty, holding up a hand to keep from spraying her with food. “There’s eggs left, I think, if you want ’em.”
“Oh for… are you two still fighting?” She flung off her comforter, checked her watch, and groaned. “He’s early. Probably knew I’d sleep in.” Stumbling to her closet Wendy grabbed tattered jeans, her favorite corset, and a sports bra to tuck in her bag. Today was Thursday, which meant gym. Wendy grimaced. She hated to sweat.
“Grab my boots from under the bed, will ya?”
Jon shoved the rest of the burrito into his mouth until he was chipmunk-cheeked, hunkered down, peered under the dust ruffle, and pulled out a chunky lime-green platform. “These?”
“No, the Vietnam jump boots uncle Randy left. The ones with the red ribbons to lace ’em together.”
“There’s like three of them,” complained Jon, sitting back on his heels and pushing his carroty mop off his face. “You are such a shoe fiend. Little more specific please?”
“Oh for… here, shove over. Watch.” Wendy dropped beside her brother and stretched as far as she could, pointing to a set of boots way at the back. Jabber was under the bed but she had no worries about Jon noticing him—her brother couldn’t see ghosts. “Those. Right there. Go get ’em, Stretch.”
“Shut up,” Jon muttered, blushing, but he obligingly buried himself under the bed to snag her boots for her. He’d shot up over the summer, going from the shortest kid in his middle school to the tallest freshman at MVHS. The Spartans wanted him on the team but, while he enjoyed shooting hoops in the backyard, he was miserable at actual basketball and had flubbed the tryouts.
Despite his two left feet and numerous double dribbles, Coach Cory had still offered Jon a second-string place and the opportunity to get better. But Jon was shy and bookish, hunched over and unhappy with his sudden height and sloping gut. He declined gracefully. Wendy would watch him some nights, though, playing Horse alone, and she didn’t miss the longing there. Jon had recently begun eating half their weekly grocery budget by himself.
“You know,” Wendy said, expertly slipping into the corset under her shirt while Jon sucked in his gut and struggled to reach her shoes, “Chel didn’t mean half the stuff she said last week.”
“Yes she did,” came the muffled reply from beneath the bed. Her boots flipped out to the middle of the floor, and Jon wormed his way backwards from underneath the bed. He surfaced, red faced and dusty. “Just cuz she regrets it now doesn’t mean that she didn’t mean it then.”
“Look, girls are weird,” Wendy tried again as she fastened the last hook on the corset. “I know I was, freshman year.” She grabbed her jeans and wiggled into them, inwardly cursing her stupid hips. Sucking in, she flopped backwards on the bed and forced the zipper up, buttoning quickly as soon as she was able. They’d soften and loosen over the day, but struggling into jeans in the morning was always the worst.
“Don’t you dare tell her I said this, but they’ll break up and then Chel’ll be liveable again,” she added. Fully dressed, Wendy slid her nightshirt over her head and threw it at her laundry hamper. It missed.
“Don’t care,” Jon muttered. “You gonna eat the eggs, or what?”
“Fine, whatever. I don’t have time for this.” Wendy pawed through her drawers for socks and a light jacket. She’d found getting away with corsets as a top at school was much easier when there was a jacket always on hand. “You two figure it out yourselves. Is there any toast?”
“Wheat, yeah. Is that all you want? No eggs?”
“Nah. Be the best brother in the whole wide world and grab me a slice? I got in late.”
“I heard.” The finality in Jon’s voice caused Wendy to pause in the middle of pulling on her socks and look up. He was frowning deeply, pale and still. “Dad was asking us yesterday if we knew if you were up to anything, you know, skeezy.”
“Great,” Wendy muttered, tapping her tongue ring against the backs of her front teeth in irritation. “Thanks for the advance warning.”
“I can’t believe he’d think Eddie and you do drugs, and then he completely misses Chel’s…you know.” Jon threw his hands in the air. “You’re the biggest prude I know. Dad’s just been…weird, lately, you know? I mean, come on, I’ve had more dates than you.”
“Okay, got your point, you can stop now.” Wendy yanked on her boots. “Have you seen my makeup case? The black one?”
“Chel borrowed it. I think it’s in the bathroom.” Jon let her push past him and then ambled down the stairs. “Butter on your toast?”
“Please!” she called. “Hey Eddie!”
“Hey what?” he yelled from downstairs.
“How we doing on time?”
There was a pause as Eddie checked his watch. “Don’t cake it on, princess, and we’ll be right as rain!”
The bathroom was bare of her makeup and Wendy didn’t feel like wading through the fashionista disaster zone that was Chel’s bedroom. Muttering, “Hell, who needs lipstick anyway?” Wendy grabbed her backpack and rushed down the stairs.
“Perfect timing,” Eddie crowed, planting a kiss on her cheek as she hit the last step. “You’ve chosen to go au naturale, I see. Daring, but elegantly done.” He took her by the hand and bowed over it, brushing warm lips across her knuckles. She shivered faintly at the touch and quickly squelched the warmth pooling in her gut. “My lady, your chariot awaits.”
“You’re so weird,” Chel said, bumping Eddie with her bag as she shoved her way out the front door. One of her poms dropped on the porch; Jon picked it up and she snatched it from him without comment. He took a large bite out of his second breakfast burrito in response.
“Ah, the buffy disapproves,” Eddie said to Jon, clapping him on the shoulder as Chel threw her things in the back of his Cabriolet and slid into the back seat. “Luck is with us this fine morning. Like the groundhog not seeing his shadow or rain on your wedding day, a disapproving buffy means that all is right in the world.”
“Toast, please,” Wendy demanded, ruffling Jon’s carrot-top with her free hand. He took her backpack from her so she could lock the front door.
The ride to school was quiet except for Chel’s low-pitched chattering into her cell phone the entire way. Low squeals of “No, you stop!” punctuated by high-pitched giggles grated on Wendy’s worn nerves fairly quickly. Every time she glanced in the side mirror she would catch glimpses of Jon’s miserable expression.
“Chel!” she finally said, turning in her seat and glaring at her younger sister. “You’ll see them in five minutes. Turn the damn thing off, or I swear I’m going to dump all your hair crap down the sink. Fast as your hair grows, you’ll have roots in a week.” She put on her best I mean it face and met her sister’s furious stare unflinchingly.
“Excuse me, Marc, bitch alert. I’ll see you in ten. Yeah, love you too. Byyyyeee.” Snapping her cell closed, Chel shoved it deep in her purse, crossed her arms over her chest, and said snidely, “Happy now?”
“Very. Thank you.” Wendy plopped back in her seat.
“You wouldn’t have done it,” Chel added, leaning forward. “Dad paid for my peroxide for my birthday. It’s super expensive. He’d be totally pissed off.” Her watch beeped. Smirking at Wendy, Chel reached into her purse, rifled until she came up with a bottle of pills, and dry swallowed one quickly, grimacing at the taste.
“Look, Malibu Barbie, no one here wants to hear about what your loser boyfriend had for breakfast, okay? You share that cell plan with Jon, so quit running up all the minutes. Text if you have to, but just be quiet.”
“Like he has anyone to talk to,” Chel grumbled under her breath. Her watch beeped again and she groaned. “Damn, I forgot my multi.”
“You really ought to open a pharmacy out of your purse,” Wendy said. “I bet you’d make a bundle.”
“Eddie,” Chel sneered, grabbing Jon’s water bottle and chugging several quick gulps to wash down the vitamin, “why don’t you just get in her pants already so she’ll lay off the rest of us? Being that frigid just can’t be good for her health. Also? Way annoying.”
“Here we go,” Jon muttered and sank as deeply as he could into the corner of the seat.
Wendy’s jaw dropped and it took all her willpower not to slap her younger sister across the face. She turned in the seat and gripped the headrest so hard her knuckles turned white. “Excuse me, you little—”
“Hey, what-do-ya-know,” Eddie broke in, pulling into the parking lot and angling towards a space in the back row, “we’re at school! Look everyone, an educational institute!”
“Thanks for the ride, Eddie,” Jon gasped, grabbing his backpack and flinging himself over the edge of the car before it had completely stopped. Pulling out his wallet, Jon hurried towards the cafeteria doors, jogging in his haste.
“Get out,” Wendy said tightly to Chel as Eddie parked the car. “Get out and get to class before I forget you’re my sister.” She turned back to the windshield, squared her shoulders, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes. Licking her lips, she ran over her schedule for the day in her mind. Meanwhile, in the parking lot, car doors slammed and students cat-called. The Cabriolet vibrated when Chel, pushing roughly past Eddie, made her exit, slamming his door as loud as she could. The engine cooled, ticking loudly.
Eddie shifted in his seat. “She’s gone.”
“I know.” Wendy sucked the top of her tongue ring in irritation, rolling the ball at the end against the roof of her mouth.
“It’s just a phase…I think.”
“I know that, too.”
He touched her shoulder gingerly, brushing a few of her curls off her cheek. “Wendy—”
“Don’t. We’ve been over it.” Wendy leaned forward, eyes still closed, and pressed the heels of her hands into her temples. “She has no idea what’s going on. All she knows is Dad’s not here and Mom’s in the hospital and Jon can’t get two words out around her without pissing her off. She’s a nightmare and I’m getting to where I’ve had enough, you know?”
“She doesn’t mean it.”
“I know.” Wendy took several deep, cleansing breaths, and sat back. When she opened her eyes Eddie was still there, hand on the armrest, fingers curled upward. Wendy settled her hand in his tentatively, and he gently closed his fingers around hers, as if she were a delicate creation he might crush if he held her too hard.
“You’ve always got me,” Eddie reminded her.
She sighed. “No I don’t. Not really. Not the way I need…someone. But not you.”
“I do love you, you know,” he offered, almost off-handly. Wendy glanced at him but his eyes were trained at thin clouds puffing across the sky. “You’re totally hot. And my best friend. Two birds and all. Plus you’re kinda awesome.”
“We’ve been over this,” she said again but it came out more of a question, hesitant and soft. “It wouldn’t work, remember?”
Eddie slanted a look at her and Wendy’s heart thrummed for just a moment, a quick staccato beat against her ribs. He was handsome, there was no doubt about that, with a quicksilver smile and even features, a wrestler’s compact muscles and hair silky against his neck. Due to the most recent batch of dye, the black had faded to silver, giving him an ethereal look, and the few blond highlights that remained caught the sun like molten gold.
“Have we?” He squeezed her hand. He twisted so that he was facing her and reached out, stroking her right cheek with fingertips calloused from years of rough work in his uncle’s garage. “You decided it wouldn’t work and we’ve never even kissed. How do you know for sure?”
Chest throbbing, Wendy leaned her cheek into his touch, loving the warmth of him and the delicate way those talented fingers stroked a path from the cup of her ear to the curve of her chin, cupping her face and drawing her forward. His breath fanned across her lips, smelling of citrus and honey and Wendy trembled, hesitating on the brink of what she’d wanted for years.
“I can’t,” she mouthed and then, with more force, said aloud, “I can’t.”
“You won’t,” he corrected, sitting back. He seemed mellow though, unoffended at her refusal. “Not the same thing.”
“Eddie, I go out and look for my mom’s soul every damn night.” She held up her scraped hand and the opposing wrist, exposing the deep scratch left over from the tussle with the two Walkers from the night before. “It hurts me, okay? I get hurt.”
“Wendy—”
“This job, this thing I have to do, it’s not fun or easy or romantic. What in the hell makes you think that a relationship between us would do anything but complicate my life?”
“First of all, I’m not asking for a relationship, you are.” Eddie held his hands up to stall her reply. “And before you get on your high horse, it’s not that no one wants to date you. Lots of guys totally do.”
“Right, whatever.” Wendy rolled her eyes, but felt the flush work up her neck. “Everyone wants to date the class freak. Sure they do.”
“Oh please. Shut up. I’m making a point here.”
“Oh yeah? And that point is?”
“The point is that you don’t have to date, Wendy. This is the real world, right? There doesn’t need to be some intense connection. You don’t need to be wearing some guy’s jacket or whatever to, you know, blow off steam, have a little fun. Especially not with me.” He reached out, captured her fingers again, and squeezed her hand. “I am more than willing to consider less…permanent…options. For now.”
“Blowing off something,” she muttered under her breath as she sat back.
“I heard that, you perv. Secondly, maybe Chel’s got a point. You’re really wound up. I mean, okay, I’ll admit, if you went for one of those losers I’d be jealous as hell, but…but it doesn’t have to be me, I know that.”
Wendy slouched in the seat, turned her face away. “Oh yeah? If not you, then who?”
“Please. You’ve got that whole bad-girl gothette vibe going for you, and some people—not me of course, because I myself am a goth god—but there are some dudes who find that vibe, likewise you, sexy as hell. They’d stick around even if shit got a little weird. Who doesn’t like a little mystery?”
“Reaping. The. Dead. Eddie.”
“So? They don’t have to know about it.”
“Right, like I’m supposed to Bruce Wayne my way through a relationship? I see a soul, maybe my mom’s, and then I’m supposed to be all, ‘Excuse me, honey, I just remembered that my house is on fire. Gotta go!’” Wendy snorted. “Not bloody likely.”
“Do you have to go send every soul you see into the Light?” He slapped the wheel, exasperated. “I mean, can’t you just let a couple of them slide?”
“I do let them go. I told you, I don’t reap unless I have to now,” Wendy snapped. “It’s not like I’m in this for the glory, Eddie, and I don’t want them noticing me any more than…any more than they want me noticing them, but sometimes…sometimes there’s no choice. Some of them,” she shuddered, “some of the ghosts aren’t right. Some of them scare me.”
Though she’d tried to explain before, Wendy knew she’d never have the words for the horrors Eddie couldn’t see. He’d been in the operating room after the accident; he hadn’t been there when she’d spotted her first Walker.
The ambulance came shortly after Piotr left her, shivering and lonely, hunched in the back of the police car. The paramedics looked her over and escorted her into the back, driving quietly to El Camino Hospital, where they left her in the ER to await medical attention. Her mother was an EMT so most of the ER nurses knew Wendy on sight. After she’d been declared bruised but intact, the nurses sat her in a corner bed and pulled the curtain, giving her privacy while she waited for her mother.
It was spooky sitting there, shrouded behind the green fabric. Wendy hopped down and opened the curtain a large crack before crawling back onto the table. Bored, she began watching ghosts wander by. Piotr had promised that the ability to see ghosts would fade but so far it hadn’t. The shock of the accident had peeled back some protective layer in Wendy’s mind, leaving her exposed to a different level of the world—a darker, colder place.
It didn’t take Wendy long to figure out that only a small fraction of the ghosts seemed to realize that they were dead; they drifted from nurse to nurse, touching elbows and asking plaintive questions like “Where am I?” or “What happened?” They shuffled amid the staff, repeating their queries over and over again until Wendy thought she’d be driven mad by the soft, insistent questions. The rest just drifted, ignoring the living and the dead alike, lost in their own tragedies and oblivious to the world around them.
After awhile, she began keeping tally, wetting her finger and marking the paper beneath her legs when a specific sort of ghost wandered by. There were a very large number of elderly ghosts—men and women with wispy fly-away hair and age-spotted hands—most clad in hospital gowns or faded pajamas, and some sporting tubes in their noses or dangling around their necks, though the tubes faded into nothing just past their chests. There were fewer middle-aged spirits and even fewer ghosts in their twenties or thirties. She only spotted one child ghost, who was quickly swallowed by a wash of brilliant light as the orderlies rushed a gore-splattered gurney by her bed on the way to an operating room. There were no teenage ghosts in sight.
From the navel of each ghost dangled a thick silver-white cord, a twisted rope of pale, shimmering light; the cord hung between their knees and moved as they did, like moonlit seaweed shifting with the tide. The ends of some cords were severed cleanly, as if cut with a scalpel, while others broke off in ragged edges, thin and wavering as they shifted their weight. An hour into her stay, while Wendy watched, three spirits who’d come in from another car wreck faded before her eyes. Their cords had been neatly severed and they seemed glad to flee into the warm wash of light.
One ghost, however, did not wander in aimless circles. He moved through the ER rapidly, peering behind each curtain as if seeking someone specific. His middle was nearly bare—only the slimmest of cords dangled from his navel, black and sickly looking, rotted mostly through. Unlike the others, who appeared as paler, more transparent versions of the people they must have been in life, this ghost was bleached of color and stretched, thin and tall and hovering as he moved from curtain to curtain.
His face was a rotting horror.
This ghost in particular scared her, and when he approached her curtain Wendy instinctively ducked her head and buried her face in her hands.
Piotr, she thought desperately. Piotr, help! But Piotr was not there to hold her hand as he had before; she was alone. Wendy could feel the cold baking off this ghost in a shimmering cold-wave, like an icy version of summertime highway gridlock. The ghost hovered near her for several minutes, circling her like a jackal might circle its prey, wet snuffling noises filling the tiny space, before finally continuing its rapid progress through the ER.
No sooner had it gone than her curtain yanked back and her mother was there, arms wrapping tightly around her and the sweet smell of honeysuckle filling her nose.
“Oh Wendy, baby,” her mother whispered, eyes tracking the ghost as it disappeared around a corner. “Don’t be scared, sweetie. It’s not a Walker yet. It can’t hurt you. Shhh. You’re safe. You’re safe with me.”
Startled, Wendy pulled away and searched her mother’s face. There was sorrow there, and guilt. Her mother knew, Wendy realized, about the ghosts and the white man who, sniffing like a dog, had circled her bed.
Somehow her mother knew, and Wendy was no longer alone.
Eddie was oblivious to Wendy drifting off in the middle of their conversation.
“So leave the scary ghosts alone. You don’t have to reap them. There’s always a choice.”
“No, Eddie, we’ve been over this.” Wendy crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the tree they’d parked under. “If I see a ghost, that means it’s trapped in limbo. Trapped, Eddie. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Do not move on to your next fucking life! They stay there, rotting slowly, going batshit crazy or worse, for centuries, unless they figure out a way to move on.”
“Or you help them move on. Like you used to.”
“Key phrase there. ‘Used to,’” Wendy said stiffly. “I try not to do that anymore. Not unless I have to.” Her hand curled into a loose fist in her lap. “I don’t have that kind of time.”
“You could give up. Stop searching. It’s not like you know for a fact your mom’s out there somewhere.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to be selfish and take that chance.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, I might find her again. Or I might not. It’s my mom, Eddie, I can’t give up on the chance she’s still out there somewhere.” Turning to him, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “What about your dad, huh? What if he’d been stuck there and I’d turned away. How’d you feel then?”
Eddie jerked away sharply. “Okay, chat’s done.”
“Ed—”
“Pulling my dead dad into this discussion is about as tasteful as throwing down Hitler in a fight, Wendy. You just don’t do it.”
“Look,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I just wanted to explain why I can’t have a normal relationship with you or with anyone. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Hell,” he said and grabbed her by the shoulders, yanked her forward, and kissed her. His lips ground against hers for several seconds, but there was little passion in it. It was simple angry punishment in the shape of her best friend’s mouth. Wendy, stunned by the onslaught, held still in his grip and slowly Eddie’s touch softened, his kiss deepened, and she could feel a damp spot on her cheek, warm and wet against her skin.
When he drew back they were both breathing raggedly, Eddie’s chest hitching softly, and Wendy trembling.
“Well,” she said, striving for lightness, “that was a jackass thing to do.”
“I know. I know! And you didn’t deserve that,” Eddie muttered, shamed, pressing his forehead against the wheel. He pounded the dashboard once, twice. “I’m sorry. I just…I—”
“I’m not mad about it,” she said evenly, letting her galloping heart slow before she dared open the door. “I said a shitty thing, you did a shitty thing, but we’re best friends. As far as I’m concerned we’re even. And stop beating up your car. Your mom’ll kill you.”
“Wendy—”
“Shush. ‘Grrr, me Tarzan, you Jane, so shut up, woman’ won’t cut it. I’ve known you since we were five and plus, it’s totally not hot. I’m not going anywhere, even if you did just try to cop a feel.”
Eddie half-laughed, grateful for her easy dismissal, and shook his head. The shock was fading from his eyes. “I only tried to cop a feel? I thought I scored a direct hit.”
“Whole lotta padding on this corset,” Wendy replied blithely. She knew she was letting Eddie off easy, but Wendy was tired of discussing it. Case closed.
“Darn, foiled again.” He rubbed his hands along the steering wheel. “My charms have failed. I shall have to soothe my wounded ego with another.”
Wendy rolled her eyes. “Please. You’re so hard up lately that you’d kiss a doorstop if it was halfway cute.” She made a kissy face at him and batted her eyes.
“True,” he said, shrugging. “I am an equal opportunity sort of Romeo.” He grinned then, slightly reddened eyes twinkling and teeth flashing in a heart-stoppingly dangerous way. “But we’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re stuck with me. BFFs for life, yo.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I keep you from being bored, you keep me sane. Also, yay, backrubs.”
Eddie chuckled, amused at her posturing. “BFFs are a given. But don’t you at least want to see what the fuss is all about?” He waved his hand between them. “I mean, romantically?”
“With you?” Wendy braced herself with a wide, bright grin, and then lied so hard it ached inside. “Nah.”
Eddie shook his head. “Now who’s pushing people away? You really need to follow my example and at least dip your toe in the dating pool…puddle. A dating teaspoon, even.”
Gathering up her purse, Wendy snorted in reply. “Isn’t dating a BFF’s ex a major debacle? Anyone I’d like, you’ve probably already been there and done that.”
“You wound me, dear. I’m not a total slut. Anymore.” Eddie popped the trunk to fetch his bag and Wendy slapped the button for the soft-top to cycle closed, waiting until all the latches were in place to fetch the rest of her own things. The first bell rang and Wendy hurried off, leaving Eddie, as usual, to catch up.
Part of her loved Eddie and always would, but he didn’t understand her situation. He’d already proven that he didn’t get why she felt so guilty and torn. Wendy grimaced. Eddie thought letting her mother stay missing was a good thing.
Wendy knew, Eddie or no, that she had to find her mom.
She owed her that much.