I focused harder on Joshua. Although he couldn’t know what I’d just been thinking, he stared intently back into my eyes. After a few more seconds of this acute silence, Joshua ducked his head and looked down at the bedspread. He started to fidget, rubbing a loose fiber on his jeans. Mimicking him, I plucked at my skirt.

In our silence I read a few subtle changes. I couldn’t speak for Joshua, but I felt as though we’d just shared something very intimate. More intimate than anything we’d experienced up to this point.

Joshua cleared his throat and moved to fiddle with the MP3 player again, maybe in an attempt to ease the tension. He turned on a song I almost immediately recognized: a soft violin concerto. Vivaldi. I smiled slightly as Joshua curled away from the machine and back onto the bed.

“I like this one.”

“I figured, since I like it so much too.” He gave me a timid smile. “Good music to sleep to.”

At the word “sleep,” I frowned and moved to get off the bed.

“Should I go now . . . ?”

“No,” Joshua said, reaching out to me. “Stay. Talk with me.”

I was more than happy to comply. I pulled myself farther onto the comforter and wrapped my legs back under me.

We talked for hours, sitting curled up together on his bed, quieting only when we heard another member of his family pass by the door. As we talked, we began to shift positions. At some point he removed his shoes and stretched out fully on the bed. I stretched out next to him, propped upon one elbow, watching as his eyelids slowly began to droop. Finally, well past two a.m., Joshua rolled over to click out the lantern light on his bedside table. He dropped his head back onto his pillow and shut his eyes.

I could still see his face in the dark, enough to watch him fading in and out of consciousness. Before he faded entirely, I wanted to ask him one more question.

“Joshua?” I whispered.

“Mm?”

“You never really explained why I’m supposed to call you Joshua when no one else does.”

“I didn’t?” His words came out muffled, mainly because as he said them, he rolled over to face me. It would only take a little movement for him to brush against me, to ignite the flames across my skin again.

I shook my head, trying to force some sense back into it. “No, you didn’t.”

Thank God Joshua was almost asleep, because he clearly didn’t notice the ridiculous squeak in my voice. I scolded myself internally, telling myself to stop acting like an idiot every time he came close to touching me.

Joshua’s mumble broke into my thoughts. “The people I care most about in the world . . . they get to call me Joshua.”

“So . . . I’m one of those people? The ones you care most about?”

The stupid squeak snuck back into my hopeful whisper.

“Mm-hmm.” A faint smile played on Joshua’s lips. Keeping his eyes closed, he draped one arm over my waist. I couldn’t feel anything more than a faint pressure, but . . . still. Joshua’s arm was around me. In bed.

I coughed to rid myself of the squeak and then launched into the most inane follow-up question I could think of.

“Um . . . I’ve got one more question. A weird one.”

“Shoot,” he said without opening his eyes.

“It’s really weird,” I warned him.

He groaned and cracked open one eye to stare at me. He lifted one eyebrow lazily, as if he was too exhausted for even this minor gesture. I sighed, and hurried with the question.

“I was just wondering: can you smell me?”

“Huh?” He opened both eyes now, albeit narrowly.

“See, I—I don’t usually smell things,” I stuttered, embarrassed. “And I, uh . . . I smelled you today. Twice.”

“Really?” The eyebrow rose again. “What was that like?”

“Nice.”

“Huh. You know what else is weird?” He yawned the question, eyes drooping closed again. “I can’t usually smell you, either. Only every now and then.”

“And what’s that like?” I repeated his question, trying to keep my tone casual while praying I didn’t smell like ectoplasm or rotting trees or something.

“Nice,” he murmured. “Sweet. Like peaches, or nectarines.”

In the dark, with his eyes shut, Joshua couldn’t see the smile radiating across my face.

“That is nice,” I whispered before settling down beside him, still tucked under his arm.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter

Nineteen

While the night shifted into morning and Joshua slept on, my thoughts returned, unwillingly, to Eli.

I took Ruth very seriously when she’d said “We’re coming for you.” She and her friends—fellow Seers, no doubt—wanted to end my afterlife as I knew it. So I needed to find some way to defend myself against them, and soon. But I had the strangest feeling I couldn’t do that until I gained more information about my ghostly nature. I needed to know how ghosts really interacted with the living world. I needed to know about my nightmares, and possibly my death. And I needed to know whether Eli had trapped my father in the netherworld with the other frantic, whispering souls.

Ruth had denied me this information yesterday, leaving me with only one remaining resource. As much as I hated to admit it, and as carefully as I would have to behave around him, Eli probably held the answers to some of my most desperate questions. Ones I had to obtain before Ruth and her friends made the task impossible.

The more I thought about it, the more my resolve solidified. Near dawn, I bent over Joshua’s ear.

“Joshua?” I whispered.

“Mm.”

Watching his peaceful face, I decided to risk an endearment. “Joshua, sweetheart, I have to do something today.”

“Mm?”

“I have to go find out a few more things. I’m not sure how long this . . . errand . . . will take, but I think it’s important. We can’t fight off the other Seers if we don’t know as much as possible, can we?”

“No,” he mumbled. Despite the assent, however, he was clearly still asleep.

“Glad to know you’re on board,” I whispered, smiling. “Can you meet me here tonight, around dark?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I smiled wider as his forehead creased. The motion made him look as if he took the promise seriously, even in sleep. I stared at him for a moment longer and then leaned closer. Gently, I pressed my lips to his forehead, just above his eyebrow.

The heat of the little kiss spread across my lips, turning them into two smoldering coals. I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the feel of it. Then I pushed myself off the bed. I crossed the bedroom and, pausing at the door Joshua had left partly open, looked back at him.

“See you soon,” I whispered. I bit my lip; and, in a moment of sheer abandon, I added, “I think I might . . . you know . . . love you, by the way.”

“Too,” Joshua whispered back groggily. “Love.”

He was asleep, and the words meant nothing, I knew. But the knowledge didn’t stop me from stifling a shout of joy as I slipped out of the room. I tried very hard not to skip down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Only when I reached the back door did my mood sink. Actually, “sink” was too delicate a word. “Plummet,” perhaps, better fit the situation.

Because, bent over a magazine at the kitchen island and casually flipping pages, was Ruth.

When I entered the kitchen, Ruth’s head remained down, the dawn sun bright in her white hair. She looked as if she hadn’t heard me approach. I hoped that if I just tiptoed very softly past the island to the back hallway, I might go unnoticed. I wasn’t surprised, however, when Ruth’s voice stopped me short.

“You know,” she mused without looking up from her magazine, “I could have sworn I made my feelings on your relationship with my grandson quite clear.”