I pressed my teeth firmly to my bottom lip, refusing to answer.
“Yet,” Ruth went on without needing my response, “here you are.”
She flipped the last page of the magazine shut and finally looked up, focusing those cold eyes upon me. For a moment I didn’t move. Didn’t react. Then, slowly, I nodded.
“Yes. Here I am.”
Ruth sighed. “And why is that?”
I composed my face into what I hoped was a determined expression. “Because I was invited, Ruth.”
“Not by the person who counts.”
“I’m not scared of you.” I gave myself a gigantic, internal high five when my voice didn’t waver.
In an instant Ruth stood, her hands gripped to the edge of the island and a tight smile on her lips. “You should be scared,” she whispered.
Suddenly, a vicious headache hit me, similar to the one I’d experienced yesterday outside the church.
Similar, but not identical. Because this headache was far, far worse.
It exploded in my head, a searing pain that spread down my neck and crashed behind my eyes. I shut my eyes tight against it, but the effort didn’t provide any relief. After a few more seconds, I couldn’t help but drop to my knees and clutch both hands to my temples as if I could hold the ache at bay with sheer force.
The headache continued to expand as I cowered, blossoming in bright white flashes behind my eyes. The flashes pulsed like strobe lights in my brain, flaring in repetition until, abruptly, they changed.
Instead of white flashes, I saw the images, moving again in rapid succession against my eyelids. Like some kind of montage, switching so quickly from one image to the next that I could only catch one or two details from each: the crinkles around my father’s eyes; tall, swaying grass; a strand of my mother’s dark hair; the flash of lightning against something metal. The images sped and blurred until I could no longer distinguish any of their individual elements.
“Stop,” I moaned, wrapping my fingers so tightly into my hair that my scalp ached too.
To my shock, the headache immediately ended. The images vanished, and the pain evaporated so fast, it may never have been there at all.
Without removing my hands from my head, I opened my eyes to peek up at Ruth. She still stared at me with the tense smile, but now her dark eyes danced with something powerful, and malicious.
“Life flashing before your eyes, dear? That’s just a taste of what’s in store for you tomorrow night,” she whispered. She flicked her head toward the hallway behind me. “This house won’t be open to you again. Now, get out.”
I didn’t need any further instructions. I scrambled to my feet, nearly falling over them in the process, and fled through the hallway.
I had a brief moment of panic, uncertain as to how I’d get out of the Mayhews’ house without some sort of assistance. However, as my eyes scanned down the length of the back door, I found that assistance had already been provided.
On the floor, propped upright between the door and the jamb, stood an enormous book. Judging from its worn leather binding, the book was old and probably quite expensive. A wreath of drying herbs and flowers wrapped around the book, twining it shut. Scrawled upon its cover in gold I could just make out the words HOLY BIBLE.
Ruth’s work, no doubt. Some talisman to protect against anything sinister I might have planned. In its current position—wedged against the door in such a manner as to leave enough space for someone thin to pass through the doorway—the book also sent a clear message.
Leave, dead girl.
“Your wish is my command, Ruth,” I muttered shakily, and slipped through the opening.
I stood on the bank of the river and paced, unwilling to walk too close to the water’s edge but unwilling to stray too far away from it, either. The bank itself was empty of everything but me and a few chirping crickets.
“I’m here,” I called out to the air, my voice echoing off the surface of the river. “You said I’d come back to talk, and you were right. So let’s talk.”
Only the rustle of the leaves answered me. I sighed and began to pace more forcefully.
“Hello? Anyone out there? Do I have to do a rain dance or something?”
“Only if you want it to rain.”
Cold air swept over me in a wave, rolling up my body until it finally crested against the sensitive skin of my bare shoulders and neck. I wanted to shiver, but I wanted to present a powerful front to Eli more. So I kept my face expressionless, ambivalent, as I turned around.
Eli stood alongside the riverbank, where only moments before there had been nothing but tall grass and mud. He crossed his arms over his chest—mirroring the position I’d inadvertently taken as he approached—and leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin.
“Hey, Amelia.”
“Hey, Eli,” I answered, obviously in a less amused tone.
“So,” he said with a barely concealed laugh in his voice. “What can I do for you on this fine morning?”
Looking at his smug grin, I lost a fraction of my confidence. But I forced myself to clear my throat and straighten my backbone. “I have some questions for you.”
“Such as?”
The genuine curiosity in his tone, which was usually so smug, surprised me. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as difficult as I’d anticipated? This unexpected turn disoriented me, and I blurted out the first question that came to mind.
“How did you get here so fast? This place was empty a few seconds ago.”
Eli shrugged. “I materialized.”
“You what?”
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his tight jeans and strolled closer to me. “Haven’t you ever noticed, during times of stress or excitement, you’re able to travel? To move through time and space at will?”
I frowned. “Um . . . not exactly.”
Eli stopped only a foot from me, tisk-tisking. “You really should take more time to notice these things, Amelia.”
I scowled heavily. There was the smugness with which I was already so familiar. “Why don’t you take time to be a little less condescending, Eli? Otherwise, I’m leaving.”
He tisked again. “Didn’t you invite me here?”
“Yeah, but I can just as easily uninvite you.”
“I don’t doubt you can.” Then his smile faded, and he tilted his head to one side, giving me a quizzical sort of look. “You know, I’m very interested in seeing exactly what you can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, “we all have abilities—and by ‘we’ I mean the dead. You’re no exception, I’m sure.”
“Abilities? Like being able to move through time and space at will?”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s one of the more common abilities. But really, Amelia, this shouldn’t be news to you. I’ve seen plenty of your materializations, each time you disappeared.”
I blinked, taken completely aback. What on earth was he talking about? I’d never “materialized,” whatever that meant.
Then proverbial lightning hit me.
The nightmares.
My nightmares were actually materializations? And they were something potentially controllable, through extreme emotion? Here was one of the potential answers I sought, then.
I looked up at Eli, unable to hide my excitement. “What else can we do?”
Immediately, I cursed my own stupidity.
Seeing the glimmer in my eyes, Eli grinned; and, at that moment, I could read it on every line of his face: he knew he had the upper hand. I wanted his knowledge, desperately, so I was his captive audience. At least for now.
“If you want me to answer your questions,” he said with that smug note still in his voice, “my help obviously comes with conditions.”
“Obviously.”
Eli nodded, and I felt suddenly like this nod had sealed some kind of deal. One I wasn’t sure I really wanted to make. Too late for me to recall my request, however; Eli clasped his hands behind his back and turned to stomp off into the woods.