I laughed with him, but our laughter felt somehow out of place. Joshua must have sensed this too, because his face once again grew serious.

“Are you okay, Amelia?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

“Yeah.” I sighed, and, for some inexplicable reason, I dropped my face back to his chest and sank farther into him. Maybe it was the sound of his rough voice that broke down my defenses, or maybe it was the simple act of resting for the first time this evening. Whatever the case, I was suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted.

Joshua moved his arm up my shoulder to wrap his hand around the nape of my neck, where he then threaded his fingers through my hair. Not for the first time, I thought about how much I absolutely loved the way that felt. A slight smile crept over my face, and I sighed again.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now,” Joshua murmured. “But I’ve got to at least ask: did you . . . save us?”

“I wouldn’t call it saving per se,” I said, pressing my face harder into his chest. “I would call it . . . spooking, maybe.”

“So, you spooked Eli away?”

I smiled grimly, although Joshua couldn’t see my face. “I didn’t. But he’s definitely been spooked away. Pretty effectively too, I think.”

“Good.”

The sound we heard next surprised both of us. A soft voice—hoarse from exhaustion and too much river water—croaked up at us from the bank.

“Amelia?”

I looked down at Jillian. She’d leaned up a few inches, onto her elbows, and she now stared directly at me. Her hazel eyes—almost feverish in the dark—met mine. The intensity of her stare seemed to hypnotize me.

“Yes,” I whispered back, more out of compulsion than anything else.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes, O’Reilly’s gone.”

“No, not O’Reilly. The blond one.”

I blinked in surprise. Jillian meant Eli. How had she known about Eli? She hadn’t even seen him, had she?

“Y-yes,” I stuttered. “The other one’s gone too.”

“Then . . . thank you.”

She gave me one weak nod. Then she closed her eyes and laid her head back down upon the muddy bank.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Epilogue

“I’d stop asking you if you’d stop being such a stupid jerk.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have to be a stupid jerk if you’d stop being a weirdo freak.”

I sighed heavily, leaned back against the wall, and splayed my fingers in front of me to study my nails for invisible dirt. I’d heard this argument so many times in the last two weeks that I could have had it alone, debating each ridiculous side by myself.

Yet Joshua and Jillian seemed intent on having it at least one more time.

While I hovered at the top of the stairs—more than ready to end this pointlessness and leave—Joshua stood in front of Jillian’s room with his hand clenched tight against the doorframe.

“Look,” he growled. “Considering everything Amelia did for you, you’re being . . . rude.”

Jillian simply gave her brother a cold smile and folded her arms across her chest.

“As far as I’m concerned, Josh, nobody but you did anything for me; and I’m not going to show you how grateful I am by pretending some imaginary person exists.”

“Oh, for the love of—!” Joshua released the doorframe and threw both of his hands up in the air. “Amelia is not imaginary. You saw her, the night she saved you. You talked to her, Jillian. And you can see her now, just like I can.”

Joshua pointed to me. Jillian’s eyes followed the line of her brother’s arm, all the way up to my face. I only had the briefest second to smile at her before her eyes flickered away again.

“Nope, nobody there.” She chanted the words in a singsong voice.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Joshua, this is useless. Just like it was useless last night, and three nights ago, and on and on . . .”

“It’s not useless, because Jillian’s going to come with us tonight.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this,” Jillian said through clenched teeth. “I’m not going to spend my Friday nights with you and Casper the Friendly Girlfriend.”

Joshua opened his mouth, in all likelihood to yell again, but I interrupted him.

“Look, Joshua, she clearly isn’t going to give in tonight, so can we please, please just go?”

“Yeah, Josh, listen to your imaginary friend and get out of here,” Jillian spat.

Joshua immediately began to crow, laughing and slapping his hand in triumph against the doorframe.

“Ha!” he cried. “I knew it! You can hear her, you big liar!”

Jillian’s mouth gaped like a trout’s. She glanced right at me again for a second. Then she shook her head violently, as if the motion would make me once more invisible to her. She grabbed the edge of her door and, with one last scowl, slammed it in Joshua’s face.

Even with a door in his face, Joshua continued to chuckle. He turned to flash me a broad grin.

“See? I told you she’d give in.”

“Sweetheart,” I said with another roll of my eyes, “she didn’t give you anything you didn’t already know. Besides, she’s a full Seer now, whether she likes it or not. And I’m pretty sure she’s not going to start making Save Amelia from Exorcism T-shirts whenever Ruth finally ends the truce. Even if Ruth did let me back in the house.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “Jillian and Ruth will like you. Eventually.”

Despite my strong doubts, I laughed too. “Joshua Mayhew, ever the sunny optimist.”

“Because my plans always work. You’ll see.”

“Speaking of mysterious plans . . . ,” I prompted, and then slipped my arm through the crook of his elbow. Joshua’s grin widened as he pulled me closer to him and led me down the stairs.

“I told you—it’s a surprise.”

“What, are you going to try to bring me back to life or something?” I pretended to sound hopeful. Well, at least, I sort of pretended.

Joshua, however, just laughed. “Give me time, Amelia. Give me time.”

I shook my head. “Joshua, normal people surprise each other on their birthdays, which we both know I no longer have.”

“All right. Then instead of giving you a present, how about I just ask you to destroy some public property again?”

I grimaced and squirmed uncomfortably against him. “Hey, I told you I don’t like talking about that.”

Joshua’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “I’m just saying, it’s probably going to take the county years to fix High Bridge.”

“I hope they never do,” I murmured. Then I smiled, shrugging. “Anyway, I told you, not going to talk about it. Period. End of discussion. Finis.”

What I didn’t say was that there were more than a few topics I now avoided. Such as Ruth’s thinly veiled hostility to my nightly presence in her home; Jillian’s impending induction into the Wilburton Seer community, which I basically saw as inevitable; or the near-constant worry I felt for my father when I thought about where, and by whom, his soul might be trapped.

And, of course, I wasn’t exactly ready to bring up all the impossibilities facing my relationship with Joshua himself, either. After all, we were, collectively, a Seer and a potential target for exorcism. A vibrant, living boy and a dead girl.

Not exactly an obvious, or easy, match.

Unaware of the dark thoughts that plagued me, Joshua gave me another mischievous grin. By now we’d reached the back door of the kitchen, and he playfully shoved me out the doorway.

Soon he had me safely deposited in his new vehicle—a used truck, painted a shiny black—while he drove us to some undisclosed destination. Upon his orders I slid all the way back against my seat (after muttering my protests for a solid five minutes) and pressed my hands against my eyes. Each time I tried to peek between my fingers, Joshua caught me and threatened me with the punishment of an entire trip spent listening to Jillian’s hip-hop playlist.