We share a look, and when he squeezes my hand, I almost feel like everything is going to be okay.
You know, except the freaky-ass ghost party we’re currently crashing kinda gets in the way of that.
“The Foster child fell sick this morning, too,” one of the ghosts near me says, walking past and sitting on the chaise next to the other.“That makes a dozen in the last two weeks.Doctor Grassley doesn’t seem to know what’s causing it, but with the fever and rash…” She trails off.
“There has to be something we can do to stop it from spreading,” a third ghost is saying, her face twisted with worry.“The Hanson boys recovered, but the Marley child… That poor family.”
“Stop what from spreading?”I ask, but they don’t seem to be able to hear me.
It’s like I’m witnessing a memory.
The music stops.
The back of my neck tingles with the feeling I’m being watched, and when I turn my attention away from Aiden’s face, my stomach turns leaden with dread.
All the ghosts are looking straight at me.
“Oh, shit.Shit, shit, shitshitshit.”I back up and Aiden pulls me closer, slightly angling his body in front of mine.“This cannot be good.”
“You.”They say it as one.
The ghosts, eleven of them—all women, I realize with a start—raise their hands, pointing at me, even as Aiden tries to shove me behind him.
Which part of me recognizes as an unbearably sweet gesture, and the other part of me is unbearably annoyed because truly, what does he think he’s going to do against a dozen ghost witches?
I blink.
That’s what they are—that’s what theyhave tobe.
Witches.
It rings through me with a truth that makes perfect sense and no sense all at once.
I know it in my bones.
“You’re the coven who sent me the book,” I say, stepping out from around Aiden and speaking more clearly than I would have thought possible, considering it’s freaking freezing-cold and I’m scared enough I could piss myself at any second.“What are you trying to tell me?”
They stare at me, their eyes all-seeing and sightless all at once, disturbing and infinite—and then somethingsnapsback into place.
The gramophone music picks back up, faster than before, and the scene around us blurs, the ghostly women all moving around as though they’ve been sped up.
My fingers are numb from gripping Aiden’s hand much too hard.
My breath comes in foggy clouds, the tip of my nose beyond cold, and I sidle closer to Aiden, needing his heat and to know someone else is here with me.
I’m not alone with this.
The women have formed a circle, their clothes slightly different, their hair different, too.
A different day, then.
I squint, a circle with a symbol inside it glowing on the floor.It’s not real—not here right now, at least—but I can feel its power, like it’s resonating through time.
The women—ghosts, I tell myself—are chanting, the sound forceful and pained and wrong.
“This isn’t right,” I tell Aiden, shaking my head.
Their chanting grows louder and Prudence hisses somewhere in my real kitchen where I cannot see her.
