Page 47 of The Devil and His Ghost

She laughed and bounced on her feet. I got us ice skates from the front while Kendyll propped Nightly in a chair to face the rink. While she got settled in a chair to put her skates on, I stepped onto the ice with my own. I skated leisurely, circling around the ice and zig-zagging through invisible obstacles. Catsper joined me, his spectral body sliding this way and that along the ice.

“You look fantastic.”

I turned at the sound of Kendyll’s voice. She was still seated at the table, watching me as I moved across the ice like a seasoned skater.

“Can you do any tricks?” she asked. “You know, like any spins or the things figure skaters do?”

Shoulders straightening with confidence, I circled the rink and picked up speed. “You sure your heart can handle the sight? You might fall head over heels for me if I become any cooler.”

She laughed, but before she could respond, my muscles readied before kicking off the ice in a triple spin. I landed on one foot and glided backward without an ounce of hesitation or buckling of the leg.

She clapped hard. “Oh my gosh! Amazing!”

I couldn’t wipe the proud smile off my face even if I wanted to. “Get your ass out here and maybe you can do it one day, too.”

I raised a finger, and with the motion, shadows wrapped around her like rope. The substance hoisted her into the air, which made her let out a surprised gasp. I moved my hand toward the rink, and the obedient shadow followed, carrying Kendyll through the air and depositing her onto the ice by the waist-high wall. She wobbled immediately and gripped the wall with both hands while her braid fell over her shoulder.

I skated closer so that I stood in front of her.

She peered up at me through her glasses with flushed cheeks and a nervous smile. “This is hard.”

“You haven’t even let go of the wall, yet.”

“I will absolutely fall if I do.”

Shaking my head, I led Kendyll through skating, explaining how to keep balance, how to angle her feet, how to move and stop. She watched me skate around the rink during my instructions, inching along the ice with the support of the wall.

“Look. Even Catsper can do it,” I told her.

As if to punctuate my point, Catsper drifted by between us, twirling in small circles as he went.

“Catsper is on all fours and not balancing on death blades,” she argued breathlessly as she tried pulling herself forward with the wall. “Not to mention, he’s already dead and has nothing to fear should he fall.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Just take your time,” I said as I did laps around Catsper’s fluffy black body. “We’ve got all night.”

When I’d said Kendyll would look like a newborn giraffe, I’d only been teasing, but as I watched her try to skate while clinging to the wall with one hand, remorse weighed down my shoulders. That was an insult to giraffes. I was as frozen as the ice beneath my blades, watching in utter bafflement as she continued to flail and wobble and screech.

“I’m so impressed,” I confessed with my mouth opened slightly in awe.

“Wh—Why—Ahh!”

She nearly collapsed with a scream. Her legs went different directions to create a dangerously wide V. She breathlessly gripped the rink wall and pulled herself back up, practically climbing on top of it.

“It’s just spectacular how bad you are,” I explained while skating backward. I rubbed my chin thoughtfully while watching her struggle.

She ignored me, refocusing on trying to skate by the wall with only one hand for support. “I can do it. I can do it.”

“Sure.” I cut across the ice with a hop and spin before weaving back toward her and drifting past. “Maybe in a hundred years.”

I reached the opposite end of the rink and looked over my shoulder just as she released the wall with a foreboding wobble and tested a skate forward with no aid. “I’ve—I’ve got it. I’ve—”

She gasped as her body pitched forward and backward. Her arms pinwheeled wildly as she started to fall forward. With a hard push against the ice, I raced toward her. Her legs went behind her, and her front fell forward. Her face pressed into the sudden appearance of my chest while my arms wrapped firmly under her arms.

“Got you,” I told her while releasing the hard breath I hadn’t realized I’d taken.

The lower half of her face was still pressed into my torso, and her glasses had gone crooked. She peered up at me through the askew frames while trying but failing to get her legs underneath her.