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“Okay.” I was confused why it was her that was here. Noah, I would understand. Benji too. But the ghosts from the school seemed more focused on themselves. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?”
She leaned in suddenly. I could feel her coldness. Her voice was louder. “We don’t have a lot of time. He’s coming and he won’t let me—look, I can heal you. Or help you heal faster.”
“What are you talking about? Who’s he?” But I was remembering. It was the same ominous way she talked about Lee’s house. She warned me from going there. She was talking about Noah, which made sense if he was coming with Lee.
Lee.
I didn’t want him to see me like this.
“What do you mean you can heal me?”
“I—” She hesitated. “I need to enter your body—”
“Fuck no!” Immediately, I was scowling.
“I know it sounds weird, but you can’t see, Cole. Don’t you want to be able to see? You, humans, heal so slowly. Plus, he’s coming soon. He won’t let me near you. It’s a ghost thing, okay? Like a cheat sheet. I won’t be able to completely heal you, but I can make it a lot better.”
“I don’t know, Sabine. It sounds wrong.”
“It’s not. Trust me,” she huffed. “But okay. I was just offering for you. Shelton made me promise to offer. That’s all. He was really worried after seeing what happened.”
I relaxed a little more at hearing that. That made sense. Shelton would be the one that would worry. “Really? It just helps me heal a little faster?”
“Yeah. I promised Shelton I’d try. It’s fine. I offered. You said no. I’ll go back to the school and let him know that I did try. He can leave me alone. My family still hasn’t come on the pathway so if I hurry, I can see them.”
Now I felt bad, knowing she stepped away from the The Witching Line for this.
I guess… “It’ll be fast? You step in and what?”
“That’s it. You have to welcome me in or it won’t work. I can only handle it for so long.”
“How long?”
“Well, your boyfriend is arriving soon so maybe two minutes? Tops.”
Two minutes didn’t sound unreasonable and if she could actually heal me, at least somewhat? It’d be nice to be able to walk and see again. And she was right. Healing took so long sometimes.
“Okay.” Gah. Was this a good idea?
“Okay?” She got quiet.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“You sure?”
“If it’s true what you’re saying. You’re not going to keep my body, are you? How does that work?”
“No. It’s not like that. It’s like if you need a cast for your broken arm, except I’m the cast and I go on the inside.”
I felt a cold start to sear inside of me. I gasped. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, but you’re fighting me.”
“You’re cold,” I snapped.
She sighed. “This isn’t going to work. Never mind. I need to go now if I’m going to try and catch my family.”
“Wait. Let’s try again. One more time. I’ll…I’ll try and welcome it.”
