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“No. No, we can’t,” Ling insisted.
“Ling, we don’t have a choice,” Theta said.
You did this. This is your fault. The choice is yours.
Six ghosts advanced on a yard where four men stood emptying their guns into the dead, to no avail.
“Go!” Sam said. The Diviners stiffened as they connected and blasted the ghosts apart. For just a moment, there was the familiar euphoria of victory. And then, something new.
“Oh, no…” Evie said.
In horror, they felt themselves connected to every ghost rampaging through the streets of Gideon. The pain of their attack rippled through them, knocking them back. What you do shall return threefold.
“I tried to tell you,” Ling said through her pain. “We’ve joined our power to theirs. All those ghosts we’ve been destroying? It’s only made them stronger!”
“Yes. Yes,” a voice hissed. “I’ve come for you, my love.” Elijah shuffled toward Theta. She screamed and searched for a safe place to run. The streets were overrun with the ravenous dead.
“I am not your love. And neither is Adelaide. I worked the spell. I bound you from doing harm.” Theta fell against the side of a truck.
Elijah took a step closer. He was the same gray as his moldering uniform. “You bound me to yourself. She will die soon. You will be my new love.”
“The hell I will.” Theta’s fear ignited her rage. There had been so many who’d tried to lay claim to her, promising her safety only to prove they were the monsters all along. “Stop!” Theta said. “Stop it!”
She pushed him away. Her hand went through his chest as if he were made of mud. He was far more solid than any ghost she’d encountered before. Theta screamed as his chest caught fire. Elijah looked down, furious. Theta backed away. The flames engulfed him, and she cried out. Deep inside she could feel the pain as if she, too, were burning.
“Theta! Theta!” Memphis had her, had his hands on her, cooling the burn. Together, they ran from the screeching Elijah.
“Do not harm the Diviners,” the King of Crows growled in warning to his dead. “Every piece of history needs its witnesses.”
The dead sniffed anyway.
“Obey me!” the King of Crows commanded, and reluctantly, the dead slunk away to attack the townspeople.
“What do we do?” Isaiah asked. “Memphis, what do we do?”
“I don’t know, Little Man.”
If they tried to destroy the ghosts, it would destroy them as well. If they did nothing, Gideon and its people would be lost.
“Did you hear that?” Evie asked suddenly.
“Hear what?” Ling asked. She was leaning on one crutch and using the other to protect two little girls cowering behind her.
“Someone’s calling me.…” There it was again—her name being called in the sweetest voice. Evie felt as if all her molecules were being drawn to something across the street. She took a step back from the melee to see what it was. There. Over the heads of running townspeople and hungry spirits. Over the abandoned toys, the lost shoe in the road, the screaming, the smoke. There, shimmering in front of the church. There, in the yellow dress. There.
“Mabesie?” Evie had feared that if Mabel ever did appear to her, it would be as a ghost mangled by death. But this Mabel was whole, with an unearthly presence her best friend had never known in life. It was the same red-gold hair curved into a soft, wavy bob. The same pale skin, made paler. Just as in the dreams, she wore the dress she’d been buried in, the yellow-sun confection Evie had bought for Mabel at Gimbels with her very first big radio check. Evie couldn’t look away.
Through the din and the screams, Mabel’s voice reached out to her: “Evie. There you are.”
“Mabel, oh Mabel!” Evie cried. Mabel was like a dream that Evie was afraid would evaporate before she could reach the friend she so ached to see once more. Like James, Mabel had become Evie’s obsession: If only she could change the past. If only she could right the wrongs. If only she could bring back what had been lost. If only. This tangle of love and remorse, hope and need drew Evie forward, toward the phantom that shimmered so promisingly in the road.
“Evie! Stop!” Ling yelled, but Evie no longer heard her. Behind Evie, her friends were locked in battle. The townspeople screamed in terror. She was vaguely aware of Theta shouting her name, as if Evie herself were a precious thing in danger of being lost.
Mabel. Dear Mabel. Evie had to see her. Had to touch her.
Mabel extended an arm toward Evie. “You came. I knew you would.”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Evie said, walking toward her. It was really Mabel. “Of course I would.”
