I nodded, still buzzing from the chase. Crossing the barrier between life and death was getting addictive.
We headed back to my house—our house, as Mindy kept reminding me.
On the way around to the back door, we checked in front of the Andersons’ yard to see if Special Agent Reyes had reappeared, but he hadn’t. His car had been gone the last few days, so I guess his boss wasn’t worried about me anymore.
I’d looked up the Movement of the Resurrection online, and it seemed as though they had bigger things to worry about than me. After the Dallas massacre, all sorts of investigations had been opened up, from illegal weapons to tax avoidance. The Feds were closing in on them.
Not being a terrorist target was fine with me, but I kind of missed waving to the FBI on my way home.
Back in my bedroom, I pulled off my jeans, sat on the bed, and sprayed antiseptic on my palms and knee. The sting started my heart pounding again, but tomorrow I would be all bruises and aches, without the adrenaline of basement monsters and near car accidents to distract me.
When I looked up, Mindy was watching raptly.
“Never seen blood before?”
“I don’t really feel pain anymore.” She shrugged. “Everything is kind of soft over here. I’m mostly bored, and kind of restless.”
“Sounds like school.”
“It sucks. I never feel anything real.”
“Except when you get afraid.” I felt a smile on my lips. “I mean, you ran away much quicker than I did. And you should have seen your face when we heard that song!”
“Of course I get afraid.” Her eyes flashed.
“Sorry.” I’d almost forgotten how Mindy had become a ghost. Even if she was beyond suffering now, her last hours were something I could never imagine. “You know I won’t let any bad men hurt you, right?”
“I know.” But she didn’t look convinced.
“Listen, Mindy. Maybe he died a long time ago. Maybe he’s already faded into nothing.”
She looked away from me, toward my mother’s room and the closet, where she always went when she got scared.
No matter what promises I made, she remained certain that the bad man was out there, still alive. That he would die one day, and then wander the earth looking for her.
Maybe it was better to change the subject. “So what do you think that was, down in the school basement?”
She started tracing the pattern of the bedspread with one finger, not much happier. “I don’t know.”
“But it was the ghost of something, right?”
Mindy only shrugged.
“You must have some idea,” I said. “Is there anything out there besides ghosts? I mean, what about vampires and werewolves?”
A laugh sputtered out of her. “Don’t be a dummy. Those are just make-believe!”
“Are you sure? I mean, if ghosts are real, why not all the other creatures of legend? Golems? Garudas? Selkies?”
Mindy’s smile faded. “I don’t even know what those are, but I think some monsters never got legends. Some places are just bad.”
“Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to know everything, I guess.”
“Good, because I don’t.”
Mindy was an eleven-year-old girl, I reminded myself. To her, a monster wasn’t something to be analyzed, it was something to be feared.
Not that I had the energy for monster analysis. The last dregs of my adrenaline were fading, and school was starting back up the day after tomorrow. The beginning of my last semester, and my first day in public as a national symbol of hope.
I’d avoided my friends since getting home, except for sending Jamie an email saying I wasn’t ready to see anyone. My dad still hadn’t bought me a new phone, despite promising to, so avoiding people had been easy enough. But I was going to have to face the real world soon.
I put the antiseptic away and slipped under the covers.
“Good night,” I said, and turned off the bedside light.
Mindy, as always, sat on the end of my bed. Ghosts didn’t sleep, which probably contributed to their boredom and restlessness. It was clear that Mindy wandered the neighborhood at night. She knew all the neighbors’ names, and their secrets too.
“Sleep tight, Lizzie,” she whispered.
“Thanks for taking me to ghost school.”
She giggled, and we were silent for a while, my brain searching for sleep. But the pain of my injuries came and went like ants traveling around my body, first one scraped palm itching, and then the other.
The sting of the antiseptic slowly faded, though, and I was almost asleep when the scratching sound began.
It was like a fingernail running along the underside of the floorboards, almost too soft to hear, too quiet to believe in. But the sound persisted, refusing to disappear even as my brain tried to ignore it.
By the time I opened my eyes, Mindy was standing on the end of my bed, staring wide-eyed down at the floor.
I sat up slowly, carefully, but already my skin was damp with fear.
“What the hell is that, Mindy?”
“I think it followed us home.”
“What did?”
The sound came again, scraping its way from my bedroom door toward me. My spine turned to water as it traveled beneath the bed.
It fell silent again, and Mindy whispered, “It’s all connected.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s down there, Lizzie. That thing we heard singing.”
“What do you—!” My voice rose almost to a shout, and I forced my mouth shut. Mom was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t dare wake her with a monster in the house.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie.” Mindy’s voice was shaking. “I didn’t know it would follow us home!”
“Where is it?” I hissed. “This house doesn’t have a basement!”
She looked at me with exasperation. “It’s not in the basement. It’s down in the river.”
I shut my eyes, trying to make sense of Mindy’s words. My body was wide awake, but my brain was still spinning up from being half-asleep.
“Come down, come down, whoever you are!” sang a voice from beneath my bedroom floor.
CHAPTER 15
THE INVITATIONS TO DARCY’S HOUSEWARMING party had said seven, but at seven thirty not a single person had arrived.
“Crap.” Darcy kicked the bucket of beer and ice waiting in the corner. A pool of condensation had collected beneath it, like an unloved and sweaty pet left by its owner on a country road.