She climbed onto his back with wincing dread. To her amazement, he didn’t even grunt. Maybe she’d lost more weight than she realized.
“You sure this isn’t hurting you?”
“You’d know,” David sighed. “As you saw yesterday, I don’t handle pain very well.”
The procession continued past them. The majority of ghostwalkers wore plain white bathrobes. Some women sported snowy gowns. A few men were decked out in formal ivory vestments that had been passed down for three generations. The one item that never varied was the mask, an expressionless white face with black fabric eyeholes. The uniformity created an eerily powerful effect. For a moment Mia imagined she was watching the departed souls of her world, all the teachers and classmates and neighbors and cousins who didn’t get silver bracelets. And to think she’d snapped at the sisters for not realizing how lucky they were. She was alive. She was alive on the back of a beautiful boy with the heart of a lion and an unflinchingly deep regard for her. Mia never stopped replaying the scene on the highway, when David threatened to kill two Deps if they harmed a hair on her head. She wasn’t just lucky, she was blessed.
Mia locked her arms around David and heaved a warm sigh over his shoulder. “Don’t feel bad.”
“About what?”
“The way you acted yesterday. We don’t care about that. You’ve been there for us since day one and we love you. We’ll love you no matter what you do.”
She breathed a soft whisper into his ear. “I’ll love you no matter who you kill.”
Though the mask lay still on his impassive face, David’s voice carried a thin new tremor.
“You’re a rare and precious jewel, Miafarisi. I dread the day our paths diverge.”
Everyone turned to look as booming cheers erupted to the north. Exuberant music blared up the street. The last of the Ghostwalk was exiting the square. Now came the March of the Spirits.
Amanda crunched her brow behind her white burglar mask as confetti guns popped and the locals turned jubilant. The crowd had gone from funeral to Mardi Gras at the turn of a dime.
She sneaked an anxious peek at Zack, a parallel study in conflicting extremes. His rabbit-eared mask radiated levity while the eyes behind it screamed with bewilderment. He stood right next to her, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away.
She took his dangling hand in hers. “It has to be hard for you. Coming back to your hometown and finding it so different.”
Zack threw an antsy glance at the drugstore behind him, where a public phone lay encased inside an opaque metal cylinder. A red light on the door indicated that the tube was currently occupied.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems like every big difference in this world can be traced back to the Cataclysm in one way or another. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised New York changed the most.”
The first of the parade platforms approached, ferrying a gorgeous young blonde in a star-spangled minidress. She crooned a bouncy tribute to New York into her microphone while a thirty-foot ghostbox displayed a giant live projection of her buxom upper half. Zack noticed the empty space beneath the platform’s hanging drapes. It seemed aeris had turned all the floats literal.
Amanda stroked his hand with her thumb, then grimaced in affliction when he pulled it away.
“Zack . . .”
“It’s all right. I understand.”
“Understand what? We haven’t had a chance to talk.”
He pursed his lips in a crusty scowl. “If it’s a ‘let’s just be friends after all’ speech, I don’t need to hear it. You’ve been wearing it on your face for the last seven hours.”
Amanda threw a quick nervous glance at David, five feet away.
“It’s not what you think,” she said to Zack. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to explain it.”
“You don’t have to explain anything. It happens. It’s not like we signed a contract.”
Amanda clenched her jaw. She knew Zack well enough to see the mask behind the mask. He was determined to play the breezy teflon shrugger until one of them screamed.
“Would you listen to me? I’m not backing out. There’s just . . . a new complication.”
Exuberant children in brightly colored jumpsuits lined every edge of the second float. They reached into buckets and flung foil-wrapped candies at the crowd. Zack gave Amanda his full attention, even as a chocolate coin sailed between them.
“I’m all ears.”
She shook her head. “Not now. When we’re alone again, and when you’re less angry—”
“I’m not angry.”
“No. Of course not. You’re just convinced I dropped my feelings for you on a fickle whim. Why would that anger you?”