Beth pulled Lucy toward me. Uncle Clark stayed back.
I gave Lucy the ring. “Put this on. Now give me your other arm.” She was still crying, but she did as I asked.
I pushed the sleeve of her sweater up, and then, with the marker, I drew a Seal of Solomon—it was easier than the Korean symbols Ben’s grandmother had shown me, and required less need for precision—on the inside of her forearm. “Redraw this if it fades or comes off in the shower. It will protect you. What’s his last name?”
“Williams,” she replied, dabbing at her eyes. Her mascara was everywhere.
I turned my attention to the ghost in the door. “Is he buried in the New Devon cemetery?”
She nodded. Beth gave her a wad of toilet paper to wipe her face.
I smiled at the ghost. “Touch her again and I’ll dig you up, salt you and burn you. That’s if I’m in a good mood. If I’m not, I’m going to take it out on you until I’m happy again. Sound fair?”
He nodded, but he didn’t move.
“If he comes to you again, you tell me, okay? I’ll end it once and for all.”
Beth stared at me as Lucy wiped at her face. Slowly, she drew her friend toward one of the stalls.
I put the marker back in my bag before heading toward the door. I needed to get some of this aggression out. I stopped long enough to kick Clark Williams hard in the nuts, and then drove my knee into his face while he was doubled over.
If only every day could be freaking Halloween.
I walked out into the empty corridor—class had already started. I went to my locker and grabbed my coat. Then I called Nan on my cell and asked her to pick me up.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I told her, as I walked toward the stairwell. “I’ve just had enough of ghosts for the morning. I don’t think this was a good idea.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Thanks.” I slipped my phone into my purse and slipped into my coat.
I was on the bottom step when the ghost hanging in the stairwell moaned. “I’m so alone,” he said in a quivering tone.
I glared at him. “Oh, fuck off.” And just to be a bitch, I grabbed him by the legs, pulled him toward me as far as he would reach and then pushed him away, so that he swung back and forth across the stairs like a man-sized pi?ata.
He was just lucky I didn’t have a stick.
Really, sometimes ghosts were such douche bags.
*
At home I tried to find out as much about Noah as I could online and in his Haven Crest file. I’d already been through most of it. I gave up at 12:45 p.m. I hadn’t really found anything useful, and I’d already figured that his sister was his big weakness. So I pushed away from my desk and lay down on my bed.
Okay. Time to go to the Shadow Lands. Both times I’d done it lately had been accidents, and I had no idea how to replicate the procedure.
Just like Wren had no form here—except to me—I had no form in her world, so it was like astral projection. However, since I could interact with ghosts in this realm, I could in the Shadow Lands, as well—grabbing Joe had been proof of that.
Had all those people at his concert been ghosts? I didn’t even want to think about it, or how pissed off they must have been when I’d kidnapped the headliner.
I closed my eyes and thought about where I wanted to go. I thought about Wren, but I didn’t reach for her. Instead, I tentatively peered outside of myself for something that felt like her. She had once told me that she didn’t know how she’d first found me when we were babies, she just had. And now it was as natural to her as breathing was to me.
In my head it felt as though I were drifting through darkness, a pleasant breeze moving through my hair.
Only it wasn’t in my head. I really was moving through darkness. Oh, crap. What did I do now? I teetered on the verge of panic—but it wasn’t enough to send me flying back to my body.
And then it wasn’t dark anymore, and I was standing inside a little house. It was pristine in its neatness, decorated with bright colors, throw cushions and lots of beads. I smiled. This place screamed of my boho, hippie-wannabe sister.
In dreams, it was said that a house represented the psyche of the dreamer. This place had been constructed by Wren, and it was an extension of her—a reflection.
The house was only a couple of rooms. It wasn’t like she needed to cook, sleep or use the bathroom, so there was the main room and a smaller room off it decorated in a similar style. This room had photographs of our parents, a baby rattle and a doll I recognized from when I was very young. Had Wren brought these things here? Or were they replicas she’d created?