The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

I was going to use my own body to contain the explosion. I’d probably be blasted into bits of ectoplasm, but that wasn’t enough to scare me. What could I possibly be afraid of—pain? Oblivion? Even my old pet fear of being forgotten shrank to inconsequentiality in the face of the alternative, which was letting the house have everything it wanted. Letting its ruthless power grow, unchecked, while I stood by and did nothing.

 

I crouched lower. The fire, still bound by my incantation, strained helplessly to climb up my legs. I held my breath and leaned over. If the blood hit the fire before I had a chance to cover it with my body, the result would be catastrophic. The blood had to touch the fire at the exact moment at which I threw myself on top of it.

 

I’m strong. I can do this.

 

I let myself fall.

 

As gravity pulled me down, I gently turned my hand so that the blood would make contact first.

 

Time sped up again, and the black flames filled my view. I crashed down into them, noticing for the briefest fraction of a moment that they were as soft as a feather bed.

 

There was a spark in my chest—the spark of the fire and the blood making contact.

 

It felt exactly like a heartbeat.

 

And then I didn’t feel anything.

 

It was so simple, so quick, so natural …

 

Almost as if my whole life had been leading up to this moment.

 

 

 

 

 

What followed could have taken a thousandth of a second or a hundred years. I didn’t have any way to gauge the passage of time. There was no pain, no fear, no actual sensation at all except the feeling of being … changed.

 

“Come on, then. Are you planning to lie about all day?”

 

The voice was British, annoyingly full of itself, and maybe the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard.

 

“Eliza?” I asked without moving.

 

Someone lifted me and set me upright, and I found, to my surprise, that I could see.

 

And that I was still in the incinerator.

 

In front of me was Eliza’s semi-ghostly figure—ghostly in the sense that she clearly wasn’t a living, corporeal being, but also distinctly not a ghost—not in the way I knew ghosts, at least (and I knew a thing or two about ghosts by then).

 

Instead of a pale blue glow, Eliza emitted white light, bright enough to fill the small metal chamber and illuminate its sooty walls and floor, as well as the few charred scraps of trash that had survived its last run.

 

“Cheerio,” said Eliza, grinning. “Didn’t think you’d see me again so soon, did you?”

 

“Did it work?” I asked.

 

“Seems to have done,” Eliza said.

 

“Did I blow up my family?”

 

“Not even one little bit.”

 

“Oh, that’s really good news,” I said. I felt raw and slightly stiff, like I’d just woken from a very long sleep.

 

Then it sank in: Eliza was here. All of her. Perfectly unharmed.

 

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What happened to me? Am I still a ghost? Am I still dead?”

 

“No, you’ve been magically returned to life,” Eliza said. “Of course you’re still dead. Don’t get overexcited.”

 

“But what are you doing here?” I asked. “You … moved on, didn’t you?”

 

Her smile, though small, was highly pleased—like she had a happy secret. “I did,” she said. “As have you. Which means that we’re free.”

 

“To go?” I asked.

 

“Or stay,” Eliza said, frowning. “But I don’t see why you would. I waited for you, but now we’ve no one left to wait for.”

 

“How did you know to wait for me?” I asked.

 

She raised her eyebrows. “Your ability to get into trouble left me with no doubt that you’d be blowing yourself to smithereens before too long. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

 

“But my family—” I passed through the incinerator wall and found the basement bathed in blinding white light. After a moment, I realized that it was my white light.

 

“Your family—any of the living—are no longer your concern,” Eliza said. “That’s one big difference. Actually, you have no concerns at all. If you take a moment to rest, you’ll feel it—the calm. I know I’m a bit of a cynic, but even I can say it’s very lovely.”

 

“But I need to find them,” I said.

 

“Delia …” Eliza said as I walked to the stairs.

 

Except, walked would be the wrong word. Unlike when I was a regular ghost, I felt no connection to the physical world. No breeze went through me, no reverberations of my human life remained—no fluttering, nervous stomach, burning eyes, or aching head. I simply looked where I wanted to go, and then I was there. So I found myself at the bottom of the steps.

 

First I saw Janie, crawling up the stairs, the sleeve of her shirt over her face like a mask.

 

Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen when I’d first looked around the room and been blinded by my own vivid glare.

 

Smoke. Billowing clouds of thick, sooty smoke.