Kady Cross - Sisters Of Salt And Iron

When I’d cut my wrists in a much-regretted suicide attempt, Wren had had to find a medium in order to get help. That medium had been Kevin. If she hadn’t found him—and if he hadn’t called my neighbor, Mace—I would have died for sure. As it was I had been technically dead for a few seconds.

It had felt much, much longer.

I wasn’t in any hurry to die now, and I needed to make sure she could get help if it was needed.

I set my phone on the table. “Okay, go.”

Wren sighed, but she didn’t put up a fight. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. A few seconds later my phone vibrated, and the text notification came up. I swiped my finger over the screen and brought up my new messages. One was from Ben, but the other had no name attached. Even though I was pretty confident it had worked, I held my breath as I opened the text.

BOO!

I looked up. My sister sat there grinning like a freaking idiot. “Really?” I said. “That’s the best you can do?”

She shrugged. “You’re sitting right next to me. What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. Something a little less stereotypical?”

My phone vibrated again. I looked down. A new message.

BOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOOBOO.

“Ass,” I said. Wren laughed. “Fine, you can use a phone right in front of you. Now I want you to send a message to Ben—and try to put a little more thought into it, please.”

“Fine.” She closed her eyes again, and I started in on the second half of my cream-cheese-laden bagel. I checked my email as I chewed.

I was scoping out the latest designs on the Fluevog website—I loved me some shoes—when my phone buzzed yet again.

It was Ben. His first text said that he’d dreamed about me last night, followed by a bunch of winky faces. The second read, How is Wren able to text me? And why did she ask me if you and I have ever had intercourt?

Intercourt? I started laughing. Auto-correct spared no one, not even the dead.

Wren smiled. “Is that from Ben?”

I set my phone aside. “He said to tell you that he’s saving himself for marriage.”

“Saving himself from what?” she asked. I didn’t know if she was serious or not.

“Forget it.” I took another bite of bagel. “You’re good with text. Next we work on actually making a phone call.”

My phone rang almost immediately. I glanced down at the display and sighed. Wren started laughing.

“Cow,” I muttered.

On the screen, underneath Calling, it simply said: BOO.

My twin was still chuckling to herself when my phone buzzed again. I looked down expecting to see another message from Wren the comedian, but the name that came up was Emily, and the message read: Darkness is coming. You must save her.

My heart skipped a beat. I only knew one Emily—we were related, and she’d been a twin, as well. She was also dead.

Save who? I typed, then hit Send.

No reply. Awesome. Who the hell was this mysterious “her”? But more importantly, what did she mean by “darkness is coming”? That wasn’t cryptic or anything.

God. Ghosts were such douche bags.

LARK

We met at the local Goodwill later that day to shop for Halloween stuff. The dance the night before had just been the beginning of what Roxi was calling “The Halloween Season.” There was a party tonight at Kevin’s because his parents were on a cruise—his parents were away a lot—and then there were a couple of ghost walks through the week that I’d probably bow out of, leading up to thte Dead Babies concert at Haven Crest on Halloween.

I’d already let everyone know what a bad idea attending the concert was, and we had all agreed to go anyway, despite the fact that ghosts from the hospital had tried to kill us. Were we mentally deranged? Probably, but Dead Babies were awesome. One of my favorite bands. Yes, enough that I’d risk going to see them at the most haunted place I’d ever visited, on the night the barrier between the realms of the living and dead was at its thinnest.

I justified it like so: I had to be there in case anything happened. It was my duty as someone who could combat ghosts to protect the concertgoers—and the band—from spectral harm. I had told my friends—and myself—so many times I almost believed it.

Bottom line—I wanted to go more than I was afraid of the ghosts. And that was stupid. No getting around it. I was the chick who went into the dark basement to find out what had made that scraping sound, armed with nothing but a pair of nail scissors. The idiot who decided to help the creepy little bare-footed, black-eyed kid who wore a tattered nightgown and stank of stale well water.

Hey, at least I owned it.

So, we were at Goodwill getting last-minute items for tonight, and also for Halloween night.

“I think you should go as Daenerys Targaryen,” Roxi remarked, holding up a pink stuffed dragon.

“Ugh,” I said, digging through a rack of dresses. “Do you know how many times I’ve been called ‘Khaleesi’ since that show started? Too many.”

“But your hair is perfect for it.” She looked genuinely upset that I didn’t jump on the idea. “And I found a dragon.”

I sighed as she wagged the toy. “Throw it over.”

She grinned and tossed it over the racks. I caught it with one hand. “It smells like puke.”

“It will wash,” she chirped.

Roxi was one of those people who were almost always happy. I could hate her for it, but I think she kept me from being too emo. She was a little shorter than me, with long dark hair, a tan complexion and big brown eyes. She said her mother was Romanian and her dad was half-black. It didn’t matter much to me, but she was gorgeous all the same. My mother was a bitch, and my father was a half-ball-less wonder. I was jealous that her parents even liked her, let alone loved her.

“I think I’m going to go as Cleopatra on actual Halloween night,” she announced, holding up a long white dress that might have been fashionable in the late ’70s. It was hideous by way of fabulous.

Her boyfriend, Gage—cute, dark-eyed, needed a haircut—bounded up beside her. “Does that mean I can be a gladiator?”

The way they smiled at each other made me turn away. PDAs were not a spectator sport as far as I was concerned.

Ben walked over. We’d been dating for almost two months, and I saw him almost every day, but I still smiled whenever I saw his face. Call me biased, but he’s one of the hottest guys in school. Funny, smart—and he knows how to kick ghost-butt. His grandmother was Korean, and she’d taught me how to make pujok—basically a protection sigil against ghosts and evil spirits. I thought she liked me, but sometimes she looked at me like she wasn’t quite sure what I was.

I got that a lot. I’m a teenage girl with stark-white hair whose mental state had been seriously questioned, and who could interact with ghosts the same as the living. I probably wouldn’t like Ben’s granny nearly as much if she just welcomed me with open arms.

“What are you wearing?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

Ben grinned and did a little twirl in front of me. “Do you like it? I might get it.”

“It” was a full-length silver fur coat that was too big for him and too short in the arms. My guy was tall and lanky, and for a former chubby kid, he seemed to have no issues with self-confidence. One of the things I liked about him was that he was comfortable in his own skin and rarely worried about what other people thought of him.

“It’s a little big,” I said. “But it’s a good look.”