Kady Cross - Sisters Of Salt And Iron

“I feel sexy.”

“You smell like mothballs.”

He sniffed his shoulder and made a face. “Yeah. Who even uses those things anymore?”

I shrugged. “People against moths, I guess. I have no idea what to wear to the party.”

“You could go as Elsa,” he suggested, slipping the coat off his shoulders. “You’ve got the hair for it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Me and my damn hair.”

He hung the fur up and stepped closer. He took a piece of my hair and wrapped it around his finger. “I like your damn hair.”

Oh. When he lowered his voice like that and smiled that little smile...

“Get a room,” Mace growled.

I turned around and shot him a grin. Mace was tall with light brown hair and hazel eyes. He was gorgeous, and someone I never thought I’d be friends with, especially after he found me bleeding to death and called 911. But we were friends. In fact, he was one of my best friends, though I doubted he knew it.

He had a fedora on his head. It actually didn’t look too bad. “Who are you supposed to be?” I asked.

He made a face—like he’d bit into something sour. “Sarah wants us to be Bonnie and Clyde.”

“We’ll look fabulicious,” his girlfriend called from four aisles away. “Stop making that face.”

Mace made the face again and went back to pawing through the racks.

Suddenly, Wren popped out from between two dresses in front of me. It was so weird seeing her do that and the clothing not move. She was so real to me that it was easy to forget she was no more substantial than breath in this world.

“Haven’t you figured out what you’re going to be yet?” she demanded. “I’ve had my costume sorted out for weeks.”

I wasn’t feeling quite snarky enough to inform her that no one but me—and possibly Kevin—would be able to see it. “Yay, you.”

Ben glanced at me. “You talking to me?”

I shook my head, glancing around to make sure no one else was paying attention.

He smiled. “Hey, Wren.”

She waved, even though he couldn’t see her. “Hi!”

“You could help me look for a costume,” I told her.

Her eyes lit up. If she clapped her hands I was going to slap her. Instead, she turned around and whipped down the aisle toward evening wear. Mace shivered as she flew by. He turned to me. “Was that...?”

I nodded. “Yup.”

He grinned. “I knew it.”

My chest tightened. I looked from Mace to Ben, to Roxi and Gage, and even to Sarah. Kevin hadn’t come because he was prepping for the party, which was just as well. Each of these living, breathing people made an effort to acknowledge or be kind to Wren. They were thoughtful of her, and that meant more to me than any of them could ever know. After years of being told my sister wasn’t real, that she was only in my mind, it was so freaking good to know that not only were they wrong, but that Wren had become real—in her own way—to others.

I blinked back tears.

“Lark!” Wren cried a few seconds later. “I found it!”

Had she ever. It was a vintage pink slip-dress from the ’70s. Normally such a piece would be fairly expensive, but this one had slight stains on the front and was only five bucks.

I knew exactly what to do with it.

Half an hour later we left the store. Everyone but Ben had a plastic bag full of items. He’d bought a pair of sunglasses and that was it. He still hadn’t told me what he was going as that night, so I decided to keep my costume secret, as well.

I crossed the parking lot, swinging my plastic bag, as I laughed at a joke Gage had made. I turned to say something to him, but he was gone. They were all gone. The cars and the parking lot—the box stores that made up the rest of the plaza—everything was gone, and I was standing on cobblestones in a world where everything was muted and soft. The street I stood on seemed taken right from the pages of a BBC historical production, with gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages rattling along.

A woman in Edwardian clothing stopped on the opposite side of the street and stared at me. She looked scared. I glanced up and saw another woman peeking out a window from behind a curtain. Her mouth was open.

“Lark?”

I turned toward the familiar voice. It was Wren. She stood right beside me. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, taking my hand. “Come with me. Now.”

I entwined my fingers with hers and stepped toward her. My ears popped, and suddenly the other world was gone, and I was back in the Goodwill parking lot, with my sister and all of my friends staring at me in concern.

“What happened?” Ben asked, pulling me in for a hug.

“I don’t know,” I replied. I was shaking, and there was no hiding it. “It felt like I stepped into another world.”

“You did,” Wren informed me. She had a strange expression on her face. My sister wasn’t easily frightened, but she looked worried. Not just that, but she was looking at me like she didn’t quite know me. “Lark, you were in the Shadow Lands.”

I frowned at her. “I couldn’t have been.”

“Couldn’t have been what?” Roxi asked, looking from me to the empty space occupied by my sister.

“In the Shadow Lands,” I replied. “It’s impossible. Only the dead can go there.”

“You were dead,” Mace reminded me softly. “Once.”

I shook my head. “It had to have been my imagination.”

My sister stomped up to me, so close our noses were almost touching. Of course, no one else could see it. “It was real. You were between both worlds.”

Like her. Our gazes locked. I didn’t have to say it for her to understand. This was weird. And it was big.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, giving me a squeeze.

I nodded, looking away from my sister. “It’s probably because Halloween’s so close.”

“Maybe,” Wren allowed. “Or it might be something else.”

I ignored her. “We’d better get going.”

In my pocket my cell buzzed. I had a text. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and glanced at the message.

We’re going to talk about this whether you like it or not.

I shot Wren a snotty look. She didn’t look impressed, but I didn’t care. I’d been to the Shadow Lands when I died for, like, two seconds. It felt like a lot more time there. And with the veil thinning it made sense that I’d be sensitive. Last year I was still in Bell Hill, so the meds might have kept me from experiencing the same thing then.

“Want to grab some lunch?” Mace asked us. “Mexican?”

A big plate of cheesy nachos was exactly what I needed. “Sure,” I said. And then to Ben, “Unless you need to go home.”

“No. Lunch sounds good.”

Everyone else left ahead of us. Wren said she’d meet us there. I didn’t know where she was off to, but I suspected it was the Shadow Lands. I got into the car.

Ben opened the driver-side door and slid in. He put the key into the ignition, but instead of turning it, he turned to me. “Be honest. Are you okay?”

I leaned my head back against the seat and smiled. “Yeah, I’m good.” It was mostly true. I mean, yeah, it was weird, but my whole life was weird. If I freaked out every time something strange happened, I’d spend 99 percent of my time a basket case.

He leaned over and kissed me. For those few seconds I didn’t think. I didn’t worry about anything.

Like what those two women in the Shadow Lands saw when they looked at me. Or why my sister had been afraid.

WREN

“She just didn’t look right,” the woman with the cockney accent explained. “There were something dreadful odd about her, for such a pretty girl.”

She looked odd because she was alive, but I didn’t say that. I only asked this woman—and the one who had been on the street when Lark had popped into the Shadow Lands—about what she’d seen because I didn’t want it getting around that my sister had slipped past the barrier.