Tara Hudson - Elegy

My task was easy enough: all I had to do was make a fist, rap my knuckles against wood, and repeat if necessary. So why couldn’t I do it?

Why couldn’t I bring myself to do something as simple as knock on an ordinary front door?

I started pacing again, my boot heels thunking across the floorboards of the porch. The sound of them spooked me a little. Even after spending a few months as one of the Risen—actually, the only Risen ghost left in this world, as far as I could tell—I still hadn’t quite made peace with the echo of my own footsteps.

I cast a glance over my shoulder, toward the road. About fifty feet back along the curb, Joshua Mayhew leaned against the hood of his truck. He caught me staring and gave me an encouraging smile. I tried to return it, without much success.

This little project wasn’t originally his idea—it was mine. But once Joshua and I had discussed the possibility, he’d latched on to it until I finally ended up here, pacing like a crazy person.

As usual, Joshua thought this would end well. But I didn’t. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario in which the woman on whose door I was about to knock would react positively when she saw me.

And her reaction did matter, more than almost anything in the world. Still, the reason I stood on this porch today—the real reason—wasn’t because she needed to see me; it was because I needed to see her.

I flashed Joshua another tight smile and turned back to the door. I could do this. I could do this. I lifted my hand again, ready to knock for real this time.

But I never got the chance.

Before my knuckles could make contact with the door, it swung inward. Open.

The first time Joshua and I visited this place, the door had swung open on its own. But this time, someone had pulled it open. Probably because she’d finally decided to do something about the person thunking around uninvited on her front porch.

Her hand held the edge of the door, fingers gripped against the splintery, paint-peeling wood. On her ring finger, I could just make out the glint of a simple wedding band.

She still wears it.

Before I had time to process that thought, before I even had time to see her face, I felt a familiar current pass over my skin. It happened quickly—started and stopped in less than two seconds—but I immediately knew what it meant. I’d made myself invisible, intentionally vanished from the view of anyone living, including Joshua. Including the woman standing in front of me.

It was a cowardly move on my part: I’d finally worked up the nerve to knock, and now she couldn’t even see me.

She frowned, squinting into the shadows of the porch and out at the daylight beyond it. Seeing the lines on her face, the streak of gray at her temples, I sucked in a tight breath and released it in one foolish word.

“Mom?”

The woman at the door immediately jerked back like she’d been slapped. Her eyes widened, but she continued to stare out at the porch without actually seeing me.

She’d heard me, though.

For a while, we both stood motionless: my mother with her fingers clawed into the door; me with my fake heartbeat hammering in my chest. Although I knew it wasn’t possible, it seemed as though her brown eyes were boring into mine. Begging me to tell her why she’d just heard the voice of her long-dead daughter.

I gulped once, as quietly as possible, and leaned forward a fraction of an inch. As if in response, my mother leaned backward.

I thought she was trying to escape something that she couldn’t—didn’t want to—understand. But instead, another face appeared next to hers in the doorway, probably summoned by my mother’s strange silence.

This new face belonged to a woman, much younger than my mother but somewhat older than me. When she peered out the doorway, the corners of her blue eyes wrinkled faintly. I froze in place, but her gaze moved smoothly across the porch, not even hesitating on the spot where I stood. As though I weren’t even there.

The woman took a step forward—maybe for a closer look at the empty porch—and I got a better view of her. She was striking, with her high cheekbones and impeccable platinum-blond ponytail. Pretty and polished, like a piece of fine glass.

I knew I’d never seen her—not as a visitor to the Mayhews’ house or as a teacher at Wilburton High; not even as someone I’d passed on the streets of New Orleans this past winter. But something about this woman was strangely familiar.

Before I had a chance to place her, she straightened the hem of her tailored blazer and turned to my mother with a worried frown.

“Liz? Everything okay?”

My mother’s frown deepened, just for a moment, before she met her guest’s gaze. “Everything’s fine,” she said, giving the blond woman a faint smile. “I thought I heard something out here. I guess not.”

The blonde returned the smile, but it wavered on the edges, as though she thought her host might be a little unstable. It wasn’t a mean look, necessarily—just a cautious one.

“The coffee, Liz,” she prompted gently. “It’s getting cold.”

My mother nodded, looking embarrassed. “Of course. Sorry.”

She hadn’t removed her hand from the edge of the door, and now she began to push it shut as she and the blond woman stepped back into the house. In the seconds before the door closed completely, I caught a final glimpse of the younger woman’s face. For just a second her blue eyes seemed to lock on to mine, and I felt that strange, dizzying sense of familiarity again.

The feeling only intensified when I heard the last bit of my mother’s voice before the door shut.

“Sorry again, Serena. Must have been the wind.”

Chapter TWO

Serena Taylor, the girl who murdered you, was having coffee with your mom?”

Joshua sounded like he still didn’t quite be-lieve me.

I lifted one shoulder and let it drop carelessly. That was the biggest shrug I could make, given the circumstances.

“That’s not exactly accurate,” I mumbled. “At least, not completely accurate.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Joshua raise one skeptical eyebrow. Instead of elaborating, I flopped backward into the pile of lush pillows behind us.

At the moment, Joshua and I were in his parents’ gazebo. His mother, Rebecca, had recently redesigned its interior, transforming the space into something hidden and exotic. The thick curtains that enclosed its outer walls were now masked on the inside by yards of white gauzy drapes. Glittering, star-shaped lanterns hung from the ceiling, and flowering plants filled every inch not occupied by the enormous, pillow-covered daybed.

But despite the gorgeous setting, Joshua and I were tensed up on the daybed, not touching.

Not that that’s anything new, I reminded myself. Not since New Orleans, where I lost my ability to touch the living.

After what felt like an appropriately weighted pause, I propped myself up on my elbows and turned to Joshua.

“To be fair to Serena,” I said, “she didn’t mean to murder me. She was under the influence of Eli and his wraiths.”

When Joshua started to roll his eyes, I added, “Just like your friends when they tried to kill your little sister.”

A dark look passed over his face, and I could read it perfectly. Joshua was remembering the night his sister, Jillian, nearly died, at the hands of his own friends and a malevolent ghost named Eli Rowland. Joshua shook his head, and the dark look shook away too, replaced by the thoughtful frown he’d been wearing since we left my mother’s house.