given it to me a while ago, and it was still my favorite ghost-beatin’ stick.
Normally I avoided salt and iron because of Wren—all ghosts have a sort of allergic reaction to both. Maybe because they were of the earth, where the dead were generally buried? I didn’t know. Didn’t care.
I stood facing the ghost, the iron rod in my hand. This was normally the time I’d make some kind of snarky or smart-ass remark. To be honest, I was biting my tongue. I wasn’t supposed to bait her—just keep her busy and distracted.
She was going to pop any second. Then I was going to have to fight her and hope that everyone at the dance continued on in blissful ignorance. I’d been warned when I came back to school after my time in Bell Hill Psychiatric Hospital that I was only there because of my grandmother, and that I’d better not make trouble.
Wrecking the girls’ locker room counted as “trouble.” The ghost didn’t matter. It never did. People always found a way to explain the supernatural, and in my experience the favorite explanation was that I was a troublemaking, attention-starved emotionally unstable delinquent.
Which, actually, wasn’t too far from the truth.
I glanced in the direction of the door. The line of salt I’d poured a few feet away from it was still whole, as were the lines in front of the opaque windows. They weren’t infallible—Daria could possibly create enough energy to break the lines, and then she could get out—but for now it was just me and a drunk ghost.
C’mon, Wren.
Then I sensed it—the subtle shift that might have been just in my head but felt like it was outside of me. My sister was there, and everything clicked into its rightful place.
“About freaking time,” I told her.
“The others are coming,” she replied, coming to stand beside me. Wren and I were identical except for two things—my superior fashion sense, and the fact that my hair was almost snow-white while hers was a comic-book shade of red.
She had her hair in pigtails and was wearing a blood-soaked pinafore and blouse, tights and Mary Janes. She looked like a demented rag doll.
Daria looked impressed—or as impressed as someone with only part of a head and drunk out of her mind could look. “Dead Born.”
My sister frowned at her. “I don’t like that name.”
The two of them watched each other with the same amount of hostile wariness. Wren’s anger wavered around her like heat off pavement. She wasn’t immune to the approach of Halloween either, and that made me wonder, just what the hell did I intend to do if both of them manifested?
“Did you find what’s keeping her here?” I asked.
Wren glanced at me. “Yes, but it’s not what I expected.”
Daria chose that moment—when Wren’s attention was distracted—to attack. She hit my sister square in the chest. Wren barely moved. Daria’s surprise would have been funny in any other situation.
“You are so stupid,” I said. Now she’d gone and pissed off Wren. If I made it out of the locker room unsuspended and alive, it was going to be a miracle.
My sister is usually a gentle soul, but she’s a ghost and ghosts have notoriously short fuses. Wren’s eyes had already gone black, and I could feel her spectral energy reverberating in my bones along with the new song playing in the gym.
I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t.”
Her head whipped around. My heart jumped into my throat. There was nothing so terrifying as Death wearing your face. I held her gaze and her arm, watching as the darkness slowly left her eyes.
The door to the locker room opened—the music from the dance increased in volume for a few seconds, then faded back to its muted thumping.
Three familiar faces came into view—my friends, Roxi and Sarah. Well, I wasn’t completely sure if Sarah was a friend or not, but whatever. They had the history teacher, Mr. Fisher, with them.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Busted.
“That’s why she’s still here,” Wren whispered.
“Him?” I looked at Mr. Fisher. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Fairly young.
She nodded.
Mr. Fisher turned to me. “Who are you talking to?”
“Her.” I pointed at Roxi. “Did you tell him?”
Roxi’s big brown eyes widened. “That he was needed in the girls’ locker room.”
“That’s it?” I demanded. She nodded. Great.
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Fisher demanded.
Daria stood up and walked toward him with a stupefied look on her face. “Danny?”
“Your name’s Daniel, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “One of you girls had better tell me what’s going on. Why did you bring me here?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a girl named Daria, would you? Smashed into a tree a few years back on the night of the Halloween dance?”
He went white. “What do you know about Daria?”
I could try to lie—make it sound less crazy than what it was—but I was pissed off at having to be doing this instead of having fun with my friends. “You believe in ghosts, Mr. F.?”
He looked at me—saw the salt dust on my clothes—and the lines of salt on the floor. He looked at Roxi and Sarah, both of whom shrugged. A lot of help they were.
“He’s gotten so old,” Daria remarked, walking around him.
Mr. Fisher shuddered. “It’s cold in here,” he said. “You girls are in a lot of trouble.”
I glanced at the ghost. The way she looked at him froze my blood. She reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. Frowning, he turned around.
Daria shoved her hand into his chest.
He looked so surprised. He looked down at his chest, then up again. “Dee?” His voice was little more than a gasp.
“You’re the reason I’m dead,” she snarled. “It’s all your fault.”
She was so close to taking form I was terrified I was going to end up with a dead teacher to explain. Never mind suspension; they’d lock me up and throw away the key.
There was no doubt that Mr. Fisher could hear her. “I tried to stop you,” he protested, as his dead girlfriend held his heart in her icy fingers. “You ran away.”
Daria actually growled. “Because I found you screwing my best friend!”
“Wren?” I glanced at my sister. “Little help?” This was going to hell fast.
Daria turned her attention
