throughout my body. And Emma’s eyes stared up at nothing, the windows to her soul thrown wide open, though it was obvious no one was home.
“Kaylee!” Nash dropped to the ground on Emma’s other side. He stared at me imploringly as people turned to look, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.
I barely heard him. I no longer noticed the dimness or the odd movement creeping back into the edges of my vision. I couldn’t think about anything but Emma, and how she lay there, unmoving, staring at the ceiling as if she could see through it.
“Let it go, Kaylee. Sing for her. Call her soul so I can see it. Hold it as long as you can.”
I looked down at Emma, beautiful even in death. Her fingers were still warm in mine. Her hair had fallen over her shoulder, and the soft ends of it brushed my arm. I let my head fall back and my mouth fall open.
Then I screamed.
The shriek poured from me in an agonizing torrent of discordant, abrasive notes that scraped my throat raw and seemed to empty me, from my toes all the way to the top of my head. It hurt like hell. But beyond the pain, I felt overwhelming relief to no longer be the physical vessel for such an unearthly din and agonizing grief over having lost my best friend. The cousin I should have had. My confidante and, at times, my sanity.
The entire gymnasium went still in an instant. People froze, then turned to stare, most slapping hands over their ears and grimacing in pain. Someone else screamed—I could tell because her mouth was wide open, though I couldn’t hear her over the much more powerful noise coming from my own mouth.
And then, before I could even process all the gawking stares aimed my way, the whole world seemed to shift.
That fine gray mist settled into place all around me, over everything normal, though that was more a feeling than a physical fact. The strange, misshapen creatures I couldn’t focus on before were suddenly everywhere, interspersed with and in some cases overtaying the human crowd, ogling me just like the students and parents, but from the far side of the grayness. They were drab, as if the haze had somehow stolen their color, and they looked distant, as if I were watching them through some kind of formless, tinted glass.
Was that what Nash meant, when he said they wouldn’t actually be with us? Because if so, I didn’t quite understand the distinction. They were entirely too close for comfort, and drawing nearer every second.
On my left, a strange, headless creature stood between two boys in wrinkled khakis, blinking at me with eyes set into his bare chest, between small, cotorless nipples. An odd, narrow nose protruded from the hollow below his sternum, and thin lips opened just above his navel.
No need to mention how I knew it was a he….
Horrified, I closed my eyes, and my scream faltered. But then I remembered Emma. Em needed me.
They’re not here with us. They’re not here with us. Nash’s voice seemed to chant from inside my head. I let the song loose again, marveling at the capacity of my lungs, and opened my eyes. I was determined to look only at Nash. He could get me through this; he’d done it before.
But my gaze snagged instead on a beautiful man and woman slinking their way toward me through the crowd. They looked almost normal, except for their hazy gray coloring and the odd, elongated proportion of their limbs—and the tail curled around the female’s slim ankle. As I watched, spellbound, the man walked through my science teacher, who didn’t so much as flinch.
That’s it. Enough. I couldn’t handle any more weird gray monsters. This time I would look at Nash, or at nothing.
My throat burned. My ears rang. My head pounded. But finally Nash’s face came into focus directly across from me. But to my complete dismay, his gaze did not meet mine. He stared, rapt, at the space over Emma’s body, eyes narrowed in concentration, face damp with sweat.
I looked up, and suddenly I understood. There was Emma. Not the body cooling slowly on the floor in front of me. The real Emma. Her soul hung in the air between us, the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. If a soul can be called a thing.
She wasn’t beautiful, like I’d expected. No glowing ball of heatless light. No Emma-shaped ghost fluttering in an ethereal breeze. She was dark and formless, yet translucent, like a clear, slowly undulating shadow of … nothing. But what her soul lacked in form, it made up for in feel. It felt important. Vital.
Cold fingers touched my arm and I jumped, sure one of the Nether-creatures had come for me. But it was only the principal, kneeling next to me, saying something I couldn’t hear. She was asking me what had happened, but I couldn’t talk. She tried to pull me away from Emma, but I wouldn’t be budged. Nor would I be silenced.
A short, round woman in a sacklike dress burst into the circle that had formed around us, shoving people out of her way. The gray creatures took no note of her, and I realized they probably couldn’t see her. Or any of the other humans.
The woman squatted by Nash and said something, but he didn’t answer. His eyes had glazed over; his hands lay limp on his lap. When she couldn’t get through to Nash, she tossed an odd glance my way and shot to her feet. She wobbled for a moment, then dashed around him and knelt at Emma’s head to check her pulse.
More people knelt on the ground, hands covering their ears, their mouths moving frantically, uselessly. They were oblivious to the creatures peppered throughout their midst, a condition which was apparently mutual. A tall, thin man made frantic motions with both arms, and the humans behind him backed up. The gray creatures seemed to press even closer, but I saw it all distantly, as the scream still tore from my throat, burning like razors biting into my flesh.
Then my eyes were drawn back to Emma’s soul, which had begun to twist and writhe frenetically. One smoky end of it trailed toward the corner of the gym, as if struggling in that direction, while the rest wrapped around itself, sinking toward Emma’s body like the heavy end of a raindrop.
Transfixed, I glanced at Nash to see sweat dripping down his face. His eyes were open but unfocused, his hands now clenching handfuls of his pressed khaki pants. And as I watched, the soul descended a little more, as if the gravity over Emma’s body had been somehow boosted.
People rushed all around us, staring in my direction, shouting to be heard over me. Human hands touched my arms, tugged at my clothing, some trying to comfort me and silence my cry, others trying to pull me away. Odd colorless forms gathered in groups of two or three, watching boldly, murmuring words I couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have understood. And Emma’s soul moved slowly toward her body, that one smoky tendril still winding off toward the corner.
Nash almost had her. But if he couldn’t do it quickly, it would be too late. My voice was already losing volume, my throat throbbing in agony now, my lungs burning with the need for fresh oxygen.
Then, at last, the lucent shadow settled over Emma’s body and seemed to melt into it. In less than a second, it was completely absorbed.
Nash exhaled forcefully, and blinked, wiping sweat from his forehead with one sleeve. My voice finally gave out, and my mouth closed with a sharp snap, loud in the sudden silence. And every single gray being, every last wisp of fog, simply winked out of existence.
For a moment, no one moved. The hands on me went still. The human onlookers were frozen in place as if they could feel the difference, though they clearly had no idea what had happened, other than that I’d stopped screaming.
My gaze settled on Emma, searching out some sign of life. Rising chest, jiggling pulse. I would even have taken a wet, snotty sneeze. But for several torturous seconds, we got nothing, and I was convinced we’d failed. Something had gone wrong. The unseen reaper was too strong. I was too weak. Nash was out of practice.
Then Emma breathed. I almost missed it, because there was no Oscar-worthy gasp for air. No panting, no wheezing, and no choking cough to clear sluggish lungs. She simply inhaled.
My head fell into my hands, tears of relief overflowing. I laughed, but no sound came out. I had truly lost my voice.