“But even a few more days,” I protest, but it comes out soft because suddenly I feel very weak.

“You’re tired,” she says. “You need rest.”

I remember how she used to usher me up to my bedroom every time I acted out of line, saying, “You’re tired and need to rest.” No, she just wants to be done with me. I bet ghosts don’t even need to rest, just like they don’t need to use the bathroom. The thought makes me more bitter than ever. “I’m fine. I wish you would have stayed.”

She is silent for a moment. “And I wish you had stayed alive. You should have left when Trey told you. But we all can’t have what we want, now, can we?” She sounds like she did whenever I told her I wanted dessert, never mean, just sweetly condescending. In my mind’s eye, I’m in the kitchen, reaching for a bag of cookies in the pantry. She slams the door and smiles at me. We all can’t have what we want, now, can we?

I feel a new wash of tears fall over my cheeks. It was futile to think I could harden myself against her. She is my mother. I was deluding myself when I said I didn’t care. She is my sun. Even if she hated me, that fact would never change.

“You don’t even want me here now. You sent Trey to make sure I stayed away, because you didn’t want me with you.”

She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Kiandra. I want you. It hurts me terribly not to be with you, but it made me happy to know that you were having a life. More than anything, I wanted you to live. To be happy and live.” She enunciates the last word as if teaching it to me for the first time. “You were happy there, without me, weren’t you?”

I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look out toward the east bank. I think of Justin, and my father. I wonder if Dad has made it up to the river yet. I wonder how I’ll look when they find my body. How they’ll react. The thought of my father seeing me that way twists my heart. I’m his everything. That’s what he said to me, about a thousand times, on that ride up from New Jersey. He kept chewing on the inside of his cheek and looking over at me with crazed eyes. You’re my everything. I won’t let anything happen to you. I nod.

She smiles a little. “You had a boyfriend, didn’t you? What is his name?”

I nod again, less forcefully this time. I’m not really sure what we were, as of last night. I guess we were still boyfriend and girlfriend. “Justin,” I say, but I’m back to thinking about my dad. You’re my everything. More tears slide over my cheeks. “But I can’t stop thinking about Dad. This will kill him.”

“Yes. I know it will.” She bows her head for a moment, then moves closer to me, and I think she’s going to hug me again. Instead, she leans in close to my ear. I feel the familiar sweep of her lips on my cheek. It sends the world reeling for me, but not as much as her next words. Very quietly, she says, “And that is why I am going to send you back.”

It takes a moment to register. I search for another meaning, but can’t think of one. “What … You don’t mean that …”

“Oh, Kiandra. It’s not that I don’t want you.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s …” Maybe this is a misunderstanding. She didn’t see the wound in my body. She didn’t see how much blood I lost. There’s no way I could go back to living. That’s not possible. I’ve heard of people who die for a few minutes and come back to life, but I’ve been dead for hours. “What are you talking about?”

“You will have this power, too. Many of our ancestors do. We are the only ones.”

I shake my head. “Are you talking about … making me alive again?”

She doesn’t have to say a word. Her expression speaks volumes.

I stop breathing. “But how? That can’t be done.”

She crosses her arms. “It can be. But if I do this for you, you must leave here and never come back. Not until you are one hundred years old. Preferably later. And please realize it’s not because I don’t want to see you again. I will see you again.”

“It’s impossible,” I whisper.

She puts a hand on mine. Her eyes glint with pride. “I assure you, I can do it. As long as certain conditions are met. I would prove it to you now, but I need to ensure a little something before I can start. Trey is working on that. Now I have some duties to attend to. Do not stray too far.”

She brushes my wrist with her thumb and turns to walk back to the crumbling stone house. I’m just standing there, numb, in disbelief. The sun is hot on my face, and it’s then I realize that we’ve climbed through the woods, and I’m standing on a peak overlooking the river. The wind blows hard and cold against my skin. Down below, yellow rafts dot the river, returning from the day’s white-water expedition. I can see across to the east bank. Trey is there somewhere, performing some task for my mother, in order to send me back. Send me back. To the living. How is that possible? If it is, why can’t she send herself back? Why didn’t she kill me herself to spend just a few more days with me, if she knew she could send me back? I turn to ask her the hundreds of questions percolating in my mind, but she has already disappeared among the trees.

Chapter Twenty

Still not feeling right alone, I head back toward the old stone house. Trey must be back with a new group, because a new long line is snaking up from the dock, all people I don’t recognize. It’s hard to believe so many people have died on the water. The little girl I saw before is having her hair braided by an old woman. She smiles at me and waves. I’m about to go over there when I catch a bright light shining through the pines. Trey. I move away and see another figure beside him. My mother. He’s listening intently, and I can tell from his expression that he’s not happy. Something’s wrong.

He scowls and storms out into the sunlit path, nearly colliding with me. The worry on his face quickly dissolves into a smile. “Hey!”

I study him. “What was that all about back there?” When he shrugs, I say, “You looked upset. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing for you to be worrying about,” he says, digging his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He looks over each shoulder, for someone, I guess—my mother? “You want me to show you round now?”

“I don’t see what the point is. She’s sending me back,” I whisper. “Did you know she could do that?”

He gives me a small nod, then pulls on my sleeve, beckoning me back up the pathway. He leads me on a new path, which begins to slope downward, toward the river. I follow him silently, thinking about the fiends, about the sad, angry souls that still miss their human lives. Did Jack do this to me because he’s jealous of me and the life I have?

Finally, when we’re almost near the river, Trey says to me, “Yeah.”

“If you knew that, then why is it such a big deal? Why have you been watching me so closely—”

“It is a big deal. You don’t understand. Your momma has powers none of us have. But it’s not an unlimited supply. Bringing someone back has never been done before, and it will weaken her. We don’t know how much. It might take away all her power.”

“All her shine?”

He looks at the ground. “Yeah.”

“And then what?”

“She’s gone. Like I said, I don’t know where. And that relation of yours? The one I told you about? That person will take over. And I don’t expect things will be very good here after that.”

“Jack?” I ask.

“Yeah. No. I don’t know. It’s going to be a mess here. But your momma’s right. You got another chance at life. You need to take it.”

“You would take it?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“But I could take over. I could be the Mistress. Now.”

He squints at me. “You don’t know nothing yet. And you want that? You want to leave everything behind?”