“Or just spirits in general,” I murmured, kicking ineffectually at the gray line. I turned back to Alex. “Did Ruth really think this was necessary?”

His grin shifted into a smirk. “What can I say? She’s a very religious woman.”

I snorted. “Yeah, except for the fact she practices magic and Voodoo in her spare time.”

“Voodoo is a religion, Amelia. A lot of people down here practice it. Besides, it’s a religion that doesn’t consider itself mutually exclusive with Christianity. The New Orleans Seers have been using it for centuries.”

“What about Ruth?” I asked.

“She grew up here, according to Annabel. So I guess she imported some of its tenets to Oklahoma. And then brought them back home with her, obviously.”

“Well,” I said with a small noise of discontent, “I guess I should feel lucky they don’t make Voodoo dolls of ghosts then, huh?”

Alex raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, but they do.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Fantastic. Just what I needed.”

“Don’t hate the magic,” he said, laughing softly. “Hate the magician.”

Then, abruptly, his expression grew serious. He walked back toward the door, hands still in his pockets, frowning thoughtfully. This time I didn’t edge away from him but held my ground, even when he stopped right next to me.

When Alex leaned close, my breath caught unexpectedly in my throat. Then, suddenly, he dropped into a crouch. He stared down at the dust and, with a quick flick of his wrist, swept half of it into the dirt of a nearby flower bed. He wiped that hand on one knee of his pants and then used it to push himself upright.

“There,” he said, smiling at me. “The house is all yours.”

“Just like that?” I marveled.

“Just like that.”

I stared wistfully at the cleared stones. “Is it weird that I’d give just about anything to touch dirt?”

“Dust,” he reminded me, chuckling. He stepped back over the threshold, turned around in the hallway so that he faced me, and then held his hand out to me palm up. Like an invitation.

“Coming in?” he asked.

Without thinking, I reached out to take his hand. But right before we touched, I paused. My arm hung in the air until, abruptly, I yanked it back to my side. Afterward, I simply stood there, awkward and stiff.

I couldn’t really explain why I’d so nearly taken his hand, just like I couldn’t really explain why I hadn’t. Maybe because I’d only been able to touch one living person since I died, and I didn’t want it to happen again with another living boy. Especially one with whom I’d just shared a surprisingly pleasant conversation. It felt wrong, the idea that I might experience something like that with someone other than Joshua.

Feeling strangely confused and guilty, I snuck a peek at Alex’s face. In the darkness, I couldn’t gauge his reaction clearly. I probably imagined what I saw shifting in his eyes: eagerness, frustration, anger … then back to that calm amusement he’d shown earlier.

I definitely heard the humor in his voice when he again asked, “So, Amelia: into the house, or not?”

I nodded, relieved that he hadn’t read too much into my hesitation. “Inside. Absolutely inside.”

He backed up against a wall, making room for me to enter. This time I didn’t hesitate. I stepped right through the doorway, leaving behind the broken line of Voodoo dust.

I walked by Alex, and, in the split second I passed him, I felt a strange itch of anticipation. For what, I don’t know. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, so I hurried on, moving farther down the dark hallway toward the foyer.

Other than the tick of a nearby clock and an occasional, muffled snore from upstairs, the house was silent. I crept through the foyer and up the first few steps of the staircase, moving with extreme care. Even if my feet couldn’t make the floorboards creak, something about being in a house full of sleeping, dormant Seers made me want to keep quiet.

Once I’d made it to the first landing I turned back to Alex, who still waited at the bottom of the stairs with one hand on the banister. I raised my eyebrows questioningly, and he shook his head. He pointed one finger toward the ground several times.

Waiting, he mouthed. He traced the outline of a rectangle in the air and then pointed up to the ceiling. Door open. Go on.

I nodded, pleased that I wouldn’t have to go through this routine again when I got to my own room. I’d just turned to continue up the stairs when I paused.

If Alex knew the door to the attic was open, then that meant he’d gone up there. To my room.

Suddenly suspicious, I looked over my shoulder to where Alex had just stood. But he must have slipped back out to the courtyard, because the foyer was now empty of everything but a Persian rug and the ticking grandfather clock. Again, I hadn’t heard a thing when he left.

That boy can disappear like a ghost.

Then, inexplicably, I shuddered. For some reason the sight of the empty foyer gave me the creeps. I turned back to the stairs and began to race up them, my fear about making noise momentarily forgotten.

Chapter

FOURTEEN

I only had to spend about twenty minutes in nervous silence, pacing the tiny floor space in our room, before Joshua came walking up the stairs to the attic bedroom.

“You’re here,” he said in a quiet, relieved voice. The room was so small, one stride brought him next to me. Without another word, he drew me close. I couldn’t help but melt into him, wrapping my arms around his waist in a numb but fierce hug.

“I swear,” I murmured into his shirt, “I shouldn’t miss you this much after only a couple hours.”

He laughed low and began running his fingers through the waves in my hair. “Actually, I wanted to come back here right away. But Annabel told me to quit being a stalker-boyfriend and give you some time alone.”

I bent my head back and looked into his dark eyes. “I’ve had plenty of time alone in the last decade.”

In my head, the snarky voice whispered, And you’ll have plenty more of it soon enough.

I sighed, so quietly I doubted Joshua heard, and lifted onto my toes to give him a small, sweet kiss. When the kiss ended, I lingered there for a moment, waiting for … something more. To feel the heat rising off his skin maybe, or smell a whiff of his cologne.

But nothing happened. It never did when I wished for it this much.

I sighed again and rocked back to my heels. “So,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment as I ran my hands over the lapels of his jacket without feeling them. “Did you like the club?”

“Hated it,” he said instantly, and we both laughed. Then his face grew serious. He tucked one strand of hair behind my ear, too quickly to set my skin tingling. “Are you ready to tell me what really happened back there? Because I don’t believe for a minute that you got claustrophobic.”

I shrugged, averting my eyes to the tiny bed against the wall. “Believe it, buddy. Just a case of way-too-crowded. Mystery solved.”

Joshua made a soft sound of derision. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

“But you love that about me,” I teased, shying away from him with a playful, departing tug on his sleeve. If I kept it light enough, maybe he’d drop the conversation entirely.

I was so intent on keeping him distracted that he completely took me by surprise with what he said next.

“I love a lot of things about you, Amelia,” Joshua said, his voice rough and low.

Oh, God.

I gulped, and then experienced what felt an awful lot like a flush across my cheeks. I hadn’t expected his response, or its obvious meaning. I suddenly knew that if I acknowledged it, we’d finally share those confessions I’d so desperately craved.