He certainly doesn’t tell her how badly he wants to go back under.

CHAPTER 20 HER

COLIN IS HELD IN THE INFIRMARY THE NEXT day, and Lucy walks back through campus, feeling increasingly untethered with each passing step.

Warnings haunt her. Two people now have seen Lucy and reacted as if she were anything but good.

They always take someone with them. Try not to, Lucy. Go take your haunting somewhere else.

The words, delivered with such certainty, taste all wrong in Lucy’s thoughts. Where would she take Colin even if she could? How could she possibly take her “haunting” somewhere else when she can’t even manage to pass through the school’s iron gates?

She walks away from the buildings, down the long gravel road leading toward the majestic stone buildings. Even out of her sight, they feel just as imposing. Her anchor is this school, these grounds, and—most of all—that boy lying bruised and broken in the infirmary.

Lucy presses her hand to the cold iron gates and then leans forward, resting her forehead there too. Objectively, it’s cold. The cold takes over every inch of her skin, and yet it’s completely without discomfort. No sensation in the world registers above the memory of feeling Colin the day before.

Warm skin, the wet of his lips, and the ache for more in every one of his sounds. Being with Colin like that was how she always hoped it would feel. Being with him in his human body and her ghost one felt like trying to mix ice and fire.

It’s about more than feeling him, though. It’s about the depth of her wanting. She wants him. There’s a small, hollow void, even when she’s right beside him, and it’s because they truly know nothing: not why she’s there, how long she’ll be back, or even why she disappeared two weeks ago. How much time do they have together? Weeks? Months? A year? Is she here only to be near him and enjoy him, or is she here to make up for some sin in her human life?

Footsteps crunch on the gravel on the other side of the gate, and Lucy opens her eyes, taking a surprised step backward when she sees Maggie heading in to work.

“Trying to leave?” Maggie asks, eyes narrowed. Lucy’s ingrained manners battle with her frustration. She remembers the way the world seemed to snap like a rubber band when she’d tried to walk through the gate and how she ended up right back where she’d started. “I’m guessing you know I can’t.”

Maggie’s laugh comes out sharp. “I was hoping it would be different for you.” She studies Lucy for a beat. “What are you doing out here, girl?”

“I’m thinking,” Lucy answers, defensive. “I’m out for a walk. I’m worried for Colin, and I’m confused.”

“I’m sure you are. Can’t find it in me to be sympathetic, though.”

Lucy feels a bit like an amnesia victim who has woken to discover she’s committed some great, secret crime. She’d happily avoid being horrible if only someone would tell her how. “Why weren’t you surprised to see me? Everyone else who works here, I mean those who even bother to really look at me, act like I’m something to fear. You basically shooed me out with a broom.”

“I suppose fear is how most people react to seeing a ghost.” Maggie’s answer is so matter of fact that Lucy feels her exasperation boil up inside. But Maggie holds up a hand to keep her from responding. “I was new here when you died. It wasn’t that long ago, girl. Dot, Joe, all of them knew you as a student and still aren’t sure if they believe you’re the same girl. I tried to tell them the first time that ghosts come back to this place, but until you, no one seemed to want to believe me.” “What ghost was here before?”

“No way,” Maggie says, shaking her head. “I’m not going down that road with you.”

Lucy watches her, seeing a trace of vulnerability beneath the stern surface. “Then at least tell me why we come back.”

This time, Maggie laughs. “I suspect you’re here for that boy. He’s like a magnet for you.”

“Why is that a bad thing?”

Narrowing her eyes, Maggie says, “Don’t know exactly why it’s him you need. I wish I did, Lucy. But you think long and hard about how you felt when you saw Colin lying in the hospital bed. Were you relieved he was safe? Or disappointed you didn’t kill him?”

It’s too much. The nurse has crossed a line, and no matter how much Lucy wants to understand, horror and rage course through her so quickly that she turns, walking toward campus without another word. She doesn’t look back to see, but she’s almost certain she hears the rattling of the gate behind her.

Kill him? How could Maggie even suggest it? Lucy is the one who pulled Colin from the water, who ran to find help. Maggie herself admitted that she didn’t know everything, but even knowing something is a lot farther along than where Lucy is. She only knows that she is falling for Colin and will do anything to not disappear again.

Obviously there have been others who’ve come back. Jay talked about the Walkers. Maggie clearly has stories of her own. And Lucy remembers something Ms. Baldwin said, that people don’t look. That most people don’t need to see. Could it be that simple? Lucy’s spent countless hours watching the students around her—looking for a memory or something familiar—but maybe she’s looking for the wrong thing. Maybe it’s not a thing she should be watching for, but a who.

Without a destination in mind, she continues on, turning this way and that, moving from sidewalk to snow-covered lawn to gravel path and then sidewalk again. Following nothing but the instinctual map that seems to be unfolding in her mind.

She finds herself beside the statue, running her fingertips down the smooth, extended arm of Saint Osanna. The marble hums beneath her fingers, and Lucy curls her grip more firmly around it, feeling it warm. Somehow she knows there’s life there—of one form or another, even if it’s life in the way she is. If Lucy can return and form a makeshift body out of the elements, why can’t the statue possess a spirit just the same?

Feet crunch through the snow, and she turns, catching Jay as he almost passes her by without noticing.