Then, I took a deep breath and tried to wake myself up through sheer will. No luck.
“I’m not talking to you,” I said, looking away.
“Why not?” he asked, bumping his shoulder into mine.
I glanced back before I could stop myself. His eyes were the same piercing blue I remembered. He looked unnervingly solid. “First of all, because I’m dreaming.” Dreams mattered in St. Hilaire, but I didn’t want this one to.
Ian smirked. “You sure about that?”
“Yes.” I raked a hand through my hair. Wake up, I ordered myself, but nothing changed.
“Well then,” Ian said. “You might want to be careful about your diet. Too much coffee can give you nightmares.”
My pulse quickened. Don’t take the bait.
“Second,” I said. “Because you’re dead.”
“Really? Because I seem to remember you talking to ghosts all the time.”
“Is that what you are?” I asked, sucked in by him as always. “A ghost?”
“No, I’m an angel. I’m just waiting for my wings to come back from the dry cleaner’s. Lord, Griffin. Don’t be an idiot.”
Sparring with Ian was always a type of verbal vortex. He managed to disarm his opponents through a dizzying combination of arrogance and charm, which was one of the reasons I hadn’t spoken to him for months before he died.
However, not for the first time, I had a niggling sense of guilt that maybe I should have been a better…not friend, but whatever. Maybe then, things would have ended differently; maybe he’d still be alive.
Ian stared at me, a challenge in his eyes. Getting a straight answer from him had always been difficult. Getting a straight answer from a ghost could be impossible. Given that combination, if I believed, for even a second, that I wasn’t asleep, then direct-as-hell was really my only option.
“Fine,” I said. “You’re here, so I’ll ask. I’ve heard rumors… Did you really kill yourself?”
Ian made a “humph” sound, then stood and knotted his hands behind his neck, a gesture I recognized. I’d hit a nerve. Interesting.
He turned, and I watched his lips as he said, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, Griffin. You know better.”
A year’s worth of defense mechanisms threatened to come crashing down around me. My subconscious obviously didn’t believe the rumors. All well and good. Still, I wasn’t going to stick around to let him drag me down this rabbit hole again. “I’m waking up now,” I said.
Then, with a disorienting jolt, I did.
The room was quiet. I was alone, but as always, Ian, even dream Ian, seemed to leave some energy behind.
I picked up the pack of syringes again. In dying, Ian had lost everything I wanted. He’d led the Corps. Had the opportunity to make a good living as a Guild member without having to hang a shingle outside his door. If I followed his example, I could do the same. I’d have enough money that my father wouldn’t have to work sixty hours a week at the train yard. I could be who I wanted to be. The only difference; I would stay alive.
I saw the future laid out in front of me as clearly as I felt the syringes, heavy in my hand. Unfortunately for now, both would have to wait.
Instead, I tried to conjure some anticipation for the festival. Dec had been distant this summer, distracted. He was always running off on secretive errands and staring blankly at walls. I hoped the absence of the tourists might bring some of the old Dec back.
And I needed to shake off this dream.
I glanced at the clock, gathered my forever-unruly hair, and grabbed a large pair of scissors. It was time to put an end to summer.
Chapter 4
Dec
I had a couple of hours to kill before the festival, so I did the same thing I always did on the last day of the season. I sat at the old piano in our music room, took a deep breath, and focused on the feel of the cool keys on my fingertips, the pressure of my feet on the pedals.
Like everything in St. Hilaire, the piano was strange. For one thing, it was always in tune, which was good because it wasn’t like Harriet was going to approve of me paying someone to tune it. Also, it had an unusual rounded keyboard, a three-panel upright carved back, and a bizarre backstory. My great-grandfather had been paid a literal fortune to take it in after some rich New York society woman claimed it was haunted. It belonged in St. Hilaire more than I did.
Yet, I was the only one who had ever learned to play it, and, even so, Harriet threw a fit if I played during the summer when tourists were in and out of the house. Not like I sucked. It just gave her one more thing to be pissed about.
I cracked my knuckles and limbered up with some easy scales. Lost myself in the music and the repetition of my hands on the keys. I thought of winter. Of freedom.
Then my phone vibrated.
I hoped it was Russ, but no, when I pulled it out of my pocket, it said Unknown number.
“Who is this?” I demanded. I’d tried to be nice. I’d tried threatening the caller with reports to the phone company and the police. But it never made any difference; there was only silence on the other end.
I switched it off. Once I got to the festival, I wouldn’t be able to hear the ring over the noise, anyhow.
“Are you ready?” Laura asked as she bounced into the room. Her face was lit up in a way that made my chest ache.
I nodded and walked with her to the town square, listening to her excited chatter about the upcoming school year. I still hadn’t made peace with the fact that leaving St. Hilaire meant leaving her. I hoped she wouldn’t hate me for it. I hoped she’d be okay.
“Come stand by the stage with me,” she begged when we got there. It was the town square of every old movie: green grass, ice cream vendors, signs directing people to the fairy trail. Except normal towns didn’t have fairy trails.
A band was just setting up, and the scents of beer and incense melded into a smoke that was colored by the twinkling lights hung on each and every tree.
I grabbed my sister and spun her around in the one and only dance move I’d ever learned.
“You go,” I said. “I’m waiting for Russ.”
She pouted, but kissed my cheek. “Fine, spoilsport. Have fun.” Then she was gone.
I moved a strand of lights and leaned against a tree. I’d wondered whether knowing this was my final end-of-summer festival would make me appreciate it more. But the only thing I felt was impatience.
Later tonight, the commuter residents, those who only came to St. Hilaire to work the summer season, would shutter their doors, pack their cars, and head back to their real lives in Ohio, Vermont, or Seattle. The rest of us would wait out the winter and pretend our lives were normal.