Page 36 of Wicked Bonds
I blink, because it’s not the question I expected. “At first it was confusing,” I say, after a minute. “You don’t know what you are. You just know what you aren’t anymore.”
She thumbs the edges of her book. “Was it fast?”
“The part where your body gives out, that’s quick. The part where you realize you’re never going to touch anyone again, that’s the part that drags.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“It is.”
“Is that why you keep hanging around me? Because I can see you? And touch you?”
I nod. “You’re the first one in a long time.”
“Just keep your ectoplasm to yourself, alright?”
“No promises,” I say, and she actually laughs.
The tension feels lighter, and I realize my apology has been accepted. She stands, brushes off her hands, and crawls onto the mattress. She doesn’t look at me as she pulls the blanket up, but she leaves a corner turned back, and that’s invitation enough.
I sit on the bed until she’s asleep. I don’t try and touch her again, though I want to more than anything. I just exist, quiet and invisible, for as long as she’ll let me.
When I finally rise to leave, I pause by the door. I consider saying something, but decide against it. Instead, I brush a hand through the air above her head, not quite touching, but close enough to remember what it felt like when I could.
I turn to go, then stop. “Rose,” I say, and even though she’s asleep, I think she hears me.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I say, remembering the way her magic lashed out at me. “I mean it. Don’t use that on me. I didn’t like it.”
She doesn’t answer, but she shifts in her sleep, hand curling around the mark on her arm.
I slip out as quietly as I arrived.
The next night, I return. I don’t have a reason. Or rather, my reason is that I spent all day haunting the places where Rose isn’t, and I don’t like how that feels. The world is cold and empty and worse, boring, unless I am in proximity to her.
Tonight, she sits on the windowsill, eyes on the night sky.
I do what any self-respecting wraith would do. I materialize directly inside, in the space between bed and window, and watch for her reaction. She doesn’t even flinch. She just scoots over to make room for me on the sill. For a moment, I almost feel like a regular person.
“Couldn’t stay away, huh?”
I lean beside her, and I wonder if we are friends. I haven’t had a friend in an achingly long time. But you don’t feel for your friends the things I’m starting to feel for Rose.
“My mom lied to me,” she says, unprompted. The words spill out in a way that says she’s been holding them in with a lot of effort. “She told me I didn’t have any magic, that whatever she had skipped a generation.” A humorless laugh. “She went to a lot of effort to keep me from finding out.”
I tilt my head. “Parents are experts in creative omission.”
“She didn’t just omit. She bound it. Did you know that’s even a thing?”
“Yes.”
“When I realized, I was so pissed. All those years thinking I was just a burnout, a disappointment. And the whole time, she was hiding it from me, to hide me from this.” She gestures at the room, the school, the entire ridiculous situation.
“She was trying to protect you,” I say.
“I know she was,” Rose says. “That’s the worst part. She did it to keep me from being found. Then she died. And I still can’t decide if I’m grateful, or mad, or—” She bites the word off. “Never mind.”
I watch her face. She’s angry, but really she’s sad.
“You ever wish you could go back?” she asks. “Do something different, maybe try and change things, before everything fell apart?”
