Page 34 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
The wind chimes stilled.
All I could hear was my own heavy breathing—and Ellis’s sharp gasps—before the darkness swallowed the room whole.
“What the hell?” Ellis said, her voice too loud in the thick silence that had blanketed us.
And then, just as suddenly as the flames had vanished, every candle reignited, each one whooshing back to life in perfect, eerie sync.
Ellis screamed.
I swore, my heart thudding like a drumline in my chest as an obnoxious laugh echoed through the room. My blood chilled. My eyes dropped to the chair beside the one Ellis had just vacated.
A girl sat there. The same one who’d entered the shop with her earlier. With her long pink hair and clubbing outfit, she sat poised, one leg crossed over the other, casual as anything. Her laughter faded as she flicked a pink strand off her shoulder.
I looked at Ellis, only to realize her face was buried in her hands. Had she been like that the whole time?
“Ellis,” I said on a breathless laugh, feeling ridiculous. “It’s fine. It’s just your friend. The one you came in with. The candles must’ve been a fluke. Maybe the air vents.”
“My friend?” Ellis spluttered, pulling her hands away. She blinked hard, like she needed to focus. When her eyes finally landed on the pink-haired girl, they widened. “What—what do you mean? I don’t have a—I don’t know her. What the fuck is this?”
Her last words were screeched so loudly I winced, silently praying no customers were in the shop.
“You—you came in with her—”
Ellis cut me off, nearly hyperventilating, as the pink-haired diva looked between us with a self-satisfied smirk.
“This is a prank,” Ellis snapped. “Some sick, twisted shit. Is this what you do? Plant people? Some kind of scare tactic? You’re messing with me!”
“All right,” the pink-haired girl said loudly, clapping her hands once. “Listen, this girl owns a cute shop, but she’s no medium, honey.”
Medium? My brain snagged on the word. I frowned. She wasn’t… No. It couldn’t be.
“Okay, let me spell it out for you both,” the girl said with an annoyed sigh. “I’m the ghost of Christmas past. Just kidding.” She laughed at her own joke, but when neither of us reacted, she rolled her eyes. “Tough crowd. All right. Listen, I expected a little more fanfare here. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get you tohearme? Toseeme?”
She was looking directly at Ellis, whose hands were now trembling at her sides, her entire body shaking as pure fear took hold.
I, on the other hand, was more confused than anything.
“I’ve been stuck to you since they put my heart in your ungrateful chest, Ellis,” the girl said, her voice laced with razor-edged amusement and fury. Her eyes flashed. “I’ve been in your ear since you woke up. Do you know howwildit was watching my heart go into someone else’s chest cavity?”
“What?” I breathed, disbelief crashing over me like a wave.
“Okay, well, I mean, pretty muchallmy organs were given away,” the girl said, her tone dismissive. “Honestly, it was like Build-A-Bear for people.”
Ellis sucked in a shuddering breath. “W-what are you saying?”
The girl smiled—almost kindly this time—as she raised her arms. “This is weird for me too, you know. Considering you’re walking around with my heart inside you. But here we are. Out of everyone who got a piece of me,youwere the one I got stuck to.”
Silence filled the room, and my skin tingled as Ellis’s body seemed to lock up. Her mouth opened, as if she might say something, but no sound came out.
My brain scrambled to reconcile the last few minutes—trying to make it make sense and failing—because this wasn’t a performance. There were no wires. No smoke. No mirrors.
This was real.
There was a ghost sitting in my reading room.
My pulse roared in my ears as a strange mix of terror and exhilaration swept through me.
A sudden clatter yanked me out of my hyperfocused stare, and I looked down just in time to see Ellis sprawled on the floor.
