Queen of the Dead

He stared down at me with a frown. “No,” he said. “This is different.” He rested his hands on the side of my bed and leaned in for a closer look. Having him hanging over my face was, quite frankly, more than a little annoying, but it was further than I’d gotten with Mrs. Turner.

Now just get them to give me one of those damn boards. I tried to tell him with my eyes. That would be a start at least. Even if I couldn’t quite get it right from the start, maybe they’d at least realize I was trying.

But his parents ignored him.

“I think it’s time to take her home,” Mr. Turner said.

That sounded like a good plan to me. If “Lily” came home, Will would have to come visit. Guaranteed.

“Take her home to die, you mean,” Mrs. Turner said scornfully.

Wait, what?

“Yes, to die,” he said. “She’s not getting any better. And you’re…” he sighed. “This isn’t good for you.”

“Don’t pretend to care about Lily or me.”

I wished I could see her. Mrs. Turner sounded like she was inches from snapping and throwing a punch. From what I’d seen of her, I bet she could probably put some force behind it, too.

“You’re willing to let her slip away just so you don’t have to live with your mistake,” she said.

“That’s not—”

“You gave her the car!”

This sudden shout from Mrs. Turner was a conversation stopper. Even Tyler half-turned from me to stare at his parents.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I gave our sixteen-year-old sober and responsible daughter the car keys and permission to spend time with her friends. You would have done the same thing, but I’m the one who will have to carry the knowledge for the rest of my life that I could have done something.” His voice cracked. “I could have stopped her, but I didn’t know.” The sound of broken and hoarse breathing, half-repressed sobs came from his direction.

I turned toward the sound instinctively and found I could move my head on the pillow. Just a little bit. But enough to see them both now. Mr. Turner was this big guy with a beard, but his voice was gentle. And I’d forgive him for wearing a denim shirt. He was clearly grieving.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Turner said wearily. “I didn’t mean it.” She rested her head against his shoulder, and he allowed it, patting her back with one giant bear-paw of a hand.

“If we take her home,” Mr. Turner continued, forcing himself to talk through his tears, “she can be comfortable. She can be with us. No more tests, no more feeding tubes, no more doctors.”

Mrs. Turner leaned into him and shook her head. “I don’t know.…She was trying to talk to me, Jason, I know it.”

“Then why don’t any of the tests show improvement? Why doesn’t she communicate when we ask her to?”

“I don’t know, but—”

“Her fingers move on their own — muscle reactions. If you look hard enough, you can make meaning out of anything.”

“She told me not to be sad.”

“How much of that is what you wanted to see?” he asked gently. “How sure are you that she was reaching for the ‘s’ and not the ‘t’ or the ‘q’?”

I beg your pardon, I hit those letters with precision. Well, as much precision as I could manage using someone else’s hand.

“I know what I saw,” Mrs. Turner said, but her voice had lost its earlier conviction.

“We don’t have to forget, we never forget, but she can let go and so can we,” he said quietly.

And take me with her? I don’t think so. I still wasn’t sure how I’d been pulled in here in the first place. If Lily died, would her body let me go? I could think of one thing way worse than being stuck in a living body I didn’t want, and that was being stuck in a not-living one.

I shuddered on the inside.

Lily’s brother was still by my bed, half sitting, half leaning against the edge, like he’d forgotten I was there in the drama created by his parents. Couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly the chatty type these days, now was I?

This time, I didn’t even try to talk.

If I was going to stop them from letting Lily die longenough to let me out, I needed to let them know I was in here. I seemed to be having better luck with small motionsover talking, and the brother’s hand was resting on the bed, just inches from mine. If I could just tap him, that might be enough to get his attention and get him to make his parents see.

I focused all my effort on my right hand. I just need to move the fingers a little farther down and…

As usual, when I really put my mind to something, I win. Big time.

I watched as my hand shot forward and locked around Tyler’s wrist.

Tyler jumped up with a yelp, but my hand was still on his arm, so he dragged me with him until I was listing awkwardly to the side.

“Lily!” Mrs. Turner shrieked.

She shoved Mr. Turner away and bolted for the bed. Pushing past Tyler and breaking my now weakening grip on his wrist, she scooped my upper half up into a too-tight hug.

“I knew you would come back. I knew there was a reason to keep hoping,” she whispered in my ear, her tears wet against my face.

Crap. This was going to get complicated.

9 Will

The smoke grew thick quickly. Choking on it, I dragged myself the rest of the way out of the hole, praying the rotten boards would still hold my weight.

Then again, the air beneath the stage was probably cleaner. Ghost smoke seemed to follow the same rules as the real stuff. The trouble would be surviving the fall.

Though my lungs were screaming at me to rest and catch a breath of clean air that would never come, I forced myself to crawl across the rough and ragged boards, staying low where the smoke was the thinnest. Splinters from the rotting boards tore into my palms, feeling more like insect stings, but I kept going.

Flickering light, like what I remembered from burning leaves in the fall, lit up the theater around me in a manner anything but soothing or nostalgic. I could now see out into the audience area, the rows of seats still in place and the gaping holes where some had already been removed. Through the smoke, I caught a glimpse of double doors, sagging on their hinges, at the top of the main aisle. That was where I’d seen that flash of light. That was where I needed to go. There had to be another way out of this building.

Behind me, a shriek of agony filled the air, so loud and piercing it stopped me in my tracks.

I jerked my head around to see something vaguely person-shaped, covered in writhing flames. Two arms waving in the air, two legs stumbling forward, all of it haloed in bright yellow-and-orange fire. A dark gaping hole in the blaze that encompassed the head might have been the mouth.

Move, Will, move! I scrambled toward the edge of the stage.

The burning man followed me, lighting up the darkness as he moved. His screams were no longer even recognizably human. If I survived this, I’d never be able to go to sleep again without hearing those sounds in my head.

Frantic to get away, I half slid, half fell off the edge of the stage, landing hard and awkwardly in the debris. Above me, the burning man loomed, inches from falling and landing on top of me.

I scrambled backward, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase.

My fingers brushed the smooth edge of something that did not feel like decaying wood, a disintegrating chunk of plaster, or rusty metal.