Queen of the Dead

watched more of those movies than I had. But there was no struggle here, no violence, no head revolving backward. It was more like two seat-belt-buckle halves clicking together, just not necessarily the ones intended for each other.

“If I told Mrs. Turner to bring him back…”

“No,” Will said immediately, and if possible, he turned a shade paler. I guessed that answered my question about what happened to exorcized spirits. Oblivion. Nothingness.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe if we asked him just to kind of, I don’t know, do it halfway or not full power?” Maybe a mixture of holy water and tap water or something instead of the fully leaded version?

He stared at me. “Are you really so shallow that you’d risk being turned into nothing?”

“Are you really that determined to have your friend back?” I shot back.

He gave me a disgusted look. “Don’t make it about that. You couldn’t care less about her.”

Mrs. Turner poked her head in the door, startling both of us. “Is everything okay?”

“Just another minute…Mom,” I said, almost choking on the word.

She nodded and backed away, but I suspected she wasn’t going far. “They’re going to want to take her…me home soon,” I hissed at Will. “I can’t do that.” Pretending to be someone else was exhausting, and for some horrible reason, I felt compelled to get it right. Or as close as I could. I hated seeing the occasional flashes of hurt and confusion that crossed Mrs. Turner’s face when I behaved more like me and less like the daughter she knew. It made me feel like I was taking a test and failing with every question. I wasn’t used to failing at anything. The idea of sitting at their kitchen table or whatever, trying to act like I recognized things and remembered people…God, I couldn’t even imagine that kind of pressure.

“When?” Will asked.

“Tomorrow, maybe the day after.” God, what if I was still stuck here then? Three days as Lily Turner? The last twenty-four hours had been more than enough.

“We’ve got a little time, then,” he said, seemingly more to himself than to me.

“Time for what?” I asked.

But he just shook his head.

“You have an idea,” I accused.

“Not a good one,” he said grimly.

I sat up straighter, automatically correcting for my left side, which was weaker, thanks to the initial accident damage and the surgeries that had apparently followed. Lily had some serious scars, even beyond the one on her face. “I don’t care. I’ll do anything. Tell me.”

But he just shook his head.

“What, so now you’re keeping secrets?” I asked.

He glared at me.

Okay, so maybe not the best response in terms of avoiding hypocrisy, but this was my life at stake…sort of.

I had sudden flash of insight. “It doesn’t involve her, does it?”

“Who?”

“Mina, Little Miss Rambo of the spirit world.” I flungmy hands out to encompass the room and everything beyond it.

He made a face. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Which means, what, yes, you’re going to tell her?” Panicked, I didn’t even wait for his answer. “She’ll box me for sure.” Not existing would be bad. Existing as little separate pieces, each perhaps aware and alert forever, might be worse. “She got rid of Mrs. Ruiz just for slamming a few doors, so—”

“And almost killing me,” he pointed out, turning to face me.

“—what do you think she’s going to do to me when she finds out about this?” I gestured down at myself.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before,” he said.

I stared at him.

He grimaced, started to speak, stopped, then tried again. “She was my friend, Alona, and you didn’t care. You did what you wanted, no matter who it hurt.” He shook his head. “I thought you were changing, that you were different now, but I’m not sure anymore.”

I felt tears sting my eyes again. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “I’m going to do my best to get you out of there because Lily deserves that, her family, too, even though it’s probably going to kill her mom. But after that…I think maybe we should go our separate ways.”

Even though I’d known this was a possibility, somehow it still took me by surprise and I couldn’t breathe for a second. Tears poured, hot and wet, down my face, splashing down on the front of my hospital gown.

Will was unmoved. He stood up.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep her phone with you.”

He was leaving already? “What am I supposed to do while you’re figuring out your big plan?” I tried to keep calm. It had not escaped my notice that he hadn’t answered my question about Mina.

“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

I nodded, wiping my face on the edge of the sheet.

He started for the door, and then he stopped. “Was it worth it?” he asked without turning around.

“What?”

“Doing this so you could talk to your parents? Force them back into mourning you?”

I flinched. He made it sound so cruel. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I hadn’t had many opportunities to even make the call with any kind of privacy, and the few I’d had…I hadn’t been able to convince myself to take them. It was one thing to send Will with a message and watch the fallout at a bit of a distance. But now that I had the fingers to dial the phone and the capacity to speak to them and be heard directly…I was kind of afraid to hear what they would say. Will was worried that hearing from me would send them into a tailspin of grief. I was worried it wouldn’t.

“Yes,” I lied. What else could I say?

“I hope so,” Will said. Then he left.

After a few seconds, Mrs. Turner stuck her head back in the door cautiously. “Okay if I come in again?”

I nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak.

She came farther in the room, moving toward her chair, but then she stopped, her head cocked to one side as she took in my expression and probably my tear-reddened eyes. I mean, what were the odds that Lily was attractive while crying when even I hadn’t been able to manage that?

Her shoulders sagged, and she looked at me with such sympathy. “Oh, honey. It’s just going to take some time.”

I knew that she didn’t even have a clue what was going on, but it didn’t matter. Hearing the genuine caring in her voice made my eyes burn with tears again, and then I started to cry. Sob, actually. Big gulping, loud embarrassing sobs. Ones I’d never allowed myself in front of other people when I was alive.

Get it together, Alona. But I couldn’t seem to make myself stop. It was like a faucet somewhere had snapped off, and everything was pouring out.

She moved to sit on the edge of my bed, pulling my head to rest on her shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.” She repeated the words over and over again, which should have worked, except I knew that if I got what I wanted, it wouldn’t be okay, it wouldn’t be fine, at least not for her.

She stroked my hair. “You were friends with Will and then you weren’t. And then the accident…” She rested her chin lightly on top of my head. “It’s bound to be confusing for him. For both of you.”

There was a knock at the door. I looked over to see Mr. Turner standing in the doorway awkwardly, a bouquet of wildflowers in one hand and the hugest bundle of brightly colored balloons in the other. He was wearing another denim shirt, in a lighter shade of blue this time. Tyler hovered at his side, looking a little less freaked than yesterday, but still wary. He was twisting a piece of white fabric in his hands.

“Is now a bad time?” Mr. Turner asked.

I felt Mrs. Turner stiffen next to me. “What are you doing here, Jason? What about—”

“I took the day off of work,” he said quickly. “This deserves celebration.”