Smiling crookedly, Piotr shrugged. “As I have said before, protecting the Lost has its benefits. Shaking hands in greeting will tide an older ghost over for weeks. It is a contact high. It’s why the Walkers need them to exist. That energy, that will to keep going on, is what stops the Walkers from fading away. Even those completely rotten from within.” He frowned. “I tire of this subject. It is distasteful. I don’t wish to discuss this anymore.”
“Okay.” Wendy stretched out beside him and Piotr, face grave, absently took her hand. Feverish and excited after learning so much about the world she brushed only peripherally, Wendy welcomed the electric chill of his touch. It soothed her and, despite his attempt to hide it, she noted his initial wince quickly smoothed away.
“Still burns, huh?”
“Always a little,” he murmured, running his thumb over her knuckles. “The calm surety of you is enough to make the pain worthwhile.”
“Why do you think this is?” Without releasing his hand, Wendy indicated their joined fingers. “I mean, there’s got to be some reason, right?”
“I do not know.” Stretching, Piotr laid beside her, still holding her, and wrapped his other hand around their joined fists so that he was cupping her hand in his. His eyes strayed to the intricate Celtic knots tattooed across her collarbone and he winced, glancing away. “I wish I could describe what it is like.”
“You could try.”
Piotr’s lips quirked. “I would fail. This is…this is different. It hurts, but it’s not insistent. When I touch you everything is brighter. The grey isn’t so
Sleepily, Wendy yawned. She could never explain it, the comfort she got when she and Piotr lay on her bed and held hands like this, how the electric chill subsided into soothing, numbing cool. She was thrilled by the paradox of his touch, since holding his hand inevitably sent her to sleep before long. With the White Lady regularly haunting her dreams, Wendy knew she needed every second of sleep she could get.
Adjusting until she was comfortable, Wendy curled on her side and switched hands, letting Piotr caress her other hand so she could tuck her arm under her head. “It’s nice,” she murmured, eyes slowly closing. “I need to turn off the light.”
“It’s not harming anything,” he said. “Stay.”
“Mmm,” she sighed and nodded, sinking deeper into her bed as tightly wound muscles relaxed and her light breathing finally steadied, slowed as she drifted towards sleep. “Okay.”
“So this is just ‘nice’ then?” Piotr’s voice was low, almost indistinguishable from the steady rush of blood in her veins, the soft whoosh of her own breath. She could have dreamed it; could have imagined the soft, cool press of his fingertips brushing along her cheekbone, the gentle feathering of his hair against her forehead as his lips faintly followed the line his fingers had taken. He was a perfect gentleman.
“Piotr?” she murmured, nearly asleep, not wholly conscious. “Stay?”
On the edge of dreams, Wendy frowned. “Spoilsport.”
The last thing she heard as she drifted into dreams was his laughter as he slid through the door and walked away.
In her dreams Wendy walked and walked.
This time she found herself not at the beach or the park but standing in the woods outside the house of her first reap. The house had begun to fall apart, the back porch spongy with rot, the lawn overgrown with grass and weeds that brushed Wendy mid-thigh. Wendy drifted closer to the house, running tentative fingers over the rusted legs of the swingset, and wondered why her dream had brought her here.
“Maybe it wasn’t
“You again.” Wendy scowled, eyeing the backyard for potential Walker hiding spots. “Didn’t I tell you that I wasn’t going to call a truce?”
“I remember.” She looked around the porch and tsked. “This place used to be so nice.”
“Right,” Wendy drawled. “I’m sure you even have a clue where this place is in real life.”
“Near Middlefield and San Antonio Road,” the White Lady rapped out. “Though, in the living world, I’m told those trees were torn down some time ago. Not that I’d know. I haven’t been back here in a while.” She rested one hand on the porch rail.
“What, did you live out here?” Wendy rolled her eyes. “I find that hard to believe.”
“‘When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.’ Camara. Not quite apt for this discussion, but close enough for government work, I suppose.”
“You’re talking crazy again. Or are you just trying to creep me out again or something?”
“I’ve found that ‘creeping you out’ is rarely worth the bother unless I want to make a point. Much to my chagrin, I see that quite clearly now. I shouldn’t have bothered trying to scare you the last time we spoke. All that effort for nothing.” The White Lady squeezed and the railing beneath her hand disintegrated.
“Why are you even bothering with me? I mean, come on. I know you’re dead and all, but don’t you have some sort of life?”
“Let’s say that I have a habit of following the antics of your kind and keeping an eye on their whereabouts. It’s good policy, after all, to know what your enemy is up to.” The White Lady touched her throat with one hand, plucking at her stitches. “Your sort is a big deal here. You’re like Bigfoot, but real.” She chuckled. “You don’t think about the effect what you do has on the Never, do you? How large an impact you make? Or how the Never affects the real world.”
“I was taught that the Never can’t influence the living,” Wendy said. “The whole lot of you are just ghosts.”
The White Lady chuckled. “Just ghosts. That’s rich.” She pointed to the swingset. “Do you remember the woman you reaped here? What was she doing when you found her?”
Wendy stiffened. “How did you know about that?”
“Answer the question. What was she doing?”
Shrugging, Wendy glanced at the swingset. “Pushing her granddaughter on the swing.” She stopped. “Wait, that can’t be right. She was dead. That can’t happen.” Wendy chewed her lower lip and tried to remember more about that day. Surely she’d imagined the old woman pushing the girl. To think otherwise was to start entertaining ideas she wasn’t prepared to handle, especially without her mother to answer the questions that were bullying their way to the forefront of Wendy’s mind. “Can it?”
“You tell me.” The White Lady sounded as if she were smirking, but the heavy shadow of her cloak hid her face. She gestured back toward the house. “Don’t you ever wonder what happened to the mother of that little girl? What sort of mother would leave her child to an abusive stepfather and a sick grandmother? Especially after that grandmother had kicked the bucket?”
“A real mom wouldn’t. She’d be back home right away.”
“True! ‘A mother’s love endures through all.’ Washington Irving. So, my dear girl, why would a mother have to let someone like you intervene on her child’s behalf?”
“She wouldn’t. Unless she was kept away or, I don’t know, was dead,” Wendy said. Then she frowned, taking in the overgrown yard and rotting home. Pale white lace curtains fluttered in the windows, long white sheers hung behind the shattered patio door. Even the buckets of flowers by the patio stairs, overgrown and wilted, browned in the hot sun, had once been white. “Wait. Are you telling me that
“I’m telling you nothing,” the White Lady interjected smoothly. “All I’m doing is pointing out that you’ve been taking too much at face value for some time now. Listening to one’s mother is all well and good, but at some point you have to learn to think for yourself. I was watching you that day.” She drifted down the stairs past Wendy and, with a slight gesture, sent the rusting swing rattling in an arc. “You were so intent on ripping that ghost to shreds on your momma’s orders, you didn’t even think to ask the right questions.”
“Oh yeah? What should I have asked, then?” Wendy stiffened and stepped away from the White Lady. She
