Wendy’s arm.
Piotr could hear her curse all the way across the park.
The rest of her doctoring went quickly; Eddie bandaged her up and stowed his supplies away. Then he and Wendy argued for several minutes, before Eddie broke away from Wendy and stomped up the path, stopping twenty feet to Piotr’s right and pointing toward the trees, several degrees to the left of Piotr.
“Okay dead guy,” he said gruffly, “here’s the deal. You and Wendy have to have a talk. Well, I gotta talk to her too, and I figure I’ve known her longer than you, so I have dibs.”
Arriving breathless a moment later, Wendy cradled her injured arm to her chest. Piotr was impressed by how smoothly wound the bandages were. Eddie appeared to have practice at this sort of thing. “Eds, stop,” she protested, but was ignored.
“Wendy says this is important, and since this is the first time she’s shown an emotion other than bitchy in months, I’m gonna let my chat with her slide for now. But if you piss her off or mouth off or somehow bring the bitch-queen back before I get my say, then I don’t care if you’re dead. I’ll hunt your ass down and kill you again. You got me, Casper?”
Raising an eyebrow, Piotr glanced at Wendy. Bitch-queen? Apparently Wendy hadn’t taken their fight and subsequent separation very well either. He’d become a zombie and she’d apparently turned on her friends. Wendy, noting his appraisal, flushed as red as her hair and shrugged.
“Tell him,” Piotr cleared his throat, wrestling with all the things he wanted to say and finally, after much inner debate, settling on polite neutrality, “tell him I understand.”
Wendy relayed the message.
“Fine. Text if you need a ride home.” Eddie pointed in the wrong direction towards the woods again, growled, “I’m watching you, Casper,” and stormed off.
Feeling that it was the only polite thing to do, Piotr waited until the car’s taillights had turned the corner before speaking. “Bitch-queen?”
“Shut up,” Wendy muttered. “I don’t handle rejection well.”
“You don’t handle rejection well,” Piotr repeated wryly.
“At all,” she amended. “Cut me some slack. That was the first time I’ve been dumped. I could have eaten two tons of ice cream, gotten a fat ass, and whined about it instead.”
Pushing past him, Wendy angled toward the clearing. The sun seemed warmer there and Wendy stretched out on the grass, tucking her good arm behind her as a pillow and squinting at the clouds above. In the distance the swingset creaked in the breeze and children jumped rope, chanting a nonsense rhyme in perfect lilting cadence.
“I think,” she said musingly, “I’ve been here before. Huh. I can’t remember when.”
Settling beside her, Piotr ran his fingers through the grass and asked, “Wouldn’t we have to have been dating for you to get dumped?”
“Are you kidding me? I let you in my room. I dressed up for you. We were totally dating. Or pre-dating at the very least,” Wendy replied, wriggling in the grass to get more comfortable. “And you know it. Think I hold hands with every dead guy I see?”
“Hmm,” Piotr agreed with mock gravity, “I suppose not.” He waited for a beat and then added, “So if we were dating then does this mean we’re, what’s the phrase, ‘back together’ now?”
“That depends,” she said, closing her eyes against the bright sunlight. “Do you want to be?”
Though Wendy couldn’t have told how she knew when Piotr leaned over her, she sensed the movement as clearly as if he’d been alive. There was no whisper of fabric, no hush of air against her skin, but one moment her cheeks were hot from the sunlight and their conversation and the next, blessedly cool fingertips slanted over her cheek, brushed her eyes, caressed the line of her jaw. Steam billowed and fumed around them.
When he drew back they were both breathing heavily. “Is that,” Piotr cleared his throat, “is that the correct way to answer?” Wendy, still fighting for breath, half-laughed.
“I can think of worse.”
Even after all this time being the Lightbringer, the marvel of touching a ghost, actually feeling the cool pressure of not-skin on skin, sent shivers through her. Piotr brushed a curl of her hair off her forehead and leaned in, breath that was not-breath whispering across her cheek, the scent of him filling her world.
Once she thought he smelled like cool forest earth underlined with rot, like the Walkers, but now that she’d grown accustomed to it Piotr’s scent was uniquely his own—sweet and subtle and faded, like dried rose petals releasing one last puff of sweetness before crumbling. Away from her room and amid the trees, Piotr smelled weathered, like old books and old lace and the chill clean scent of a windswept field at midnight. He smelled, very faintly, like dirt and growing things.
It was too much. She had to stand, or she was sure she’d break into a million pieces. Piotr’s touch made her movements slow and languorous, almost drowsy; Wendy felt as if she was sliding into sweet slumber, a pleasant and hazy edge of sleep. In a half-dream, Wendy stood and drifted over to a tree, supporting her weight against its comforting bulk while Piotr stood before her, bathed in the sunlight of his ghostly world.
“Slow,” Piotr murmured, as if reminding himself. “Slow touching.”
“Slow…is…good.” Wendy leaned into his touch like a plant seeking the sunlight and he chuckled, deep and low, a rumble in his chest that Wendy felt in her fingertips. With her free hand she traced the curve of his ear, marveling at the faint freckles she could see smattering across his nose. He seemed so real, so solid. Experimentally she thumbed his earlobe, flicking her nail quickly across it, but her rapid touch slid through him, meeting only air. Slowly she tried again and he hissed through his teeth, eyes momentarily closing at her touch.
“What made you change your mind?” she asked. “About me?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” Laughter rumbled beneath her hand as she pressed her palm to his chest. “Specs, I suppose. He wasn’t scared of you at all, was he?”
“No.” Wendy ran her thumb across his collarbone. “Shades aren’t either. They’re thrilled to see me coming now.”
“It’s a mercy, what you do. Sending him home, letting Specs…Brian, letting Brian go home to be with his real family.” Piotr dipped his head down, ran the tip of his nose across the curve of her cheek, his lips brushing her skin in a cool sweep. “I see that now. And I’m sorry. About what I said before.”
“Forgiven,” Wendy whispered. “No more fighting?”
“No more,” Piotr agreed fervently and then he whispered something, too fast and low for her to make it out, but the cadence of the words was strange, choked at the end. Pulse thrumming through her veins, Wendy licked her lips and tried to control herself.
“Wh-what did you say?” It came out a whisper.
“Oh,
His palm, deliciously cool and subtly soft, skimmed lightly over her collarbone, down the side laces of her corset, and settled lightly in the curve of her waist. He tugged her forward and Wendy went willingly into the circle of his arms.
“Are you happy? Really?” Wendy closed her eyes and relaxed into the embrace, letting him support her weight. Her head tilted back and she felt the weight of her hair slide across her shoulders, falling behind her. His breath stirred the curls at her forehead as he pressed his lips first to one temple and then to the other. Her skin buzzed faintly at the touch, like a slight current was running through her flesh, and she trembled. His lips traced the outer curve of her cheekbone.
“Happier than I’ve ever been. You are like a dream to me, like something I could only imagine.” Then he was kissing her. “You are my home.”
Once, when she was seven, Wendy watched lightning strike a tree. It speared down three times in a row, so white-hot that the world was washed of color for hours afterward; the smell of ozone stung for twice as long. The immense crack of the thunderclap cocooned her in silky silence; the static in the very air raised every hair on her body.
This was like kissing lightning.
