Body and Soul

I stopped dead, certain that I could not be seeing who I thought, especially not here.

Her normally glossy black hair was a dull and staticky mess gathered in a frizzy ponytail, and she was wearing a tank top and sweats—not the cute kind, either, but the baggy ones you only wear when you’re home with the flu. Still, it was definitely her. Huddled in a chair across from the receptionist’s desk and dabbing her eyes with a soggy tissue that looked about two tears away from disintegrating entirely, was my former best friend.

A rush of homesickness for my old life swept over me. “Misty?” Her name slipped out before I could stop it. “What are you doing here?” It felt like the world had tipped a bit, sliding people into places they shouldn’t be. I hadn’t seen her in months, not since graduation. Not mine, obviously. But hers and Will’s and everybody else’s that I knew.

She looked up, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Her gaze skated over my face, and she recoiled slightly, probably at the sight of the jagged scar on the left side, from my temple down. “Do I know you?”

Oh, right.I tipped my head forward, letting my hair slide to hide the damage, and buying some time before I had to answer. I didn’t know what to say. She wouldn’t recognize Lily, probably, but…“I—”

“What are you doing?” Will whispered to me, alarm in his voice. “Sorry, our mistake,” he said to Misty, and then started to pull me away.

But it was too late.

“Hey, wait,” Misty called after us. “I doknow you.”

In spite of everything—that she’d stolen my boyfriend and thought I was dead and gone—my heart jumped with the ridiculous hope that my oldest friend had somehow recognized me. I turned back to face her, but she was looking at Will.

I fought against the unreasonable disappointment. It only made sense, I guess, that she’d recognize him. At least he was still in the same body as the one she knew him in from before.

“You went to Groundsboro,” she said, pointing at him. “You’re, like, that freaky goth guy, right?”

Uh-oh.I grimaced, and Will stopped, his shoulders stiff. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said with a tight smile. “Let’s go,” he said to me.

“So…” She got up and edged toward us. “This guy is legit?” She waved her Kleenex-filled hand around at Malachi’s office.

Now Will turned to face her with a wary look, and I could see his curiosity warring with the need to be cautious. We were starting to attract some attention. The noise level had dropped considerably, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a few of the blurry spots were drifting closer to us. “Why do you ask that?” he asked finally.

To my complete shock, her face crumpled and she collapsed into her chair. “Because I need help,” she said in a squeaky, high-pitched voice between sobs. “And I thought you might know if this is actually going to work.”

“This” presumably referring to her consultation with Malachi.

“You’re, like, an expert on all this goth/undead stuff, right?” she asked, sniffling. “And you’re here, so he must be good.…”

Will looked at me, a little panicked. I tugged away from him and went to sit next to her, ignoring his glare of warning. No, Misty hadn’t always made the greatest choices—like stealing my boyfriend even beforeI was dead—but I’d forgiven her for that…mostly. She was the only one—before Will—who’d known the truth about my mom’s drinking problems, and she’d never told anyone or used it against me. I honestly couldn’t be sure if I would have done the same with access to that kind of ammunition.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, patting her shoulder gingerly. She looked sort of…unshowered. Clearly, something was going on.

She took a deep hiccupping breath. “You guys remember my best friend, Alona Dare? She died?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she covered her face with her hands.

I have to admit, it warmed my heart that Misty was clearly still upset about my death, even though it had been months ago. Now, this was the kind of mourning I’d deserved from the begi

Will sighed heavily. “Yeah, I remember her.” To the trained ear, though, he sounded far more exasperated than sorry. I scowled at him.

“So, you’re here because of her?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic while mentally sticking my tongue out at Will. See? Somebodymissed me…even after stealing my boyfriend. Well, let’s just not focus on that part.

Misty nodded, her head still bowed.

Oh, how sweet. She wants to stay in touch with me. I gave Will a triumphant look, and he rolled his eyes.

“I’m sure that wherever Alona is—” I began.

“She won’t leave me alone,” Misty said, her voice muffled by her hands.

“What?” I leaned closer, certain I must have misheard.

“I said…” Misty lifted her head up and met my gaze, righteous anger burning through the last of her tears. “That bitch is haunting me, and I can’t get rid of her.”

I’ve seen Alona in a lot of situations. A lot of messed-up situations, actually. Confronting angry ghosts who wanted to tear through her to get to me, discovering that her “friends” were mostly worthless jerks, and most recently, inhabiting the body of a girl she didn’t know.

This, however, was the first time I’d ever seen her struck completely and utterly speechless. Her mouth worked, opening and closing several times, without a single word escaping.

Misty looked slightly disconcerted by Alona’s fish-outof-water routine. She shifted away from Alona in the chair, like she half expected an explosion of some kind. Frankly, I wasn’t sure whatto expect.

“Excuse us,” I said to Misty, hastily reaching down to grab Alona’s hand.

I pulled her to the far corner, near the door to the outside, and fortunately, no one followed, though the ghost in the Abe Lincoln hat (thankfully, not the real deal, just someone who apparently favored the long-dead president’s taste in fashion) was staring at us now. Great.

“So much for subtle,” I hissed at Alona.

“She thinks I’m haunting her.” She sounded stu

I raked my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

“I’m not, though.” She shook her head as though clearing it, which made her wobble. I grabbed her elbow long enough to steady her, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

“I mean, I did try it once,” she continued. “Back a few months ago, right after I died.”

“Yes, I remember,” I said tersely. She’d almost disappeared for good then, thoroughly screwing both of our chances for survival.

“But not since then, and I can’t now. I mean, look at me!” She gestured toward herself with distaste. “I’m all…bodified.”

I gritted my teeth to keep from responding with any number of comments that would only make things worse. Yes, okay, her point was that she couldn’t be haunting anyone in her current condition, but it was more than that, I knew. Alona hated being trapped in a body that wasn’t her own or up to her previous standards—fine. But Lily was not exactly the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as Alona would make her out to be. Lily was cute, always had been, and yes, the scar on her face and the limp were noticeable, but they didn’t make her repulsive…not by any stretch of the imagination.

But now was not the time for this argument.

“Look, we need to focus on the situation at hand, okay?” I glanced over my shoulder. Severed Arm Dude and Spring Break Girl had joined the faux-Lincoln ghost, and they were now talking among themselves and gesturing in our direction. Well, half gesturing, in the case of the ghost with only one arm.

Not good.

I turned back to Alona. “We need to see Malachi the Magical or whatever, and figure out what he knows, if anything, and then get out of here.” Hopefully in one piece and without a trail of ghosts following both of us home.