Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day(33)
—until fingers find fingers and interlace, coming together the way hands are meant to. I look back down. I still can’t see myself, but now I know, for sure, that I exist; I’m not just a disembodied voice floating in a silver sea. If I exist, I can find a way out of here. I’m sure of that.
The witch is Brenda’s daughter. I’m sure of that, too, just like I’m sure Brenda doesn’t know. Brenda could be the greatest actress of her age—and there’s no real telling what that age is, not with her being a witch, not with ghosts in the world—and she still wouldn’t have been able to fool Sophie’s rats like that. Sophie wouldn’t lie to me. She didn’t tell me she was a witch, but that was because she hadn’t needed to, and she likes me. Sophie would have told me if Brenda was a danger. Brenda doesn’t know her daughter is doing this. That means Brenda might also be in danger.
I’ve known her a long time. I wouldn’t call us old friends, but it’s been long enough that I feel like I owe her some sort of help, if I can just figure out how to get the hell out of here.
Being prisoned in glass is the thing every ghost I know fears more than anything. Even exorcism is a small threat compared to that. An exorcised ghost is scattered for a little while, becoming a whisper on the wind and a chilly place in still air. Depending on how strong they are, they’ll come back together in a week, a month, a year. The longest exorcism I’ve ever heard of lasted eighteen months, and half of that was because the ghost in question was so surprised that his meek little wife had been willing to light the candles and chant the words. I’ve never been exorcised, but the people I know who have say it’s like taking a long, restorative nap. Some older ghosts even do it on purpose, just to break up the monotony.
Glass is different. Glass catches and keeps, until someone decides to let you out or the mirror is broken. Glass takes your choices away. If the witch who has me wanted me to take another year off her, or two, or twenty, I wouldn’t have a choice. I don’t know what happens to a ghost who ages themselves past their dying day, but I’ve never met anyone who had passed that age and stayed corporeal.
I have to get out of here.
If I have hands, I have feet. I may be walking blind, but the ground seems smooth, and presumably I’ll know if I fall. I start walking. When nothing bad happens, I start running.
Dead people don’t get tired. There have been a couple of Olympic records set by ghosts, running right alongside the living. I run, and I run, and I run until time doesn’t mean anything anymore, time is something for people who exist outside of mirrors, in a world where there are walls, and borders, and consequences.
There’s no warning before the silver world in front of me disappears, replaced by Danny’s face. I can see the theater behind him, tattered wallpaper and all. There’s no sign of the corn. He glances nervously over his shoulder before looking back to the glass and whispering, “Jenna?”
I stop running. There isn’t any point. “Let me out of here.”
Relief washes over his face. For just that moment, I can remember that he was my friend before this started happening, before he joined forces with a witch and ran for my hometown. Then the relief fades, replaced by regret, and he says, “I can’t do that. Teresa would put me in a mirror if I did that.”
“And your freedom matters more than mine; is that it?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. The answer is in the situation, in the fact that he would help a witch harm his own kind rather than risk himself sounding the alarm. That’s almost being charitable. It assumes she approached him and not the other way around; that he’s just a coward and not a traitor.
“Why?” My question is soft, almost gentle; I want him to think he can make me understand.
“It only takes one ghost to anchor a city,” says Danny. “I knew Delia would never leave. I managed to make Teresa understand. Nobody who was haunting Manhattan was actually buried there, so we couldn’t count on bones; it had to be her. I had her convinced that you were anchoring Mill Hollow. She would have left you alone. She would never have gone looking for a replacement ghost.”
“Does everybody know about anchors but me?” I demand, throwing my hands up. Then I pause. Something about the way he said that . . . “What do you mean, a replacement ghost?”
Danny looks uncomfortable. “Forget it.”
“No, I won’t. What do you mean?”
“Ghosts don’t just happen. Someone has to make them. That’s why we all died so early, and why so many of us had freak accidents. People like Delia, who came back because she wanted to, they’re the rare ones.”
The storm that killed me was unseasonable and strange. I don’t want to think about it right now. If I think about it, when I’m already prisoned in glass with no way out, I may just start screaming. “So?”
“So I tried to protect you by making her think you were the anchor, so she wouldn’t make a replacement. You’re the one who’s always saying we have an obligation to other people. To help them.”
I stare at him. I don’t know if he can see me; I hope he can. I hope he understands the hate and dismay I’m directing at his face. “She knew I wasn’t the anchor; she said as much to me. I was trying to convince you to volunteer at the suicide hotline, not giving you permission to lock other ghosts in mirrors so rich assholes can use us as the fountain of youth. This isn’t helping people.”