Pretty When She Dies (Pretty When She Dies #1)(32)

Slowly, Amaliya put down her fork. Her mind overwhelmed by her grandmother's words, she didn't know what to say.

Sergio rolled his eyes. “C'mon, Grandmama. She's sitting right across from us.”

“Did the bad Satanist kill you?” her grandmother asked in a soft voice.

“Do you want us to tell the police who they are so you can go into the light.”

Amaliya opened her mouth to answer, then shut it, still not sure what to say.

“She's not dead,” Sergio said again.

“Yes, she is,” his grandmother answered, and looked very sad. “All my girls die young.”

“Mae is still alive,” Sergio pointed out. “And Kelly Ann.”

“Mae is too mean to die and Kelly Ann is too stupid,” their grandmother decided, and crossed her arms over her ample chest.

“You do realize that is your daughter and granddaughter you're talking about,” Sergio said with a smirk.

“Stop being a smarty,” Grandmama said and smacked his arm.

Leaning toward the completely stunned Amaliya, she said once more, “Do you want us to tell the police who killed you?”

“Uh. No.”

Looking disappointed, her grandmother sat back. “Why not?”



“Uh.” Amaliya sat with her mouth hanging open, then shut it firmly. “I am not dead.”

“Exactly. She has a pulse.” Sergio leaned over and gripped Amaliya's wrist firmly. “See, Grandmama, she has a...” He hesitated, then looked at Amaliya with shock. “Where is your pulse?”

Amaliya stood up sharply and put her hands on her hips. She opened her mouth to talk, then closed it again.

“You need to go to the light,” her grandmother finally said.

“I can't,” Amaliya answered automatically.

“You're really dead,” Sergio said softly. “No way. We talked on the phone. I picked you up off the bus.”

“Maybe she thinks she's alive, so she acts alive,” Grandmama considered.

“I'm not....dead. Like that kinda dead.”

“But you're dead?” Sergio finally stopped eating. “No way.”

“Oh, shit, this wasn't the way I planned this to go down.”

“Don't swear,” her grandmother said automatically, pointing an accusing finger at her.

Pacing back and forth in the kitchen, Amaliya ran a hand over her hair. The holy relics were starting to make her want to run away. They weren't right next to her, but she could feel their power pushing on her. “This was supposed to be our tearful and emotional loving farewell.”

“Well, you still need to go to the light,” her grandmother said firmly.

“There is no light!”

Sergio looked terrified. “You mean the Pope was wrong?”

That got him a firm slap on the cheek. “Don't blaspheme.”



“I'm not!”

“Look! There was no light! Professor Sumner killed me and buried me in the forest! I woke up three days later and...and...”

“Your professor killed you?” Sergio looked ready to fall over. “What do you mean he killed you?”

“This is the part where she tells us what happened, then disappears,”

their grandmother said confidently.

“He killed me! He....” she made slicing motions across her throat. “-

killed me! And buried me! But I woke up in the grave, crawled out and...and...it all went to hell-sorry, Grandmama-it went to hell from there.”

Sergio took a long swig from his coke. “I don't believe it.”

Amaliya hesitated, then darted across the room, and grabbed his coke from his hand before he could set it down. The world had strangely stood still as she had willed herself to move faster than her family could see. By their sudden look of terror, she had moved to fast for them to track. Both Sergio and her grandmother jumped to their feet.

Setting down the coke, Amaliya tucked her hair back from her face and looked at them sorrowfully.

They stared at her for a moment, and then they both ran out of the kitchen down the long hall to the living room.

“Oh, crap.”

***

Amaliya tentatively crept down the hallway to the living room, past photos of her two aunts and her mother as children, of all the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren. As she stepped into the living room, she found her grandmother and cousin standing in the middle of the room, Sergio clutching an enormous crucifix from off the mantel over the fireplace.

Wincing, as she felt smacked by invisible white fire, she stepped back into the shadows of the hall. Her voice quivered when she said, “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Well, you kinda scared us shitless,” Sergio answered, and that was followed by the sound of their grandmother smacking him.

“I was just trying to show you that I'm not what I was,” Amaliya snapped. “You think I'm dead. Well, I am. I'm not a ghost. I'm something else and it’s not any fun! I hate it!” She burst into tears and her sobs filled the narrow hallway. The pictures of her family, the living and the dead, bore her no comfort. “I hate it! Okay! I hate it!

And I...I...”

“Put the cross away,” her grandmother's voice said softly. “She's family.”