Whispers at Moonrise (Shadow Falls #4)(27)

"Where the hell are you?" A voice echoed around her. A familiar voice. Della's voice. "Mofo!" Light suddenly filled Kylie's vision. "What are you doing under there?"

Kylie gasped, swallowed her scream, and realized she lay on her bedroom floor with a shivering Socks plastered to her side.

"You are just too friggin' weird." Della, looking half-pissed and half-asleep, stood over Kylie holding the bed up above her head. Yes, the whole twin bed-frame and mattress. Holding it up as if it were nothing more than a lightweight piece of foam.

Socks let out a pathetic meow.

Afraid Della might drop the bed, Kylie snatched up the little skunk and lunged to her feet. Her knees wobbled; the skunk trembled in her arms. She glanced down, praying it would be her bedroom floor and not a grave.

No grave. No dead girls. No dead Holiday.

Kylie inhaled. As much as she wanted to push the gruesome memory from her brain, she couldn't. Something in the vision might help her. Help her figure it out so she could prevent it from happening. Help her save Holiday's life.

"What the hell is going on?" Della asked again. "Or do I not want to know?"

"Sorry. Bad dream." Kylie's voice shook.

Della dropped the bed. It banged and clattered on the floor.

"Is there a ghost here?" Della glanced around, obviously not believing Kylie's bad dream excuse.

Kylie took a second to feel the temperature. "No," she said honestly.

Della studied her, her expression softening. "Are you okay?"

Kylie nodded and watched Della's frown return.

"And you aren't going to explain this?" Della asked.

Kylie shook her head. Della really didn't want to know.

"Then good night!" The little vamp shot out of the room, leaving as quickly as she'd come.

Kylie breathed in. Breathed out. Tried to calm her racing heart.

She tried to see the bright side-the bright side of being in a grave with three decaying bodies.

Not an easy task.

However, at least she had something to go on. But would it help her? Oh, God, it had to, didn't it?

She pulled Socks closer, offering comfort and trying to take comfort in holding something as scared as she was. It might have worked if the loud knock on her window didn't have her heart slamming against her rib cage. Kylie jumped clear across the room.

Another scream rose in her chest, but before she released it, she spotted Miranda peering through, her palm pressed against the glass.

"You coming?" she yelled. "We're going to lose the first light."

The cold filled the room. And so did the spirit. Kylie looked over at the ghost who looked just like Holiday. "I'm so sorry. She shouldn't have done that."

Kylie tried not to envision Holiday, or God help her, the Holiday lookalike, as she had appeared in the grave. "It's okay," Kylie said, and she meant it. She could do this. If hanging out with dead people would save Holiday, she'd do it. Heck, she'd dance with the dead if it meant saving Holiday.

"I need to know things," Kylie said. "You need to show me things so I can figure out how to help you."

"Show you what?" Miranda asked.

Kylie ignored Miranda.

The spirit shook her head. "I told you, I don't think I'm the one you have to help."

And wasn't that just like Holiday, Kylie thought, too damn stubborn to accept help. Even in ghost form.

"The only help I need is you to bring out Socks," Miranda called from the window again.

"You should go," Holiday said. "That little fellow would like to be a cat again."

Kylie looked at Miranda and then back to the spirit. "How do you know what he wants?"

"It's one of my gifts; I can communicate with animals."

"No, you can't," Kylie said. Or Holiday couldn't communicate with animals. Did supernaturals who passed over change their gifts? Kylie didn't think so. Did that mean this wasn't Holiday? And if so, who was she?

"Fine, you want him to stay a skunk," Miranda said in her irate voice.

Socks chose that moment to put his paw over his eyes and Kylie moaned.

* * *

A few minutes later, Kylie walked out behind the cabin with Socks held close to her chest. It was still dark and quiet, as if the world hadn't woken up yet. Unlike her, the world didn't get woken up by witches or visions of dead people.

The air held an early morning chill, one of the first signs that summer had outworn its welcome and fall waited nearby to fill its shoes.

When she took another step, she felt it. The calling. Her gaze shot to the edge of woods. Her heart raced and the temptation to move closer whispered her name like an old friend.

Kylie took one step, almost answering the unexplainable yearning, but Miranda's voice pulled her back. "What took you so long?"

"I had to get him out from under the bed," Kylie said, not in the mood to do this, but she remembered the insecurity in Miranda's voice when they'd talked earlier about the other witches giving her a hard time about the goof. Since the first morning light lasted only a few minutes, it was a small price to pay for Miranda's happiness. Then Kylie would sit down and rehash what she'd gotten from the dream. Something in there had to help her make sense of the visions.