Body & Soul полностью

Was it here, closer to the corner, or farther down the street? Suddenly I wasn't sure, and I found myself pacing back and forth in the middle of the road, desperate to get this right.

A passing car honked at me.

“Hey, are you okay?” one of the kids shouted.

I ignored it all, aware that my eyes were stinging with tears only when a drop rolled off my chin and splattered on the yellow painted line that I was studying so intently.

I swiped a hand over my face. Stay calm. She's fine. Erin took over Lily's body, so she's the one caught in the cycle now. Alona should be fine. The ache in my chest told me even I didn't believe this.

The Order had said the two of them would become dependent on each other. After a month in Lily's body, did Alona have enough energy to survive on her own anymore?

That was the question, and there was truly only one way to find out. I took a deep breath, forcing it past the lump in my throat. I had nothing to lose by trying, except all hope of her ever coming back. If she didn't answer now, I'd keep calling her; but the odds that her energy level in this situation would improve with time were slim to none.

Another car swerved around me, with the driver honking and shouting through his rolled-down window.

All right, enough delaying, I told myself. Time to try this before someone actually stops and tries to pull me out of the way. Or calls the police.

But I felt like I was ripping away a bandage long before the wound was healed.

I finally picked a place as close to exact as I remembered it and shut my eyes.

I pictured Alona as I'd seen her that first time after her death. Stalking the grounds in the red gym shorts and white shirt she'd died in, her face flushed with fury and hurt at the people she'd once called her friends turning on her, only days after her death. The way she pushed me to deal with Principal Brewster, helping me until I could manage him on my own, more or less. The silk of her hair catching on my fingertips when we were behind the bushes at the Gibley Mansion. How she refused to accept pity or help unless she had no choice. Just this morning when she'd stood in front of me in her new clothes with the new look she'd created, tilting her head up toward me with that vulnerable smile.

It occurred to me for the first time that while she hadn't said so, she'd been looking for my opinion. My approval… No, my appreciation.

She didn't need it. She wasn't like that. But that didn't mean she wouldn't have liked to have it. Spirit or no, she was still human. And all I'd been worried about had been my own too-strong reaction and what that meant for me.

I concentrated harder, funneling my fear and anger at myself into force behind my thoughts. I willed her to appear.

“You're my spirit guide,” I said through clenched teeth. “You have to come when I call, and I'm calling. Get here. Please?”

That last word sounded dangerously close to begging, and I didn't care. It wasn't for Alona, but for whoever else might be listening. God. The light. Someone was running things, and I needed whoever that was to hear me.

Please don't do this. Don't send her to me and then take her away. Please don't. Just don't. Please. I need her.

I kept repeating those words over and over again, distantly aware of the kids resuming their game and another car or two passing me.

But I didn't stop until I felt a strange shift in the air, like the world had moved around me, water flowing around a rock.

I opened my eyes, and Alona — a beginning outline of her, anyway — stood a few feet in front of me, looking around with a startled expression.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Thank God.

But that brief moment of dizzying relief quickly dissipated, replaced by a growing sense of panic. She wasn't filling in the way she should have. I could still see through her. For the first time, she actually looked like a traditional ghost, at least the way they were most often depicted on television and in movies.

No, no. Not good. Her energy was low enough that she couldn't even fully appear.

“Say something nice!” I shouted at her, fighting the urge to grab her and hold on. I wasn't sure what would happen, what I would do, if my hands passed through her.

Her lips moved to form words, but no sound emerged, and her eyes widened. She knew something was wrong. She looked down at herself, her blond hair sliding forward over her shoulder as she took in the extent of her nonexistence. And when she lifted her head to face me, tears sparkled in her eyes. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders before raising her hand slowly and turning it palm out. Stop… or good-bye.