Page 19 of Waysider
Silence trembled around them. For the first time, Cass looked at the ghost—really looked at him.
Her shaking body slowed, then went completely still.
If she had to guess, Cass would put the revenant in his early twenties when he’d died. He was average height, but that was the only average thing about him. His angular jaw was covered in a light dusting of stubble, and it curled around the edges of a full, frowning mouth. His soft, serious eyes were brown. There was a small and faint beauty mark beneath the left one, just to the side of his nose. His dark hair brushed against his neck and ears in gentle curls. Beneath the linen shirt he wore, there was the subtle swell of hard muscle.
At some point over the last three seconds, Cass’s mouth had gone dry. She swallowed, hoping this dead stranger didn’t hear the small sound. “If you can talk, why haven’t you said anything until now?” she managed.
The revenant’s frown deepened. “You were grieving. I didn’t want to add to your burden.”
Cass blinked. She struggled to hide how much he’d shaken her. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be sincere, or look at her with such sad eyes, or speak in husky voices like that.
“Well,” she managed, “you’ve clearly attached to me, and according to Finch, that’s my fault for acknowledging your existence. So allow me to remedy our little situation. I’m going to leave this room, and not think about you ever again, and you’ll be gone when I get back. Sound good?”
She gave the revenant a thumbs up and reached back to open the door. But as Cass’s fingers wrapped around the cool knob, they slipped right back off. She hadn’t realized how much her palm was sweating. Cass tried again, and once again, her grip slid off. She swallowed a curse.
The revenant stepped closer, his expression hesitant. Cass froze. She couldn’t seem to look away from his eyes, or even speak. The revenant took another step toward her. Cass kept staring, and in some distant part of her mind, she swore she could smell him now. The scent made her think of a forest, somehow. Cass sensed the revenant move again, then saw his shoulder shift as his hand reached forward.
Panic roared through her.
Cass lurched away at the same moment she realized he’d been going for the doorknob. The back of her wrist brushed against the revenant’s other hand, which had risen to steady her.
Now they both froze, as if they’d been shocked by the same bolt of electricity. Cass was reeling.
He’d been warm. Solid. Like someone fucking alive.
Until now, Cass had thought that only Cal could touch her. So what did this mean? Could all of them do it? Holy shit, if they could touch her, it meant they could hurt her. Could they hurt others, too? Like her family?
Then the revenant spoke again, and all the questions burning through Cass’s head, leaving a scorched trail of terror, dissipated instantly. As if he’d doused a bucket of water over them just with the sound of his voice.
“I haven’t touched another person in…” The revenant trailed off, frowning. The awe in his expression became slow realization, and then he said, his voice soft with disbelief, “Michael. My name is Michael.”
Cass swallowed again. Her thoughts went back to the fact that he could touch her. Knowing the revenant’s name and smelling the soap he’d once used didn’t ease her fear. If anything, this encounter had only made it worse. Until now, she’d assumed the ghosts she saw could only float around and rattle their chains.
She hadn’t really thought they could wrap those chains around her neck and actually kill her.
The revenant—Michael—was still standing there, staring at Cass as if he found her just as unnerving as she found him. His lips parted like he was about to say something. He had said they needed to talk. But Cass’s fight or flight instincts had finally kicked in, and as it usually did these days, flight won.
In a burst of movement, Cass rushed over to the night stand, where she grabbed the keys Finch had mentioned from the drawer. They flashed in the lamplight as Cass dug the welcome packet out of her backpack. Without another word to Michael, Cass crossed the room again and yanked the door shut behind her. It closed harder than she meant it to. Cass winced before she whirled and nearly ran down the hall.
There was one place on campus she knew would be empty.
She hurried through the shadowed house and padded down every staircase, running her hand along the bannisters until she arrived at the looming entryway. Thankfully, she didn’t run into any of her roommates. Cass walked out the front door and hurried along the path, trying not to hunch her shoulders. In her mind’s eye, Cass saw a dim figure in one of the windows, watching her run away.
She didn’t let herself look back to see if the image was accurate.
Cass didn’t slow down until she was halfway across campus and the house was completely out of view. The quiet rang around her as she leaned against a telephone booth and flipped the welcome packet open to find a map. The gentle glow of a nearby streetlight fell over the page. According to the packet, which actually did contain a lot of information that would’ve been helpful earlier, the chapel was at the edge of the Hissing Gardens. Cass pushed off the booth and kept going through the empty courtyards.
She found the garden easily enough, thanks to signs pointing the way. Paths wound through flowers and hedges. Cass passed a fountain, water trickling serenely into the stillness, and an alcove with a bench. The entire way, Cass didn’t see a single soul. She’d started to think she was truly alone out here when she spotted a figure ahead. Cass’s stomach dropped, and she faltered.
It was another student, Cass saw with relief, moving forward again. The girl must’ve heard Cass’s approach, because her head moved slowly to the side. She was beautiful. She wore red lipstick on her rosebud mouth, and her creamy skin was offset by a perfect coif of brown hair and dark, dramatic eyebrows.
As Cass closed the distance between them, the girl turned toward Cass more fully. Her expression was strange.
That was when Cass saw the wound on her chest.
The front of the girl’s dress was soaked in blood, and it was a mass of torn flesh and cotton. As Cass watched, she swayed on her feet, as if she were moments away from collapsing. But her eyes, which were locked on Cass’s, were steady and clear.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the dead girl whispered.
