Sisters Of Salt And Iron

Finding another ghost wasn’t easy in a place like this. The dead recognized each other’s energy, so if I was in a house with one or two ghosts I could probably seek them out without much trouble. A place like Haven Crest, though... Well, there were so many ghosts that trying to find just one was like that old saying about needles and haystacks.

Maybe not quite that hard. I had interacted with Noah. Our spirits had brushed together. That would make it a little easier to find him once I found the right spot—just like Lark knew the scent of Ben’s soap, I would recognize Noah’s energy.

Based on the way he’d been dressed I knew he had to have died in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. There had been fewer buildings back then, and of those only the main residence and one other had been used to house patients. I knew this because, after Josiah Bent, Lark and I both wanted to make sure we knew as much about this place as we could. Haven Crest was so haunted it was practically a spiritual entity itself. That was something that needed to be watched.

I moved toward the main building, where there had been a wing for male patients and another for female. A building to the left of that, some distance away—closer to the forest and former garden—had been segregated in a similar manner, but with one difference. It had been for the wealthy patients. The wealthy white patients. I’d learned that the “colored” inmates had been divided by gender and affluence and were housed in a separate building.

Lark had tried explaining racism to me in the past, and while I understood the concept, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the sentiment behind it. People ought to be judged by their character, not their color.

Based on the fact that Noah had fair skin and had been well dressed, it was probably a valid assumption that he haunted the upper-class residence, so that’s where I went. Thankfully, this was not where Josiah Bent and his followers had haunted, because I probably wouldn’t be welcomed there by many of them. As an outsider, Dead Born and free to go wherever I wanted, I was going to be resented, regardless.

That knowledge didn’t keep me from entering the old building. Its once beautiful windows were mostly broken and boarded up. The large, double doors were locked but hung loose on rusted hinges, dirty white paint peeling. It reminded me of photos I’d seen one time Lark was browsing some internet site—photos of celebrities who had ruined their looks with drugs and alcohol. This building had been beautiful once, but it had been abandoned to the ravages of time and neglect.

I walked through those sad doors and stood in the middle of a reception area with a high, vaulted ceiling. It looked as though there had been some plasterwork on the walls at one time, but it had been pried off. Broken pieces lay scattered on the dirty hardwood floor. Not just neglected, this building had been pillaged, as well.

Vandals. Their kind had no respect for anything. How terrible it must be for those who haunted this place to see it slowly stolen away. It hurt me—offended the deepest part of me.

In response to my anger, the building cried out. To living ears it would have sounded like a low groan—creaking floors or old pipes. To me, it was an anguished wail.

Yes, Haven Crest was more than just a collection of old wood and stone.

“Wren?”

I turned my head. Standing on the stairs to my left was Noah. He looked concerned. “Is something wrong? I felt...a disturbance.”

I shook my head, but my heart was full of sorrow. “This place must have been beautiful once.”

“It was.” He continued down the stairs. He was wearing different clothes today—a white shirt and gray vest with black trousers and boots. His thick hair was tousled as though he’d been running his hands through it. He was beautiful. I just stood there and watched as he approached me.

“Would you like to see it as it once was?” he asked.

I didn’t know if seeing its former glory would make what I felt better or worse, but I knew that I wanted to see it. “Yes.”

“Take my hand.”

I slipped my hand in his, feeling the warmth of his fingers around mine. Slowly, the faded wallpaper gave way to a beautiful pale blue damask. The plasterwork reappeared as frames on the walls and bouquets of flowers in the corners of the ceiling. The wood floor gleamed, the stairs, as well, and they were covered by a strip of cream carpet with roses printed on it. Above our heads a sparkling chandelier hung, its brass chain shining. Even the reception desk was a thing of beauty. And the windows! They were flanked by pale gold velvet curtains, pulled back to let in the sunlight.

“It’s prettier than I thought,” I said, my voice a little hoarse.

“This is how I choose to see it,” Noah told me. “Rationally, I know that it’s a ruin now, and that soon it will either collapse or they’ll tear it down, but in my heart, it will always be a grand old girl to me.”

“What will you do if they tear it down?” I asked.

“I suppose I’ll have to learn to like whatever they build in its spot, or find someplace new.” He smiled, but I could tell it was forced. “Perhaps I’ll move on. Whatever happens, I suppose it shall be an adventure.”

I think I fell in love with him at that moment, watching him trying to be brave when faced with losing everything he had left in the world. Someday, everything I held dear would be in ruins, as well.

I squeezed his hand in mine, and in that moment I made a decision. I looked him in the eye and smiled. “Would you like to go to a party with me tonight?”

(#ulink_fbe8f5e5-f476-56b7-af2a-d52f24a8ac7e)

LARK

“Oh, my gawwwwd!” Roxi squealed. She was dressed in a Day of the Dead costume complete with elaborate face makeup and roses in her hair. “Your costume is amazeballs!”

I did a little twirl on the back step of my grandmother’s house. I was wearing the long pink slip dress I’d bought earlier that day. It was covered in fake blood—fabric paint, so I didn’t have to worry about getting red on everything. I was also wearing a “blood”-splattered long strawberry-blond wig, a tiara and a sash that said Prom Queen.

“Did you do the makeup yourself?” I asked as we climbed into Nan’s car—a purple Volkswagen Beetle with flower-shaped brake lights.

The wreath in her hair brushed the ceiling of the car. “Yeah. I watched a couple videos online first.”

I fastened my seat belt and started the engine. “What’s Gage going as?”

“Baron Samedi,” she replied. “I know it’s hokey to do the matching thing, but it was his idea.”

“I think it’s cute.” And it was, which suited the two of them.

“What’s Wren’s costume?” she asked as we pulled out onto the street.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “She said she’d meet us there.” To be honest I thought it was really weird that she wasn’t with me now. She’d been acting a little off lately.

“Oh, hey. I meant to tell you that she showed up in a few more photos from the dance. Like, fully visible.”

“Really?” My mother used to accuse me of doing “something” to make it look like there was someone beside me in photos when we were kids. She never believed me about Wren. She thought I talked about my sister to upset her.

“Yeah, she totally photo-bombed a couple of shots. Want to see?” She started digging through her purse for her phone. The purse wasn’t much bigger than a tablet—how hard could it be to find a phone in it?

I pulled into the local middle-school parking lot. I wanted to study what Roxi had to show me, and I couldn’t do that and make sure I didn’t drive into a tree.

I turned on the dome light just as Roxi found her phone. It took her a few seconds to get into the photo album and find what she was looking for, but finally she handed me the phone.

The image on the screen was of me, Sarah, Gage and Ben dancing. Mace was out of frame. And there, just behind me, was Wren dancing with wild abandon.

My throat tightened. I don’t know why it choked me up to see her, but it did.

“Scroll to the next one,” Roxi instructed. I did.

And burst out laughing.

It was the whole group of us, clustered in for a dance-floor selfie. There, sticking her head in by mine—while standing practically in Roxi—was Wren, making duck lips.

How the hell did she know about duck lips?

Roxi grinned as I handed the phone back to her. “Awesome, huh?”

I nodded. “Can you text that to me?”

“Already on it.”