Sisters Of Salt And Iron

She had her hair in pigtails and was wearing a blood-soaked pinafore and blouse, tights and Mary Janes. She looked like a demented rag doll.

Daria looked impressed—or as impressed as someone with only part of a head and drunk out of her mind could look. “Dead Born.”

My sister frowned at her. “I don’t like that name.”

The two of them watched each other with the same amount of hostile wariness. Wren’s anger wavered around her like heat off pavement. She wasn’t immune to the approach of Halloween either, and that made me wonder, just what the hell did I intend to do if both of them manifested?

“Did you find what’s keeping her here?” I asked.

Wren glanced at me. “Yes, but it’s not what I expected.”

Daria chose that moment—when Wren’s attention was distracted—to attack. She hit my sister square in the chest. Wren barely moved. Daria’s surprise would have been funny in any other situation.

“You are so stupid,” I said. Now she’d gone and pissed off Wren. If I made it out of the locker room unsuspended and alive, it was going to be a miracle.

My sister is usually a gentle soul, but she’s a ghost and ghosts have notoriously short fuses. Wren’s eyes had already gone black, and I could feel her spectral energy reverberating in my bones along with the new song playing in the gym.

I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t.”

Her head whipped around. My heart jumped into my throat. There was nothing so terrifying as Death wearing your face. I held her gaze and her arm, watching as the darkness slowly left her eyes.

The door to the locker room opened—the music from the dance increased in volume for a few seconds, then faded back to its muted thumping.

Three familiar faces came into view—my friends, Roxi and Sarah. Well, I wasn’t completely sure if Sarah was a friend or not, but whatever. They had the history teacher, Mr. Fisher, with them.

Fan-freaking-tastic. Busted.

“That’s why she’s still here,” Wren whispered.

“Him?” I looked at Mr. Fisher. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Fairly young.

She nodded.

Mr. Fisher turned to me. “Who are you talking to?”

“Her.” I pointed at Roxi. “Did you tell him?”

Roxi’s big brown eyes widened. “That he was needed in the girls’ locker room.”

“That’s it?” I demanded. She nodded. Great.

“What’s going on here?” Mr. Fisher demanded.

Daria stood up and walked toward him with a stupefied look on her face. “Danny?”

“Your name’s Daniel, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “One of you girls had better tell me what’s going on. Why did you bring me here?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know a girl named Daria, would you? Smashed into a tree a few years back on the night of the Halloween dance?”

He went white. “What do you know about Daria?”

I could try to lie—make it sound less crazy than what it was—but I was pissed off at having to be doing this instead of having fun with my friends. “You believe in ghosts, Mr. F.?”

He looked at me—saw the salt dust on my clothes—and the lines of salt on the floor. He looked at Roxi and Sarah, both of whom shrugged. A lot of help they were.

“He’s gotten so old,” Daria remarked, walking around him.

Mr. Fisher shuddered. “It’s cold in here,” he said. “You girls are in a lot of trouble.”

I glanced at the ghost. The way she looked at him froze my blood. She reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. Frowning, he turned around.

Daria shoved her hand into his chest.

He looked so surprised. He looked down at his chest, then up again. “Dee?” His voice was little more than a gasp.

“You’re the reason I’m dead,” she snarled. “It’s all your fault.”

She was so close to taking form I was terrified I was going to end up with a dead teacher to explain. Never mind suspension; they’d lock me up and throw away the key.

There was no doubt that Mr. Fisher could hear her. “I tried to stop you,” he protested, as his dead girlfriend held his heart in her icy fingers. “You ran away.”

Daria actually growled. “Because I found you screwing my best friend!”

“Wren?” I glanced at my sister. “Little help?” This was going to hell fast.

Daria turned her attention to me. “This is between me and him. One step and I’ll crush his heart.”

“Isn’t that what you plan to do regardless?” I asked.

She smiled. “Yeah, but if you make me do it quickly I won’t enjoy it as much.” The smile faded, morphing into something that was going to wake me up at night for weeks to come. “Now, back off, bitch.”

Everything happened in a blink. One moment my sister was beside me, and the next she was on Daria, shoving the teacher aside as she threw herself onto the other ghost.

Sarah gasped. Roxi stared. Mr. Fisher made a small mewling sound in the back of his throat as he sank to the floor, clutching his chest. I ran to him.

“What do you have of hers?” I demanded. When he gave me a blank look, I added, “Of Daria’s!” Who else could I possibly mean?

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. There was an aged brass D hanging from it. D for Daria, not Daniel.

I fumbled with the keys, trying to pull the large letter off the ring. Freaking hell! Who invented key rings, anyway? Couldn’t they have thought of a more user-friendly setup?

Wren and Daria smashed into the row of shower stalls, buckling the metal frames.

Finally, the letter came free. I pulled a plastic baggy partially filled with salt from my pocket and opened the seal, dropping the letter charm inside.

A few sparks, but other than that, nothing. Shit. If it wasn’t the letter anchoring Daria to the world of the living, then what was it?