Page 31 of Truly Madly Magically

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“YOU SEE...both of them?” I ask Zander, not sure I’m processing this.

That I messed it up somehow, I get. I just don’t know how.

“Of course I do.” He looks around at our friends. “You guys don’t?”

Emerson shakes her head. “Not now. You see them...right now?”

Zander points to Zachariah with one hand and Elizabeth with the other. “Uh, yeah.”

The ghosts themselves don’t seem too concerned with this turn of events. Granted, they’re very purposefully not looking at each other...while also very clearly sneaking little glances at each other.

It feels like a mirror I have no interest in peering into.

“I don’t understand,” Emerson says and turns to Frost, but he shakes his head.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I certainly don’t see any spirits.” He turns his gaze from Emerson to Zander, then me. “Are you certain that’s what you see?”

“Yes, I am certain. The spirits we summoned are right here in front of us.” I tell myself that this might be weird and irregular and confusing, but it is definitely better than feeling like death, the way I have after other misadventures in Summoning.

“They look exactly the same as they did in the Summoning.” Zander is staring at Zachariah, no doubt noting all those similarities I was picking up earlier. All that Rivers might, gray eyes, and power—clear even in spirit.

“Should we make the circle again? Try to send them back?” Emerson asks.

Elizabeth waves a languid, see-through hand. “We’re here. We might as well stay until the meeting. Then we’ll worry about going back.”

I look at Zachariah. He has an unreadable look on his face, but he nods. Curtly.

“They both think they should stick around until the meeting,” I inform everyone who can’t see and hear them.

“I guess that makes sense. We can conserve our energy.” Georgie nods as if this was the plan all along.

“You guys can really just...stay here for six days?” I’ve never even heard of such a thing, so I’m sure I sound as skeptical as I feel.

“You tell us, girl,” Zachariah says gruffly. “You are the one who brought us here. Together.”

Elizabeth turns her ghostly head in his direction. “You will respect my blood.” Then she turns to me. “We’ll find out either way,” she says, and she sounds perfectly reasonable. She even smiles. Demurely, which is a red flag, us both being scandalous Goods and all. “Nothing to worry over, I should think. We’ll handle whatever comes.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask them both. I try to think of what I would do if I was a spirit hauled back to St. Cyprian long after my death. “Haunt your enemies? Or...their descendants, I guess?”

They both start to look at each other, but seem to catch themselves before it takes. Then they both say the same thing, at the same time. “I will stay with you.”

Meaning, their specific descendant.

“Great. How?” Zander looks over at me, widening his eyes.

“We’ll simply go where you go, of course,” Elizabeth says, giving the impression of looking down at Zander though she’s a pretty short ghost even while she’s hovering off the ground. “It is late. I’m sure we should all retire. If an ascension is in the offing, we must all be at our best.”

I cough, then repeat this for everyone else. Complete with the way Elizabeth looked at Zander while she spoke.

My friends peer around a little helplessly, as if trying to figure out where the ghosts must be standing based on where Zander and I are looking. Or not looking. Even Emerson doesn’t seem to know what to say.

For roughly thirty seconds.

Then our fearless leader recollects herself. “She’s right. Let’s clean up. Get some sleep. Regroup tomorrow.”

The ghosts float about the yard as if reacquainting themselves with the trees, the river, and even a Main Street with far more shops and buildings than would have been here in their day. The rest of us gather our things, cleanse what needs cleansing—some magical amulets like a moon bath, some implements like the power of the river, my athame that I used at the start to perform a ceremonial severing of now from then in the old way likes a chant and a few affirmations—and magic away other items to the places they belong.

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