Page 47 of In All My Dreams

The scream that comes out of her twisted, horrifying mouth matches my own as she reaches out and grabs my wrist, squeezing it painfully.

“Don’t trust . . . don’t trust . . . protect . . .”

I yank out of her grasp and run toward the only space that doesn’t reflect my mother’s ghost back at me. I round the corner as quickly as I can, cradling my injured wrist, and slam right into Ian’s outstretched arms. Another blood-curdling scream escapes my mouth before I realize that it’s him and not my mother’s cold, waiting embrace.

“Ian! She—she was—she was here!” I pant and stutter to get my words out.

He wraps me into his arms, holding me close. “Who's here? What happened?”

“Wait, where is Auden?” I throw myself off of him and look around in panic, only catching the one hundred reflections of Ian and myself.

“Where is she?” I scream, thrusting my hands into my hair as warm tears stream down my cheeks.

“It’s okay, Georgia! Breathe! Auden is safe; she’s okay. I promise,” Ian shouts over my hysterics, grabbing my shoulders and forcing me to face him. “Breathe, Georgia, breathe.” He takes a deep breath in and releases a slow breath out. I copy him until my heart falls back into a normal rhythm.

I take another deep breath. “Where is Auden?” I ask him, calmly this time.

“She’s with Mathayus, the security guard standing outside. When I heard you scream...I knew I couldn’t leave her alone. But if you were hurt...I didn’t want her to see that either, so Iran outside and asked him to stay with her so I could come get you out,” he explains. “She’s okay. Are you okay?”

I look around the mirror maze one last time, finding nothing amiss before I turn back toward him. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. I thought I saw something. Maybe you were right about this haunted house scaring the shit out of me.” My voice sounds wary and entirely full of lies.

How do I tell him that my mother’s ghost decided to follow me outside of Crane Manor for the first time ever? Just a half hour ago, he was asking me to stay with him, for the three of us to make this work.

I can’t risk ruining this chance with all my imaginary ghosts.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I tell him.

Ian knows I’m lying. His eyes say it all when his mouth won’t. But instead of calling me out, he reaches out for my hand hesitantly, choosing to let me stew in my lies alone for a little longer.

“That’s two for two,” I joke.

Ian raises a confused eyebrow at me.

“Two for two that you ended up getting me to hold your hand in this stupid haunted house. You should play the lotto or something with those kinds of odds.”

I expect him to laugh or at least smile at my lame attempt at a joke. But he just squeezes my hand harder and gives me a hard stare before leading us both out of the maze. I see the remnants of the plastic wrapper and banana bread smashed into the ground. The site seems like a fitting metaphor for how my soul feels right now.

Smashed and scattered into a million little broken pieces.

21

Georgia

Now

The rest of the day at the fair passes quickly with no ghostly events. I have felt on edge, though, searching for my mother’s ghost in every crowd of fairgoers as Ian and I take turnsriding the rides with Auden while she not-so-silently reminds Ian that he can hold my hand for as long as he wants.

And he does.

Throughout the rest of the day, he stays happily sandwiched between Auden and I, my hand clutched in one of his, Auden’s clutched in his other.

This could be a forever kind of thing—I just need to be brave enough to tell him.

My heart is nearly bursting watching Ian and Auden together. They fit together so effortlessly, almost like they’ve known each other for their entire lives. The way Ian’s eyes light up when she does something, anything really. His whole soul lights up from the inside out, especially when she smiles that big, goofy smile up at him.

The smile she usually reserves for me but inherited from him.

“Why don’t we watch the fireworks and then call it a day?” Ian suggests as we watch Auden pet the goats in the small petting zoo portion of the fair. “They should start here in the next half hour, and it looks like Auden might finally be running out of gas.” We both look over and watch her yawn the biggest yawn ever while she follows closely behind one of the rabbits.

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