Page 160 of The Glittering Edge

She can’t take that kind of rejection again. Not right now. But she has to tell him one last thing.

“Alonso… if something bad happens—”

“Don’t.”

“We have to talk about it.” Penny looks back out at the football field, taking it all in. Her school. Her Idlewood. Her home.

This could be the last time she sees it. The final late-summer evening of her life. Instead of fear, Penny is filled with something else. Maybe it’s love, or gratitude, or something greeting-card corny. Whatever it is, she’s ready to do this.

“If a poltergeist takes over my body, what do we do?” Penny asks.

Alonso won’t look at her. Instead he bites his thumbnail and stares out onto the football field. “I’ll figure it out.”

“If I’m dangerous, then… I don’t know. Do what you have to do.”

Now Alonso looks at Penny, and his gaze burns right through her. “No.Exorcism exists for a reason.”

There’s a sigh from Penny’s other side. “Sorry, but this isn’t some C-list horror movie,” Milton says. “If Penny’s spirit is lost across the Veil, performing an exorcism will leave her body an empty shell. She’ll die immediately.” He looks almost ashamed. “Sorry, Penny. Don’t want to give you false hope.”

“I’ll bring Penny back if it kills me,” Alonso growls, and he says the words with such force that Penny believes him. Despite all odds, he would find her.

A few people glance their way, probably because Alonso was kindof yelling. Penny isn’t even bothered by it anymore. She understands now that Alonso’s body is too small for everything he feels. He’s constantly bubbling over, sometimes with anger, sometimes with joy, sometimes with—

Love. This is what love looks like in Alonso’s language.

She grabs Alonso’s hand. He softens, and his eyes rove her face. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I’m not changing my mind.”

Alonso tears his eyes away from her. “I hate you for that.”

Penny can’t help it: She smiles. “No, you don’t.”

Milton clears his throat. “I’ll need both of you in front of me, inside the circle.”

“Both of us?” Penny says.

“Alonso is going to send you across,” Milton says. “It’ll be safer if he’s in the circle with you.”

They move down a row. Somehow, Penny feels better knowing he’ll be next to her body, even if she is somewhere else.

Alonso is still holding her hand. He brings it to his mouth to press a kiss to her knuckles.

“For luck,” Alonso says.

Briefly, Penny loses herself in this roller coaster. In the strange, unexpected adventure that happens when another person changes your life forever.

Then it’s halftime.

As the football team exits the field before the halftime performance, Corey breaks off, shouting something to his teammates. Then he runs to the left side of the field, turning back to look at the bleachers. Alonso waves, and Corey pumps his fist in the air before he takes his place by the concession stand. Dylan is on the opposite side of the field, standing beyond the goalposts, and Naomi is a spot of maroon among the blue and gray of the opposing team’s bleachers.

North, south, east, and west.

“Ready?” Milton asks.

Penny nods. And then she sends the texts.

COZY MYSTERY BOOK CLUB

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