He hesitates. Finally, he says, “Sarah and Ryan are new Guides. I could tell that Ryan was already nervous about your abundance of emotion, and Sarah is just so caring and sweet. She’s not comfortable being firm when firmness is needed. She coddles. That’s not what will help you. You have a strong aura. I knew you’d be a challenge.”
“A strong aura? Is that a polite way of saying I’m a pain in the butt, so you decided I needed a hardass?”
Thatcher makes a sound like he’s choking back a laugh. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
I find myself wondering what his full-throated laughter sounds like. Why is he so closed up, so afraid to let loose his feelings?
“Your other . . . gosh, I don’t even know what I am. Your student, I guess. Anyway, the others. Do you miss them?”
“No. We don’t form attachments.”
That might explain why he holds such a tight rein on his emotions. I can’t imagine having people coming and going constantly through my life—or my death—and not feeling anything at all toward them. Or them not feeling anything toward me.
It seems like such a sterile existence.
About halfway to the main house, I hear a noise in the stable yards, where I know there aren’t horses anymore.
“Ghost horses?” I ask.
And that makes Thatcher really laugh. The sound is deep and genuine, more full of life than anything else about him so far. But I guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t be full of life.
Still, it echoes around us, seems to travel through my soul. I want to place my hand against his throat and feel the vibrations of joy that I thought he was incapable of making. He’s so much more approachable in this moment, like someone I would know from school. It swallows up the distance between us.
“No,” he says, still smiling. “Animals must go to another place.”
“No pets in the Prism?”
“Afraid not.”
So he’ll never be reunited with Griz. That doesn’t seem fair, and it makes me sadder than anything else has so far. I almost ask him about it, but there’s no sense in bringing him down, too. “So what was that noise then?”
“It’s just Miss Alice.”
“Am I supposed to know who that is?” I ask.
“You’ve never heard of her?”
I think for a minute—Carson has definitely told me about supernatural activity at Middleton Place.
“She’s the ghost who lives here?” I ask, unsure.
“Right,” he says. “Let’s test that exquisite memory of yours. Do you know her story?”
We step into the stable yards, and I try to recall the history of this place. “I think the Middleton family had, like, eight hundred slaves back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. So I bet some of those ghosts are hanging around.”
“Don’t you think they’d rather pass through the Prism and leave this life behind?” asks Thatcher, eyeing the old farm tools on display in the stables. “There can’t be that many happy memories for slaves here.”
“Good point.”
“Miss Alice walks the grounds at night,” says Thatcher. “She wasn’t a slave—she was a local daughter deemed not worthy of the boy she loved, a Middleton heir. She died an old maid in her thirties, and she still wears old-fashioned clothes.”
I snort, not bothering to hide my skepticism.
“It’s true,” he says, hand on his heart.
“Aiiiiioooooooouuuuuuu . . .”
A low, eerie wail emerges from one of the stables. Thatcher’s face tightens into a grimace. That noise did not sound like it came from someone named “Miss Alice.”
“Stay behind me,” Thatcher orders, putting his arm out protectively but moving toward the third stable, where the cry seemed to have emanated from.
As we creep closer, two figures sprint out of the doorway, running like they’ve seen a . . . well, you know.
Thatcher doesn’t even glance at the people running—he’s focused on the stable. When we get to the entrance, he steps determinedly into the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest and blocking the exit.
“Leo,” he grinds out, his tone full of disapproval.
I peer around his shoulder and see a huge, muscled guy with tight-cropped blond hair and a bulging-vein-in-neck issue. He’s holding a hay hook in his hand, but when he sees Thatcher, he lets it drop into the soft dirt at his feet.
He’s in real clothes—jeans and a T-shirt without any shimmering metallic sheen like the other ghosts have—but it’s clear that this Leo is a ghost. He doesn’t seem calm or graceful like the other ghosts I’ve seen, though—his energy is off the charts, like he just got a pep talk from his football coach before a state championship game. His cheeks have a slight stubble, the white-blond kind that catches the light, and his eyes are a dark brown, deep set and trained on Thatcher.
“Just having a little fun, T,” says Leo. “You remember fun, right?” He tilts his head in a mocking gesture.
“Leo, you know you shouldn’t be—”
“Oh, please,” Leo interrupts Thatcher. “They were a couple of teenagers making out in the barn. I gave them a scare, and now they’ll have a good story to tell their grandkids. No harm done.”
I study the hay hook on the ground; its sharp blade is rusted but glinting menacingly in the moonlight.
“Did you get a look at them as they ran?” Leo asks me. “Were they friends of yours . . . Callie?”
My head snaps up. He knows my name?
I meet his eyes, staring back at him. I can tell that he’s used to people being intimidated by him, but I’ve never been big on fear. Besides, what can he really do to hurt me? I’m dead.
“Stop it, Leo,” says Thatcher.
“What?” Leo makes an innocent face. “I heard she has an amazing memory.”
I’m taken aback. People—or . . . ghosts—are talking about me?
“And so much energy. God, it’s practically pulsing off her.” With a feral glint in his eyes, he rushes toward me—
Thatcher steps in front of me and Leo goes flying backward, collapsing onto the hay. A concussion of air explodes between him and Thatcher, and I can feel the vibrations throbbing around me.
Releasing dark laughter, Leo shoves himself to his feet. “I just need a little energy, T. Don’t be so stingy with it.” He shifts his gaze over to me. “You should let me be your Guide, Callie. I’ll teach you things this guy never will.”
“You’re not a Guide, Leo,” Thatcher says.
“Doesn’t mean she couldn’t learn from me.”
He charges toward Thatcher. When he’s close, another wave of power or energy or whatever it is ripples between them. Thatcher takes a step back, regains his balance, and remains standing. Leo hits the ground hard. He chuckles. “That would hurt if I were still alive.” He scrambles back to his feet. “Come on, T, play fair. Turn off that I-shall-not-be-touched vibe you got going. Have you noticed that, Callie? This guy keeps so much distance between him and others, he might as well be on Mars. He’s probably told you that we can’t feel; we can’t experience things like we did before. But that’s just because he’s afraid to feel anything.”
“You should go,” Thatcher says.
“Not until I knock you off your feet.” He lowers himself into a tackling stance.
“Hey, are we having a party and I wasn’t invited?” A raven-haired girl with dark skin and delicate features steps between Leo and Thatcher. Leo relaxes his stance.
She’s small, petite, but something in her confident stance makes me think she isn’t to be messed with. And she’s wearing clothes, too. Her tight jeans outline muscular legs, and her tank top shows off her strong shoulders.