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She was standing near a rose bush several meters away. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she gently reached out to touch one of the blooms. As her transparent hand went right through it, she closed her eyes and wept softly. Not daring to chance a breath, I stepped closer. Her eyes flitted upward; meeting mine. A coldness washed over me as she turned and walked towards me.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. I just watched in horror as she eyed me curiously and came even closer. She had deep green eyes that blended with the lush garden of plants surrounding us. They held a certain warmth; an innocence. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Those green eyes searched my own, pleading with me.

“Hi,” I whispered, so soft I barely heard it. She shifted and faded slightly; her body blurring in response. She stilled and glanced to the right as if she had heard something, giving me an even closer view of her exposed skull, covered with blood and matted blonde hair. Her eyes flickered back to mine and I immediately noticed the glassy fear that had suddenly consumed her.

“Hurry,” she said in a low, urgent voice right before disappearing. The effect her actual voice had on my already frazzled nerves was immediate and crushing. Somehow, my legs carried the rest of my body back inside and up the stairs without incident. Sliding back in between the sheets, I noticed how violently I was shaking. I closed my eyes and rolled into a ball, completely underneath the comforter. My makeshift cocoon began to work as the shaking subsided. Unfortunately, the hollow fear had clawed its way into my soul and I didn’t know if it would ever let go. I had just had a conversation…with a dead girl.

Chapter 8

“I knew it!!” Carmen exclaimed and sat up in a flash, narrowly missing her Orange Crush can. It rested precariously in the sand along with several magazines and a bag of chips. We were lying out in the soothing heat of the sun, while the guys struggled to surf the less than ideal waves crawling toward the shore.

“You did not! None of us did,” Phoebe rolled her eyes and continued to construct a sandcastle with one powerful finger. She was resting on the edge of her towel, wearing an adorable white and black polka dotted bikini; a white scarf wrapped around her unruly hair. She reminded me of a modern Jackie O. With multi-colored hair.

“I did! I swear!” I had filled my roommates in on my reverie-turned-vision as well as what Finn and I had discussed about his destiny. I made sure to clear it with him this morning before I said anything. I didn’t want to betray his trust, but I also needed to talk to my friends about what had happened. Apparently, a good number of people at Lorelei already knew of Finn’s destiny; most of them being close with the Sons, like Liam or long-time girlfriends.

“What about the reverie training? How’d it go?” Willow peered at me from behind her gold aviator sunglasses. They matched her yellow and gold Quicksilver bikini perfectly.

“Not so good. I have a long way to go if I’m going to contact Thetis,” I sighed. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it at all.” I wiped some renegade sand off of my leg and readjusted the top of my pink and blue striped bikini.

“Are you still going to try it tonight?” Carmen asked.

“I have to at least try, even if I fail miserably. There’s too much riding on this not to.”

Phoebe abandoned her sandcastle and flipped over onto her stomach. “Did you guys hear anything weird last night?” Carmen’s eyes immediately darted toward me. “I thought I heard talking and then I thought I heard some creaking sound. I could have been dreaming though…”

“I didn’t hear anything. Slept like a baby,” Carmen declared a little too quickly, silently pleading with me through her dark eyes.

“Nope, didn’t hear a thing,” I supplemented, reaching for the chips nonchalantly.

“Huh. I guess I was just hearing things,” Phoebe chuckled and shrugged her shoulders.

“Was it the voices again? You know they aren’t real, right?” Carmen joked with her.

“They aren’t?” Phoebe played along; eyes growing wide with feigned disbelief. “I guess I won’t have to shave your head and smother you with a pillow like they told me to.”

As they continued to bicker over the different ways to kill each other, I thought about my eerie encounter last night with the ghost of childhood past.

“Do you guys believe in ghosts?” I asked them as off-handedly as I could.

“Ohhh, I love ghost stories!” Phoebe cooed.

“I think she meant actual ghosts, Phoebs,” Carmen corrected her and then regarded me. “Of course ghosts exist, silly.”

“How can you be so sure?” I contended.

“It’s a proven fact. They’re the souls that have no place in the Underworld. They’re cursed to roam Earth forever,” Willow explained ominously. I know I stared at her a little too long, as a similar comment from Finn bounced around in my head. Maybe he wouldn’t laugh at me after all.

“Finn should know all about ghosts if he’s destined to be the Prime,” Carmen replied. “You should ask him what he thinks.” Phoebe must have recalled my strange comments from yesterday because she perked up with excitement.

“Did you see her again?” she looked at me, “You know - the girl you said you saw yesterday?”

I brushed my finger over my trace and squinted up at her with loathing. “Yeah. Last night.”

“Awesome!” Phoebe rejoiced.

“It was about as awesome as a razor burn,” I protested with disgust. “She looked normal enough from the front, but when she turned around I could see her bloody skull and slashes in her skin.”

“Who is she?” Willow asked quietly.

“I have no idea. But she actually said something to me last night.” Their jaws dropped as they fervently waited for me to continue. “She seemed scared of something, but then just said

‘Hurry’.” I shrugged my shoulders. Did all ghosts talk in one word fragments? It would be next year before I got a complete sentence out of her at this rate.

“Hurry?” Carmen slathered more tanning lotion on her legs as she spoke. “Hurry and do what?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Maybe she knows you’re going to try to contact Thetis, but she wants you to hurry for some reason?” Phoebe suggested.

“We should see if we can find some history about the island. If she was young, there’s got to be a story about how she died,” Willow analyzed. I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to attach a name or specific story to the ghost. That would make her more real. I was more comfortable with the possibility of her being a rare side effect of heat stroke.

I averted my gaze to the ocean. The guys were sitting on their surfboards talking, occasionally scanning the water for a surfable wave. Finn, shirtless and god-like, ran his hand through his wet hair and my pulse immediately quickened. How was it possible to look that good? The muscles of his chest and shoulders glistened in the sun as it shone down on his wet skin. My body ached to touch him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and get lost in those soft lips. Suddenly, I got an idea. I smiled slyly and rested my hand on top of the sand next to my towel. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to give it a try.