It was a cowardly move on my part: I’d finally worked up the nerve to knock, and now she couldn’t even see me.
She frowned, squinting into the shadows of the porch and out at the daylight beyond it. Seeing the lines on her face, the streak of gray at her temples, I sucked in a tight breath and released it in one foolish word.
“Mom?”
The woman at the door immediately jerked back like she’d been slapped. Her eyes widened, but she continued to stare out at the porch without actually seeing me.
She’d heard me, though.
For a while, we both stood motionless: my mother with her fingers clawed into the door; me with my fake heartbeat hammering in my chest. Although I knew it wasn’t possible, it seemed as though her brown eyes were boring into mine. Begging me to tell her why she’d just heard the voice of her long-dead daughter.
I gulped once, as quietly as possible, and leaned forward a fraction of an inch. As if in response, my mother leaned backward.
I thought she was trying to escape something that she couldn’t—didn’t want to—understand. But instead, another face appeared next to hers in the doorway, probably summoned by my mother’s strange silence.
This new face belonged to a woman, much younger than my mother but somewhat older than me. When she peered out the doorway, the corners of her blue eyes wrinkled faintly. I froze in place, but her gaze moved smoothly across the porch, not even hesitating on the spot where I stood. As though I weren’t even there.
The woman took a step forward—maybe for a closer look at the empty porch—and I got a better view of her. She was striking, with her high cheekbones and impeccable platinum-blond ponytail. Pretty and polished, like a piece of fine glass.
I knew I’d never seen her—not as a visitor to the Mayhews’ house or as a teacher at Wilburton High; not even as someone I’d passed on the streets of New Orleans this past winter. But something about this woman was strangely familiar.
Before I had a chance to place her, she straightened the hem of her tailored blazer and turned to my mother with a worried frown.
“Liz? Everything okay?”
My mother’s frown deepened, just for a moment, before she met her guest’s gaze. “Everything’s fine,” she said, giving the blond woman a faint smile. “I thought I heard something out here. I guess not.”
The blonde returned the smile, but it wavered on the edges, as though she thought her host might be a little unstable. It wasn’t a mean look, necessarily—just a cautious one.
“The coffee, Liz,” she prompted gently. “It’s getting cold.”
My mother nodded, looking embarrassed. “Of course. Sorry.”
She hadn’t removed her hand from the edge of the door, and now she began to push it shut as she and the blond woman stepped back into the house. In the seconds before the door closed completely, I caught a final glimpse of the younger woman’s face. For just a second her blue eyes seemed to lock on to mine, and I felt that strange, dizzying sense of familiarity again.
The feeling only intensified when I heard the last bit of my mother’s voice before the door shut.
“Sorry again, Serena. Must have been the wind.”
Chapter
TWO
Serena Taylor, the girl who murdered you, was having coffee with your mom?”
Joshua sounded like he still didn’t quite be-lieve me.
I lifted one shoulder and let it drop carelessly. That was the biggest shrug I could make, given the circumstances.
“That’s not exactly accurate,” I mumbled. “At least, not completely accurate.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Joshua raise one skeptical eyebrow. Instead of elaborating, I flopped backward into the pile of lush pillows behind us.
At the moment, Joshua and I were in his parents’ gazebo. His mother, Rebecca, had recently redesigned its interior, transforming the space into something hidden and exotic. The thick curtains that enclosed its outer walls were now masked on the inside by yards of white gauzy drapes. Glittering, star-shaped lanterns hung from the ceiling, and flowering plants filled every inch not occupied by the enormous, pillow-covered daybed.
But despite the gorgeous setting, Joshua and I were tensed up on the daybed, not touching.
Not that that’s anything new, I reminded myself. Not since New Orleans, where I lost my ability to touch the living.
After what felt like an appropriately weighted pause, I propped myself up on my elbows and turned to Joshua.
“To be fair to Serena,” I said, “she didn’t mean to murder me. She was under the influence of Eli and his wraiths.”
When Joshua started to roll his eyes, I added, “Just like your friends when they tried to kill your little sister.”
A dark look passed over his face, and I could read it perfectly. Joshua was remembering the night his sister, Jillian, nearly died, at the hands of his own friends and a malevolent ghost named Eli Rowland. Joshua shook his head, and the dark look shook away too, replaced by the thoughtful frown he’d been wearing since we left my mother’s house.
“I don’t know, Amelia. After what happened to you—after the part Serena played in your death—why would she still hang around your mom? I mean, shouldn’t she be . . . ?”
As he searched for the right phrase, I snorted softly. “What you mean, Joshua, is shouldn’t she be curled up in a corner somewhere, racked with guilt for what happened over a decade ago? Keeping in mind that she probably doesn’t even remember what happened?”
He gave me that half grin, the one that made me ache to touch his lips, just once. “Exactly.” He shifted into the pillows next to me, keeping between us the few inches that had become a permanent fixture since New Orleans—inches that represented what we could no longer do: touch.
“Besides,” Joshua went on, “how do you even know this woman is your Serena Taylor? Just because she’s blond and named Serena—”
“And about the right age for someone born in the eighties,” I interrupted. “And she was having coffee with my mom, in one of the smallest towns on earth.”
Joshua considered this, frowning again. But when his eyebrows unknitted and his mouth softened, I could see I’d won the argument.
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Maybe she’s the Serena Taylor. But . . . what does that even mean for us?”
“Nothing, actually.”
I sighed, stretching my legs across the daybed until my feet swung over the edge. “At least, it means nothing right now. It’s not like I’m going to call Serena and invite her to have coffee with me next. And anyway . . . I think we should scrap the whole Mom idea. For the time being.”
When Joshua began to protest, I held up my hand, almost but not quite touching his lips.
“Don’t even start,” I warned. “If I try to meet my mom again—and that’s a big if—then it will be on my terms. Surprising her by showing up unexpectedly on her front porch just isn’t going to work for me.”
After a long pause, most of which Joshua spent glancing between my fingertips and my mouth, he nodded.
“If that’s what you want, Amelia. I promise I won’t push the issue again.”
I widened my eyes in mock surprise. “Joshua Mayhew not insisting that I do something risky yet supposedly rewarding? What is this world coming to?”