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  “It's you,” Wendy remembered dully, the white mists of memory parting. “You are…were…the White Lady.”

  Mary's hair snapped in the wind, the curls tickling Wendy's cheeks from several feet away. Wendy brushed the curls away and bit her lip.

  She should have known it was a dream. How many years had it been since Mary's hair had been that long? She'd cut it when Wendy was still young, and their ritual of brushing each other's hair every night before bed had ended a quiet death.

  In the before time.

  Before…

  Before Eddie's dad died.

  “I'm still…I'm still sick, aren't I?” Wendy remembered; the realization was like those soundless flashes of lightning, cutting across the pleasant, hazy fog of her memories in one sharp, brilliant blaze.

  “I'm in the hospital right now. This is…this is just a dream. I'm dying.” Wendy pressed her hands to her lips, felt how dry they were, and how hot her flesh was. She was burning up from the inside out.

  “You're working on it,” Mary—no, the White Lady—agreed. She crossed her arms—not simply pale like Wendy thought, but bones hardly clad in flesh—across her chest and gazed at the coming storm with a strange, shallow peace that Wendy envied. “However, you don't have to.”

  “I don't think I've got a whole lot of choice in the matter,” Wendy snapped. The White Lady was a sick and twisted mockery of everything her mother had been, and Wendy felt foul even being on the same beach with her. But…the White Lady knew things. Knew things Mary had never gotten around to teaching Wendy, or had actively kept from her for Wendy's own safety.

  “It's not like the rest of the Reapers are going to let me keep walking around,” Wendy pointed out bitterly. “I'm in the way. I'm meddling with their oh-so-mysterious plans. Elise doesn't like it. Or me.” Wendy smirked. “Or you, really, now that I think about it. She, in general, just doesn't seem to like much except listening to her own gums flap.”

  “Even after all this time you're still not asking the right questions,” the White Lady said—not mockingly, Wendy realized, but sadly. “Why do the Reapers have any say in what you do or how you go about it?”

  “Um,” she said, “well…you? Them? I don't know! We have this whole family I didn't know about—that you kept from me, I'd like to add—and they've got rules and regulations and a handbook, and the best you can do is to tell me that they don't have any say in what I do?”

  “The only power they have over you is what you grant them, Wendy. You are the one who let them grow close,” the White Lady reminded Wendy mildly, turning to face the incoming tide and thickening storm. “You trusted Jane with your Light, she twisted it, and now you are burning with, and dying from, fever.”

  “If you'd warned me about the Reapers before getting yourself shredded, maybe I wouldn't've trusted them,” Wendy snapped, coloring angrily. Her hands balled into fists. She wanted to punch the White Lady in her ruined-beautiful face, to crush the remains of those familiar features until any semblance of her mother was nothing but blood and bone on the sand. “Thanks for the ‘I told you so,’ by the way.”

  The White Lady shrugged, careless and cool. If she sensed Wendy's fury she didn't make much note of it. “It is not a bad thing to trust. It speaks highly of you, in fact. You take people at face value unless given a reason not to. I find that an admirable trait.”

  “The fact that you think anything about me is worthwhile is…” Wendy faltered. “Wait. Wait a second. You can't find any part of me admirable or not. You're dead.”

  The White Lady turned; raised a mangled eyebrow. “Your point being?”

  “No,” Wendy said, shaking her head sharply. “No, I mean you're really, really dead. Not, ‘oh hey, Mom's in a coma and her twisted soul is running around town kidnapping kids and visiting my dreams’ kind of dead, but the ‘we buried you’ kind of dead. I sent your soul into the Light myself! And souls…souls don't come back from the Light, not that I know of at least. I killed you.”

  “Yes, you did, didn't you?” the White Lady said mildly, a thin smile twisting the corner of her lips. “You opened yourself completely to the Light and let the power flow through you. All my disguises, all my taunting, washed away in the waves of Light.”

  “Can I…can I be like you?” Wendy asked abruptly, remembering how the other Reapers, like the White Lady, had been able to twist their shape in the dreamscape. “Can I? Can you teach me how to alter my dream-skin? You're not my mother or the White Lady. They…she…is dead. You're someone…else. So what do you want to teach me? Will you? Can you?”

  Laughing, the White Lady abruptly flung up her arms to the crackling, furious sky. “And, at long last,” she bellowed to the heavy, laden clouds, “she finally begins asking the right questions!”

  The clouds opened up. A freezing, punishing rain pounded down. Wendy was instantly soaked; icy water steamed off her blazing skin, evaporating where it hit. The world was water and noise; Wendy couldn't see more than an inch in front of her face.

  “Who are you?” Wendy shouted through the thick downpour, fumbling forward, hands outstretched toward the White Lady. Blinded by the rain, Wendy quickly stumbled and fell—the White Lady, or whomever she'd been, was gone, leaving only the door of seashells behind and the faces in the clouds, the red-rimmed eyes in the darkness, peering down. How she could see them through the downpour was beyond Wendy's ken. All she knew was that the red eyes were getting closer, the rain icier, and soon even the heat of her fever wouldn't keep her safe.

  Grabbing the conch-handle, Wendy yanked on the dreamscape door.

  It opened…and she slipped through.

  “AGAIN!” The paddles hummed and zapped. For a brief moment the room was silent and then…

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “Got her,” the ER doctor said, stepping back from Wendy's body. Only Piotr, hovering close by, noticed the trembling of his hands. “Whew. That was a close one, huh?”

  “You ignored her DNR,” growled Jenna, the intake nurse. “I'm reporting you.”

  “Go ahead,” the doctor said, wiping his brow and turning his back. “Do your job. I did mine.”

  “DNRs exist for a reason,” she hissed, fingers pressed on the thin tattoo peeking over the edge of her scrubs. “I hope you enjoyed playing the hero.” With that, she turned and flounced out.

  “Don't mind her, doc,” the head nurse said, piling gelpacks around Wendy's legs; now that she was stabilized, the ER staff could relax. “Do-Not-Resuscitate or not, no one in their right mind would've let this kid die. Not over a fever.”

  The spirits in the room glanced at one another as the nurses and attendants filed out. Soon only Wendy, the dead, and the doctor remained.

  Wendy's salvation had been a close one, but only the ghosts knew just how close.

  “I can't believe that worked,” Eddie finally said to Piotr, breaking the taut silence. “I can't believe you pulled that off. But…how? How did you manage to make him change his mind?”

  Piotr's fingers burned where he'd been knuckle-deep in the doctor's neck—he could still feel the ghost of the doctor's living bones, sense the thrum of blood and energy cupping against his palm as he'd ordered the doctor to save Wendy, despite Jenna waving the DNR paperwork and demanding otherwise. It shouldn't have worked…and now a whole world of strange and uncomfortable questions needed to be answered.

  “Eddie is correct,” Lily murmured, joining Piotr at Wendy's side, watching the measured rise and fall of her chest and avoiding the doctor making notes at the end of the bed. “This sudden interaction with the living is troubling, Piotr. Discerning how you managed such a feat—”

  “Does it matter, Pocahontas?” Elle demanded, patting her pincurls. “He got the job done, didn't he? Case closed!”

  Eddie shook his head sharply. “Are you kidding me? Piotr shouldn't be touching anyone until he knows what he's doing. He could be hurting people!”

  “This point is quite valid,” Lily agreed, tapping her fingers on
her elbows. “Piotr's new ability—”

  “Is a blessing!” Elle protested angrily. “And you two dunderheads want him to just forget he even—”

  “Shh,” Piotr hushed them. “Look.”

  The gray of the room slowly lit up, until Wendy's spirit—pale and not nearly as luminous as her Lightbringer form, but still much brighter than the other spirits—sat up in bed.

  “Turns out,” she said, rubbing her chest with one hand and scowling, “that getting a ton of electricity pumped through you hurts. Oooowww.”

  Eddie, startled, jumped aside, passing through the new IV drip and ending up halfway in and halfway out of a small stack of chairs beside the bed. “You're alive…dead…you're okay!” He leapt toward Wendy and grabbed her in a bear hug, hauling her off the bed in his exuberance. “Oh man, Wendy, don't you ever do that to me again! I…we…look, lady, we almost lost you, okay? Just…just don't do that.”

  Sniffling, he pulled her close and held her, rocking back and forth on his heels. Wendy hugged him tightly, smiling. She looked happy that Eddie was so happy. She glanced over his shoulder, and Piotr, only a few feet away, shifted from side to side and looked uncomfortably at the floor, the ceiling, her body on the bed…anywhere but at Wendy's spirit.

  “Eddie…Eds, I'm okay. I promise. See?” Wendy untangled herself from her best friend's embrace. “Strong like ox, I am. Tough like bull. Grrrr.” She flexed an arm and then jokingly punched him in the shoulder. “No worries.”

  “Always worries with you these days,” Eddie replied, cupping Wendy by the back of the neck and drawing her forward so that their foreheads were touching. “You scared…all of us. Seriously.”

  Piotr cleared his throat and Eddie pulled away, squeezing Wendy's upper arms as he drew back.

  “I don't know what the fuss is all about with you two. I'm hotter than he is by far,” Eddie said loudly, flashing Piotr a cheeky, taunting grin. “I'm still not giving up on you and me. Just sayin’. But why don't you give Rasputin over there some lovin’, just to be fair? Give the sucker a chance to compete against my awesomeness and all that.”

  “Eddie, you're impossible,” Wendy said with mock seriousness, bussing Eddie on the cheek. Then she turned to Piotr.

  “Wendy,” he said gravely.

  “Piotr,” she replied, approaching him and brushing the hair off his face, exposing the scar beneath. Then her other hand snuck up on the other side until she was cupping his face in her hands.

  “No hello, Piotr?” she asked. He shuddered.

  “Net,” Piotr said, licking his lips. He couldn't meet her eyes.

  “You know,” she said absently, “hugging Eddie and then touching you…it's so different. Eddie's skin is kind of familiar-feeling, like regular flesh but slightly more flexible. Thinner to the touch, maybe? But you…”

  Piotr held stone-still as Wendy ran her hands along his face. He knew that touching him must be incredibly strange for her, an entirely different experience from the tentative way they'd been forced to touch before—under her hands he realized for the first time that his skin was smooth and firm, cool, and he knew that the only flaw her fingers would find was the ridge of scar tissue and the stubble along his jaw line. Over the past few months Piotr had begun to accept the fact that, amid the other souls, he alone was different, solid and firm, unbending, and ultimately unbreakable. He was a statue in a world of fluttering tissue paper.

  “I merely wished to give you time to acclimate to the Never,” he whispered to break the tension of her examining touch and the confusing emotions that were always coupled with his semi-permanence in a universe designed to tear souls down. “It is…difficult at first.”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “Are all dead guys so decorous? Come here, you skinny lug.” Dropping her examination, she flung open her arms and hugged him tightly. “I missed you, too. Don't let the Walkers make a pincushion out of you next time.” She rested her head on Piotr's shoulder and Piotr tried not to notice that Eddie's expression had gone from pleasure to chagrin.

  “We can touch,” Piotr marveled, threading his fingers through Wendy's, palms pressed flush, neither of them too hot or too cold. For the first time in their relationship, Piotr and Wendy were finally on equal terms.

  “Wow,” Wendy said. “No worries about me reaping you, either. I know I have to get back in my body sooner rather than later, but you gotta admit, this is kind of awesome.”

  “Wrap up the kissy-face crap and let's blow this pop stand. I'm not getting any deader here,” Elle demanded.

  Wendy drew back. Eddie stood near the door, his face turned away, and Piotr had a moment of dismay. As annoying and amusing as he found Eddie, he knew that it was impossible for Wendy to not worry about him—about his feelings or otherwise. Wendy was a generous soul; Piotr had come to terms with the fact that Wendy loved Eddie just as much as she did him…just in a different way.

  Piotr forced some emotional distance. Eddie was a big boy; he could make his own decisions. He wanted to wait for Wendy, fine, Piotr wouldn't stand in his way. It might not be fair to allow such unbending devotion, but that was Wendy's choice to make, not Piotr's.

  “Agreed,” Lily said, rising to her feet. “Reapers are about, as well. We must be cautious.”

  Wendy pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail as the ghosts headed for the doorway. “Reapers? Are you sure?”

  “There's a tatted-up nurse floating around the floor. Maybe she's not a Reaper per se, but she pushed hard to follow your DNR and got pretty pissy when Pete got the doc to ignore your paperwork.”

  “A DNR?” Wendy paled. “I don't have a DNR. What person in their right mind—” She broke off abruptly, furious. “Oh, those bitches. Seriously? How the hell do they manage to pull those strings so fast? Doesn't paperwork like that require a notary or something?”

  “Elise?” Elle asked, examining her fingers and picking idly at the ragged edge of one thumbnail.

  “Elise,” Wendy confirmed, sneering. “Or Jane. Though it's mind-boggling that they'd go to such lengths to get me out of the way. Mocking up a DNR? It's just…”

  “Then, for your protection and our own, we ought to leave,” Lily reminded them, glancing out into the hallway. Her body was one taut line, her fleeting expression grave and tense.

  “Speaking of your family,” Eddie added as Lily eased into the hall to make sure the coast was clear, “did you know that Jon and Chel can see us?”

  Wendy frowned. “Jane…Jane said as much. Before. But I didn't believe her.”

  Eddie patted Wendy on the shoulder. “Well, she's telling the truth. Sorry, hun.”

  “No. No. It sucks,” Wendy sighed, “but it makes a sick sort of sense.”

  Lily led the way to the waiting room where Wendy's younger sister crunched up on a small loveseat, dozing uneasily. Her bleached blonde hair was tangled in a sweaty mass beneath her head and a jacket had been slung over her torso, the sleeves dragging the floor. Chel's twin, Jon, slouched in a chair beside the loveseat, paging half-heartedly through a Life & Style magazine, and examining the recipe section with only a modicum of interest.

  “Healthy or not, those cookies look awful,” Wendy said, leaning over the back of the chair and purposefully murmuring directly into Jon's ear. “Kind of like baked gravel, right? Clean that colon!”

  “Could be worse,” Jon replied without glancing up from the magazine. “They could be…oh. Um. Hi, Wendy?” He reddened as if he'd been caught paging through something dirtier than Life & Style. “I, uh, didn't see you walk in.” Jon chewed his lip, having trouble looking at her, and Piotr knew that he wanted to say something about her current incorporeal state but wasn't sure how exactly to begin. Polite but scared; Jon to the core.

  “I'm not surprised,” Wendy murmured, gingerly patting her brother's shoulder to put him at ease. “There are a lot of ghosts wandering the halls tonight. It's kind of weird, actually.”

  “You're telling me,” Jon grumbled, finally looking her over. He nodded once,
face grave. “This place has been spook central the past hour or so—people walking through walls left and right. It's just creepy. I'd give anything to go back to normal. A gunshot grandma gushing everywhere just ain't right, you know?”

  “You get used to it,” Wendy sighed. “Wake up Chel and we'll bail, okay? Let's go home.”

  “Righty-roo,” Jon agreed amicably, leaning over and poking his twin in the shoulder. “Yo, sleeping buffy! Arise and greet the day! Or the rest of the night. Whatever.”

  Chel opened her eyes and glared. “Is she dead?”

  “Nice, thanks,” Wendy snarked. “Good to see you, too.”

  “What happened?” Chel asked, yawning.

  “I did die, but they brought me back.” Wendy knocked a loose fist against her breastbone. “Pumped me with enough voltage to become a supervillain, though. Bzzzt.”

  Chel, grimacing, sat up on the loveseat, Jon's coat falling to the floor. “Great,” she yawned, grabbing her purse with one hand as she rubbed her eyes with the other. “Glad you're not dead anymore.”

  “Wendy wants us to boogie,” Jon added. “Let's go.”

  They gathered their things and were preparing to leave when a monster of a man—well over six feet tall, with a thick head of gray hair and a trimmed beard—bounded into the room. His shoulders filled the frame and the reflection of the ceiling lights on his glasses hid his eyes. According to the card dangling around his neck, his name was Dr. Kensington. He was smiling; his teeth were huge and white, straight and sharp.

  Wendy watched Piotr, shivering, cover his neck with one hand.