WEDNESDAY WAS THE START of Thanksgiving holidays, making it over a week since I had been to school. It was going to be a rude awakening when I had to go back Monday. Mom went back to work, so I stayed at home with Colin for most of the day watching Netflix on my laptop while he played video games.
But there was something I still had to do. I called Emily for a ride, on the condition that she didn't ask me any questions. I figured after rescuing her—kind of—she owed me one. Or a hundred.
Emily had her own condition; she had to check in with Kari every fifteen minutes. I had a feeling that would get old for both of them very fast. We still hadn't talked much about what happened to her. I had a feeling it was going to be a while, if ever, before Emily wanted to talk about it. She was like my mom in that way; she’d pretend she was fine until it became more or less true. Instead, we talked about our sudden surge in popularity. The highlight was Allie Williams adding me as a friend on Facebook, complete with a sappy apology for our falling out in ninth grade.
“You should lead her on and then crush her dreams,” Emily said. “No mercy.”
“I should,” I said. But we both knew I wouldn't. I'd clicked Confirm and instantly groaned at the gushing post she wrote on my wall.
But maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it was time for big changes. Maybe it was time for me to quit hiding out and get back into the world. I was never going to be normal again. Fact. My past hurt, and nothing would ever give back what I’d lost. I would always be sad about what happened to Valerie. But I’d realized there was room for more than just my sadness. And it was up to me what the future would hold.
The afternoon was on the verge of rainy, with that feeling of expectation that comes with a thunderstorm. The world seemed to be waiting for something. After a few minutes of driving down the interstate, we arrived at Valerie’s memorial. Emily pulled off into the shoulder and turned on her hazard lights. As I got out of the car, Emily pretended to be engrossed in her phone, but I knew she was watching me out of the corner of her eye.
The memorial just a wooden cross with V.R.Y. engraved on the cross piece. I knelt by the cross, feeling the dampness of the grass soaking into the ratty hand-me-down jeans. Maybe I didn't have to let go of everything right away. I held the Fall Court tiara in my hand, then slowly set it out next to the cross. The sparkling rhinestones were completely out of place in the overgrown grass, but that seemed right somehow.
“Leaving it here?” Kale asked. “Kinda maudlin, don’t you think?”
I didn't look up at him. “She liked this stuff more than I did.”
“You should keep it,” he said. “You deserve it.”
“Not really,” I said. Even so, I toyed with one of the sparkling points as Kale shrugged and sat down next to me. “She's really gone. I mean, really gone this time.”
“She is,” Kale said. “But you’re going to be okay.”
“We missed it,” I said, still staring at the glittering crown in the damp weeds. “I thought I was finally going to be normal.”
“About that,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”
My heart leapt. “You mean we didn’t miss it? Kale, don’t hold out on me.”
“Uh,” he said. “How do I put this…there was never a ritual.”
I gaped at him. He looked embarrassed and apologetic at once. Surely this was a Kale joke. A very bad one. “There—what—huh?”
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he said. “But you were going to drive yourself crazy and never let Val go otherwise. You would have held onto her for the rest of your life if you could have.”
“No,” I said. “I mean…”
He raised his eyebrows. “Bridget.”
“Okay, I would have.”
“I know, and it would have destroyed everything that was left of her,” he said. “So I forced your hand.”
“Kale, I don’t understand,” I murmured. I felt sick as I looked him over. That had been my single hope for months, the only thing that kept me going. He knew that, and he’d manipulated me? For what, a sick joke? “I trusted you.”
“I told you I’d always watch out for you,” he said. “I never said I’d always be truthful. You convinced yourself her death was your fault and—”
“It was.”
“It wasn’t. I don’t know how to convince you of that,” he insisted. “And even if it had been, you’ve punished yourself long enough.”
“If it wasn’t my fault, then why did I see her when I only see wrongful deaths?” Saw, I realized. Now I’d laid down a welcome mat for all of them.
“When you flatlined, she waited for you. And when they brought you back, she wanted to stay here to watch over you, so she made a deal,” he explained. “Basically, she gave up her seat on the flight. Once that happened, she had to wait for you to set her free.”
“But—”
“And you weren’t setting her free,” he said. “After a year you were holding on tighter than ever. So I told you about this secretive ritual that had to be on your birthday.”
“But I sent her off on the day she died,” I whispered.
“That day made as much sense as anything else,” he said. “I knew I had to force your hand somehow. You wouldn’t have believed me if it was just any day. And I knew you’d choose to let her go over making her suffer longer.”
“So you played me.”
“Yep.”
Even with the ghostly door wide open, I still couldn’t slap him. But I tried my best, my hand passing harmlessly through his insubstantial chest like cold water. Too bad. “You’re an asshole, you know that? I can’t believe you lied to me.”
“For your own good,” he said. “You’ll get over it.”
“You’re definitely not an angel,” I said.
“Duh. I’ve been telling you that all along,” he replied. With an irritatingly calm smile, he lifted the crown and put it back on my head. “You earned this.”
“I didn’t,” I said, reaching up to take it away. His cold hand passed through mine. My arm tingled, cool and electric, as he leaned in close. His blue-lagoon eyes were inches from mine.
“You did,” he said. “I tested you again and again. I tried to talk you out of helping Emily, tried to stop you from opening the door, even tried to get you to forget it all. And you kept doing it anyway.”
“So I failed?”
“You passed,” he said. “Now I can do this. Think of it as a promotion.”
He put out his hand, and Valerie's necklace slithered out from under my shirt. The dragonfly floated up and settled into his gleaming palm. The silver loop floated up and over my head, landing in his hand. He closed his eyes. There was a flash of light and a sound like a plucked harp string. As it echoed, he let the dragonfly dangle from his fingers. Its green gemstone eyes glowed faintly as it swung like a pendulum. “If you ever need me, just call for me and I’ll be there. Anytime, anywhere. And if you ever need a break, just put this on. It’ll dampen your ability.”
“So I could just—”
He knew me too well. “Not forever. You won’t like what happens then. But you've earned it. Whatever you think you've done, you've earned your peace. The only person who can let you rest now is you.”
“Kale…”
“Go ahead and ask.”
“What are you?”
“I'm your Guardian, and I’ll always look out for you,” he said again. “Now come on, you're going to get rained on.”
He had no sooner disappeared when the rain began to fall, and I just stared into the empty space where he had been. There was a new cluster of white flowers around Valerie's memorial. A sweet, flowery scent rose above the damp-earth scent of rain. It didn't smell like any flowers I had ever smelled, but like Valerie's perfume. Was it bad that it didn’t even surprise me?
How did you go on after something like this? How did you get up and move on when everything you knew changed?
“Same as any other day,” I said to myself, brushing grass off my butt as I stood. The first droplets of rain kissed my neck as I took one last look at the wooden cross. Thunder rolled in the distance, and I dashed to the car and plopped into the seat. I had just gotten the door shut when the bottom seemed to drop out of the sky. The windshield went gray with the downpour.
“What the heck were you doing?” Emily demanded. “You were totally just talking to thin air for like ten minutes.”
Instead of getting embarrassed, I just smiled and said, “Emily, I have a story to tell you.”