I DREAM THAT I’m drowning. Tumbling through the water, my limbs twisting, my back bending at impossible angles. But time is running backward. My bones knit themselves together as I rush back through the wicked current. As I erupt from the cold water and land on the dry shore, I pause a moment, suspended in time, the moonlight playing over the softly creasing water of the Narrow.
Then a blow against my back sends me toppling forward once more, and I hit the cold water with a gasp—
And I wake in the darkness of my room. My eyes are open, but I can’t move.
I know what’s happening before I hear the slow, steady dripping. Before I see the pale figure at the very edge of my vision.
She draws closer. I whimper, unable to even part my lips. Veronica is here. She’s only a few feet away, but I can’t call to her.
The Drowning Girl is at the edge of my bed, leaning over me. I can’t make out her face, only the ragged curtain of her hair, wet and dark. Cold water drips against my cheeks, but I can’t even blink it away.
Guh, guh, guh, she chokes.
“Maeve,” I try to say. No sound comes out.
She shudders. Her fingers crackle as they twist back into place. “Eden,” she says. She slides one knee onto the bed, half kneeling. She bends over me, her hair curtaining down around us both. “I have to reach her, Eden. They’re trying to keep us apart, but I won’t let them. You have to help me.”
I’m trying.
“I know. I know,” she croons. She cups my face with her hand. A bright star blooms behind my eye, but my wounds are already fresh. There’s nothing worse she can do to me.
“You look so much like her,” she whispers.
I’m not afraid. All the fear has rushed out of me. In its place comes a flood of longing, a fierce thing that sings with the beating of my heart but isn’t mine, doesn’t belong to me.
It’s hers. But it’s the strongest thing inside of me. Stronger than fear or sense.
“You’re kind, like she was,” she whispers. Every part of me wants to cry out to her, to answer that wild longing. Her fingertips trail down my cheek. “I loved her with everything I was. They tried to keep us apart, but I wouldn’t let them. We’re supposed to be forever. We’re infinite. You and me, Grace.”
I can’t answer or move or scream or tell her I’m not Grace—I’m as frozen as ever.
I can feel her breath, warm against my lips. Her fingertips against my chin. Her lips, soft as they press against mine. And my heart sings with joy. Her joy.
Cold water trickles between my lips. I choke, swallow it down. But she’s still kissing me, and the water is still coming, filling my mouth, flowing up over my face. I’m drowning in her.
Pain bursts in my leg, my ribs, my spine. Blood blooms in the water in my mouth—
“Eden!”
Veronica is screaming my name. Shaking my shoulders. I choke, cough. Water gurgles from my mouth. Veronica flips me onto my side, and I cough again, gagging as the water spills out. I gasp down a breath. Another coughing fit seizes me, but this time I’m gasping in air in between. Veronica sits back, raking her hair away from her face and letting out a moan of relief.
I shove myself upright, looking around wildly. “What . . . ?” My head pounds.
“She was here,” Veronica says. “Oh my God, Eden, she was here. I saw her standing over you and then she kissed you and you started choking and I tried to get her off you, but when I touched her, she vanished, and you were drowning, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just started screaming your name, and . . .” She looks over her shoulder and calls out, “She’s okay!”
Del. I stagger to my feet and past Veronica, into the hall. The door at the bottom of the stairs is closed, but I can see Del through the window, standing right on the other side. She presses one hand against the glass when she sees me, letting out a cry of relief.
“She knew,” Veronica says. “She was yelling for me.”
Del’s eyes are wide, her pupils dilated until you can barely see the ring of her irises around them. “I saw her in the hall. She was coming toward me, but then she turned into your room.”
“You saw her,” I say raggedly. Relief floods through me. Not because I have doubted for even a moment that Maeve is real, but because this means that Veronica knows it, too.
Now she will have to believe me.
“Eden,” Del says. Her voice is clear, sharp-edged, despite the door between us. “Your face.”
I touch my fingers to my cheek. It’s tender. My lip bloodied. My arm is in agony once again. The vicious pain was a comfort for a few minutes, proof that I was alive enough to feel it, but now it’s too intense to bear.
“She hurt you bad,” Veronica breathes. She spreads her hand near my face. I flinch away from it, but she’s only measuring her hand against the marks on my cheek.
“She didn’t do this to me,” I say. I look down the hall. The inner door to the dressing room is cracked open. The cuff of my jeans has wedged it open, keeping it from latching shut. Ruth must have dropped them when she went to check for the pill in my pocket. The rain-soaked cuff is surrounded by a small slick of water, and bare wet footprints track down the hall toward my rooms.
That’s all it took. A few drops, carelessly allowed through the door.
“You need to get to a hospital,” Del says.
“I was fine the first time,” I protest. “I just need to rest.”
“The first time? The first time what?” Veronica asks.
“Her brother’s friend attacked her,” Del says. Betrayal blurs into guilt in my mind. I didn’t lie to her, but I hid the truth. She thinks it was Dylan. And wasn’t it? He was the one who whispered in Luke’s ear, who shattered all the progress he made. It wasn’t Luke’s fault, what happened. Not really. “He broke her arm, and I’m pretty sure gave her a concussion, based on how out of it she is, and when the ghost touches her, the injuries all come back.”
Veronica turns a wounded look on me. “Why didn’t you tell us? Wait—your arm is broken? Why the hell didn’t you go to a doctor?”
“I can’t tell,” I say. I can’t look her in the face. “It would be bad for Luke.”
“Fuck Luke,” Veronica says with a snarl. “We’re going to the hospital. And the police.”
“It won’t matter. I can’t say that Dylan did this. It’ll look like it just happened. There’s no way he could have caused these injuries. Even if I tell now, no one will believe me.”
“Whatever,” Veronica says. “You need to get that arm in a cast, and you need an MRI or whatever to make sure your head injury isn’t going to kill you in your sleep.”
“It didn’t—”
“Before. I know. But who the fuck knows what’s happening when your bones crack all over again?” Veronica asks. “We’ll say it was rainy and you fell. I tried to catch you by the arm and that’s why it’s bruised.”
“Your hand is way too small,” I say.
“Like they’re going to notice. Come on. I’m driving you to the hospital.”
“It’s still raining,” Del points out, and both of us fall silent.
“In the morning,” Veronica says at last. “We’ll go in the morning. And then I’m going to kill that ghost. I don’t care if she’s already dead.”
“No,” I say. I reach out, take Veronica’s hand. “She didn’t mean to do this to me, V. She’s looking for the girl she loves, that’s all. She didn’t just fall in the river. She was pushed—someone murdered her, and now she’s lost. We have to help her. Please.” I’m crying, hot tears trailing down my cheeks, banishing the cold of the river water.
Veronica puts her arms around me. “Hush. Okay. I’m sorry, Eden. We’ll help her. I promise we’ll help her. But first we have to help you.”
I nod against her shoulder, and she strokes my hair, whispering comfort into my ear. Behind her, Del presses a hand against the glass, as if she wishes she could reach through. Wishes she could touch me. But there’s river water on my skin. On my lips. One touch from me would kill her, and so she stands in silence, three feet and an infinity between us.