Then he heard Eleisha’s voice outside, and he shoved the letter inside his shirt again. The front doors opened.
Mary materialized just inside the churchyard, around the back, keeping well hidden among the rosebushes. In her current state of existence, one thing that surprised her was than anyone could see her if she changed locations without knowing exactly where she would appear . . . and she ended up materializing out in the open.
She’d scared the hell out of a couple of old ladies at the Seattle Center before realizing they could see her—and then she blinked out again. But she was learning tricks to avoid this.
She hadn’t told Julian, but she was learning how to manipulate her abilities far beyond the scant instructions he’d given her.
For instance, she’d found that she could materialize right inside the walls of a building. This didn’t hurt her, and no one could see her. The problem was that she couldn’t see or hear either. But she was discovering new ways to spy and eavesdrop without being spotted, and she was gaining a much stronger grasp on wishing herself into “nothingness” or a state of limbo where she was invisible to people until she either wished to materialize again . . . or Julian called her.
She thought of this as being able to “blink in and out.”
She’d also learned that she had a powerful advantage over the other spirits who’d remained here in what she called “the real world.” From what she understood—by talking to other ghosts—spirits of the dead could exist on three different planes: 1) the real world of the living, 2) the gray in-between plane, and 3) the afterlife. She had no idea what the afterlife looked like, as she had never seen it, but during her time on the gray plane, she’d come to believe the vast majority of ghosts ended up there, as she once could have . . . had she been willing to leave the in-between plane of the spirits who refused to accept death, who still longed to find a way back here, back to the living.
While first hunting for Eleisha in Seattle, she realized she couldn’t yet tell the difference between various forms of the dead. So she’d ended up finding several other ghosts. They weren’t common here in the real world.
But the few she’d met had all been trapped here the moment they died by strong ties to either a person or a place, and many ghosts spent their time in the relaxed state of “nothingness” beyond the sight of living people. However . . . being tied down to a person or place, they could not move with the ease that she could, even if they wished to. As of yet, she hadn’t met a single spirit who’d crossed over from the other side, like she had.
She was unique.
She liked it here. She could go anywhere. See anything. She wasn’t tied to anyone.
Well, that wasn’t true. She was tied to Julian. Bastard. He hated her. She could see it in his dirty face. But when he threatened to send her back, she believed him. She was terrified of going back to that ugly gray plane of nothing, with only other ghosts like herself who shouldn’t be dead . . . who knew they couldn’t be dead, who struggled and fought and wept to find a way to get back here.
She was here.
And she wasn’t leaving.
Once she was done with Julian’s tasks and he released her, she was going home to her parents. They were never abandoning her at home again. They were never getting rid of her.
She’d considered popping in on them several times but decided against it just yet. She wanted to wait until she had her freedom first. Then, boy, would they be surprised. This was all their fault! They left her to go see some stupid art opening, not even asking if she wanted to go. They never asked her if she wanted to go with them, and her dad was selfish enough to turn his phone off so she couldn’t even call. They’d practically murdered her. They’d be sorry soon.
Looking around, she realized she was alone outside the church and floated up a few feet to look in one of the stained windows. Peering through a piece of yellow glass, she could see the blond guy sitting on the floor of the empty sanctuary, reading a sheet of paper.