about the ghost in the cave. I hadn’t had a chance the night before.
“So,” she clarified when I finished, “it told you to be careful at the same time it was choking you?”
I’d realized that Phin’s questions weren’t out of disbelief, but a sign that something didn’t square with her logic. And in this case, I agreed.
“I know. I can’t figure it out, either.” I stopped on the path through the lavender fields, glad for the sun and the smells. “Unless it was a threat.”
“But you’re doing what it said.” She sounded outraged on my behalf. “You’re looking for it in the ground and you’re looking into the stories.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Phin.” For once I was calmer than she was.
“I just wish I knew how to help you.” She set her hands on her hips, her ponytail swinging indignantly. “All I can think is that this ghost is an ungrateful bastard.”
At the sight of her looking like a tall, irate pixie in pink cargo shorts and cussing out a ghost, I had to laugh. It was slightly hysterical but utterly uncontrollable. Maybe frustration and anxiety had sent me over the edge. I laughed until I was wiping tears from my cheeks; then Phin’s offended expression set me off again.
I finally pulled myself together and started walking back toward the house. The goats awaited their breakfast, and I had a lot of detective work ahead of me.
And then I stopped again. “I just remembered something Mom said.”
“That Daisy is coming today? I hadn’t forgotten. Trust me.”
“No.” I waited until Phin had stopped, too, and turned to look at me. “She said my conscience controlled the triple promise. The, um …” I tried to remember the word she used.
“Geas,” Phin supplied. It sounded like “gesh” when she said it. “Mom’s right. That’s why the vow isn’t unbreakable. Enough willpower can override the subconscious, um, conscience. Except for people who are all conscience.”
“I am not.” I faced her, mirroring her earlier posture, hands on my hips. “But here’s the deal. If my conscience is in charge, why did the vow take, when I thought she was saying ‘goats’? I should be obsessively cleaning their stalls and putting out their feed and …” I trailed off at her expression. “Oh. I guess I am.”
“Yes. You are,” she said. “But the other part, the ghost vow, that’s simple. Your subconscious realized what needed to happen. You knew the ghost needed dealing with.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, but some truth of it wouldn’t shake loose.
Phin sighed and started walking again. “I know it doesn’t. That’s why I hate psychology.”
Dogging her footsteps, I spoke with a desperation that came from trying to convince myself. “For me to do that would be the most illogical, counterintuitive, self-destructive … Phin, ghosts are the whole reason I stay out of the supernatural.”
She stopped abruptly and stared at me. “Ghosts are your thing, Amy. Your affinity. Don’t you remember? Have you seen the size of that box of books and videos that Mom sent? Grown-up books that you read when you were ten.”
“I beg to differ,” I said, because that was crazy. “First La Llorona tries to drown me, now this thing is freezing me to death at the same time it wants me to look for it—”
This time when Phin put her hands on her hips, it wasn’t funny. “Do you even remember what happened with La Llorona?” she asked, chiding me like a kid.
“I remembered they found us soaking wet from the river.” Pulled there by cold, slimy hands, water over our heads …
“Amy,” said Phin, yanking me out of the past. “You saved me.”
I gaped at her, uncomprehending. “I did what?”
“The ghost was exactly what they said in legend. A woman with a veil. She grabbed me, threw me into the river, and the veil wrapped around me, dragging me down. And you made her go away.”
Her words percolated through my memory but didn’t meet any answering images. “How is it possible I don’t remember that? Maybe Dad and the park rangers scared it away.”
She gave me an irritated look. “I think I remember who saved me. I couldn’t see or hear what you did, but it was you. You made her let me go.”
That settled it for Phin. She headed for the house and didn’t look back.
My sister had never been delusional. Eccentric, absent-minded about some things and infuriatingly single-minded about others, yes. But I’d never known her to