Whispered Darkness by Jessica Sorensen Page 0,35

I’m betting it’s not.

“Don’t you already know?” she asks, peering nervously around. “I heard her scream … heard her yell at me to go to you. She said you’d already know why I’m here so that I didn’t have to waste time explaining everything to you.”

“I … I’m … Who told me what?” I ask confusedly. Because the only person who’s told me something that involved Star was Beth. But if that’s who Star is talking about, then that means she can see dead people. And that can’t be possible … right?

Her jaw twitches. “Great, she didn’t tell the entire truth. I’m not surprised. Most of them don’t.” She lowers her arms and scratches her wrist, looking like she’s about to jump out of her skin. “I’m going to make this quick, because I have to be sober to make this work, and in order to be sober, I have to hear her voice and all the other fucking voices. And I don’t want to hear them, so the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can shoot up and get my peace and quiet again.” Then, without saying another word, she backs off the porch.

I stand there, in total shock, unsure what the hell she’s doing.

When she reaches the bottom porch stairs, she throws me an impatient look from over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

Maybe I should’ve said no. It seems like I should. And yet, I find myself grabbing my shoes that are by the front door and slipping them on. Then I trot down the stairs. When I reach her, we start down the path and to the driveway, heading toward the forest. Again, I’m considering turning around, but my feet won’t cooperate, even when we enter the forest and become submersed by trees, branches, and shadows.

“Whatever you do,” she whispers as she hikes deeper into the forest, “don’t look the shadow figures directly in the eyes.”

I gulp as I feel the shadowy figures’ eyes watching me from the darkness. “How do you know about those things?”

“The same way you do,” she mutters as she swats a branch out of the way.

Her words hit me like the impact of the truck crashing into the lake.

“You’ve died before?” I whisper, the noise nearly getting swept away with the wind.

“So have you,” she quips. “Although, my death is far more ancient than yours.”

My thoughts wander back to the dream I had last night, of the ancient-looking tomb I saw with her name on it.

“How old are you?” I ask as I stumble over a fallen tree branch.

“I’ve been around for a while,” she says as she pushes branches out of her way. “Long enough that the dead’s whispering and pleading has really started to get old. I’ve found a way to block them out, thank God. Well, I did until Beth fucking came along. That damn bitch found a way around my high just long enough to push through a request. She kept screaming and screaming and screaming until it finally sliced through my high. I still wouldn’t have even listened to her—I’ve gotten pretty damn good at ignoring the voices of the dead—but what she said … I guess I have a soft spot for you.”

“I …” I can barely process what she’s saying.

Star has been around for a while.

She can hear the dead.

She heard Beth.

Is that why Beth screamed out her name?

“You can hear the dead?” I ask, swinging around a fallen branch.

She nods, wisps of her hair dancing around her face as the wind twirls around us. “Yep.”

“Have you …? Have you died before?”

She flicks a glance over her shoulder at me, the shadows of the branches above us casting across her face. “I thought I already made that pretty obvious?”

“I guess so, but …” I struggle to grasp what she’s saying. “When did you die …? And how long have you been dead? The entire time we’ve been friends?”

The corners of her lips quirk. “Is it freaking you out that you hung out with a dead girl? It really shouldn’t, considering who you used to be best friends with.”

“You mean Foster?” My eyes go huge as a thought occurs to me. “Has Foster died and come back to life, too?”

“Foster is his own unique whatever the hell he is,” she mutters as she rounds a massive tree.

I move around it, too, and nearly run into her as she abruptly stops. I stagger back, regaining my balance, question marks burning at the tip of