Whispered Darkness by Jessica Sorensen Page 0,36

my tongue. But she speaks first, twisting to face me, her eyes eerily shadowing over.

“This whole town is full of death, crazy girl. Why do you think they call it The Curse of Hallows Hill?”

“I … I’ve never really thought about it,” I tell her, tucking strands of my hair behind my ear.

“Well, you should really start thinking about it. You should also really start thinking about what you’re going to do when your little undead gifts start consuming you. Because they will; trust me. I’m cursed with a similar gift as you, have been for decades. And you’re going to start going crazy unless you tune them out. My way is to get high, but I’ve heard of other ways, less effective ones, but there are other ways.”

So many questions are ping ponging around in my mind, but I zero in on one. “Decades?” I whisper. “How …? How old are you?”

She simply smiles. “Welcome to the undead club where you’re going to be stuck for the rest of your immortal life.”

Shaking my head, I stumble back. “No … No … No … I’m not immortal. I died.”

“And then you came back,” she says. “And you’ll never die again. At least, as far as I know. Can you be hurt? Sure. But death cannot get ahold of you twice. It’s written in the book.”

I shake my head. “No, you’re lying. You have to be.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not. And I think, deep down, you know that.”

“I …” I try to keep on protesting, but the words won’t leave my lips. “What about Kingsley?”

She grins. “Figures you’d ask about him.” Her smile fades into puzzlement. “You two are something else, something unique. I haven’t figured it out yet, but what I do know is that there has to be a point to your souls intertwining. Death always has a point.” Sighing, she twists back around and commences walking again. “Although, I have no fucking clue what the point of this is.”

I jog after her. “The point of what is?”

She stops in front of a swamp and stares at the green water in it. “This.”

I halt beside her and gulp. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to tell me I have to go in there?”

“Because that’s exactly what I’m about to do.” She gestures at the swamp. “This is where Beth’s body is.”

10

Harlynn

Goosebumps dot my flesh despite the air being muggy as hell right now.

“I …” I shake my head. “I don’t think I can go in there … I’m afraid of water.”

“It’s like two feet deep, tops.” She crosses her arms. “It won’t even reach past your waist.”

“Yeah, but …” I cringe as a green bubble in the pond pops. “It’s probably disease-infested.”

“Good thing you can’t die, then.” She tosses me a joking grin, but when I don’t return it, she heaves an exhausted exhale. “Look, I know I just dumped a shit ton of information on you, and you’re probably freaking out, but it’s important you get Beth’s body out of here before the cops find it.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that the dead don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but they’re completely evasive,” I mumble.

She nods in agreement. “They are. And trust me; it gets really annoying after years of the dead showing up and begging for help, only to not tell you exactly what they need help for.” She urges me to go into the pond. “What I do know is that if Beth says her body needs to be found before the police find it, then we need to find it.”

I eye the swamp. “How do you know it’s in there?”

“Call it another one of my gifts.”

I frown. “Sounds like a curse.”

“It’s definitely that, too,” she assures me.

We grow quiet, the rustle of leaves and tree branches swirling around us. I don’t want to do it. Want to believe that Star is lying to me. But she’s not. That much I realize as I feel the presence of Beth whispering to me from the water.

And just like that, I know what I have to do. I don’t want to do it—at all—but I’m going to.

Once I acknowledge this, it becomes easier to wade into the waist-deep water that smells of rotting flesh.

“Hurry,” she warns while scanning the forest. “We’re being watched.”

She’s right. I can’t see anything, but I can feel the sensation, as if eyes are woven into the branches of the trees and are staring at us. Maybe it’s the death stealers, but