Unnatural Souls Read online

  I shoved that book away. The next one didn’t look much better, but I gave it a shot. It was the memoir of a man who had died for ten minutes and claimed to have been to the other side. I flipped through the pages, only half reading it because from page one I could tell it was complete crap. He had died and seen the ‘white light’—which I never saw, and I was dead for eight minutes—after which he’d been greeted by the angels. He had been shown his life, seen all his sins, and begged the angels for another chance.

  Apparently they agreed, and he had turned his life around, spreading the story of his experience to inspire others. Which was, presumably, how this book came to be.

  I’d already decided that his book was pure bosh. And all of that aside, if you could beg your way back to life—to fix what you did wrong—why weren’t dead people popping up all over the place like daisies? Again, I wasn’t an expert, but if it was that easy, wouldn’t everyone do it?

  I let out a grunt and threw the book, which hit the wall and fell to the ground with a thud. None of these books were helping. None of them were what I was looking for. Nothing about demons or deals. No one else—not in any of these books—had died and watched their brother sell his soul to bring them back to life. No one knew what I had gone through, what I’d witnessed. So none of them had the answers I needed.

  What else was I supposed to do, though? Where else was I supposed to look?

  As I had done many times, I ran through what I knew to be fact. I didn’t really have a lot to go on. I knew the thing Ash made a deal with was a demon, mostly because it had said as much, but that wasn’t really useful. I didn’t exactly have a friendly neighborhood demon to ask for information, so I had no idea what to do about it. There had been another girl in the clearing, who I had thought was an angel, or at least an entity that was against Ash selling his soul. I thought she might be willing to tell me what was going on—but I didn’t really know who or what she was, and hadn’t seen her since. And unlike with demon-summoning spells, there didn’t seem to be anything to call an angel to you. I tried praying, but there was no answer. And I really didn’t have a clue what else to do.

  I was running out of time, and growing more frustrated by the minute.

  It had been months since the accident—just over nine months, to be exact—and I had gotten nowhere with it. Ash and this demon had made a deal, that much was obvious, and they’d even shaken hands on it. But how did the deal work? Could you break it? Could I track down the demon? How did you track down a demon? And what the heck was I going to do with it once I did?

  That was generally where I ended that particular line of thought. Coming face to face with a demon was … well, not high on my list of things to do. There had to be something else—something I was missing.

  I had, of course, researched occult bookshops and even tried a few witchcrafty spells that did—surprise, surprise—nothing. I had gone to mediums, called psychics … everything I could think of. Yet here I was, in a dusty library on a Friday night after lying to my mom and telling her that I’d be out with friends—yeah right—and still getting nowhere.

  I slammed my fist down on the desk. This would be so much easier if I knew more about the demon, or how Ash had come into contact with him in the first place. Oh course I had tried to talk to Ash on a few occasions. The second I’d mention the words ‘accident’ or ‘car,’ though, or asked if we could talk, he bolted out of the room with a quick excuse and an even quicker exit.

  After the fifth time of trying to breach that subject and being left alone in his room, I’d started looking around. I wasn’t a snoop, normally—who had time for that sort of thing?—but I’d needed to know what was going on. And I’d lucked out.

  There, under his bed, in the stupidest possible non-hiding spot ever, I found his journal. Apparently I wasn’t the only one keeping one. Must have been something to do with near-death experiences, because my generation usually preferred to put everything online, for all to see and judge. But when I opened it, I saw that Ash’s book wasn’t a journal, exactly.

  It was nothing more than a list and a note.

  The first section was labeled Bucket List. Not something most seventeen-year-olds kept, but it was good to have dreams, right? It was followed by a note—a goodbye. For me it was confirmation of what I already knew. In the note, he said his death was for the best, and that his life— ultimately —had meaning that he couldn’t explain to any of us. But I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  He’d saved my life, and he thought that gave his own life meaning. Even if it meant his death, in the end. And like me, there was no way he could tell anyone about that.

  He went on to ask everyone not to be sad, said that he was happy to have had what time he was blessed with. Then he asked that everyone realize that this had been his choice.

  It was a suicide note. Only it wouldn’t be suicide at all. It would be something much, much worse.

  I CRIED LONG and hard that night, holding his notebook to my chest. At that moment I was glad Ash had run away every time, because talking would mean admitting that I knew what had happened, and probably admitting that he had basically ruined my life by saving me. He was dying for me, though, and believed in it with his entire being. The least I could do was spare him the pain of knowing he’d sold his soul so that I could live, only to have me slowly lose my mind. Let him think he had done a good thing by saving his sister.

  If I was lucky, I’d find a way to break the deal and learn to control my powers. Then we could both lead long, happy lives—free of demons and curses.

  I’d started my research the very next day. And I hadn’t had any luck. Now there was just over two months left on his contract.

  I didn’t know what would happen when that time was up.

  Would the demon take his soul and leave him empty but alive? Would he die? He seemed to think he would, from his note, but did he even know? No matter—he had his schedule, and in case I … failed … I needed him to do all the things on his list before his year was up. Until then, I wouldn’t rest. As long as there was still a chance that I could save him, just like he’d saved me, I’d keep working for it.

  Preferably while keeping my own soul.

  Up to this point, I’d failed him. But I had two months left. Seventy-five days to figure it out. And I’d made a promise to myself—a promise to work harder, faster, longer before I lost him forever.

  I just didn’t know where else to go for answers.

  The rays of the sun began to grow longer on the floor in front of me, then, and I realized that I’d been in the library longer than I’d thought. Perhaps an hour or two from sunset, now. Which meant I’d have to go soon—I didn’t like walking home in the dark.

  I pushed the books to the side and turned to the computer, where I typed in “summoning demons.” And this was why I used a school computer—I had enough to worry about without worrying that my parents would find a search history like this on my laptop. Can you imagine? They already thought something was wrong with me.

  If they found out that I was looking for a way to summon a demon, I would definitely find myself in a straitjacket.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d conducted this search. I scrolled to page twenty-three—the last page I had looked at when I was here before—and opened the first ten sites on the new page, scanning them for useful spells, then jotting down the directions and ingredients needed in my journal. I snorted again. My mental monolog was enough to make anyone think twice about hanging out with me. Finding spells and jotting down the directions, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

  There was also an occult shop outside of town that knew me all too well. They always had everything these spells seemed to ask for, and they’d stopped asking questions about what I was doing. But nothing ever worked. This new enchantment probably wouldn’t, either … but it was all I had. I would spend every night trying the incantations in the woods behind my house, and praying something happened this time.


  What would I do when I had only one month left and they still hadn’t worked, though? One week? One day? The pressure in my chest came back, but I pushed the fear down. One of them would work. There were demons out there, I knew it, and if the stories held true, they were just waiting for someone to call out to them, wanting to make some sort of deal. Ash couldn’t be the only person in the world to encounter one, which meant someone somewhere had to have spoken to one. Hopefully survived it, or at the very least written their experience down before they died. Summer was only a month and a half away, and at that point I could work on it day and night if I had to.

  I refused to let Ash die in my place.

  Around me, the library had grown darker, and the streaks of sun were almost gone. I shut the computer down and jumped up, suddenly nervous. I seriously hated walking home in the dark; for some reason there were always more ghosts out at night, and my powers seemed to be heightened at night, as well, which made it even worse. I grabbed my things and jogged out of the library and toward my locker to get my bag, the sound of my sneakers echoing through the empty hall as I passed by the darkened cafeteria and rounded the corner to the locker banks.

  If I hurried, I could still make it home before sunset.

  The moment my fingers brushed the padlock on my locker, though, the lock snapped, cracked in half, and fell to the ground with a clang. The door crashed open, banging off the locker next to mine, and I automatically jumped backwards and slammed into the wall, growing still to listen as the noise of metal hitting metal echoed through the hallway. Please, dear God, let everyone else be gone, I thought desperately. Please let no one have heard that.

  Books, notepads, pencils, pens, and my sweater suddenly started flying out of the locker, rushing to the right and left, up and down the hallway around me. My belongings whipped around the clean white hall like confetti caught in the wind tunnel of my powers … before abruptly falling to the ground.

  I stared, wide eyed and openmouthed, as my stuff finally scattered across the floor. Great. Just great. One would think I’d get used to it, but it never stopped being horrible and shocking.

  So much for a normal freaking day. I narrowed my eyes at the now-bare shelves, dropped to the ground, and reached out for my belongings with shaky hands. I could hear the humming of blood in my ears, my heart thumping in my chest. But at least I didn’t have an audience of witnesses.

  Then a boy with wavy blonde hair appeared out of nowhere next to me and shot a question in my direction. “You used to be a cheerleader, right?”

  I nearly fell over, barely biting back a scream. Where the hell had he come from? Did he see what happened? I scowled upwards, cursing in my head. Just when I thought my day would go by without incident, my locker had decided it was time for a freaking spring cleaning. And then, as I was feeling thankful I’d been alone in the hall, a boy appeared. Had I done something to piss someone off up there? Because this so-called power had never been anything but negative.

  I tried thinking about a million dollars once, just to see if it would drop out of thin air onto my bed. It hadn’t worked. Now I thought it again—just in case—but nothing happened. As I suspected—powers that only brought bad things. I let out a heavy sigh.

  Glancing back to the boy, I studied his face. He stared directly at me with a soft but curious expression, and didn’t even look at my possessions littering the hallway. I was fairly confident that he hadn’t seen it happen, but I still kept a wary eye on him. He watched me pick up my books with a smile on his face and raised eyebrows, and I decided to focus my own eyes on the ground, where my hands were moving across the floor, gathering my things. He might not have seen what just happened, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t see the next bizarre event.

  I needed to get out of there, and if I ignored him long enough, maybe he’d leave me alone. I never got what I wished for, though.

  “Your name is Grace, right?”

  I so didn’t have time for this boy or his questions. “Please just leave me alone,” I snapped.

  Three girls suddenly turned the corner and stopped, looking around at the hallway and then at us. I stared at them, hoping they weren’t going to get involved. I already had enough on my plate, and the fact that this boy might have seen the situation with my locker…

  Then I did a double take. The girls were staring at me. Despite the fact that this guy was standing between me and them. Their eyes drifted right through him. Like … they couldn’t see him at all. One of the girls whispered to the other two, then all three shrugged and continued walking, even picking up their stride.

  I glanced at the boy again and let out a bitter laugh. He was way too hot for girls like that to just ignore.

  That explained why I hadn’t seen him coming. He hadn’t walked up to me at all. He’d appeared.

  Which meant, well, ghost. And though the hall was empty, it was never a good time to start talking to one of them. Still, I didn’t know how else to get rid of him. And it wasn’t like people could think I was any crazier than they already did.

  “Let me guess,” I whispered so no one else would hear me this time. “You’re dead, right?”

  The boy grinned widely and winked. Great, spirit. I rolled my eyes, finished picking up my things, stuffed the last book in my backpack, and zipped it up while glaring at him, hoping he would leave me be. Without saying anything else, I rose, turned, and walked toward the exit, gripping my backpack tightly and keeping my head down. Each step I took was one step closer to being out of there, closer to home, and back to my room, where I was sure I would endure yet another night of freaky powers mixed with spells to summon demons I had no way of controlling. But at least I’d be alone.

  Unless I managed to summon a demon. Then I’d only be alone once it killed me.

  “Please don’t go!” the ghost pleaded, appearing in front of me just as I got to the doors leading outside. He was stomping his foot and blowing his hair out of his face, and I paused for a moment, struck by how much—for some reason I couldn’t place—he reminded me of Ash. I quickly shook it off.

  “Please,” he repeated.

  “I don’t have time for this, or you,” I whispered harshly, checking to make sure there was no one around. I couldn’t take pity on every spirit that crossed my path, and I had to get home. I had to save my brother, and talking to this boy wasn’t going to accomplish that.

  I swung the doors open and darted through them, and then across the entire parking lot, not stopping until I made it to the street corner. There, I cast a look back at the boy, who appeared to be stuck at the exit. One thing that seemed true for all ghosts—they were attached to one place. If I could get away from that place, I could get away from them.

  I’d used this trick more times than I cared to count. And the worst part was that it always left me feeling slightly guilty, like I’d abandoned them.

  The boy took a tentative step out the doors … and instantly began to fade. I felt bad for him, felt horrible over the look of pure sorrow that crossed his face, and started back toward him, but he glared at me—a tortured expression that I recognized in myself—and disappeared.

  I stared at the building for a moment, flooded with shame. Then the sun hit the horizon and I got moving. I wanted to go back, but that boy—whoever he was—wasn’t going to talk anymore. Spirits didn’t like when you turned your back on them. He was going to be staying away from me for a while, now that I’d disappointed him. Or whatever.

  As I walked home I thought about him, though, and the look on his face. That was why I hated spirits—they always wanted something. Attention, help, passing on of a message. They made you feel terrible if you didn’t do it, but giving in was just asking for trouble. I had helped one once—the first one I ever saw. And I’d learned my lesson after that. Long story short, a very angry dad called the cops on me for talking to his daughter about her dead mommy. The daughter might have had tears of joy, but the father had a very different reaction.

  After that
, more spirits appeared, all wanting me to help them like I had helped their friend. I had to ignore every ghost that crossed paths with me for a month before they started fading away.

  How they found me, I didn’t know. It was like I was wearing some sort of GPS for spirits with unresolved issues. My only guess was that they could sense me because I had, for a short time, been a spirit myself, having been legally dead for just a few minutes—the minutes when Ash made a deal for my soul. And that was all it had been—a few minutes. I’d seen Ash shaking hands with that man, then felt the paddles as they sent wave upon wave of electricity through my body.

  Could it be that I’d somehow crossed over into the spirit world, and brought these ghosts … back with me?

  In the end, I’d come to realize that they were of no use to me. They were just as lost as I was, and didn’t have any answers. They wouldn’t help me save my brother, or help me control the powers I’d somehow grown. Instead, they wanted me to help them. So I ignored them. When I could.

  Suddenly something dark fluttered to my right and I stopped dead in my tracks. Another spirit? I didn’t think I could take another one. I glanced around at the empty streets, the darkened houses. But there was nothing there, and spirits didn’t usually hide from me. They wanted attention.

  As that thought grasped hold of me, I felt a knot tighten in my chest. What else could it be? I took in every tree, every bush. I could hear a car in the distance, but aside from that it was quiet. There was no breeze to rustle the leaves. A fox, perhaps? I held my breath and listened for a moment, struggling to hear any movement from the shadow I saw, but there was nothing. Deafening silence, actually. I had prayed for quiet all day, every day, and now that I had it, it gave me a chill. Odd.

  I turned, picking up my pace. The sun was disappearing quickly, now.

  I only managed another ten feet before I saw it again. I didn’t stop this time. It wasn’t a spirit, and as far as I could tell there were no animals around, which was weird and only made my heart beat faster.