Kissing Midnight (27 page)

I have to get up. Dizzily I force myself to my feet, every muscle in my body screaming in protest, but my feet slip on the blood-slicked floors, and I start to panic. I turn, looking for the door, but there are bodies on all sides of me, bumping dully against each other. They jostle me on all sides, frozen faces leering in and out of view. I can barely move, and the blood keeps rising. Soon it will be past my hips, my chest. I’ll be swallowed up, choke on it, drown in blood!

Someone grabs my shoulder from behind, and I scream.

“Saintly, it’s me!”

I spin around. “Jesse! You’re alive!”

“I wouldn’t say that.” She smiles wryly. “But I’m here.”

I’ve never been more relieved to see anyone in my life. She’s more transparent than I’ve ever seen her, her image rubbed threadbare with exertion, but her hands feel solid and there’s a determined look in her cool gray eyes as she helps me to my feet. “This way.” Decisively, she leads me through the bodies as the warm blood swirls around our knees. It’s like elbowing our way through a dense crowd, but I keep tight hold of Jesse’s arm and soon I see the door. She has managed to wedge it open somehow, just a crack, and together we pull it open all the way and let a wave of blood wash us into the light.

Saintly

“Are you okay?”

I nod numbly. “I think so. Are you?”

We’re sprawled on the floor of Dev’s room, though Dev is nowhere to be seen. Behind us, the door to the nightmare castle is rapidly shrinking, transforming itself back into a box by some complex magical origami of its own.

“Where is he?” Jesse says, “Is he still in the castle?”

I shake my head. “I’m sure he’s not. He had some other way to get in, so he must have some other way to get out. He’s gone for now.”

All around us, the blood is disappearing, too, as if the floor is parched earth eager to drink it up. Soon there won’t be any sign left of the whole bizarre scene.

But I know what I saw.

Jesse does, too. I can see the horror in her eyes. “We have to get out of here before he gets back.”

So we haul ourselves up off the floor and we run, out the door and down the stairs and into the painful cold. We don’t stop until we reach the arch by the library. I crouch down in the doorway. My breath comes it painful puffs. My legs feel weak. “This is far enough.”

Jesse’s eyes are full of fear. “Nowhere is far enough! Saintly, you have to get out of here. As far away as you can. ”

“No.” I can hear the determination in my own voice. “I can’t leave Delia.” I force myself to my feet. “I have to talk to her.”

“And tell her what? Saintly, what was that place? What the hell is going on?”

I forgot, there’s so much Jesse doesn’t know. I decide to start at the beginning. “I walked in on Dev making out with my best friend, Delia.”

“What?” Jesse looks every bit as shocked as I am. “But why would she? And why would he! Why would anybody—” She cuts herself off, glancing quickly away. Then she decides to say it anyway. “Why would anyone kiss someone else when he has you?”

My breath catches a little.
Jesse likes me.
The realization makes me feel grateful and guilty and strangely happy all at once. I look down at the bricks of the walkway, my cheeks suddenly hot in spite of the cold. “Well,” I say, “he doesn’t have me anymore.”

“Good.” Jesse nods with satisfaction. “But why would Delia do that to you? You really want to help her, after she turned on you like that?”

“You helped me, after what I did to you.” I reach out and take her hand. It’s weightless in mine, insubstantial. Her image is gauzy and tattered. I can see the bricks of the library wall right through her. She looks like she has been through hell, and I hate knowing it’s my fault. “Jesse,” I say, “I’m so sorry. You were right, and I should have listened to you. I should never have tried to force you to leave.”

Her image flickers like a guttering flame, but there’s real warmth in her smile. “You thought you were doing what you had to do, Saintly. I forgive you.”

“Good.” I smile back. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

“Me, too.” She runs her free hand through her hair, spiking it in ten directions. “I’m not really sure how I stayed, to be honest. I just kept thinking I couldn’t go yet, and it was like, at the last second, the light passed me by.” There’s a strange mix of relief and regret in her eyes, a wistful tone in her voice. “I guess it knew I needed to help you.”

“Maybe it was me,” I say. “Dev said it was all in the intention. Maybe I didn’t really want you to go.”

“Maybe.” The thought seems to please her, but she sobers fast. “So what are you telling Delia?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “The truth, I guess.”

“Which is?”

I tell Jesse everything—about Dev and the curse and the escaped girls, the nightmare castle and the ballroom and my brother. She listens to every word, her gray eyes locked on mine. When I finish, she’s silent.

I watch her nervously. “You believe me, right?”

“Oh, of course I believe you. I’m a ghost. Who am I to doubt anything? But I’m afraid Delia won’t believe you. I’m afraid she’ll just think you’re crazy.”

I rub nervously at my tattoo. She’s right, of course. We both know that Dev has the advantage—with my history, who would believe anything I say is true? It’s much easier to think I snapped and went off the deep end completely. “Well, then,” I say, “I’ll think of something else, tell her something horrible about Dev—that he hit me, or he’s addicted to crack, or, I don’t know, he hates Sondheim or something. Something that will make Delia drop him.”

Jesse shakes her head. “Delia will just think you’re making it up. She’ll think you’re jealous.”

“Then let her think it! Let her think it will break my heart to see them together. Let her think it will put me over the edge. I’ll beg her not to see him for the sake of our friendship and—”

“He’ll never let you do it, Saint. He’ll never let you near her.”

“Well, then, what am I supposed to do? I have to do something! I have to at least try!”

Jesse shuts her eyes. I can tell everything in her wants to just get me out of here, to whisk me away somehow until the danger is past, but she knows I’ll never go. “Okay,” she says slowly, “But I’m coming with you. That way, if you have to tell her the truth—”

“It won’t help to have you back me up. She won’t be able to see you. Besides, I need you to find the escaped midnight girls. Try to talk to them. Tell them we know what’s really going on, and that we’re trying to warn Delia, because otherwise—”

“Otherwise, they’ll try to kill Delia.”

I nod. “Like they’re trying to kill me.”

Jesse

“But they don’t have to kill you anymore!” The thought is more than I can handle. “You have no intention of kissing Dev. We’re on their side now!”

Saintly crosses her arms over her chest. “But they don’t know that, do they? Not until you go tell them.”

It’s true. And it’s about the only thing that could make me part ways with Saintly right now. How can I leave now, after the way she took my hand, the way she said she was glad I didn’t go into the light? How can I leave her, knowing both Dev and the ghosts are out to gets us? The thought of letting her out of my sight, even for a minute, makes my chest constrict with worry.

And I’m beginning to think Saintly doesn’t want to leave me, either. But she’s right, we’ll accomplish more if we split up, and time is running out. “Okay,” I say, “I’ll try to find Charlotte and the other ghosts.”

Saintly looks relieved. “And I’ll try to find Delia. Maybe she’s doing set-up for the dance.” She looks toward the student union, but she hesitates, and for an insane second I have the urge to kiss her goodbye. Instead I say, “Be careful.”

“I will.” She forces a shaky smile. “You take care of yourself, too, okay? And meet me back in my room, as soon as you can.” Then she turns and trots off over the snowy grounds.

I watch her until she’s out of sight, then I set off in the opposite direction.

For hours, I scour the campus, starting with the path where I saw Charlotte the first time and working my way out. I search the sculpture garden, wander through the quiet dorms, stick my head through the door of every classroom in the science building. I see a few living people—maintenance people scrubbing the floors, the occasional prof working in her office, a smattering of international students too far from home to bother to go back for the break—but no ghosts at all.

It’s late now and there’s a storm rolling in. I can tell by the way the wind sharpens and the clouds seem to congeal above me. I don’t want to go back empty-handed, but I’m losing hope of finding Charlotte, and I’m eager to get back to Saintly. I need to see her safe. So as the first needles of hail slash through me, I turn back toward Saintly’s dorm.

It’s a relief to be back inside the warm building, but as soon as I come in sight of Saintly’s room, the relief fades. The door is hanging open and there’s a feeling about the place, a sort of wrongness I can’t explain. I feel a sudden cold, much worse than the cold outside. I creep cautiously toward the open door. “Saintly?”

There’s a girl sitting on the bed, but it’s not Saintly. It’s not even Delia. It’s the girl I’ve been looking for the last few hours, but I don’t feel relieved to see her. “Charlotte,” I say, “What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t answer. Her long skirts are spread around her, and her face is buried in her hands. At the sound of my voice, she looks up slowly and I can see she has been crying. Her copper hair lies loose and disheveled and her white-powdered cheeks are streaked with tears.

My heart is pounding. “Where’s Saintly?”

“I couldn’t stop them.” Charlotte’s voice is weak. She’s so transparent, I can see the little flowers on Saintly’s bedspread right through the fabric of her skirt. “I told them killing is beneath us. I told them to wait a little longer, that you might still be able to warn her.”

“I did warn her! I found a newspaper article about your disappearance.”

Charlotte smiles sadly. “You looked for me? That was kind.”

“And we found our way into his castle. Saintly saw the truth—we both did. She has no intention of kissing him!”

Charlotte shakes her head slowly. “It doesn’t matter anymore. They want her gone, to be safe.”

“Safe!” I feel like nothing is safe anymore. “They can’t kill her!”

“Not with their hands, no. They aren’t solid enough for that. But they have other ways.”

“They’ll possess her, like they did that other girl, won’t they? They’ll make her kill herself. Where is she, Charlotte? Tell me now!”

But Charlotte is fading fast, disappearing like my last scrap of hope. “Tell me!” I scream at the image of the girl as it dissipates like smoke.

Only her voice comes back to me, barely louder than the icy rain slashing against the window. “They took her where you’ll never go.”

Where I’ll never go? For a second, I don’t understand. Then the terrible reality hits me.

They took Saintly to the clock tower.

And I have no choice but to follow.

I run out of the dorm room and down the empty hall, taking the stairs three at a time and throwing myself through the door. The cold glass passes through me with a jolt, but I ignore it, racing out into the storm.

The campus is mostly deserted. The few lone students still out keep their heads bent against the driving wind, their eyes on the ice-slicked ground. They don’t look up at the stone clock tower of the library. They don’t see the dark figure of a girl silhouetted against the clock’s bright face.

But I do. I see her, and it’s like time stands still. Everything seems to stop, and for a minute I just stare at her in horror as the wind whips around me and the ice stings my non-existent skin.

Then suddenly time speeds up again, and I come to my senses and run.

Oh God, how I wish it were true that ghosts could fly. I would give everything I have left right now if I could just levitate up there and pluck Saintly off her ledge and fly her to safety. Instead, I can only watch her as I get closer. She’s spread-eagle against the clock face, her back pressed tight to the glass, her black hair whipping in long, wet snakes across her face. She’s standing very still, but I know better than anyone that the ledge is narrow: one step and she will slip over the edge. I picture myself raising my arms helplessly, trying to catch her as she falls through me and hits the flagstones with that jarring, sickening…

Don’t think about it, Jesse. Don’t think about the noise
. I’ve stopped in spite of myself, frozen in the strange glow cast by the light of the clock, the shadows of its hands like a line I don’t dare cross.

Tick.
The minute hand jerks, and Saintly flinches.

“Saint!” I yell, and instantly regret it.

She looks down sharply and her left foot slips. For a horrible second her sneakers backpedal on the icy edge, and I’m sure she’ going to fall. Chunks of dislodged ice rain down all around me, smashing on the wet stones.

But something catches. Her sneakers find purchase on the slick ledge and she flattens her back against the glass again. I can see her breathing hard even from here, see her eyes, wide and wild in the golden light of the clock.

I let out my breath. So the ghosts don’t have complete control over her yet—she could never have saved herself if they did.
Fight them, Saintly
, I think, but I might as well be yelling it at myself because inside I’m fighting my own battle, struggling with my own ghosts. I can’t make myself take that step toward the tower.

I hear footsteps behind me—heavy, male steps.
Dev?
I whip around.

It’s not Dev. It’s a security guard, making the rounds. His chin is tucked deep into the collar of his uniform coat, his black knit cap pulled low, his head bent against the wind. He’s walking as quickly as he dares on the icy ground, hurrying toward the warmth of the dining hall. Hurrying right past the clock tower.