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"Um, excuse me, but I think we're lost?"
I swallowed a groan at the voice behind me. Can't a girl hitch a ride without random and eerily young voices suddenly appearing out of nowhere? I've spent enough time with Ever-lasters to know one thing: that child ghosts creep me right the hell out. They creep out most of us adult - or well, yes I'm an eternal sweet sixteen but I feel adult which makes all the difference in my opinion - ghosts out. Not that we make that creepiness obvious, or at least we try not to. Not only is it a stupid idea to let anything on the ghostroads know you're afraid of it, but being an asshole to kids alive or dead is, well, just being an asshole. Whether a person likes kids or not, they're still kids, and they don't deserve to be treated badly just for existing.
And I know from "treated badly just for existing." Trust me, attempted exorcisms are not my idea of fun.
But still, the Ever-lasters really were just creepy. And I'd had my fill of creepy after my most recent run-in with Bobby Cross.
"Hello?" the voice called again, this time accompanied by the sound of what I guessed to be at least two sets of footsteps. "We're really sorry to bother you, but I really do think we're very, very lost, and we could use some help finding our way back home."
Oh please Persephone, don't let them be children and homecomers, I thought frantically, then took a breath I didn't need and turned to face whoever stood behind me on the roadside. As I turned, I felt the swish of silk against my legs and looked down, bemused to see my prom dress had appeared. That meant – I glanced around. Sure enough, though I hadn't planned it, I'd somehow dropped out of the daylight and down onto the ghostroads. I wondered if the cry for help had somehow triggered it. If so...
With that thought in mind, I lifted my head to meet the gaze of the newcomers that hopefully weren't any other kind of -comers.
"Uh, hi," I managed after a beat, struck a little dumb at what stood before me.
They weren't homecomers, I thought, and I didn't even think they were Ever-lasters, thank Persephone. But damned if I could tell what they were.
I've spent the past several decades running the ghostroads, and I've come in contact with a lot of types of ghosts and spirits in that time, though road ghosts are those I've interacted with most often, of course. But I've seen my fair share of the others, from fellow psychopomps like the gather-grims and reapers to even the less human and sentient seeming sprits like the Maggy Dhu. And these girls - I couldn't be sure of their gender, but they seemed to be presenting on the feminine side so I was going to go with that until corrected - weren't like anything I'd encountered before. They were just subtly wrong, in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on.
To begin with, they were just this side of insubstantial, which coming from a ghost was saying something, as if they weren't quite grounded in the here and the now, in the twilight or back in the daylight. Their coloring, too, seemed out of place for anyone wearing a semi-human guise. The younger of the pair was paler than any human should be save for possibly an albino, but unlike most folks with that skin tone, her hair was dark, putting me in mind of birch bark almost with the tips a jet black that was near shocking against the pallor of her skin. And were her ears… tufted? I blinked, and the odd bits of fur at the tips twitched. Okay then, I thought, struggling to keep my face straight. Beside her, the other girl narrowed her eyes at me – eyes that were a shockingly vibrant gold that set off the ridiculous fox red of her hair. Sure the human world had some crazy hair dye these days, but that red could not be natural, any more than the other girl’s birch bark strands could.
They just were wrong in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. And, along with their wrongness, they didn’t flicker, exactly, but they weren’t easy for me to keep my gaze focused on, either. I had the oddest urge to yawn, as if curling up on the rocky verge of the highway and falling asleep could somehow clear everything up for me.
It would be a massive understatement to say that I didn’t think that was likely at all. Nor did I feel particularly safe just lying down and passing out in front of two complete strangers that were defying all the laws of ghosts as I knew them.
I blinked again, resisting the urge to pinch my cheeks to try to wake myself up a bit.
“Hi?” the younger girl finally responded, waving back tentatively.
The redhead rolled her eyes a little, then stalked forward, posture perfectly straight and head back as if she looked down her nose at people on a regular basis. The part of me that still remembered being trash from the wrong side of the tracks back in Buckley Township bristled, but I bit down on the irritation. I still didn’t know who or what these girls were. Best to save my rude comments until I knew just what I’d be pissing off. The redhead stopped just a few steps away, almost uncomfortably close but not quite. The pale girl had followed her but seemed content to half hide behind her more forceful friend. Or at least I assumed they were friends. They were together whatever their relationship to each other.
“So, my name’s Rose,” I offered, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence. They didn’t show any recognition to the name the way most road ghosts would, not that I expected them to.
The younger glanced up at the redhead and eased just slightly forward. “I’m Karen. Karen Brown? This is – is –”
“I’m Rayselline Torquill of Shadowed Hills.” The redhead jutted out her chin in defiance, as if the mouthful of a name and the place – I could definitely hear the capital letters of “Shadowed Hills” – should have rung some sort of bell for me.
“Okay. I have… No idea where that is.” I shrugged as the younger girl sagged while the redhead looked faintly insulted. “Look, where are you two supposed to be? Do you know when or uh, how you got lost?”
“Well, where are we now?” Rayselline demanded, finally seeming to look around and notice something had definitely changed with our mutual unplanned decent into the twilight. She went on, almost under her breath, and I wondered if she realized I was listening. “This certainly isn’t any of the Old Roads I know of. Not the Rose Roads certainly – not that Mother could have sent me on those while I was still…” She trailed off and looked down at her friend who shook her head.
“No, she couldn’t have. At least, I don’t think she could have? It wouldn’t have done any good I don’t think. Not until you woke up.”
I blinked. Now that was an interesting piece of information. “Until she woke up?”
Karen bit her lip, then nodded slowly. “She’s elfshot and sleeping. I went walking in her dreams, but then we were here, and this – this doesn’t seem like anywhere I’ve ever dreamed before.”
“You’re…dreaming. Huh.” Well, that was a new one on me. But then one could learn new things every day, right? Or at least that’s what they said among the living. Which, speaking of. “So just to clarify, you both are just asleep, not dead. Correct?”
“What do you mean, dead? Why would dead be an issue?” Rayselline sounded more offended than horrified somehow, as if all of this was terribly inconvenient as well as slightly terrifying. Somehow that made me like her a little bit more. What can I say? I have a fondness for girls with sharp edges. We tend to have to stand up against the world, and I can respect us for that.
I gestured around us. “Well, somehow you’ve landed on the ghostroads, that’s why. The living don’t really belong here in the twilight.”
“Um,” Karen began, her eyes getting wide as she looked at me, “does that mean that you are dead?”
I smiled back as reassuringly as I could. “Yes, I am. Have been for a long time. Have either of you ever heard of the Phantom Prom Date?” To my surprise considering how wide spread the story had become over the years, both girls shook their heads. “There’s a couple versions of the story. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown? The Girl in the Diner? No?” I shrugged, feeling somewhat bemused that for once I’d come across a couple of teens who apparently hadn’t told my story around a camp fire or at a sleepover. “Well, never mind, it’s not important. Either way, I’m Rose Marshall, and yes, I am a ghost. And yes, you are both on the ghostroads now.”
“By accident,” Karen said, sounding defensive and definitely more frightened than Rayselline had. “I didn’t mean for us to end up here.”
“Well, you did say you were lost.” I studied them, trying to get a sense of their region from their clothes but coming up short. Their accents hadn’t helped either. Karen’s was fairly generic – the “American” accent that cropped up on any teen television show these days. Rayselline’s on the other hand was definitely accented, but from somewhere I couldn’t place. It sounded almost British or maybe Irish or maybe some odd mix of those and California. Her voice was as out of my experience as her coloring, I realized. “So I don’t recognize Shadowed Hills. Is there a big city near it by chance? Anywhere we can try to get you?”
Karen brightened. “We’re from San Francisco. I have my aunt’s phone number. We could call…” She trailed off and looked around again, as if somehow just then remembering where she was. “Can you get cell service on the um, the ghostroads?”
I shook my head, smiling at her gently. “Yeah, no. We’re definitely out of the service area. However,” I broke in before her face could fall to far, “we can find you pie. And possibly a ride that might be able to get you both up to the daylight.”
“You think that will work?” Rayselline looked skeptical, but I could only shrug.
“I’ve got to be honest here, I’ve never seen anything like the pair of you. But my friend, Emma, she might have some experience I don’t. And at the very least, you can rest there while we sort things out.” I started to turn toward the roadway and then paused. “Can you eat while you’re asleep?”
Karen shrugged again helplessly. “I have no idea. I’ve never tried when dreamwalking.”
“I doubt we’d get any type of benefit from the food, but I’ve dreamed meals before. They never had much taste, but it will be something to do at the very least.” Rayselline seemed slightly less impatient now that we had a rough plan in mind, and I nodded approvingly at her.
“Well, all right then, now to just get a ride to the Last Dance Diner, then.” I stepped back to the edge of the road and did what I always did, I stuck out my thumb and started walking. I got a few steps in before I realized I wasn’t being followed. I looked back over my shoulder at the pair who were looking after me, confusion clear on their faces. “I’m a hitchhiking ghost. Come on, there should be a phantom rider or a coachman coming along eventually. That’s how it works for a hitcher.”
They exchanged a glance and then, as if they couldn’t think of anything else to do, turned and followed me.
I smiled at them, then turned back and kept going. I still had no idea what those two were, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, if I was honest. But I didn’t think they were a threat, and that was the main thing.
And if I turned out to be wrong, well, it wouldn’t be the first time Emma had won someone over with pie despite their original intentions.
“God, I would die for a malt,” I said absently. Behind me, Karen giggled again. I sighed.
Random children’s voices behind me were still creepy.