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“Fuck.” Cora said, staring at the girl sitting on her bed and peering curiously around the room, “Derek is going to be so pissed.”
“Who’s Derek?” the girl asked, and Cora couldn’t help but think that she looked incredibly good for a dead girl. Although the spell probably had something to do with that.
“My brother, he warned me about messing with these things. It was just a stupid book though.”she said, gesturing to the book that lay open on the floor in a ring of candles.
Okay, so maybe when Derek had told her not to mess with it she had thought fuck you and immediately began screwing around with the thing, but could you really blame her?
Derek was going to.
“You have a name?” she asked, picking the candles up off the floor and setting them on the corner of her desk. She’d need to google how to get candle wax out of carpet once she had cleaned up her first mess.
“Lydia. I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“Um, no you don’t.”
“Then why am I in your house?”
Cora frowned at her, just her luck that she’d end up with the one who didn’t realize that she was dead.
"What do you remember before being, well, here?" Cora gestured around the room.
"I’m not sure." Her forehead crinkled as she thought about it. "Maybe, was I in the woods?"
"Look, Lydia, I don’t think there’s a right way to do this so I’m sorry, but your dead."
Lydia laughed, a frantic disbelieving noise bubbling up from her throat as she stood abruptly. Pupils blown wide as her eyes darted around the room.
"I picked up this old book from the thrift shop down the road, my brother saw it and flipped out, told me not to mess around with this kind of thing. So as soon as he left for work today I tried one of the spells, a summoning spell to raise the dead."
"And here I am." Lydia told her blinking, backing up until the backs of her legs hit the bed and she sat down again.
"And here you are." Cora moved to sit next to her, watching as she idly picked at the bedspread with cracked bubble gum pink nails.
"Now what am I supposed to do, given that I am technically and legally dead?" She asked softly, eyes flicking to Cora and back down again.
“You could always stay here for a few days, or longer, and when Derek or Laura gets home we could talk to them.” Cora said earnestly.
“You’d get into trouble.” Lydia said, biting at her lower lip.
“Yeah, but the way I see it, you’re kind of my responsibility.” Cora placed her hand over Lydia’s, stopping their fidgeting.
Lydia scoffed at her statement and Cora scowled at her.
“Hey, you’re not perfect either. I mean, I’m pretty sure you were murdered.”
“Low blow there- actually, you never told me your name.”
“Cora Hale. Are you hungry? Because I could go for a sandwich.” Cora asked as she stood up, brushing her palms against her jeans.
“Sure.” Lydia stood and followed her out of the room, “that sounds great.”