Page 55 of All Her Ghosts
Bas blinks at me, tongue darting out to chase an errant drop of egg yolk. “Thatwasthe plan? Get you, get out.”
“If what Cain said is true, that’s not a long-term solution. If it was just my mom, sure, we could outrun her until I turn eighteen. But it’snotjust my mom. It’s the DNR, too, and…” I falter, staring out the window at a ghost light flickering in the wind, caught like windblown garbage. Quietly, I finish: “What about the dead?”
Hunching, Bas stabs a sausage hard enough his fork squeals against the plate.
“What about them? As long as we keep moving, they won’t have time to swarm. No swarm to track, no DNR. We’ll be fine.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking,” I snap.
Bas’s eyes flick to mine, then away, faster than I can read the emotion in them.
“They’ll fend for themselves,” he says. “They’ve had seventeen years of practice. Another couple won’t hurt them.”
“So we just let them suffer? When we’re the only ones who can fix it?”
“Canwe, though? The entire country is swamped with ghosts. We openedonedoor and DNR climbed up our ass. What you’re asking…” He shakes his head. Grimacing, Bas looks away. “It’s not possible. This is bigger than we are.”
After last night—after what I learned, what I am—his words stab me straight in the gut.
“How can anything be bigger than we are, considering what we are?”
Bas sets his fork down with uncommon care. His eyes find mine.
“What wewere, Jenny,” he says, so soft and sad. Like he’s breaking bad news gently. Like he’s telling me something true. No—I won’t swallow it. I refuse. We were gods; since when did the rules ever apply to us?
“So, what?” I demand. “You want us to live like fugitives, avoiding ghosts and my—” The word sticks in my throat, caught on the memory of Cain’s smile.
“Babynapper?” Bas helpfully supplies.
“And mybabynapper, forever?” My teeth click on the word, so sharp my jaw aches. It hangs in the air between us, misshapen and ill-fitting, not nearly vast enough to contain the nuance of everything she is to me. “We just pretend to be normal, filling up all the memories we lost with—with pancakes and meat mountains and road trips?”
Bas’s smile fades. He chews the inside of his lip, staring at me with brow furrowed like I’ve gone insane.
Like his heart is breaking.
“Doing pretty good so far,” he murmurs, too gently.
It hurts me worse than a slap across the face. I would have preferred a fight. I have practice with anger; this determined gentleness unmakes me. Eyes burning, I glance away, flop back against the too-warm vinyl seat.
“It’s not fair,” I protest sullenly, flexing my hands, haunted by the dream of a jackal-headed god and the balance of bronze scales. “It doesn’tweighthe same.”
My skin itches, threatening to spit me out. I dig a fingernail into my thumb pad and for a wild, terrible moment, I expect to hear it click on bone.
Bas’s hand creeps across the table.
“But it’sus,” he urges quietly. “That’s what matters. We’ll make something new.”
“And destroy the world in doing it?” I cross my arms before he can reach me, before he can twine his fingers through mine and hand me memories of who I was while telling meit doesn’t matter. “Asphodel doesn’t grow inthe US, dead boy. How long before our invasive species covers everywhere we run to? Climate change has already killed so much. Do we really want to be responsible for that too? And how long before we’re traveling with a ghost swarm ten miles across. We couldhurtpeople. We”—I swallow hard, slumping—“we are hurting people,” I realize. “Our inaction is hurting them.”
A muscle flickers in Bas’s jaw.
“Everyone dies eventually.”
“Not like this.” I meet his eyes, hard, half an accusation. “Not before their time. Not alone and scared, trapped on the wrong side of the river. We’re not doing ourjob.”
Bas jerks back. His eyes snap to mine, fingers tightening so hard around his fork the metal bends.
“What are you saying?” he demands through his teeth. “What do you want me to do? Ijustfound you.”
