There was a slight dark edge to that last part. The edges of his image rippled, and Claire realized he was about to leave. “Wait!” She drifted closer to him. “Wait, please—what about at night? Michael said he was weaker in the day, stronger at night. Strong enough to actually have a real body. Can I—”
He was shaking his head now. “See that flesh and bone over there?” He pointed at her body, which was being lifted and put onto the stretcher. Claire had tried not to notice that. She felt a little sick, at least mentally—she couldn’t be nauseated without having a stomach. “You’re not a Glass. The house might have saved you, but that’s all it can do, without my cooperation. You have no way to manifest yourself, night or day. This is what you have, or will ever have. Be grateful I allow you to stay. Quietly.”
And even though she yelled at him to wait, again, Hiram Glass shivered like vibrating glass, and vanished in a grayscale ripple.
I’m trapped, Claire realized with dawning horror. Trapped alone. Just . . . observing.
A real, genuine ghost.
She couldn’t imagine how it could get any worse, really.
THIRTEEN
CLAIRE
By the time the sun started to set, all the strangers were gone from the house. It was Michael, Shane, and Eve, and Claire, who hovered silently nearby—unseen and eternally separated.
Better if I’d died, she thought miserably. She’d never felt more alone. More completely useless.
“We have to call,” Shane finally said in a voice as colorless and gray as Claire felt. She turned to see him holding his cell phone in both hands as he stared at the screen. “We have to tell her parents.”
He didn’t dial, not immediately. He just sat there as if he couldn’t remember how to work the phone.
“Maybe Hannah’s calling them,” Eve said. “Maybe we should let her handle it—I mean, the police, they know how—”
“It’s my responsibility.” That was Michael, who stood up and took the phone out of Shane’s hands. “I’m the one who let her stay here. I’m the one who told them I’d keep her safe.” He sounded hoarse, but steady, and before Shane could object, he brought up the address book and hit a key. Shane slumped. Claire couldn’t tell if he felt relieved, or just defeated.
But Michael frowned, checked the phone, and dialed again. Then a third time. “It’s not going through,” he said. “I’m getting a circuits-busy message. Hang on. I’m going to call Oliver.” He did, then hung up. “Circuits busy.”
Eve stood and picked up the house’s old landline phone, big and clunky, hardwired into the wall. Claire could hear the discordant tones from where she drifted a few feet away. “This one’s out, too,” Eve said. “What’s going on?”
“Check the Internet,” Michael said, and Eve went upstairs. She was gone only a moment before she came down again.
“Out,” she said. “No connection. They’ve cut us off.”
“They?” Shane asked blankly. “They, who?”
Michael took out his own cell and tried it, then shook his head. “It’s not just you—it’s me as well, and mine’s on the vampire system. Cell phones, landlines, and Internet—it’s all down.”
“Why would they do that?”
“At a guess, they’re getting ready to leave Morganville, and they don’t want anyone to be making plans for trouble,” Michael said. He dropped his useless cell phone on the table. “It’s probably wrong that I feel relieved right now.”
They all froze as a knock came at the front door. After a silent exchange of looks, Michael went to answer it, and Claire went with him, just because it was something to do.
Outside the door was a vampire policeman, dressed in a big raincoat, and his police cap protected by a rain bonnet. It was still pouring, Claire saw. The yard outside was a sea of muddy water. “You need to bring your charges to the meeting tomorrow night, Mr. Glass,” he said. “We’re going house to house to remind everyone, and we’ll be checking all buildings tomorrow to ensure full compliance. Everyone at Founder’s Square at dusk tomorrow.”
“What if we don’t want to go?” Michael asked. “Our friend died today.”
The cop gave him a long look, and said, “Nobody stays away. I’m sorry for your loss, but if you don’t show, we’ll come and get you. Orders of the Founder.”
He tapped the front of his hat with a finger in an abbreviated salute, and walked away, heading for the next house.
“This is not good,” Michael murmured. “Not good at all.”
Claire had to agree with him, for all the use it was; she didn’t want them to leave the house. Especially, she didn’t want them to leave her alone. What if they never came back? What if she was trapped here all alone with just Hiram Glass for company, forever? That seemed selfish, but she was terrified at the very thought.
Michael shut the door and locked it, and stayed there a moment, head down. Then he whispered, very quietly, “Claire, if you are here, please tell us. Please. God, I hope you are, because I’m scared. I’m scared for all of us.”
Michael was scared. God.
That made her even more panicked.
Think, she ordered herself. Clearly, she couldn’t expect any help from the head ghost of the Glass House, who was actually kind of an ass; she was going to have to find a way out of this herself. As she thought about it, she drifted back down the hall, into the living room, past the couch where Shane and Eve sat together, silently holding hands . . . and then to the spot where her body had fallen. Come on, she told herself. Think.
She felt a warm surge of power condense around her, like an insubstantial hug. The house. Hiram had said the house liked her; clearly, the house and Hiram had different opinions. It was trying to tell her something.
It shoved her a little, pushing her toward the wall.
The portal.
No, I can’t do it. It’s impossible.
But if it was, what did it hurt to try?
Claire focused on the blank wall—on the textured paint, on the gray color, on every flaw and imperfection.
Come on. Come on....
She sensed a flicker of power, almost a sense of surprise, and then the portal responded.
And when it gradually misted open, she smiled, just a little, even though nobody could really see it.
She looked around. Eve was facing away, and Michael was still in the other room. Shane sat slumped on the couch, facing the silent TV. Nobody was looking at the portal, which was too bad, because at least they’d know something was odd.
This may not work, she told herself. You may not come out of this.
But really . . . would it matter? She was already gone, as far as those she loved were concerned.
If the physics of the portals had been complicated before, she’d be years working out how the potential energy of a dead soul could possibly travel through wormholes. Well, if nothing else, it’ll keep me occupied with calculations for as long as I live.
And then Claire, ghost of a dead girl, stepped through the portal and was lost in the dark.
She opened her eyes, and she was in Myrnin’s lab. It was deserted, and it was trashed.... Someone had scattered books everywhere, ripped some up, and an entire lab table had been thrown all the way across the room, smashing the marble top into pieces.
So, pretty normal, then.
“Frank!” she said. She felt thinner here, almost fading, and realized that she was still connected to the house, through the portal. If the portal failed . . .