Page 44

HARD TO SWALLOW

MAURA TOLD HIM everything.

How she died. How she came back. How the first time had been an accident, and the second a choice, and the third a bad mistake. How she’d contracted a Hunger, and how nothing she tried would feed it.

She told him about Everleigh. And… a Food Hall? And—was she serious?— Frankie in the Afterlife. Running some tour for the Dead. A tour about him . Which, evidently, had something to do with DUH.

Kostya’s head was spinning.

He listened, stunned, his lips parted as if there were words he wanted to say, his breath catching in his mouth when he couldn’t bring himself to say them.

When she told him about Seyoncé, about Last Rites, about how and why she’d slept with him that first time, he pressed his lips together, tight, a cold, thin line.

The way he looked at her then—hurt, crushed, like he’d never seen her before, like he might never want to again—made it difficult for Maura to continue. She wanted to stop, to fall to her knees and beg him to forgive her, but there was no time. There were things in play now more important than her feelings. Bigger than the two of them.

When she reached the part about the opera—the way she’d tumbled through the veil, how she’d known something was wrong—he shook his head, eyes flashing with dangerous light.

Anger. Disbelief. Disgust.

By the time she arrived, finally, at that morning, she couldn’t stop shaking.

“They’re still here, Stan. They never left.” She tried to keep the tremor from her voice. “In your kitchen—on your ceiling. Ghosts. Dozens of them. They’re not just Hungry; they’re next level. Something else . They’ve been trapped here. They can’t get back to where they belong. And I think that all of them, gathering together—it’s doing something to the veil. That’s why it’s barely there now. Why I’ve been slipping through.”

She paused, recalling how she’d gazed into her coffee cup and seen them there, reflected, all those faces. How they’d shattered when she dropped the mug, smashing it to smithereens. How she had looked up and watched them writhe against that threadbare veil, pushing and pulling and gnawing at it—and known that her time was up. That she couldn’t fix this on her own anymore.

“I need your help, Stan.”

She looked at him, and he cast his eyes away.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” she said softly. “I should have been honest. Told you all this from the start. I was just too ashamed. Of the Hunger, and my sister, and the way things began with us. Of being so out of control I couldn’t make a single good decision.”

Her voice grew thinner with each word, fragile as glass.

“I was weak, Stan. And selfish. I fucked up so much, trying to—I don’t even know? Handle things myself? Not ask for help? Be the big sister?”

Her voice cracked, half laugh, half sob. He still wouldn’t look at her.

“And then we happened, and despite what came before, that was real . It is real. Like salt. And I just wanted you to be happy! To chase your dream. To get here .”

She gazed around the kitchen, its light dimmer now, the air like ice, all its magic gone.

“Only now—” She shook her head. “You can’t bring back any more ghosts. We’ve gotta fix the veil somehow. Send those spirits back where they belong. Get Frankie to stop that tour. Please. ”

Overhead, the bulb lighting their station blinked.