Page 58 of Ghosted (The Ravenwood #1)

FORTY-SIX

My eyes open to disorienting, complete darkness. It presses in on me from all sides, caressing my skin like a lover saying hello after a long absence. I blink hard, trying to force my eyes to see through the infinite black.

How did I get here? I can tell I’m standing, but my senses are completely deprived otherwise. The space could be four-square-feet or have no borders. It’s impossible to tell. I feel like prey waiting for a much larger predator to snatch me out of the dark.

I take a tentative step forward and am instantly even more disoriented. I have the sense that I’ve stepped over a vast distance. I hold my hand out in front of me and, for the first time, notice a faint glow coming off my skin, instantly distracting me.

Oh, shit. Am I dead?

I immediately start cataloguing my body, running my hands over my face, my arms. Everything feels intact, but something isn’t right. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m struck with a sudden, breathtaking terror.

Spinning in a slow circle, I try to find something that sticks out—some way to judge where I am or where I’m supposed to go.

My eyes ache from trying to focus on things that aren’t there, so I close them.

I breathe in deeply, the total absence of scent distracting me.

I shake my head and concentrate, unfurling my extra sense slowly, the way you tentatively reach a hand out to test if a pan or dish is still hot.

It’s only when I settle into my ever-expanding net do I realize I’ve been here before. Okay, well, not here here, but sort of. It’s like going from a deep-sea fisherman to a deep-sea diver. Where before I would cast my line into the ocean, now I’m a part of the deep.

It takes no time at all for me to feel Dean. His presence immediately calms me. I reach out to him and find him suddenly in front of me, glowing faintly. “Rae? What are you doing here?” He asks, pulling me towards him.

I shrug and use my voice for what feels like the first time in a thousand years, “I don’t know. I just sort of woke up here.”

“Oh god, you’re not dead, are you?” Dean asks, running his hands over me fretfully. “I’ll be right back,” he says, disappearing in a burst of light that somehow makes the ensuing dark seem even more complete.

I sigh, crossing my arms over my t-shirt-clad chest. I look down at it, noting the familiar hole along the cuff of the right sleeve.

Huh, this is what I was wearing last night…

Before I can follow that train of thought, I’m interrupted. “Okay, good news: You’re not dead. Bad news, you may be in a coma?” Dean says, appearing with a pop in front of me again. “I just went back to your room. You just fell asleep like a second ago, but I felt you calling me here, so I came.”

Suddenly, it all makes sense. “I’m astral projecting. This is the ether,” I say with wonder.

“Woah, how’d you do that?” Dean asks.

I laugh giddily. “I have no clue!” I grab Dean’s hand and force him to spin me in a circle.

“Part of why I’ve been so hesitant about the tether is because I wasn’t sure I could even get here.

I’ve never done this before. The grimoire didn’t exactly leave explicit instructions.

I wonder if whatever is calling you to move on pulled me here by association as well. ”

“So we’re doing it? The tether?” Dean asks, his whole heart audible in the tenor of his voice.

“If you still want to,” I say, suddenly shy.

“Hmm, do I want to be tied to the love of my life for the rest of forever?” He taps his chin sarcastically before answering, “Of course I do, Alderwood. You’re it for me.” His tone softens like melted butter.

I feel my stupid little jelly heart wobble excitedly at the thought. “Okay. Forever sounds like a pretty good deal,” I reply, the traitorous organ pounding against my ribs.

Dean reaches for me, and I go willingly. He pulls me close and touches his forehead to mine, arms cradling me familiarly. “So what now?” he asks, the faint glow of his skin making his smile that much more radiant.

“Give me a second,” I murmur, closing my eyes and turning inward. The grimoire said something about a soul tether, so I swim deeper and deeper, looking for my effervescent center. The thing that makes me me . I’m vaguely aware of Dean still holding me, and my hand covering my heart of its own will.

All at once, it’s in front of my mind’s eye: the color of the moon with a shifting and whirling surface. I reach out and caress it with my senses, feeling a profound sense of love and awe.

With the hand of my mind’s eye on what can only be called my soul, I see a rapid flash of my best moments.

The things that make me who I am. Laughing with Wren when we wrapped our parents’ whole bedroom in wrapping paper for Christmas one year.

Even down to their toothbrushes. Being cradled in my mom’s arms as an infant, feeling nothing but contentment.

Sharing my dad’s lap with my sister when we were young, while he read us Winnie the Pooh .

Helping countless spirits cross over. Being given my favorite mug as a reminder.

Making The Veil as successful as I can. Holding hands with Dean for the first time.

Falling in love with Dean. Being willing to give him up, even though I knew it would crush me.

Then I see all the things that hurt, but there’s the sense of watching them from a distance, so they don’t sting as much.

Scraped knees and hurt feelings as a child.

Being called a freak and ostracized by my middle school friends.

Turning away from anyone who wasn’t family for fear of being turned away first. Distancing myself from the potential of love to protect myself.

The fear of losing the store. The fear of being alone indefinitely.

The fear that there is something fundamentally wrong with me that makes me unlovable.

I can’t tell if I’m actually crying, but my eyes burn like I am.

My soul takes me deeper, showing me and Dean from start to finish.

That first date, chatting in Brewed Awakening with the sense that this could be it.

The hurt when I thought he left me high and dry for no reason.

The shock and grief when I realized what had happened. The determination to help him.

The ensuing months, holding each other up and being each other’s soft place to land.

Falling for each other in the small moments we spent time together, making each other laugh.

The tender moments where we shone light on our darkest parts.

Curling around each other like two vines that learned that the other was the sunlight.

Seeing each other the way no one else had.

I luxuriate in the feeling of loving and being loved by this man, caressing my soul in thanks for showing me the highlights.

My fingers catch on what feels like a silken thread.

I grip it instinctively and begin slowly pulling it out.

My eyes flutter open at the ticklish sensation behind my sternum.

I look down to see a silvery thread wrapped around my finger and thumb while I pull it out slowly.

“Holy shit,” Dean gasps, taking a small step back to give me room. “Are you okay?” he asks, watching as I pull until the length of thread is as long as my arm.

“Yes. Come here,” I say quietly, reverently. I take his hands in mine instinctively, bringing them together between our chests. I watch as the thread loops and winds its way around our clasped hands as if it has a mind of its own.

We watch as the luminescence of the thread begins to pulse, growing brighter and brighter until it flashes so bright it stings my eyes.

I close them protectively, and when I open them again, the thread is gone.

I watch as glowing lines creep up Dean’s forearms, lighting up the intricate network of his veins.

They push upwards towards his heart, where they finally coalesce.

His whole chest glows so bright, I can see the outline of his ribcage like a reverse X-ray.

He gasps, squeezing my hands and dropping to his knees.

“Dean?” I ask, panicked. His hands tremble in mine, and it’s only then do I notice the static touch I’ve become so used to is gone. His skin just feels like skin, no layer of static charge to be found.

He breathes out hard. “I’m okay. Sorry, it just felt like my chest was on fire for a minute there. I’m good,” he says breathlessly.

I come to my knees in front of him, the dark a soft cushion beneath me.

I take him in my arms, hugging him tight, my eyes screwed shut against the onslaught of emotions.

Out of curiosity, I release my senses and find that I can see a literal tether connecting him to me.

A delicate, luminescent line between us.

I feel lightheaded with relief that I never have to let him go again.

“I can feel you here,” he says gruffly, rubbing his knuckles over his sternum.

I place my hand over his and then put his other hand over my heart. “Me too,” I say with a happy sigh.

“Forever?” he asks, mouth ticking up in a dimple-inducing smile.

“And even after,” I reply.

And then I reach for him. Or he reaches for me.

I can’t be sure which because it happens at once, simultaneously.

I revel in the feel of his skin on mine.

The press of his lips against my own, my jaw, my collarbone.

His hands sliding along my back under the t-shirt, and the hard press of him between my legs.

He’s everywhere. Everything. Both my undoing and the thing that sews me back together.