Home > Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic #2)(25)

Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic #2)(25)
Author: Melissa F. Olson

“Hey, Lex. What’s up, big brother?” she said casually, reaching over to steal a swig from Simon’s soda.

“Dammit, Lily, get your own,” Simon complained, but without any heat to it.

Ignoring him, Lily looked at me. “What’s up, Lex? Why have you assembled the Scooby gang?”

I missed most of Lily’s pop-culture references, but I had seen Scooby-Doo, so I shot her a quick smile. Before I could answer her, Simon contended, “Technically, a complete Scooby gang meeting would have to include Quinn.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Your boyfriend doesn’t get to be in our Scooby gang,” she told her brother. Lily and Quinn couldn’t stand each other, although I’d never found out why. It made me a little uneasy. “We’re not accepting douche-nozzles.”

“Then how are you here?” Simon countered.

“Guys!” I interrupted. “Can we?”

They both looked appropriately shamed, so I started explaining how Maven wanted me to get in touch with the remnant of Nellie Evans, who had also been a boundary witch. I left out everything about the werewolves. As I spoke, I realized that it made sense that I’d want to talk to Nellie anyway—not only was she someone like me, but she might know something about whatever strange creature had coughed up that gastric pellet.

While I was talking, both Simon’s calzone order and mine were called, and Lily got up to fetch them. When she sat back down she pulled a plastic baggie of mini carrots out of her jacket pocket and began crunching on them. “Paleo,” she said by way of explanation.

Simon rolled his eyes, beginning to cut up the cheesy calzone with his plastic silverware. “Anyway, Lex, I understand that Maven wants you to communicate with this person, but if you can’t see her, you can’t see her. I’m not sure what we can do to help.”

“Maven said it doesn’t work like that. All boundary witches can see ghosts, period.” I bit my lip. “Also . . . I saw some last night.”

“What?” Lily was shocked. She blurted, “Why didn’t you say anything?” at the exact same moment Simon exclaimed, “You were with me all morning and you never mentioned this?”

I held up my hands defensively. That had been right before Quinn and I had taken on the missing vampire case. “Honestly, I kind of just forgot.” I told them about the gjenganger, only stumbling a little when I used the word. I’d be damned if I could spell it, though.

“Yeah, Mom calls them wraiths,” Lily said, nodding her understanding. “They died particularly horrifying deaths, and they have to return to their bones on Samhain. But why would you be able to see those remnants, but not everyday remnants? Makes no sense.”

Simon was staring at me, showing no sign that he’d heard his sister’s question. He’d stopped eating his calzone, and his right hand hovered over the cardboard box as if it had gotten lost on the way to his food.

“What?” I finally asked.

“You said you had nightmares,” he began, “right after you drowned. When you activated your witchblood.”

I stared blankly at him for a moment as I tried to switch gears back to our conversation about nightmares. “Yeah, so? Lots of people have bad dreams.” I said, pointedly not reminding him that he was having them too.

“But you said you dreamed about dead people,” Simon persisted. “What did you mean?”

I shrugged. “You know, dead people. I dreamed that they were everywhere—in my parents’ house, at the grocery store, library, whatever. But lots of people have night terrors,” I said again, a little more desperately. “My parents had me talk to a shrink, and Sam slept with me for a while. Eventually they went away.” It had been a big deal to me at the time, but it was the same way everything is a big deal to you when you’re a kid: a softball game, a snubbing in the cafeteria, losing your favorite backpack. Honestly, once I was past the night terrors, I’d nearly forgotten about them.

“What if they weren’t dreams at all?” Simon said quietly.

Now it was my turn to stare at him. “You . . . you think I was seeing ghosts? That makes no sense.” I spread my hands out in front of me. “If I saw ghosts when I was thirteen, where the hell did they go?”

Lily was looking back and forth between her brother and me as though she were watching a particularly interesting game of Ping-Pong. Simon studied me, and I knew from his expression that he was examining me in the magical spectrum. Again. “I think . . . I think maybe you made them go away.”

I just stared at him. “When your magic first comes in,” he explained, “it’s a little bit . . . malleable.”

“Sort of like how a newborn’s head is all soft and squishy,” Lily interjected, munching on another carrot stick.

Simon rolled his eyes at his sister. “I was gonna go with parents who take the pen away from their left-handed kid and make him write with the other hand, but okay. Squishy newborn head.” Lily stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, your specialization develops in that malleable time, if you have one. But I think you did more than develop a specialty. I think you blocked part of it off.”

Lily gave him a skeptical look. “I’ve never heard of that.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t either, but we don’t know much about boundary magic. And we don’t know many witches with bloodlines as strong as Lex’s.”

   
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