Free Charmed Spirits by Carrie Ann Ryan Page A

wasn’t
alive anymore. That he was dead.
    Funny,
he didn’t actually remember dying.
    But
was he dead? He was alive for twenty-five days out of the month, so he couldn’t
actually be dead. When he was in the real world, he felt just as alive as he
had before the incident. He could touch; people could touch him. He had
feelings, so his body worked. What could cause him to be part alive and part
dead? Why was he able to live in the real world most of the time, but was
forced to live in the ghost world part of the time?
    He
clenched his fists and took a deep breath, trying to convince himself he was
truly alive. He could breathe. His lungs burned, and he fought off the wave of
nausea that always came whenever he thought about the fact that he was probably
dead.
    He
didn’t want to be dead. He’d barely had a chance to live. He’d been dealing
with this crap since he was eighteen and just now had the desire to actually
make it past living from day-to-day. He wanted Jordan.
    For
now. Forever.
    Or
at least, he wanted to want Jordan. He couldn’t get past the betrayal of
her leaving and her part in his predicament because, for all his research, he
still had a pretty good idea that only magic could have done this to him.
    And
he only knew one witch that could have done it.
    Jordan.
    Was
it mere coincidence that he’d turned into a ghost for the first time on the
night she’d left town—and him?
    He
closed his eyes and tried not to think about that first night. He hadn’t even
known she had left until the next morning. No, that night he’d been at the
Marlow place, waiting for her. When he’d found out she’d left, he’d felt as if
someone had punched him in the stomach then thrown him against the wall. He’d
broken out in a sweat, his vision going hazy. Then he’d looked down at his
hands…
    He
swallowed the bile in his throat then took a deep breath. After some time had
passed, he’d finally been able to deal with the sensation and the pain of his
body fading into nothingness, but the idea still scared the shit out of him.
    What
if one day he didn’t come back?
    What
if he faded to his ghost form and just…stayed there?
    Okay,
he needed to stop thinking about crap like that. It wasn’t getting him
anywhere. He opened another book, rubbed his eyes, and re-read another chapter.
It had occurred to him in the past that, if he’d just asked for help, he
wouldn’t feel as lost as he did.
    But whom
could he ask?
    As
much as he loved Holiday, he didn’t trust the town with this secret. He’d seen
the way they’d treated Jordan when she’d been outed as a witch. Though he’d
done all he could to protect her, it hadn’t been enough. After all, she’d left.
    He
could have told his brothers countless times. In fact, he almost had every time
the moon started to grow and he knew his days as a solid were numbered. But he
could never gain the courage to come out say and he was a ghost.
    They’d
already lost so much with their parents’ deaths and having to grow up too fast.
He hadn’t been able to put anything else on their shoulders.
    God,
he felt like a coward. He leafed through another text, his gaze straying to
articles about séances, spells, and resurrection. He looked at the clock and grimaced.
Only a couple more hours before he faded again. It was two days before
Halloween and the full moon, so tonight was the first night of his curse. He
turned another page, willing it to have the answers.
    No
such luck.
    He’d
find something. He had to because, if he didn’t, he didn’t know how much longer
he could live not being alive.
     
     
    ****
     
     
    Jordan
stood on Abby’s front porch, a box of homemade sugar cookies in one hand, still
warm from the oven, and a bouquet of flowers in the other. She looked like she
was picking up her date for a Valentine’s Day dance, not like a woman ready to
grovel to the only woman in the world who cared about her.
    She
held the flowers a bit tighter and bit her lip. God,