Free Phantom by L. J. Smith

None of them appreciated her or realized all she’d done for them.
    “Mrs. Flowers,” she said suddenly. “How do you talk to your mother?”
    Mrs. Flowers turned to her, surprised. “Why, my dear,” she said, “it’s very easy to speak to ghosts, if they want to speak to you, or if they are the spirits of someone you loved. Ghosts, you see, have not left our plane but stay close to us.”
    “But still,” Bonnie pressed on, “you can do more than that, a lot more.” She pictured Mrs. Flowers, young again, eyes flashing, hair flying, fighting the kitsune’s malevolent Power with an equal Power of her own. “You’re a very powerful witch.”
    Mrs. Flowers’s expression was reserved. “It’s kind of you to say so, dear.”
    Bonnie twirled a ringlet of her hair around one finger anxiously, weighing her next words. “Well . . . if you would, of course—only if you have time—I’d like you to train me. Whatever you’d be willing to teach me. I can see things and I’ve gotten better at that, but I’d like to learn everything, anything else you can show me. Divining, and about herbs. Protection spells. The works, I guess. I feel like there’s so much I don’t know, and I think I might have talent, you know? I hope so, anyway.”
    Mrs. Flowers looked at her appraisingly for one long moment and then nodded once more.
    “I will teach you,” she said. “With pleasure. You possess great natural talent.”
    “Really?” Bonnie said shyly. A warm bubble of happiness rose inside her, filling the emptiness that had engulfed her just moments ago.
    Then she cleared her throat and added, as casually as she could manage, “And I was wondering . . . can you talk to anyone who’s dead? Or just your mother?”
    Mrs. Flowers didn’t answer for a few moments. Bonnie felt like the older woman’s sharp blue gaze was looking straight through her and analyzing the mind and heart inside. When Mrs. Flowers did speak, her voice was gentle.
    “Who is it you want to contact, dear?”
    Bonnie flinched. “No one in particular,” she said quickly, erasing an image of Damon’s black-on-black eyes from her mind. “It just seems like something that would be useful. And interesting, too. Like, I could learn all about Fell’s Church’s history.” She turned away from Mrs. Flowers and busied herself with the lemonade glasses, leaving the subject behind for now.
    There would be time to ask again, she thought. Soon.

    “The most important thing,” Elena was saying earnestly, “is to protect Meredith. We’ve gotten a warning, and we need to take advantage of it, not sit around worrying about where it came from. If something terrible—something I brought somehow—is coming, we’ll deal with it when it gets here. Right now, we look out for Meredith.”
    She was so beautiful, she made Stefan dizzy. Quite literally: Sometimes he would look at her, catch her at a certain angle, and would see, as if for the first time, the delicate curve of her cheek, the lightest rose-petal blush in her creamy skin, the soft seriousness of her mouth. In those moments, every time, his head and stomach would swoop as if he’d just gotten off a roller coaster. Elena.
    He belonged to her; it was as simple as that. As if for hundreds of years he had been journeying toward this one mortal girl, and now that he had found her, his long, long life finally had found its purpose.
    You don’t have her, though, something inside him said. Not all of her. Not really.
    Stefan shook off the traitorous thought. Elena loved him. She loved him bravely and desperately and passionately and far more than he deserved. And he loved her. That was what mattered.
    And right now, this sweet mortal girl he loved was efficiently organizing a schedule for guarding Meredith, assigning duties with the calm expectation that she would be obeyed. “Matt,” she said, “if you’re working tomorrow night, you and Alaric can take the daytime shift. Stefan will take over at