Free Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) by Maria E Schneider

more determined to find him. Unfortunately, thinking of him didn’t make him appear, but it provided a distraction that might keep me from brooding about my own death. The how and why didn’t matter anyway because there was nothing to be done about it. But the cat didn’t seem to agree with that sentiment.
    It was stupid to hope. I didn’t even remember enough details to help. There had been an attack, and then a bright light that shattered me in every direction. I had refused to go towards a light because I knew what that meant, and when something tried to pull from me, I instinctively fought back.
    Something or someone had demanded the light inside me, but I had refused to give it up. There wasn’t much else to the memory other than a fear that left me mindlessly screaming until I ran, stuffing the light into a place that was opposite the direction of the pull.
    And then in that instant, it was too late. I was here and not ready to be dead.
    I turned and smacked right into Martin.
    “Eeeeep!” Quiet as a ghost, he had snuck up on me. The shock of bouncing off him nearly sent me straight back into the weave.
    I glared at him to no avail. He merely drifted to the right and began crooning over a pile of gray. Nothing unusual there; the man was always singing at something.
    Rather than wait for him to cease his yodeling, I told him I’d seen Roberto and Lynx again. I left out the part about Lynx throwing me the braid. Even though Martin had said the bloodstone was for me back when Roberto had handed it to him, Martin had never passed the gift to me. Not that I had any idea what to do with it. Such a powerful object from the land of the living would only make me a target of every hungry beast In Between.
    Martin sang around my words, but he was listening. When I stopped talking, he puffed himself up with air for no apparent reason.
    “That cat is a good cat, curious and smart. Now that they found you, maybe he and the witch can call you back.”
    “You really think I’m still alive?”
    Martin let all the air out of his essence, but released it carefully so he didn’t swish away. “There are many stages to death, and you’ve always been different from the rest of us here. Your voice isn’t hollow, and you trail phantom juice behind you that reaches for the other side when you aren’t paying attention to it.”
    “I do?”
    “You’re more contained now that you have practice, but you have a ghost.”
    “I am a ghost!” I left off the ‘you idiot,’ but it was a near thing.
    He nodded and hummed. “But you have this double impression. It took me a while to figure it out, but whenever you are near the edge, your mirror image hops right over like it belongs there.”
    This was news to me, although, admittedly, I was constantly having to collect myself. Bits and pieces were frequently sliced and diced off me or melting away on what seemed like an hourly basis.
    “If I’m still alive, how do I find myself? And how the hell do I go where I want to be? If my body exists, I’d rather peer through at it instead of random hospital rooms!” One other question burned inside me, but the answer might be too frightening to face. And who am I?
    “Stop fighting the weave. It is just a form of energy, doing what it is meant to do. Use your own energy to coax the weave along. Of course, if you aren’t careful you’ll break apart, but you can nudge the edge along in front of you if you are careful. It doesn’t like us so it will skitter out of the way for us, but yet it must contain us. You can’t fight it. Sing to it.”
    “Martin.” I started to tell him that not everyone wanted to float around crooning like an insane madman, but he chuckled, turning it into an all-out cackle before he regained control of himself.
    “Not lucky enough to have a beautiful voice like me? Heh-heh.” He wafted away, beckoning. “It’s not the voice that has to sing. It’s the energy.”
    He was headed back to the edge. I