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out because you showed up at the shop—”
    “ Okay, stop right there.”
I lifted my hands in exasperation only to find they’d curled into
fists. Why was Audrey provoking me? Aside from a few childhood
pillow fights and wet willies, what had I ever done to incite such
wrath? “You expect me to believe you? Your mom had a conversation
with me. You’re having a conversation with me right
now.”
    “ My mom can see ghosts.
And you and I can see each other because I’m an astral projection
and spirits can set eyes upon those of us who walk the astral
plane.”
    One game Audrey and I had
enjoyed playing together as children involved pretending to have
special powers. Being two years older, I’d had better access to
movies and comics, so I’d usually come up with the most inventive
powers, thus I’d often declare myself the winner. We were too old
now to pretend to have special powers, yet what Audrey mentioned
was something new, and curious by nature, it piqued my
interest.
    “ Okay, I’ll bite. What’s
an astral projection?”
    “ It’s a state taken during
deep meditation. Many people travel on the astral plane when
they’re asleep, only they wake up convinced they’ve had the most
amazing dream. Sometimes they’ve had a dream, but sometimes their
spirit has left their body. Some people go on wild adventures,
others on quests that they can’t recall when they wake up. Others
become almost superhuman, and they get into fights. They wake up
with aches and pains and don’t know how they got them. Thankfully,
I’m invisible to my mom’s ghost detecting radar, but not
Oleander’s. He went nuts this morning because both you and I were
in the room.” Audrey stopped abruptly. She shook her head and her
frosted purple tips danced across her face. “You really don’t know
you’re dead? My god, Ruby, I don’t know what to say, except…where
have you been?”
    An odd shift took place
inside my head, like someone had slammed an internal door shut and
caused trinkets to crash into my stomach. One of the other reasons
I’d often bested Audrey at our imagination game was her innate
inability to lie. Even now, Audrey’s eyes reflected nothing except
the honesty that used to signal I was once more about to crown
myself the winner.
    But she had to be lying.
Or else she was playing a cruel hoax. What other reason was there
for this elaborate story?
    “ I haven’t been anywhere,”
I snapped. “I was at the log cabin—” I stopped. Bits and pieces of
information floated up through the murky waters of my brain, but I
had trouble dragging it to the surface. Nothing. “I woke up and
raced to an appointment with your mom.”
    Audrey sighed. “You had an
appointment with my mom a week ago.”
    “ So the date got muddled
up. Probably explains why your mom was surprised to see
me.”
    “ Oh, she was surprised all
right.”
    I couldn’t believe I was
buying into her malicious theatrics. But the thing was, I had
always liked Audrey. I thought she’d like me, too.
    “ I was on my way to my
body when I heard your voice,” she said. “I wanted to see if it was
really you.”
    “ Who else would I
be?”
    She ignored my remark. “I
can walk the astral plane any time I want. Here, I’ll show you how
it works.”
    Two boys from school
appeared from around the corner. Audrey stood right in their
path.
    “ Hey, you might wanna
move,” I said. “Those two are real pricks.”
    She winked at me. “I
know.”
    She continued to stand in
their way while I stared at her courageous stupidity, praying the
two bullies would decide against knocking her to the ground in
front of witnesses. Audrey stayed braced for impact and the two
boys continued to barge toward her.
    “ Audrey,” I cried. “That’s
enough. Get out of their way.”
    She shook her head and
laughed. “Relax. I’ll be fine. Watch this.”
    The boys were inches away,
almost on top of her…
    I pushed her out of their
way, prepared to take the brunt of their