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𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 : 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐃𝐒 𝐅𝐋𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄

(𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠)

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Brent Maxwell presented himself to me in the gray, dead and fading. He was unlike the other ghosts I'd encountered. His image was blurry, like some dazzling mirage made of sand and sun and dreams.

But that was never the case and I knew better. I blinked away my stunned expression and crept out of line for the bathroom to approach the ghost. He continued to glitch in and out of the gray, his body shifting and blurring as I got closer but his voice was still clear.

"What's going on?" he asked me, looking around. "Why am I here? Where am I?"

I'd never seen a spirit like him, jumpy and scattered. He wasn't present but I stalked forward anyway, my brows furrowing with every stutter and pixelated glance he gave the house.

"I was...I was..."

He was still wearing what he had been moments before. Had it been ten minutes? Fifteen, maybe? He looked so normal, save for the paleness to his skin and the darkness in his eyes that all ghosts seemed to gather when they crossed into the gray.

"I was just upstairs..." he murmured, trailing off as his eyes roamed the unmoving bodies around him. Not even a fly buzzed by or the wind, not even a breath save for my own. The smoke from cigarettes and joints was in the air, completely still. "Why is...what's going on?"

I stepped closer, forcing him to focus and look at me as I snapped, "Where's your body?"

You knew what to do. You'd done it before. You can do it now.

"Brent, come on, man," I snapped my fingers and his dazed expression met my hard one. "Where's your body?"

"My–my what?" he breathed through a hiss. His eyes were getting wider, and he clutched a hand to his chest as if expecting it to be moving. "How are you here? How are we talking? Why is everyone fucking frozen?! What the hell is going on–?!"

"Brent..." I didn't know how to say it. How did you tell someone they're dead? That they'll never talk to their parents again, they'll never see their son, see their brother or friend? I wanted to reach out and touch him but I kept my hands to my sides. "Tell me where your body is, I...I can help you, okay? But you gotta tell me where you were before this."

He chewed on his bottom lip before nodding and pointing towards the stairs. I followed him as he drifted across the room and I had to jog to keep up on the staircase. I made sure to stop in the kitchen, frantically searching for a knife before finding one near the stove and racing after him and up another flight of stairs and into a pretty bedroom.

His eyes were wide and unstaring as I took in the scene. Bridgette was frozen next to his body on the bed, her mouth open on a scream that would not be heard until the gray faded. His shirt was off, his pants undone but not off. There was a frothy substance coming out of his mouth, all frozen and unmoving.

"Bridge and I..." he was whispering so softly I almost didn't hear him. "...we were hooking up and I took something, some random pills someone downstairs gave me. I–I didn't think much about it but...I..."

Bridgette's bedroom was painted a soft pink, nearly white. Her bed was big and had a fluffy comforter and fluffy pillows. It was a bedroom I'd seen on Pinterest and in movies, something luxurious and simple and clean.

"What are you going to do?" Brent asked me as I climbed onto the bed. "How can you even see me? No one else downstairs could see me, I was–I was yelling for someone to look but..." He shook his head. "But everything froze and–and you started moving."

"It's, well, complicated," I told him, holding my palm up and over Brent's dead face. What did I call this part of him? Just the body? Or would it still be Brent once I was finished? "I can speak to the dead–"

"Dead?!"

"I'm a necromancer," I explained, finding my hand shaking slightly. I raised the knife over my palm, old cuts scabbing and scarred. "And I get this is really difficult but you're–you're dead Brent. This is your dead body."

"I didn't mean to die!" he cried and his face was born in flashes of childhood and fear. "I didn't want to die!"

"I know," I whispered, finally drawing the knife across my skin and wincing. I held my breath until there was enough blood in my palm. It pooled and I reached forward, holding Brent's face in my free hand and opening his mouth. "Did Bridgette take whatever you did?"

Brent shook his head out of the corner of my eye. "No, it was just me. Some–some pill and, uh, I took, uh, some cocaine at the beginning–"

I couldn't judge him. He was just a teenager looking to have fun but that didn't mean I couldn't still scold him. "You're a moron."

"I know!" he cried, hands on his face.

Once there was blood in Brent's mouth and across his lips, I applied some to his eyes. They were open and the blood dropped like perfect circles against iris. "You gotta calm down," I told him, "and come over here, lay in your body–"

I wasn't sure if it would even work but it seemed right in my head. Wasn't this what they did in movies? Or was I making things up again?

He was hesitant before stepping forward. "You're not at all who I thought you were," he mumbled. "A cheerleader, maybe."

"A cheerleader?" I said with a laugh.

"Or–or some chick Cass was grooming–"

"Oh my god."

"I didn't think you'd be, like, some fucking wizard or some shit!"

"Brent, just shut up for a few seconds."

He clamped his mouth shut as he laid down into his body. It was like watching someone get closer and closer to a mirror or a mirage, things began to blur while get clear, mixing and fuzzing up the brain. I held my bleeding hand over his chest and recited the old words I'd spoken when reviving the body of Eric Conner's host. Too bad his soul had long since been gone by the time he resurrected.

"Recipere animam. Efferte et signate in quod amissum est. Surge. Surge."

(Recapture the soul. Bring it forth and seal it back into what it lost. Rise. Rise.)

I'd never been inside the gray when bringing someone back and it was like watching the world melt into colors and shift back into stagnant gray. A buzz was building up in my ears my white noise and I recited the incantation for a second time, feeling a burn spread through my stomach. It burned and bubbled up to my throat with my words, clenching deeply. I got to my feet, shredding myself of Brent as the incantation repeated itself in my head like a mantra.

When the release finally came, the gray faded and relief closed its hands over my shoulders with a relaxed sigh. When the gray was completely gone, Brent Maxwell sat up with a wet gasp, coughing and spitting into his hands bloody phlegm and bile. But he was breathing, smoothly, and he was alive.

Bridgette's scream was a shriek at both Brent and me. Her hands clutched her chest as she heaved deeply and she breathed, "What–what are you doing here? I didn't–oh god–I didn't even see you come in!"

I hid the knife behind me and offered Bridgette a small smile. "Uh, I was looking for the bathroom? The line downstairs is really long..."

She nodded, like she was believing me when Brent murmured, "I'm okay, babe, I had something in my throat, I don't know." He ran a reassuring hand down her back and she leaned into his touch as he whispered, "Go downstairs and enjoy your party, I'm going to make Blaire get me some water, okay?"

"I can get it for you–"

Brent shook his head at Bridgette. "Go have fun. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" she whispered, she was still drunk and she swayed a little on the bed. "I–I can take you to the hospital, call my dad–"

"I'll be fine once I get some water and a little food in me," Brent said with a chuckle. "I shouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach." He squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. "I'll follow you down in a minute, okay?"

She nodded, taking in a deep breath before forcing out a laugh and saying to both of us, "I need a drink."

We watched her as she slid off the bed and padded softly across the bedroom and to the door. She gave Brent one last look before smiling at him and leaving. She left a small wake of cherry smelling perfume and I thought of Gretchen for the first time in a while as I looked back towards Brent. He sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands and his shoulders shaking.

"Are you okay?" I asked, thinking he was crying but when he lifted his head, it wasn't tears I saw. He was laughing.

"It worked, it actually worked!" he said in disbelief. "I can't believe this."

"You don't have to sound so surprised," I muttered with a soft laugh of my own. I let my hands rest by my sides, no longer hiding the knife or the blood that was sticky on my skin. "But, seriously though, do you feel alright? No urges to kill someone? To chew on someone's arm?"

"Nothing zombie-ish about me," he said, "as far as I can tell, at least." He rubbed his hands down his chest before reaching for his shirt and sliding it over his head. "I feel fine, actually. I'm supposed to, right?"

I nodded with a tight lipped smile, a lie on an innocent face. I hadn't expected it to work so well but it left a reassuring feeling on my skin. If I could bring someone back from the dead with their soul still intact, that meant I could do it in battle. It would still be difficult with John's power trying to block and scramble me, but it would still be doable. I'd brought Brent back, human and whole.

"Don't, uh, tell anyone about this, okay?" I said, glancing nervously back at the door. I didn't need him going off and spilling the beans. I didn't need the whole student body aware of my nightly activities.

"Who the fuck would believe me anyways?" he said and I mirrored his smile.

"You're right," I murmured, "and thank god for that." He stood slowly on shaking legs and held his hand out to me. I took it and shook, like some deal no one but us would ever know about. "An honor to meet you tonight, Brent Maxwell. Hopefully I'll see you flipping off roofs again in the summer."

You'd be dead before then.

"And I hope I never have to see you again in that creepy as fuck ghost world."

When our hands dropped, I asked, "How much do you remember?"

"Besides you and the fact that everyone was frozen and couldn't hear me?" I nodded and he pursed his lips in thought. "I remember being dead, if that counts."

"So not much else?"

He shook his head. "Bits and pieces, the taste of blood in my mouth, but that's it."

I laughed slightly. "It's probably a good thing you don't remember a lot."

"Better for you, you mean."

"Duh," I chuckled. "I don't need you going around blabbing about some weird chick coming to see you when you were dead."

He matched my laugh and shook his head. "Probably best I don't say I was dead to begin with." He ran both hands over his head, smoothing back his hair. "Where do we go from here, though? Are we supposed to pretend none of this happened?"

"We can."

"How, though? How do we just move on from this?"

How do we move on at all?

"Just pretend it was an awful nightmare?" he offered and I shrugged. I didn't know how to tell him this will stick with him the way it will me but I gave him a smile anyway as he continued, "Drink until I forget?"

"I'll see you in school, Brent," I murmured, shaking my head. He gave me another breathless laugh before sitting back down on the bed as I left.

I needed to get out of here. My skin was sticky and hot, my face was flushed, and the alcohol I had drank earlier was struggling to settle again. I had no clue what would work, that I would someone bring him back still intact but it'd worked and I could leave and go to bed. It was nearing midnight, I had about forty-five minutes and I was ready to be in bed.

I needed to sleep this day off completely. But my chest was tight from both death and drinks, my mind trying to capture the ricocheting bullet.

As I headed down the stairs, I noticed Brent coming down moments later and it still shook me that he was fine. He was walking, talking, and acting normal. He would go one with his life, blessed to have survived a fatal overdose. It made me wonder if he did need medical attention but bringing him back, connecting his soul back through his body with my blood as the conduit seemed to have healed him. There weren't any physical side effects as there would be psychological. Coming back from the dead, I would assume, would not go over well for his dreams.

Leaving the knife in the kitchen sink, thoroughly washed, I headed back down to the basement where the music drummed loudly under my feet. My hand itched but I'd washed it the best I could, it would've been embarrassing if the necromancer died of an infection before fulfilling her destiny, wouldn't it?

I found Blondie and Winker in the basement, her sitting contently in his lap and sipping from a bottle of water. Winker, underneath her, was sloshed. She held the water out for me and I took a long and much needed drink.

"You headed out?" she asked me, less drunk than before. It would be another hour here or two before she could drive.

I nodded, jerking my thumb towards the sliding glass doors. "Got a package arriving around midnight, remember?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "If I had a few shots here, I'd say cheers and prayers that it won't be an explosive but nothing is ever easy, right?" She ran a hand over Winker's head, smoothing his hair back and he smiled, his eyes glazed over. "I'm gonna drive him to mine later, have him sleep in the guest house."

"Promise to text when you get home," I murmured, handing her water back after taking another sip.

"Only if you do the same. You are okay to drive, though, right?"

I nodded, touching my fingers to my nose and pretending to stand in a straight line. "Yes, ma'am, officer. Barely even tipsy now." Bringing Brent back had sucked the fun right out of me.

"Text me when you're home," muttered Blondie as Winker's head lulled against her shoulder with a muffled laugh. "Almost wish I was you, I'd rather be in bed than dealing with this inevitable mess."

"Aw, but you love him," I cooed and she smiled, genuinely as she looked down at her boyfriend and murmured, "Yeah, I do."

I left her with him, curled up and whispering and laughing. It was more difficult than I thought to leave the party, wanting to stay wrapped up with Blondie and Winker before things got serious again but I guess that never really went away like I had hoped. I'd wanted a wild evening, the average teenage experience of a high school party were everyone drank a little too much and people came together in different and fascinating ways. Only half of that came true.

It was colder outside than it was when we arrived. The walk to my car was brisk because of it, my arms crossed tightly to keep as much of the chill off my body. The moon, a crescent, glowed down upon my head as I hustled. If it was just a few degrees colder, I would've been able to see my breath, white and smoky. There was a shadow of light circled around the moon, indicating the chance of possible rain the next day. Right when we thought we'd escape the rainy gloom, it always crept up on us.

Driving back to the cabin, I filled the silence with whatever was on the radio and didn't bother going much faster than the speed limit. There wasn't any urgency in me to drive any faster. My package, whatever it could be, would arrive sometime after midnight. I expected it to be a real package, all boxed up and ready to arrive with the post. But Friday would be here sooner than I'd liked, fifteen minutes.

When I got back to the cabin, I shot Blondie a text saying I was home safe before heading into the dark and incredibly lonely residence that was now mine. Was it mine, though? Crow hadn't been here...not for some time now. One day over a week once the clock struck midnight. It left a queasy feeling in my stomach and over my skin as I left my purse by the door and the keys in the bowl. I'd been living on my own for a week, if I didn't count Blondie and Winker spending the night.

I'd known him for a few months, that was it, but this week felt like a lifetime. A week felt dangerously alone.

There was this awful feeling that kept me from washing my makeup off immediately once I entered the bathroom. It was like there was unfinished business here, creeping through the cabin on all fours. I grabbed a makeup wipe from my toiletry bag and began to wipe off my eyeshadow and mascara as the feeling cowarded on my shoulders, tickling the hairs on the back of my neck.

Crow was gone, Blondie and Winker out for the night, and I was alone. I was alone but it felt like something was outside of the cabin. I wiped the makeup off the best I could, a strange hesitation in my arms and hands as I moved to wipe the smears out from under my eyes.

I didn't get the chance as the feeling surrounded me, tightness crowding in my chest when three loud knocks pounding on the front door echoed through the near silent cabin. A scream escaped my lips and I dropped into a squat, my heart lodged in my throat.

I glanced behind me, shaking from the sudden sound, and noticed the time on the clock.

One minute past midnight.

I waited to hear another grouping of knocks but heard none. Reluctantly creeping out of the bathroom, a hand on the wall and the other over my heart, I made it into the living room and then the kitchen space. The entrance hall was dark and there weren't even lights on the porch, nothing turned on here except the lamp in the living room and the yellow hues coming from my room.

A soft smack hit the door and I flinched. It was so much worse being alone in the middle of the woods than it would've been in my suburban home. I grappled with my purse by the door, trying to keep myself out of sight from the glassy window panels on either side of the door, pulling out the near forgotten demon blade inside. I'd forgotten that I'd packed it away with me tonight, it would've been helpful using it rather than one of Bridgette's knives.

I had to be brave here. I couldn't keep stalling.

"Who the fuck is out there?!" I shouted, holding my knife up. "I have a weapon, so you better back off, assholes!" There was barely a response. Only a soft little smack on the door and a voice, the words too muffled to be heard. I spoke again, louder this time, "I'm warning you, shitheads! I have a weapon! I've called the police!"

No response.

Peering out through the windows, I couldn't see anyone on the porch. I unlocked the front door slowly, hearing the click before I pulled it open. I looked to my left before stepping out and saw nothing, the same for straight ahead but there was movement out of the corner of my eye. Something in the darkness to my right on the porch, resting near the door.

A hand laid weakly on the wood and I followed the hand slowly up its arm and to its shoulder, my vision blurring and my stomach clenching. My breath was gone, lost in my chest as it restricted my gasp. I would recognize his hands, his arms, his broad shoulders with no other identifiers. I would know him even through blindness.

"Blaire?" he croaked, his voice breaking on every letter.

I would know him even before death. Before any moment, any form of life, I'd know him swiftly and easily. His eyes met mine in the darkness and I whispered his name, so softly that it didn't sound like it came from me. But it was him and his name was one I had burned behind my eyes and deeply in my mind for decades and centuries to come.

"Crow."

giggling squealing kicking my feet bc crow is back!!!! DADDY IS HOME FR FR YALL but at what cost...

lmk what your thoughts are so far and how u think this reunion is going to go.....

how i felt gifting yall crow's return:

brent & blaire this chap:

pls pls vote/comment!!!!!!!! <33333 or youll never see crow and blaire's true reunion next chap (threatening)