Call Spirits in Your Past **Book Two**

Chapter 37 (Wednesday)

Ripple hugged herself tightly, closing her eyes and imagining the precipice wasn't there. The breeze against her face was just a breeze, not a wind drawn up from a silent canyon.

"Are you ready?" Flora asked quietly.

Ripple opened her eyes and nodded. "Yes." Mina wasn't around to explain when she'd used her powers. She wasn't in the kitchen, and she hadn't answered when Ripple knocked on her bedroom door. "Let's go visit Skeleton."

Flora smiled. "I've never tried to carry somebody with me before."

Ripple swallowed nervously. "You haven't? Maybe...we could ask Winnie to help?"

"But Winnie's all the way in the forest."

"I know that!" Ripple exclaimed. "But she heard me when I was down there," she waved vaguely downwards.

Flora tilted her head, long hair falling like a cloak around her. "You went down there? Jasmine told me and Lily to never go down there."

"I didn't try to," Ripple grumbled. She crossed her arms. Wasn't she supposed to know more about things than Flora? The little was barely seven.

"Oh," Flora beamed at her. "I bet Skeleton didn't try to either. That's why he had to climb out."

Ripple turned her gaze to the far end of the canyon. Skeleton. He could answer if he'd been living in the canyon for years, or if he was brand new. Ripple dropped her arms to her sides, shaking them out. Was this school safe for her like they said it was? "I'm ready. Let's go."

Flora closed her eyes and sunbeams sprouted from the ground like wildflowers. They buoyed Ripple up, and she bit back a startled yelp, bouncing on the sunbeams.

Flora lifted into the air, and Ripple hesitantly took her outstretched hand. "Here we go!" Flora exclaimed, and they zoomed forward.

Ripple insides plummeted, as if directly down the canyon wall. She shut her eyes, but a part of her flashed back there, in the dark, enveloped by cold. "Are we almost there yet?" she asked, barely whispering.

Flora giggled. "Maybe."

Ripple's heart pounded. "What does that mean?" but she pried one eyelid open to peek. She gaped at the far canyon wall. "Ribbon?!"

Ribbon twisted, shocked, boots slipping and rocks crumbling beneath her fingertips near the top of the canyon wall. She fell, scrabbling wildly, catching herself body lengths below on a small, jutting rock.

Ripple gasped.

Flora squeaked, and sunbeams appeared beneath Ribbon's swaying feet. "I've...never...carried two people before," she moaned, and they dropped in the air before bouncing back up.

Ripple's stomach knotted in her throat. "Just get me on the ground," she said thickly, and Flora dove forward, tossing her awkwardly in the snow. Ripple tumbled, losing sense of ground and sky until she came to a stop, legs over her head. She groaned, the world continuing to spin.

"Hello," a disjointed, clacking voice said from somewhere behind her. Or above her. Her vision spun. "What are you. Doing here. Here?"

Ripple rolled over, dizzily pushing herself to her feet. Her head hurt, and...something about the past five minutes escaped her. Why was she outside? There was a canyon outside--

Her jaw dropped at the figure standing before her. Jumbled bones--arms and legs of varying sizes--jutted from a warped, curving torso. She stared at their face. They had skin. There, at least. So transparent she could make out all the bones beneath it, but enough to form lips and irises and part of a nose.