I woke up to pebbles hitting my window. My room was dark and the house was quiet.
Something was looking at me through the window. Dark blue eyes blinked at me.
"Whisper?" I whispered, walking over to the window.
She was just as I remembered her and dressed all in white.
Behind her, I could make out Dreamer's thin silhouette.
I pulled the window open.
"Whisper!" I said. "Dreamer! Where have you been? I've been back for days now."
"Our new friend is waiting," Whisper said. "We must hurry."
I listened because it was familiar: same old room, same friends coming at night to take me on an adventure. I pulled a red sweater on and pulled on some sweat pants and then I put on my boots. Then I looked around the room for my coat, but I couldn't find it in the dark and I just left it. The sweater was warm enough.
I climbed out the window and dropped down to the ground, it wasn't that big of a drop. "Why do you want me to meet your new friend?" I had always thought of Secret as irreplaceable, someone who would always be there.
"We just do."
"That's all?" I said.
"Come on," Whisper said.
We ran towards the road, Dreamer whispered to me, "I missed you."
"This way," Whisper said.
"I missed you too," I said to Dreamer.
We reached the river, my boots slipping in the mud.
"What's going on?" I said as quietly as I could and still have Whisper hear me. Something was definitely wrong—she was hurrying along like she couldn't look me in the face.
She didn't answer.
Dreamer ran up to me. "We have to hurry. Don't worry. It's good to make new friends."
"Shush," Whisper said.
I stepped carefully along the bank, darkness making it hard to see. We walked in silence.
I heard a laugh.
"So this is the girl?" a voice said. Large green eyes peered out from behind her hair. She was sitting on the opposite side of the river, her small body covered in layers of dark clothes. I knew this ghost. Ruby.
I had always been a little afraid of her, but this time I felt nothing but relief. She had kind eyes, and her voice was sweet and familiar. She was as unlike Jay as anything could be.
"Chello," I said, not sure how to address her. When I was a child, most of the times I had spoken to a ghost had involved an injury of some kind. "So you're their new friend?"
Ruby eyed me for a long second as if taking me into full consideration.
Ruby patted the damp earth beside her. "Sit beside me, Artemis."
I looked for a dry spot and jumped across the river easily.
"There are two kinds of ghosts, the light and the dark, the good and the bad. They fought against each other, but a few ghosts like me and your friends kept from their battles, kept to our hidden gardens and rivers, and they forgot about us. Now they have made a truce and have started to mutually distrust humans. They have brought back an old ritual, the sacrifice of a talented mortal. On the lights side, they may trick a singer or someone like that to cut themselves, give them their blood and join their side when they die, but the darks side requires death. And now you have drawn the dark sides notice."
