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“Nice gloves.”
There was a girl on the bench beside her. Long brown hair, big green eyes. Pretty. Well dressed enough that Lydia should’ve remembered seeing her around school. But she didn’t look even vaguely familiar.
Lydia folded her hands primly in her lap. “Thank you.”
The girl shifted in her seat, eyes darting around the room like she was looking for an escape route. Or waiting for an attack. “So,” she said. “What’s your brand of psychosis?”
“What’s yours?” Lydia muttered back. Anyone acting that shifty, especially one clearly waiting for the guidance counselor the same way she was, had to have a number of neuroses.
The girl laughed sharply. The heels of her boots dragged across the linoleum, leaving skid marks in their wake, and her fingers dug into her thighs until it had to hurt.
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said. “But you won’t believe anything else I have to say either, so here we go.”
“Actually,” Lydia cut in hastily, “I have an appointment. So, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to—”
The girl grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her down before she’d even finished getting up. Lydia stared at her, wide-eyed and disbelieving.
“Get your hand off of me,” she hissed, “before I start screaming.”
“If you had any idea how much of a threat that truly is,” the girl said, “you might actually believe what I’m about to tell you.”
Lydia tried to yank her arm free, but the grip was viselike. She opened her mouth to yell for Ms. Morrell to come collect her nutjob, but the nutjob in question beat her to it.
“Listen,” she said, urgency in her voice. “I know it sounds crazy, but I need you to trust me. My name is Laura Hale and—”
“Why should I trust you when you give me a fake name?” Lydia asked. “I watch the news, you know. Next time you need to steal an identity, try picking a less high profile murder victim.”
The girl—Laura, supposedly—tightened her hold on Lydia’s arm. When Lydia hissed in pain, though, she let go in a hurry. Lydia cradled her sore wrist against her chest, pressing herself into the far corner of the bench, as far away as she could get. Maybe-Laura didn’t try to grab her again. She clutched at her knees instead, white-knuckled.
“Look,” she said with forced calm. “I did say it sounded crazy. I know it does, but that doesn’t make it less true. There are a lot of things that you don’t know, Lydia. Things about yourself, even. About your family, your lineage.”
“Mostly Irish,” Lydia told her dryly. “Some French, on my mother’s side. If you just want to talk genealogy, Ancestry.com may be a better bet.”
"There’s only one ancestor I care about,” Laura said. “Your paternal grandmother, Lorraine.”
A chill swept through Lydia. “How do you know—”
“She was a banshee. And so are you.”
Lydia shook her head. “You’re insane. And probably a stalker.”
Laura had the audacity to roll her eyes. “I’m not a stalker,” she said. “But I do need your help.”
“What could you possibly need my help for?” Lydia demanded. “I don’t know anything! Nobody will tell me anything!”
“I will.”
Laura took her hand. Not like before, all grabby and desperate, but gently. Her hand was hot even through the leather of Lydia’s gloves and there was an intensity in her eyes that Lydia couldn’t look away from. No one had looked at her like that in weeks. Lately, it felt like nobody had bothered to look at her at all, unless they were whispering behind their hands.
Lydia may have finally gone crazy herself, but she thought she might’ve seen a flicker of red in those green eyes. It should’ve scared her. It did. But a lot of things had scared her lately, and nobody else was offering her an explanation for it all. And, in spite of everything, there was something about this girl...
Through a dry mouth, she said, “What do you want from me?”
Laura let out a long, shaky breath and squeezed her hand.
"I want you to bring me back to life.”