A Dawn Most Wicked by Susan Dennard

haunt us with nightmares and voices, then . . . I wonder . . .” His eyes fluttered shut, and with his hands rising, palms up, he left the safety of the wall. For several minutes he simply stood there with his arms outstretched and his brow knit.
    Then, as one, the spirits pulsed. Every single one shifted backward several feet, as if pushed by an invisible wind.
    â€œHoly hell,” I whispered, gawping at Joseph. “Did you just do that? And can you do it again?”
    He exhaled sharply, and his eyelids popped up. “It requires a great deal of effort to join with spiritual energy.” At my questioning glance he added, “Spiritual energy. It is the electricity that makes us who we are—our soul. Some people are born with an ability to . . . to connect to it.”
    â€œYou’re one of those lucky people, I presume?”
    Joseph waved a hand. “Under normal circumstances, wi . However, I cannot connect to these apparitions. They slip away like snakes.”
    â€œAm I right to guess they shouldn’t slip away?”
    â€œWi.” His lips puckered up, worried and thoughtful. “Typically apparitions are the easiest spirits to deal with.”
    â€œOh?” I ducked back tight against the wall just as a legless woman came drifting by. . . .
    But I wasn’t fast enough.
    â€œYou will hang for this,” she said in a gruff male voice. His voice—always the guard’s voice. “My blood is everywhere. On your hands. In your soul. And you will hang—”
    â€œWhy,” I blurted out, shouting over the ghost, “did you become a Spirit-Hunter, Mr. Boyer?” I forced my head to shift toward Joseph and away from this spirit.
    But the apparition had reached him now.
    â€œYou did not save us.” Now she spoke in many voices—children and adults, all coming from the same ghostly throat. “We died because you refused to see the truth. You will pay for our blood. You will pay.”
    Joseph’s teeth gritted, and his gaze bored into the apparition’s as he said, “I made a very grave mistake once, Mr. Sheridan. Lives were lost because I could not see what was plainly before me. There is no atoning for that mistake. All I can do is prevent it from happening again.” His eyes flicked sideways and finally met mine. “To ignore the past and to ignore the Dead—that is no solution. Unflinching and unafraid is the only way to move forward. Now, is there any other place the ghosts swarm?”
    I shook my head, but my mind wasn’t thinking about the ghosts anymore. All I could think about was what Joseph had just said: There is no atoning for what I did. All I can do is prevent it from happening again.
    It seemed to echo through me. The only path forward was to face my nightmares unflinching and unafraid. To own up and then move on. I had ruined lives. I had stolen and I had cheated. Nothing could change those facts. Nothing could change Clay Wilcox and his bounty either. All I could do was keep pushing forward.
    Such a simple phrase, yet so . . . true.
    â€œWe may return to your cabin now,” Joseph said.
    â€œAlready? But you haven’t done anything.” I couldn’t keep the edge off my words. “You said you could stop the haunting.”
    â€œAnd I can.” His eyes thinned to slits. “But I have seen enough to know that we are not dealing with normal apparitions.” He motioned for me to lead the way, so I set off at a slow pace, sticking as close to the wall as I could . . . and hoping that if I took long enough, Joseph might change his mind. He might do something now. Fix this problem. Fix everything.
    But as we trekked, Joseph explained how his Spirit-Hunting methods worked—and it became clearer that he could do nothing to stop the ghosts. Not yet, at least.
    â€œThere is electricity around us, Mr. Sheridan. I think of it as the