Lightbringer by K.D. McEntire Page B

grabbed Wendy by the shoulders and yelped, yanking back. “Shit! You're burning up, kid!”
    “Yep,” Wendy said. “Side effect. Sorry.”
    Waving his burnt palm in the air, the ghost eyed Wendy speculatively. “You ain't gonna tell no one about me? Really?”
    “I can't draw attention to myself,” Wendy explained, sighing. She knelt down and examined the pile of dead brush and the crushed form beneath, grimacing. “You were asleep when it fell?”
    “Yep. Didn't feel a thing,” the ghost said. “I guess I ought to be thankful, huh? Went to sleep cold and hungry and woke up…well, still cold and hungry but at least the weather don't bother me no more, huh?” He sighed. “So is this hell or something, kid?”
    “Just the afterlife,” Wendy said, swiping her foot across the dirt to obscure the place where she'd knelt down. “I can help you with that if you want.” She stood back and eyed her handiwork. Her mom would've been proud. When the cops found the body, no one would know she'd been there. In theory, at least.
    “Help me with what? You can't bring me back to life, can ya?” Despite his ragged state, he couldn't help the pitiful hope that crept into his voice.
    “No.” Wendy refrained from patting him on the arm, lest she burn him further. “But I can send you on. You're…where you are right now, the Never, it's like a halfway point. Limbo, sort of. I can give you a push to go to the next place. If you want.” Eying the tree next to her, Wendy reached up and broke off a small, thin branch clustered with living leaves.
    He cleared his throat. “You mean heaven?” His voice dropped. “Or, y'know, the other? Because if it's the other, I'll stay where I am, thank you very much.”
    Wendy shrugged and started back toward the school, making sure to swipe the fresh branch across her path and staying to the places she'd walked before. The homeless man kept pace with her easily, passing through the dense brush without dispersing. “Not my jurisdiction. I have no clue. But you won't be stuck in the Never until your soul rots. There's that.”
    “I'll rot? If I stay here?”
    “Most souls do, yeah.” Wendy glanced at her watch. “Look, I don't mean to be a bitch, but class is almost over and my coach is going to wonder where I got to. I had to lie to her just to get out here and try and find you. I didn't have to do that, I could've just ignored you.” I should've just ignored you , Wendy thought bitterly. It'd been stupid to assume some random flicker might be her mother. Stupid and, seeing those tree branches, dangerous.
    “So you're some sort of angel or something? Helping souls move on?”
    “Something like that.” Wendy stopped and tapped her wrist. They were almost at the first clearing and it seemed a safe place to drop her branch. “So what'll it be? Stay or go?”
    The ghost squared his shoulders and, cringing like a child about to get a shot, said, “Do it.”
    Closing her eyes, Wendy opened the gates within and let the light pulse through her. It was over in a moment; the man cried out only once.
    As the heat ebbed from Wendy's fingertips she heard the distant whistle. Trudging back to the track, Wendy kept her eye out for the sub but, despite all her admonitions, she'd already left. Wendy was halfway across the field before she remembered the flowers at the fence. She debated turning around to retrieve a handful—what were the chances of the sub checking up on her alibi, after all?—but decided it was better to cover her bases. Forcing her tired legs into a lope, Wendy hurried back to the fence and gathered up two handfuls of the blossoms, nicking her fingers on thorns in the process.
    Bright yellow buses trundled down the road toward the pickup point and Wendy could hear the distant shouts of other students slamming lockers and pouring out the side entrances toward the parking lot. The sub really had forgotten about her.
    It had, thus far, been a truly shitty day. Glancing down at