"He came in the stink of wormwood and soured gasoline," said the trainspotter, grabbing my hands. I wasn't wearing a coat. He caught them anyway. Damn wizards. "He came like the wind out of the west, like a crow to the battlefield. He came on black wings of burning rubber and shadow, and he drove his victim as a wolf drives a fawn. He has claimed another soul, Rose Marshall, and you might have stopped him, had you cared enough to rouse yourself to action. Shame, shame on you, shame and a thousand nights of wandering lonely. Shame, and all the sorrows of the road."
"You're a little behind the curve on cursing me," I snapped, and I yanked my hands out of his. The trainspotter looked at me sadly, a thousand miles of broken hearts etched into the lines on his face. I shook my head. "I already have all the things you're wishing on me, and Bobby Cross is not my fault."
"No. He's not. But he is your responsibility." And then he turned and walked away. His message had been delivered. I was no longer his concern.
But Bobby Cross was mine. So let Emma and Texas Bill make their recommendations--it doesn't matter. That man died because I wouldn't help him, and while I might not have saved his life, having me there could have saved him from something worse than death. Maybe Texas Bill is right; maybe trying to change the fates of the living will make me crazy. Right now, I don't care. Bobby Cross is not my fault. If anything, I'm his. That doesn't mean I can sit back and let him rule these roads.
Sometimes, all a dead girl can do is stand up and take responsibility for the things that gather in the shadows.
***
One nice thing about being dead: I bounce back a hell of a lot faster than the living. I open my eyes to find myself sprawled on the asphalt, broken doll cast to the side of the road, with an aching head and skinned patches on my hands and knees. My tattoo is burning like a brand, the pain somehow focusing, rather than distracting me. I manage to lift my head, despite the ringing in my ears, and scan for Chris.
He wasn't as lucky as I was. He's also sprawled on the pavement...but he isn't moving. Maybe I'm not that lucky, either; maybe I'm only still moving because being dead makes me harder to kill. My legs won't answer my command to move, and the ringing in my ears is getting worse. It's with relief that I release my hold on flesh and bone, feel my borrowed coat drop through what had been the substance of my body only a moment before, and climb, finally, to my feet.
Things are different here on the edge of the twilight. Black clouds streak the sky like spilled ink, and the broken cars glitter with firefly brilliance in the process of slowly--so very slowly!--fading into darkness. People stand near the broken bodies of their cars. Not that many, not one for every driver who must have died in the collision but...enough. Only one stands out to my eyes; the one to whom I owe assistance. Chris is standing by his own fallen body, a look of deep confusion on his face, like he can't quite understand. I've seen that look on too many faces, on too many roads. I should give him time to come to terms with what's happened. At the very least, I should give him time to recover from his shock. But the air tastes of wormwood, and there are many things here, on this borderland highway, but what there isn't is time.
My skirt rustles against my ankles as I start toward him, the green silk as clean and crisp as it was on the night I wore it for the first, and last, time. The prom gown is no surprise, not here, not with Bobby close enough to taint the shape of the world. The length of my hair is no surprise either, lemon-bleached curls loose against the sides of my neck. The wind that blows around us doesn't touch me. Nothing touches me but the consequences of my own motion. So it goes, when the dead come too close to the day.
"Chris," I say. "Come on. We need to get out of here."
His head comes up, confusion in his eyes. It only deepens as he sees the way I've changed. He picked up a scruffy hitchhiker in a coat two sizes too big for her, and now he's facing a prom princess from an era that ended before he was born. I've slid out of date one inch at a time, and there's nothing I can do about it. "Rose?" he asks.
"Yes." I walk faster now, all but running--but I mustn't run, I don't dare run. I can't pull him onto the ghostroads without his consent, not this soon after his death, and I definitely can't pull him any deeper into the twilight if he's fighting me. Run and I'll frighten him more than he already is, and if that happens...if that happens, he'll be lost forever. No afterlife for Bobby's victims. No second chances for the souls he claims. "Come with me, and I'll explain."
"What--what happened? I lost control of the car..." His eyes flick to the body on the asphalt, confusion starting to thin as terror takes its place. "Where did you get that dress? What's going on?"