Rangers of the Rift, Season 1: Episodes 1-4

By River K. Scott

A defiant girl guards the gateway between life and death. But the boundaries are weakening, and the rift is about to unleash pure evil.

Box Set: 450+ pages of wild, spirited, unforgettable action!

Seventeen-year-old Emily Mars is a rebel by nature, but a soul guardian by rite. Between track meets, hot crushes, and her duties patrolling purgatory, she feels pressure on all sides to conform. But when a dark spirit rises to devour the innocent, only a heroine forged in her own darkness can end their devilish appetite‐and only if she can embrace her powerful destiny.

With the swoony boy next door watching her back, the young Ranger dispatches ghost after ghost, only to be plagued by more nightmarish specters, a power-hungry witch, and a calculating demon. And when forgotten magic shatters the realm of the dead, releasing fire and fiend, even Emily’s emerging power may not be enough to protect those she loves.

Can Emily stamp out the terror before it claims her world?

Rangers of the Rift, Season 1 is a suspenseful collection of dark urban fantasy tales. If you like spunky heroines, devious phantoms, magic-soaked battles, and slow-burn romance, then you'll love this sweeping saga.

Save now on this binge-worthy box set today!

⚠ Horror elements, atheism, language, teen drinking, violence, school shooting, queer topics

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guard Tree Publishing
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951899080

Book preview

Rangers of the Rift, Season 1

---

I’m Emily Mars, a girl made of darkness.

---

In my world, only the dead can walk the Limen—and Rangers, like me, who guard the way there and back again.

---

I didn’t choose this life. But I sure as hell choose who I fight for.

RANGERS OF THE RIFT, SEASON 1

EPISODES 1–4

RIVER K. SCOTT

Guard Tree Publishing

CONTENTS

Dying Ember, Olden Ash

Salt and Silver

Dark Moon Rising

Dagger at Dawnlight

The Adventure Continues

In Wait for Blood: Episode 5 | Special Preview

Note from the author

Book Club & Discussion Questions

Bonus Episode

Also by River K. Scott

Acknowledgments

About the Author

DYING EMBER, OLDEN ASH

EPISODE 1

‎

To Connie. In the beginning, I wrote for you.

⚠ Content warning:

Horror elements, school shooting, trauma, violence, language, suicide, & LGBTQ topics

‏‎ ‎

The way to the beyond is secured by a snow-white sheet. Through this, the pure in heart like the thornless rose will pass unhindered. But woe the barbs made by hate, or the guilt of unforgiveness, prejudice, rage. These will not pass but tear.

HIGH ORDER TEACHING

1

________________

Someone has died in these woods. Dread prickles between my shoulder blades.

Not here. Don’t you dare. Muttering to yourself makes you look crazy. But I’m not talking to myself. I wish I were.

I hang back as my family continues along the dry, pebbled streambed. The maple leaves are ablaze, the air chilly. This should be an exciting evening. Mom and Dad, everyone rooting for me. I should be able to breathe—not this sipping at the air, spooked by shadows.

Ahead, my family chatters; my sister sings and giggles.

I’m here to run a race. That’s all. I’m just a girl this weekend.

The prickling eases.

I sigh in relief, but my attention stays riveted to the ground as I continue slowly along the course. I’m watching for hazards: smooth river stone can twist an ankle; loose sandbank can cost precious seconds; snaking tree roots can take me out of the race altogether.

There it is. The tight curve where last nationals I gave up first place. Someone has removed the partially hidden log. I guess they don’t want another runner out for the season. My left Achilles twangs in reminder.

I squint through the trees into the dying sun. Leaves sift over the arid creek bed, whisper of another loss.

Uphill, Em! Starts here! My dad calls out from ahead where the track winds back into the forest. He toes the orange pin flag and pumps his fist into his open hand. His game face is flushed. He always gets embarrassingly enthusiastic about my track meets. And this is nationals. His adrenaline must be popping. Mine is. Just not for the same reason.

He gestures at the hill.

Got it, I yell back.

Coach calls this reconnaissance. Usually, I arrive a few hours early to walk the 5K track and get the lay of the land. For nationals, Dad drove us up two days in advance.

Of course, I know this track already. Walking it again only flings the doors open for more accidents. I told my parents that; they said I was being superstitious. But they don’t understand. As long as my mind doesn’t take over, my body knows what to do. It’s what I love most—the way all thought washes away in the heat of pumping blood, pounding feet, oxygen deeper than bone. Wind and earth. Knowing the track too well can make you rely on that knowledge. That’s when you’re in real danger from hazards you don’t know are lying in wait.

As we reach the forest I stay back once more. Yes, here’s the steep incline. The last hill to the finish.

Up ahead, Lillie’s and Mom’s conversation is muffled by trees. Alone, I inhale the sweet, woodsy softness of turned earth and try to feel optimistic. This is paradise compared to being home in Sand Dollar, swamped by the humid fishiness that pervades beachfront Florida. They don’t tell you that in travel brochures.

Come on, Em. You can conquer this track for good.

It’s my chance to overcome the fall that has haunted me every race since.

The forest is hushed. I peel a scab of paper bark from the trunk of a birch tree, close my eyes, and listen to the silence. It’s weird, but it’s almost like the forest is holding its breath. Almost as if it’s been waiting for my return...

No way. I told you, not now.

My eyes flash open and dart between trees, searching through the golden haze of sunset for that familiar watery outline. The first time I ever saw such a thing—against the blacktop of Interstate 95—I thought it was a heat mirage. I quickly learned better.

It’s here. The wind brushes my neck, chilly now. The right kind of chill for autumn, but not the kind I’m looking for.

Em! Dad’s disembodied voice comes from over the hill, probably from the lot where we parked. Emily, you coming?

Leave it to Dad to utter my name. That bond is strong as eternity. I can only hope it didn’t hear.

—Emily.—

Ah ha. So it did.

That’s me. I can’t hide the annoyance from my voice. This track meet is supposed to open college doors for me. It’s about me being stronger and faster than last time—and, honestly, a shoe-in for first if I don’t screw it up—and not about releasing some poor, stranded soul back into the beyond.

—Emily. You have to find her.—

Gorgeous. Just effing grand.

On top of everything else, now I have to find some chick, dead or alive, and I’ve got two days to do it.

That’s the thing about being a Ranger: the age-old cliché of unfinished business. And wind, rain, or national cross country meet, when a Ranger meets a Waif in the middle of the forest, she can’t just ignore him. There, by that tree: ghostly, ethereal silver, with the black, marble eyes of the eternally Lost.

Even if it’s not her sector.

Even if she’s been banned from running solo missions.

I grit my teeth. The words of my Praeses thump my conscience: Your job, Ranger, is to be ruthless. Save the Lost; expel what can’t be saved.

A year ago in a training exercise, I hesitated. Because the difference between good and evil? Not a whole heck of a lot. Sure, sometimes it’s cut and dry, but there’s always the possibility a Waif is still fighting the descent into darkness. Looks like Vagari, smells like it. But that soul is still holding on by the barest threads of their will. I’ve read the texts. There are outliers to the Order. You can’t just go destroy someone without taking the time to find out who they really are.

According to my Praeses, taking that time was exactly what got me benched. What, are you Anubis, now, weigher of souls? Is it your duty to judge, Ranger, or only to vanquish the darkness?

I know the answer.

But my Praeses is back in Sand Dollar...

Ugh. I’m not just a normal girl. I don’t get to just run a race. I have a duty. No matter how benched I am, I can’t leave him here, haunted and confused.

The Waif’s otherworldly outline gutters in the careless breeze. If I don’t help him, who will?

All right, I tell the anxious spirit. I’ll find her. And then we’ll send you home.

2

________________

Ihead to the local Italian joint to carb up. In the foyer, Tad Beasley catches my eye, and I can’t help smoothing down my tank top, cursing the sports bra I’m still wearing. I was too busy thinking about the Waif to change. Runners have precisely zero curves unless you count high arches. Double-A all the way, baby.

Tad reaches my side while the ’rents do their gooey meet-and-greet like they haven’t seen each other in years. Hint: his parents had all of us over for dinner together in Sand Dollar just yesterday.

Skittles, Tad breathes in my ear, peppering my skin with goose bumps. He throws an arm around my shoulders and herds me to the table where a troupe of waters is waiting.

Emily Em Mars became M&M in middle school until Tad discovered my more colorful weakness. We disentangle. Lillie pads over and scoots into the booth, beckoning me to join her.

You’re looking a little under the rainbow, Tad says.

Walk the track yet?

He cocks an eyebrow. In the morning. Why?

He sits opposite us. Of course, he does. Because it would look totally awkward for us all three to be on the same side, wouldn’t it? My cheeks go a little hot.

I pull a coloring placemat and box of crayons from where the menus are stacked against the wall.

Remember Scott? I ask, referring to the guy who introduced me to the Other Side a little too intimately. My first mission after initiation. If it hadn’t been for Tad back then, I might not be in high school right now. Here, Lillie-girl. She takes the crayons eagerly. Something you should See out there, I tell him.

The slight stress on the word doesn’t slip past him. Tad’s face is slightly gray. His eyes tint from green to blue. His voice is wary: This isn’t your sector.

"But it is my job."

What does it want?

To find her. I shrug. Girlfriend, probably.

Where?

Across the streambed. Before the sprint. I swallow. Right after the place where I fell. Our parents are making their way across the room along with a disgruntled-looking waiter. Dad has trophies in his eyes.

Tad lowers his voice. And you’re sure it’s a Waif and not something else?

I nod but feel uneasy. To be honest, I’m not really sure. I’m out of practice, after all. For the last twelve months since the exercise when I made the call to hold, to wait and see first, kill only once we knew for sure, I’ve been nothing but a tagalong. I join my Praeses only after a Waif has turned and once there’s no question. No room for error.

But that means I’m not doing half my duty. I’m not shepherding souls, only banishing bad guys. It feels wrong.

My Praeses says it’s to keep me safe—keep us all safe. If I go dying on her because I make a bad call, she’ll have to train up another Ranger. People will get hurt. I’m not ready, she says.

My jaw cramps around a scowl.

Today, I only saw the Waif for a second against the birch tree before his spirit slipped back into the Limen. He might be what I think he is: a sad, stranded soul, living in that terrible place between the here and the hereafter. But what if he’s Vagari, having lost all vestiges of humanity, a true creature of the Limen? What if he’s playing me, in the guise of one of the Lost? It’s possible. Rare, but possible. He knows my name. I shudder.

Look, Lillie insists, tapping my right shoulder. Her finger grazes the top of my ink like it always does. She can’t help it. Ever since I got the sleeve tattoo six months ago—an elegant Japanese cherry tree curving from wrist to collar bone—she’s been mesmerized by it.

"I want one," she had whined to Mom, who was surprisingly supportive of my one-off recklessness. She even signed for me. Dad now...that was another story. He’d lit into me. Into both of us. Ruining my life, he’d accused her of. Then again, nothing new there.

You’re not getting one, Lillie.

But Em says—

I don’t care what your sister says.

It hurts a lot, I told her seriously.

Lillie’s eyes went wider.

But it’s so beauuuutiful. It’s about death and life and the cyclical, ephemeral nature of all things, she parroted.

Mom and I both rolled our eyes simultaneously. I made a mental note to watch what I say too loudly around her.

Now, I take her tracing fingers and give their tips a little kiss as I say to Tad, "It’s my job to be sure about what’s out there. I look him square in the eye. It’s a Waif. Before he can protest, I turn to Lillie, who’s been drawing animals in red and blue. So pretty! Is it a pony?"

It’s a wolf and a unicorn. She frowns. "And it’s scary, not pretty." A wrinkle depresses the baby skin between her eyebrows.

I’m sure it is, Lillie-girl. Tad, hand me a straw?

They’re having a fight and the wolf is going to win. Lillie points. It was in my dream. See?

Startled, I take another look at her drawing. There are red spots on the blue unicorn. Blood. The wolf isn’t smiling. And those jagged things are teeth. Suddenly, I’m not hungry.

Lillie, that’s... I begin.

One helluva dream, Tad says, but he’s looking at me.

My sister nods importantly. She folds the paper in regular patterns, making a little origami envelope. She shoves the compact paper rectangle into my hand. I made it for you.

After a family hot tub soak and shower, I tell my parents I’ll be in the hotel dining room where the WiFi’s stronger. I cozy up in one of the big leather armchairs with my laptop. The lobby’s fireplace crackles happily. I page through news articles, going back the last few months, then years. Homicides, suicides, missing persons...I read for an hour, getting nowhere.

Several hotel patrons arrive, each ushering in a swell of cold through the open door. I shiver and then gasp as a hand touches my shoulder.

What the hell? I say in greeting, though part of me takes to fluttering. Tad stands at my elbow, no shirt, swim trunks poking out from under a wrapped towel. My face is nearly level with his carved hip bones.

Wasn’t sure you’d be here. He gives his hair a wet-dog shake.

Gee, thanks, I needed another shower.

There’s my Sour Patch. He plops into the armchair next to me. Thought you might go all G.I. Jane on me. Riveting, obituaries are. Anything interesting? He nods at my laptop.

I snort, then sigh. "I’ve been thinking...I mean, you’re right. This is somebody else’s sector. Where’s the local Ranger? Why hasn’t she done something? Tad, that Waif—"

Or Vagari.

—has been here a long time. I glare at him. It’s not a Vagari.

But you don’t know that.

I’m pretty sure.

He shrugs. Your soul, he quips.

I palm the object nearest me and beam it at his head. He catches Lillie’s origami envelope. I must’ve been toying with it while reading. I don’t remember taking it out of my pocket.

How do you know, he asks, how long it’s been here?

I stare blankly at the obit feed. In my mind, I’m back in the forest. I can barely see his face. I can only almost hear his voice, desperate, fading. The chill of autumn before sunset on my neck, not the cold of a trapped spirit. Just the coming night. I couldn’t feel the cold, I say softly. He’s being absorbed into the Limen, and he’s almost gone. His voice was—

"Its," says Tad angrily.

What?

"You keep calling it a he. It’s an it, Emily. This is why you failed the exercise!"

Fury stoppers my voice. He’s right, but I don’t need to be reminded that I’m a lame duck Ranger. I shut my laptop, face burning.

Goodnight, Tad.

Skittles...

But I turn my back, head down the hall. I don’t need his lecture or apology. I slip inside our darkened hotel room, greeted by soft snores. The Waif must’ve died many years ago to be this far gone. I brush my teeth and curl into bed. And if the local Ranger hasn’t run into him by now, she may never. Which means I’m his last chance.

3

________________

In the morning, I wake with nightmare sweat still damp. I’ve a hazy memory of some sort of mansion-sized iron gate—the kind you see in Batman movies. Everybody’s down in the lobby, raiding the hotel for continental cereals, yogurt singles, and do-it-yourself waffles. I dress, slash on some lip gloss and mascara, and hurry to join them.

There you are. Coach Kent has arrived from Sand Dollar and has on his ball-busting face. Now you listen to me. The Mars Fam is gonna enjoy a nice family getaway to settle the jitters while Beasley and I walk the track. We’ll meet back for lunch. Clear?

Tad won’t meet my gaze until he and his parents are out in the parking lot, piling into Coach’s sedan.

"Jitters?" I say with venom.

Don’t. Whatever you’re planning. Just don’t.

"I’m not planning anything!" It’s true. I have no idea how I’m going to find out more about what’s keeping that Waif this side of the beyond. The obituary search is a fools’ errand. I need to talk to the Waif again. I need something concrete. I need...I feel a plan taking shape.

Fine. Tad gives me a brief hug, which, despite my bad mood, still induces a flood of goose bumps. Keep it that way.

I ditch the family outing, claiming a stomachache, and return to the room to collect a few essentials. It’s been a while since I carried around my kit, which is currently under my bed at home.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, it takes me a second to get started.

You have a duty, I tell my reflection. She blinks back at me. Just a girl. Just a normal freaking person. Long hair falls around her face. Aquamarine eyes. Bony collarbone. Pulse flutters too fast in her throat, visible even from across the sink.

I suck in a breath. My hands grip the counter. I can do this. I won’t mess it up.

I can’t afford to.

Determination kicks me in gear. Hotel sample shampoo, empty it, rinse the bottle. Down it goes into my laptop bag. I grab Mom’s purse, sifting through receipts at the bottom. Quarter, there you are. I pop it in my pocket, eagle side facing out. Finally, I rip open a bag of coffee, pat the grounds into a tissue, and tuck them into my bra.

Still missing a key ingredient.

I call a ride and head to the lobby to wait. Pacing. It only takes a few minutes for the car to arrive, but I think a hundred times about forgetting it all. Just a normal girl. Not my sector. Not my job.

Thumbing through the brochures along the wall, a colorful trifold catches my eye. The Calloway: Stay in Beautiful Boone. A gallant, châteauesque mansion is flanked by pine forests. Parked along the rounded drive inside a massive iron gate waits a sleek, black limousine. My spine itches. I fold the brochure and shove it into my back pocket.

I’m doing this.

St. Michael’s Catholic Church is small and rather squat, reminding me of a crumbling angel, brick wings spread and head bowed. I press a few extra bills into the driver’s dry, wrinkled hand, then hurry up the steps.

The wooden doors are locked.

I bite my lip, feeling stupid, and knock.

No one. The internet said it was open. The internet lies.

Just when I’m about to leave, there’s a clink and thump as the door creaks wide.

Good morning, I say to the acolyte, who smiles at me and ushers me into the narthex.

Light streams through stained glass, rosy on the wood floor. My spine prickles and I sigh with relief at the feeling of power here. This place will do.

Rangers get their holy water from abroad. The second-rate stuff priests pander at neighborhood churches is all but useless unless you imbue it. I don’t have the time or money to overnight a proper shipment. I need to complete my defense kit.

I was worried St. Michael’s would be the usual dud, but sometimes you get lucky.

And sometimes you don’t: the baptismal, a basin standing dead center of the narthex, appears to have been recently emptied and is still wet around the rim. Damn.

To the right of the door into the sanctuary, I spot a small font affixed to the wall. This is where the faithful dip their fingers and cross themselves upon entering the church. It too is empty. And yet this place has power...

There must be a stash somewhere.

The acolyte’s voice startles me. I haven’t seen you before.

Just visiting. Is there, um, confession today?

I must not look very penitent. Or maybe I said it wrong. He glances suspiciously at my laptop bag. My stomach clenches.

Father Roberts will be here at ten.

I’ll wait inside? I try to look innocent, less hurried. To pray, I add.

I enter the nave. Saintly faces gaze down with huge black eyes. I’m reminded of the Waif. I’m guessing the artist had at least some amount of paranormal Sight.

Heading to one of the front pews, I cross myself before the crucifix and then kneel and bow my head. When the acolyte’s footsteps echo away, I dart up again.

I pass the altar and slip into the sacristy through one of the small side doors. Jackpot. Beside the sacrarium, a special sink for washing holy oils back into the ground, I see the marble bowl sometimes used for pouring baptisms. It’s got about a finger of water at the bottom.

Quickly, I tip the holy water into my empty shampoo bottle and twist on the cap.

Footsteps and voices.

Shit.

Most priests don’t have Sight. Most don’t even realize the purgatory they’re always talking about actually exists. They think they’re pretty cozy with the big guns of the beyond, but the reality is, nobody knows what’s out there. Nobody. Not priests, not Vagari, not Rangers. We just help you over to the light. Beyond that—no pun intended—you fend for yourself.

Priests aren’t too keen on people messing with their holy water.

I hide in the musty-smelling robe closet until I hear the footsteps pass the sacristy. Then I slip back down the nave, duck past the acolyte, who gives me a puzzled look, and inhale the fresh mid-morning air with relief.

Where to, miss?

The library.

The driver grunts and hits the gas. The mountain road twists and writhes like a worm caught between finger and thumb. Sunlight spears through the windows in blinding flashes as we pass pockets of trees.

Wait, I say. We’re nearing a turnoff. What’s down there?

I point at the street, West Cypress. That hard-to-itch spot between my shoulder blades is crawling.

First a church, now a graveyard?

I suck in a breath, chill bumps raising the hair on my arms.

A graveyard. Of course. I toss him the rest of my cash, and he makes the U-ie.

4

________________

Graveyards, despite their bad rep, are usually manicured, lovely vistas with newly cut lawns. Bald white headstones festooned with flowers shine cheerfully as I weave through them, eyes partly closed.

This place is full of emotions, packed to the point of implosion—lingering from the living and the dead. But the signature of my Waif isn’t here. So, what triggered my paranormal detector?

I have one day. And I’m getting nowhere fast.

There is a way to move more quickly. I pause between two tombs, Tad’s warning in my head: Don’t. Whatever you’re planning. Ignoring the memory, I sit at the base of the tomb, close my eyes, and search inward. Carefully, I concentrate on my Ranger duty, bringing it up like a wall around my soul. Then I let my consciousness go low and soft...

Three heartbeats.

I let myself drift through the emotional boundary of the Limen.

Clamor of heat, sweat, spit, blood, antiseptic. Pitches of grief. Loud. Cutting. Sweet. Deep. Peace and resistance and hunger, terrorguiltwrath. Burning, what’s that smell, salvia, citrus, lavender, cannabis. Detergent, cloying perfumes, underarm musk.

My astral form drifts through the scents in the dark between, each aroma a fossil record of the emotion hidden beneath. Where is it? I’m looking for his tomb. With cases like these, there’s always a grave.

In the Limen, I can see the physical world only like a smudged reflection in a faraway mirror. Rangers must use other senses to see clearly...

Old scents have gone stale. They crack and grow diffuse as I prod them aside, searching. My spirit floats over a vacant tomb.

This is it. I’ve found the trigger. But it’s not the Waif’s tomb after all.

—And then I feel a tug at my stomach.

Heeding the call, I focus on my heartbeat to pull myself back from the world of the dead.

For a moment, I see only the peaceful, mid-morning graveyard. The next moment, because I’m bound to Tad, I See through his eyes as he links our vision.

Standing on the track exactly where I fell, Tad wipes sweat off his brow onto his red Adidas shorts. He’s facing the forest. The orange flag gutters in a hike of wind.

Imagine a sickle moon, a bare white fingernail against a winter sky. That’s what the Waif looks like. He’s so close to gone, my whole body itches. I want to scream at Tad. Run! He’s dangerous! He’s days if not hours from the change. With Tad’s Sight, I See the Waif as he truly is: a star at the edge of collapse. Despair changing a human soul to a compact, deadened force of raw, negative emotion.

Tad looks deeper, Sees deeper, to the tiny dollop of golden life energy still bound to the core of the spirit’s being. This evidence that I was right, that he is a Waif, that he needs me, brings me no comfort. Not when he’s so close to turning.

A chirping from the physical world snags my attention. Concentrating, I notice the edges of my body and direct my spirit back down, down. Heartbeats slow and steady, just like in training.

Eyes open.

My back aches. I unearth my phone from my laptop bag. I’ve been here for over an hour. My ride’ll be long gone. I pick up the chirping call on the fifth ring.

Tad’s voice is tight. It’s bad.

Yeah.

"Look, I’m here, with it. Him. But he’s—damnit, it’s too late. I can’t understand a word. It’s like—like screaming underwater."

It’s not too late.

Em, Tad groans.

I am so not ready for this. I don’t know what else to say. Where the hell is that Ranger? The itching is still there, unscratchable. I wind toward the empty tomb I spotted during drift.

Tad says, I don’t think you should race tomorrow. You shouldn’t be close when—

You know that’s not an option.

I just think... He drops his voice. Emily, you haven’t fought a Vagari alone for over a year.

I’m not alone. You’ll be there. And he’s not Vagari yet.

"Come on, Em, he hasn’t been human for a while. This isn’t your case."

Tad. I stand before the grave. The mottled surface is emblazoned with all manner of colorful lichens. Shallow names have been carved into the stone, carved and sanded off and carved over. Right now, the grave reads Jewel. There’s a black-stained depression at the top, the size of a marble. Swallowing, I hold the phone with cheek and shoulder, dig in my laptop bag, and produce a sleeved sewing needle. Even after all these months, I still carry it, even if I’ve given up hauling around my kit.

Skittles, are you there?

I prick the center of my palm. I’m here. Jewel, I summon you. The blood drips into the depression at the top of the headstone and gathers like a glossy berry in the bottom.

For the strongest callings, you need that person’s blood. I don’t know what the hell Jewel looks like much less have her blood on hand. I just hope this will do. I press all my will and hope into that one bright bead of red.

Hey, are you oka—

Tad, the Waif...he knows my name.

Silence.

Then I hear him cursing.

After a few moments, I interrupt. You done? Because I’ve got more bad news.

I’m waiting, he says, and I cave to the comfort of knowing he’ll be with me when I need him. Rangers rarely survive going it alone.

The on-duty Ranger’s not here.

Jewel’s grave gives a little pulse of that weird energy I felt from the road, and I wish for a second I hadn’t made nationals.

Not only that, I continue, she’s got some vibe going, some sort of messed up juju with the Limen. I can’t figure it out.

Well, where is she?

Travelling. I mean the out-of-body journeys Rangers sometimes have to make at the eve of disaster. Their spirits are wrenched to another place, usually during sleep, and there they wait for the living to die so they can shepherd souls into the beyond. The grave, during Travel, gives off a certain signature. But this...

"Her grave’s whack, Tad. It’s like, really dark. I breathe away the stutter in my voice, then say, Tonight."

I’m coming with. No hesitation.

I smile, and the muscles in my throat hurt. Thanks.

I dial Mom’s cell. Dad’s standard grounded till you graduate will be the least of my worries tonight.

5

________________

Sneaking out is surprisingly easy.

I lie awake, turning the quarter over in my palm. No sign from Jewel. Did my summons work? I wonder where she is. Has the disaster struck? What’s twisting the energies at her grave? For a moment, I’m back in Sand Dollar, crouched under a full moon, swathed in thick salty air, carving my name into a small tombstone at the back of Richardson Cemetery.

This evening, Dad had that not again look on his face when he, Mom, and Lillie pulled up to get me from the graveyard. Mom looked ill. They don’t know about the Ranger gig, but even my Praeses and her special concoctions can’t completely wipe their memories of that morning they came down to the Sand Dollar station. A patrol had found me bruised, bloody, and dead to the world, prostrate over a half-dug grave.

Reflected in the mirror across the room, the clock digits burn green. Lillie jabs me in the shin, mumbles something like bubbles are coming, and rolls over. Even if I weren’t juiced with adrenaline, I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep with her karate-kicking away next to me. What’s she fighting? I wonder. Then my thoughts turn darker: What would it be like if I had to shepherd her lost spirit through the Limen and send my baby sister beyond that rippling sheet? My gut twists as the clock ticks down.

11:58. I touch the eagle side of the quarter to my lips, a bit of superstition I picked up in training and can’t shake. Some animal spirits protect those journeying through the Limen, they say.

Midnight. Go time. I slide out of bed, tap my phone light on, and slip into my shoes. I’m wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, but just in case we’re not back before the race, I grab my track uniform. Using the shorts as a sound buffer, I scoop up my parents’ car keys.

Tad meets me in the hallway and hands me a jacket. Got cold out.

I start walking. We’ll try the forest first. Have you Seen anything about our Ranger?

He shakes his head. The Waif can’t leave the forest. He must’ve been killed there.

It is cold outside. I shrug into the jacket and notice the smell, pine needles and brushfire. Muted but definitely Tad. He must be wearing his dad’s. Our breath chugs soft and white into the air.

I snuggle deeper into the coat and inhale his scent.

The lot is bleary, checkered with black emptiness and dirty glow. My parents’ bluish headlights flash twice as I click the doors unlocked.

I take the road toward the high school where the track starts. By silent agreement, we leave the radio off, and there’s only the sound of the tires purring against pavement. I glance at him and feel a strange tightening inside me. If only I were a normal girl and he just a normal guy and we were out on an illicit date instead of a dangerous quest.

Tad stares out his window. I never understood something.

What’s that?

Why are souls—he gropes for the word—so stupid?

I bust a laugh.

No, I’m serious. Look, you and I—we’re smart, aren’t we? I imagine if I died right now, I’d know the hell what the Limen was and that I had to get beyond it.

I consider this. Tad’s always asking the Big Questions. I ignore them when I can and quash them when I can’t ignore them.

Can we not talk about this right now?

He frowns. The expression makes him look older. "I was just thinking, what if