Veronica

The ghost girl moves in front of me when I try to leave. I pull shadows around myself in order to flow through them and away from her, but she stomps one small foot and holds her glowing, cupped hands up at me.

"He led you to the path. You chose him – his hero heart saved yours. You can't abandon him."

"I chose him?" I ask. "Fate chose him." But I can't remember clearly. It is as though I began to exist only a few moments ago. Before that I was someone else, and I don't have all of that person's memories. It seems to be true, however. I didn't choose this boy. He was chosen as I was chosen.

"He's the only person in the world who was ever nice to you," she says. "Besides me."

I search deep. A muddled image from another lifetime appears. A stick-thin little girl invites me to play with her. She hands me a doll between the bars of her cage. Then the memory warps, a boy is behind the bars. He hands me card and offers me his friendship.

"We would be badass besties in another life," he whispers. "Run!"

I am startled to the here and now. Placing my hands around hers, I tell the girl to let him go. There isn't much time. A human body can be revived a minute or two after the soul has gone – Vivian taught me that – but beyond that amount, the threads of life begin to unravel and the soul cannot be reattached to the flesh.

Ben's soul flits moth like between my palms. I am mostly shadow, as a solid form would not contain him. It must be darker than a demon's desire's in there.

A black mason jar of endless night for a firefly.

I reach his prone body on the altar. He is marked with witch poison; it runs purple-red through his veins and black where he was scratched. It is hopeless.

"Ben," I whisper to the flitting soul, "I have to set you free. I can't save you."

"You'd better save him," the girl says, tugging on my arm.

"You don't understand, I'm a Shadow Hex. A dark creature. I don't know how to save him. I don't know anything at all."

"You aren't dark, even if you're a Shadow Hex. The dead people told me. They are always whispering. You didn't become a witch first like you were supposed to, so you aren't dark. You aren't light either, but you can heal him," she said.

"Did they whisper how?" I ask. I could call fire to burn his body, hail to fall from the sky, or use the strength of the rocks below my feet to smash his bones. I know it instinctually, the same as I know how to move through shadows and use them as my body. But drive a witch's poison from his unmoving veins and fill his lungs with air?

Knot his soul back into the living threads of flesh, blood and bone? That sort of power and spell was out of my reach.

"No. They don't know," the girl says.

I could almost see the threads of his mortal life slipping up and away. If the soul is a flicker of light, life is steady stream. But so thin and fragile.

The poison has a dark, hungry side to it, not unlike the shadows themselves. I take Ben's soul in one hand. A desire to pull on these shadows grips me and use my free hand to seek them out.

Then I understand. As I feel the darkness of evil thrumming through my body, I sense the light of life at the edges. Where the shadows end, light begins. I gather the shadows that belong with the poison around me, cleansing Ben's body to let life return.

I place his soul over his chest, drawing back and pulling the darkness with me. Light floods his veins and lungs and reaches his heart like a sledge hammer falling. His heart thumps.

The threads of Ben's life spin over his soul and knot it in place. He gasps for air, lurching upwards. I fade into the shadows. He shouldn't see me – I won't let him see me like this.

For a moment I try to imagine taking his hand and helping him from the altar. I see myself wrapping my arms around him to support him and then to hold him because of how wonderful it feels.

Our lips would meet, briefly, the salt of our tears mingling with each other's breath. Laughing and crying because we survived. Kissing again because there is no one we would rather kiss.

If I ever had a chance to kiss Ben, I missed it and it was gone forever now.

"He will live," I say out loud. The ghost girl nods, thinking I said it for her benefit. "That is all that matters." We watch in silence as he stumbles from the stone altar and down the hilltop, woozy and confused. How much does he remember? Does he remember me, and if he does, how long will he look for me before giving up?

At the forest's edge, he calls my name, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable. He is crying. Leaning against a tree, he sobs and coughs. I can't comfort him. In a way, I am dead. Who I was died, leaving a small pile of ashes. I'm no longer the seventeen year old girl he wanted to save.

A glint of gold catches my eye. The pendant that has the girl's soul trapped in it is on the ground.

"After I see Ben safely home, I'll break Vivian's spell on you. You'll be free to leave this world," I say to the girl.

She frowns at me. "But I want to stay with you. We haven't played anything yet."

"I don't know how to play," I admit.

"That's all right. I'll teach you."

I smile. It feels strange. "What is your name?"

"Vicky," she says.

"Ah." Trust the sisters to have chosen a 'V' named victim for an important spell. "As in Victoria?"

"No. Vicky for Victory. I changed my name when the witch put me in her necklace."

I nod, placing the necklace around my neck. If she wanted to stay a while, I would take care of her. I ignore the swell of hatred for the witches that blackens my sight momentarily. "Victory is a good name."

Ben stands, ready to continue into the woods. It is difficult, he has been weakened terribly. I harden my heart.

Victory is not completely correct when she says I am not a creature of darkness. I am dark. But I also have light in me from my love and life before. I feel the two sides inside me. Neither one nor the other. I am both. And it is not peaceful.

I am at war with myself, I realize, and I can't let him become a victim of my fight.

I will walk with him, though, through the shadows of this night and those to come. Long after he stops looking for me or he convinces himself that I was a part of a terrible dream, I will continue to watch over him.

He wanted to save me, and it gave me the strength to do the one thing that allowed me to escape becoming a witch and losing my light: sacrificing myself for him. When I stood over him with the knife, I had a hero's heart that wanted to save him, I had a pure soul because I had never willingly harmed another and a virgin body that had never known a lover's touch. I never would.

I would never want to taint Ben with my darkness, and he is the only one I will ever love.

He will have nothing to fear in the dark – for nothing is worse in the darkness than a Shadow Hex.

*** This is the end! Thank you for coming along this journey with Veronica and Ben and I hope you enjoyed it! ***