Lightbringer Read Online Free PDF Page B

face—a faintly amused expression. Black hair waved over the forehead and past the chin, concealing all but a hint of the scar that puckered from temple to neck.
    Picture complete, Wendy sat back. She knew where she'd seen these features before, but what she couldn't imagine was why she was bothering to draw them.
    After all, they belonged to a dead man.
    After the accident four years ago, it had taken the paramedics and firefighters half an hour to peel the car apart far enough to pull them out of the wreckage.
    Between the two of them, Eddie had been the worst off—when they bustled him into the ambulance he was a bloody, bleeding wreck barely clinging to life. Hardly scratched and only slightly bruised, Wendy drifted through the rescue with barely a thought or word, barely noticing when the ambulance peeled away with sirens screaming, Eddie strapped inside.
    Shock, the police officers said, and wrapped her in blankets, pressing a cool bottle of water between her fingers while they waited on a second ambulance to transport Wendy and Mr. Barry's corpse to the hospital.
    Condition stable, Wendy sat halfway into the back of a police car and sipped water mechanically as adults eddied around her, asking questions and barking orders. Every inch of her skin felt calm and cold and distant, but far down inside her chest there was something expanding—like some strange, fierce fire, previously banked, had begun burning deep, deep inside.
    It stung like nothing she'd ever felt before, but Wendy knew there was nothing wrong with her physically. The paramedics—including one or two she'd previously met while shadowing her mom at work—had already looked her over, so surely she must be imagining the pain. The fire blooming inside.
    “I think,” she said out loud, “that this is what going crazy feels like.”
    “Da , that is entirely possible,” a gentle voice said and Wendy nodded, squeezing the bottle so the plastic crackled under her fingertips and the water sloshed against the sides. “But I think it is unlikely.”
    A figure knelt down beside her, hunkering so that his hands dangled between his knees. Unlike the others, his voice was kind but not sympathetic, very matter-of-fact, and he had a slight accent—not easily placed, unimportant just then, though years later Wendy realized it had been Russian.
    He touched her wrist and his fingers were pleasantly cool. “Were you in the wreck?”
    “Yeah,” she said. Her attention wavered a moment, and she looked at his hand on her wrist. There was something not quite right about his gentle fingers, or about that moment altogether. Wendy tried but she couldn't wrap her calm, yet muddled, mind around the puzzle; couldn't figure out just what was different about this boy.
    She looked up finally, taking in his scarred face, his serene eyes. He was older than Wendy but not by much, only a teenager. When he smiled, quiet and amused, it slowly dawned on her that she could sort of see through him. Oh, that's what's weird. He's a ghost.
    Wendy was relieved to have pinpointed the oddity so quickly.
    “I'm Winifred,” she said because, despite his translucence, it seemed the polite thing to do. “But everyone calls me Wendy.”
    “Piotr,” he replied, smiling gravely, and offered his hand. Wendy took it and marveled at how, when she concentrated, his skin darkened and became solid, firmer in her grasp. Thin steam rose from between their hands, curling into nothing only moments later. At first Piotr didn't seem to notice, but when he did, he frowned. “That is odd,” he said. “Doesn't hurt, it's just strange.”
    Bluntly she asked, “Are you dead?”
    “Do I look dead?” Unoffended, he released her hand and stood up, patting himself on the chest and arms. There were faint rustling sounds where he patted but, away from her touch, he'd faded back to his initial translucent state.
    Wendy nodded and Piotr chuckled. “Well, I suppose I must be dead, then.”
    She frowned. “But