Cold Kiss Read online

  He’s quiet beside me in the dark cemetery, although he does trace his name on the stone that marks the head of his grave. I don’t know how much he understands about what’s going to happen, and I don’t want to tell him. The spell I cast when he was still lying on Gabriel’s bed was written to make him mobile, but not much more. He’s awake, but he’s not, not really—the boy I loved is buried somewhere in a body that looks familiar, but isn’t really the most important part of him.

  That Danny, the one who used to chase me down the street, threatening to tickle me if I didn’t kiss him again, who used to piggyback me up and down the science hall after school as we left the building, who used to sing snatches of songs to me on the phone when we were both home in bed at night, he’s been gone for a long time. He’s the one I’m never really going to be okay with losing, but at least now I know that isn’t up to me.

  At five minutes to midnight, I arrange him on the grave, laying him down gently, and he doesn’t protest. He watches me, his eyes dark and blank, and blinks a little when I bend over to kiss him and a tear falls on his cheek.

  “I need you to close your eyes now, and listen to my voice.” I press the words against his cold mouth, and I can’t believe my voice is steady. My heart is beating so hard and fast it’s a little frightening, but nothing’s changed otherwise—I can still feel the power coiled taut and ready inside me.

  I trim a lock of his hair and he doesn’t move. I squeeze his hand before I draw my athame across it, and he still doesn’t flinch. The blood is as cold and sluggish as he is, gleaming nearly black in the moonlight. I smear it onto a picture of him, one of my favorites, and press his hair into it before I check my watch.

  One minute left.

  I kneel at his feet and lay the picture between his calves on the patch of earth where I’ve pulled the grass away. One handful of dirt and the picture is covered, Danny’s huge grin and laughing eyes obscured. I swallow thickly and start to chant, the blade poised in my right hand and my power cresting high and eager in my chest.

  Tonight I call Death to embrace this boy

  Tonight I seek peace for him

  From ash he emerged, and to ash he returns.

  Spirits bright

  Spirits dark

  Spirits undecided and in between

  Witness my invocation.

  To Death you return, Danny.

  Peace awaits you.

  Life has no hold on you anymore.

  By candlelight

  By starlight

  By moonlight growing stronger

  I command this to be.

  With this symbol of Danny

  With his blood

  I command this to be.

  Find Death, Danny.

  Find peace.

  Find Death, Danny.

  Find peace.

  I don’t realize how hard I’m crying until I open my eyes as wind shudders over the ground, a flapping sheet of it, and the candle flickers out.

  Danny is gone.

  I’m not sure how long I lie there, my face, muddy with tears now, pressed to the cold dirt. I feel hollow inside, scooped dry by the time I sit up. Despite that, I know what’s different now, what I didn’t realize the last time I was here, chanting under the moon.

  My power is still where I put it, neatly rolled into a ball and balanced at my center. Before, it raged through me like a flood, washing into every nerve, every vein, completely unchecked.

  Now, I can decide when to use it, if I use it.

  It’s a cold comfort, but I’ll take it for now. I’m shaky when I stand up, and I put everything away in my bag, except for the picture of Danny, which I hold up and light. I let it burn down to my fingers, and then I say good-bye and let go as the ashes flutter to Danny’s grave.

  What I feel most, as I pick my way through the headstones toward the gate, is alone. I think it’s what I was scared of when Danny died, or one of the things, anyway. It’s just as cold a feeling as I imagined.

  Except when I walk through the gates, hitching my backpack more securely over my shoulder and wiping away the last tears with the back of one dirty hand, I see Gabriel. He’s across the street, leaning against a mailbox, a paper cup from the mini-mart in one hand. He doesn’t wave, he doesn’t smile, and he doesn’t walk toward me.

  He waits.

  And I think that this is what I would like love to be. Leaving room for each other, knowing that not every step is going to be side by side.

  Giving more than taking. Waiting. Trusting.

  I cross the street and reach for his hand. He lets me take it, squeezing my fingers briefly.

  “Walk me home?” I ask him.

  He hands me the cup, hot sweet tea, offers to take my bag. I let him, watching as the weight of it pulls down his shoulder.

  And then we walk together in the moonlight, hand in hand, until I’m home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MANY THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP ME sane, and love me even when I’m not. Lee, for all kinds of excellent cheerleading and general awesomeness; Donna, for making me laugh and letting me talk through scenes with her; Jilli and Bev, for reading and shaking their pom-poms, and helping with incantations; ita, for listening to me whine and distracting me with Winchesters; Maureen, for believing I could do this, and encouraging me all the way; and Erica, for getting it and loving it and making it a thousand times better.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AMY GARVEY is a former editor who now works on the other side of the desk as an author. She grew up reading everything she could get her hands on, watching too much TV, and wishing she was Samantha Stephens from Bewitched. (She still wishes that, actually.) COLD KISS is her first novel for young adults, but she’s always writing something (when she’s not obsessively discussing TV’s Supernatural with her friends online and thinking about cupcakes). She lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with her family. You can read Amy’s blog at www.amygarveywrites.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @amygarvey.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  NOTES

  MY ZOMBIE, SUCH AS HE IS, ISN’T GEORGE Romero’s, as you probably figured out. He’s closer to the kind of zombie you might create with Haitian vodou magic, a corpse reanimated and then controlled by a sorcerer. That said, with a few minor exceptions, almost everything in this book is straight out of my imagination. I took liberties with the geography of the town where I went to high school, and made up a bunch of stuff out of whole cloth because in fiction, that’s allowed, for which I’m grateful. Resemblances to any people living, dead, or undead are only a coincidence, except for the Brobecks’ song “Visitation of the Ghost,” which I adore.

  BACK AD

  www.epicreads.com

  CREDITS

  Jacket photograph © 2011 by Chiara Fersini

  Jacket design by Michelle Taormina

  COPYRIGHT

  Cold Kiss: Copyright © 2011 by Amy Garvey.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  www.epicreads.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Garvey, Amy, 1967-

  Cold kiss / Amy Garvey. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When her boyfriend is killed in a car accident, high school student Wren Darby uses her hidden powers to bring him back from the dead, never imagining the consequences that will result from her decision. />
  ISBN 978-0-06-199622-1

  [1. Future life—Fiction. 2. Psychic ability—Fiction. 3. Dead—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G21172Co 2011

  2010040421

  [Fic]—dc22

  CIP

  AC

  * * *

  Typography by Torborg Davern

  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 9780062103352

  11 12 13 14 15 CG/BV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollins.com