7 Souls (31 page)

“I want to believe that.” Mrs. Shayne tried to smile.

“I think”—Ellen dug her finger awkwardly under her glasses and swiped at a runaway tear—“I think she heard you forgive her. And I think she forgives you, too. She forgives you, Mom. She does.”

“Is that true?” Mrs. Shayne looked at Dylan. “You told me Mary was sorry … you said that she was sorry, and that she loved me. Was that true?”

Dylan had no idea what to say—he didn’t understand what Mrs. Shayne was referring to.

“Yes, it’s true,” Ellen said. “She was sorry, and she does love you. Did.”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Shayne said. “Maybe.”

Dylan watched as mother and daughter hugged each other more tightly, rocking in place, eyes closed, and then Mrs. Shayne pulled away and began to rise to her feet.

“Mom—wait.”

Ellen reached her fingers under the collar of her mother’s navy blouse and fiddled with something Dylan couldn’t see, until she’d pulled it free from her neck—a slim gold chain with a golden amulet hanging from its center. He recognized the symbol immediately—the Eye of Tnahsit—as Ellen flung the necklace across the bed, onto the chair the detective had vacated. It slid to the floor in a tangled, ugly heap.

“But your father gave—”

“I know he gave it to you that day. And that’s why you’re never going to wear it again. Because we’re done with that day, Mom. We’re done. Okay?”

Mrs. Shayne took a long deep breath. “Okay,” she said quietly.

As she took another breath, Dylan noticed something strange: Mrs. Shayne’s coughs had suddenly begun to subside. Her first deep breath led to another, and then another. For as long as he’d known her, he’d never seen her breathe so deep and easy.

“You sounded like Mary just then,” Mrs. Shayne said quietly, rising to her feet. The sunlight caught Dawn’s halo of graying hair, making it look oddly beautiful. “I have to rest now. Honey—are you coming?”

“You go ahead,” Ellen said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

“All right.” Mrs. Shayne gave Dylan a watery smile and then disappeared through the door, taking her menthol cigarette aroma with her.

Dylan was starting to feel sleepy again. Ellen sat back down beside him and took his hand. The sunlight shone against the venetian blinds, which shifted quietly in the air-conditioned breeze.

“I miss her,” Dylan said.

“You don’t have to miss her,” she told him. “Remember what you said on our date? What you told me in the restaurant? ‘The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.’”

He squinted at her.

“Ellen?”

“Yes.”

Dylan tilted his head on the pillow, gazing quizzically at her.

“Mary?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding.

Dylan smiled. His eyes were drifting shut—he needed to go back to sleep. “Enlightenment is a good thing,” he told her. “They say the soul becomes wise at the end of its journey.”

“That’s what they say.”

Dylan took her hand and squeezed it and they smiled at each other in the bright morning sunlight that filled the room.

About the Authors

B
ARNABAS
M
ILLER
has written many books for children and young adults. He also composes and produces music for film and network television. He lives in New York City with his wife, Heidi; their cat, Ted; and their dog, Zooey.

J
ORDAN
O
RLANDO
sold his first novel before his twenty-first birthday. Besides writing, he creates Web sites and works in graphic design and digital cinema. He lives in New York City. You can visit him at
www.jordanorlando.com
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Miller, Barnabas.

7 souls / Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando—1st ed.
p. cm.

Summary: Inexplicable things have been happening to Manhattan socialite Mary since she awoke on her seventeenth birthday, and by the end of the day she has been killed, inhabited the bodies of seven people close to her, and faced some ugly truths about herself.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89381-0

[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.
2. Spirit possession—Fiction. 3. Death—Fiction. 4. Blessing and cursing—
Fiction. 5. Sisters—Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.]
I. Orlando, Jordan. II. Title. III. Title: Seven souls.
PZ7.M61216Aaf 2010

[Fic]—dc22        2009043530

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