Page 95 of Dragon 7

Above the canopy, above the high branches where the moon laid silver across the topmost leaves, I felt a presence.

A pressure.

A displacement.

Air that had shape.

But, I could not see anything.

The sky stayed black. The clouds stayed where they were. The moon kept its slow climb. But the air above us was wrong, and my chest knew it, and the hair at the back of my neck knew it, and my teeth knew it.

Is that the dragon-shadow? Can my brother actually control that thing? Or has he become as crazy as me?

Still, Kenji looked at the field calmly while something massive moved above us in the dark.

A colder thought slid in beside the first one.

It might be nothing at all.

The way the ghosts might be nothing. The way the woman with her wrists open on the third-floor landing of my father's mansion might have been nothing. The way the man with the wrong neck in the wine cellar might have been nothing.

The way Nura, smiling with the bullet hole at her temple, might be nothing.

No. She is. . .everything. . .even her ghost. . .if anything. . .that is the one ghost that is real.

I had spent my entire life unable to answer that one question. Real. Or in my head. Both possibilities weighed exactly the same in my chest. Both terrified me equally. And right now I really needed to know the answer because. . .on the field a ghost baby crawled, and I did not want that to be real either.

Yes. This must all be my imagination because if this is true then a little baby died tonight on this island. . .and I don’t know if I can survive that information.

The lollipop went sweet again. Honeyed yuzu rolled across my tongue with that clean white-peach finish.

And I watched the ghost baby girl as she crawled onto the field, absolutely curious about the world around her.

She had light brown skin and black curly hair that glowed in the silver of the moonlight. A pink onesie covered her little body. Both chubby hands moved across the grass in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

One hand.

Then the other hand.

Then the tiny knee.

Then the other knee.

Blood dripped down her adorable face. It was a thin dark line from her right temple, across her cheekbone, and down to her jaw.

The blood was wet.

Fresh.

And I could smell it from here.

A cold shiver ran through me.

This ghost is wrong. Why is this happening to me?

The lollipop stopped moving in my mouth.

I scanned everyone else’s faces—the Claws, the Fangs, Reo, and Kenji, even some Scales. No one else saw that sweet little baby girl on the field.