Inkling

9.6 How to Get Back

7:45 P.M.

Lane did not, exactly, catch Sophia so much as she grabbed her around the waist and twisted them in midair. They landed hard, but Lane's not-so-alive body absorbed nearly all of the impact. Even so, they bounced and Sophia went flying, rolling through the snow several feet before she finally stopped.

Lane was not sure if she was supposed to be feeling pain. She was dead, after all, and yet she had felt the impact. She felt the ground slam into her back. She felt the pressure of Sophia on top of her. Lane had not had the time to think of something magical to do, she had just turned them and hoped for the best. Lane groaned, whispering a few words that blew a breeze under her back, pushing her to her feet.

"Sophia?" Lane tottered through the snow. When she looked down at her hands she stopped moving entirely. They were see through, like they were disintegrating. It was barely noticeable, almost impossible to tell that she was disappearing. Comforting, she thought, shoving her hands into her pockets. Only faint moaning brought her mind back to the task at hand.

"Are you alright?" Lane hardly needed to ask, she could tell the answer would be no. Sophia was very obviously not conscious, not entirely. There was a gash across her forehead and her wrist was not bending in a direction wrists should bend. "Oh, isn't that just perfect."

Lane whispered a quiet prayer that she would be able to touch her, with her hands dissolving. But, when she pulled her hands out of her pockets they appeared almost normal, so she carefully picked up the unconscious girl, one arm behind her back and one under her knees.

"It'll be okay," she cooed and closed her eyes. She had never transported while carrying another person before.

It went about as well as expected, considering the circumstances. They slammed their way into Lane's room at the Dragon, and it was all Lane could do to keep Sophia from hitting the floor. As it was, she still all but fell onto the bed, leaving Sophia laying there, before turning to clean up the room. She had forgotten how messy she had left it. There was paint everywhere, books on the floor. Back when she thought she had things to be angry about. Back when she thought she had time to be angry about them.

That all felt silly now, why dwell on things that did not have any effect on her life except that which she allowed them to?

She was too busy looking at a balled up piece of paper, one with a sketch she had drawn of herself on it, to realize Sophia had woken up. Her first clue was the loud swearing. Lane's eyebrows shot into her hairline and she started laughing too hard to stop.

"Shit, I did not realize you could say such things, Miss." Sophia was obviously trying to glare, but even she dissolved to laughter after one look at Lane.

"Did we fall off a roof?" She asked between hiccups.

"Did a malevolent spirit seriously descend from your chandelier?"

"I believe so," Sophia started to cry and for a moment Lane could not tell if it was because of the laughing or because they had just fallen off a roof, a spirit had just descended from her chandelier. It had not just done that, it had possessed her father.

"Oh, dear." Lane came to sit next to her on the bed and, after only a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around her. Secretly she had her own reasons for hugging her, because she had begun to cry too. Or, at least, she thought she had. Could semi-resurrected ghosts cry? She had never been one who could watch someone cry. She always burst into tears whenever someone else cried. So Lane hugged Sophia tight and hid her face in the girl's hair. She hugged her but also, secretly, she wished she could kiss her.

"It will be okay. It will always be okay." Lane placed her hand on the back on Sophia's head.

"How do you know?" Sophia sobbed into her shoulder.

"Because it has to be," she whispered, over and over again until they both believed it might be true.