1
Two days, twenty-three hours, and thirty-two minutes. Almost three full days since Sabrina Monroe had last spoken to someone who wasn’t a relative. Her record was seven days, four hours, and fifty-five minutes, but still, almost three days was impressive. In her ideal world, she could continue the trend indefinitely, a sweet happily ever after of telecommuting and food delivery.
She sat in the center of a large indoor waterpark, the WWW (Wild World of Waterparks)—or Three Dub, as people had started calling it—the latest addition to the Waterpark Capital of the World. The fake boulders hadn’t yet acquired the usual dust and stuck gum, the colors still popped on the waterslides, and the painted murals were not yet dimmed by years of exposure to eye-burning levels of chlorine. With her feet propped on a white plastic chair, identical to the one she sat in, Sabrina stopped scrolling through the news app on her phone when a stack of towels toppled off a neighboring table into a puddle. She scooped them up, draping the wet towels over chairbacks and setting the still-dry towels at the center of the table, then returned to her lounging position before anyone noticed. Her nieces and nephew, Arabella, Lilly, and Oscar, frolicked in the kiddie area, a three-tiered structure of rope bridges, water cannons, and small slides for the little ones not quite ready to brave the twisty four-story flumes. An enormous bucket dropped one thousand gallons of water every fifteen minutes with a clang, a roar, and a rush of wind that blew over a lazy river circling the entire room, where tubes bobbed like Froot Loops and tweens raced around floating adults, who scowled at their rambunctiousness.
It should have been difficult to take her nieces and nephew to a waterpark without speaking to other people, but she had bought the tickets online, then took refuge among the crowded tables while the kids played. Being alone was always easiest in a crowded, noisy location, and no room was louder or more crowded than an indoor waterpark on a rainy holiday weekend.
Within the confines of this humid, echoing warehouse, Sabrina avoided interacting with people by scrolling through the news on her phone. She didn’t notice the people who stood up with meerkat attentiveness. She didn’t notice the people swiping chairs from other tables. She didn’t notice a nearby angry, tattooed chair-swiping victim returning from the snack bar with a giant fully loaded margarita.
Dumb luck had her looking up from her phone at exactly the wrong moment.
She watched as the Refill-A-Rita catapulted out of the tattooed man’s hand, centrifugal force and a red plastic lid keeping most of the fire-engine-red contents inside until they collided with the bridge of her nose. Tequila-laden pseudo-strawberry slush exploded onto her hair down to her flip-flopped feet, staining her yellow swimsuit a sunset orange and obscuring her vision with kaleidoscoping stars from the surprising pain. Bent over in agony, Sabrina avoided the unexpectedly aerodynamic white plastic chair that followed the margarita as it arced over her head toward the chair swipers.
A man wearing colorful swim trunks emblazoned with red crustaceans fought back a smile as his eyes inspected the substance dripping from her head, confirming Sabrina’s ridiculous appearance. What right did he have to judge her? He had crabs on his pants. As he took a breath to speak, Sabrina broke her no-talking streak.
“Duck,” she said, pointing to his white plastic table as a cup of soda soared over them. Caught in food-fight cross fire, the man crouched under it and out of the fray. Now she could do the same.
Sabrina dropped to the ground and scooted to safety, wiping the worst of the overly sweet slop off her face, the alcohol and red dye stinging her eyes. The warring people around her shouted, more food and plastic water bottles skittered across the wet concrete, and soon tables stuttered as bodies shoved against them. The man huddled under his table an aisle over from her. Around them, the babble of water rushing, children screaming, and parents yelling echoed off the walls and windows, amplifying the noise.
From her location under the table, she could spot her charges scampering in the spraying water, oblivious to the commotion at the nearby tables.
Two beefy men shoved at each other like Greco-Roman wrestlers, hairy bellies bumping against each other. Feet stumbled past her table, knocking her phone into a waiting puddle. She snatched it out of the water as her heart raced. Not her phone. She didn’t have the money to replace it. She dried it off the best she could on a small, still-clean section of her swimsuit.
A pair of delicate feet stopped beside her table, followed by a cheerful face framed by chin-length bouncing blond curls. The woman’s edges blurred into a soft glow as if she stood in front of a lamp. With Ghost Molly, it was barely noticeable. More recently deceased spirits had a blur that made it obvious they were new to the afterlife, helping Sabrina and her mom recognize them.
“Whatcha doing, honey?”
“Hey, Molly.” Sabrina wasn’t surprised to see her here, in the middle of the brouhaha and unconcerned for her safety as a tray of nachos splattered through her toes—the perks of being ethereal. She’d known Ghost Molly all her life, and she often appeared when Sabrina least expected her. Sabrina scooted over to make room. Between one blink and the next, Molly situated herself next to Sabrina under the table, her arms wrapped around her bent knees, excitement sparkling in her eyes. Sabrina checked her phone, making sure it still worked. So far, so good. She clutched it to her chest, careful to keep it out of the sticky margarita.
“This is bananas. What happened?” Molly said.
“Chair swipers. It escalated quickly.” Sabrina’s nose throbbed, the pain seeping across her face like water into dry ground. “Why can’t people use their words?”
“Look at that cutie-patootie.” Molly pointed to the judgmental crustacean-clad man between the chairs and table legs. “Let’s scooch over to his table.”
Sabrina shook her head. Molly loved shoving her toward men. A rush of warm air hit her face from the giant water bucket, drying the melted margarita coating her face and chest. Her skin started to itch.
“This will probably be all over the internet later,” Sabrina said, ignoring Molly’s comment. A nearby table was jostled.
Molly smiled. “Will you show me the videos?”
“Yeah.”
“Pinky promise?” Molly held up her hand with the pinky extended. Sabrina matched the gesture. When their pinkies touched, it was like sticking her finger in a snowbank. Molly beamed. She loved internet videos.
Khaki-encased legs and sturdy shoes walked by the table.
“Security’s here,” Sabrina said.
As Sabrina leaned forward to get onto her hands and knees, a glop of slush fell onto her wrist. Gross. By the time she straightened on her feet, Molly stood next to her, too. She wore high-waisted turquoise swim bottoms that cut in a straight line over her belly button and a matching thick-strapped bikini top that ended under her rib cage, leaving only a couple inches of exposed skin between the top and bottom, so much cuter than the margarita-splotched yellow tankini Sabrina wore. It was infinitely easier to wear cute clothes when you could conjure them with a thought. Molly bounced on the balls of her feet while watching the hubbub around her. Some of the nearby people still shouted as the security team separated the warring families.