Read Online The Twilight Prisoner by Katherine Marsh - Free Book Online Page A

“When she was alive, her name was Deirdre.”
    Cora pointed to Euri’s silhouette as it veered onto Fifth Avenue. “Do you think we’re going to her parents’ apartment now?”
    Jack shook his head, perplexed. “I think we’ve already passed it.”
    They continued to follow Euri as she flew due east, over the Chapman School and Park Avenue and toward tall apartment buildings on the easternmost edge of the city. As soon as they hurtled over these buildings—Cora clutching his hand tight—they could see the snaking line of red brake lights on the FDR Drive, and beyond it, the dark expanse of the East River. Jack knew that New York ghosts couldn’t leave the island of Manhattan, but he almost wondered whether Euri was trying to.
    Then, just as she neared the river, she veered sharply south, racing over the cars stuck on the crowded highway below and into a different type of traffic—hundreds of ghosts merging and shifting on an aerial freeway.
    â€œHold on,” said Jack as they joined the throng, making sure to stay a dozen or more ghosts behind Euri so she wouldn’t notice them. Many of the ghosts were aggressive fliers, cutting in front of Jack and Cora, and nearly causing them to crash.
    â€œOn your left, Jack!” Cora shrieked as a ghost in an African tunic nearly rammed into them.
    â€œWatch out!” she shouted as a naked baby in an enormous lace bonnet swerved in front of them.
    â€œI saw the baby,” Jack muttered. Cora, he realized, was a backseat flier, and she was making him tense.
    But the ghostly traffic moved quickly and they sped through Turtle Bay and past the United Nations. At Houston Street, Euri hung a right and moved westward into the city, flying low past clumps of living teenagers from the projects and hipsters in T-shirts, past the Jewish delis and high-end clothing boutiques and cramped-looking bars. Euri turned onto Ludlow Street and sailed through the window of a four-story brick tenement. Jack put his finger to his lips as he and Cora landed on the fire escape and peeked into the apartment.
    The apartment was one of the smallest Jack had ever seen—a single room with a stove and sink at one end and a bed at the other. The phone was unplugged and clothes were scattered across the floor. An unshaven man sat slumped on the bed, a notebook beside him, plucking at a guitar. He was very pale and had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in a long time. “Enjoy this double destruction. . . .” he sang in a whiny tenor.
    But before he could finish the line, Euri pulled on one of his guitar strings until it snapped. “Oh, man,” he said as the string sprang into the air. “Not again.”
    With a sigh, he stood up and walked to a guitar case propped against the wall. As he knelt down and pulled a coil of wire from inside it, Euri kicked the case. It fell over and hit him on the head. The man rubbed his head and laughed in an eerie way.
    â€œI can’t believe it,” Jack said turning to Cora. “Euri’sa poltergeist.”
    â€œA what?” whispered Cora.
    â€œA poltergeist,” Jack repeated. “Normally the dead can’t affect the living when they haunt. But if something tragic separated them, the dead can do things to a living person like . . . well, like that.” He pointed back inside the apartment. Euri had flown over to the sink and turned on the faucet. The man didn’t get up, just dully watched the water blasting into the sink.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with him?” Jack whispered.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Cora. “Hemust be someone Euri knew when she was alive.”
    â€œHe must be. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to haunt him like this.”
    Cora peered at the man. “How old do you think he is?”
    Jack shrugged. “Thirty, maybe?”
    â€œNo, he’s younger. Maybe twenty-two or twentythree,” said