Chapter 26: Founding Residents

The first thing Callum lost after kissing a ghost was seventy-two seconds. His phone put the gap between the second temperature warning and Jo's message. He remembered Sau-lin drawing back, her thumb pressed to her lower lip, the white curl of his own breath in the cold. Then the phone had buzzed, and by the screen's account more than a minute had gone somewhere without him. Sau-lin knelt in front of him on the van floor. Color sat in her face that had belonged to his mouth. Both hands hovered at his shoulders and did not land. "You did not answer me," she said. "What did you ask?" "Whether you could hear me." "Apparently not." "Your eyes were open." "That seems unhelpful." Her worry hardened into irritation, which improved his odds of surviving the conversation. The health monitor read 94.7. The pulse trace ran straight through the missing minute, slow…