DERPXP

The beastly ghost had not given Star its name. To be fair, she hadn’t asked for it, but that wasn’t exactly a priority right now.

Star tipped her head back as much as she could, trying to see past the purplish red foliage and into the green of what passed for sky here in the Ghost Zone. As before, there were only a few patches in the canopy; there was no wind here to stir the branches, or at least there wasn’t at the moment, and the ghost boy hadn’t conveniently shown up to rescue her.

Okay, fine, maybe asking wouldn’t get her incinerated on the spot.

Star looked back to the troll of a ghost, who was currently sitting on the stump of the tree it had recently felled with alarmingly few swipes of its onyx claws and was whittling what looked like elongated vampire stakes out of the branches.

There were at least ten at its feet already.

“Hey,” she called, hoping the interruption wouldn’t end with her having a stake in her own heart. “Why am I here?”

She wasn’t even sure at this point if it spoke English. It might not be able to understand her. It had probably grabbed her by mistake. Yeah, that had to be it. It had been looking for someone else, had found her, thought it had had the right person, and it didn’t. She just needed to figure out how to communicate that, and maybe it would take her back. She’d pretty much settle for anywhere in the state right now; it didn’t have to be Amity Park.

This would be a lot easier if she could use her hands.

Or if she actually knew any amount of sign language. Any sign language.

Even that nerd language Foley pulled out at random moments might have helped her, had she known any of it.

Deep red eyes met hers, vivid as iron-rich blood, and a shudder ran through her at the obvious intelligence within them.

The ghost’s lip curled, revealing more teeth than the two lower fangs she’d seen previously. “Bait.”

The ghost’s voice was deep. Gruff, a bit gravelly, not exactly guttural. It didn’t even sound like it—he, maybe? They? She? Star didn’t know and wasn’t keen on asking ever, let alone right now; the ghost might not even have a concept of gender she understood—it didn’t even sound like they had an accent, not to her ears.

…which was deeply unfortunate, as that made it far less likely that she’d misheard them. “What?”

“You’re bait.”

Okay, so she hadn’t misheard them.