Holly's voice, once the pride of the capital, ripped from her throat in a jagged, splintering shriek.
"GET AWAY!"
Holly screamed, her hands flying up to shield her face from the rotting visage of her sister. But the timing could not have been more cruel. The crowd, caught in a fever pitch of adoration, didn't hear a scream of terror.
The mass of people, driven by a desperate need to be close to the "holy child," surged toward the plinth. The sheer force of the moving bodies became an unruly. In the chaos of the push, the small, cloaked figure of the Hoppy wraith was simply swallowed by the sea of people.
One moment she was there, her dead eyes burning into Holly's soul, and the next, she vanished into the shadows between legs and capes as if she had never existed at all.
Holly cried, but her voice was lost in the roar of the crowd's praise.
"No! No, stop! You're crushing me!"
