by Ivy Asher
My eyes land on a copse of old, time-tested maple trees, and I suddenly recall something I haven’t given any thought to since it happened. Someone was watching Rogan and me that night. I could only make out an unfamiliar dark silhouette, but as I stare at the trees that cloaked the watcher in their inky embrace that night, I’m all at once certain it was Jamie.
I grit my teeth against the rush of memories and sensations that overwhelm me just at the thought of her name. The smell of ash and fear hits me first. My very cells seem to vibrate with the memory of what it felt like to be shocked by the magical barrier over and over again. My grip on the steering wheel tightens painfully as I white-knuckle my way through the onslaught.
She’s gone, I reassure myself, but that fact doesn’t bring the relief I need. The damage she did is irreparable, and there’s still a demon that needs to be brought to justice for their part in it all. Uneasiness skitters over me like insects across my skin. The feeling quickly passes, and I do everything I can to pack all the worry and trauma away to be dealt with later.
I’m in gear, pulling out, and then shooting down the road in less time than it takes Hoot to rip a fat one. Gah, I can’t wait to see that stinky little fucker. I wind my way through the familiar streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, and a list of all the things I need to do before Hoot and I can be reunited races through my mind.
Before I know it, I’m turning down the street that leads to Hillen and Tad’s house. I disconnect the autopilot I clearly activated without realizing it, and swiftly turn down a different road from where I actually want to go. I don’t want to risk being spotted just in case their house is somehow being watched. I feel like some two-bit burglar casing the streets, as I casually make my way down a few back roads, looking for an inconspicuous place to park.
I pull over in front of a house that already has a crap ton of cars parked in front of it, my eyes peeled for anything that looks out of the ordinary. My key feels warm in my palm as I pull it from the ignition and grip it tightly in my hand. I jump out, shutting the door as quietly as I can, before crossing the street.
Out of habit, I lace my key between my fingers as I move. I scoff with amusement when I realize what I’ve done. Really, Lennox? Keys as a weapon? My whole existence is a weapon now. I chuckle to myself as I look around at the alleys, blind corners, and obstructed throughways between houses with a new light. Let some mugger think I’m prey; my magic has been primed for a fight since I first woke up.
I go from slinking through the familiar neighborhood like I’m up to no good, to strutting like a tomcat on the prowl. Maybe it’s arrogant to think I could take on anything right now. Maybe I’m riding some post-resurrection high. I’ll have to ask Rogan if he felt like this after he woke up. Either way, I’m feeling confident as fuck right now. You’d think I was some high-paid model walking down a runway in designer duds instead of sporting stolen scrubs and a case of bed head that has to be alarmingly intense at this point.
I wonder if Cardi B would do an anthem for me. She’d be perfect, she’s the level of Bad Bitch I’m feeling right now.
I don’t spot anything or anyone that would make me think Hillen’s house is on any other witch’s radar. Still, I cover my tracks as much as possible by opening Mrs. Falcone’s gate and making my way through her backyard to the four loose fence planks that separate her green space from my Aunt Hillen’s.
The loose boards move aside as though they’re helpful bellmen and not the barrier they’re supposed to be. I immediately feel less tense as I step onto Hillen’s lawn. Shockingly, her garden looks as though it could use a good weeding. I tsk quietly. Grammy Ruby would be appalled. I test the handle of Hillen’s large slider, eyeing the kitchen window just in case this doesn’t open, but to my relief the glass pane slides smoothly over, and I’m bombarded by the smell of fresh-baked bread, incense, and irises.
Melancholy and loss reach out and slap me hard across the face. The scents wrap around me, immediately reminding me of my dad and his funeral along with the few other times this collection of specific and meaningful smells filled the walls of this house. Sure enough, the counter has warm loaves still in their pans cooling down on racks. I can picture the tears dripping down my aunt’s face as she kneaded her sorrow into those loaves, the urge riding her to do something, to control something in an otherwise completely helpless time.
My throat tightens at the thought that these loaves are for me. I shouldn’t be here to smell the sorrow wafting around this kitchen right now, but I am. In a normal world, there’s no stealing someone’s loss and grief. No matter how much you may want to shoulder that burden for someone else, it’s impossible, and yet here I stand in Hillen’s kitchen ready to do just that.
“Hillen?” I call out, the shout shattering the sad stillness all around me. “Tad?” I try again, moving further into the house when no one answers.
Uninvited nerves begin to churn in my stomach when the house stays silent.
“Tad? Hillen?” I shout even louder as I turn a corner to the base of the stairs that lead up to the second floor.
Shocked, I stop dead in my tracks when I find Tad is standing in the middle of the stairs in a very wrinkled T-shirt and sweats that look as though he’s been living in them for a while. He stares at me, bruising dark circles cradling flat, listless eyes. His light brown hair looks worse than I think even mine does right now. He’s pale, haggard as hell, and not in a state I’ve ever witnessed before.
“Leni?” he rasps in awe, and then it’s as though his legs give out, and he sits hard on the stairs, clutching the railing for dear life as agony tears through him.
I rush to him, two stairs at a time, as the sobs take over his body, and he buries his face in the crook of his elbow and cries. I did this to him, and I hate it. The magnitude of his loss is all-consuming, and my own eyes fill with tears as I pull him from the railing to me. He doesn’t fight my embrace, and all I can get out between my own wracking wails is that I’m sorry. I repeat the two-worded lament over and over again as we drown the stairs in our tears and cling to each other with everything we have.
We stay like that for what feels like an hour. Me apologizing for the pain he’s clearly drowning in, and him just clinging to me and purging every ounce of devastation. It’s brutal and strangely validating. To know that you’re loved that much, to get what he’s going through because it would be me in the wrinkled sweats and choking sobs if the roles were reversed.
Hillen doesn’t join us, leading me to conclude that she must be out somewhere. I have an itch crawling just under my skin to find her, to make sure she doesn’t take another step or live another second with the heartache I know she’s feeling. I get why Rogan wouldn’t have done anything to possibly give them false hope, but I hate that they’ve been going through so much for nothing.
“I’m here. I’m back,” I reassure Tad, hoping it will help him surface from the grief. Both of our tears have dried up, but there’s an echo of a sob still shaking through his chest, and I know he’s not all the way free of the toll agony and loss has taken on him.
“Did you bring them? Is that how this works?” he asks, his tone subdued and sadly resolute.
“Bring what?” I ask, confused, leaning down so I can look him in the eye and try to discern what he’s saying.
“Ma said there was a reason we hadn’t found them yet, that you would get them to one of us when the time was right. Is this some top secret Osteomancer ritual that you only find out about when you’re the chosen one?” he asks, his mahogany eyes searching mine. “Is Grammy here?” he presses, suddenly looking around, a spark of hope momentarily chasing away the forlorn look in his gaze.
Grammy? Here?
I stare at Tad, confused for a beat, and then realization kicks in like a donkey kick to the ass.
“Tad, I’m here,” I explain, but the illumination of understanding doesn’t flick on in his stare. “I came back,” I add, trying to make myself clearer.
“I know,
” he tells me, his eyes welling with emotion. “It’s so fucked up seeing you like this, but I’m so glad I can. Will you stay with me...or do we only have so long?” he questions, a hint of desperation settling in his words.
“No, Tad, you’re not hearing me,” I try, switching tactics from delicate explanation to flashing neon sign of truth. “I’m not dead. I’m alive and sitting next to you right now.”
Tad leans away from me, his eyes flitting around our surroundings like he’s searching for clarity and it’s written on the walls and the ceiling. He shakes his head as though he doesn’t like the words he’s about to speak and turns back to me. “No, Lennox, you died,” he tells me, his eyes soft and compassionate as if he’s breaking bad news to me. “Rogan told us what happened. How he was too late. Ma decked him.”
My eyes widen with shock. “She what?” I demand, half sympathetic to how awful that must have been for Rogan and half wishing I could have been there to watch. I mean, I may love the dude, but he’s pulled some slap-worthy moves in the short time we’ve known each other.
“Not at first, ya know, we were in complete shock. But after Rogan explained what happened, Ma said she wanted to see you, that she couldn’t believe it until she saw with her own eyes.”
Tad runs his hand down his exhausted face and huffs out a breath that sounds like it carries the weight of the world on it.
“Rogan made a call, and the next thing we knew, someone in a morgue was videoing us and showing you on a table with a sheet draped over you.” Tad’s voice cracks with sorrow, but he shakes his head, refusing to give into the ache of anguish now breathing down on him.
“You know how Ma gets, as soon as she accepted what Rogan was saying, she went into Hillen mode. She started working out where to have the funeral. What flowers you would want. Whether or not to have music at the memorial service. She started asking about how to get your remains transferred here, and Rogan got weird. Said she couldn’t have them for a while, that they needed to do some tests or something on the magic that kept you from healing.”
I close my eyes, knowing exactly how Rogan would have sounded and all the red flags that would have shot up for Tad and Hillen. He would have sounded vague and cagey, and they would have known he was hiding something. They would have thought the worst, and Rogan would have let them to protect his secret...or what he hoped would become our secret.
Shit.
I tune back into Tad and what he’s saying.
“So, like I said, you’re dead. But hey, look on the bright side, from the look of things, you found someone fun to play doctor with on the other side,” he points out, gesturing to my stolen scrubs and sounding more like the Tad I know and love. He nudges my shoulder with his. “Does he have wings? Do they do anything besides look hot and make him fly?” he teases, his voice playful and doing a good job of masking an undercurrent of desolation.
“Tad, you seriously think I’m in heaven looking like this?” I demand, fluffing my dry ass curls.
I swear they make a crunching noise.
He looks me over, and there’s no hiding the slight cringe he makes.
“I don’t know what in the fucked up Grey’s Anatomy you ghosts get up to, Lentil Soup. I’m not here to judge,” he reassures me.
I roll my eyes and give him an obvious once over. “That’s probably a good thing, because if you took a good look at the state you’re in right now, you might never recover,” I taunt on a laugh as I push up to my feet.
“I am in mourning,” he counters, swatting my side with a chuckle before following me down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” he asks when I make a beeline for the kitchen.
“I’m starving, and I saw some muffins down here when I came in.” I grab the Ziploc bag of baked goods, mentally chanting please be blueberry, please be blueberry as I open it up and unabashedly shove one in my mouth. I moan loudly as the flavors hit my tongue.
Yasss! Blueberry for the win!
I close my eyes in pure bliss and pretty much swallow the whole thing in two chews before quickly wolfing another one down. There. Happy now? I ask my stomach as I reach for a third muffin.
“Leni, what’s going on?” Tad asks, uncertainty ringing in his tone. “I thought I’d be the next in line, but where are the bones? And how are you doing that? Ghosts can’t eat. Is this some kind of optical illusion?” he questions, the last part more of a mumbled explanation he’s telling himself versus a question actually directed at me.
My mouth is too full to politely yell at him that I’m not dead, so I simply level him with a look of exasperation. Guarding my bag of blueberry treasures, I walk toward him, hip checking him into the fridge as I leave the kitchen. “Can ghosts do that, Tad?” I point out, but it comes out a bit garbled by the muffin in my mouth.
“Rude!” he calls after me before regaining his footing and following close on my heels.
I head down the hall and find myself wrapped up in the warm familiarity of the cream-colored walls and the pictures hung all over of bad school portraits, the Osseous ancestors that came before us, and the silly pictures of family vacations and get-togethers. I gorge myself as I go, wandering into the guest room where I locate the drawer that houses some of my I’m too drunk or tired to drive home clothes. Turning to Tad, I take a deep breath and let my eyes grow serious. “I know this is a lot to take in, and I can’t even tell you how sorry I am for what you and Hillen have been through since I died, but I need you to listen to me, like really listen, Tad,” I tell him, my throat tightening with emotion as he nods his understanding, his gaze confused and clearly trying to make sense of what’s happening.
“Rogan told you the truth, I did die. What he didn’t tell you is that he knew a way to bring me back. He wasn’t sure if it was going to work, which is why he didn’t say anything to you or Hillen before.” I place both of my hands on Tad’s arms so he can feel me, adjusting my position so our eyes are level. “When I say I’m here, Tad, I mean that I’m really here. I’m flesh and blood, frizzy curls and a beating heart. I’m alive. I’m not a ghost here to deliver the bones. The bones are still mine because I’m not dead. Well, not anymore anyway.”
I give his biceps a little squeeze, hoping the contact punctuates my point. Tad just stares at me, his eyes unsure but analyzing. He looks like he doesn’t know what to believe. I can see that he wants to but that it’s just too much to even hope for.
“I swear on Rufio and the epic love you two would have shared if he hadn’t died in Hook,” I tell him, not an ounce of humor in the declaration, because we never joke about the great loves of our youth.
Tad’s hands shoot up to cover his mouth, a small gasp escaping before he can hide it behind his palms. He shakes his head, like reality is just too much to take in right now. Then all at once, shaking arms wrap around me, tightening to a bone-crushing pressure that grounds my soul and tells me that he finally gets it. He believes.
“Rufio died a hero,” Tad sobs after a couple of minutes.
“Bangarang,” I confirm, my own tears once again dripping down my face as we hug.
“Even Hook knew he fucked up. He stopped fighting and everything,” Tad goes on, hugging me even tighter.
“I mean, he’s no Spot Conlon,” I counter, picking up on an age-old argument as tranquility settles over me.
Tad scoffs, pulling away to clear the tears from his cheeks and wipe his nose on the inside of his shirt. “Oh please, Rufio would have swept the floor with that Newsie. A slingshot just isn’t going to cut it against seasoned sword skills.”
“Spot is a brawler,” I defend for the thousandth time. “That’s why all the other Newsies were afraid of him, and don’t even start with how he was probably too short for me.”
My cousin’s eyes are alight with love and happiness as he takes me in, and things suddenly feel right. Like it doesn’t matter that the Order could be hunting me as we speak or that maybe Rogan could feel differently about everything now that I’m back. Tad isn’t
hurting anymore, and that’s all that matters to me right now.
“How?” he asks, taking me in, his voice and visage filled with awe and confusion.
I turn to the attached bathroom and set my clothes and the almost empty bag of muffins on the counter. “It’s a long story,” I warn, turning on the water in the shower before shutting the bathroom door behind me.
“I ain’t afraid of a long story, spill the tea...and don’t leave out any details,” he shouts through the door, and I chuckle.
“Well, it started when a tall, dark, and dickish man of mystery walked into my life…” I begin dramatically, shouting through the door and filling Tad in on every single detail as I step into the shower and wash away the last remnants of death and resurrection from my skin.
3
“Holy shit,” Tad exclaims for about the thousandth time.
“I know,” I agree, as I scrunch product into my curls and open up the drawer that houses a diffuser attachment.
“Demons are no joke,” he warns, as though I didn’t just witness that fact firsthand.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I shout over the whir of the blow dryer. “I love that you’re more concerned with the demon part of that story than the fact that I came back from the dead,” I tease.
“Oh, I have every intention of freaking out about that. All in good time, Leno. I’m just trying to process the manageable parts of your story, and demons run screaming to the top of that list.”
“Fair enough,” I concede with a chuckle.
I probably shouldn’t feel so lighthearted right now; the Crone knows my life could turn back into a clusterfuck any second now, but I’m clean, my belly is full, my loved one isn’t suffocating on heartache anymore, and I just feel...good. Better than good, really. Power is humming through my veins, and the gnawing unease that’s been tugging at me since I woke up is suddenly calm and replaced by determination and relief.