The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  "How are you feeling?" she asked Cecily, ticking a nod at the discarded blanket. "Not as cold, apparently."

  Cecily's smile was even more genuine this time. "I do feel a little better, actually."

  Good, Zander thought. She could let go of that bit of worry.

  "I think I might go take a shower," Cecily went on, standing from the sofa. She stretched her arms over her head and Zander caught a glimpse of the sigil she'd drawn on her own forearm. She'd said it had helped.

  Zander smiled at her youngest sister as she passed, Rhia following close behind.

  "I think you have a new admirer," Zander called after Cecily, who laughed as she disappeared into the bedroom she shared with Alyssa.

  Zander waited to talk again until she heard the bathroom door close behind Cecily. She turned to Alyssa. "She seems better. You agree?"

  Alyssa gave a nod. "Definitely. She looked like absolute hell until she drew that thing on her arm. It seemed to help."

  The water rushing through the pipes could suddenly be heard, which meant Cecily had cranked on the shower—which meant Zander was even less likely to be overheard.

  She looked to Alyssa once again: "Can you go make Cecily's bed? I'm glad she looks better, but she still doesn't look well. She should go to bed as soon as she's out of the shower."

  "On it." Alyssa began pushing herself up from the sofa.

  "I'm going to get Callum set up in my room."

  Alyssa froze. The only movement was her highlighted hair as it slipped over her shoulder. "Mom is gonna freak."

  "No she won't," Zander replied calmly. "And you might have told her we were coming, but do you really think she’d love walking into the apartment in the wee hours of the morning to the sight of somebody she’s never met sleeping on the sofa?”

  Alyssa considered that statement, then nodded. "Yeah, okay." Then she crossed the room and disappeared into her and Cecily's room.

  Zander gave a low, under-her-breath chuckle as she shook her head. She'd been expecting that reaction from Alyssa. Not that it made much sense: Their mom wasn't particularly strict, especially since they were all grown and plenty old enough to move out on their own—if any of them could afford it. It was more a respect thing that kept her from shacking up with Callum, not a rules thing. As much as she wished she could dismiss the respect part for the night...

  She looked to Callum and pushed herself up from the sofa. "Come on. I’ll show you where to crash."

  One of his eyebrows raised as he stood to follow, obviously more comfortable now that they were alone. "Do you have to sleep out here?"

  She gave him a look of only half-serious censure. "Yes, I do." But the moment of levity was quickly overshadowed by her own anxiety again. "Cecily looks like hell," she mumbled as she crossed the room with Callum on her heels. Her bedroom door was just off the living room—across the room from her mom’s bedroom door.

  "That's kind of to be expected," Callum replied. "She's had a hell of a few days. Which sucks. She seems really cool."

  That made Zander smile. "Rhia certainly appears to be a big fan, at least."

  "She knows Cecily needs protection. Rhia's good like that," Callum said. "And yeah, I'd have liked Cecily anyway, but Rhia's enthusiasm sealed the deal."

  Zander couldn't help but laugh quietly at that as she reached for her door, but Callum's fingers found her other hand before she could get the thing open. She turned to find his eyes serious and full of so much care.

  "She's gonna be fine," he said. "We'll fix this."

  Zander drew a breath, then let it out on a whoosh of an exhale. "How?"

  Callum paused. Then his shoulders slowly rose and fell. "I’m not sure yet. But we will. I swear."

  Okay. Zander had to trust the sincerity of his gaze. Plus, what other option did she have? So she smiled her best thank-you-smile and gave a nod. "I'm glad you're here."

  The words were out of her mouth before she'd thought them through. They felt weighty and important—and more than she would have said to him under normal circumstances, but Callum's smile in response was so warm and so bright, her knee jerk almost-embarrassment didn’t even have the chance to blossom.

  "Okay, so show me this room of yours," he said, motioning toward the door like he knew she needed him to change the subject.

  Here goes nothing, Zander thought for the second time in as many hours as she pushed the door open.

  The walls of her room were the same creamy white as the living room—but you could only see the color in the inches between all the framed art, postcards, drawings, words, and letters that hung on the walls in an orderly, framed, frenzy of images.

  Exactly how she'd left it.

  Callum crossed slowly into the room, but Zander hung back by the door.

  "So, yeah," she said, closing them in together. "You can sleep in here—I'll be just out on the sofa, like I said."

  Callum turned around to face her. "How long did it take you to collect all of this?"

  Zander smiled and glanced around. "Since high school, I guess." She'd started collecting images she liked and framing them in tenth grade. The collection had grown and changed over time until it was the crazy patchwork quilt of framed pictures that hung on her walls today.

  "A lot of stuff got left at the house when my mom and dad split up," she said, "but I didn't leave a single frame there. Clothes, yes—there are a lot of T-shirts I'll never get back—but I couldn't leave these behind."

  He stepped into her as she finished the sentence, surprising her when he drew a hand to the side of her neck; his thumb stroked along her cheekbone.

  Normally, she would have pulled away from something as tender and intimate as that. But not with him. It didn't feel put on. With him, it felt natural.

  "I don't know why I blurt details like that when I'm with you," she said, shaking her head. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and looked up at him, holding his hand to her skin.

  "I'm glad you tell me that stuff," he said, his voice low. "I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who spills details I wouldn't normally say to anybody else."

  He brought his mouth down to hers.

  She kissed him but pulled back when she normally would have stepped in. "We can't do it here."

  His brows furrowed, but she could see in his eyes that he was joking. "Oh? Why not?"

  "It's too weird," she replied. She looked around the room again. "I've barely been gone a month, and already none of this feels like mine."

  He looked around to the room like she was doing. "It's definitely yours. You're everywhere in here."

  She laughed, stepping out of his arms and crossing to the bed where she sat down on the tucked, purple comforter. It was equally as weird to see him in her room as it was to be here to begin with. If she was being logical, she needed to clean out her things so Cecily or Alyssa could move in. It was pretty silly to make them share a room while this one sat vacant—most of the time, at least. Maybe she’d work on that next time she came.

  She watched Callum look around again, his eyes scanning the walls. It was funny, she normally wouldn't have let someone she'd known for so little time into this room. It was her sanctuary.

  Maybe it wasn't that anymore though, now that she'd moved out.

  Or maybe Callum wasn't a normal someone.

  She saw his brows furrow with question.

  "Z?" he asked, ticking a nod at a monogram hanging on the wall.

  "For Zander," she replied. Duh.

  "I thought Zander was spelled with an X."

  Ah. Right. "It is," she said. "But I spelled it with a Z when I was a kid, and it stuck."

  Callum's lips parted like he was trying to figure out what to say to that for a second. "What kid gets to decide how to spell their own name?"

  "A kid who's writing the nickname she came up with," she replied simply. And purposefully cryptic.

  She watched his eyes go wide as he realized what she was saying. "Zander is a nickname?"

  Her smirk
was part grimace. "Yep. And that's all you're getting." Having him in her room was one thing. Having him know her given name?

  Nope. Not gonna happen.

  "You can't leave me hanging like that!" he exclaimed, crossing to her, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. He pulled her close, drawing her to him with hands on her hips.

  She leaned into him with a laugh, looking up at him and shaking her head—even while she felt her resolve loosening. "I don't have to tell you anything."

  "You are such a tease."

  She eyed him for a moment. Here he was, standing in her room. In her family's apartment.

  He knew more about her than anybody outside of her sisters and mother. She’d told him things she’d never told her friends.

  And she wasn't scared. Not right in that moment.

  What was this compared to the rest of it? A name she'd never used? That didn't feel like hers?

  So she told him, "Lysander."

  It took a second, but she saw it register on his expression when he realized what she'd just told him. "Lysander? That's your first name?"

  She nodded. "Congratulations. You're now one of, like, five people who know that."

  He laughed victoriously and tucked his face into her neck, wrapping his arms around her.

  She laughed in return, wrapping her arms around his chest and reveling in the frightening power of sharing herself with another.

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  "Any changes since your last appointment?" Wren stood facing the counter as she reviewed her patient's charts. It was safer this way. If she didn't look at her, she wouldn't say or do anything...unprofessional.

  "No changes, no," the girl sitting on the exam table replied.

  She was wearing a pale green button-down shirt, just a few shades lighter than her eyes. Her blond hair was pulled up on top of her head, revealing two simple studs in each ear above her long, slender neck.

  Not that Wren had noticed any of that in the moments she'd seen her before turning to the counter.

  "How was your week?" she asked and Wren smiled. She couldn't help it. Something about this girl made her feel comfortable, warm. Like pulling on a pair of sweats fresh out of the dryer after trudging home in the rain.

  But she didn't turn around. "It was good. How was yours?"

  "Eh. Fine. Do you want to talk to your mom?"

  That had Wren spinning around. "I'm sorry, what?"

  "Your mom," her patient, Bridgette, replied. "She hangs around you. She has a message, if you want it."

  "My mom passed away when I was a kid," Wren replied. And this was so not an appropriate conversation to have here. She started to turn back to the charts, to keep asking all the questions she needed to ask.

  "I know that," Bridgette replied. "That's why she's using me to talk to you."

  Wren froze. With her back to her patient, she drew a breath and blew it out. She knew this kind of stuff existed—she'd just never been confronted with it before.

  "I'm a medium," the girl went on. "Well, that's not exactly true. I have an acquired spiritual sensitivity, but what's the difference, right? So I'm a medium—and you're a witch."

  Wren spun around, eyes wide. "What did you say?" Had this girl been watching her?

  Her smile spread. "You're a witch," she said again, then ticked a nod to the left like there was somebody standing across the room. "She told me. She knows because she was one."

  Wren hadn't told anyone about that. About her odd intuition, the way she could feel people sometimes. "I can't talk about this here," she said, shaking her head. If someone overheard them, it could destroy her career.

  "When do you get off work?"

  "Six."

  "Okay. I'll meet you here at six, then," Bridgette said.

  "Not here," Wren replied. "At the coffee shop on Common, near Carondelet street. You know that one?"

  "Yeah, it's only a quick walk from here."

  Wren had a moment of doubt—should she be asking her to walk there?

  "I'll order a ride if I need to," Bridgette added, almost like she could hear Wren's thoughts. "But I'll be fine. I have a heart condition—I'm not an invalid. Now I'll stop engineering dates with you and let you do your job."

  When Wren woke up, she was almost smiling.

  She'd been in bed for more than twenty-four hours, save the minutes she'd gotten up to drink water or use the bathroom. She hadn't intended to stay in bed so long, but every time she got up, getting back in was the only thing that sounded tolerable. So, as she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the edge, she didn't expect any different. But as she tiptoed over the shattered glass she'd left on the floor, she was surprised to feel the urge to clean it up.

  She pulled the broom and dustpan out from beside the refrigerator. Then she carefully swept the shards of sparkling glass into a pile on the wood floor before crouching down, dustpan in hand. The glass made a tinkling sound as she slowly dumped it into trash bin. The cheery sound hurt her ears.

  Broom put away, Wren stood sipping a glass of water and staring out into her apartment without really seeing it. Her eyes skated around the room without real intention—until they landed on the dining table.

  She wanted to sit there.

  So she crossed the room, rounding the end of the kitchen counter and pulling out a chair before dropping into it.

  At first, she wasn't sure why she'd wanted to sit here. Then her impassive eyes slipped over the fabric-wrapped deck of tarot cards.

  That was why she was here, she thought as they pulled at her. As her fingers warmed.

  So, swallowing the phantom ache in her chest, she reached and drew the deck close to her. With almost-shaking fingers, she untied the knot that kept them wrapped. With an exhale, she spread the colored fabric out onto the table, revealing the tarot deck she'd bought with Bridgette by her side when everything had been new—magic, tarot, the two of them. She expected to cry, or for the anger to rise into her throat again until she had to scream or be strangled—but it didn't.

  Her fingers were steady as she spread the cards out in front of her. She hovered her hand above them, waiting for an instinct, a reason to choose the first one. When it came, it was different than it had been before.

  In the past, when she chose cards, it felt like a choice. This did not. Her fingers landed on the card like it had sucked her fingers to its surface, or a force had pushed her hand down onto it.

  So she slid it from the scattered deck, and when she lifted it, the tears that welled in her eyes weren't angry or desperate. They were bittersweet—but at least there was sweet there with the bitter.

  The High Priestess: Bridgette's card.

  Every time Wren had done a reading where Bridgette was the subject—especially when she'd read alone—this card was the first she drew.

  Every. Time.

  "What do you want me to know?" she breathed as she laid the card onto the table and reached for the next.

  Again, the card reached for her fingers, pulling them down.

  The Wheel of Fortune.

  Then again—The Four of Cups—with the same insistence.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until Wren's cheeks were washed in tears and her stretching smile was at once unsurprised and disbelieving.

  Tarot was subjective. There were various ways to interpret every card, each direction it might be laid. There were infinite ways to interpret the message a set of cards might represent, the advice as individual as the person receiving it.

  There were very few ways Wren could interpret this message, however. This message from Bridgette. Telling her to follow their plans. Not to put her life on hold any longer. To have the adventures they were supposed to have together.

  To cut and run, if that's what she needed.

  And that’s exactly what she needed, she realized with startling clarity.

  The thought of leaving this apartment, of quitting her job—it was the only future thinking that felt tenable.
Across the room, her phone rang.

  She intended to let it go to voicemail, but with the second ring, she found herself up and padding across her hardwood floor. She fished her phone from her purse, noting it still had more than half of the battery life left after two days of not being used as she tapped the green icon and brought the phone to her ear.

  “Hey, Zander. What’s up?” Her voice sounded like shit.

  “Oh, thank god you answered!” Zander sighed by way of a greeting. “Listen, I’m a bitch. If I insulted you when we were drinking the other night and you told me about being a witch, I’m legit sorry. Consider my foot so far into my mouth I’m choking on it, okay?”

  Wren almost smiled. “I wasn’t insulted at all,” she said. “I’d all but forgotten about it.” Honestly, the memory felt so far removed from her life right now, it might as well have been a decade ago.

  “Oh, good,” Zander replied, obviously relieved. “Because I have a situation and I need your advice.”

  Wren drew a breath, blinking slowly to gather her strength as she crossed back to the dining table and took a seat once again. “What’s up?”

  “Okay, remember that guy I was seeing?” Zander began.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Well, he’s a medium. Like, an honest-to-god, talks-to-ghosts medium.”

  Wren thought her heart might have stopped beating. It felt like she’d been kicked in the chest.

  “So is Cecily,” Zander went on. “My little sister, that is.” She went on to tell Wren about a shadowy figure who’d been stalking both of them. That they were going to try to destroy it, or banish it or something, but she didn’t have any idea how.

  But maybe Wren did?

  Wren shook her head and sighed. She didn’t have the energy for this—but she couldn’t leave Zander high-and-dry either. That said, she didn’t know a lot about this stuff. The spirit world had always been Bridgette’s area of interest.

  Fuck ton of good that did them all right then, though.

  “Am I crazy?” Zander asked after a pause. “Tell me if this is all too nuts to be real. Like, are they all shitting me?”

  “They aren’t shitting you,” Wren said. At least, she assumed they weren’t. It was all too accurate to be the imaginings of a bunch of people who’d never encountered this kind of thing before.