by Pat Esden
Disappointment shadowed his eyes. “Is that all? Are you sure?”
No, she wasn’t sure. Mother of all Goddesses, he couldn’t be… of all the people in this world.
Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening in shock. Her subconscious had tried to tell her when he’d passed in the truck. And again later in the night, when she’d been lying in her bed thinking about him on the other side of the wall… most of all when she’d sat on his bed and held his hairbrush. Tall evergreens. A river washed gold by sunset.
She swept her gaze over him more slowly, taking in every inch: shoulders matured from lean to broad and muscular over the last seven years. Long hair, just as wild and dark but a good foot shorter and held down by a camo cap instead of a knit hat. Face more rugged and worn from the frenzy of the haunting. Heavier eyebrows. No earrings.
“Johnny?” she stammered. Part of her longed to jump up and throw her arms around him. Part of her still couldn’t believe it was true.
A broad smile brightened his face. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember. It’s been a long time. You were pretty messed up.”
Her face heated and she laughed softly. “Never too messed up to forget what you did for me. But”—she gave him another once-over—“you’ve changed, and is Gar your real name?”
He laughed, a sound that held no hint of haunting and took her right back to how easy it had been between them for those two short days. “It is. I was named after my grandfather.” He grimaced. “Would you mind doing me a favor and not telling anyone about my alias? No one in the coven, and more importantly no one from the Council. Even my superiors aren’t aware of Johnny.”
Em nodded. It felt right to keep that secret just between the two of them.
She shook her head again in disbelief. Johnny. Johnny Brighton. Her rebel knight. She thought she’d never see him again.
Her mind went back to that brief time. She’d been beyond sick, not only from booze and the drugs her aunt had given her, but from the hours chained in the hot van.
She vaguely remembered being in the van. The heat. Not being able to breathe. Being sure she was going to die. The door opening. The police cutting her legs from the shackles. A cop crying as he lifted her out into the fresh air. The hospital, her fleeing down the white tiled hallways, the unlocked door to the parking lot.
She’d vomited on the blacktop. But then she’d started running again—her stomach cramping, dizzy and confused—between houses and into the woods. Orbs swirled around her, their spirits urging her on and leading her to a cemetery. The sun was still blazing when Johnny found her. She didn’t hear him coming and the spirits hadn’t warned her. He set a bottle of water and a peeled orange a few feet away from where she was huddled, head throbbing, on the edge of delirium. He said the Council of Witches that her aunt hated had seen the news about her being found in the van. They’d sent him to secret her away from the police and bring her to them.
He gave her a backpack full of secondhand clothes. A gray hoodie and a soft pair of jeans. A blue top. A jogging bra and panties. Then he drove her to a place in the forest: tall pines and a river, shimmering gold under the sunset. The river’s cool water soothed her overheated mind and body. Later, they lay in sleeping bags by a fire, its orange light flashing into the trees as she told him her dream of getting to Atlanta and Alice, and beyond that to becoming a poet and having her own place in the woods. A quiet spot for her and Alice to live. The next morning, Johnny drove to an old farmhouse somewhere just off the interstate. She waited in the truck while he went inside and returned with an envelope. Then he took her to a train station and shoved the envelope’s contents into her hand: ten twenty-dollar bills, a ticket to Atlanta, and a fake ID.
“Go,” he’d said, rushing her onto a waiting train. “You’ve been through enough shit. Live your dreams.”
She’d waved goodbye to him through train’s window, Johnny, her long-haired hero who thought her freedom was more important than playing safe. The guy who went against orders and let her go. She’d watched him fade into the distance as the train pulled away. When she couldn’t see him anymore, she’d settled in and looked at the ID—and in that moment, she went from being Violet Grace to Emily Adams.
Coming out of her thoughts, Em took a deep breath. This was amazing. But there was one thing she’d always wondered. “Why Emily Adams? Was it a premade ID or—”
“I picked it out,” he said, before she could finish. “Adams is a common last name. Good for not drawing attention. As for Emily”—he grinned— “the Council had told me a little about you. You were born in Amherst, Massachusetts, the birthplace of Emily Dickinson. You told me you wanted to be a poet.”
Her chest squeezed, and tears dampened the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away quickly before he could notice, but also hoping he had. “That’s really cool. Thanks. Thanks for everything. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
“You’d have had it easier if I had taken you to the Council.” He sat back again, hands braced behind him on the desktop. “I assumed you made it to Atlanta. I lost track after that. Everyone did.”
She thought for a second. That didn’t make sense. Chloe had located her friend Keshari once by using a pendulum. “They couldn’t have tried very hard. The Council must have tons of ways to find people?”
“You carried the ID I gave you for a long time, right?”
“Yeah, until the photo was outdated. What of it?”
“It was charmed against intrusion. As long as you carried it, no one—not me or the Council—could find you. Eventually, you weren’t a concern of theirs.” He leaned forward and touched her knee. “Em, I’m worried about you. This isn’t a good place for you. The Northern Circle—”
His teeth clenched and his eyes pinched shut, as if a migraine had overtaken him. But Em didn’t need her sixth sense to tell her this was no migraine. He looked exactly like Alice had when her baby’s spirit took hold of her.
A ghostly hand appeared, clamping itself around his right forearm from behind, like roots grabbing hold of the earth. The misty outline of a scowling face wavered close to his ear.
Gar flung himself away from the desk, gripping his head as he retreated into the darkness by the curtained window with his back to her. The ghost spiked up behind him, spiraling like a hurricane. He wheeled back toward her, his expression grim. His eyes sparked with defensive anger, like a wolf trapped in a corner.
“Are you all right?” she asked. Her heart slammed against her ribcage. Of course he wasn’t, not at all. The ghost was back.
His voice hardened. “The Northern Circle has a bad reputation for partying, and worse. They own a winery, for the Gods’ sakes. You shouldn’t be here, Em.”
“You’re wrong.” She wanted to shout at him, to say how much the coven had done for her personally, how Devlin and Chloe made sure she got to meetings. How Athena had even orchestrated a ritual involving crystals that was designed to heal her emotional wounds and help her stay sober. How a lot of her current strength was due to that ritual. But the terrifying truth was she’d never met the real Athena when she was alive. Rhianna had orchestrated the healing ritual, a vengeful sociopath disguised as the coven’s loving high priestess. The woman at the root of all the trouble.
“Em—” Gar paused, his voice and demeanor calming as the ghost’s grip slid from his arm. “It’s not just that I’m worried about you. I legally can’t turn a blind eye on the coven’s offenses. The Northern Circle has committed serious crimes against the witching world. They’ve—” He gritted his teeth as the ghost’s energy strengthened. There was an audible pop of air pressure. The ghost vanished, and his expression eased. He puffed out a breath and rubbed his fingers against his temples. “Sorry. I’m just frustrated. Lately, I’ve felt…”
“Out of balance? Agitated?” She untangled his thoughts for him.
He nodded. “I didn’t
sleep well last night. I haven’t for months.”
Em ran her hand over the outside of her jeans pocket, feeling the outline of her six-month medallion and thinking through what he’d just said. It didn’t sound like Gar had any idea he was haunted. That was usually the case, but she found it hard to believe that no one at the High Council had noticed. It only made sense for them to have on-staff mediums. Any self-respecting medium would have noticed the situation and felt obligated to tell him, or at minimum report it to their superiors. Either way, her not telling Gar wasn’t right or kind. And it couldn’t go on any longer, especially now that she knew who he was and what he’d done for her. Johnny. Her Johnny. It was amazing.
She slipped to her feet. “There’s something you need to know.”
The office door winged open and Devlin marched in, interrupting them the way Gar had done in the kitchen only a few hours ago. “Chandler told me you were here,” he said to Em.
Gar glowered at him. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“This is my home, and Em is a member of my coven. If you’re done, we’ll leave and give you all the closed-door time you need to research or whatever.”
Unsure what to do, Em glanced from Devlin to Gar. She needed to tell Gar about the haunting, but she wanted to break it to him gently, certainly not with anyone else around, or in the middle of an argument.
Gar watched Devlin unwaveringly. Then he flagged his hand. “Go on. Take her. You’re right. She doesn’t know anything.”
Chapter 6
LAKE PLACID—Teenage girl found chained inside van after police respond to a report of a dog left in a vehicle with blacked out windows. According to police, when they arrived at the New Sun Convention Center they heard whimpering coming from a van owned by the Violet Grace Psychic Medium Show…
—From The Upstate Tribune, August 9
Taken aback and a bit hurt by Gar’s abrupt dismissal, Em didn’t say a thing while she and Devlin hurried away from the office. By the time they reached the privacy of the kitchen, she’d decided to not hide anything from Devlin—except for Gar’s alias, and how torn and tangled her emotions were when it came to him.
Devlin poured a glass of cider for each of them, then they sat at the kitchen island while she went into detail about the impeded summoning and the weapons she’d seen in Gar’s room. The weapons only concerned him slightly, but the tug-of-war sensation worried him as much as it had her, especially after she mentioned feeling the air pressure pop in the office.
His eyes went wide when she told him about the past she and Gar shared and how he’d brought it up to her. “I’m glad I interrupted when I did,” he said. “I understand why you’d want to tell him about the haunting, especially after what he did for you. But you can’t say a word, not yet. It’s one of the few aces we have up our sleeves.”
Em gazed into her glass of cider, avoiding Devlin’s eyes. The only thing in her life that she’d always taken great pride in was putting the welfare of ghosts and the people affected by them before anything else. Helping them find peace wasn’t always easy, but it took away some of the guilt she had about the outrageous amount of money her aunt had milked out of clients. Not to mention her guilt over disrespecting the spirits by being drunk at readings.
Years ago, she’d even snuck out of a hotel room to meet a woman who couldn’t afford a ticket to a group reading. At twelve years old, she’d known it was a dangerous thing to do in a city and all by herself. But the woman had sent her a note by way of a bellhop, explaining that she couldn’t afford to pay and was certain her dead teenage son wasn’t at rest. Em knew the woman was telling the truth. She could sense the teenager’s spirit without even trying. So, when her aunt went to the hotel bar to meet some guy, Em slipped out to the hotel parking lot and met the woman. Standing right there under a streetlight, she’d summoned the boy’s spirit and helped it cross over. The whole situation had brought Em a lot of comfort, even later that night when her aunt hauled her back to the room, pummeling her with threats and taking what little money Em had in her purse to pay for the ticket the woman hadn’t bought.
The touch of Devlin’s hand on her arm brought Em back from her thoughts. “I want you to stay out of Gar’s sight for now,” he said. “But keep your senses tuned in for the ghost. See if you can figure out anything about it. I’ll see if I can uncover something about this air pressure, tug-of-war sensation.”
Em nodded, glad he wanted to continue to move toward helping the ghost. Now that she’d had time to think about it, she agreed that staying away from Gar was probably wise, and not only for the less personal reasons Devlin had in mind.
As it turned out, Em didn’t have to intentionally avoid Gar. For the rest of the afternoon he remained sequestered in the office, interrogating Brooklyn and then Midas. The ghost’s energy also remained there, fluxing and entangled with Gar’s spirit, faint but omnipresent.
When early evening came, Em threw on her peacoat, put in her earbuds, and took off for an A.A. meeting. The coat was too warm, so she left it unbuttoned as she strolled along, grateful for good music, and for getting out of the house and away from the stressful emotions for a while. The Monday meeting was her favorite. It was a beginners meeting, earlier in the evening than most and close enough to the complex that needing a ride or taking the bus wasn’t an option.
Once Em got there, she helped make coffee and talked to some of the regulars. Then she took an aisle seat about halfway back. Her therapist would have been pleased with her actions—if she’d dealt with the sponsor issue.
The first speaker turned out to be a guy her age. He’d started drinking by stealing beers from his father, after getting sips from the time he could walk. Later he got a prescription for painkillers after dental surgery and moved from beer to drugs. Em could relate to most of his story, though the drinks her aunt had given her had started after she’d begun doing readings for people. She’d been around ten when she’d first stolen liquor. Not long after that, she’d tried her mother’s prescriptions pills, but they made it impossible to feel the ghosts, and helping the ghosts was what made her feel the best—even when it was terrifying.
The speaker talked about ending up in treatment and having a slip after getting involved with someone at rehab. As he launched into the usual suggestion about avoiding new romances in the first year of sobriety, Em frowned. Waiting a year seemed excessive, especially when it came to casual hookups.
Her mind wandered to sitting on Gar’s bed, then to Johnny. A wave of ill-timed tingles stirred low in her body. She squirmed in her chair. Maybe it was better if she didn’t think about Johnny, now or anytime soon. It made more sense to put a skull and crossbones over his image in her mind, label him poison and stay away like Devlin had suggested.
As everyone began to applaud the speaker, Em’s thoughts of Johnny, and Gar, dissipated. She bolted from her seat, but instead of joining the crowd around the coffeepot, she beelined outside for fresh air.
A couple of old-timers and a group of guys from the correctional center were hanging out on the front steps smoking cigarettes. Lengthening her strides, she hurried past them into the parking lot and took refuge in an isolated spot between two cars. She hooked her hands behind her neck and gazed upward, drawing a deep breath to cool her heated body.
The buzz of her phone reverberated from her coat pocket. She pulled it out. There were only a couple people it could be, someone from the coven or—
Her therapist.
“Hey.” She was glad the nightly call would soon be over but puzzled why her therapist/sponsor had instigated it. Calling was supposed to be the sponsee’s responsibility.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” her therapist said.
“No. I’m at a meeting, but it’s break time.”
“Great. I—um…” Her voice trailed off into uncomfortable silence.
“What’s wrong?”
�
�Ah—I owe you a huge apology.”
A chill went through Em and her heartbeat slowed to a labored, hard rhythm. The therapist sounded shaken, as if it were a life or death matter. But nothing could be that bad, except—
“Your aunt… I’m so sorry. I took a long weekend. I hadn’t checked my e-mail since the middle of last week.”
“What is it? What happened?” If her aunt died in jail, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“She’s been paroled.”
Em couldn’t believe it. “When? How could they?”
“The parole board meeting was last week. The notification didn’t go into details. All I know is they found her suitable for release. They let her out this morning. I’m so sorry, Em.”
Em closed her eyes, her body going numb. “You’re sure there isn’t any way for her to find me?”
“I promise. It’s been seven years. You’ve changed your name.”
Em nodded, but her hands were shaking and more than anything she wanted to get off the phone and be alone. Given a minute, she’d get over the shock of this. Her therapist was right. This wouldn’t change anything. She’d always known her aunt would be released eventually. Her mother had been released years ago and was now living in a supervised group home somewhere, talking to her psychiatrist and taking her medications—rotting, for all Em cared.
“Em, I am truly sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“That’s fine. Like you said, it’s not like she can find me—or that she’ll want to.”
“Remember, you can call me any time. I’m here for you.”
Em glanced back toward the building, to the steps where the old-timers and guys from the correctional center were lighting up their cigarettes. “I’ve got to go. The meeting’s about to start again. Thank you. I’m glad to know.”