Things She's Seen

by Pat Esden

  The remark didn’t seem to bother Gar, but anger flared through Em. “That’s a load of crap,” she said. “Gar’s the one Saille’s haunting. Besides, we could use the protection of his added magic in case something goes wrong. And that’s a strong possibility, considering we’re dealing with an unknown element.”

  “The only unknown element we need to watch out for is your new best friend,” Brooklyn snorted. “You do remember who he works for—as in, not us.”

  Chloe’s phone jangled. “Damn it,” she said, taking a look. “Keshari says maybe tomorrow. She’s not feeling that great right now.” Her voice cracked. “I feel so awful about her. If it weren’t for me—”

  “Her getting hurt wasn’t your fault,” Devlin interrupted. “If anyone deserves the blame, it’s me. I should have realized something was wrong with Athena.”

  Gar raised his voice. “Can we get back to the subject? Em’s right about the extra protection. Saille was a powerful witch, she would have no problem fully materializing after death. Whatever is preventing that has to be formidable.”

  “There is another red flag,” Em said, realizing she’d failed to mention an important detail. “We can’t forget that Athena materialized as an orb. That makes two powerful witches manifesting in weaker forms than they should be.”

  Gar gave a cursory nod. “Good point.”

  Midas cleared his throat. “Am I the only one seeing another connection? Saille. Athena. They were both high priestesses of this coven.”

  “I’m not willing to say definitively that Athena is dead,” Gar said, “but the seriousness of these connections is the one reason I’m willing to consider any possibility.” Em felt the weight of his gaze. “The High Council gave me a week turnaround time for this investigation. I don’t think we can afford to wait for this Keshari to feel well enough to help, do you?”

  As his gaze lingered on her, a chill traveled the length of Em’s spine. She couldn’t see Saille or sense her attachment to him. That should have been a good thing, but the circumstances around it were worrying her more with each passing second. Her sixth sense told her the haunting wasn’t over. She nodded. “We should do it right away, tonight.”

  “Perfect.” He looked away from her, addressing everyone. “There is one other thing you all need to understand. Brooklyn is right. I don’t in any way feel obligated to protect your coven. I work for the High Council. If this séance reveals that Zeus murdered Saille, I will tell them.”

  Devlin dipped his head. “As high priest, I’m willing to accept that risk for the coven. Perhaps his guilt can destroy us, but proof of his innocence would redeem us.”

  Em nodded, and so did everyone else. Then a heavy silence settled over the room. Zeus had become the coven’s high priest and financial overseer as a direct result of Saille’s death. Since then, members of his family had been in charge and benefitted from their positions, right down to Devlin. If Zeus was guilty, the High Council not only had a right to punish him, they could also disband the coven and seize everything that had resulted from his crime—namely, all the Northern Circle’s assets. Including the complex. They could penalize individual coven members as they saw fit, as well.

  Em hugged herself and stared down at the floorboards beneath her feet, scarred and refinished, honey gold and warm. She closed her eyes and sent a prayer out to the universe. Please, don’t take away something so good.

  Em was glad everyone cooperated, and no one talked about the possible dark side as they rushed around getting ready for the séance. No need to attract any extra bad energy—there was enough of that already.

  She helped Chloe and Brooklyn cleanse the dining room with sage, then she fed the kittens and carried their box to the downstairs bathroom for the night. The kittens were pretty spent after their day’s activities and eager to go to sleep. She cuddled the white one to her chest, letting the vibration of his purr soothe her. What would happen to them if the coven lost the complex? It wasn’t like the halfway house would let her have them there….

  No negative thinking, she admonished herself. She couldn’t afford it right now. Besides, Brooklyn had told the vet where they found the kittens, and he’d offered to report the incident to the police. For sure, once the story about the garbage bag hit the news, people would line up to adopt the poor things. Still, it would be nicer to let them grow up in the complex with lots of room to play and gardens to hunt in, safe and protected.

  After one last cuddle, Em set the kitten into the box with the others and sauntered back to the dining room. Everyone was seating themselves around the table, except for Chloe, who was busy sending bursts of energy out to light the dozens of votive candles that decorated the sideboard.

  A wave of dread came over Em as she looked at the unoccupied chair at the head of the table, the chair intended for her. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone yet, but if Saille was having trouble communicating they’d need more than just conjoined energy for the séance to succeed. Saille would also need a conduit to communicate, something more stable and stronger than a haunting. That meant one thing: Em needed to leave herself open to possession. Not one of her favorite things, not in the least.

  She pasted on a smile and settled into her chair. Gar sat to her left and Chloe’s chair was on her right. She brushed her hands across the linen tablecloth, getting a feel for the atmosphere around her before taking a sip of ice water from the goblet that had been set in front of her. The coolness soothed her throat, relaxing her a little. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done a séance sober. Perhaps never.

  Her chest tightened as her mind went back to the water bottles her aunt had filled with “special” sodas and Creamsicle-flavored drinks, back before the conference halls, when they’d only done private readings at people’s homes. Her aunt had called them treats, and they’d helped her relax, but even as a child she’d known using them was disrespectful to the spirits she summoned. They also made it nearly impossible for her to block out aggressive ghosts, like one woman’s sadistic ex-husband who had possessed her without being welcomed.

  Sweat trickled down Em’s spine. Sometimes in her nightmares she relived flashes from that séance. Darkness and anger all around her. Such hate. Such venom. The overwhelming pressure of the sadistic spirit roaring into her. The coppery taste of blood and the tang of stomach acid in her mouth. The unbidden voice rasping from her throat, cold and masculine, “I’ll kill you, bitch. Kill you and your bastard children!”

  Em clamped her eyes shut, forcing the awful memory from her head. There was no way to undo the past. The only thing she could do was respect the spirits now—and respect herself by playing it safe.

  “Before we start,” Em announced. “I want to make it clear that I’ll be opening myself up as a channel to Saille. Other spirits could step forward—perhaps even Athena, if we’re lucky.” She slid her fingers across the tablecloth to where Gar’s rested on the stem of his goblet, then spoke directly to him. “I’m relying on you for two things: First to mentally reach out to Saille and ask her to come to me. After all, you’re the person she’s been trying to communicate with. Secondly, if someone or something undesirable comes through, you have to end the contact by shaking me or doing whatever you need to snap me out of the trance. You’re comfortable doing that, right?”

  His hand left the goblet and slid over hers, warm and steady. “Of course. I won’t hesitate.”

  Em turned and smiled at Chloe. Even though Chloe wasn’t a medium, the night Athena had first appeared as an orb she’d chosen to whisper a secret to Chloe. “Same goes for you and Athena. If you sense her, ask her to use me as a conduit.”

  “Of course,” Chloe said.

  Em looked at everyone else. “If anyone senses something is wrong at any point, please speak up.”

  Once everyone agreed, Em rested her hands on the table and bowed her head, breathing in through her nose and out through her mou
th. She drew up her magic from deep inside her, letting it flow outward as her mind drifted free from her body.

  In the background, she sensed the touch of Chloe’s fingertips against hers, the electric sizzle of conjoined magic flowing into her and outward into Gar’s hand, magic moving clockwise around the table, from one witch to the other, cycling faster and faster. Warmth flooded her face. Cold chilled her shoulders and back. Her pulse thumped as slow and steady as a pendulum in her ears. She longed to demand that Saille appear, but forceful summoning had failed the last time. She needed to be patient, drift peacefully, with her soul open. Toward Saille. Toward Athena. Toward any spirit who knew the truth about either of their deaths.

  Em heard the faint mew of a ghostly kitten. A paw batted at her ankle as if to urge her to keep going. She floated farther into her trance, calling out softly, “Saille, we want to help you. Reach out. Tell us. Was your death innocent?”

  Be careful, a child’s ethereal voice whispered.

  A distant ghostly chorus murmured, Watch out.

  Em’s sixth sense prickled. Saille was in the room, a wisp of energy rippling toward Gar. “I welcome you. Use my body if you must,” she murmured. “I beseech you. Speak through me.”

  Without warning, the air pressure in the room skyrocketed and the tug-of-war sensation swooped toward Saille, reeling her backward, away from Em’s reach.

  Em pulled her shoulders back, spine straight. So much for the gentle approach.

  She focused on the flow of conjoined magic, letting it flood her bloodstream until her hands shook from the power. She mentally yanked against the invisible tug-of-war force with every ounce of energy that she had. Saille, come to me. Tell us. Was your death innocent?

  The tug-of-war sensation snapped, releasing Saille and sending Em’s mind careening into unconsciousness. She was nothing. She was nowhere. But at the same time, she was aware of her bowed head rising to stare blankly at the people gathered around the table.

  Em’s lips formed words and Saille’s voice rang out, “Poison!”

  Chapter 9

  Boston. Atlanta. Tampa. Anywhere. Anytime. 362-895-9908.

  I’ll be there for you, Violet. The two of us against the world.

  Love, Alice

  —Old note, taped into the Journal of Emily Adams

  “Poison,” Em murmured.

  She lay on her bed in the dark, staring up at her bedroom ceiling. It was several hours after the séance and she still couldn’t relax. Why couldn’t Saille have used her to relay more than that single word? It proved nothing, other than that Saille had in fact been murdered. It neither cleared nor condemned Zeus. It only deepened the mystery.

  Em rolled onto her side, hugging her pillow. Its softness against her cheek reminded her of coming out of the trance with Gar’s hands cradling her face. He’d backed away when Chloe appeared with a cool cloth for her forehead. Still, Gar had been there for her first, like he’d promised, protecting her and bringing her back to her senses with a firm shake and soft words.

  She breathed deep, taking in the scent of her pillow. Only the aroma of her. Not a trace of lavender and sage spritz like she’d used on Gar’s sheets. No moss and evergreens, either.

  Tucking the pillow under her arm, Em raised herself up and strained to hear if there were any noises from his room. No shower running. No headboard squeaks. Apparently, stress hadn’t affected his ability to sleep tonight—or maybe he’d had a cup of chamomile tea before bed, or the lavender and sage had helped him relax.

  Em burrowed under the blankets and stared into the darkness. She needed to shut off her brain and get some sleep, or she’d feel like crap in the morning. She closed her eyes, breathing slowly and deeply.

  A yawn built inside her. She pressed her hand over her mouth, covering it until the yawn passed. Some people believed yawns invited demons into the body, or were demons escaping. That wasn’t true. They were nothing more than the body balancing itself. A sign of the crossroads between wakefulness and sleep, and… dreams, was the last word she thought as she fell asleep.

  Everything is dark. Rich burgundy darkness.

  “Are you listening?” Saille’s voice reaches Em’s ear.

  She’s asleep. She knows it. But she’s too self-aware for it to be a normal dream. She also knows when and where she is. It’s a month before her sixteenth birthday. Only an hour, or maybe two, before Johnny found her in the cemetery. She’s in an emergency ward, after the police discovered her in the back of her aunt’s van. She’s naked except for a disposable gown. But the child services crisis worker has made a mistake: her clothes lie on a nearby chair.

  In an instant, she dresses. Pants. Shirt. Socks. If she’s wearing socks no one will recognize her. No one looked in her eyes when they took her from the van. Not the police. Not the news people. Not the social worker. They’d all stared at her ankles and feet.

  She’s fleeing through the hospital now, down tunnels of glistening white tile, corridor after corridor. She throws open a door and the eye-burning flare of unimpeded sunlight blinds her. She blinks, struggling to regain her eyesight—

  Saille drags her from that moment.

  It’s more than a year after Johnny and the train. Em stands in the wings of the Royal Palm Theater in Tampa, where she and Alice used to hang out behind the scenes, Alice reading tarot cards for the actors, Em giving them messages from deceased mentors and grandparents—the two of them theater mascots, her, a seventeen-year-old on the run.

  “Listen,” Saille whispers. “I don’t have much time.”

  Gar’s voice comes from center stage, speaking Prospero’s lines from The Tempest, “… poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam, come forth!”

  A stranger appears on stage. He’s dressed elegantly in black, more like a cross between a cliché vampire and a ballet dancer than Shakespeare’s deformed Caliban. Still, Caliban is the part he’s playing.

  “As wicked dew as e’re my mother brushed with raven’s feather from unwholesome fen drop on you both,” Caliban says.

  Em doesn’t listen to the rest. Caliban isn’t important. She needs to find a place where she and Alice can see and hear Gar better. But when she turns toward Alice, her gaze catches on a soft tendril of hair that has fallen across Alice’s face, sticking to the corner of her ripe plum lips. Em bends to wipe the tendril away, but Alice holds up a tarot card between them, blocking the view of her face with Death.

  A heartbeat passes. Alice lowers the card. She isn’t standing anymore. She lies in the center of the spotlighted stage with her baby’s ghost in her arms. Her beautiful lips are now shriveled. Her once glossy dark hair is ashen. Caliban glides over to Alice and draws a triangle around her body, bearing down hard with his pencil until the graphite line is thick and sparkles in the harsh light. He places a yellow diamond in one corner of the triangle. The stone is as large as a fingertip, glistening but full of cracks and flaws—Em can see the imperfections even from where she stands in the wings.

  Em’s sixth sense screams that something awful is going to happen. She knows for certain that she can’t let Caliban finish whatever ritual he’s preforming. If she does, then that’s when the horrible thing will occur.

  She races onto the stage to stop him. But no matter how hard she pushes her legs, the distance between her and Caliban widens, growing greater and greater.

  She’s not running across a stage anymore. She’s in a cemetery with lots of trees and roads braiding through it. Alice and her baby are rising out of a grave. Caliban stands over them, waiting for something.

  “Stop!” Em screams.

  Caliban reaches into a pocket of Alice’s sweater. As he takes out a diamond, Alice’s head turns toward Em, vacant eyes staring directly at her—

  But she’s not Alice anymore.

  It’s Saille. Her lips move. “Listen to me. Poison.”

 
Em jolted awake. Her pulse hammered in her chest. The theater. Graveyards. Poison. Triangle. Diamond.

  She swung her feet off the edge of the bed, braced her head in her hands, and took a deep breath. What the hell was the dream about? She was good at figuring out symbols, but these had been all over the place.

  Goose bumps prickled her arms. She got up from the bed, rubbing the chill from her skin as she paced to the window. A half-moon hung low in the sky, its light glistening on the gardens and the complex’s front gate. In the surreal light, it was easy to imagine the three remaining flying monkey sculptures had come to life.

  Em wiped her hair back from her overheated face. In retrospect, she shouldn’t have been shocked by the dream’s oddness. It wasn’t unusual to have threads of a spirit’s consciousness linger after a possession. But what had Saille been trying to tell her, beyond repeating the mention of poison?

  Diamond. Triangle. The Tempest. As Em picked up her hoodie and shrugged it on over the T-shirt and leggings she’d slept in, she went back through the elements of the dream. She got out her journal and jotted them down, then reread the words, attempting to make heads or tails of them. Totally stumped, she decided it only made sense to go downstairs, make a cup of chamomile tea, and think everything through one more time before she tried to get back to sleep. She could check on the kittens, feed them again if they were interested.

  Kittens first, she decided. If they were awake, she’d heat her tea water and their formula at the same time.

  She padded downstairs in her stocking feet and headed straight for the bathroom. She opened the door—

  She stopped mid-stride.

  Under the soft glow of the overhead light, Gar sat on the edge of the bathtub with a nurser bottle in his hand and the white kitten on his lap. Bare feet. Jogging pants. Faded T-shirt. No trace of Saille. As he looked up at her, a tendril of dark hair fell across his forehead. He smiled, eyes brightening, lips parting as if seeing her was the best thing that could have happened.