by P. R. Frost
“If he didn’t do it, then who did?” WindScribe turned wide and innocent eyes on me.
There’s only one way to find out. Scrap departed so fast the vacuum he created robbed me of breath.
Chapter 42
Though rare, moon images are found in feminine form. Usually she is lovely, graceful, with classic facial features and hair perfectly coiffed under a stunning hat.
"SCRAP, GET YOUR SORRY ass back here!” No answer.
“He has to return to you, doesn’t he?” MoonFeather asked, searching the air with nose and eyes for a trace of my imp. Could she “sense” his presence even if she couldn’t see him? If she did, that might explain why she felt the need to cleanse my house with ritual and burning sage.
“Eventually,” I grumbled. “He’s never far away, in case I need him, but he can stay out of sight for days if he wants.” I threw money on the table for my second breakfast and stomped back to my car.
“What about me?” WindScribe wailed.
“What about you?” I snarled.
“I mean you . . . you can’t just desert me. What will I do?”
“You should have thought of that before you set the Midori demons free.” I eyed her narrowly as she tripped lightly in my wake. “How many faeries died because of that little stunt?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She opened her eyes wide again feigning innocence.
I didn’t believe her act for a second.
“Enough to get you sent to the cosmic prison for life,” I finished for her.
“It was only three faeries! And they’d been mean to me!”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s the end of the story.”
“You’re just as mean as they were.” She ran back to the motel, oblivious to the traffic on the 6A.
Horns honked and brakes screeched. She didn’t even look at them before slamming the door to her room so hard the frame quivered.
“Not the entire story by a long shot,” MoonFeather added. “Let’s go home. Scrap will return there more readily, I think.”
“I can’t leave the b—witch running around loose. She comes with us, if I have to drag her by the hair.”
After some more conversation and a few threats, as well as cajoling and promises to call Donovan, WindScribe joined us. She didn’t even fight the seat belt.
I wondered how much she feared being alone.
Gollum raised his eyebrows and made copious notes on his laptop when I told him the story. I should expect something different from him?
I curled up in my office with a short story that was due while I waited for Scrap to return. I waited a long time.
Darkness fell. Dad stayed with Mom. They talked and cried a lot. The red glint of demon thrall left her eyes. WindScribe hovered in the library where she could peek out to find me in the office, or dash over to MoonFeather’s room at the smallest sound. Old houses creak and groan at the best of times. She spent a lot of time running back and forth, then returning to her corner with a humph and “I didn’t really do that” attitude.
I fixed spaghetti for dinner. We each took a plate back to our respective corners.
I was on my third glass of wine—Gollum was on his fifth judging by the few drops left in the bottle—when I sensed a tiny draft and a miniscule weight on my shoulder.
“Ready to talk about it, Scrap?”
It’s dangerous.
“What in life isn’t?”
This is really, really dangerous. I’m just a scrap of an imp and I don’t know if I can control the energies involved.
“We’ve got to find out who murdered Darren, Scrap.”
Even if it was your mother?
That was the first time he didn’t call her “Mom.” My dinner and the wine turned to ice in my belly.
“Yeah, even if it was her. I have to know.”
First thing in the morning. I need daylight. Bring Gollum. I can’t let you do this alone.
“Meaning that, if you fuck up, we all die together.”
Better than dying alone.
Much better than dying alone.
Scrap disappeared again. To think. To rest. To study the energies. I finally had time for my own agenda.
“What’s so special about the house, Dill?” I whispered when I finally had the kitchen to myself. He seemed to hang out here more than anyplace else in the house. But then, everyone hung out here more than anywhere else.
I hadn’t really been working on the short story. I’d been re-creating conversations, making lists, drawing lines and connecting dots.
Silence.
“Dill, I know you’re here. I can tell because the other ghosts are all in the cellar.”
Was that a faint shimmer in the air leaning against the center island?
I couldn’t tell for sure under the fluorescent light. So I went about gathering the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. His favorite, my favorite, and Scrap’s favorite, for that matter.
“I liked oatmeal and raisin almost as well as chocolate chip,” he said almost petulantly.
“Too bad you’re dead and can’t eat them anymore.”
“If you’d just get rid of the imp . . .”
“I’m tired of that line, Dill. Now tell me about the house. You were the one who insisted we spend more than we’d budgeted on it. I said it was too big and would cost a fortune to heat. But you insisted and filled my head full of dreams of a dozen children.” I looked longingly at the new table and chairs in the nook. I’d burned the symbol, the promise of those children along with the round table Thursday. Now it was Monday night. Only four days. It seemed a lifetime ago.
“I didn’t really want those kids. I just knew they’d happen. My family always has lots of children. Can’t seem to stop it from happening.” Dill looked over at the nook, too. He frowned at the new decor. Not his choice. Not his table. Not much left of the real Dill in this house.
“What’s so special about this house that you chose it over newer places that required less maintenance and cost less to heat, with just as much floor space and land? Why is it the ghosts are content to stay here and not move on? Why was Darren willing to kill again to get his hands on this house?” I stood facing Dill, hands on hips, feet en garde.
“Can’t you feel it, Tess?” he asked, eyes wide in innocence. “You’re pretty dumb and insensitive if you can’t. Just an ordinary bitch when I thought you a Celestial Warrior.”
“Typical. When you don’t want to answer, you side-step the issue and accuse someone else of being inadequate. ”
“Well, you are,” he sneered. “If the Powers That Be hadn’t promised me a new life, I’d be outta here in a flash rather than be tied to a sniveling wimp like you.”
I raised my right hand, clutching a huge wooden spoon, ready to clobber him. Only I couldn’t. He was dead. And I was alive.
And I didn’t have to put up with him much longer.
“Tess? Who are you talking to?” Gollum asked. His glasses stayed firmly on the bridge of his nose as he looked around the kitchen. Jaw dropping in amazement, his gaze lingered on the shimmer in the center.
“Guilford Van der Hoyden-Smythe, meet my ex, Dillwyn Bailey Cooper.” I turned my back on them both and started blending flour and baking soda in a measuring cup.
“Uh . . . Tess . . . that isn’t the ghost of Dillwyn Bailey Cooper,” Gollum stammered.
I sensed him moving closer to me, standing between me and Dill.
“What do you mean it’s not Dill?” I whirled to face them both.
The equinoctial moon, only one night off of full, chose that moment to peek through some light clouds and flood through the big bay windows of the nook.
I could still see Dill as a small, semisolid core within layers and layers of wavering black energy.
I wasn’t wearing the comb. This was more than aura. More like a pure essence of darkness.
As I watched, a taller, darker being coalesced out of that miasma. Long fangs dripped red blood; pasty white
skin stood head and shoulders above my tall husband. It had a human shape, but a blur where the face should be. Except for those fangs. It wore an old-fashioned black suit and opera cape.
My mouth went dry and my eyes froze open.
At the moment of recognition, the demon snapped out of this dimension in a rancid puff of black smoke.
My knees trembled. Gollum wilted.
We held each other up for a long moment, clinging together in disbelief.
“Was that Dill’s true form?” I whispered, afraid I’d call it back into being.
“I don’t think so,” Gollum said on a gulp. “You said several times it acted out of character for Dill. What if it was a shape-changer?”
“Something that wanted me to believe it was Dill.”
“An envoy of the Powers That Be. Something sent to trap you, make you willingly give up your status as a Warrior of the Celestial Blade.”
“Not Dill.” I blinked back hot, stinging tears. “Now that I’ve recognized it for what it is, it can’t come back. Were any of my ghostly visitations my Dill?” A vast emptiness opened in me. Now I truly would never see Dill again.
“I don’t know. I believe you must renounce Scrap and your Sisterhood voluntarily before it could kill you.”
“Someone is so desperate to get rid of me, they sent that? So desperate they conned Darren into marrying my mother just to get the house. So desperate they told Darren how to free WindScribe from cosmic prison. I think I’m scared, Gollum.”
“I think we need more information.”
“Before they try again.”
Chapter 43
WE SPENT THE NIGHT together again, drinking my scotch and eating chocolate chip cookies until we fell asleep, me on the sofa, him in the armchair. We kept the nasties at bay and drew comfort from not being alone should they come again.
Tuesday morning Dad and Bill took Mom and WindScribe to do some necessary shopping right after breakfast. I think my parents had more meaningful conversation and did more healing yesterday than they had in twenty years. Though still fragile, Mom appeared to have found a bit of acceptance of the weekend’s events.
Gollum, MoonFeather, and I gathered for a council of war in the kitchen.
“Time travel has often been theorized. I don’t recall anyone successfully completing it,” Gollum mused when Scrap had outlined his plan.
Time is just another dimension, Scrap said importantly.
I think he warmed to the notion as we progressed.
“We only have to go back about forty hours,” I said. “That can’t be too dangerous. And we don’t have to shift locations. We can go stand in the cottage. The police removed the crime scene tape yesterday afternoon. ”
If I manage the timing right, we won’t be gone more than a few minutes, Scrap said solemnly. His tail twitched nervously.
“Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.” I dragged Gollum out of the house to the cottage.
“You need a watcher,” MoonFeather called after us. “And a ritual circle.” She tossed one crutch away and clumped forward. She carried a small cloth drawstring bag with a pentacle embossed on it.
“She’s probably right,” Gollum admitted. He slowed to allow my aunt to catch up to him.
As I unlocked the cottage door, the smell of death rushed out to greet and smother me. I stepped back too quickly. Gollum caught me as I teetered on the top step. I let him hold me a moment until I regained my balance. It felt good. Like we were a team.
After a moment we crept inside. MoonFeather swept open the curtains, letting sunlight flood the small living room that ran the width of the building.
“Shouldn’t we wait until midnight or something?” I asked. Something felt wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Midnight rituals are really only to hide from prejudiced outsiders,” MoonFeather said self-righteously. “Or if we needed a particular moon configuration.”
I want the bright light of day to lead me back, Scrap said. He sounded uncertain. Maybe I was picking up his mood.
The chalk outline of the body stared up at me from the nubby green carpet. The dark stain from Darren’s blood spread out beyond it. He had fallen below the window to my right. I hugged the built-in glass-fronted bookcases to my left.
Gollum walked around the outline, examining the position. “Was he faceup or facedown?”
“Faceup, I think.” I didn’t want to look at the outline. Memory of the sight of his lifeless eyes staring into the distance and his blood pooling beneath him set my breakfast of pancakes and bacon with grilled tomatoes to churning.
They tasted vile the second time around. Especially the strawberry jam I’d put on the pancakes. Too sweet.
“Over here, I think,” MoonFeather mused, standing next to me. “You’ll be in the shadows, and even a demon shouldn’t detect your ghostly presence.” She dug into her little bag and withdrew chalk. “Help me to sit on the floor, Tess.”
I offered her my arm to lean on as she levered her way to a kneeling position. She settled back on her heels with a sigh. “Much better.”
Gollum stood beside me. Scrap perched on my shoulder, wrapping his tail around my neck in a near choke hold. Except he didn’t have enough substance to affect my breathing.
Deftly, MoonFeather drew a circle around Gollum and me. She looked like she’d had a lot of practice. Then she set stubby red candles at the four cardinal points of the compass. With a few muttered prayers and scatters of herbs she lit each candle in sequence, north, east, south, and west.
“Blessed be,” she breathed at last. “Do your work, Scrap. You are protected from outside interference.” She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes.
No matter what happens, do not speak, do not step outside the circle. In no way may you change the events you watch.
The light twisted and tilted, coruscating across my vision. Sparkles drifted around us. My sense of balance wavered. I clung to Gollum’s hand.
As abruptly as it had shifted, the world righted. The darkness of the hours between midnight and dawn crowded my sight. Movement by the window caught my attention. The lamp by the armchair was on. The one closer to the sofa still lay broken on the carpet where it had fallen when Donovan and his foster father fought earlier—while WindScribe, Gollum, and I listened outside the window. Darren stood half turned toward me in the circle of light, fists clenched, jaw tight, shoulders hunched. When he turned his head, the light made his eyes look red.
At his feet stood King Scazzamurieddu, equally angry, equally menacing. Except that his cap was missing.
Darren held it crumpled in one of his fists.
I let my gaze wander around the room, drinking in details that I might have missed back in real time. The chalk circle blazed an otherworldly blue white. The red candles and their flames appeared ghostly, mere suggestions of their place. Scrap, however, looked solid and nearly a third larger than I remembered. His weight dragged at my shoulder, so I shoved him atop my head where he proceeded to anchor himself by pulling on my hair.