by Anna Abner
“What if we never find the necromancer? What if they finish the spell first?”
Maybe she should enjoy her last few hours or days a human being at a full-service spa, sipping green tea and enjoying Swedish massages, not racing from suspect to suspect. But then she glanced at Holden and knew she couldn’t give up no matter how tempting it sounded. If only for him, she had to keep trying.
“Like I said, I think I can pull the demon out of you if I have another person to put it into.”
Dread pooled in her belly. “Into who?” Last she’d heard, he’d considered putting it into an animal.
He didn’t answer.
“Holden, who?” But she had a bad feeling she knew the answer.
Taking a deep breath, he blurted, “I can control it. Temporarily. And exorcize it.”
Her heart skipped a beat. No. “That is not going to happen.” Put a demon into Holden? Was he insane? She’d die before she infected Holden with a ticking chaos bomb.
“I don’t want that thing inside of me,” he said, his voice rising. “But if it’s the only way to destroy it, then I’ll do it. Cole has been teaching me some stuff. It might work.”
“Might? We’re going forward on might?”
“Let’s stop this person before he finishes the spell, and plan B never has to happen.”
* * *
A little before noon they pulled over at a gas station, and while Holden filled up the Jeep, Rebecca called Jessa again, a whole new fear motivating her to find this necromancer. Today.
No part of her demon was going into Holden. She’d fight with every bit of strength she had to stop him.
“Jessa,” she greeted, “Remember what we talked about the other day? Have you been able to think of anyone with a vendetta against me?”
“Yeah. Charley McGovern.”
Her heart sank. “It’s not her. Anyone else?”
“All I can think of is that husband, about a year ago, who kept sending you roses and asking you on dates. He got really angry at me when I told him to cool it.”
“Do you remember his name?” Rebecca asked.
“Hold on, I’m pulling up one of his emails right now. Uh. Carlton Reeves. He works at the hospital.”
Rebecca typed the info into her phone’s note pad. “Thanks, Jessa.” The moment she hung up with Jessa, she called Derek.
Rebecca explained most of the facts of her predicament to her soon-to-be former assistant.
“God, Becca,” he chuckled nervously, “Are you serious? Someone is messing with you? What does that mean?”
“I’ve received some threats,” she said, unable to get more specific without sounding like a crazy person. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt me?”
“Well, no, not really. Everyone loves you,” Derek said. “What kind of threats? Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah. Give me a name.” Becca fake punched the side of the Jeep.
“Let me think about it. Where are you?”
“Near Richmond. I’ll see you at the fundraiser tomorrow night. But text right away if you think of anyone.” She hung up as Holden returned the gas nozzle to the pump.
“Want some lunch?” he asked, pointing at the sandwich shop attached to the gas station.
“Sure.”
After ordering, Holden sat across from her and unwrapped a meatball sub. “How are you feeling?”
“No headache.” Though she’d ordered a turkey and Swiss on wheat bread, she had no appetite. Instead, she sipped iced tea.
“That’s not what I meant.” He tilted his head to catch her eye. “Are you going to be okay seeing your mom today?”
Complicated question. Rebecca didn’t want to be flippant and pretend it was no big deal. It was a big deal.
“I never thought,” she explained, “that I’d be in this situation. I swore to myself I wouldn’t track her down looking for a messy, teary reunion. I was always happy to keep her in the past. But here I am.”
“She left when you were little?”
And that was enough of a prompt for her to pour out the sad story. Everything from her mother leaving two children, one six years old and the other two weeks old, to Becca’s abbreviated childhood. Every sordid, disgusting, shameful secret.
“I hated her.” Becca picked up her sandwich and took a small bite. “I thought she was a selfish, cruel bitch.”
“Maybe she is.”
She snickered in surprise. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see.” She stole one of Holden’s BBQ potato chips. “But I realize now that I have to stop being angry, somehow, because it’s been ruining my life.”
“Any person who’d leave you to fend for yourself, I don’t like.”
“Thanks.”
“But if she was hurting you,” Holden added, “then you’re better off without her.”
Becca helped herself to another chip. “I don’t remember any of that.” If her mother had abused her, the memories had long ago faded.
“Your dad seemed to.”
What would she do if she found herself in an unhappy marriage with two kids and maybe even postpartum depression? Rebecca couldn’t imagine leaving, ever, but if she convinced herself her family was better off without her…
“You’re not happy when you’re angry.” Holden pushed the chip bag closer to her side of the table.
“Truer words,” she agreed. “Truer words.”
“What would you do if you weren’t angry anymore?”
Get married. If she wasn’t so focused on work and her sister’s tuition and her father’s health, she’d want to find a really wonderful guy and get married.
But she was too embarrassed to say that to Holden. “Enjoy myself a little more,” she said instead.
“Maybe have a family of your own?”
Yes.
Wadding his trash, Holden tossed it in the can. “I need to call a spirit before we actually pull up at your mom’s.” He gestured to her tray, and she nodded, so he cleared it, too. “Do you mind if we check in at a hotel before we find her?”
“No problem.”
She headed for the door, but Holden blocked her way.
Close to her ear, he said, “You don’t have to do anything today you don’t want to. Say the word and we’re on our way back to Auburn.”
Rebecca kissed him. Groaning, Holden pulled her flush against his chest and deepened the kiss.
The door chimed, and they reluctantly separated to make room for an elderly woman and her jingle-bell cane.
* * *
After crossing into Richmond, they compromised on the Comfort Inn. It boasted an exterior stairwell, but their connecting rooms smelled sweetly of lemon-scented cleaner and floral deodorizer.
Holden didn’t say much before disappearing into his room, so Rebecca paced in front of her two double beds and called Nelly’s cell. No answer. She called her sister’s dorm room, and it rang and rang before a strange person answered and promised to find her. Finally her baby sister got on the phone.
Becca cut right to the point. “I’m going to see our mother.”
Silence. Then, “Why?”
Becca examined her palms. “It’s time. I need to close the book on her for good.” And be happy.
“Good luck. I know how much you hate her.”
She opened her mouth to deny it but didn’t.
Nelly added, “I only remember her from that photo Daddy keeps on the mantle. I probably wouldn’t even recognize her if I sat next to her at a restaurant.”
“I don’t think you’re missing much.”
“No, I never thought I missed out on anything,” Nelly said brightly, as if they weren’t talking about the deepest scar in Becca’s heart. “I had you and Daddy.”
“You deserved a mother, too.” Everyone deserved a mother.
“But it was fine. I mean, what if she was a total bitch? Would you want her around then?”
“I don’t want her around.” But isn’t that exactly what she wanted? A caring, loving moth
er who was present and supportive? Maybe Nelly understood more than she gave her credit for.
“Anyway,” Nelly said, sounding distracted by voices in the background. “I should go, sissy. Say hi to Mom for me.” She laughed. “Hope you figure everything out. Oh, and take that tall dude who’s in love with you. You’ll need backup. Bye.” And she was gone, replaced by a dial tone.
Something heavy hit the floor in Holden’s room.
Rebecca pocketed her phone and rushed to check on him.”Everything okay?”
He shoved one of his double beds into the corner where a brass lamp lay on the floor. “It’s too crowded in here.” He grunted, barricading the bathroom completely with his other bed. “I need room to breathe.”
“Sure.” Rebecca helped push a nightstand into the corner by the big window.
“That’s good. Just give me a minute to clear my head.” Holden pulled off his T-shirt and kicked out of his Converse. “Grams said I need to clear my head.”
It hit her, like it hadn’t before, how far out on that branch Holden had crept. He said he’d been with his Grams since his accident at Wade Lake. That was back when he was a kid.
“Is this the first time you’ve been without your grandma?”
He ripped the sheet off the bed and spread it on the floor.
“Holden?”
“Yes. The first time.”
“It must be hard. …Is it hard?”
On his hands and knees, he drew a spell circle across the sheet with a red marker. His symbols looked a lot like blood spreading beneath him.
Swallowing, she knelt to help keep the sheet taut. “Is your grandpa around, too?”
“No.” He huffed a derisive laugh. “Grandpa is in heaven where he belongs.”
“Why isn’t your grandma in heaven?” Rebecca said and then immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry. Never mind. It’s none of my—”
“She’s here for me.” Holden drew a lopsided harp. “She gave up heaven to help me through my, uh.” He surveyed his drawing. “Ordeal.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she admitted.
Holden sat back on his heels. “When you die, your spirit is supposed to move on. To heaven or the other side or whatever you want to call it. Some spirits stay here.”
“Unfinished business?” she guessed.
He nodded. “By choice or not, they stay here in our world. She was in heaven when I got there. When I returned—was resuscitated—she came back with me.”
“You were fifteen?” She would do the same thing. In a heartbeat. Her fifteen-year-old relative in pain, scared and alone? Yeah, she’d give up anything to help him.
Holden bobbed his head again. “But she’s not happy here.”
Of course. “Because you’re not fifteen anymore.”
“She misses her husband. She’s alone here except for me.”
“Why can’t she leave?”
He tossed the marker aside and focused on his design. “Me. She’s stuck here because of me. Because I’m a fuck up.”
Grams had sacrificed her afterlife to help him through a traumatic experience. Becca adored her. Completely. But Holden wasn’t a traumatized kid anymore. It was his turn to do something kind and selfless for her.
“Then, Holden, let her go.”
* * *
Holden knelt on only his third attempt at a spell circle and inhaled loudly, blowing out a stream of fear-choked breath. He’d never had to explain his and Grams’s situation before, and saying it out loud only made his selfishness more obvious. He’d guilted her into staying so he wouldn’t be alone, but it wasn’t fair to either of them. It kept her from her husband, and it turned him into a perpetual loner.
Speaking the Latin Cole had taught him, Holden called friendly spirits to show themselves. No power surged this time. It was simply a psychic shout into the world to attract attention. Immediately an overweight man in overalls shimmered on the edge of the sheet.
“I need help,” Holden said. “I don’t know how to say…” He shifted positions, both legs numb from the knee down. “I need you in case I have to cast a spell tonight.”
“Sounds good.” The guy smiled, revealing gaps in his teeth. “I’m up for anything.”
Holden nodded at Rebecca and the demon clinging to her. “I have to protect her,” he explained, his voice thick with barely controlled anxiety. “From everyone and everything. Can you help me do that?”
This person wouldn’t be his first choice, but since he was the only spirit who’d answered his call, Holden had to trust him. For now.
“Don’t be such a wuss.” The guy sneered. “I’ll blast you with all kinds of juice. Name’s Ned. You?”
“Holden,” he answered, climbing to his feet. “I guess we’re ready.”
* * *
The house was a cute, well-cared-for bungalow on a quiet residential street with flower boxes and a flag of a butterfly hanging from the porch. It was perfectly ordinary, and that petty, awful part of Rebecca wanted it to be run down and smell like cat urine. But it was just a house like any other home in any suburb in America.
Holden got out and offered his hand to help her down, but she sat still, not quite ready to face her mother.
“Are you sure you can do this?”
She snorted. “No.”
“Do you want me to stay in the car?”
“If you leave me alone in there…” It was one thing to face Nancy Ann with a supportive friend at her back. It was something much worse to face her alone.
“All you have to do is shake her hand.”
“Right. No problem.”
Rebecca marched toward the front door too quickly. There was no time to take a breath and plan what she’d say before she pressed the doorbell.
Chapter Sixteen
After twenty years, there stood Nancy Ann. Her hair was short and messy. She had lines around her mouth, and her clothes were average, small-town-mall stuff. In other words, she was the prototype of an aging soccer mom. And Becca found she had no feelings, positive or negative, about her at all.
The former Mrs. Powell blinked. “Rebecca?”
“Did Daddy tell you we were coming?”
“He did, but I didn’t believe him.” She patted her hair and then retucked the back of her blouse. “Come on in.” She glanced at Holden as if she hadn’t noticed him towering over Becca’s right shoulder. “Is this your husband?”
Not exactly. “This is Holden Clark.” He had become a lot of things to her in the last few days, but husband wasn’t one of them.
They entered the house, which stank of stale cigarette smoke, and stood awkwardly at the edge of the foyer.
“Have a seat.” Nancy Ann breezed past them, gesturing to the sofa in front of a muted television tuned to a reality show. “I was just watching something.” She clicked off the TV. “Sit. Relax.”
Becca didn’t want to be rude, but the last thing she intended was to flop on the sofa and chit chat over coffee and cookies.
“We can’t stay.” And really didn’t want to.
“You drove all the way up here to walk in the door and then leave?” Her face hardened.
Just shake her hand. And get out.
Holden rested his fingers on the small of Becca’s back and gave her the final push she needed to speak freely. She could have stuck out her hand and gotten the hell out of there. But here was her chance. Maybe her only one. So she sucked in a breath and dove in to the deep end.
“I guess I drove all the way out here to ask you, in person, why you left us the way you did.” The living room wasn’t so bad, and if it represented the rest of the place, the house wasn’t much different from the one she’d grown up in. “Nelly and I could have spent every other weekend with you. Or summers. Or something. Why did you disappear?”
Becca braced for the answer. Worst case? Her mother would admit she didn’t give a shit about her. Best case? Nancy Ann would burst into guilt-ridden tears.
The woman did not burst into
tears. “I never wanted kids. I didn’t even want to get married. It was all Doug’s needs and desires back then, not mine. I went along with it because I loved him, but by the time Nelly was born…” She folded her arms. “It was either leave or kill myself.”
Becca just stood there, mute. Her mother would rather die than parent her? A burn flared in her gut, the painful shame of abandonment.
“I mean, what do you want me to say?” Nancy Ann continued, “Huh? That I’m sorry? Fine. I’m sorry. But I’m not a mother kind of person.” She gave Becca a long once-over. “You look like you turned out fine. What do you want?”
“Nothing.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want anything.”
Silence.
Her mother’s defensive gaze bounced from Rebecca to Holden and back again.
Having all the answers she could stomach, Becca cleared her throat. “Thank you for inviting us into your home.” Despite the bile rising in her throat, she extended her hand for a shake. Nancy Ann didn’t look like she was going to, but after an awkwardly long hesitation, she shook Becca’s hand.
With a nod, Becca walked out with Holden. The front door shut behind them, and Rebecca exhaled for what seemed like the first time in her whole life.
“Are you all right?” he asked, climbing into the Jeep.
She buckled herself in and adjusted her hair under his cap. “I didn’t feel any magic, did you?” But she knew the answer. That woman wasn’t trying to possess anyone.
“Nothing.” He started the engine, and it rumbled up through the floorboards. “Are you okay?”
Rebecca studied her hands, flipping them over, splaying her fingers wide. No blood. No tickle of electricity. Just the memory of her mother’s cold flesh.
“I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t that.”
“You can let it go,” Holden said quietly, leaning in close enough that she smelled his aftershave and felt his body heat like a warm blanket. “You can stop hating her.”
“Because she’s just a person,” she realized as she said it aloud. “Horrible, but just a person.” She smirked. “I suppose I should throw out a cliché like: She did the best she could.”