“Jodi? You need to get over here right now,” he whispered into the phone. “I know what time it is, but this is really important.”
He paused and tapped his foot. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, but eventually Jodi agreed to come over. Steven sat on the edge of his bed and looked around, looking like a cat trying to track a fly buzzing around the room.
“Shay, where are you?” he finally asked. When I didn’t answer him, he said, “Okay. I talked to Jodi. We’re gonna try to figure out a way to talk to you, okay? Everything is going to be okay, okay?” I smiled down at him. He was rambling. The more he said ‘okay,’ the less ‘okay’ he actually felt. He clasped his hands in his lap and bounced his right knee nervously. His face was a little pinched, like he wanted to keep talking, but he kept his mouth shut.
Steven’s phone buzzed twice in quick succession. After clearing the text, Steven jumped up and bolted down the hallway. I heard the door open and he shushed Jodi before they came back into the room.
I was struck by how Jodi looked. She was always so careful to look put together and coordinated. But tonight, she had clearly fallen asleep in the clothing she’d worn to the funeral, and when she woke up, she didn’t bother to straighten herself up. Her grey tights had a three inch tear, her pale skin peeking through. Her hair was flat at the back and slightly tangled, and a dusting of black mascara mixed with the light freckles on her cheeks. Even her skirt was twisted a few inches.
She sat down heavily on the foot of Steven’s bed, her arms wrapped around her middle, and she looked up at Steven expectantly. I saw the worry on Steven’s face; I imagine my face looked quite the same. Instead of explaining why he had called her in the middle of the night, he grabbed a brush from his dresser and moved around to sit behind her on the bed. He slowly brushed the tangles from her short bob, so much like Gwyn that my breath caught.
I felt like a caged cat waiting for Steven to hurry up and start talking, to get Jodi to understand what was going on, and for them to start figuring out what to do. But as I watched him care for Jodi, I knew there was no rushing it. She felt the acute loss of her magical sister more intensely than Steven. Maybe because I had known Jodi so much longer than I had known Steven and we had bonded over magic at such an early age. Or maybe because Steven had Anthony to lean on and, at the moment, Jodi didn’t have anyone besides him. Jodi was a very jealous person; it was possible she was angry Steven was seeking solace in the arms of another, even if she and he weren’t romantically tied.
“So,” Jodi broke the silence first, “what’s the big emergency?”
“I’ll tell you,” Steven answered, still pulling the brush through her hair gently, “but you have to promise to hear me out, all the way through, and not jump up and storm out, all right?”
“Yeah, all right,” Jodi agreed, but with little conviction.
“Okay, you promised,” he said, but Jodi said nothing. “You remember how I talked earlier about trying to find Shay, try to bring her back?”
Jodi made a noncommittal sound and bobbed her head, making her yellow blond hair shift around her face.
“Well, we don’t have to find her,” Steven said, letting his hands drop to his lap, staring at the back of her head. “Shay found me.”
Jodi looked over her shoulder at Steven, one fair brow raised, but she didn’t say anything. Steven stared right back, his mouth a firm line and his eyes clear and defiant. He was waiting for her to tell him he was crazy just like Anthony did.
“Shay found you?” Jodi finally asked, and Steven nodded in reply. “Like, she’s haunting you?”
“I guess,” he said with a half shrug.
“Steven,” Jodi said slowly, air sighing out of her as she closed her eyes.
“Yeah, I know how it sounds,” he said, turning away from her. “Anthony already told me I was crazy.”
“You told Anthony?” For the first time since I died, Jodi’s eyes lit up, but in fear and anger, not light and life.
“Yeah, I told him everything actually.”
“Drake, you didn’t!” Jodi yelped and stood. Her feet landed hip-width apart and her hands fisted at her side. Hearing her suddenly use his elemental name was more than a little jarring.
“Dude!” Steven said, waving his hands and shushing her again. He watched his bedroom door, straining to hear any movement outside. After a moment, he relaxed and looked back at Jodi.
“Yes,” he said, “I told him. Shayna tried to get my attention in front of him. I thought she was a poltergeist, so I banished her, then I started talking to Anthony. He thought I sounded crazy to believe in ghosts, so I told him about us. I even lit a candle for him.”
“And?” Jodi breathed, captivated in spite of her anger.
“And he thought it was a stupid parlor trick and still called me crazy. So, please, if you’re gonna call me crazy too, just don’t. You can just go if that’s what you think, and I’ll figure this out on my own.”
Jodi relaxed her hands, her fingers white from blood loss, and just stared at him for a few moments. She had to know how much it took for Steven to tell Anthony about our powers. She couldn’t share that with any boyfriend she’d had yet. She had dated Jay for years and never told him what she could do. I watched her eyes flick around the room as if she was looking for something, maybe even for a sign of me, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Fine,” she finally said. “How do you know it’s Shay?”
“She answered me.”
“What? Like you could hear her?” she asked, her voice pitching in excitement.
“Sort of,” he said. “When I banished her, she screamed my name, my whole name. Even Anthony heard it.”
“Anthony heard it and he still said you were crazy?” Jodi asked.
Steven went on to tell her about the television flicking on and off and finally moving. Then he told her, in detail, about the fight he and Anthony had even after they heard me calling out Steven’s name.
“That doesn’t tell me it’s Shay,” Jodi said. “That just tells me you have an intelligent haunting or maybe even a faerie playing tricks on you. They could be giggling right now.”
“No,” Steven said slowly, his brow pinched as he thought about Jodi’s words.
“All right, if you thought it was Shay, then why did you banish her from Anthony’s apartment?” Jodi asked.
“I didn’t realize it was her right away,” he said. His shoulders slumped as his head dropped forward. “I thought it was a poltergeist, like I said, but when she screamed my name, I realized my mistake.”
“Look, this proves nothing. We need to find a way to talk to her or it or whatever,” Jodi said, waving her hand in the air.
“Right!” Steven rushed to his nightstand and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.
“Dude, how is she gonna hold a pen?” Jodi asked.
“Automatic writing,” Steven said. My stomach knotted up against my spine. He was planning to open himself up to me, for me to guide his hand and control him. I wasn’t even a little bit okay with that; since I wasn’t there, anything could possess him.
Steven sat cross-legged on the floor with the pad of paper in front of him and closed his eyes when he set the pen to paper. He swirled the pen on the page over and over again, waiting for me to do something. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to do a mini-circle or a banishing on the room to make sure I wasn’t the only thing in there. I was gone for a couple of days, and that was what they did without me? Seriously?
“Steven!” Jodi dropped to her knees in front of him, making the tear in her tights stretch. She reached out and placed her hands on his, stopping him. “Steven, stop.”
“Why? Do you have a better idea?”
“You didn’t even clean the room! You just opened yourself up just like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. She pulled the pen out of his hand as if afraid he would start again if she didn’t.
“Oh, right,” he said a little lamely, his shoulders slumping. “I gu
ess I forgot.”
“Good job, Fae,” I said gently.
“Besides, I don’t think Shay would want to invade you to do this. We have to think of something else,” Jodi said, practically reading my earlier thoughts and making me want to reach out and hug her.
“Invade,” Steven rolled the word around in his mouth. “Like possess?”
“Well, I’ve never done it before, but yeah, I think that’s the general idea,” she said. Steven shifted his weight from side to side as he thought about that. A sour look crossed his face as he considered the implications of letting a spirit, even a trusted one, possess him.
“What about an Ouija board?” Steven asked.
“Shay would never talk to us on one of those; she hated them, remember? Said they made you an open door for any entity to possess you. It’s unprotected channeling.”
“Right,” Steven said, looking defeated.
“I think we need help.” Jodi looked up into Steven’s face.
“What’ve you got there?” Jacob asked, startling me so badly I yelped in surprise and almost dropped the looking glass.
“Sunnovabitch!” I swore, closing my eyes for a second to compose myself. Balor lifted his head and gave Jacob a bored look. He’d probably heard Jacob coming but didn’t smell a threat in him, so he’d just ignored his approach.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he replied, chuckling.
“Yeah, very funny.” I lowered the looking glass to my lap, placing my hands over it as if I could hide it. Balor sniffed the air and his ears perked up as he shifted to place his feet under him. A moment later, I smelled what he did.
“Hungry?” Jacob asked, pulling his hand out from behind his back to show a wrapped bundle. He unfolded the cloth and revealed a few legs of roasted meat and torn pieces of brown bread. I almost told him no, not wanting any favors from him, but then my stomach rumbled, betraying me. With a grin, Jacob sat down cross-legged in front of me and held the food out.
Balor whined pitifully when I hesitated. With a huff of defeat, I took a piece of bread and two legs, tossing one to the dog, who tore into it greedily. I started at the leg suspiciously. It looked a lot like a turkey leg, but I definitely hadn’t seen any turkeys around here.
“I have no idea what it is,” Jacob said, reading my face. “But I’ve had one already and it tastes just fine.” He smiled to make light of it, but I didn’t have it in me to smile back. I sniffed the meat; it was charred, reminding me of campfire smoke and vaguely of Steven.
He nodded when I glanced up at him before he bit the remaining leg to show me it was in fact fine. That thin broth hadn’t been enough after so long a day, so with a shrug, I bit into the strange meat. It was salty and chewy, scorched from being too close to the fire, but I was hungry enough it didn’t matter.
“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, and Jacob nodded. We ate in silence for a time. I tore the bread into bite size pieces, sharing them with Balor. That at least tasted totally normal: a little sweet and salty, like honey oat bread.
I picked up the looking glass when I was done and brushed the crumbs off of it, polishing the black glass with the hem of my sweater, removing my fingerprints.
“What is that?” Jacob asked again.
“Just a mirror,” I said, hesitating a moment. I didn’t really want to tell him because I didn’t want to share its precious secret.
“Doesn’t look like a mirror,” Jacob replied. He stared at me, his eyes boring into mine, daring me to lie to him. The food sat like a rock in my stomach.
“It, ah, it shows you your home.” I held it out to him. Jacob reached for it and had to yank it out of my hand.
“Home?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not really sure,” I said. “It’s been showing me my family. Mab said to think about what you wanted to see, and then it will show you. So I guess it shows you home if that’s what you want to see.”
“Ah,” Jacob said with a nod. He gazed into the black glass, but it didn’t change. He turned it over in his hands, admiring the silver handle and the stones before he handed it back.
“You don’t want to look?” I asked, feeling my eyebrows contract.
“Why would I?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because it would be too painful, of course,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed, clutching the cool silver handle. “But I don’t think I could bear the torment of not knowing.”
“Because you won’t move on,” he said.
“There’s nothing to move on from,” I said, feeling my temper begin to boil again. “I wasn’t supposed to die, okay? And I’m definitely not supposed to be here.” I waved one hand around me. “It was an accident.”
“Most deaths are,” he said.
“Ugh! Do you just come around to argue with me? Because I get enough of that from Gwyn, thank you.” I crossed my arms over my chest, holding the looking glass close before shifting down to rest my head on Balor’s side. His breathing was slow and measured, rumbling through his body and into mine. I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at Jacob anymore; I had had enough of arguing and anger. I wasn’t even sure why he kept coming around me now. The only reason I could possibly think of was that he was sorry the only other human around here was planning to leave. But that didn’t matter; I needed to focus. I could take peace in knowing Steven wasn’t giving up on me and Jodi might be willing to help. I needed to do what I could to get out of there. Maybe if I made it to the edge of the Outlands, I could get back to my world and back to Jodi and Steven. Once home, I would reach out to them, tell them to go find Iris or Liam, someone with more power and experience in death to help us.
Jacob sat there staring at me for more than a few moments, but I refused to open my eyes. He could just sit there and stare until they broke camp if he wanted to; I would not open my eyes. I curled my fingers around the edges of the looking glass, clinging desperately to it, wondering what Jodi and Steven had said after I stopped watching, wondering if they were making plans or still trying parlor tricks to reach out to me. Damn that Jacob for interrupting me!
Finally I heard his feet scrape the ground as he got to his feet. He took a loud breath as if bracing himself to say something, but he must’ve thought better of it because he never said a word. He just walked away. I cracked one eye open to watch him go and felt a pang in my chest. When he disappeared between two tents and I was sure he wasn’t coming back, I sat up.
Unable to help myself, I lifted the looking glass again, gazing into it, holding onto the image of Steven and Jodi together in his room. The black glass rippled as I watched, clearing slowly until I looked down into Steven’s room. Before I could hear what they said, Steven walked out of the room, leaving Jodi sitting on the bed alone. Her eyes shifted right and then left and back again. She took a breath as if to steel herself and then she spoke.
“Listen,” she said quietly, and I knew she was talking to me. “If you aren’t Shay and you’re just messing with Steven, with us, I’m gonna find a way to summon you and I will destroy you. So think long and hard before he gets back here and decide if your little fun and games are worth it.” As she spoke, and her anger rose, I could see her wind building in the room. Her hair floated away from her face and the curtains over the window billowed out, away from the wall.
I smiled down at her and said, “I promise, Fae, it’s me.” Her head twitched to the side and her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but before she could say anything else, we both heard Steven’s footsteps coming back down the hall. In another moment, he stepped into the room. Jodi’s wind didn’t die away immediately, like it should have with the amount of power she had now – or at least had when I had died – but rather it swirled around the room again and flew out the door when Steven came through.
When the wind blew past him, Steven sensed tension in the room. He stopped and glanced down at Jodi, the tired smile on his face melting away.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,
fine,” she replied. “Everything okay out there?”
“Oh, yeah, just my little brother. He had to pee.” Steven shrugged.
“All right,” Jodi said, exhaling loudly as she stood up. “So tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Steven agreed with a nod. He reached out and took her hand to pull her into a hug. Jodi stiffened, her arms at her side, but when Steven didn’t let go, she finally lifted her arms and returned his hug. I bit the side of my cheek, trying to distract myself from the pain in my chest as I watched them embrace. If I ever got back to my world, I would grab hold of them and never let go.
“I don’t know if I can contact him, you know,” Jodi said, turning her face to the side to be heard, her cheek pressed into Steven’s chest.
“Maybe together we can raise enough power and he’ll be able to hear you,” Steven said.
“What makes you think Tegan can help?” Jodi took a half step back to look up into his face while staying in the circle of his arms.
“I don’t know if Tegan can help, specifically, but he can get our message to someone more powerful,” Steven explained, making my stomach flip. Had they figured it out? Were they going to contact Iris and make her help me? I gripped the looking glass so tightly the edges nearly cut into my fingers.
“True, but who knows how much good it will do?” She stepped fully away from him.
“Fae,” Steven said with a pleading note in his voice.
“I said I would try, Steven, and I will.” Steven let it drop and walked her out of his room. I closed my eyes, not wanting to follow them down the hall. I knew Gwyn would break camp in a few more hours, and while I didn’t know if I would stay with them, I knew I needed some sleep.
When I tried to figure out where to put the looking glass, it occurred to me I needed supplies before I struck out on my own. I didn’t know if anyone would help me, but if not, then I could cross that bridge when I got there.
“Balor,” I whispered. His ears pricked up, turning in my direction before he opened one red eye and peered at me. I wasn’t the only one pretending to be asleep around here. “I need you to hide this for me,” I said, sliding the looking glass under his belly, the fringe of fur covering the silver handle.
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