“Why would he kill you only to bring you back to life?”
“As punishment for interrupting his fun. Apollo cursed me then to always be by the girl’s side. As I regained control of myself, he told me quite clearly that since I was so quick to protect the girl in life, then I would do so for all eternity.”
“So this is how you became the Keeper to the Sibyl.”
“Yes, but she wasn’t the Sibyl just yet. When Apollo became pleased with her work, he changed her from the wild woman she had become into a figure who could rival the goddesses themselves.”
“This is what I have become, then. A goddess on earth?” I tried to make light of my words, but the teasing in my voice faltered. “I’m going to need a crown or herald of trumpets to announce my presence whenever I walk into a room now.”
“In a sense, yes. You are a goddess compared to other humans.” Cyrus leaned closer, studying my face as he ignored my joke. “One look at your eyes would convince any man alive of your power.”
“Will they ever change back?” I shifted beneath the covers. “Cyrus, will I ever change back?”
“No, I am afraid not.” Cyrus shook his head as he stood. “And you must rest. I am certain you have a full schedule lined up for tomorrow.”
I remembered my promise to Elliot. If all went well, we were going to be leaving New York tomorrow night for parts unknown. Parts filled to the brim with all the spooky ghosts he could get his hands on. I was not excited, but I knew what Cyrus was saying was the truth.
“Oh, alright.” I sat up with a sigh. “I’ll go to sleep. But you have got to stop calling me Ms. McRayne. It’s going to get annoying in a hundred years or so. Call me Eva.”
I was rewarded with another one of his crooked smiles as he faded into the shadows. I couldn’t understand the emotion which came over me when I saw it, or why I felt so comforted by his presence, but I wanted Cyrus to stay with me.
I snuggled back down into my pillow with another sigh. How could I explain to Elliot the connection I felt to Cyrus? As much as I detested the idea of having the strange man following me everywhere, I was starting to feel as if I needed him there. It wasn’t because of he was easy on the eyes, either. Cyrus knew things I did not. If I were to believe in the spirits I’d seen in the mirror, then I had to believe in what he was trying to teach me. I considered going over to the desk for only a minute before dismissing the idea. These stories had been around forever. They could wait a few more hours.
One thing I did know for certain was Elliot was not going to be happy about my decision. I could count on his displeasure. Arguments which would probably never happen filled my mind. Elliot would tell me I was being effected by how hard I’d hit my head. Or that he had pushed me into too much too soon. I would snap back. Then he would disarm me with one touch of his hand.
Cyrus was right. I needed my sleep if I were going to get through tomorrow.
Chapter Nine
I was right. Elliot was not happy with me. In fact, he seemed downright furious as he stomped around my perch on his bed, throwing his clothes in the open suitcase beside me.
“Eva, you can’t be serious. You can’t keep Cyrus. He’s not a stray dog who needs a home.” Elliot grumbled just loud enough for me to hear him. “Though it might be better if he was.”
“But I’ll feed him and pet him and call him George.” My fragile attempt at humor was lost as Elliot turned around to glower at me. “Fine. I won’t pet him. But I need guidance, Elliot. You have to understand how complicated my life has become over the past few days. Cyrus is helping me figure out how to deal with those changes.”
“No I don’t. You didn’t listen to a single thing I told you yesterday.” Elliot picked up a mass of black t-shirts and they joined the pile next to me. “He is just trying to use you. That man is trying…”
“To what?” I returned his sour look with one of my own. “What exactly is Cyrus trying to do? From what I’ve seen, he has done nothing but help me since this whole mess started.”
“That’s my point.” Elliot stopped what he was doing and put his hands on each one of my arms as if to hold me in place. “Eva, you don’t need him. You have me. We can figure this out together.”
“Can we?” I searched his face to find the answers I wanted to badly. “I want to believe that, Elliot, but I think that this Sibyl business is too much for us to handle alone.”
For once, I wasn’t convinced Elliot could solve my problems. Before this trip, I had been so sure that just being around him would make me happy. Now? My confidence was shaken. The visions, the whispers – these things were so much more than I’d ever imagined. If Cyrus was right, then they could take over. I could lose myself in the past and never come back.
“Of course we can.” Elliot’s tone of voice seemed to be laced with honey as he began to rub his hands against my arms. “Eva, we can do anything together. You know this.”
“That was before I started seeing dead people.” I relished in the excitement of having Elliot so close. I couldn’t let it distract me. “Cyrus can help me with controlling them. Last night, he taught me how to shut the mirrors down.”
“Last night?” Elliot released me. “I thought you were too exhausted to do anything last night.”
“I was.” I shrugged as I searched for a way to get out of the lie I’d been caught in. “But Cyrus dropped by. Since I want to be able to look at myself getting ready in the morning, I asked him to teach me how to make the visions stop every time I look into a mirror. And he did.”
“Strange men in your hotel room at night for a lesson, huh?” Elliot had a snide tone in his voice I didn’t appreciate. “Is that all he happened to teach you?”
“Is that…” I snapped, unable to finish my sentence as I realized what Elliot was implying. “Yes, that is all. How can you even suggest such a thing? By god, how long have you know me? Do you really think I would sleep with a man I’ve only known for two days? Give me a little credit, Elliot. I think I’ve earned it.”
I was about to open the door when he grabbed me.
“Eva, wait. Look,” Elliot’s shoulders were slumped in defeat as he turned me to face him. “I’m sorry, ok? I didn’t mean what I said. You gotta understand, what we have is important to me. I don’t want to lose it.”
“Then don’t go and make accusations about things you don’t know the first thing about.” I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. “Let me go.”
“No.” Elliot cupped my face in one of his hands. “I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you lose yourself in the promises this man is making. It’s not right.”
It was my turn to look defeated. I felt the anger seep out of me the instant he touched me. I leaned into the palm of his hand with a sigh. “What are we doing, Eli?”
“We are going to keep on with what we were doing before the conference.” Elliot brushed my jaw with his thumb. “We are going to travel the world, making the best damn show on television.”
“No, I didn’t mean about the show.” I pulled his hands away from my face. “I meant what are we doing with each other? The kiss, these caresses. Elliot, what do you mean by them?”
“I don’t know.” Elliot tightened his grip on my hands before sitting down on the edge of the bed I had vacated. “I don’t know what I am feeling right now. But I know I can’t be without you, Eva. I’ve held back from wanting you for so long. I can’t do it anymore. Not after sitting by your bedside, wondering if what I’d done had hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me.” I knelt down to get a better look at his face. “Eli, look at me. You didn’t do anything. And you can’t stop what has already happened.”
“What now? Where we go from here?” Elliot seemed to be searching my face for answers I wasn’t sure I had. “Do we just go back to being friends? Do you want to give us a try? Or do you think being together will ruin everything between us?”
I responded the only way I knew how. I rose up just enough to kiss him, hoping to
recapture the passion I’d felt the morning before.
I did. This time, as Elliot wrapped me up in his embrace, it was better. The uncertainty, the fear of losing him-all of it melted away in that single moment. When I pulled away, I found him smiling.
“No, I don’t think us being together could ruin anything.” I tilted my head to the side as he brushed the hair away from my face. “This has been coming for a long time, Eli. It’s time we recognize it.”
“So we’re a thing now.” Elliot grinned. “An item.”
“Yeah.” I returned his grin. “I guess so. I can see it now. Valentines Day, telling our folks, going from one family to the other on the holidays. It’ll be great.”
“No it won’t. Your dad hates me.” Elliot raised a single eyebrow in my direction. “Especially since I helped you up and move to California.”
“True.” I let Elliot lift me up so I could sit on his lap. “He wasn’t too happy when I told him we got the show. I wouldn’t say he hates you though.”
Elliot started to kiss me again, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. I shrugged, disentangling myself from his arms before crossing the room to answer it. I knew who it was before I turned the knob though because the same sense of security which had filled me in the darkness last night was surrounding me now.
“Cyrus is here.” I opened the door to see the man brooding over the stack of folders he had taken from me. “And in such a chipper mood! I don’t know if I can stand so much happiness this early in the morning.”
“Good morning to you too.” Cyrus ignored my sarcasm as I stepped aside. He crossed over the threshold just enough for me to shut the door before he started. “You can’t be serious about going to these hovels.”
“Hovels?” Elliot stood, crossing his arms over his chest. “Those aren’t hovels. They are locations where people need our help.”
“Hovels.” Cyrus stressed the word. “Had you taken the time to actually read the information I did last night, you will see why I would come to such a conclusion.”
“No, I didn’t get to read them because you took them from me.” I pointed out the obvious since he wasn’t going to. “Remember? You insisted on having a say in where we were going to be filming.”
“Did he now?” Elliot shook his head as he resumed the packing he had abandoned earlier. “I told you so.”
“Told you what?” Cyrus refused to look at Elliot, so he focused on me. The tension between those two were so thick, it covered the room like a blanket. “It is of no matter. You are too inexperienced to expose yourself to such places.”
“Give me those.” I reached for the folders but Cyrus was much quicker than I was. He stepped back, flipping through them as if they were a deck of cards.
“Great Falls Insane Asylum. Fort Smith Hospital. Green Lawn Mortuary. Abandoned Pennsylvania coal mine. Ah, this one is my personal favorite.” Cyrus stopped at a folder in the middle. “The Black Hollow Murder House.”
“Sounds like quite the tourist attraction.” I snatched the folder away before Cyrus could stop me. “But a murder house? Really?”
“Would you like to tell her, or should I?” Cyrus turned towards Elliot who had come up beside me. “I’m afraid my memory fails me when it comes to all the gory details you have highlighted.”
“You’re exaggerating.” Elliot rolled his eyes as he reached over my shoulder to pull out the single photograph buried in a mound of papers in my hands. “It’s nothing more than an old farmhouse in Kansas.”
“A haunted old farmhouse in Kansas, I presume.” I raised a single eyebrow as I took the picture from him. “That could be anywhere, Elliot. What’s so special about this one?”
“It wasn’t just a murder. There was a suicide, too.”
“Oh, ok. That’s much better, Eli.”
“Alright, fine.” Elliot glared at Cyrus as he pulled me down into the overstuffed chair in the lounge area of his room. “This house has been kept in pristine condition since the time of the murder. The family who remained turned it into a shrine of sorts. As a result, the spirits stayed behind. Joanna Whitaker, our contact and descendant of the victim, said the ghosts of her great-great grandparents appear to her or to anyone who will come to the house.”
“Alright.” I looked down at the photograph in my hands. It looked simple enough. A two story, middle class home found anywhere in the United States. The only difference between this place and a normal home was the history behind it. “It’s just an old house. How many spirits are supposed to be there?”
“Two.” Elliot shifted through the papers. “Samuel and Catherine Tillotson.”
“Two ghosts, as opposed to the hundreds inhabiting a hospital or an asylum.” I nodded. “Let’s go there.”
“Eva.” Cyrus said my name as if it were a warning. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, come on. Its two people, if they are even there at all. I can handle two spirits. And you can teach me more on the flight.”
“What do you mean, handle?” Cyrus glowered at me much like Elliot had done earlier when I told him Cyrus was sticking around. After a moment of silence, he scoffed. “No. It is far too dangerous.”
“It is not.” I shook the picture in my hand, tapping it against my knee. “I think this could work.”
“So are you going to let me in on this conversation, or do I need to leave the room?” Elliot had stuffed his hands in his pockets as he stood between the two of us. “I’d hate to be an interruption.”
“There is no conversation.” Cyrus sat the other folders down on the small table by my chair. “Eva has decided she is going to use the powers of the Sibyl to pull in ratings for your little project. She is putting herself in more danger than you could ever imagine.”
“You are so dramatic, Cyrus.” I grinned at the man so obviously a soldier it hurt. “I am simply using the gift granted to me to get the messages from the dead out into the open. Isn’t that the point?”
“No, it is most certainly not. The gift of the Sibyl is not meant to be used in such trivial manners.”
“Yes, it is. That’s exactly what Kathy Carter did every day.” I shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Apollo gets the credit he is after. I think that was the original point, was it not? To pull followers into Apollo’s temple?”
My keeper looked stunned for a second before he quickly recovered the stoic look he wore so well. “You surprise me, Little One. Apollo will be pleased.”
“I told you I did some of the reading you gave me last night.” I ignored Elliot’s obvious displeasure at the nickname Cyrus had assigned to me. I had also decided it was for the best not to mention my own attempts at contacting the god himself. “Then it’s settled. Eli, call Connor and have him book us a flight to Kansas. We’ve got a show to do.”
Chapter Ten
There was no easy way to get to Black Hollow, Kansas. We took the first flight out to Wichita, landing well after midnight then drove another two hours before we passed the town sign welcoming us to the heartlands of America. Even in the dark, I could tell this wasn’t much of a heartland. The two lane road Elliot was driving us down was lined on both sides by flat pastures, broken up only by the occasional silo or billboard. Most of the signs were pointing us back to Wichita, where there were actual things to attract people to the good state of Kansas.
“Turn right in two miles.”
The mechanical voice of the rental car’s GPS broke the silence that filled the car. Cyrus was in the back seat, flipping through his phone and muttering to himself. Elliot kept his eyes on the road, still refusing to speak to me after I demanded he get Cyrus a ticket on the plane with us. And me? I was lost in my own thoughts of what Cyrus had taught me. I kept imagining my door to the otherworld, adding chains to it then taking them away. The only way I could ever be helpful was to learn how to open the door and let the spirits speak for themselves. I had to learn how to call specific ones forward while pushing the others away.
“Cyrus, I can cal
l forth specific spirits, right? Isn’t that what the other Sibyls could do?”
“Yes. It took them years of practice to accomplish such a feat.”
I took his words for what they were; a deterrence. I ignored them.
“That’s what I want to learn next.” I shifted in my seat to face him. “If this is going to work, I need to know how to ask for the specific souls in the underworld.”
“What happened to you, Eva?” Elliot was making the right turn onto Main Street when he interrupted me. “Just a few days ago, you were laughing at the very thought of ghosts. Now you are trying to contact them?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous.” I chose my words carefully. “I don’t know how to explain what I’ve seen, Eli. I’ve told you this already. Besides, you’ve told me at least a hundred times that there are things in this world we can not explain. I hate to say this, but I believe I am now one of those things.”
He grabbed my hand then kissed the back of it. “And I hate to say this, but maybe you should listen to Cyrus. You are too new at this life.”
“Indeed she is.” Cyrus tucked his phone into his jacket pocket. “Perhaps you can convince Eva not to put herself into unnecessary danger as it seems I have failed. She listens to you.”
“Last time I checked, I am an adult.” I frowned. “One who capable to making her own decisions.”
“You are.” Elliot squeezed my hand and placed it on the armrest between us. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Hey, I heard what Cyrus said about being possessed. I happen to like who I am. I’m not looking to become anyone else.”
I tried to make light of my words. It was hard to do so. I was determined, yes. But I was also afraid. Images of the wild woman in my hotel mirror returned to the forefront of my mind along with how much I wanted to join her on the other side of the glass. I chased the memory away with a quick shake of my head. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
The Oracle Series: Volumes 1-3 Page 9