I felt my cheeks get hot and glanced at Riley. Yeah. He was right. Time to change the subject.
I gave Sheila a look of disappointment. “So, no message from the spirit world?”
“No, actually, that part was true. I’ve been watching for you to show up all afternoon. They’re practically screaming in my head.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “What, seriously?” I’d been teasing. I hadn’t expected a message from beyond, or wherever it was she got her information.
She nodded and pulled a deck of cards from a hidden fold in her cloak. “Seriously. I have to give you a reading or I won’t get any peace.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. “I’m...I’m sorry. Does that happen often?”
She shuffled the cards with an expert hand. “Occasionally. Tell me when to stop shuffling.” As she shuffled, she tipped her head at Riley and Andrew. “You guys find something to do, if you don’t mind. We won’t be long.”
Riley hesitated, but Andrew was familiar with Sheila’s readings and signaled for Riley to follow him. “Come help me tally the two sales I’ve made today. My math is terrible.”
They moved away so Sheila could concentrate.
I watched the fake gems in her rings sparkle, hypnotic in their quick movements. A shiver went down my back. “Stop.”
Her movements fast and smooth, she dealt cards across the table in an arc.
She pointed to each card. “Past, present, future, a warning and a blessing.”
I groaned. “Ah, come on.”
She looked up, her face alarmed. “What?”
I tapped the card she’d indicated as my future card. A beautiful red bird surrounded by a halo of fire held its wings to the sky. “I kept getting the Phoenix card when Aggie did a reading for me.”
A lump formed in my throat at the thought of my lost friend. Aggie had pulled the Phoenix card for me. And a few days later, she’d come to say goodbye to us. She’d burst into flames, burned to ashes, then emerged as a phoenix, leaving behind what she’d told us was supposed to be the sacred Covenant between Hidden and humans.
The pages of the book had been blank, though. Completely worthless to us. We’d lost Aggie for nothing. Her loss still left an ache.
“So, that makes it all the more valid, don’t you think?” Sheila gave me a sideways look like I might be a little touched. “Do you want me to reshuffle?”
I gave her a slow nod. “Yeah. If you don’t mind.”
She mixed the cards again, this time stopping when she felt it, rather than when I did.
Past. Present. Future. The phoenix stared up at me from the glossy card.
“Dammit. One more time?” My heart fluttered in my chest. Why was I being such a baby about it? If I got it a third time, I’d sit back and let her read the stupid cards without a fuss.
She shuffled. I felt a shiver, waited a beat, then told her to stop. She laid the cards flat, and I didn’t think either of us was surprised to see the phoenix card in the future spot again, though each of the other cards had changed with every shuffle.
I took a deep breath, held it, let it out. “Okay. Tell me. No, wait. Can Riley come back?”
She shrugged and waved at the guys to come back. Riley settled in next to me, and Andrew stood off to the side with his arms folded.
Sheila eyed me carefully, then tapped the card that stood for the past. “The Lamb. Innocent, cared for—you took things at face value. Your hardships were those of other lambs. Money. Loss. Men.” She flinched and touched her head. “Definitely men.” She sucked air between her teeth. “Oh, honey, you’ve been through some shit, haven’t you?”
I snorted. “You could say that.”
“Well, it’s not quite over, but nearly so.”
Riley shifted in his seat. “Hey!”
She flipped her hand in his direction. “Not you, honey. Something from her past isn’t finished. Nothing major.”
My mouth went dry and I sipped my tea. “Great.” With everything else going on, the last thing I needed was a visit from my ex-husband, Brad. Or any of the other guys I’d had trouble getting rid of in the past.
She touched the surface of the card in the spot representing the present. “The Dragon.” She smiled, but the expression carried some sadness with it. “You’ve been fighting very hard. Your belly furnace burns strong and bright. But see how the dragon lies near its cave and the sun sets behind the mountain? The fight is almost over.”
“That’s a relief.” I set my mug on the table. “Okay. Let me have it. Tell me how the Phoenix card represents new beginnings, blah blah blah.”
Sheila chuckled. “Fine, Miss Smartypants. It’s all about rebirth and new beginnings.”
“I’ve already seen it happen, though. Aggie burned up and was reborn as a phoenix four months ago.”
“What, literally?” Sheila’s eyes grew round. “Holy crap.”
“No kidding. So, you can see why I’m not thrilled to still see that card.”
“No, I imagine you wouldn’t be. But there it is. And I have to remind you that before there can be rebirth, there must be death.”
“So much good news today.” My stomach burned with acid.
She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Death isn’t always literal, Zoey. Keep that in mind.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” I wanted to believe the cards weren’t being literal, but I’d already lost a lot of people I loved. My gut wanted to take it literally. The gut usually won.
She sat up straighter. “So, a warning. That’s the Lion and the Unicorn. They’re locked in an epic battle. See how they both bleed? Sometimes the only way to win a fight is not to fight at all. Do you understand?”
I shook my head. “That sounds like giving up.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I can only tell you what they want you to know. I don’t necessarily understand the advice I’m told to give. But you will understand when the time comes.”
Riley took my hand in his, and I felt a little steadier, though no less confused. “I think I could use that blessing now.”
Sheila pressed her finger against her lips as she examined the card in the last spot. The picture was of a black horse with red eyes rearing up on its hind legs.
“This one doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and the voices in my head have gone maddeningly quiet.”
“It’s a demonic horse,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“No.” She tapped a blunt fingernail against the card. “It’s the Pooka card. But pookas are bad luck. I’ve certainly never seen this card land in the blessing spot before.” She stopped talking when she noticed me laughing. “How is bad luck a blessing? What am I missing?”
I wiped my eyes and tried to get my laughter under control. “Would you believe I’ve got a friend who’s a pooka?”
She glanced at the card, then back at me, her expression filled with doubt. “How are you not dead?”
Her question made me burst out in laughter again, remembering how close I really had come to dying while Silas the pooka had been in my house. I pulled myself together, took a deep breath and said, “Gargoyle snot.” Then I fell apart again, bent over laughing, trying to catch my breath.
“Is she okay?”
Riley rubbed his palm across my back. “Give her a minute. I think she’s hit her limit of ridiculous for the moment. She’ll be fine.”
I laughed hard enough that I was no longer sure if I was laughing or crying. There’s a dangerous line when there’s too much stress—one emotion can flip to the other between breaths. I wiped my face and sat up, wondering how the hell I was going to survive the days ahead without a complete loss of sanity.
“Sheila, I am so sorry.” I grabbed a few tissues from a box Andrew handed me. “You have no idea what’s been going on for t
he last year and a half. The pooka thing was too much. That guy drove me crazy. He refused to wear pants half the time.” I blew my nose and gave her a hard stare. “Pants, Sheila!”
She frowned. “Why would a horse wear pants?”
I stopped a giggle in the back of my throat and kept it from bubbling out. If I let myself go again, I might not be able to pull it together. It would be kind of hard to fight Shadow Man in a straightjacket. “Pookas only look like horses when they want to. He mostly looked like a very angry Danny DeVito.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Without pants.”
“Exactly.”
She looked appropriately appalled, and I felt better, knowing I’d managed to get my point across.
I groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Riley asked.
“If Silas is coming, we’re in trouble. I don’t have any more gargoyle snot.”
* * *
My emotional outburst left me exhausted, which was fortunate. It meant that when the vision hit me on the way home, I wasn’t the one driving my car.
The last time this had happened was over four months ago, during all the portal chaos. So when everything went dark and I found myself standing in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the sound of whooshing wings around me, I didn’t panic.
A pinprick of light pulsed before me, widening and allowing the shadowy shape of a great bird to form. The very first Hidden, the Simurgh, hadn’t shown herself before this, though seeing her shadow was only a small step toward actually seeing her. Still, it was better than the darkness I’d experienced before.
The shadow moved, its great wings the size of a small house.
“In one, there is hope,” she whispered. “In two, there is tragedy.”
“One what?” I tried to take a step forward but my foot wouldn’t leave the ground. “Two what? Please. No more riddles. We’re in a lot of trouble.”
The dark form shifted, shivering its wings. “I can say no more until two become one.”
“Do I have to get married? What?”
“The answers are in the book.”
“But the book is blank!”
“Indeed.”
Without warning, the setting sun was shining through the windshield, directly in my eyes. The Simurgh was gone, leaving me with more questions than I’d had before she’d spoken.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. My ribs itched, and I pulled an iridescent, rainbow-colored feather from my shirt. Impossibly, the feather was a good six feet long.
Riley glanced at me, then back at the road. “What’s wrong?”
I waved the top of the feather at him. “Another mystery message from the First Hidden.” I told him what the Simurgh had said.
He frowned. “Well, shit. That could mean anything.”
“That’s kind of what I said, but she didn’t seem inclined to explain further.”
As we pulled into my driveway, a patch of white flashed through the woods alongside the car. We came to a stop, and our resident yeti, Tashi, stepped out from across the yard.
Two little ones, half yeti and half skunk-ape, clung to the snowy fur of her shoulders. She lifted a giant hand to us in greeting, grinned, then disappeared into the forest. I’d worried about her for a long time after her mate, my friend Iris, had died. Until she’d discovered she was pregnant, I’d been afraid she might waste away with sadness. She looked so much better now—still a little sad sometimes, but mostly consumed with the joys of motherhood. Seeing her with her babies made me smile. That right there was what we were fighting for.
Because if Shadow Man got his way, Tashi and her babies—hell, every one of my Hidden family—would be forced to leave our world forever. As frightened as I was of Shadow Man trying to kill me, I was more frightened that he would change the world in a way I was unwilling to let it change. My friends belonged here. This was their home.
Even if I died and couldn’t be with them anymore.
Gravel crunched under the tires as we rolled to a stop near the house. I hopped out of the car, and Riley held the front door open for me.
Despite how many people we had buzzing in and out lately, the house was silent. I made my way through to the kitchen and out the other side to check the backyard.
Sure enough, that was where almost everyone was. I didn’t see Sara anywhere, so I assumed she was working in the back bedroom. The group huddled around a central figure. Dread flooded through me, and I hurried over.
Mom kneeled in the grass. An enormous, iridescent feather lay on the ground next to her. She looked up and gave a weak smile as we approached, pointing at the feather in my hand. “You, too?”
I nodded. “Yep. She was opaque as usual.”
She struggled to her feet. “What was your message?”
“Same as yours. ‘In one, there’s hope. In two, there’s tragedy.’ That’s what you got, right?”
A shadow crossed her face and she looked away. “We always get the same message, Zoey.” She held out the feather. “Here. This was caught in my hair after the vision was over.”
I took it from her. “I’ll add it to the collection.” I had no idea where Maurice was keeping them, or if they meant anything other than as a calling card from the First Hidden. Knowing Maurice, he was probably using them as a craft project. I smirked, thinking how big the dreamcatcher would have to be for feathers this big.
We’d had visions from the Simurgh three times before, each accompanied by these ridiculously oversized rainbow feathers. And each time, our visions had been identical to each other. Something about the expression on Mom’s face troubled me, though. She was being evasive.
I touched her sleeve. “Did you get something more in your vision? Something you’re not telling me?”
She covered my hand with hers and gave me a stern look. “If I had more information, why wouldn’t I tell you?”
Well, that didn’t exactly answer the question, did it?
“I had a little more,” I said. “Since the message didn’t make sense, I asked for clarification. She said the answers were in the book.”
Mom scowled and dropped her hand. “The book is blank.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“I hate to interrupt.” Maurice squinted up at the sky, noting the position of the sun. “But I’ve got a pot roast that needs attention. I’m going in.”
Kam looped her arm through mine. “Wheel of Fortune will be on soon. I want to see what Vanna’s wearing. She’s not usually as fancy as she was back in the eighties, but I still like to see what she’s got on.”
I strolled arm-in-arm with Kam toward the back door behind Maurice, with Riley and Darius following us, talking in low voices—no doubt discussing the visions Mom and I had seen.
I’d assumed Mom was right behind us.
She screamed, the sound chilling me and sending a spike of adrenaline through my gut. I whirled around and found her still standing where we’d left her and facing the direction of the path down to the beach.
Darius was the first to reach her, and she buried her face against his massive chest. He made soft, comforting sounds and stroked her hair while her body shook. After a moment, she calmed enough to raise her head.
“I saw him.” She choked on the words and had to clear her throat. “I saw Shadow Man standing over by the cliff. He was watching us.”
Kam and Riley took off in the direction of the beach, while I stayed with Darius to help calm Mom.
Maurice, caught between an emergency outside and the possibility of a ruined pot roast inside, looked stricken.
I waved at him to go inside. “We’ll call if we need you.”
He moved up one step, then paused. “I’ll send Sara out. She’ll want to take a look, too.” He disappeared into the house.
Mom sniffled and pulled away from Darius. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d be prepared once I saw him, but I guess I wasn’t.” She stood straighter. “I’ll be ready next time.”
I so hoped there’d be no next time.
Kam jogged back to us, barely out of breath. “He’s not there. I don’t even see where he could have gone that fast.”
Mom stiffened. “I didn’t imagine it.”
Kam gave her a look like she was crazy. “Well, of course you didn’t. His footprints are right there outside the fairy ring.”
I frowned. “How do you know they’re his?”
Riley joined us and put a protective arm around my waist. “Because the footprints are filled with crickets.”
Chapter Seven
Our heavy hitters—Sara, Darius, Kam and Riley—spent the next hour and a half searching the perimeter of the fairy ring, the beach cove below the house and the area around the cottage. The only sign of Shadow Man was that single set of cricket-filled footprints and Mom’s word that she’d seen him.
Considering I’d had a similar experience, I couldn’t sustain my doubt in his existence—though it hadn’t been strong to begin with. I couldn’t explain how he’d disappeared from the news photo, but I knew he’d been there. And now he was appearing to Mom.
The thought of him being that close to her—to all of us—gave me shivers.
Kam came back first from the hunt and plopped into a folding chair next to me in the backyard. “My feet are killing me.” She kicked off a pair of gold sandals and wiggled her pedicured toes in the dirt. “Probably should have changed first before I scaled the side of the cliff.” She plucked at the shoulder of her white toga, adjusting the gold brooch holding it together.
Suggesting to Kam that she change had crossed my mind, but Kam always wore what she wanted, whether it was appropriate or not. Now that she had less magic to create her outfits, I suspected she had most of the clothes in her luggage, but she was using magic to pull the accessories out of the air. Goosebumps appeared on her arms with every breeze, yet she refused to acknowledge that she was cold. I didn’t know if all djinn were stubborn that way, but ours certainly was.
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