by Amir Lane
It wasn’t a surprise to see Yasir and Selima in the living room. Dieter had spent the past few nights at their place, it was about time for them to rotate it out. Yasir and Dieter were taking selfies, giggling like the lovestruck idiots they were, while Selima laughed at them over the papers in her lap.
As tired as Lindy was, she wasn’t ready to go to bed. She wasn’t ready to be alone in the deafening silence of her room. So she settled next to Selima on the couch in the space that the guys vacated as they tumbled to the floor wrestling for the phone.
“You guys okay?” Lindy asked, even though they seemed fine.
Dieter shrieked but laughed brightly. He flicked his wrist in a silent indication that they were fine.
She couldn’t find the words to describe the warmth she felt inside her. Being around them was like drinking warm tea in the middle of winter. It wasn’t like they didn’t all have their own heaviness; Selima and Yasir had finished their law degrees after fleeing to Syria during the War on Iraq, and Dieter had the Shadows and the guilt of what Alistair Cudmore had dragged him through, but they could laugh at the end of the day. With all the shit they saw, they could laugh. She couldn’t describe how much she had needed this right now. She could fake it when she was only taking calls but actually seeing the aftermath…
She needed to focus on something else. Something other than the dead body staring up at her. She picked the first things her eyes spotted.
“I like your necklace,” she said.
Except even sitting only a foot and a half, two feet max, away from Selima, she couldn’t quite make out the pendant. It was a blue blur, but the colour was nice. That was good enough for her.
“Thank you. Do you want it?” Selima asked in a light accent, already pulling her mess of black hair away from her neck and reaching for the clasp.
“What? No! I was just saying it looks nice on you.”
“If you like it, you should take it.”
“No, really, it’s okay.”
“She won’t leave it alone unless you take it,” Yasir said from his spot tangled with Dieter on the floor.
Lindy gave in with a soft sigh. Up close, it was easier to make the pendant out. The blue she’d seen came from a stone set in silver. White and black circles sat in the middle, forming an eye. She knew what this was. The Turkish called it nazar, Cari had once told her, a protective symbol against the Evil Eye. Against envy, against malicious intent. If her calls with A — she still wasn’t sure how seriously she took the name — were any indication, she had a lot of the latter coming her way. She could use all the protection against it that she could get.
“Okay,” she relented, “but I have to give you something too.”
Selima gave a quick nod, her curls shaking. She must have lost so many bobby pins in it. Lindy looked herself over, trying to decide on what she wanted to trade. Piercings were unsanitary, and besides, Selima’s ears were already full of gold hoops and studs. She wasn’t sure that their hands were the same size and even if they were, the jewellery on Selima’s hands was of a visibly higher quality than Lindy’s array of half-tarnished stainless steel. That left bracelets, an area in which Lindy actually had Selima beat. And yeah, that was because Selima wasn’t wearing any, but that was beside the point. She unwrapped the leather strap from her wrist, and her arm suddenly felt a good kilo lighter, even though it couldn’t have weighed more than a few grams. It left her with an awkward, naked feeling, but she could always replace the bracelet if she got desperate for the weight back.
They swapped the jewellery. The pendant was no heavier than the bracelet, but it weighed heavy and solid against Lindy’s chest. Looking at Selima’s hand, she found herself wondering if her jewellery was really as expensive as it looked, or if it just seemed that way. Even the leather strip she’d gotten for 15 bucks on a trip to Ottawa looked like it was worth way more than that.
“I love it,” Selima said with a bright laugh.
Lindy was glad to have her as a sister-figure.
Her eyes were burning in a familiar way, one that told her she’d been pulling too many late nights. It wasn’t even that she’d been working late or staying up reading, she just couldn’t get those pictures out of her head, couldn’t get A’s voice out of her head. It was starting to get to her.
She spent longer than she should have in the shower, standing under the hot spray until her chest started to hurt and her vision started to swim. She half-washed her makeup off, but it was mostly just smudged across her eyes. It was the last thing she could make herself care about right now. She vacated the bathroom for whoever needed it next and slipped back to her room. She changed on autopilot, swallowed down a chalky antidepressant, and sat on the edge of the bed. Even with the light on, even with the pill dissolving in her stomach, she could feel the anxiety creeping over her skin. If she turned them off, there was no telling where her mind would go, what images it would supply.
Five, ten minutes later and she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her feet took her to Lenna’s room without her brain fully registering it. She tapped her knuckles against the door. She wasn’t sure if she heard the grunt or imagined it, but the following meow was definitely real. It wasn’t like a normal cat’s meow; it wasn’t pitchy and cute. No, it was way deeper and unnatural, the meow of an animal that wasn’t used to doing it aloud. It wasn’t a kind of sound she could imagine. She cracked the door open and poked her head in.
“Len?”
Lenna’s only response was another grunt.
“I can’t sleep. Do you mind if I crash here tonight?”
Again, another grunt and the sound of Lenna moving on her bed. She let herself into the bedroom and let the door click shut behind her. Even in the dark, she had no problem making her way through the familiar room to the bed pressed against a corner.
Lindy crawled into bed behind her and wrapped her arm around Lenna’s waist. Jesus Christ, it was like hugging a space heater. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but her stupid, garbage mind wouldn’t stop racing. It wouldn’t stop playing over everything she wanted to forget. Wasn't this the whole reason she was on antidepressants? What kind of useless, garbage pills was she on?
People talked about death following Sensitives, and they weren’t wrong. Spirits flocked around the people who could see them. That wasn’t his choice. But Lindy chose a job where she heard death every day, and she chose to stay with it even when other operators quit and moved on to more stable jobs. She’d never been able to leave it, though. Where else would she be this useful?
Her breath shuddered. Before she knew it, her eyes were damp, and she was crying into Lenna’s shoulder. Her fingers gripped the heavy metal t-shirt that was probably supposed to be too big, clinging desperately. Lenna’s hand smoothed through her hair.
“Querida, what’s wrong? Talk to me. You’re safe here, you know that.”
Lindy sniffled and rubbed her cheek against hers. The stubble of Lenna’s jaw scratched Lindy’s skin. It shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was.
“I don’t know, Len.” It came out as a whine. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I’m helping or— or— or—”
“Hey, sh, sh, shhh. You are helping. You are under so many pressures, it might not seem like it, but you are.”
She whined and sniffled again. Lenna pressed a kiss to the top of her head. They were close enough that she could feel every breath and every heartbeat. Her own breath soon fell to match, her heart following suit. Maybe it was her stupid antidepressant actually starting to do its job, maybe it was the low purring rumbling through Lenna's chest, maybe it was the protective pendant hanging from her neck, but she started to forget the fear of fucking up closing in on her.
10
On the outside, Lindy went through the motions. She made too many lunches for the week, stacked neatly in the corner of the fridge. She put her books, most of which she couldn’t read anymore without a magnifying glass, where they
belonged on her bookshelf. Even her decks of oracle and tarot cards were reorganized. But inside, she was freaking out.
Her visions had always been from the perspective of herself as an observer, even on the rare occasions that they involved her. She’d never actually been part of the vision. That was what made them bearable. If that was gone, if she was actually going to be a part of them from now on… She was so not here for that.
She only had so much time to worry about it. She was finally getting her wish to see the other crime scenes. All she could think about, though, was if she would get more visions like that, if seeing something of the victims’ would put her there, if she was going to have to see herself being gunned down again. It was almost enough to make her want to call the whole thing off, maybe call in sick, or just change her mind and go back to the phones. As sick as it made her, though, she didn’t have much choice here. Of all the Seers in the city, A was fixated on her.
There had to be a reason for it, and there had to be a reason he’d brought up Dieter. Maybe she’d try another round with the cards tonight. Now, it was quality car time with Dick.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dick asked, subtle and polite as ever.
“I’m checking something. Why, what are you doing?”
Dick snorted and turned his attention back to the road.
Lindy stared at her reflection in the sun visor’s vanity mirror. Since she’d noticed the black spot on her iris a few days ago, she couldn’t stop herself from staring at it. Was it her imagination, or was it getting bigger? No, it was definitely getting bigger. It was almost overflowing onto her sclera. It could have been nothing, but maybe it was the reason she was going blind. She’d already called her optometrist to make an appointment to have it checked out, but it wasn’t until the end of the week. Who knew how long it would be before she found out what it was? She could be stone blind by then.
Okay, probably not. Lindy’s vision hadn’t been getting any worse since she’d noticed the spot. At least, not that she could tell. She was taking that as a good sign. Maybe it was like when a blood vessel burst in the eye. It looked gross, but it wasn’t anything to worry about.
Hopefully.
Dick pulled up to the first victim’s house. Analise Duplantier, the one Lindy had been on the phone with when A shot her. Lindy hadn’t been sure, but the bullet was from the same gun that killed not-Bad Omen and the gardener. She would have liked to have been able to use the National Gun Registry to at least narrow it down, but the previous government had decided to axe it to save money. Not that it had been used properly anyway. Conservatives. She was about as excited for this as she was for the eye appointment.
“Your makeup looks fine,” Dick said dryly.
“That’s not what I was looking at, dick.” She paused, scowling when she realized how ineffective the insult was when it was his first name. “Asshole.”
“Looked like it to me. Come on, you wanted to check this place out so bad. The victim’s daughter is only giving us an hour. She’s showing the house later. You’d think this would be a higher priority, but what can you do?”
As if this place was a tourist spot. Because this was totally where she wanted to be on a Friday afternoon. It seemed like Duplantier’s daughter should have wanted to give them whatever they needed to find her mom’s killer but, hey. Trauma was weird. Lindy didn’t pretend to understand it.
She got out of the car, fixing her sunglasses back over her eyes. It wasn’t that bright out, and even less bright inside the house, but even the dim light filtering through the curtains hurt her eyes. She didn’t pay any attention to Dick’s glances, ranging between confused and concerned.
“Hungover?” he asked.
“I’m not a big drinker. Not during the week, at least. But you are giving me a headache.”
He snorted but didn’t say anything.
She walked through Analise’s house, not paying any more attention to him. The sooner she got through the house and out of there, the lower her chances were of having an unwanted vision. The small ones, the ones that didn’t mean much, weren’t so bad. Little snippets of potential homeowners looking around, a kitten running up the stairs, Dick walking face first into the glass door. That last one made her laugh a solid minute before it happened. He let out a surprised yelp. She turned around to see his startled expression as he turned face-to-face with an array of African tribal masks lining the walls.
He shot her a sharp glare that did nothing to her.
“Don’t you have… things to… see?” he demanded.
She managed to stop from rolling her eyes, but only because she couldn’t think of a better way to phrase his question.
“I don’t know yet. Haven’t picked up on anything so far.”
“Do you know if she was a witch?”
“Can you just let me work?” she said, maybe a little more harshly than entirely necessary.
It wasn’t his fault; he needed to know as much as she did. And she hated not being able to know. It was always one of the first things she picked up on, but it had been so long since anyone had lived there, long enough that the majority of any witch's magic would be mostly gone. She couldn’t tell if what she was picking up on belonged to the victim — she’d learned better than to refer to them by name — or to any other witch that might have come by in the past however many weeks it had been since she’d been killed. It could have even belonged to someone who lived here before for all she knew. All she could tell so far was that at some point in time, a witch had walked through the house. It was about as helpful as looking at the pictures.
She let out a slow sigh and let her eyes slip shut as she walked through the main floor. It felt more like something was pulling her, the same thing that pulled her hand when she drew. Actually, it was the exact same thing that had pulled her through the gardener’s house.
Would this feeling stay with her when she lost her sight completely?
“What are you doing?” Dick asked.
The raised eyebrow almost audible in his voice.
“Trying something.”
“You’re going to trip,” he warned.
Lindy shushed him and waved her hand for him to be quiet.
She could feel Dick behind her as she made her way up the stairs, ready to catch her if she fell. She wasn’t going to, but she appreciated that he didn’t want her snapping her neck, even if it was just because of all the paperwork he would have to do.
Downstairs, a couple of crime scene people came in to collect anything they found.
The closer she got to the top of the stairs, the stronger the pull of something she couldn't quite identify was. It was almost as if there was some kind of store of magic sitting somewhere in the top corner of the house. It wasn’t unlike the feeling she got around Familiars, but it still wasn’t quite the same. Behind her eyelids, she could see a notebook. Old, leather, all but falling apart and held together by nothing but the strips wrapped around it.
“Where are you going?”
The annoyance in Dick’s voice grew with each question. When she didn’t respond, he let out a frustrated grunt and muttered something under his breath that she probably didn’t want to hear.
She didn’t open her eyes until she got to the top of the stairs. It looked just like any other second floor of a house this size. She could still feel that concentration of magic. It was getting annoying, something like a mosquito buzzing just by her ear. She followed the sound, so to speak, into the master bedroom. The magic seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
She pushed her bangs back out of her face with a loud sigh. There was something in here, something hidden that she just couldn’t…
That she just couldn’t find.
“Holy shit!”
Dick jumped behind her.
“Holy shit what?” he asked.
“Just something to remember for later,” she said absently.
If she could find this whatever — this notebo
ok, she suspected — then maybe she could find A. Someone had used magic to block the location of this notebook from her sight, possibly maybe with the same spell that A had used, or at least a similar one. It seemed like a long shot since she could at least see the notebook itself, properly see it, not the frosted-glass view she had of him. But maybe… She didn’t want to abandon the possibility before she’d even really had a chance to consider it. She didn’t know enough about that kind of magic to know how similar hiding a person and hiding an object were. Lenna might know, but if she didn’t, Lindy was sure she knew at least one witch who would.
She walked the perimeter of the room, trying to feel for any fluctuations in the signal. Nothing stood out. It didn’t help that her eyes kept watering, blurring together any visual that might have helped. She flattened her palm against the wall as she walked. Not for any real reason, just a gut feeling that there was something on the far wall.
Or in it.
Her hand ran over a short protrusion. It was only a few millimetres high, nothing she would have ever noticed just by looking. But maybe that was the point, to hide something from normal view. Or Normal view, as the case may have been. She moved her hand along it to get a better feel for the size of it in a way that her eyes couldn’t make out. It was four, maybe five inches wide and easily a foot high.
“Hey, come here,” she said, waving Dick over.
“What is it?”
She worked her nails under the panel. She was so glad she hadn’t gotten around to cutting them yet. Without having to worry about them getting caught on her keyboard or clicking against it, she didn’t really have any motivation besides it getting annoying. But now, she was seeing the advantage of long nails for the first time since she’d taken up the piano forever ago. It took some work, her nails wearing away the seal between the panel and the wall, but she managed to pry it off. She set the wooden rectangle on the bedside table and pressed her nails to the palms of her hands as if it would keep them from falling off.