by Natasha Deen
“I know.” She took a shuddering breath. “Intellectually, I know all of that but my heart…it just hurts.”
Serge reached through the middle space, put his hand on her shoulder. “Mine too. And it hurts every day—”
Nell went still. “Is he here?”
I nodded. “You feel him?”
“Yeah.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Where are you, Casper?”
Her phone beeped and she turned toward the back of the car. “I don’t think I ever told you I was sorry.” The tears came again. “But I am and I wish I could’ve done it differently—”
“Me too.”
“—that I could have a do-over.”
He laughed softly. “You do. We both do. Right now.”
Nell read the text and her face crumpled. “But I want a do-over from the beginning. So I could be a good friend and step in for you and—”
“That time is done,” he said. “It’s not good for either of us to hold on to the mistakes of the past.”
“Easy to say.”
“I know,” he said. “And harder to do. But I’m in a really good place now and I’m happier in death than I ever was in real life.”
“Come on, Nell,” I said. “Let’s switch places and I’ll drive. You and Serge can talk, okay?”
She jerked her head in a nod and climbed out of the car.
I took her place, seat-belted in, and as she opened the passenger door, I said, “We’ll do a drive by of the Pierson house. Make sure everything’s okay. Maybe Rori will be outside or by the window and you can talk to her.”
Nell gave me a watery smile. “Thanks, Maggie. You’re my best friend.”
“I know, and if that isn’t a sure sign you need therapy, I don’t know what it.”
She laughed, then went quiet as her cell binged with a text.
Serge went quiet on my end and texted his words privately to Nell.
I left the two of them alone, though I caught the gist of the conversation when one of them would laugh softly or make a small sound of sympathy or connection. A couple of blocks away from the Pierson home, I frowned, slowed the car, and did a quick check of the skyline.
The night was cold and the wind speed was stiff but it didn’t explain how fast the clouds seemed to roll overhead. And it was dark enough that I shouldn’t be able to see any clouds. I gave a quick thought to asking Serge to comment, then dismissed it. He and Nell needed to talk.
I kept driving but as I closed the distance to the house, I had to stop. It was like someone in the Great Upstairs had turned their fan on high. The clouds raced across the dark sky, their undersides occasionally lit up as though contained lightning flashed within them. I stopped the car and watched as the sky went from black to dark violet.
After a second, Nell looked up. She tracked my gaze and peered out the windshield. “What’s going on?”
“You don’t see the sky?”
“Whoa,” said Serge. “I do.” He wriggled forward so the three of us were in a line. “That can’t be good, can it?”
“I don’t see anything,” said Nell.
I described what was going on.
Hurriedly, she shoved her phone in her pocket. “Mags, it’s Rori. It has to be. We need to get there, now!”
“I know—I just—give me a second because I don’t know what we’re walking into.”
“Last time it was a portal to hell,” said Serge.
Nell jerked out her phone and read the text. “This little girl is living in hell. C’mon.”
“I’m going.” I put the car into gear. “Text Craig. Just in case something’s here.”
Serge stared out the window. “Do you think it’s The Family?”
I shook my head. “We’re about to find out.” I pressed on the accelerator and hoped whatever was going on at that house, we weren’t too late to stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I pulled to a stop in front of the house, climbed out, and took it in.
Whatever “it” was.
The clouds over the Pierson home continued to streak across the dark kaleidoscope sky. But they would suddenly freeze, the sky would reset to the beginning, and the weirdness would start again.
Serge slowly climbed out of the car. “What the—?” He glanced at the sky that bordered the neighbours. “Everything’s fine with them. That’s so…bizarre.”
That was one word for it. The house was a black silhouette, with occasional bright, white light that beamed from the windows, then disappeared.
“It’s like there’s a lighthouse inside their house,” said Serge. “This is what my house looked like when everything went down.”
And that meant, big, bad things were on the inside.
“Okay,” said Nell. “Lighthouses talk to ships. What is the house talking to?”
Nothing I wanted to meet.
The air crackled, then crackled again. Static electricity hummed along my skin. “Nell, get inside the car.”
“What about you?”
“I’m getting in, too! Hurry up!” I wrenched open the door, dove inside, and slammed it shut.
Nell and Serge did the same.
I turned over the key, again, and again, on the third time, I realized I couldn’t hear the engine start because it was already running. Not bothering with my seat belt, I tossed the car in reverse and slammed on the accelerator.
The crackling grew louder as did the rising throb of thunder.
Just as I spun the wheel to turn the car around, there was a loud crash, an ear-splitting crack of thunder. Then a giant fork of lightning split the sky and exploded on the rooftop. Chunks of tile and stucco flew into the air as the house burst into flame.
“Maggie! Maggie!”
I jerked back, blinked, then did a combination freak-out and jerky chicken dance. “What the—! Where—” I panicked as hands reached out for me, fought against them, then stopped when I realized they belonged to Nell.
“Geez, girl. Where did you go?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them and looked around. We were still in Nell’s car. Only, I was in the passenger seat. “What just happened?”
“You told me to change spots with you, then you totally zoned out,” she said.
“I—we didn’t change spots?”
“No.”
“I didn’t drive to the Pierson home?”
“What part of ‘no’ are you not getting?”
I turned to Serge. “What about you? Did you see anything?”
“You drooling a little,” he said. “But nothing to put on YouTube.”
Okay, don’t freak out. Just think. I rested my hand against my forehead. No fever. Okay, so no delusions based on illness. “I thought I’d changed spots with you, Nell. We drove to the Piersons and there was this weird sky and lightning. Then everything exploded and the house caught on fire.”
Nell spun in her seat, jerked on her seat belt. She put the car in gear and rocketed onto the road. “What else did you see?”
“Nothing, just what I said. A weird sky, thunder, lightning, and a house on fire.”
The scenery turned into a grey, blurry shadow as we sped through the night, racing for the Piersons. A few, tense moments later, we pulled up to the house.
The dark, quiet house.
“It’s fine,” she said, scanning the area. “Nothing’s on fire.” She turned to me. “Was it a vision or a premonition?”
“I hope neither. I have enough to deal with when it comes to the dead. I don’t need to add prognosticating to my list of trials, too.” I undid my seat belt and got out of the car. “This is too weird. I’ve got to take a look.”
Serge and Nell came with me and we headed up the steps to the front door.
“That’s wrong,” Nell said. “They always have
their porch light on.”
“And their door locked, too, I bet.” I pointed to the front entrance and the crack of space in between it and the jamb.
“I don’t like this, Mags.”
“Me neither. Call Nancy. Tell her what’s going on. And tell her we’re going inside to make sure everyone’s okay.” I stopped. “No, don’t tell her the last part. Just tell her to come right away.”
Nell started texting.
“Actually.” I closed my fingers over hers. “Don’t. Let’s see what happens when we go inside.”
“I think dead happens when we go inside.”
“If we call them in, they’ll tell us to stay outside.”
“I’m already dead,” said Serge, “and I think that staying outside is a good idea.”
“Yeah, but I have to transition Kent. He and Dr. Pierson have history. This could all be related. Let’s just look and then we’ll bring in the grown-ups.”
Serge sighed and nodded.
“Fine,” said Nell. “But if I die with a hatchet to the head, you and I will have a long, long talk about my eternal disfigurement.”
“Just a sec.” I stepped back. “Serge, get Craig.”
A couple seconds later, the ferrier appeared. “Kent’s okay,” he said. “I cleared the spirit from him and sent it back. He’s home, freaked out, but okay.”
“One problem solved.” I gave him the two-second rundown on our next one.
He nodded. “Okay, got it. Did you call Nancy?”
“That’s on our list of things to do after we check out the Piersons’ house,” said Nell.
Craig shot me a disapproving look. “You should really get in the professionals.”
“That’s what I did. I called you, the professional supernatural. We should move on this.”
“Nell, text Nancy. Let me go first.” Craig stepped in front, gently pushed open the door, and moved inside.
I followed, then Nell, and Serge. The interior of the house was cool, quiet, and dark.
“Should I turn on a light?” whispered Nell. “They never do in cop shows.”
“That’s because they’re creating drama,” I said. “Turn on the light. We need to see if the house has been tossed.”
There was a click, a flash, then the interior lit up under the chandeliers and lamps. The house looked perfect.
“This doesn’t make me feel better,” said Serge.
“Me either. If there had been a mess, you could say it was robbers, get out and wait. But with the house being so tidy and the door left open…”
“You start thinking domestic violence,” finished Craig.
I scanned the floors and ceilings. “I don’t see any fog and everything looks fine.”
“Maybe they went out and forgot to lock up?” suggested Serge.
“Unlikely,” answered Nell. “They like their stuff too much.”
Quickly, quietly, and not touching anything, we did a check of the upstairs, main floor, and basement. I rifled through Dr. Pierson’s computer—just to see if there was some reason to explain their disappearance. A sudden trip to Mexico they’d forgotten about, a spontaneous drive to the outskirts to check out some meteor shower that NASA had emailed him about. But the only emails in his inboxes and archives were friends, work, and shipping notices from factories.
Nothing was out of place. Mrs. Pierson’s purse was on the kitchen counter, the doctor’s bag in the living room. There was no sign of the family.
“There’s only one place left,” said Craig. “The garage.”
I took a breath and followed him to where Nell directed. The four of us looked at each other, then Nell nodded, and gripped my hand.
Craig opened the door, turned on the lights…
There was a brief second of relief when I didn’t see three bodies in one of the cars. No murder-suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. But the relief was short-lived.
“One of the cars is missing,” said Nell.
I ran back to the kitchen, searched through Mrs. Pierson’s purse and the doctor’s bag. “Both their wallets are here,” I said as the group joined me. The family was missing and wherever they’d gone, the adults hadn’t taken any cash or credit cards. There seemed to be only one explanation, one that ended with three coffins and a dead six-year-old.
“I’m trying really hard to think of reasons not to ground you for the rest of your life.”
I gulped at Dad’s words, then gulped again at the death glare he was shooting my way. “In my defense—”
His eyebrow went up and I shut up.
“I don’t care how super your supernatural boyfriend is or how kick-butt Nell can be or even that Serge can do weird magic voodoo with people’s hearts.” Dad leaned forward, rested his hands on the kitchen table. “If you ever, ever walk into a house that may have a murderer or burglar, you will never see the sun again. You get me?”
I put my hands up in a surrender gesture. “Not that I’m arguing or playing chicken with how serious you are about grounding me, but this isn’t the first time I’ve had to walk into a murderer’s den...”
The skin around his lips whitened.
“...and it probably won’t be the last.” I rolled the dice and took a step toward him. “Maybe I should’ve waited for Nancy but we were worried about Rori and—”
“This is dangerous stuff. It’s my job to protect you, Maggie. Even from yourself. Especially from yourself.”
“You protect me with everything else.” I took another step. “Trust me that I know how to deal with this.”
“Maggie—”
Another step, then the hard truth of my life that we rarely acknowledged. “There’s nothing you can do,” I said. “When it comes to the otherworldly weirdness, there’s no way for you to protect me.”
He didn’t say anything, only looked away.
I stepped back and went to my room.
“What’s the damage?” Serge asked as I came into the bedroom.
“I think I crushed my dad’s soul a little.”
He frowned. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“You’d think, but my reminding him he can’t protect me from this part of my life trumped his threats for grounding.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.” Serge sat up and muted the TV. “So, what’s our next move?”
“Stay out of Dad’s way with this.”
“But keep connected about it with Nancy?”
“That’s about it.” I looked at my watch. “It’s been an hour, think they have any information on what happened to the family?”
“I’m sure they’ve solved both cases and are at the Tin Shack celebrating with some poutine and hot chocolate.”
“Sarcasm isn’t becoming on a ghost.”
“Impatience isn’t becoming on a guardian.”
“I know,” I sighed. “But something just feels off about everything, y’know?”
“I know. I thought we would’ve solved Kent’s murder by now. But we’re no further along than before. He’s dead. He’s been dead for weeks.” Serge ticked the facts off on his fingers. “He died in Dead Falls. And there we have all the facts we know for sure. Did he know his attacker? Who knows—probably, because someone came in to his dorm and moved all his stuff.”
“Which kind of nixes the idea of a gang offing him.”
“But we have no motive and no suspects.”
“Except his dad,” said Serge, “and I just can’t see it.”
“Me neither.” I stood. “Come on, let’s go for a drive.”
“Think it’ll help?”
“It can’t hurt and besides, now I want poutine and hot chocolate.”
I grabbed my gear—coat, wallet, boots—and headed downstairs. Dad wasn’t around, so I dropped a note on the kitchen table, and put lots of hearts on i
t.
Serge and I headed out.
“Should we call Nell?” he asked. “See if she wants to come with?”
“Give it a shot but I bet she’s probably grounded.”
He did, but after a couple of minutes, when the phone stayed quiet, we figured she’d been separated from her cell. We drove in silence. The streetlights washed over the car as the steady hum of the tires sounded in the background.
“Do you feel bad for him?” Serge asked.
“Who him?”
“Kent.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Bad that he died so young?”
“Bad in general,” said Serge. He pulled the harness of the seat belt away from his chest then let it fall gently back into position.
“I think you always feel bad for the lingering dead—at least, I do. The elderly or those at peace with dying, they just move on. There are no regrets. But those who linger. There’s so much sadness and anger and confusion. It’s a terrible way to exist.”
“Well, I feel doubly bad for Kent,” said Serge. “Look at what a waste he’s been—”
“Ouch.”
“This guy’s life was tragic,” said Serge. “Completely tragic.”
“Double ouch. He was studying to be a doctor and save lives.”
“No, he was wasting away. He ignored everything—friends, having a life, doing stupid things like vegging in front of the TV all day—all of it, so he could become a doctor. And for what? He’s dead and he’ll never be a doctor.”
I waited.
“He’s gone and no one really mourns for him, except his mom and dad. Folks feel bad and say it’s a shame, but no one really cares.”
“Okay…?”
“If I could go back in time, I’d have been a nicer person,” said Serge. “I think life’s about when you die, people actually miss you.”
I had no idea where he was going with the conversation, but it seemed like a circuitous route. Figuring he needed more time to get his thoughts out, I hung a left and decided to circle the town, drive the highway for a bit, then come back to the Tin Shack. Hot chocolate and poutine could wait.
“I was an asshole to everyone—and granted, I had good reasons, I guess—but Kent, what’s his excuse? He had parents who loved him, people who liked him well enough. But he never extended himself to anyone because he was too busy trying to make a name for himself. All I’m saying is that his textbooks won’t mourn him. He must realize that. And it must suck to know you were so unbalanced, such a workaholic that you’ve left behind nothing for people to say about you, except, ‘he was driven.’”