“What happened here?” Danior asked, bending down to pick up pieces of a shattered plate. “Did the ghost do this?”
“No!”
Mallory jerked her head in the direction of the hall that led to the magic room where the voice had come from, her heart pounding in her chest as she recognized it.
Mallory walked toward the voice, leaving Danior and Nana to follow. “What are you doing in here! I thought you went home.”
A moment later Danior and Nana caught up, coming to stand at Mallory’s back. “
“Jilli’s sanctuary… it became her prison, didn’t it?” Detective Kaden Bones sat in a high-back chair, like a king at court waiting for his subjects to approach.
Mallory’s eyes took him in and then landed on the image in the mirror. “Mom!”
32
S TANDING behind the glass as if it were a doorway and not a mirror was Mallory’s mother, Jillian Vianu. The woman wept when she saw her, and she tried to call out but there was no sound.
“You need to leave here right now,” Kaden ordered in a sharp voice. “Don’t come any closer.”
Mallory glared at him. “You betrayed me. How could you?”
“I didn’t mean to. I swear.”
“How can you not mean to? I was falling for you.”
“You were?” Danior said, incredulously. “What about the He-hulk, Daemon?”
“Not now, Dan.”
Kaden lifted his gun as he got to his feet and pointed it at the group of women. “Just stay calm. Don’t do anything stupid!”
“I can’t believe you. A gun, really, Kaden?” Mallory was getting angry now.
“Oh, dear God. He’s not talking to you, you simpering Juliet,”
Mallory turned just in time to see one of their guest Youtubers grab Nana from behind, taking her hostage. She must have been hiding behind them.
Mallory turned to stare into the face of Shae Viel otherwise known as Shae Glows. Her evil expression completely changed her look and sent a chill down Mallory’s spine. Shae’s eyes were now two different colours, just like Daniors. Just like Kaden’s.
“Your eyes… you had violet eyes before,” Mallory whispered.
Shae’s mouth twisted into a sinister grin. “They were contacts. People don’t have violet eyes, stupid.”
Some people do. Mallory thought to herself. Of course, now was not the time to argue.
“Shae! Calm down. You don’t want to do this.” Kaden called out to her.
“Oh, this is exactly what I want to do. My plan worked perfectly. You ladies personally walked me in here.” She laughed in relief. “I really wasn’t sure it would work. Kaden, be a gentleman and put the gun on the floor and kick it to me. I’m just not so sure about your loyalties anymore.”
“Just stay calm. We can all work together.” Kaden hesitated for a moment but then did as she said.
Mallory eyed the gun, wondering if she could reach it in time. “You won’t get away with this, you know?”
Shae chortled. “Why not? I got away before. What’s three, possibly four more bodies? Now, Danior take the cuffs from his waist and slap them on his wrists, behind his back please. Now,” Shae ordered Danior, but she didn’t move. Shae scowled. “I won’t hesitate to kill each and everyone of you, so don’t push me,” Shae said with not so much as a twitch of the lip.
Danior stood her ground.
“I said, now!” Shae’s hold on Nana tightened.
Danior looked at Kaden who sighed and nodded in agreement.
She pushed Nana into a chair and grabbed the gun and then reached for Mallory as Dani snapped the cuffs onto Kaden’s wrists. A pain seared through Mallory’s arm as Shae twisted.
“Leave her alone,” Dani screamed.
Shae let go of Mallory but she pointed the gun at Danior’s head and motioned to the other chair in the room. “Sit, darling Danior.”
Mallory turned to Kaden, “Why are you here? Are you in cahoots with her? Tell me the truth, are you related to her?” She demanded, her voice unsteady.
Kaden said, “no,” at the same time that Shae said, “yes.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Shae smiled, “We’re not related. We just have similar abnormalities of the iris. Seems like it's popular around here too. Then again there are all kinds of genetic abnormalities in this family, aren’t there? Your grandmother hid your intuition away—buried your gifts and kept the truth from you. Kaden and I have been attempting to liberate you. It’s been very difficult, hasn’t it, Kaden?”
Mallory looked at Kaden. She had never felt such betrayal.
“I’m not in cahoots with her, Mal. I only pretended to be, to help you, I swear. I did lie to you. I don’t have heterochromia. I knew about Shae’s condition even though she hid it with contacts and I needed a reason to get to know her. I created a common link.”
“Liar. Liar. Gonna set you on fire.” Shae taunted.
“Oh please,” Kaden said, “you already figured out who I was. I know you planned to double-cross me, too, which is why I beat you here.”
“Who are you, really, Shae?” Danior spoke up, her voice strong.
“Excellent question. Why don’t one of you tell me? You are, after all, the gifted Vianu women.” Shae gave a condescending smile. “Simza’s heirs. Your sight, your ability has even greater potential than your mother’s.”
Mallory shook her head in denial. “You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Am I?” Shae shrugged. “Well, that may be true but at least I’m not naïve. Hell, this one over here had you falling for him, despite that brawny ghost-hunter boyfriend. You even trusted him to read that diary. Tsk-Tsk. You know, I saw you snooping around my room. I saw everything. I’m a Youtuber. You should have checked to see if the camera was on.” She pointed toward the mirror, “now, are you really going to let your mother down?”
Mallory’s mind raced. She needed a plan. Her thoughts were muddled though. Panic and shock consumed her. “What do you mean? What do you want me to do?”
“I want to see you free your mother from the mirror.” She motioned to Mallory’s mother. “You have the power to save her. Isn’t that right, Kaden?”
“I don’t … I can’t.…”
“Yes, you can Mallory!” Kaden took a long breath and gestured to her, indicating for her to approach her mother. “I believe in you.”
Mallory couldn’t move. She shook her head, unable to understand what she was supposed to do.
“Just pretend Shae’s not here and pull your mother through the mirror,” he said.
Shae pointed the gun at Mallory and then waved it in her mother’s direction, “Yeah, because if you don’t I’ll shoot and shatter the mirror, trapping her there.” Shae added. “I can experiment on you and Danior without her if need be.”
Shae’s words galvanized Mallory and she rushed to the mirror and knelt. She knocked at the glass but it was solid. “I don’t know how to get her back!”
Tears ran down Jilli’s face behind the glass.
“Use the tarot card,” Danior called out.
“I’d hurry if I were you.” Shae added. “It would be a shame if I lost my temper and shot this mirror. Then she’d be stuck there.”
Mallory pulled the cards from her pocket and began holding them up to the mirror one by one like the diary had said to do. “This is insane! It’s not working!”
“Because you’re not using the correct card. It has to be the one Jilli used, just like the diary said.” The sound of Kaden’s voice calmed her, although she momentarily wondered how he knew that.
She hadn’t seen him read the last page. Then again, there was a lot about him she’d missed, so much for her intuitive skills.
“That card was missing from the deck.”
“So, the question is, where is it? Don’t think! Use your ability.” He said.
Mallory’s pulse skyrocketed. Her heart hammered in her chest so hard she thought it might give out. “I can�
��t concentrate!”
She had so many questions pushing at her brain, “Why did you murder Raymond? It doesn’t make sense to me. What does he have to do with us?”
A sneer of disgust covered Shae’s face. “All that greedy bastard wanted was money, and even though my father gave it to him he tried to milk us for more.”
“Your father?”
“Shut up.” Shae screeched out the vehement command. Her mouth twisted. She stuck her face in Mallory’s, then poked the gun into her side. “Do you want me to answer your question or not? The night of the party he refused to hand over everything he had on our family. Said he’d had a change of heart, as if he even had a heart.” Shae paced in front of her, waving the gun. “So, I crossed into his room while he was schmoozing downstairs and poisoned his mouthwash along with his toothbrush and toothpaste. I even rimmed his water glass to be safe.” She had a smug look on her face as she said it. “I gave him one last chance that night. I saw him leave the party early, so I knocked on his door and told him I wasn’t leaving without his little book of evidence.” Shae scoffed. “He said, ‘don’t play with fire, little girl.’” She smiled. “Can you believe the balls on that man? Those were his last words.”
Mallory’s stomach turned. She cringed as the image of Raymond’s lifeless body flashed through her mind for the millionth time. How easily Shae had killed the man. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill all of them.
“Tick Tock. You now have fourteen minutes.” Shae gloated.
“Oh my God, oh my God…” Since when was there a time limit. Free-falling into a panic, all rational thought abandoned Mallory.
She’d finally found her mother after all this time and she was about to lose her again.
Mallory! The voice sounded dim, far away, and beyond her reach. She turned to it. The glowing ball of light was in the room with her.
“Simza?”
The light cleared enough and she could make out her great grandmother with her long dark hair. She was so beautiful. The ghost was once again hovering around the back of the mirror. Then she floated toward her and clasped her hands. It felt like holding onto a lightbulb. It only took a minute and then it felt like she slipped inside her skin.
“My God,” she whispered. “You killed Elsa too.” She closed her eyes, and as if her mind was a camera, a shutter clicked and opened up the past. Images of Shae’s life flowed through her like an electric current. “You were the son Hatti mentioned, only you weren’t a boy at all. She assumed you were because of your name. She thought Elsa said Shane.”
“How fascinating.” Shae leaned forward, understanding written on her face. “You can see the past as well? Well, well, this is a surprise.”
Mallory could only stare at her, her mind convulsing with what she now knew. The eyes… she should have known. “You’re Danior’s…” She couldn’t say the words, couldn’t vocalize what she had seen.
“Her half-sister?” Shae’s voice rang out in the room. “Yes. Very good.” Shae clapped. “Very good! My mother will have so many uses for your talents. You’re like a paranormal present that I’m going to gift wrap and hand over to her.”
Mallory didn’t understand what that meant. She only knew what she saw. That’s what Raymond was blackmailing Shae about. Only he wasn’t really blackmailing her, there was someone else.
“You are correct,” she said. “Seb is my father, and he was obsessed with your mother, his band mate, Jilli Vianu. You see, he believed that he was the one who was destined to be with her, if it weren’t for that abomination Marco from the past. So, he befriended them, traveled with them, played with them and eventually uncovered their secret. That’s why he killed Marco, he didn’t belong here and he was stealing his life.”
Mallory closed her eyes, revolted, unable to look at Shae.
Shae smiled. “Much to my father’s delight, Jilli turned to him in her hour of need and my little sister, Danior was conceived.” She shook her head sadly. “When Jilli realized that it was Seb who killed her beloved Marco, she ran away with you in tow.”
Mallory tried to process what she had seen with her own memories.
“That’s why my mother left me here. She never intended to stay gone. She was going into the past to get help from Mami Nadya. She knew it would be dangerous,” Mallory muttered, still in shock. She turned to Danior and gave her a smile. “Maman loves you. She never meant to leave you either. The past spit you out once you were born. She couldn’t get back through to you but she knew I would sense and find you.” Mallory turned to Nana with remembrance in her eyes. “I was the one who led you to Danior. I could hear the music.”
Nana nodded. “You finally remember?”
“There was a card on the floor in front of the mirror. It looked like one of the cards from your playing deck but it was different.” Mallory replied.
Nana smiled. “Yes. Do you know what you did with it?”
“Tick tock, baby girl.” Shae mocked.
Mallory held her hands up to the mirror and her mother did the same. She could practically feel her mother’s vibrations through the glass. She missed her so much. She’d missed her so much the day she’d found Danior. She’d done something to ease the pain.
Nana turned around to face Shae despite the hold she had on her, “You don’t have to be like your father. Let us go. You’re Danior’s sister and that makes you family.”
“You know I can’t do that, Nana.” Shae let Nana go but she wagged a finger at her. “She must make sense of her power. If Mallory doesn’t get Jilli back, then no one will.” Shae paused. “Through her”—she gestured to Jilli— “we can decipher time, and then one day transcend it—imagine what we can learn. Hell, we could learn how the sixth sense functions on the quantum level.” She closed her eyes in exhaustion.
“I thought you were a makeup Youtuber. How do you even know those words?” Nana asked.
“Having flawless makeup doesn’t make me a bimbo.” Shae retorted. “My mother is a genetic scientist. I prefer chemistry but whatever, that’s the reason I vlog about makeup. I make my own formulas. Now stop distracting your granddaughter unless you never want to see your daughter again.”
Danior hurried to kneel beside Mallory, raising her up. “Mallory. Look at me.” She held her face in her hands. “You can do this. Focus on my voice.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, blinded by tears. “I can’t remember. I missed my mom. After Nana took baby Danior to the hospital. I was all alone. I came in here to put on mom’s sweater. The grey one with the patched elbows, but I spilled my drink on it, so I hid it. I was afraid Nana would be mad at me.”
“Where did you hide it?”
She raised her head and stared into Nana’s eyes. Like a key in a lock, the memory freed her. Her mind tunneled back, and she was once again in the moment.
Mallory’s awareness returned to the room. Shae was counting down out loud
“20 … 19 … 18 … 17 …”
Mallory walked down the hall to the dusty old doll house in her old bedroom, opened the roof and pulled out the sweater. Inside the pocket was the missing tarot card.
She ran with it to the mirror and held it up. The mirror rippled and shimmered and Mallory reached her arm through at the same time that her mother did. It took some strength, but she pulled her mother through like pulling someone out of quicksand. Both Nana and Danior joined her, gripping onto Jili and pulling her free of her reflective.
Danior, Nana and Mallory huddled around Jilli like rugby players in a scrum, squeezing her tight.
“Oh, my babies, at last,” Jilli cried, pulling her girls to her chest. Then she opened her arms to Nana. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what was happening, Maman. I knew you would try to stop me and I also knew that if I couldn’t fix things, then one day you would all be there to save me. Thank you for taking such good care of them,” Jilli said between sobs.
Shae applauded. “Well done. My father will be so very proud… ” Her arms opened wide in the air w
ith triumph, like an Olympian who’d just placed gold. “…of me. When I hand you all over to him.”
Mallory could see her eyes glistening with tears and arrogant pride. She was mad, her mind twisted like brambles. How had she missed this when she’d met her earlier in the hall?
A blur of black latex crept in through the open door and darted out of sight. Mallory prayed someone was there to save them, and not there to help Shae bury their bodies deep in the gardens.
“Now!” Shae clapped her hands together. “It’s time, for someone to die.” She brushed her hands together in a clap. “And of course, that means you Nana… and Kaden— unless you want to switch back over to our side. What do you think?”
Kaden snarled. “I was never on your side.”
“Fine. Have it your way. It’s amazing the things we do for our parents, isn’t it?” Shae pulled the gun from her waistband. “Who wants to be first?”
“Where is Daddy-dearest?” Danior spit the words out as if they burned her tongue, “Shouldn’t he be doing his own dirty work?”
“Don’t be bitter, sister dear. You’ll have plenty of time to get to know him. He’s off securing a location where we can all reside together. Well, almost all of us.”
Nana let out a soft whimper as Shae shoved the gun into her temple. “How about you die first since you’re mostly responsible for keeping our family from us.” A loud clatter came from the tunnel outside the door and her tone changed. “Quiet!” Shae shouted and then turned and slowly made her way down the hall to investigate.
“How did you find me?” Jilli whispered, taking advantage of the fact that Shae was now distracted by something else.
“Simza’s diary. We’ll explain later.”
“If there is a later.” Nana snorted
“Please, Nana, don’t be dramatic,” Mallory said.
“You have something better to do with your time?” she snapped.
“Yes, I’m trying to think. We’re gifted Vianu women, remember—we’re calm under pressure?”
“Don’t be foolish. We’re gifted in fortune telling, we’re hardly bullet proof.”
Make-Believes & Lost Memories Page 14