I started to protest but she shushed me with a look.
“You know it’s true. I want my family and if I can’t have them with me in this realm, I’ll be with them in another.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to her but I wasn’t sure I had the right. She was more than my friend. She was wife and mother and daughter and sister and if she had a chance to be reunited with the people she loved, she had every right to grab it and hold on tight.
Nobody stays, Chloe. Sooner or later they all leave you behind.
Not exactly a line of thought I wanted to explore.
Janice picked up her knitting again and immersed herself in her sock. Her long and elegant fingers manipulated the five double-pointed needles with practiced ease. I knew the exact moment when she slipped into the zone and the real world fell away. Her shoulders dropped, her jaw relaxed, the furrow between her brows smoothed out.
I picked up my own sock, knit three stitches, then put it down again. Normally I experienced a palpable sense of joy when I knit. I love everything about the craft and it never failed to soothe the ragged edges of my soul.
This time? Not so much. I tossed the sock down then looked out the window. No sign of Luke. I glanced at the dashboard clock. He’d been gone over thirty minutes. How long did it take to walk three hundred yards, buy and fill a gas can, then walk back?
Penny the cat emerged from her woolly cocoon, yawned, stretched, then leaped onto the back of my seat and inched down onto my shoulders.
“Et tu, cattus?” For a moment I felt like Kim Novak in Bell, Book and Candle with her familiar wrapped around her shoulders like a feather shawl.
Except Penny wasn’t feeling particularly companionable and I definitely wasn’t Kim Novak. I made to give her a skritch alongside her muttonchops when she hissed at me then lashed out with her right paw.
“Hey!” I leaned away from her. “Since when do you do that?”
Penny, of course, had no answer for me. She clung to the back of the seat, claws digging into the brittle leather upholstery, and pretty much stared me down.
You’re not much help, I thought. Where was all that magickal wisdom she liked to share at the drop of a can of Fancy Feast?
I had seen this cat act as the conduit for my surrogate mother and for Isadora’s son Gunnar. The sight and sound of Gunnar’s mellow baritone coming out of the same mouth that devoured yarn shop mice like they were M&M’s was unforgettable. It was also highly efficient and very effective. When a cat talked, you tended to listen.
So why wasn’t Lynette trying to reach us through Penny? Lorcan Meany knew about Penny’s abilities and he had the power to access them. So why hadn’t he tried?
I didn’t like any of the answers I came up with.
The minutes ticked by. Still no sign of Luke.
“How long does it take to fill a gas can?” I asked Janice.
Janice looked up from her knitting. “Depends how long it takes to find a gas can to fill.”
“You stay here in case Luke shows up,” I said. “I’m going to go see what’s taking so long.”
Janice lifted her sock-in-progress in salute. “Once more unto the breach and all that.”
“You’ll still be here, right?”
She nodded. “I’ll still be here.”
The sun was warm and buttery yellow. The sky was a clear, vivid blue. It had turned out to be one of those intensely gorgeous early spring afternoons that made you glad to be alive. I even heard birdsong ringing out overhead.
Birdsong?
I was walking along the entrance lane to a highway rest stop in north-central Massachusetts. I should have been hearing the sound of trucks rattling down the roadway, the beep of horns as cars jockeyed for a spot at the gas pumps, excited laughter as kids raced each other toward the buffet.
I stopped dead and looked around.
Where was everyone?
The rest stop was a sparkling-clean ghost town. It reminded me of something out of a Stephen King novel, which wasn’t a good thing since King didn’t specialize in happy endings.
I turned back toward the highway. Six lanes of traffic and not a vehicle in sight.
Including my Buick.
I couldn’t breathe. I felt like the air itself was pressing down on me. Either everyone had disappeared or I was trapped in some strangely parallel reality. I wasn’t too thrilled with either choice.
I might have watched every episode of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote but that didn’t mean I was a detective. It was easy to sit on the sofa with a bag of Chips Ahoy and some Cherry Garcia and unravel someone else’s mess. When the mess was yours, however, there was nothing easy about it at all.
One thing I knew was that standing there frozen in place wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I had to move. I had to do something even if I didn’t have a clue where to start.
The doors to the rest stop itself were locked. I peered through the restaurant window. It looked like a movie set waiting for the actors to arrive and bring it to life. I walked around to the rear of the building and crossed the parking lot toward the cleanest gas station on the planet. No oil spills. No smell of gas. The pumps were polished like museum pieces.
“Luke!” My voice rang out across the emptiness. “Luke, can you hear me?”
There was no answering sound at all. Not even the birdsong I’d heard earlier. The nightmarish sense of isolation, of aloneness, was acute. I was having trouble keeping my emotions under control but I knew that if I let go for even an instant, it would be all over for me.
The blue skies darkened to charcoal gray. The buttery sun vanished behind a wall of clouds. Squirrelly mini twisters entwined themselves around my ankles, spinning me like a child’s top. By the time the hail started I was seriously tired of weather as metaphor.
“Is this the best you’ve got?” I yelled into the icy wind. “It’s getting a little old.”
The magick side of my lineage was all about whispers and innuendo. The human side wanted to kick ass. Right now the human side was winning.
Don’t want us in Salem? Send an e-mail. Try instant messaging. Do something totally insane and materialize and tell me face-to-face.
The hail stopped. But before I could congratulate myself on winning the weather battle, the skies opened up and dumped the Atlantic Ocean on my head. At least it felt like an entire ocean. Rain like that was downright biblical.
Bolts of scarlet lightning shot out from my fingertips. They pierced the downpour with a deafening sizzle. I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust. If I wasn’t already at the end of my rope, I was approaching it at Mach 3 and counting.
“Cowards!” I yelled into the rain. “What’s next: locusts and frogs? If you have something to say, just say it!”
Hobbs’s rule #1: If you ever find yourself dealing with paranormal weather patterns, don’t dare the weather wizards. Just grab for an umbrella and a pair of Wellies and roll with it.
Unfortunately I didn’t figure that out until I was already inside a thunderhead, strapped to a bolt of lightning aimed straight for the heart of hell.
“Let’s talk it out,” I yelled as the high-pitched wail of energy about to be unleashed filled my head. Nothing like a shot of Dr. Phil to put things right. “Don’t do something you’ll regret later.”
Even I almost laughed at my threat. Who was I kidding? I was screwed.
You’re not going to stop me. You can slow me down but I’ll make it to Salem and I’ll get to the truth about Sugar Maple. You’re not going to win. Not while I’m still alive and—
That might have been the wrong thing to say.
12
LUKE
“I’m telling the truth,” Chloe protested. “It was a ghost town out there.”
“Was it, Luke?” Janice asked. “You were there, too.”
My eyes were locked with Chloe’s. “The place was jammed. I finally had to ask one of the state cops for help.”
“State cops?” Chloe looked at
me in disbelief. “There wasn’t a soul around for miles. The restaurant was locked and empty. The gas station was shut down. No people. No cars.”
“Chloe, honey, you were dreaming,” Janice said. “You were in the car with me the whole time.”
“That’s impossible. I told you I was going to look for Luke. Don’t you remember?”
“You must have changed your mind because you stayed right there behind the wheel.”
Chloe’s wide golden eyes filled with tears. “I swear I’m telling the truth. I was alone out there when the storm kicked in and—”
“What storm?” I asked.
“There was no storm,” Janice agreed.
“I’m not crazy,” Chloe said. “I know what I saw.” She listed mini twisters, hail, and torrential rain for starters.
“Look at your clothes,” Janice said. “They’re dry.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“You were out cold when I came back,” I told her. “It took both of us to bring you around.” For a few bleak moments I thought I’d lost her forever.
“You think I imagined everything?”
“I don’t think she imagined anything.”
I stared at Janice. “Then why the hell doesn’t she look like she’s been through a storm?”
“There you go, thinking like a human.”
“Are we going to go there again?”
“You’re of this dimension,” Janice said. “You’re hardwired to believe your senses.”
“What the hell else can I believe?”
“See!” Janice sounded triumphant. “That proves my point. After four months in Sugar Maple, you still don’t get it.”
I shut up because she was right. I didn’t get it. I tried to, but when push came to shove, the whole damn thing was still a mystery to me.
“Oh, crap,” Chloe said. “I see where you’re going with this, Janice.”
“Fill me in,” I said, “because I’m clueless.”
I was impressed. Janice let the opportunity for a one-liner pass without comment.
“Parallel dimensions, same as we talked about before,” Chloe said as Janice nodded. “Whoever is trying to keep us out of Salem took me on a little magic carpet ride meant to scare me off.”
“More than scare you off,” Janice said. “I’ll bet that trip came with a one-way ticket.”
I wasn’t liking this much.
“I called them out,” Chloe said with a little laugh. “I dared them to quit messing with the weather and confront me face-to-face.”
“Is that when you came back to us?” I asked, trying to make sense of her Alice in Wonderland tale.
“No,” she said, “that was when I was sucked inside a mini twister that was determined to turn me into a vanilla milk shake.”
Another beautiful day in the neighborhood . . .
“So how did you escape?” Janice asked. “A spell? Snazzy karate moves? Spill!”
“I tried everything: spells, charms, incantations, brute force, begging, pleading, calling in favors from the ancestors. Nothing worked.” A slight smile moved across her face. “I was pretty much up the creek without a paddle when I was set free.”
“Set free?” That didn’t follow the paradigm I’d encountered on the force. “You were powerless and they set you free?”
She nodded. “Next thing I knew I was in the car and you were copping a feel.”
I grinned. “That was CPR.”
“Says you.”
“Hey!” Janice barked. “You can get a room later. I want more information. Who exactly set you free?”
“Okay,” Chloe said. “This is the weird part.”
Like the rest of the story wasn’t Mary Poppins on crack.
She looked down at her hands, examining her nonexistent manicure. “I think it was my mother.”
CHLOE
I waited for a reaction but there wasn’t one.
Okay.
I’d try again.
“I didn’t really see her or anything but I smelled her perfume.”
Come on, people. Give me something.
Luke, who was wearing his cop face, frowned. “You mean, like Chanel?”
I shook my head. “One she created herself. It’s my first memory of her.” When she died, the formula died with her.
“And you think you smelled it?”
“I don’t think I smelled it, I know I smelled it.”
“It’s been over twenty years since she died. How can you be sure?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
His eyes narrowed. “No. I’m not.”
“She was my mother. I was a little girl. I idolized her. I remember her smell, her laughter, the way the roving flew through her hands when she sat at her wheel.”
“So you think that your mother—the same woman who willingly left you when you were six years old—somehow found a way to help you?”
I’m not going to cry . . . I’m not going to cry . . .
He was in cop mode. He didn’t mean it the way it sounded but it hurt just the same.
“I smelled her perfume. I sensed a benevolent presence around me. Who else could it have been?”
Janice made an unpleasant sound. “You mean besides two dozen other spirits?”
“Janice, don’t—”
“It wasn’t your mother,” she said.
“You sound pretty sure.” She also sounded pretty pissed, which got under my skin.
“I am sure. There is no way Guinevere could have helped you.”
“Gunnar helped us at the waterfall,” I reminded her. “And Sorcha helped me before that. Why not my mother?”
Janice looked equal parts annoyed and sorrowful. “Honey, that just wasn’t the Guinevere we all knew.”
“What the hell does that mean?” My fingertips were beginning to twitch, a sure sign I was going to start shooting angry flames any second.
“It means what it means,” Janice said. “You weren’t your mother’s first priority and Sugar Maple ranked even lower. When she chose to leave you and be with your father, she left all of us. She didn’t care, Chloe. Not about you. Not about Sorcha. Not about any of us. And definitely not about Sugar Maple.” She reached out her hand to me but the look in my eyes stopped her cold. “I don’t mean to be harsh, honey, but even if she had the option, I don’t see Guinevere riding in to save the day.”
Everything Janice said was true. My mother had loved me but not enough to stick around for the long haul. And not enough to find a way to ease my pain. The idea that she would suddenly show up in my life in time to save me from meeting an untimely end at a highway rest stop in central Massachusetts was pretty ridiculous.
But the smell of her perfume . . . the sense of being surrounded by love . . .
Nobody could tell me that wasn’t real.
From that point on, it was clear sailing.
The Buick drove like a Maserati. The few gallons of gas Luke procured at the rest stop somehow kept the tank filled. Penny the cat slept, yawned, demanded head skritches, and didn’t require the litter box.
I handed the driving over to Luke about eighty miles outside of Salem. The traffic had picked up, along with the pace, and since I don’t drive over thirty miles an hour unless I have to, I considered it a humanitarian gesture on my part.
I’m not sure whether or not Luke believed my story but he had my back just the same. Which was one of the many reasons I loved him. The whole parallel-dimension thing had to be tough for a literal-minded cop to process. Before my powers kicked in, I would have had a tough time with it, too—and I had grown up in Sugar Maple, surrounded by magick.
About thirty miles outside of Salem, I lowered the window a few inches and breathed deeply.
“I smell the ocean,” I said.
Both Luke and Janice laughed.
“I smell pollen,” Janice said.
“Give it another twenty miles,” Luke advised. “Then you’ll smell the ocean.”
“Seriously,”
I said. “It’s all briny out there.”
“Lorcan claims he can smell the ocean from our back porch,” Janice said. “He says—” Her voice broke and she buried her face in her almost-finished sock.
I unlatched my seat belt and scrambled around to face the backseat. My powerful, beautiful friend looked small and fragile and painfully vulnerable. I rested my hand on her shoulder.
“Damn it,” she said. “I swore I wasn’t going to cry.”
“Nothing wrong with crying,” Luke said.
“He’s right,” I agreed. “Let it out.”
She fumbled around for a napkin then blew her nose. “Screw crying,” she said. “We’ll be in Salem before we know it. What are we going to do once we get there?”
Luke clicked on his left-turn signal and moved smoothly into the fast lane. “Whip the bad guys’ asses and save Sugar Maple.”
It sounded like a plan to me.
13
LUKE A FEW MILES NORTH OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
“There’s a Target a few miles ahead,” I said. “We’ll stop and pick up clean clothes, toiletries, and a cat carrier.”
“I don’t think we’ll need it,” Janice said. “Penny’s back to her old self.”
“Luke’s right,” Chloe said. “Why take any chances?”
I’d climbed enough trees for one day.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Disposable cell phones.”
“Cell phones?” Janice made a dismissive gesture I caught in the rearview mirror. “We have blueflame.”
“Luke doesn’t. If we don’t have cells, too, he can’t reach us.”
“I’d ditch the blueflame unless you’re sure you’re alone.” Their method of communication rocked, but speaking into a handful of blue fire wasn’t likely to go unnoticed.
Chloe took down her ponytail, ran her hands through her hair, then gathered it up again and caught it in one of those colorful scrunchy things. “How do you know there’s a Target coming up?” she asked me.
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