by Hudson, Tara
I nodded. “That’s fair. How about Christmas night, three days from now? I’ll try to materialize wherever you are … if I decide to show up at all.”
“Settled.” The soldier finally uncrossed his arms and turned to his fellow ghosts. “Now can we leave? We’ve been in the open too long already.”
The pirate grunted in agreement. As if that was their signal, the ghosts moved in unison, gathering closer together. They continued to watch me with those sheer faces that had probably seen more centuries than I could comprehend. For a moment they hovered silently in their eerie little cluster, and then, without another word or warning, they vanished all at once.
Jackson Square now seemed creepier, even without a cadre of ghosts trying to add me to their ranks. The cackles of laughter from the side streets, the palmetto leaves shifting noisily in the wind—all of it made me wonder whether darker things were on their way, too.
Things that I had possibly imagined?
Listening to the Quarter ghosts tonight, I couldn’t believe that the real demons would have disappeared so quickly—would have let me go so easily. Maybe I really had hallucinated the confrontation at the club, just as I’d dreamed the prairie where my father spoke to me. That scenario seemed far more likely than a terrifying but otherwise harmless encounter with a huge crowd of demons.
This conclusion—that I was going a little crazy—also gave me a weak excuse to do something I desperately wanted to do before I joined the Quarter ghosts for all eternity.
So for at least one more night, I closed my eyes and wished my way to Joshua’s side.
Chapter
THIRTEEN
When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in front of the only familiar town house in the Quarter. Although its gas lamps still shined brightly, the windows were dark and shuttered for the night. Obviously, the place didn’t look empty like the neighboring buildings. But it certainly didn’t look as warm and welcoming as it had earlier tonight.
Since I’d only been gone for an hour or two, I doubted that the younger Mayhews had made it back from the club yet. But the materialization had brought me here, which had to mean that at least Joshua had returned early.
“Only one way to find out,” I said aloud, and then cringed. Call it paranoia, but I suddenly felt like any noise I made might attract unwanted attention.
Tiptoeing gave me some foolish comfort, so I moved quickly and quietly to the left of the town house. There, in between the house and its neighbor, a heavy black gate lay open by several inches. I brushed past it, holding my breath as I crept down the narrow alley running alongside the house. Though the rational part of my mind knew I couldn’t rattle them—not without some effort anyway—I dodged a group of metal trash cans before stepping into what looked like the courtyard behind the town house.
As I’d suspected, the space was gorgeous. A twisted live oak tree hung heavy over the flagstone patio, where a marble fountain bubbled next to some expensive-looking teak chairs. The thing I noticed most about the chairs, however, wasn’t their quality; it was the fact that they were unoccupied.
Unoccupied, as in no Joshua.
Without thinking, I let out a loud, frustrated sigh and then clasped my hand to my mouth. For a second I waited for something creepy to swoop into the courtyard and demand that I go with it. When it didn’t, I released my hand as well as the breath I’d inadvertently held.
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. No one’s tried to get you here.
Then my brain added a snarky little Yet.
I stifled a groan, walked over to one of the patio chairs, and dropped myself into it.
Why had the materialization brought me here when I’d willed myself to wherever Joshua was? For some reason, today’s materializations kept going awry, landing me in all the wrong places at the wrong times.
Discouraged, I tucked my hands beneath my chin and propped my elbows on my knees, preparing to wait until someone else arrived. Then I remembered that Jillian had stayed home tonight. It was a long shot, but perhaps I could call out just loudly enough to get her attention so she’d let me inside. I looked up at the house, trying to figure out which window was hers.
That’s when I noticed the back door.
In the darkness, I’d almost missed it. But now I could see that it stood ajar by nearly a foot, leading into the pitch-black of the house.
I stood and walked over to the door, again trying to move as quietly as possible. From the looks of it, as long as I could squeeze through the opening I could get inside and wait for Joshua in relative safety. It might be an equally lonely wait; but, if nothing else, I could make noise inside without fear of demonic abduction. Probably.
At this point “probably” was good enough for me. So I lifted one foot to take a step inside the town house.
Except … I didn’t.
Despite the attempted step, I found myself right where I started: standing in the courtyard, just outside the back entrance.
I tried again, pushing across the threshold with more effort. But like before, I met with the pressure of an invisible barrier. On impulse I looked down at the flagstones. There, just at the edge of my toes, was a familiar line of chalky gray powder sprinkled across the doorstep.
This time I didn’t try to hide my sigh of frustration.
Ruth.
She’d pulled this trick on me in Wilburton, barring me from Joshua’s house with some kind of magic Seer dust. Looking down at tonight’s handiwork, I snorted softly. For such a devoutly religious woman, Ruth sure did like her witchcraft.
Staring down at the dust, I tried to summon the power within me—something that would help me counteract Ruth’s spell. After all, if I could rend a bridge in two and make myself shine like a bonfire, couldn’t I move a little dirt? But no matter how hard I concentrated, no matter how strongly the breeze rushed through the courtyard at my whim, that stupid dust stayed put.
With a frustrated little growl, I raised my head. Then I shrieked in surprise.
There, smiling out at me from the darkness of the hallway, was another ghostly pale face. My muscles tensed, ready to sprint, but they relaxed when the owner of the face moved forward, bringing himself into better view.
“Long night, huh?”
Alex kept his voice low as he stepped easily over the gray dust and stopped just short of bumping into me. Instinctively, I took one step backward, putting a few more inches between us. Alex’s eyes caught the movement before they connected with mine.
“You okay?” he asked. “You left so soon tonight, I was worried.”
He sounded genuinely concerned, but I still hesitated in answering him. Finally, after an awkward pause, I gave him a slow nod.
“I’m … fine. I just got a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Alex lifted his hand as if to give me a reassuring touch, then thought better of it and dropped the arm to his side. With an embarrassed little cough, he tucked both hands into the pockets of his slacks. When he noticed me staring at his outfit—still the gray suit, although it had to be well past midnight—he gave me a sheepish grin.
“I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss you, so I waited to change.”
I frowned. Why on earth didn’t he want to miss me? The suggestion of familiarity made me inexplicably defensive, so I crossed my arms and smirked.
“What, are you saying you don’t have a two a.m. shareholders’ meeting?”
Alex laughed loudly and then snapped his mouth shut, looking back at the darkened windows behind him. After he made sure no one inside had heard him, he turned back to me. Still smiling, he whispered, “Hey, can I help it if I like to look stylish all hours of the night?”
My own smile twitched involuntarily. “I guess I really don’t have room to judge anyone else’s fashion sense, do I?”
We both laughed then; and, despite everything, I actually felt myself relax a little. Not much, but enough to continue the conversation without my arms folded protectively across my ribs.
> “So,” I said, circling around him until I was the closest to the door. “I don’t suppose you know how to undo the mojo from Seer dirt?”
“Voodoo dust,” he corrected automatically.
I shook my head, blinking. “Voodoo dust? Honestly?”
Alex gave me that sheepish grin again. “Honestly. You can buy the fake stuff on practically every street in the Quarter. What you have right there, though, is the real deal. Classic banishing dust, good for warding off evil spirits.”
“Or just spirits in general,” I murmured, kicking ineffectually at the gray line. I turned back to Alex. “Did Ruth really think this was necessary?”
His grin shifted into a smirk. “What can I say? She’s a very religious woman.”
I snorted. “Yeah, except for the fact she practices magic and Voodoo in her spare time.”
“Voodoo is a religion, Amelia. A lot of people down here practice it. Besides, it’s a religion that doesn’t consider itself mutually exclusive with Christianity. The New Orleans Seers have been using it for centuries.”
“What about Ruth?” I asked.
“She grew up here, according to Annabel. So I guess she imported some of its tenets to Oklahoma. And then brought them back home with her, obviously.”
“Well,” I said with a small noise of discontent, “I guess I should feel lucky they don’t make Voodoo dolls of ghosts then, huh?”
Alex raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, but they do.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Fantastic. Just what I needed.”
“Don’t hate the magic,” he said, laughing softly. “Hate the magician.”
Then, abruptly, his expression grew serious. He walked back toward the door, hands still in his pockets, frowning thoughtfully. This time I didn’t edge away from him but held my ground, even when he stopped right next to me.
When Alex leaned close, my breath caught unexpectedly in my throat. Then, suddenly, he dropped into a crouch. He stared down at the dust and, with a quick flick of his wrist, swept half of it into the dirt of a nearby flower bed. He wiped that hand on one knee of his pants and then used it to push himself upright.
“There,” he said, smiling at me. “The house is all yours.”
“Just like that?” I marveled.
“Just like that.”
I stared wistfully at the cleared stones. “Is it weird that I’d give just about anything to touch dirt?”
“Dust,” he reminded me, chuckling. He stepped back over the threshold, turned around in the hallway so that he faced me, and then held his hand out to me palm up. Like an invitation.
“Coming in?” he asked.
Without thinking, I reached out to take his hand. But right before we touched, I paused. My arm hung in the air until, abruptly, I yanked it back to my side. Afterward, I simply stood there, awkward and stiff.
I couldn’t really explain why I’d so nearly taken his hand, just like I couldn’t really explain why I hadn’t. Maybe because I’d only been able to touch one living person since I died, and I didn’t want it to happen again with another living boy. Especially one with whom I’d just shared a surprisingly pleasant conversation. It felt wrong, the idea that I might experience something like that with someone other than Joshua.
Feeling strangely confused and guilty, I snuck a peek at Alex’s face. In the darkness, I couldn’t gauge his reaction clearly. I probably imagined what I saw shifting in his eyes: eagerness, frustration, anger … then back to that calm amusement he’d shown earlier.
I definitely heard the humor in his voice when he again asked, “So, Amelia: into the house, or not?”
I nodded, relieved that he hadn’t read too much into my hesitation. “Inside. Absolutely inside.”
He backed up against a wall, making room for me to enter. This time I didn’t hesitate. I stepped right through the doorway, leaving behind the broken line of Voodoo dust.
I walked by Alex, and, in the split second I passed him, I felt a strange itch of anticipation. For what, I don’t know. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, so I hurried on, moving farther down the dark hallway toward the foyer.
Other than the tick of a nearby clock and an occasional, muffled snore from upstairs, the house was silent. I crept through the foyer and up the first few steps of the staircase, moving with extreme care. Even if my feet couldn’t make the floorboards creak, something about being in a house full of sleeping, dormant Seers made me want to keep quiet.
Once I’d made it to the first landing I turned back to Alex, who still waited at the bottom of the stairs with one hand on the banister. I raised my eyebrows questioningly, and he shook his head. He pointed one finger toward the ground several times.
Waiting, he mouthed. He traced the outline of a rectangle in the air and then pointed up to the ceiling. Door open. Go on.
I nodded, pleased that I wouldn’t have to go through this routine again when I got to my own room. I’d just turned to continue up the stairs when I paused.
If Alex knew the door to the attic was open, then that meant he’d gone up there. To my room.
Suddenly suspicious, I looked over my shoulder to where Alex had just stood. But he must have slipped back out to the courtyard, because the foyer was now empty of everything but a Persian rug and the ticking grandfather clock. Again, I hadn’t heard a thing when he left.
That boy can disappear like a ghost.
Then, inexplicably, I shuddered. For some reason the sight of the empty foyer gave me the creeps. I turned back to the stairs and began to race up them, my fear about making noise momentarily forgotten.
Chapter
FOURTEEN
I only had to spend about twenty minutes in nervous silence, pacing the tiny floor space in our room, before Joshua came walking up the stairs to the attic bedroom.
“You’re here,” he said in a quiet, relieved voice. The room was so small, one stride brought him next to me. Without another word, he drew me close. I couldn’t help but melt into him, wrapping my arms around his waist in a numb but fierce hug.
“I swear,” I murmured into his shirt, “I shouldn’t miss you this much after only a couple hours.”
He laughed low and began running his fingers through the waves in my hair. “Actually, I wanted to come back here right away. But Annabel told me to quit being a stalker-boyfriend and give you some time alone.”
I bent my head back and looked into his dark eyes. “I’ve had plenty of time alone in the last decade.”
In my head, the snarky voice whispered, And you’ll have plenty more of it soon enough.
I sighed, so quietly I doubted Joshua heard, and lifted onto my toes to give him a small, sweet kiss. When the kiss ended, I lingered there for a moment, waiting for … something more. To feel the heat rising off his skin maybe, or smell a whiff of his cologne.
But nothing happened. It never did when I wished for it this much.
I sighed again and rocked back to my heels. “So,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment as I ran my hands over the lapels of his jacket without feeling them. “Did you like the club?”
“Hated it,” he said instantly, and we both laughed. Then his face grew serious. He tucked one strand of hair behind my ear, too quickly to set my skin tingling. “Are you ready to tell me what really happened back there? Because I don’t believe for a minute that you got claustrophobic.”
I shrugged, averting my eyes to the tiny bed against the wall. “Believe it, buddy. Just a case of way-too-crowded. Mystery solved.”
Joshua made a soft sound of derision. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”
“But you love that about me,” I teased, shying away from him with a playful, departing tug on his sleeve. If I kept it light enough, maybe he’d drop the conversation entirely.
I was so intent on keeping him distracted that he completely took me by surprise with what he said next.
“I love a lot of things about you, Amelia,” Joshua said, his voice rough and low.
> Oh, God.
I gulped, and then experienced what felt an awful lot like a flush across my cheeks. I hadn’t expected his response, or its obvious meaning. I suddenly knew that if I acknowledged it, we’d finally share those confessions I’d so desperately craved.
And avoided.
Once again I wanted to give in. I wanted to spill that four-letter word and have it mean something. Not I love your eyes or I love your laugh. But I love you. Just you.
Instead, I started to babble inanely.
“You know what I love? Christmas. I’ve loved Christmas ever since I was little. Well, I think I did, anyway, since I haven’t gotten those memories back yet. But it’s a safe bet that I loved it, right? The tree, the food, the presents—”
Joshua interrupted me by grabbing my arm, encircling my wrist with a ring of fire. The supernatural warmth of his touch, however, couldn’t match the very real fire in his eyes. He looked like a man about to say the most important words of his life, and I suddenly found myself silent, hypnotized. If I had a functioning heart, now would be the time it raced uncontrollably.
Joshua’s lips parted—either to kiss me or confess something to me, I was certain.
But to my surprise, he did neither. He paused for another long second as if deciding between several options and then gave me a crooked grin.
“Want to know what your Christmas present is, Amelia?” he asked.
“My … what?”
“Your Christmas present.”
I struggled to make sense of his words and then, finally, the pieces fell into place. I began to sputter in protest.
“That’s … that’s not fair, Joshua.”
He laughed quietly—obviously pleased with himself. “When did I tell you I’d be fair?” he joked.
I shook my head, undeterred. “Joshua, I can’t even make you a reindeer ornament out of pipe cleaners, for pete’s sake. How am I supposed to buy you a gift?”
“I didn’t buy you one, either,” he reassured me. “I didn’t even get the idea for this present until tonight. But now … well, I think it’s pretty awesome.”