We walk to the end of the wide hall and turn the corner. A door that says Janitor’s Closet opens.
Ava peeks her head out, and a tiny smile fills her eyes when she spots us. She looks down the hall and then comes out, shutting the door behind her. She slips her hand in mine, and we make our way back to the car as quick as we can without running full throttle.
As Kara pulls out of the parking lot, she keeps looking in the rearview mirror, studying Ava, who’s sitting in the center of the backseat, black-and-white oxford shoes bopping up and down, hair in messy white-blond braids, smiling like she just snuck a piece of Halloween candy.
Ava hasn’t said anything, but she keeps smiling at me with knowing eyes. Seeing her happy, having her safe with me—all of it makes my chest lighter.
“How old is she?” Kara asks me out of the corner of her mouth as we pull back onto the main street. She’s barely watching the road.
“Twelve in a little less than two weeks.” Something about Ava is clearly freaking Kara out.
“She doesn’t look anything like you,” Kara says, sounding annoyed.
“She can hear you, you know.”
Kara rolls her eyes.
“She’s my half sister.”
“So you don’t share fathers?” she asks, like it means something.
“No.” I frown. “Why?”
Kara shakes her head. “No reason.”
But there is a reason—I can tell. “Sure,” I say, not really caring. I want to enjoy the relief of having Ava with me as long as I can. “Maybe you can tell me when you explain what happened in that hall with that teacher?”
Her jaw clenches.
That’s what I thought.
Ava starts humming “A-Hunting We Will Go,” still bopping her oxfords, as we head into our new life.
When we get back to the house, it’s nearly sunset. Ava and I close ourselves into the room Kara pointed out for us. The door beside ours shuts as Kara darts inside, obviously not yet recovered from her uneasiness about Ava.
“She seems nice,” Ava says. Then she giggles. “Skittish, though.”
I shake my head and toss my backpack on the bed closest to the window. “Just be nice to her, okay?” I dig into the bag, pull out a mezuzah, and rest it on the windowsill. I’ll place it in the doorway later; for now, it can guard this opening. I rest my hand over the Hebrew symbol for Shaddai and then bring my fingers to my lips.
Ava sets her violin case gently onto the opposite bed. “Do you have a crush on her or something?”
“No way.” I lie down on my new bed and study the ceiling. It looks like yellow cottage cheese. But it’s safe cottage cheese.
Ava is quiet. I glance across the room at her, not liking the way her silence feels like disapproval.
“Do you want me to have a crush on her?” I ask.
“No way!” she says in an overly forceful tone. She flips her shoes off and curls her legs under her. There’s a hole in her white stockings at the knee and a little scab on her skin there, like she fell. Or was pushed. “I wouldn’t want you anywhere near that girl if I could help it.”
“Wow,” I say. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
She sighs and leans against the wall. “Never mind. Just be careful.”
“She’s fine. Not a great first-impressionist, but she’s harmless.”
“Hardly. You can’t trust her, Aidan.” She frowns as she picks a wool string from the hem of her skirt. “She could hurt you real bad.”
Here we go. “Thanks, but I can take care of myself, Peep. It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Yes, it is.” She starts wrapping the red string round and round the tip of her finger.
I take in a deep breath and let it out slow.
Ava pulls another string from her skirt and begins the process of winding it onto another finger. Then another. I find myself closing my eyes and drifting off. Suddenly she asks, “Can we paint the room purple?”
I roll over to stare out the window. I look down into the yard next door and watch a small dog play with a stuffed toy on the neighbor’s porch. I try not to think about how hiding Ava’s abilities might become impossible very soon, and I wonder what Kara will tell Sid about my strange sister. She obviously had some issue with her.
Not to mention that the demon haunting Rebecca knows I can see it.
I shove all that down and tell myself not to worry about it right now. We’re safe. It’s such a rare feeling—however short-lived it’ll be. I let myself revel in it for a few breaths.
I close my eyes, realizing there’s dangerous hope in feeling safe, like I’m almost a normal boy. Lies. Such lovely lies.
Rebecca’s soft features rise into my thoughts again, and I don’t stop them. I drink in the dream of her, the simple idea of boy meets girl. If she was here—if I was normal—I’d talk to her about the books she’s read, what she wants to study in college. I’d lose myself in the sound of her voice and ask if I could hold her hand.
And with that dream in my head, I drift off to sleep.
Mom’s kneeling in the sand, her skirt damp from the tide pools, her grimoire tucked under her arm. She’s always kept the tattered book close by since the day she told me I’d be a big brother. Everything is vibrant around us, colors bright and full of life: the blue of the sky, the green of the sea, the alabaster foam chasing up the shore.
Mom lifts a small starfish to show to me, the shadow of a smile on her lips. “She got lost. Can you put her back on the rocks over there?” She points to the black giants emerging from the tide behind us.
I stand and take the creature from her, feeling the bumpy surface against my fingers as the moist suckers tickle my palm. I watch the waves crash against the rocks. They sound like they’re trying to beat them back into the sea. The impact vibrates the soft ground under my feet. How can that be safer?
“Don’t worry, Aidan,” she says, sounding sad. “That’s where she belongs.”
TEN
There’s banging. I sit up with a jolt, disoriented.
“Get up, farkwad!” someone yells though the door. Sounds like that Jax guy. “Morning family meeting. Assholes and elbows!”
I run a hand over my eyes, trying to wipe the fog of sleep away. It’s late morning. I can tell from the high sunlight streaming in through the window. Damn, I haven’t slept that sound for a whole night in forever. For the last few months I’ve been crashing in an abandoned warehouse where my hourly alarm clock was a family of rats that liked poking around what little shit I had with me.
Ava’s sitting on her bed, her back against the wall. She’s squinting at a book that’s open on her lap, reading intently. “They’re going on a job,” she says.
“What?”
“That rude boy.” She puts her finger on the page to hold her place and looks up at me. “He says there’s a meeting. They’re going to talk about one of their jobs.”
My pulse picks up. I’m not ready to work with these people—whatever it is that they actually do. I still don’t have a good grip on what goes on around here exactly, who I can trust, and what’ll be expected of me. My guard will be up way too high to be any help to anyone.
“Shouldn’t you go down?” she asks.
“You stay here.”
“I know.”
I stand and slip my shoes on. “What’re you reading?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Unease fills me. “I don’t?”
She shuts the book and holds it up. At first glance it looks like any other leather journal, a little worn at the edges, its binding stretched to near breaking from all the pieces of paper and dried leaves and stems glued inside. Then I see the faded marking on the cover: the sixth pentacle of Jupiter from the Key of Solomon, for protection against all earthly elements. The key has been burned into the
brown leather. “Thus shalt thou never perish” is written in Latin around the circle.
Mom’s grimoire.
Her blood is in that book. Her tears. Her rage. Her terror. All left behind. Never to perish. Protected from anything this earth could do to it.
“How could you bring that here?” I ask, turning cold with fear and fury. “You were supposed to get rid of it!”
I told Ava to bury it after the Marshalls died. She said she would, and I trusted her. I’d have buried it myself, but every time I touch it, my skin starts crackling like it’s about to catch fire. It would take dark magic to break the key. And I don’t go there. Not ever.
Ava sighs, as if I’m the small child and don’t understand adult things yet. “I did, Aidan. I swear. I buried it. Three times.”
“So why’s it in my face right now?” I look at her closely, but she’s the only person I can’t read when it comes to lies.
“Every time I buried it I woke up the next morning covered in dirt, the grimoire back in my hand. I think I was digging it up in my sleep. After it happened the third time, I didn’t see the point in burying it anymore.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shoves the book back into her bag. “It’s between me and Mom.”
“Mom’s dead, Ava.”
Her lips thin. “Maybe. But pieces of her are still here. That’s why I’ve been reading it. I need to know if she’s evil. If I should be listening to her or not.”
I want to tell her—Mom nearly got you killed with her magic; she’s the reason we’re running! But I can see it all happening again, repeating in my sister. The darkness is gaining a foothold in her. Or maybe my fears are right, maybe it’s been there the whole time, slumbering in her skin since the moment that demon scratched her, my mom’s heart still in its other claw.
“Please don’t read it again,” I say, “until I can figure some things out. Until we get settled and we know we’re safe.” I try not to listen to the voice in my head that reminds me it’s pointless to stop her reading it now—she probably has the whole thing memorized already.
She rubs her nose and releases a sigh. “If that’s what you want.” She sets the book to the side and picks up her violin. “I’ll wait for now.” Then she sits up straight and slides the bow across the strings, beginning to draw out a quick, frantic tune that seems to match exactly with my insides.
They’re all downstairs in the kitchen. Jax and Lester are sitting at the table, Holly’s buttering a piece of very nutty toast and tapping the toe of her red shoes to a silent rhythm, her ribbon-braided hair swinging across her back. Connor is standing beside Kara, who’s perched on the counter. A faint pump of music comes from her, and I notice she’s got her earbuds back in.
She doesn’t look up when I enter. Connor does, though. He leans in closer to her, looking protective. The action makes me instantly like the guy—which is good, ’cause my readings are muddy as hell in this house. Probably because of the protections against demons and ghosts that Sid mentioned. But it’s going to make getting a bead on these souls that live here a lot tougher. I’ll need to be that much more cautious.
It occurs to me that that’s probably the reason I didn’t realize Mom’s grimoire was nearby.
But I don’t want to think about that anymore.
Jax brightens at the sight of me. “Ah, the Chosen One has returned!” he says in a very dramatic voice. “The One who shall be the most powerful!”
I give him a look that I hope says: Shut the fuck up, ass face.
“Can you really see ’em?” Lester asks, biting on his lip, like he’s nervous. “Like see ’em, see ’em? With your eyes?”
Jax laughs. “No, he sees them with his butt—what the hell’s wrong with you?”
Holly takes a bite of her sandpaper toast with a loud crunch, watching us all like she’s solving a puzzle.
“Well, Sid sure is thrilled,” Lester says, ignoring Jax. “You’d think we found the pot a’ gold at the end of a rainbow.”
Someone snorts, and I notice Finger in the corner by the refrigerator, watching the exchange.
Connor leans close to me and asks under his breath, “Is what you said true?”
I study him for a second. This guy has seen his own set of horrors, I’m fairly certain. On the outside he looks like your typical California dude, but there’s not a lazy bone in him. He’s all business, this one.
I wonder what happened for him to find his way off the street and into this clan of misfits. It’s hard to picture him as the drug dealer Sid said he was.
I nod, looking him right in the eye, so he sees that I get how serious this all is, too. I want to ask him about his gift—or curse. How he reads the past of an object, what it’s used for. But I figure I’ll find out soon enough.
Sid comes in, and the room falls into nervous silence. Sid looks us all over like he’s proud of what he’s collected. “I’d like to wrap up the Reese job tonight, boys.” He glances at Kara and Holly. “And ladies.” Kara pulls the earbuds out and hunches her shoulders. Again I feel annoyance toward my new benefactor without knowing why. Then I catch Connor glaring at him and realize I’m not the only one.
Sid has a suit on again—a different one, but the same style: no jacket, rolled-up sleeves, silk pin-striped vest. He holds his walking stick loosely in his left hand. A bolo hat tops his bald head to round out the look.
He starts talking again. “Day two of filming’s tonight, and we have several things still to get in the can. Remember the details: a haunting—could be psychosomatic, keep that in mind.”
He directs his next words at me. “The subject of the haunting is a boy, about nine or ten. Marcus. His parent is a single mother, and he’s the only child. No male in residence. There are several key components we see a lot in this type of case. One: a recent trauma—in this case, job loss. Two: only the child in the house is encountering the manifestations. And three: the land is a frequent kill site. There’ve been several reported murders over the decades on the land where the apartment complex is located. Might even be a place of sacrifice.”
My pulse picks up speed, realizing by that one statement that this guy really knows his spirit rules—rules I’ve known as long as I can remember, like they’re ingrained in my DNA. I’ve never actually met anyone that understands these things like I do—but then, maybe I just don’t get out enough.
Sid continues, “I told the client we’d be there after seven. Connor, you text me when you’re on-site ready to go.”
Connor nods.
“The camera crew will meet you about forty-five minutes after eight, so we can get shots of the internals, and I can do the mother’s interview. Plus, a few shots of the dead circle.”
I speak up before I realize I shouldn’t. “Camera crew? What the hell’s that mean?”
Jax winks at me. “It means you’re gonna be a star, Pretty Boy.”
“Jax,” Sid says with a warning in his voice. Then he turns to me. “We always film our cases, Aidan. It’s nothing to worry about. We have a budding YouTube channel—you may have heard of it: Paranormal Truth. Our Queen Mary case has more than three hundred thousand hits.”
“The sitch we filmed at the Hollywood sign was my fave,” Holly says. She takes her last bite of toast and adds, “Mostly ’cause Jax practically peed his pants when the EVP said his name afterwards. That was some fan-friggin-tastic television.”
“No, that was fucking scary shit,” Jax says, like he’s trying to defend his fear.
“Language.” Sid scowls at him then nods to Connor, who turns and pulls a jar off the counter. He holds it out to Jax.
Jax rolls his eyes and reaches into the jar, pulling out a small white paper.
“Read it aloud,” Sid orders.
“Ten lines of Hamlet,” Jax says, sounding annoyed. He tosses the paper back into the jar.
> “By tomorrow,” Sid says. “Written and oral.” Then he turns to me to explain. “Foul language will earn you a recitation that will grow your vocabulary. Positive reinforcement. Got the idea from this supernanny; she’s a genius.” He gives me a quick smile. “But as to the filming, if you don’t want to be a part of it, that’s fine. We also have a possible deal in the works with a production company, but we can always leave your part of it on the cutting room floor.” He leans in and gives me a look, like he senses why I’d be worried about it—even though I’m not sure why myself. “I don’t leave trails to follow either,” he says.
My gut churns.
“But don’t just observe,” he adds. “Feel free to speak up about what you see or feel on this one. Let’s see your stuff, Aidan.” He knocks me on the arm with his cane, the crystal ball at the tip thudding into my muscle. I bite my tongue as he walks out of the kitchen.
Once Sid clears hearing distance, Jax says under his breath, “Yeah, let’s see what you can do, newb.” And then he swings back to punch me on the shoulder.
I grab his wrist before his fist catches my arm.
The room goes still, all eyes on me.
Surprise, then alarm, fills Jax’s features when I don’t release him right away.
“I’m just playing, man.” He fake laughs. “Shit!”
I let go and back up. I’m used to other boys trying to kick my ass; I’m used to having to defend myself, and I’m good at it. But I see in Jax’s eyes that he’s telling the truth—just a joke, no harm intended. I say what comes to the tip of my tongue anyway. “Touch me again and I break your fingers.”
Lester releases a low whistle.
Jax chuckles nervously. “Wow, Kara, I think we finally found your soul mate.”
And then they all laugh—even Finger’s shoulders shake. Not Kara and Connor, though. Those two just keep looking at me, Connor with curiosity and Kara with growing anger.
Holly starts to sing, “Kara and Aidan sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G . . .” as she dances from the room in a blur of colorful clothes.
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