by Dima Zales
I should have been relieved at a chance to clear up the mystery. Somehow, though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say. “So you know what it was?”
“Now, I didn’t say that. I just said I felt something strange.”
“What did you feel?”
“Cold. I shouldn’t feel cold…I don’t feel anything at all, most days, although every once in a while I fancy I can feel the wind on my face. My imagination, I s’pose, but there it is.” A frown pulled at her fair eyebrows, at skin that would never see a line or wrinkle. I always had to remind myself that Maisie had been younger than I was now when she died.
“I felt it, too,” I told her, and tried to repress a shiver, not all that successfully.
She shot me a curious glance. “And you don’t know what it was, neither?”
“That’s why I was asking you. I thought you might know something more because you’re a, well — ”
“’Cause I’m a ghost.”
“Well, yes.”
Her shoulders lifted. “Never felt nothing like it before, that’s true. It wasn’t one of us.”
By “us” I knew she meant the thirty-odd spirits who’d made Jerome their permanent abode. I’d already guessed that much, since I knew all of them as well as I knew the members of my own family, or the residents of the town who weren’t McAllisters but were trusted with our secret.
“But do you — do you think it was a spirit who used to be someone?”
“I am still someone.”—Somewhat indignantly.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. Or rather, I attempted to and was stopped by a tangle. My hair tended to drive me nuts, since it was halfway between wavy and curly, and could never make up its mind what it wanted to be. “I just meant the spirit of someone who died.”
“Not like any I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.” I’d never thought I’d see a ghost looking scared, but at the very least she looked troubled, if not downright frightened. “I didn’t like it. See, we all know each other here, the good and the bad. We rub along. But this — ” Another shake of her head. “I’m glad you made it go away.”
“So it is gone.”
“Far’s I can tell. And I think I’d feel it if it was still here.”
That was something. Not much, but better than nothing.
“Thanks, Maisie.” I pulled my cell out of my jeans pocket. Six-ten. Aunt Rachel would want me back home to help put the finishing touches on dinner. “You’ll tell me if you feel anything else strange, won’t you?”
“If you come and ask,” she said.
That was ghosts for you. Always wanting it done their way.
“Sure,” I replied. “You take care of yourself.”
“Bit late for that, I think,” she said tartly, and disappeared.
Since there wasn’t anything left for me to do, I began to walk up Hull Avenue toward the back entrance of my building. Even as I went, my mind worried at the problem. So it wasn’t a ghost. Other types of spirits existed, dark entities whose purpose was anything but benign. They had their counterparts on the light side, but of course what I’d felt was definitely not good. And if one of those dark, inhuman presences had somehow decided to make me its prey, it might require more than a cleansing ritual and a charmed pentacle on the door.
Suddenly the shadows of the buildings around me felt too black, and I found myself hurrying home, hurrying toward the safety, however spurious, of my aunt’s house.
6
He came to me in my dreams that night. Another change, because this time he stood beside me, although for some reason I still couldn’t look up into his face. But he held my hand in his, the two of us standing there in the soft twilight as snow began to fall all around us. I wasn’t cold, even though I was wearing only a flannel shirt and jeans and boots, no jacket or gloves or hat. His fingers were warm in mine, strong and welcome, and I squeezed them slightly, as if even in my dream I had to reassure myself that he was real.
Something in the air seemed filled with anticipation, as if I knew at any moment he would pull me into him, would cup my face in his hands and bring my lips to his, so I’d know at last I’d found him, found the one I’d been waiting for all these years. He shifted, and in my dream I smiled, knowing what was going to come next.
Only as he moved, he became shadowed, as if his whole body had turned to black, had turned as featureless and frightening as the figure that had stared at me in the shop the day before, and the fingers holding mine were no longer warm, but deathly cold. In my dream I tried to wrench my hand away, but he was too strong, and not only held on to that hand but grasped the other, pulling me against him, the chill of his body leaching into mine. Then we were falling to the snow, a weight as cold and heavy and black as the depths of the ocean on top of me, holding me down, smothering my heat with his ice, and though I pushed and pushed, I couldn’t get away, couldn’t take a breath, couldn’t force one scream….
“Angela! Angela!”
My aunt’s voice, and her hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake. I blinked, and saw her worried face peering down into mine, outlined by a yellow rectangle of light — the open doorway to the hall, with the overhead fixture bringing welcome illumination to my dark room.
“What was it?” she asked, voice urgent. “A nightmare?”
I wanted to say it was only a nightmare, but I couldn’t say for sure. Mine was not the gift of seeing visions, or the future, but all witches had flashes of precognition from time to time. I didn’t want that to be the case here. I wanted it to be only a nightmare, only a horrible dream put together from my worries and fears and the frightening experiences of the past few days.
“I…don’t know,” I said at last.
“Tell me,” she said, and I knew from her tone that she wouldn’t let me get away with any evasion.
So I told her everything I remembered, no embellishment, no speculation, just the bare bones of the dream. That was enough; her face, pale already without its daytime makeup, went even whiter.
“It got through,” she murmured. “Even through all the wards we set up….”
“It was only a dream,” I said, but the protest sounded halfhearted even to me.
“We don’t know that for sure.” She reached out and touched my hand where it lay on top of the embroidered bedspread. “You’re like ice.”
That was true enough; shivers still wracked my body. “What should we do?”
“Bring in reinforcements,” she said immediately. “You’ll have to be watched around the clock.”
As much as the dream had bothered me, that idea upset me even more. Wasn’t my life circumscribed enough? Was I now going to have some kind of McAllister version of the Secret Service dogging my every step?
Yep, that was about the size of it.
Margot Emory, one of the clan elders, and Boyd Willis, a warlock noted for his strong spells of protection, and Henry Lynch, one of Great-Aunt Ruby’s grandsons, all set up camp in the living room that night, watching over me, watching over the house, making sure that no trace of evil or ill will could enter. And the next morning another group of three took over, only to be replaced by yet another trio the following evening. They attempted to stay out of the way — well, as much as they could with my aunt worrying about what she should cook for them all — but it was trying, to say the least.
I retreated to my studio and tried to concentrate on twisting wire and setting stones and choosing gems for the next round of pendants and earrings and talismans after the ones I was working on were done, but I had a hard time focusing. More than once I clipped a wire in the wrong place, or placed a stone crooked so I had to pry it out and start all over again, but I supposed it was good I had something to occupy myself. And in an odd way the very presence of the stones reassured me, the quiet strength of garnet, the gentle warmth of rose quartz, the serene coolness of jade. I took solace in their touch, and thanked them for their beauty as I set them in shimmering silver an
d vibrant, glowing copper.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, Sydney texted me. R U coming 2 try on dresses tomorrow?
I really, really hated text-speak, even though I supposed it made sense in a twisted sort of way when you were trying to save time and effort. Even so, I always replied using proper sentences. I’m under house arrest. Can you come up here?
Her reply came back almost at once. No prob. See U @ 4. Dinner @ Grapes?
Okay, I texted back. I had to hope that the restaurant was close enough to home that I could go out to eat with a friend without having to drag my bodyguards along.
She showed up around four-thirty the next day, a garment bag slung over one shoulder. I’d given up on my jewelry for the day and was pretending to make myself useful by dusting some of the more obscure corners of the shop, but I had a feeling Aunt Rachel saw right through that tactic.
When Sydney came in, I gladly abandoned the feather duster. “We’re going upstairs to try on our stuff for the Halloween dance,” I told my aunt.
That day’s “bodyguards” were sitting at a table off to one side, pretending to browse through books on local history. They’d all looked up as soon as Sydney came in, but since she was clearly not a threat, they turned back to their books, ignoring us. Well, ignoring her, anyway.
Aunt Rachel smiled at Sydney and said hello, but couldn’t spare much more than that, as she was in the middle of showing a turquoise cuff to a husband and wife at the time. Taking advantage of her distraction, I all but dragged Sydney upstairs.
“Who were those dorks?” she asked, jerking her chin over her shoulder as we climbed the stairs. “And what’s this about house arrest?”
I really didn’t want to go into the whole thing. “Let’s just say things get a little weirder the closer I get to my birthday without a consort.”
“O-kay,” she replied, drawing out the second syllable as a means of registering her disapproval. “You’re not going to have to drag them along to the dance, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not. But I have a feeling they’ll be there, only not so obvious. Kind of like Secret Service guys in black tie at a White House function or something.”
“Are they going to wear those little earpieces?” she asked with a giggle.
I didn’t want to explain that witches really didn’t need that sort of thing. “Probably not. Anyway,” I added, hoping to distract her, “let’s take a look at these dresses.”
That did the trick. She went over to my bed and laid down the garment bag as I shut the door, glad that the watchdogs didn’t insist on being as close to me as Secret Service agents were to the President. It was enough for them to be in the building, keeping the wards strong, continually checking for any whiff of something that didn’t belong. So far they hadn’t sensed anything at all. Whatever was trying to come after me seemed to have backed off for the time being. Or maybe it was just playing with us, waiting to see if we’d get lax after a while.
If that was its game, it obviously didn’t know the McAllisters very well.
“Okay, so, here’s the one I brought for you,” Sydney said, pulling out a long red dress with intricate flounces along the bottom, all edged in black sequins, and with red and black beading on the bodice. It was low-cut, but I’d already resigned myself to that. “Please tell me you found some decent shoes.”
In silence I went to my closet and produced a pretty pair of black leather Mary Jane – style pumps. They were my aunt’s, but she and I wore the same size, and she was all too happy to let me borrow them. Actually, I think she was just as tired of the cowboy boots as Sydney was.
“Oh, those are pretty good,” she said, eyeing them critically. “Go ahead and try it on, then.”
I took the dress from her and used the standing mirror in the corner as a sort of screen as I pulled off my jeans and flannel shirt. One look at the bodice of the dress told me I couldn’t wear a bra with it — there were cups sewn into the gown itself — and so I reluctantly unhooked my bra as well before climbing into the dress and sliding it over my hips and all the way up. The zipper would’ve been impossible to manage by myself…if I weren’t a witch. It glided up smoothly, pulling the gown closely against me. It was snug but not too tight. Even so, I knew it showed off a whole hell of a lot more than I was used to.
After taking a breath to fortify myself — and realizing that those cups in the bodice were a lot more padded than I’d expected — I emerged from behind the mirror. “Is it okay?”
Sydney’s eyes widened. “Okay? It’s…way more than okay.” She got up from the bed, where she’d been fussing with her own short, sparkly dress, and came to stand next to me. “That’s spectacular.” Then her eyes lit up, and she hurried back over to her purse, rummaged through it, and pulled out a tube of lipstick. “Put this on.”
I took the lipstick from her and spread a thin coat over my lips. It was dark red, almost a perfect match to the dress. With it on, and with the bodice of the gown cut low over my breasts, I almost didn’t recognize myself. My eyes glowed green in contrast to the red of the gown and the ruby of my lips.
“See?” she demanded in triumph. “I always knew you could be beautiful if you just put a little effort into it.”
At any other time I would have protested, but now, with that familiar-yet-strange face looking back at me from the mirror, I thought Sydney might have a point. I put the cap on the lipstick and started to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.
“No, you keep it. I have a feeling you don’t have anything that color, right?”
That was a joke. My entire lip collection consisted of my Burt’s Bees balm and a single tube of peach lipgloss that got worn maybe twice a month, if that. “Thanks,” I said.
She looked over my reflection, then gathered up my unruly hair and twisted it into a quick knot low on the nape of my neck. “We’ll do your hair like this, and then a red flower….”
“Aunt Rachel has some dangly gold earrings I can borrow, too.”
“Perfect! No one’s going to recognize you.”
“Well, especially with a mask on,” I pointed out.
Her face fell. “Are we really going to wear masks? I hate those things. It always feels as if my lashes are jamming into the eye holes.”
“It is a Halloween party, you know.” Then again, I didn’t know for sure if everyone wore masks to the dance or not. Maybe I’d bring one along and see what other people were doing. I mentioned this to Sydney, and she brightened a little.
“Okay, that I can work with.” She turned away from me and held up the shimmering gold dress she planned to wear. “What do you think? Not as spectacular as yours, but….”
“It’s gorgeous,” I said truthfully. “And it’ll look perfect with your hair.”
She ran a hand over the beaded fringe and nodded. “I found this awesome pair of gold heels to go with it, too. I just have to hope that I won’t break my neck walking down the street in them. I swear, I don’t think there’s one level sidewalk in this town of yours.”
“Probably not.” There didn’t seem much point to staying in the red dress any longer, now that we’d determined it fit, and so I moved back behind the mirror to take it off. “I still can’t believe Madison was okay with just giving these away.”
“Well, I might have offered to give her free highlights for the next couple of months in exchange….”
I stuck my head out from behind the mirror. “That was generous. What can I do to chip in?”
“Nothing,” she said blithely. “It’s good practice for me. I don’t mind.”
Past experience had taught me that it was no use insisting, so I only said, “Okay, but let me get dinner at least,” before going back to getting the dress off and putting it back on its hanger. As quickly as I could, I slipped my bra back on and pulled on my shirt and jeans.
“Deal.” I heard the bed creak a little as she shifted on it. “Hey, Anthony has next Saturday off, and he and a couple of friends — not
Perry — are taking their four-wheelers up to Crown King. Want to come?”
Crown King was a ghost town about seventy miles south of Jerome. Well, not completely a ghost town. A few people still lived there, and even more had summer homes on the mountaintop, but the place’s biggest claim to fame was its saloon…and the bragging rights of driving over more than twenty-five miles of dirt road to get there. I knew a few people who’d made the trip, and it always sounded like a lot of fun, but it would’ve been a stretch at the best of times, and I knew it sure wasn’t going to happen now, not with the whole McAllister clan watching my every move.
“I don’t think so,” I said slowly, and came out from behind the mirror, dangling my boots from one hand. “But you guys have fun.”
For a minute Sydney didn’t say anything, only watched me carefully, blue eyes scanning my face, looking for what, I didn’t know. Then she said, “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”
I gave her as guileless a look as possible. “Nothing is going on.”
She crossed her arms. “How long have we been friends?”
“About seven years now, I think.”
“And have I ever let slip any secrets about you? Told anyone the truth about your family?”
“Well, no,” I replied, not sure where she was going with this.
“Then why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? I can tell something isn’t right. You’ve got those people who look like refugees from Hogwarts camped out in your aunt’s store, you seem all jumpy, you won’t come up to Crown King even though technically it’s still in your ‘safe zone,’ whatever that means. So why don’t you trust me to tell me what’s going on?”
Her tone was hurt, and I really couldn’t blame her for that. She was right — she really had kept her mouth shut all these years, been a better friend than I probably deserved. A lot of people probably wondered why we were friends at all, since we were so different. Back in the day, I’d wondered the same thing, although at the time I’d thought she just wanted to take me on as a project. After all, the first thing she ever said to me, when she approached me on a cool October morning all those years ago, was, “Nineteen ninety-three called. It wants its shirt back.”