by D. R. Perry
I nodded, then faked a wince as Bobby Tremain, Lynn’s mate and my roommate, punched me in the arm.
“Sorry about all this, dragon-man.”
“Thanks, Bobby.”
“No, I mean it. We should have been here.” Bobby dropped a whittled carving of a bear in. I could tell by its style he’d done it himself.
“No way, man.” I ran my hand over my head, coming up short, just like my hair. “I let you all think Trogdor could handle burninating everything on his own.”
“Yeah, well, I definitely should have known better.” Josh paid his respects with a tin wolf figurine. Nox clung to his arm, adding an obsidian arrowhead after it.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Dennison.” I glanced over my shoulder at the unexpected voice. Fred Redford tipped his hat at me. No one cared that his Paw Sox cap was completely out of place at a Mourning Day. Redcaps and their Changeling kin literally couldn’t go anywhere without their hats. “I should have known he’d need help, too. And I was just on the other side of a little water.” He put a pin with the Pawtucket Red Sox logo on it into the urn.
“Hey, can we stop with the whole Worst Friend contest? I had help anyway.” I gave Kimiko’s hand a squeeze. “The important thing is, you’re here now. Thanks, you guys. I’ve got to shift and get in place before the dirge starts.”
“Hey, call me anytime you need to today.” Kimiko tapped her right temple, then pressed her lips close to my ear. “You don’t have to do this alone,” she whispered.
I spent the rest of the day perched on the second-highest gable on the mansion. Through our psychic link, Kimiko let part of my heart and mind rest in our shared mindscape glade. She also showed me the fanfare surrounding the Sidhe Queen’s arrival. She had one of her courtiers with her, another Sidhe Lady with her matching son Al in tow. I remembered him from a Fall semester class. He paid his respects by dropping a copper wire sculpture of a dragon into the urn. Kimiko let me hear Al’s expression of sympathy and its unexpected sincerity resonated with the musical keening I had to maintain for the entire Mourning Day. I barely knew the kid, his mom was a peripheral friend of Mothers, and yet he’d still thought to bring something for me. I’d never forget that.
After sunset, I couldn’t greet Henry and Maddie in person. Kimiko did it for me. Henry, who knew what it was like to lose someone close enough to be family, let his actions speak. He was a memory psychic, not a poet, after all. He pressed an old cassette tape labeled “marriage mix” into my mate’s hand before adding it to the urn. Kimiko and I watched a memory snippet of Wilfred and Mother dancing to Billy Idol’s White Wedding at Henrietta Thurston’s reception. Maddie added a clear paperweight which I happened to know used to be the anchor for a Grim.
And then, Olivia Adler showed up. The owl shifter wore light blue to honor the element she shared with Wilfred. I’d almost forgotten he’d tutored her in Practical Flight last semester. Her wardrobe choice made her stick out so much I noticed from the roof. She had Jeannie La Montagne with her, which I thought was a big surprise until I saw what she carried. A brass lamp, old fashioned and tinged green with tarnish almost everywhere. Through Kimiko, I smelled seawater.
My mate kept me from listening in, telling me that some things Jeannie had to say weren’t her secrets to tell. What she did let me see was Olivia leaving a white tail feather, its tip honed into a quill and shimmering like an opal. Jeannie dropped in what looked like the promise ring I’d seen her take off the night of the drive-by shooting.
I almost stopped my keening when the Djinn popped out of the lamp. Kimiko called him Ismail and thanked him for coming. He also put a ring into the urn, although his looked like an antique of Turkish design. Kimiko didn’t let Ismail apologize. She and I both agreed that none of what had happened was his fault. He’d done the best he could under the circumstances.
I knew dawn was close even before Henry left. The sun tinged the eastern sky, signaling to the dragons on the roof that we could stop our keening and come down now. A glamour screen left behind by the Sidhe Queen gave us cover to dress after we shifted back to our human forms. I waited for Mother to say something, but she didn’t. Neither did Taki Waban. I noticed they didn’t talk to each other, either. Didn’t even exchange glances. Once dressed, I walked away, leaving them to their strangely avoidant behavior.
Crossing the lawn to Kimiko was like coming home, even though I strode away from the house I’d grown up in. Josh’s car was still in the driveway since he and Nox had fallen asleep inside it while waiting for us. When we got in, they woke up, and Josh started the car. About halfway back to Providence, Kimiko cleared her throat.
“So, that wasn’t awkward at all.”
I chuckled, and something broke in my chest. I shouldn’t say that. It was as though all the pain that went with caring too much about the wrong people had gone out with the Mourning Day keening. That thing in my chest was love. It hadn’t broken. Instead, it had hatched.
Edward Redford and the Sinister Spindle
A Providence Paranormal College
Short Story
Edward Redford and the Sinister Spindle
Robert
Whenever Ed Redford came home from school, I made myself invisible. I knew what he was in for, how his life wouldn't have a normal span or a normal anything for that matter. And I hadn't needed a Precognitive Psychic to tell me so, either.
Ghosts like me, especially those of us haunting around for long enough to see a dozen generations born, then die and sometimes unlive, find patterns the Extrahumans don't. Mortality is limiting; everyone knows that, even the vampires and the Fae who live much longer than most. But they're still more limited than a ghost like me with a long memory. Solidity has a grounding effect that persists through the first few decades for most ghosts.
I'm not most ghosts.
I'll introduce myself to you the same way I did young Edward, even though he couldn't understand or speak any human language when he became my Medium. My name is Robert Crandall Lafayette the Second. The boy calls me Rob, but I only allow that because he will be the most powerful Psychic Medium since I was a solid. That was hundreds of years ago.
The boy was only five days old when he stopped breathing in his bassinet. He technically died for a moment through no fault of his own, but recovered due to the speedy response of a medical team. That's how we met. And no, it's none of your business why infant Edward stopped breathing. That tale is his to spin for you or not, as he chooses.
His mother Delilah is a Medium too, but I wanted nothing to do with her. My loyalty is to his patriarchal side, the Redfords, who contracted me to serve their family after one of them avenged my unfortunate demise at the Roanoke Colony. No, I won't tell you about it. The entire debacle is part of the government's Classified Extrahuman History files, and you haven't got the proper clearance levels for that.
I agreed to discuss young Edward Redford's strange discovery with you, however, so that's the focus for now. We spend a typical afternoon together thusly: the boy arrives home and tries to scrounge a snack amidst his lunkish Redcap brother's and father's near-constant feasting. I don't help him. I pretend this is a way of training him to be more assertive, but it's actually due to the fact that his mother has a veritable army of ghosts at her command, all devoting themselves to the task of conveying anything edible from the kitchen to the hungry Redcaps' gullets. Even a ghost of my age and potency isn't much good at bypassing that many of the more lowbrow variety. Working against their efforts is like trying to swim up a waterfall.
Once Edward has something resembling a snack, I follow him up to his attic bedroom and then down into the basement where he procrastinates on his homework by practicing Mediumship with me. This has always been our little secret, mostly because none of the other Redfords bother with the back stairs. Delilah Redford's ghosts use it as a sort of refuge, but they and the boy don't mind sharing it. Edward's family doesn't check on him in his room until at least an hour after the Redcap feeding frenzy ends.
On that particular afternoon, our practice focused on identifying items imbued with Psychic energy. I'd been down in the basement during the wee hours of the morning, memorizing the locations of any such thing in preparation. But Edward honed his attention to pinpoint one box in the corner by the root cellar, something that hadn't been there before. I let him pull the dusty drop cloth off its top and fold open the lid. But when I saw the item within, I couldn't stand by any longer.
"Stop," I said. "Step away from that box immediately."
"Okay, Rob." The boy did as he was told. He'd never been obviously willful, just quietly rebellious. And rarely against me in any event. "Is that thing bad news?"
"I believe it might be, though I'll need a closer look to be certain."
Floating over to the cardboard crate was easy, too much so, in fact. But that only confirmed my suspicions.
"That's a Soul Spindle in the box. It's extremely dangerous to anything incorporeal."
"So, ghosts and out-of-body Psychics?"
"Yes, and technically will-o'-the-wisps, although only the ones who have left the Under."
"Yeah." Ed shrugged. "I don't know much about the Under."
"Oh, worry not." As I mentioned, I am aware of many things my young protégé is not. "You'll learn it all exceedingly well someday."
"So, aren't devices like Soul Spindles supposed to be registered, with slips on file and everything?"
"You are correct." I floated away from it, a task that took more of my energy than getting there in the first place. "I want you to go back over there and close the box, then cover it up as close to the way you found it as possible. But before you do that, look inside and see what if anything, is in there with the thrice-accursed device. And don't touch it, mind."
Edward peered in at the thing, his lips twisting in that way I knew meant something both upset and intrigued him. He folded the flaps back over the Soul Spindle in the reverse order he'd opened them and then draped the cloth. It wasn't precisely the same, but in such a way that a mouse might have disturbed it instead of a curious boy.
"There was a slip in the box, Rob, but it didn't look right. There wasn't a seal like you see on a legally approved one."
"Then it's as I suspected."
"What?"
"You're a smart boy, smarter than that potty wizard in those fanciful tomes you read after lights out." He indubitably was, which was why I always spoke to him like an adult. He'd have to grow up fast. "Why don't you tell me what you can deduce about this highly regulated item hiding in your parents' basement?"
"Well, if the slip isn't approved, then maybe it hasn't changed hands since before the Reveal. Mom might be selling it."
"In all the time we've been coming down here, have you noticed that box in the corner before now?"
"No." The line I knew would become a constant feature on Edward's face in his later years grew between his eyebrows. "So it's a black market item. Whoever put it here is hiding it until they can get the slip embossed to make it look legit."
"Precisely the conclusion I made. Excellent work." I floated over to the door to the back stairs. "Now, we ought to postpone our lessons for today. Or perhaps longer. Until the box is gone in any event."
"I get it." The boy paced quietly toward me. "We steer clear because whoever puts the fake seal on that slip will come down here, and we don't want to tangle with shady characters. Because I'm too young to be a proper ghost like you, Rob."
"Exactly."
Edward didn't speak again until we got back up to his room. "I can't figure out whose it is, though."
"No?" It was my turn to let my thoughts run rampant.
It had been so long since I'd been a small mortal child, it would take a few minutes to put myself in Edward's place, during which he'd continue to sulk. Rather than observe that, I drifted into the wall, hovering in my favorite thinking spot behind the portrait everyone but the boy thought was of me.
The boy wouldn't want to believe the simplest explanation that the illegal Soul Spindle in the basement belonged to his parents. He also wouldn't want to let his mind make the next leap, to the conclusion that one or both were involved in some criminal enterprise.
Edward's father had a somewhat public history of doing magical contract work on buildings owned by the local mafia Boss, Gino Gitano. But that had been years ago before even Ed's college-age brother was born. Neil Redford had taken strictly legitimate jobs at the first sign there'd be a Great Reveal, abandoning Gino as a business contact.
That left the boy's mother, Delilah. But his parentally dominated brain came to a roundabout conclusion I hadn't anticipated.
"It's gotta be Fred."
At the sound of his voice, I stuck my head back through the wall. Edward flopped on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
"How?"
"Fred's been hanging out more with Tony Gitano ever since they went to PPC together." The boy sat up. "I bet Tony stole that thing from his dad and hid it here."
"Why would Tony do that?"
"I don't know. Because everyone thinks he's hinky?"
"What I meant to ask was, why would Tony Gitano jeopardize his scholarship over an item he can't even legitimize in order to sell?"
"Hormones?"
"Those don't work quite the way you think, Ed. It's not your brother or Tony. Neither of them can sense Psychic energies in any case. And I have it on the best authority that Gino does his son Tony no favors." I had, in fact, witnessed this myself on more than one occasion, but a full account would have frightened the boy out of his wits, so I refrained from relating it.
"Okay." The boy leaned forward, hanging his head. "It's Mom, then. She's Psychic and can actually use the thing. Didn't Mediums use them to get rid of Wraiths back before the Reveal?"
"Once upon a time, Ed, they did. But Soul Spindles are restricted magipsychic devices now. We discussed this before. Do you remember why?"
"Only government-employed Mediums can use them, checked out from a Federal bank for each instance of Wraith removal. It's because the Spindles also hurt Projecting Psychics."
"Right. So why is an illegal Soul Spindle in your house?"
"It can't be because Mom needs a Wraith removed. There aren't any here, and the FBE comes within twenty-four hours on Wraith calls. She's called them before."
"So what does that imply?"
"My mom has a beef with a Projecting Psychic."
"Bingo."
"But why?"
"That's a mystery we lack clues to solve. But I'm sure more will reveal themselves in time."
"Okay."
After that, the boy actually pulled his schoolwork out of his knapsack and worked on it. Even mathematics. I could hardly blame him after the hard truths he'd just had to face.
I felt no guilt, only a vague sense of pride. Edward would go through worse than this soon. After that day, I had hope that he could handle what was to come. An auspicious conclusion on my part because he'd have to do it all without me.
Djinn and Bear It
The series continues with Djinn and Bear It coming May 27, 2021.
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