by Eliza Lainn
“You don’t see them?” Rose asked. “Hear them? Just touch?”
Molly nodded.
“The principal and nurse are coming back,” Oliver warned just a beat before the door opened.
Miss Harbon and Ethel trudged into the room, their eyes immediately locking on Molly. When they realized the girl wasn’t scrambling to get out of the room or screaming at the top of her lungs, both their shoulders sagged in obvious relief.
“Molly, I’ve called your mother,” Miss Harbon said, stepping forward. She gave the girl a warm, caring smile. “She’s going to come pick you up, ok?”
Panic flashed in Molly’s eyes. Her gaze darted to me, then back to the principal. “I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here.”
“Your mother thinks—”
“Can I please stay here, Miss Harbon?” Molly asked, jumping up and clasping her hands together. “Please, I promise I’m fine.”
Miss Harbon sighed. “Molly, I’m not sure that you—”
“It’s fine,” Rose said, flashing a polite smile at Miss Harbon. Then she turned to Molly. “You should go home, Molly. Don’t worry, we’ll handle this.”
The girl’s eyes snapped to mine. I gave her an assured nod, and only then, still reluctant, did she follow Miss Harbon out of the room.
AI trailed after them, stopping in the hallway even as Molly and Miss Harbon continued toward the main office.
“What’s the plan?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t think we should leave her alone,” Rose mused, watching their retreating backs. “The demon could come after her again.”
Bronte poked me in the arm. “That’s what Sebastian said it was, didn’t he? A demon? And he’s truly sending help?”
“He is, but I don’t know when it’ll get here. He’s in Maine.”
“Crap,” Rose hissed, massaging the back of her neck. She bit on her lower lip, thinking, then straightened as she regarded us. “Ok, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to stakeout Molly’s house. Her mother thinks she’s clumsy, so her perceptions must be dull enough that she can’t sense what’s happening. She won’t be in danger if something happens tonight.”
“No one except me and Molly will be in danger. Your perceptions aren’t sharp enough yet.”
Rose’s eyes fluttered shut, a pained look crossing her face. “And yours are. That’s why you saw it.”
I nodded.
She took in a deep breath, then her eyes snapped open, her eyes flashing with the decision she’d just made. She held out her hand, palm up. “Give me the watch.”
I blinked. “Excuse me.”
“The watch, Stella. Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because your perceptions are deepening too fast. From now on, I keep Cyril and Oliver.”
“No,” I shook my head.
“Give her the watch, Stella,” Cyril said beside me. “She’s right about this.”
“But you can’t perceive them at all,” I argued, feeling the weight of it in my pocket. My hand instinctively covered it. “I should give it to Bronte.”
“Who lives with you,” Rose scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Doesn’t solve the problem, does it?”
“Then Noah.”
“I’d rather be with Rose—unable to perceive us and all—than be with Noah,” Oliver mumbled darkly. “No offense.”
Noah shrugged.
“This isn’t up for debate,” Rose continued. “I’m taking it because their presence won’t impact my perceptions. Yours has already gone too far. You’re losing control of your ability. And you’re perceiving demons. So help me, Stella Annabelle Reycraft, if you don’t give me that watch, I will pin you to the ground and take it from you.”
“It’s for the best,” Bronte whispered sadly.
Hesitantly, I slid the pocket watch from my pocket. I held it out to Rose, but jerked it out of her grasp at the last moment. “I get it back once we’re through with this case, right?”
She snatched it from my grip, ripping it from my fingers. “We’ll see,” she said, sliding it into her own pocket. “I’m going to go get Molly’s address from the school office. Then Stella is going to tell us everything she learned from Sebastian. After that, we’re staking out Molly’s house.”
Chapter Eighteen
Not having ghosts chatting in my ear made everything seem unusually quiet. No disembodied voices, no stray chills, nothing moving on its own. I’d blinked and my life with two ghostly roommates had suddenly become normal.
Sitting in Noah’s truck, staring at Molly’s house from across the street, everything felt…surreal.
“She’s right, you know.”
My eyes snapped to Noah. From where we were parked, I could easily see him and the house. He sat in the driver’s seat, head turned to look through the passenger window, unable to see me at all. “You would back her up.”
He suppressed a sigh—I could see it in the roll of his shoulders. “And you think she’s wrong?”
I fidgeted in my seat.
She probably wasn’t. My powers growing out of my control, plus being able to perceive demons, all happening so quickly? It had only been a few months since all of this started.
No, she was right.
I just hated how alone I felt without two ghosts following my every step.
“Stella?”
“She probably isn’t,” I admitted, unable to admit it fully. “Doesn’t mean this sucks any less.”
“After this case is over, we should discuss a more permanent solution for the watch.”
“No.” My voice came out sharp and harsh. He flinched slightly, and despite my stab of guilt, I continued. “We aren’t killing them. I know you haven’t been happy with us working with Cyril and Oliver, but unless they agree—both agree—to move on—and for the right reasons—they are going to stay exactly where they are.”
“Cyril wanting to keep you safe is a right reason.”
“He’s being a martyr,” I grumbled.
He whipped around, glaring at me. “And agreeing to stake out a girl’s house, knowing that a demon is probably going to start haunting you because of it, isn’t being a martyr?”
“This is my job,” I hissed. I hated that I was alone in this—by now, Cyril or Oliver would have chimed in. “It’s not like you can see the demon when it shows up anyway. I need to be here.”
“And Sebastian’s offer to put you in a safe house?”
I rolled my eyes. Naturally, Noah, Rose, and Bronte thought I should take him up on it. Even Cyril had agreed with them. Only Oliver had even attempted to back me up, not agreeing with my decision but saying that it should still be my decision to make.
“I’m not going to hide away while everyone else deals with this.”
“Like a martyr,” he mumbled, turning back to the house.
Noah shifted in his seat slightly, his gaze moving from the house to his rearview mirror.
I followed the line of his gaze, looking at Rose’s car parked behind us.
With the two of them still at odds, we’d taken two cars to our stakeout. And, lucky me, I was the one Rose said needed to sit with Noah, considering we’d been working on the case together up until this point.
Thank goodness Molly’s mother’s lack of perception extended to cars across the street from her house.
“Movement,” Noah mumbled, shifting in his seat.
I looked across the street. Molly was bounding down the front driveway, heading for Rose’s car. She spoke through the open window for a moment and then hurried to ours.
Noah turned the car on and rolled down the window as Molly hurried up. Catching sight of me, she smiled, tension leaking from the set of her shoulders. “You’re here.”
“Is everything ok?” I asked, waving to the house.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly, brushing it off with a shrug. “My mom went to book club, so it’s just me in the house. Do you want to come inside? It’ll be more comfortable than sitting out
here.”
I glanced behind us, catching sight of Rose and Bronte climbing out of their car. “Sure,” I said, pulling the handle.
Outside, I stretched my arms over my head. A coolness touched my cheek and I smiled, leaning into it. “Hi, Cyril.”
“How are you?”
“Fine,” I said, moving to stretch my legs. Sitting in the car for the last hour had turned them stiff. “How was the fun car?”
He chuckled. “I now know everything I need to about Rose’s hair care regime.”
“And just think, you’ll be spending time watching said regime if you go to live with her,” I said, pleased that only a subtle trace of bitterness crept into my tone.
He sighed, but before he could speak, Molly came around the truck.
“I’m surprised your mother left,” I commented, watching as she balanced on the edge of the curb, her heels hanging off over the street.
She slid her hands into the massive sweatshirt she wore, shrugging as she did. “I wasn’t acting weird when she picked me up, didn’t do anything odd since we’ve been home. She just had Miss Harbon’s word that I screeched like a banshee at school, and I guess without seeing it firsthand, it didn’t make that much of an impression.”
I frowned, watching the way her eyes were locked on the ground and how she bit down on her lower lip. “Does it bother you that she left?” I asked softly.
Her eyes leapt up to meet mine. She shrugged again but didn’t say anything.
“We should head inside,” Rose came up behind us, looking around. “You two stay close to the rest of the group. I don’t want either one of you going off alone.”
I nodded, my eyes landing on the book she held by her side. I arched an eyebrow when I recognized it, catching her eye to convey my meaning without Molly hearing.
She had the exorcism book. The one Sebastian had sent to her.
The one he’d warned her not to use unless she’d mastered the concepts completely.
And even though I knew she’d been studying religiously, I doubted she’d mastered anything in the small amount of time she’d been working on it.
She shrugged, a steel glint in her eye that dared me to challenge her.
Grinning, I started across the street. If given the choice, I’d rather deal with a demon over Rose once she’s made up her mind about something.
Chapter Nineteen
Her living room was a space after my own heart. Filled to the brim with books, movie posters, eclectic art, and couch cushions that didn’t follow any kind of rhyme or reason. If Molly or her mother liked something, they bought it, regardless of interior design conventions.
I loved it. It gave the room personality, made it feel like an actual living room, rather than something out of a Home and Garden magazine.
At Noah’s suggestion, Molly pulled out all the candles she could find and lit the fireplace. Using the matches she provided, AI split up, placing the candles around the room and lighting them all.
Not that I would be able to do anything with the flames. But fire had stopped Nathan Elgin. Granted, he’d only been a monster—a human turned into something dark and depraved—and this demon we were dealing with, from what Sebastian had said, had never been human to begin with. The rules might be different, but until we knew the playbook that would help us against a demon, anything helped.
I squatted down on my haunches beside Molly as she worked at the fire in the fireplace. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged, stoking the fire with the metal poker. “Good and bad. I’m excited that there’s someone else who believes me with all this, but at the same time, I’m wondering if I haven’t just doomed everyone here.”
“It’ll be ok. We’ve handled tough situations before.”
Not this tough though, I thought to myself. Sebastian had been alarmed at the prospect of a demon and he was one of the most competent ghost hunters I knew. Granted, I hadn’t met many, but he’d handled Roger Whitaker in his monster form like it was a freaking walk in the park.
She nodded, pure trust radiating from her when she glanced in my direction. Then a thought crossed her mind, that light dimming, and she turned back to the fire. “Then there’s the hope of it all.”
“What’s wrong with hoping?” I asked, frowning at the bleak dread that had crept into her tone.
“Hope is dangerous. I had gotten used to being alone, accepting that this was my life. Even accepting that it…it would probably even kill me, at some point. Now I’m wondering what’ll happen if we win, if it’s gone, and I want that. I really want it. And I’m afraid of how badly I’m hoping it’ll work out that way.”
Cyril sighed, his voice close. “Children shouldn’t have to be so jaded when it comes to hope.”
I nodded softly, in answer to both Molly and Cyril.
Molly stabbed at the fire again, causing the log to shift and a few embers to spark up into the air. “I like this fire, though,” he said, forcing herself to sound brighter, changing the conversation. “Warm and comfy. Mom hates it when I light the fireplace—she doesn’t like the smell.”
“Who doesn’t like the smell of wood burning?” I asked in mock indignation.
Molly giggled lightly. “I can understand though. Just a little bit is fine, but I don’t like fires that are big. Last year, before all this madness, we had a bonfire at school to psych the football team up for a game. That fire was too big, too hot, and too smelly. It gave me a headache.” She moved around a log with the poker. “But this one’s nice.”
“This one,” Cyril breathed thoughtfully. “Stella, a word, please?”
“I’ll be right back,” I said, rising up. I moved out the living room, down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Still within sight of the others but far enough away that I could hold a whispered conversation with a ghost. “What’s up?”
“You still haven’t managed to manipulate fire like you had with Nathan Elgin.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice pep talk there, Cyril.”
“My point is that was a different flame entirely. Molly just said it—she doesn’t appreciate larger fires because they’re too much, too different. This fire, she prefers.” He spoke quickly, excitedly, like he’d just made a discovery of a lifetime.
I frowned at the hallway wall in front of me, leaning back against the opposite wall. “I don’t think I’m following.”
“This fire versus that fire, Stella,” he said as two chilled touches cupped my cheeks. “They were different. Two entities. Wouldn’t it stand to reason, like people, they might have different names?”
I stilled, the realization striking through me hot and fast like a bolt of lightning.
The reason I hadn’t been able to recall and use the name I’d thought I’d mumbled when fighting against Nathan Elgin had been because that fire had had one name. And each subsequent flame I’d made had had a different name.
They weren’t part of one entity, like earth or water or wind. Sure, they were all fire, but each one lived and died independently of the others. Just like people. With their different names.
It made sense—and it explained why I couldn’t recall whatever I’d mumbled darkly that first time, when the fire had listened to me. Because I’d been trying to recall the name of a fire that had already died.
It’d be like me trying to command Rose using Bronte’s name. It wouldn’t work. If fires all had different names as Cyril suggested.
“I think you’re right,” I whispered, stunned and breathless. “God, Cyril, that makes perfect sense.”
“It would explain everything,” he whispered excitedly, his hands at my cheeks growing more solid. “Why you’ve been struggling so much, despite your powers growing. Why the word you’ve tried to recall isn’t there anymore. That flame died. You need to focus on naming living flames.”
“We can use this,” I said excitedly, reaching up. My fingers curled around Cyril’s wrists—I could feel the cool outline of him, his form solidifying under my touch. The hope t
hat Molly had talked so sadly about burned hot in my chest. “Cyril, I can fight with this.”
He yanked his hands from my face, my fingers sliding through cold air as the connection faded back into the ethereal. “You shouldn’t fight with this, Stella. This should be a defensive measure only.”
“It will be,” I frowned, staring forward, not sure why his tone had shifted from bubbling excitement to cold anger. “But think about it. If this works, I could use it to save Molly and we—”