The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  Cecily laughed. “If you’ll hand me my shirt, we can get out of here.”

  “Not yet,” Scott replied.

  But before her imagination could get too far ahead of her, he turned, reached, and swiveled back again with a tub of ointment in his hands.

  “Gotta wrap you up.”

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Callum wrapped a half sheet of newspaper around a mug and made a mental note to tell Zander to kick him if he ever suggested or agreed to moving ever again. This sucked.

  He was ridiculously thankful Cecily had flown down to help. With Zander working crazy hours up until last night and Scott pulling different though similarly long shifts, Callum was pretty sure that the three of them alone had no hope of packing this entire house without Cecily’s help.

  It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house—1000 square feet, tops. He’d thought they’d lived sort of minimalist. He and Scott weren’t into superfluous purchases, and even Zander was more of a quality-over-quantity kind of person. So how did they own this much stuff?

  “Scott and I figured you and Zander were going to go out last night, it being Zander’s last day at work and all,” Cecily remarked as she wrapped another mug in newspaper.

  Callum laughed under his breath. “Nah, we’re hanging out with some friends tonight—decided to return to our cocoon after the happy hour and a late dinner.” Like, really late. The happy hour hadn’t broken up until nearly nine. Zander hadn’t really seemed up for anything but a just-the-two-of-them dinner at that point. She used to be game for staying out all damn night if the company, drinks, and music were good—he used to be too—but her job over the last six months or so had taken its toll. She burned a lot of energy dealing with a toxic corporate culture, shitty co-workers, and a boss who didn’t seem to give a damn about any of it.

  “Your place is sort of cocoon-like.” Cecily laughed quietly as Callum handed her the mugs he’d just wrapped and she set them both in the box at their feet.

  Speaking of comfort... Callum saw his opportunity. “Seems like I heard you and Scott up late,” he remarked casually as he reached for the next mug and a fresh sheet of newsprint. He and Zander had gotten home around ten o’clock. They’d stayed up for a bit, drinking a couple beers and hanging out with Scott and Cecily. But Zander had turned in around eleven and Callum had followed, something in him unwilling to let her go to bed alone. Maybe when they got up to Seattle, some of her out-all-night energy would return, but until then, he was happy to hole up with her in their room when she needed it. There was more to do in bed than just sleep, after all...

  But later, with the sound of Zander sleeping beside him, he’d lain there, awake, because even midnight was way before his bedtime most nights.

  “Well, you and Zander crashed out at eleven—who the hell else was I supposed to hang out with?” Cecily laughed.

  “Fair enough,” Callum chose not to bring up the fact that once he finally fell asleep, he’d heard them talking in the moments he woke up to roll over. He wasn’t mad. On the contrary, he hoped they would get out of their own way.

  “Where is Zander, by the way?” Cecily asked as she took another wrapped mug from him.

  Callum grabbed the last mug from the cabinet and a sheet of newspaper. “Sleeping again.”

  Cecily paused, her brows furrowed. “Zander doesn’t nap. Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Callum replied over the sound of crinkling newspaper as he snugged the folds around the mug in his hand before handing it off. “The last couple of weeks have been pretty rough—she’s stress crashing.”

  “Ah, gotcha. Stress crashing does sound more like Zander.”

  “Oh?” Callum asked with a smile. “Is this a pattern for her?” He closed the box and ticked a nod at the packing tape on the counter behind Cecily.

  “Sort of,” she replied, handing him the tape. “I think it’s how she recalibrates after pushing through something hard.”

  Callum chuckled. “Well, that seems reasonable,” he replied. “Maybe we should all take a lesson on stress crashing from Zander.”

  “Or,” Cecily’s brows rose, “she could learn not to put so much damned pressure on herself so she doesn’t have to crash?”

  Callum laughed. “Hey, her high expectations have served her pretty well, so far. Who are we to judge?” He peeled up the edge of the tape, stuck it to the side of the box, and stretched it long across the top, bracing himself through that horrible noise it made every time he did it.

  Jeez, maybe he should wait to do the tape until Zander was awake. He’d remember that for the next one.

  He pushed the box to Cecily who was ready and waiting with the marker to inscribe the top of the box with the same ornate font she’d used on all the others. It took less than a minute, but when she was done with it, the word ‘kitchen’ looked like it belonged on a wedding invitation.

  Cecily capped the pen. “It’s all yours, ready for the moving truck pile. Can you believe there’s only five days left until you’re out of here?”

  Callum’s chest gave a pang of ridiculous sadness as he hoisted the box and carried it to the living room where they’d been stacking all the packed boxes. The landlord was scheduled to do the final move-out walk-thru on Tuesday—which was less than three days away at this point.

  “I’m not sure I’ve fully accepted it yet,” he joked.

  He’d miss New Orleans—and he’d miss this house. It was hard to believe he and Scott were about to move out. They couldn’t stay here forever and the fact was, Zander deserved this new role she’d landed. It was closer to her family, and far away from the boss and co-workers she’d grown to hate so much over the last year. It just also meant it was really far away from New Orleans, and everything he and Scott had known as adults. But Zander and Cecily, even Zander’s mom, Nicole, were almost as much a part of Callum’s life now as Scott was—he and Scott both felt that way—so while the scenery would change, Callum found comfort knowing his connection to this new-found family wouldn’t. In fact, he hoped it just got better.

  “It’ll be great,” Cecily said. “I, for one, am super stoked to have you all so close.”

  Callum laughed. “You read my mind.” Now he needed to change the subject before things got too mushy. “Scott’s at the shop, yeah?”

  Cecily nodded and backed up a step to let Callum by as he crossed back to the kitchen. “Today’s his last day taking clients, so he’s booked solid. He said he’d be home around nine.”

  “Should we take bets now on how much past nine o’clock he’ll actually walk through the front door?” Callum joked.

  “Over-under...two hours?” Cecily’s brows rose.

  “I’ll take the over bet,” Callum replied, turning toward the cabinets once again.

  “Perfect. Tomorrow’s coffee on over/under two hours past nine p.m.”

  “You’re on,” Callum agreed. He took a box from the empty-pile and sat it where the last box had been. “Now on to plates!”

  Cecily laughed again and joined him at the counter, bringing with her a refreshed stack of newspaper. “Oh, hey, I had an idea for my next post on the blog!”

  “Oh, do tell.” Callum’s tone was joking, but his interest was real.

  “So, I had a friend ask me to try to reach her father,” she said, then tacked on, “who’s dead.”

  Callum chuckled. “I gathered as much.”

  “Just going for clarity. Anyway, it was a pretty cool experience. So I started thinking—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Callum cut in. “You did it?”

  “Yeah.” Cecily shrugged. “It took a little practice, but it wasn’t that hard.”

  Callum had stopped with a plate in his hand when she started talking about directed contact—reaching out to an individual spirit. He stared at her for a moment.

  Cecily never failed to amaze him with her ease and willingness. Even when he’d first met her, and when he first told her she was a medium—and explained that he was one, too—s
he’d barely blinked. Callum had never felt as easy about it as she seemed to, even as a kid. He’d never tried to learn more or tried to expand his ability. He’d never pushed the spiritual envelope, so to speak. But Cecily just took it all in stride with an air of curiosity and a bias toward action he’d never possessed.

  Sometimes he wondered how much more knowledgeable he’d be about it all—his skills, the other side, the veil, all of it—if he’d had free reign to learn and grow with his abilities instead of hiding it and ignoring the spirits who talked at him.

  It wasn’t exactly something he could indulge when he was a kid living in foster care. Back then, the name of the game had been blending in or being labeled and shipped out to a home that was “more equipped” to handle your “specific needs.”

  It was cool to watch Cecily own it all, though. Not to mention pretty freaking cool to have a friend to talk to about it who could actually relate. A friend who was being talked at by the same spirits he was when they went out to grab a bite—or drove home from the airport, as it were.

  “You seem mad,” she said, her tone wary.

  He shook his head. “Not mad at all. Just surprised.”

  She seemed relieved. “Okay. That’s good because, well, she told a mutual friend, and now that friend wants me to try to connect with her aunt. So I got to thinking, what if I record the session, and we post it on the blog? With her permission, of course. I think it’d get views.”

  Callum laughed under his breath. “It’ll get views alright.” Likely crazy amounts of views. “But going viral isn’t a good enough reason to do it—not unless it’s something you’d want to do anyway. And even then...”

  He finally started wrapping the plate he had in his hand as he continued over the sound of the crinkling paper. “We’re getting thousands of visitors per week at this point. Shit, if it really went viral, we’re talking millions of people seeing this video. And lots of those people will want you to connect with their loved ones.”

  “So, we’ll make it a recurring topic!” she exclaimed.

  “Do you want that?” he challenged, setting the wrapped plate into the box and reaching for another. “When you finish school and you’re looking for a new job, do you want prospective employers to know you talk to dead people? Or worse, have them not believe you talk to dead people?” His brain started really churning on the idea. They had an FAQ on the blog, and a couple of videos with voiceovers, but an honest-to-god video of her speaking to the dead felt a hundred times more exposed than all of that. “We use different names on the blog, just in case, but we can’t hide your face in a video. Not if we’re going to create any sort of credibility with the whole thing...” He stopped when he noticed Cecily staring right back, one brow raised, eyes cynical.

  She shook her head and took a plate from the cabinet, breaking their eye contact. “Scott said you’d say that.”

  She was stung. Callum hadn’t meant to be so negative. “Well, Scott knows me pretty well,” he said. “Look I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it. I just want to make sure we consider all the consequences. This could have a lot more impact on your life than writing some posts.”

  Cecily tilted her head from side to side, her eyes toward the ceiling for a second like she was making a show of considering it. “BirdCall83 would be pretty pissed,” she said.

  Callum tried to hide his smile. BirdCall83 was their loudest, most critical reader. They commented on almost everything he and Cecily posted. Sometimes their comments were neutral, once or twice they’d even been supportive, but most of the time, their comments were salty like the bottom of a bag of potato chips. That said, they were never impolite, never used foul language nor attacked he or Cecily personally. Honestly, it sounded like this person had some seriously deep understanding and was none-too-pleased that the two of them were sharing some trade secrets.

  So Callum could only imagine how salty they’d get if Cecily posted a recording of her contacting a friend’s deceased loved one.

  God, it was almost enough to make him want to do it!

  Which probably meant it was a bad idea.

  “They say don’t feed the trolls,” he admonished with no seriousness.

  “They’re hardly a troll,” Cecily countered. “Besides, you know you want to.”

  “It’s true,” he replied with a dramatic sigh. “Watching them go nuclear would be pretty sweet. But that doesn’t mean we should do it.”

  “This sounds like way too serious a conversation for this early.”

  Callum looked up in time to see Zander step around the door frame into the kitchen. Her dark hair was bedhead stylish, her tee faded and her denim shorts ripped, but what really registered was her smile—tired but more true than he’d seen from her in weeks. He put the plate he’d just wrapped into the box, then reached for her as she stepped toward him. He kissed her soft, pink lips.

  “It’s after lunch,” Cecily remarked.

  Zander gave a short laugh as she drew her lips away from Callum’s. “Ah. Only early to me then.”

  “Well, this is your second morning of the day,” Callum reminded her. “Coffee?”

  “Hell yes. But I want to go hit our coffee shop—limited chances left, ya know? You guys want a break?”

  A break sounded perfect, Callum thought. He needed to think about Cecily’s recurring topic idea—and really flesh out his position on the whole thing. Because the last thing he wanted was to hurt his relationship with Zander’s sister.

  The Medium’s Possession (Cloaked Series 2) is available at all major ebookstores.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  So many people go into the creation of a book, there’s no way I’ll remember everyone, but I’ll try as best I can.

  First and foremost, to my hubby Josh: You’ve always supported me. When you made it possible for us to take that giant leap it changed my life and our family’s life—and so far, it seems to be for the better. At the very least, this book wouldn’t have happened without it—and without you. (Also, this quarantine would have been a hell of a lot harder.