Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  Exhausted, I trudged up the front steps of Primrose House and leaned against the front door for a few minutes, resting my forehead against the rough grain of the wood. I felt no closer to clearing my name, and every time I went searching for answers, I just found more questions. Were the sheriff and his deputies experiencing the same phenomenon?

  Probably not, I decided. They already have their answer. They’re just looking for enough evidence to nail me to the wall.

  Dismal as the thought was, it propelled me forward. I couldn’t stop looking for the truth, no matter how tired I might feel. With a sigh, I pushed open the door and stepped into the foyer.

  A small, wooden jewelry box sat on the braided rug, dead center in the middle of the foyer. I didn’t have to pick it up to check for the Seal of Solomon on the bottom. The sharp hum that pressed against my head and face from all sides was enough to confirm that this was the same box I’d dug up in Cambion’s Camp.

  Warily, I circled the box from a distance of a few feet, skirting my way around the foyer until I could get to the stairs. Every instinct in my body told me to run, but I didn’t dare turn my back on the box. I didn’t even dare to take my eyes off the thing. Instead, I backed slowly up to the second floor, one step at a time, not blinking and scarcely breathing.

  An agonizing eternity later, I reached Graham’s door and knocked without facing it. I pressed my body against the wood, trying to put as much distance between me and the box as possible. When the door opened, I tumbled backward into Graham’s arms.

  “It’s back,” I whispered, pointing down the stairs.

  “What’s back?”

  “The box.”

  His eyes flared with recognition at those two words. Another time, I’d have laughed. How could something so simple scare us so much?

  Proving himself to be braver—or perhaps more foolhardy—than I am, Graham went downstairs and investigated on my behalf.

  “Don’t open it!” I reminded him from my position of safety on the second-floor landing.

  Tipping the box backward with the end of an umbrella, Graham confirmed it bore the symbol Amari had noticed. He left it where it was and came back upstairs to stand beside me. “It’s the same one. I don’t get it. Yuri told me he buried it back at the lumber camp.”

  “He went back?” A wave of dizziness set my head spinning. “When?”

  “Right after he left here the other night.”

  He’d gone back. I couldn’t imagine doing the same thing; there’d been something so obviously wrong with that place. I imagined a greedy presence being so desperate for our arrival that it yanked our van off the road, like it was trying to take us on a shortcut through the trees.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “I think so.” Graham gestured for me to follow him through the open door to his apartment. “Come on, sit down. I’ll call him.”

  “I’m not letting that thing out of my sight.”

  “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

  While Graham disappeared into his apartment, I settled onto the floor of the landing and leaned my head against a pair of balusters to watch the box below for any sign of movement. Striker sauntered out of Graham’s living room looking relaxed. She still limped a little, but it was nowhere near as pronounced as it’d been that morning.

  “Come here, sweetheart.” I patted my vacant lap.

  Her yellow eyes sparkled with interest. She started toward me but stopped partway across the landing and turned her head toward the stairs, glaring at the box on the floor below us. A loud, low growl rumbled forth from her chest and her ears swept backward. The growl crescendoed into a shriek, and she bolted down the stairs on a collision course with the box.

  I leapt to my feet. “Striker! No!”

  She launched off the bottom step, sailing above the box with her claws extended. When she landed on the floor on the other side, she snarled and spun around. But she wasn’t looking at the box; she was looking above the box.

  Something cold and wet ran down my back, dampening my t-shirt. “Striker!” I whisper-shouted. “Get away from there!”

  Tail puffed, she circled the box, growling continuously. When she came back around to the stairs, she darted up them and hunched beside me. I reached down to pick her up, and she hissed, swiping at me.

  “Fine!” I folded my arms across my chest. “You’re okay.”

  “Who’s okay?” Graham asked from behind me.

  Striker answered for herself, growling and muttering at the box below us.

  “Whoa, she’s huge.” Graham reached out to stroke her back, but I stopped his hand.

  “She’s super agitated,” I said. “I wouldn’t touch her.”

  He nodded and filled me in on his conversation with Yuri, who verified he’d returned to Cambion’s Camp and re-buried the box there in exactly the same place we’d found it. He’d had no trouble getting there or back, and he’d gone alone.

  “Kit wouldn’t have gone to get it, right?” I asked when Graham hung up. “To mess with me?”

  As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I knew it was an unfair one. All this thinking about fake mediums and scammy “psychics” was making me paranoid. Maybe some of those people would do something like retrieve the box to manufacture some kind of supernatural event, but that wasn’t Kit. She’d never even used a Ouija board out of respect for the paranormal. No way would she bring something like this box back into her own house.

  “Yuri only told me where he was taking it in case he ran into car trouble and needed a rescue,” Graham said. “He didn’t tell anyone else where he was going, not even Kit or Penelope.”

  That left one other possibility, and it was too outrageous to consider. Objects didn’t travel on their own. Someone—or something—had to move them.

  Gazing down at the small, innocent-looking box laying on the rug at the bottom of the stairs, I wondered if Horace knew I’d brought the box back to Donn’s Hill but hadn’t taken it to the inn. He’d said he could see everything that happened in that house. What if Yuri had talked to Penelope in her office, and Horace put the pieces together? Would that make him angry enough to transition into a poltergeist state so he could act on the living world? Was the force in Cambion’s Camp strong enough to pull Horace from the inn so he could retrieve the box?

  Even if the answers to those last two questions were “yes,” why would Horace have left the box at Primrose House instead of returning it to the inn to finish his business?

  To send a message.

  The ache in the back of my skull spread forward until it felt like two giant hands were pressing against my face. I rubbed my temples and groaned.

  “Headache?” Graham asked.

  “I’ve had once since the accident, mostly at the back of my head. And there’s been this buzzing sound…” I shuddered. “Sometimes it’s so loud. Now I feel like there’s a vise on my skull squeezing my sinuses.”

  “Sounds like a migraine. My mom gets them. Yuri is on his way—why don’t you go lay down for a while?”

  I shook my head. “I won’t be able to relax with that thing in the house.”

  “Well, sit back down at least. I’ll get you an ice pack.”

  Sitting cross-legged and using my forehead to pin a cold pack to the balusters, I glared at the box in the foyer. Beside me, Striker did the same. Her tension was contagious, and I felt knots forming in the space between my shoulders as my head continued to pound. Together we sat, keeping vigil over whatever thing called the jewelry box home.

  There had to be a way to cleanse the box, clear it of any negative presence, then return it to the inn so Horace could move on. Two ghosts, one stone.

  Upon his arrival, Yuri agreed with me. “I don’t know offhand how to do it, but we’ll find a way. In the meantime…”

  He produced a wooden crate the size of a small microwave. Light poured out of it when he lifted the lid, and I realized he’d lined it with mirrors.

  “An old superstition,” he
said. “The mirrors trap a spirit within. I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  After the performance Striker had given me, I was all in favor of taking any and all precautions. From my position of safety behind the second-floor railing, I watched Yuri pick up the box with the same embroidered altar cloth he’d used to cover it before. He placed it with care in the mirror-lined box, flipped down the metal clasp on top, and fed a padlock through the mechanism.

  “Overkill?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s any such thing with this stupid box. What are you going to do with it now?”

  “Well, driving it back to Cambion’s Camp didn’t work, for whatever reason.” Yuri spoke in his usual calm, comforting way, but the alarm in his eyes was visible through his glasses. “I think we find somewhere closer to keep it while we investigate how to deal with it.”

  “We can keep it in my workshop,” Graham suggested. “I’ll lock it up in a cupboard.”

  “Are you sure?” Yuri asked.

  Graham nodded.

  “I don’t want you working out there while that thing is in the garage,” I said.

  “I could use a vacation, anyway.” He reached down and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry.”

  His suggestion was impossible to follow. Worry seemed to be my new default state. It was all I did while I watched Graham carry the box outside, and all I did until he came back into the house. He joined me on the landing again and pulled me into a tight hug.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he mumbled into my hair.

  Like millions of other comforting promises spoken throughout time, his words were soon proven to be utterly false.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  My headache failed to get better after a solid night’s sleep, and a morning visit to the veterinarian didn’t help. Dr. Lee quickly came to the same conclusion Elizabeth Monk had, and a quick x-ray confirmed their shared hypothesis.

  “I have mild bad news, but good news to go with it.” Dr. Lee tucked her blond hair behind her ears and shot me a reassuring smile. “Striker has arthritis in her hips, which is very common for a kitty her age. The good news is: it’s treatable. We’ll get her started on a series of injections to help prevent further deterioration of the joints, and between that, a nice heated bed, and more furrapy sessions with Elizabeth Monk, she’ll get back to her old tricks.”

  Dr. Lee sent us home with a sample of a special joint-care cat food, and Striker zoomed up and down the stairs at Primrose House for a while to convince us she’d be okay. Despite the good news and Striker’s high spirits, my head throbbed. If I closed my eyes, I could picture a monkey sitting on top of my skull, screeching while it squeezed my forehead and the back of my skull with its paws.

  I left Striker in Graham’s care and walked to the grocery store where I was immediately overwhelmed by a shelf of essential oils. Graham’s mom said diffusing lavender oil relieved her migraine symptoms, and Elizabeth had recommended lavender and Frankincense to help Striker relax. The latter was something I’d assumed only existed in Christmas songs, which I hummed as I tried to decide which version of four identical-looking bottles of lavender was probably best.

  Eventually, I grabbed the mid-priced option. As I turned to hurry away from the sweet-smelling section and back to the comfortable aisles of cereal boxes and peanut butter, I slammed into Nick Martin.

  “Easy.” He steadied me by my shoulders, and the annoyance in his eyes dissipated when they met mine. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Rubbing my left temple with one hand, I squinted up at him. “How’s it going, Nick?”

  “It’s good. Uh…” He shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “Listen, I’ve been meaning to call you. I’m really sorry about the way I brushed you off at my house last week.”

  I remembered Daphne’s promise to talk to Nick for me and smiled. She must’ve put some serious pressure on him to result in an apology like this.

  “It’s okay, really,” I repeated, trying to put him at ease. “I’ve been a little preoccupied. Plus, Stephen gave me some tips for evaluating if someone is really drawing on a gift, so—”

  “Stephen? Stephen Hastain?” Nick’s face clouded with anger. “That hack doesn’t know anything.”

  I frowned, irked by the insult. “Hey, he’s a friend of mine.”

  Nick snorted. “He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. If you think that guy is on your side, you better watch your back.”

  Startled by the vitriol in his voice, I took an involuntary step backward. “You can think what you want about people, but I’m not interested in listening to you insult my friend.”

  “Oh, I’ll do more than talk. I’ll show you. If you really want to know how to spot a fake, let’s go.”

  “Now?” I looked down at the bottle of lavender oil in my hands. “I’m shopping.”

  He snatched the bottle away from me, marched over to the cashier, and slapped a twenty onto the conveyor belt along with the oil. “There. You’re done.”

  He stalked out of the grocery store, throwing a furious glare over his shoulder at me. I stood in the checkout line a few moments longer, staring after him in indecision until the cashier handed me the change.

  I should keep it. That would teach him to be so demanding. But then I’d miss out on seeing whatever it was Nick was suddenly so interested in showing me. And I’d feel guilty about having someone else’s money in my pocket. Curiosity overrode my irritation at the way he’d ended my shopping trip, and I followed him out of the store. He waited for me beside a sleek black Mercedes.

  I handed him his money. “Where are we going?”

  “The Enclave.”

  “Why?”

  He opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get in. “Because there are more fakes there than you think.”

  Nick said nothing on the drive. Happily, we didn’t have to sit in awkward silence too long before arriving at The Enclave. He parked across the street, glaring out the driver’s side window for a few moments before turning off the ignition.

  “I hate this place,” he said at last.

  “Really? I thought Daphne liked having a shop here.”

  “Oh, she loves it. But what does she know.” He got out of the car, slammed the door closed behind him, and marched across the street without waiting for me.

  I sprinted to catch up and followed him down the footpath. He kept his head facing straight forward, not even looking at Daphne’s shop, where a flashing neon OPEN sign beckoned. Instead, he led us toward the lime-green building next to Stephen’s shop. A rectangular wooden sign hung above the door displaying a hand with an eye emblazoned on the palm. Nick pushed open the door and beckoned me to follow him inside.

  It was a stuffy space, crowded with pillows and sagging furniture. The air was heavy with incense to the point where it was difficult to see across the room through the haze.

  The same sleepy kid who’d spared Stephen from being locked out of his shop stepped out from behind a curtain. Today, he wore a floor-length robe embroidered with a paisley pattern, and his long, black hair fell down on either side of his bony face. Like Raziel, he had a heavy hand with the eyeliner pencil.

  “Welcome,” he said. “Ah, Nick. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  Nick sneered. “Mac, this is Fang.”

  “Mac, is it?” Fang glided forward on bare feet and held out a hand.

  I raised mine to shake his, but he flipped it over and pawed at it with light fingers.

  “Lovely lines,” he murmured. “Are you here for a reading?”

  “She is,” Nick said.

  “And you as well?” Fang spoke with a light accent that would’ve been at home announcing a yacht regatta in the northeast, but his sense of style felt like a knock-off of Raziel’s distinctive Las Vegas aesthetic.

  “No, I’m just here to watch,” Nick said. “Evaluate, you might say. Pretend I’m not here. Do everything exactly as you normally would.”

&nbs
p; Fang’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch, then he cleared his throat and his features relaxed. “Yes, of course. Please, relax in the parlor.” He gestured toward a cluster of overstuffed, low-backed armchairs near the front window and turned to me. “I find it’s most conducive for positive energy if we settle the payment before the reading. As you’re a friend of Nick’s, I’ll give you a discount. Forty dollars.”

  Forty dollars? I shot a glare at Nick, who’d already settled into the chair facing the window. If I’d known this lesson—or whatever it was—would cost me forty bucks, I might have skipped it. But I couldn’t think of a way to get out of paying that wouldn’t seem rude, so I dug out my credit card, regretting giving Nick the change from the grocery store.

  “I’ll just be a moment.” Fang disappeared behind a curtain, and I heard his footsteps growing lighter down the hallway.

  I waved an encroaching cloud of incense smoke away from my face and made to sit down in the chair facing the door. Nick snapped his fingers and pointed me toward the chair with its back to the window.

  “Watch him constantly,” he murmured.

  “What was all that about ‘evaluating’ him?” I followed Nick’s lead, keeping my voice low. “Is that something you do?”

  “Only recently. You may have heard Daphne is putting together a traveling cirque de l'étrange.”

  “What on earth is that?”

  Nick glanced in the direction Fang had disappeared in and leaned closer to me, lowering his voice even further. “In the old days, they would’ve called it a freak show. She’ll have contortionists, intuitives, fire-eaters—it’ll be a hit. She has twelve cities lined up already.”

  He kept saying “she,” with no mention of his own involvement.

  “Are you part of it?” I asked.

  His gaze hardened. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Focus on the task at hand, Mac. Don’t worry about me.”

  Something about the way he dug his nails into the upholstered armrests at his sides convinced me it wasn’t worth pressing the issue. I looked back at the curtain Fang had ducked behind and leaned back into my seat. “So is this like… an audition?”