I opened my mouth to protest, but he lifted a hand to stop me. “No room for negotiation or compromise. You will go to school and come home. That’s final. I can’t believe you would do this to us, especially at this time of the year.”
I had to get rid of a ghost, close a porthole to another dimension, and find a way to get Nick back into his body. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. I had no time to be grounded. I looked at my hands and inspiration struck.
“But what about my appointment with Mr. Wan?” I showed them my hands so they could see my black fingernails. Mother shuddered.
“You may go to your appointment, but you’ll come straight home afterward.”
“Of course.” I said, telling an outright lie. I was not going to come home after Mr. Wan. I had to go to the hospital to see Nick, or rather, Nick’s body. My parents bought it, though. I’d never lied to them before, so they were incapable of detecting it.
“Now march yourself to bed young lady, this minute.” My dad stared at his empty martini glass longingly. He’d likely be drinking a few more this evening, and I suspected my mother would be joining him. With any luck, they’d sleep in late and I could head off to Mr. Wan’s without having to lie to them again.
My parents were nowhere to be seen when I left the house in the morning, and I got to my appointment ten minutes early. I glanced at my watch. I had an hour and a half before I had to meet the Fortunas at the hospital. Nick came into Wan Fine Lady with me, and Blobby floated over his head.
Mr. Wan gasped when he saw my hands. “Black? This is awful. What were you thinking?”
He immediately set about removing the black nail polish and massage my hands and feet. It felt so good. I leaned back and relaxed. Nick walked around the shop, looking at the Chinese calligraphy paintings on the walls. Blobby sailed around with him.
“Today you are ready to try something new. I have just the thing.” Mr. Wan pulled out a bottle of nail polish in a rich mauve. “It’s called Eiffel for You.”
I’d never used anything this purple before, but it suited me. I had on a soft white blouse tucked into a skirt only a shade or two darker than the nail polish. I wore the necklace from Mrs. Chang tucked between my breasts, and a loose, beaded gold belt hanging around my hips. I’d pulled my hair back with a purple ribbon and tied it at the nape of my neck. I’d also slipped on a pair of Mary Janes in the same color as my skirt. A slightly bohemian look for me, and a far cry from how I’d looked last night. My only make-up was a tiny bit of mascara and some lip-gloss.
When Nick had seen me this morning after I’d dressed, he’d said, “There’s my girl,” and it made my heart sing. He liked the way I looked in my own clothes, although I’m certain he secretly enjoyed the leather too. He came back to sit with me as Mr. Wan finished.
“I talked to my friends about you.” Mr. Wan paused in painting my nails. “I have some information. It may help the boy we talked about.”
I leaned forward. “What is it?”
He paused a second before taking my hand and putting on the second coat. “They think all this is interconnected. Karma made you fall in the lake and die, karma made all those ghosts follow you back, and karma brought this boy to you too. This is your fate. Your destiny.”
I looked at Nick and swallowed hard. My destiny. I knew it. I also knew I had to fight for him. “Mr. Wan, I may have met the Soul Reaper.” I told him about what had happened to me, the way it had held me down and the way Blobby had saved me. I also told him about Nick.
“It means your little ghost has a reason for being here still. You have to learn the reason and find a way to help it go back. But you have to take care of the Soul Reaper too.”
“What can I do?”
Mr. Wan wrote something on a small piece of paper. “First things first, buy this from Mrs. Chang. It will help you get rid of the Soul Reaper.”
I squinted at the Chinese writing. “What is it? A magical formula?”
Mr. Wan shook his head. “No, a candle. It smells like poop. It smells so bad the ghost will want to run away. Even a Soul Reaper can’t stand the smell of this. But, be careful, Tiger Lily. The Soul Reaper will not leave without a fight, and it might try to take someone back with it.”
I looked at Nick in alarm. I didn’t know how to fight a Soul Reaper. It had scared the crap out of me when I first encountered it. Mr. Wan patted my hand before sticking it in the nail dryer.
“Don’t worry, Tiger Lily. You will know what to do when the time comes, and Mrs. Chang can help you too. But you are running out of time. The full moon is tonight, but you must be careful. If you send the Soul Reaper on its way before midnight, it might slip back into our world. If you wait too long, the door will be shut. You must time it perfectly.”
“What about Nick? The boy we talked about?”
Mr. Wan rose to his feet. His other customers waited impatiently, but Nick’s life depended on me figuring this out. “First get rid of the nice ghost. Then get rid of the Soul Reaper. Afterwards, Nick must find his own way home. The road will be open for him, but it is a journey he must complete himself.”
Noticing my crestfallen expression, Mr. Wan put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. He is the lucky one.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. It was the name of the Fortuna Brothers’ hit song. Mr. Wan winked at me, tapping a finger against his head. “I am old, but I am still smart.”
Miss Lin brushed past him. “You are old, but you were never smart.” She fixed a scowl on me. “Did you find Mr. Lucky yet?”
I looked at Nick. “Yes, I did.”
“It’s about time. Why are you so slow? I told you about him days ago.” Miss Lin stomped back to her table, pleasant as always, and Mr. Wan waved goodbye.
“Good luck, Tiger Lily. See you next week.”
Mrs. Chang waited for me at the door of her shop. She wore traditional Chinese dress again and leaned heavily on an ornately carved cane. “I knew you were coming.”
“Because you had a premonition?” I asked.
She smiled at me in her gentle, sweet way. “No, silly. Mr. Wan told me. He called to let me know.”
“Mrs. Chang, I met the Soul Reaper.” I told her about what had happened, and how Blobby had saved me. I also told her about Mr. Wan’s advice. “Mr. Wan said I have to fight it, but I don’t know how. He said Nick will find his way back into his body, but I can’t help him.” Blobby did a nosedive onto the floor and slid back and forth like an ice skater in a rink. “And I have this ghost that doesn’t want to go home.”
“You have a lot of work to do. You must be brave. You must be strong. And you must be clever.”
My shoulders sagged. “I’m none of those things.”
Mrs. Chang hit the ground with her cane. Blobby, Nick, and I all jumped in surprise. “You are all those things and more. Why do you think you have these problems in the first place? There is something special about you, Tiger Lily, something made the ghosts follow you back. Something makes the Soul Reaper want to eat you, and something made Nick go to you for help. Do you know what an aura is?” I shook my head. “It is a light surrounding people. It is part of their spirit, but most people aren’t able to see it. They look for what they expect to see, but they don’t see what is truly there. I can see auras, which is why I know Nick is standing right here.” She pointed to the exact spot where Nick stood. “And your little ghost is right there.” Blobby stopped floating around the ceiling when she spoke and slid right into her arms. She smiled and murmured something to Blobby in Chinese. “Do you know what I see when I look at your aura?”
“No.” I studied my hand and my arm. I couldn’t see anything, no matter how hard I tried. Nick tilted his head to one side and studied me. He couldn’t see it either.
“I see a beacon, so bright and so pure it illuminates my entire shop. This is what brought these problems to your doorstep, and this is what will help you solve them.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but you are not alo
ne. You have your friends, you have your family, and you have this candle. You also have the necklace I gave you.”
I wasn’t too sure about the family part, but I agreed with her anyway. Mrs. Chang placed the candle in my hands. “But the most important tool you have is your own heart, Tiger Lily. You must be willing to sacrifice everything, or you will lose everything. I was not so brave, and I was not so strong, and because of my own weakness and doubt, the boy I loved died. It will not be the same for you, but you are almost out of time. Go. Now.”
I walked out of the store in a daze. The bright spring sunshine dazzled me as thoughts whirled around in my head. It was all interconnected, as Mr. Wan had said, but I had missed something important, and didn’t have much time left to figure it out.
We hopped into the car and drove to the hospital in silence. Even Blobby seemed subdued. As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, Nick turned to look at me. “Whatever happens today, please know I will never stop loving you. Lily.”
I bit my lip. “I love you too. But I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
Uncle Johnny and Uncle Danny waited for us at the entrance with a small, dark-haired woman who looked fragile and pale in the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital.
“Mom,” Nick said, his voice soft. Maria was tinier than I’d expected, and Uncle Johnny and Uncle Danny stood protectively close to her.
I held out my hand. “Ms. Fortuna, I’m Lily.”
She held my hand in her small cold one as she studied me closely. “You aren’t at all what I expected. Please call me Maria.”
Uncle Danny and Uncle Johnny both seemed surprised at my appearance as well. “Lily. You look…. different,” said Uncle Johnny.
“Yeah, where’s all the leather?” Uncle Danny giggled. “And are you wearing a ribbon in your hair?”
I tugged on the ribbon self-consciously. “This is the real me. I dressed the way I did last night so I would fit in at The Zone.” Zoe and Josh joined us in the lobby. She had on her usual black skirt, shirt, and combat boots. Josh looked like he’d been at soccer practice. “These are my friends, Zoe and Josh.”
“Now Zoe looks like the kind of girl Nick usually dates. But he’s never dated anyone who looks even remotely like you, Josh.” Uncle Danny laughed even harder, and Maria elbowed him in the side. She linked her arms through Zoe’s and mine.
“Well, you all look wonderful to me. Don’t listen to those guys. Tell me how you know my son.”
I explained everything to her. By the time we arrived at Nick’s room, she knew the whole story. I expected to see skepticism on her face, but there wasn’t any there. She looked deeply into my eyes as we stood outside the door of his room, and it seemed like she looked into my soul.
“You’re a good girl. I want to believe you’re telling me the truth.” Maria’s eyes were the same dark brown as Nick’s, but she had the thick, curly hair of the Fortuna brothers. Nick must have gotten his silky, straight hair from his dad.
Nick leaned close to me, his eyes on his mother. “Tell her tu sei la mia vita. You are my life. She said it to me every night before I went to sleep.”
I repeated the words in halting Italian to Maria, and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s him. My Dominick. I can’t tell you what this means to me, knowing he’s here. Knowing his spirit still exists. But how do we fix this, Lily? How can we save him?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try.”
She paused a moment at the doorway, staring at me with her sad, dark eyes and studying my face. “It’s time,” she said as she opened the door to Nick’s room and let me in.
Chapter 15
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses. ~ Chinese proverb
Nick lay in his hospital bed, as pale and as white as the sheet he rested on. His left leg was in a cast. His dark hair fell across his forehead. Machines beeped and whirred, recording his heart and each breath he took, but my Nick wasn’t there. He stood right next to me. What I looked at on the bed was a shell, a husk of the actual person.
“Well, this is weird.” Nick hovered next to the bed, staring at his own body. “What do I do?”
I looked at Zoe, but she also seemed confused. Blobby darted around the room in an agitated way, and soon I understood why. A large, dark shadow rose from the floor and rested at the bottom of Nick’s bed, covering his toes. Without being the least bit psychic or clairvoyant, I could sense pure evil pulsating from it.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s bad.” Zoe looked scared, which said a lot. She didn’t scare easily. “Josh, can you get a read on it? It’s at the bottom of the bed, covering Nick’s feet.”
Josh reached out a hand and recoiled so quickly he nearly shot backward across the room. “Whoa,” he said, shaking his hand. “What was that?”
Maria exchanged looks with Uncle Johnny and Uncle Danny. “What are you guys talking about?”
“We might have a problem here.” I explained about Mr. Wan and the Soul Reaper. Surprisingly, they took it in stride.
“Is that why Nick isn’t in his body? I know he isn’t here. He’s been slipping away more and more each day.” Maria sat in a chair next to his bed.
“She’s right, Lily. The times I left you, the times I had to go away, those were the times she called me back.” Nick stared at his mother’s face before turning back to me. “And now I might be fading away altogether. Is the Soul Reaper pushing me out of my own body?”
“I don’t know.”
How had I become an authority on Soul Reapers? I sank into a chair. Watching this black evil thing creep over Nick’s helpless body shook me to the core. Emotional and physical exhaustion weighed on my shoulders like a boulder as the Soul Reaper ate Nick alive, right before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Nick knelt beside me, his hands resting on mine. Even if I couldn’t feel them, his presence was so strong it gave me comfort. “Don’t you dare give up, Lily. We’re so close.”
I bit my lip, trying to stop the tears rolling down my face, but I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Nick. I love you so much, and I’m terrified I’m going to do something wrong. I can’t lose you the way I lost Rosie. I can’t watch you die.”
Nick brushed his hand across my hair. “You won’t have to. I’ll find my way back. I promise. You just have to do what Mr. Wan and Mrs. Chang told you to do. Can you? Can you be my brave, sweet girl?”
“Yes. For you I can do anything.” I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. I’d had my little meltdown. Time to get to work now.
“Well, that was kind of weird,” said Uncle Danny. They stared, watching me have what looked like a one-sided, teary conversation with the wall. “But I’ve seen weirder.”
Maria rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you have, Danny boy. The important thing is she loves our Dominick. Nothing else matters,” she said, and her smile warmed my heart.
I rose to my feet. “Let’s do this.”
Nick tried to get back in his body, but it proved hopeless. He jumped into it, laid on top of it, and moved around it, attempting to slip in from different angles, but nothing worked.
“It’s like I’m locked out.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. The others had gone out to grab some sandwiches for lunch. Only Nick, Blobby, and I remained in the room.
When I saw my Nick touch his hair, I turned to the body lying on the bed. “I want to know what it feels like…your hair, I mean. Do you mind?”
Nick shook his head. I lifted my hand and ran my fingers through the silken strands. It was even better than I’d imagined, and I couldn’t believe I was finally touching Nick. I skimmed my way across his firm jaw and gently traced his eyebrows and the outline of his lips.
“Kiss me, Lily,” he said, his voice husky. “I know it sounds weird, but I want you to kiss me.”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. For the briefest of moments, I noticed a
slight tremor, like I kissed Nick himself and not the empty shell of his body.
Nick shivered slightly. “I think I just felt you kiss me.”
I touched a finger to my own lips. “I felt it, too,” I said. “And I want to try it again.”
Before I could, a huge commotion erupted outside Nick’s room. The door swung open, and my parents stood there, arguing with the Fortunas and a couple of nurses. The rest of the brothers had joined them, so we had a whole herd of Fortunas in the hallway. My parents did not look happy.
“Lily Madison. Time for you to go home. Now.”
Jess or Maura had most likely blabbed about Nick, but I couldn’t blame them. When my parents went on a rampage, they were a force of nature. My dad barely even glanced at me. He expected to be obeyed because I’d always obeyed, but I couldn’t. Not now.
I looked each of my parents directly in the eye, and said the one thing they had never, ever heard from me. “No.”
“What did you say?” My father acted like he might blow a gasket. My mother had been primping and looking at Uncle Johnny, Uncle Danny, and the other Fortuna brothers from under her eyelashes, but now she stared at me with undisguised astonishment. I’d never talked back to my father. Ever. Or to her. But I was Tiger Lily now. Their docile daughter was gone.
“Mom. Dad. I love you both. But I love Nick too. I’m not leaving here until I help him. I mean it.” I reached for Nick’s hand on the bed and held it in mine. I thought imagined the faintest answering squeeze, but I knew it couldn’t be true. Sometimes having hope was more important than facing reality, even if it meant fooling myself.
My parents began to rant again, but I lifted a hand to stop them. “Sit down, you two, and listen to me. For once in my life, I demand to be heard.”
That finally got their attention. They sank into chairs next to the door and waited for me to speak.
“I know things haven’t been easy for you. You’ve both suffered, but I’ve suffered too. I might not show it, but it has had an effect on me. The amount of sanitizer I use isn’t exactly the sign of a stable person, you know.”
Tiger Lily (Dark Blossoms Book 1) Page 13
