Crossroads (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 7)

by Catie Rhodes

  My chest tightened, and worry set in. “What do you expect to find?”

  “Our work together lets me see both your victories and your frustrations.” She paused, her face tightening. I wanted to yell at her to spit it out but didn’t quite dare. “I’ve sensed an unevenness in your abilities. Today’s events make me suspect there’s more to it than inexperience. I want to see if I can figure out what’s wrong.”

  So this had turned into something wrong with me. Of course. Would there ever come a time when everything went as it should? When I was just normal? “What if I don’t want to know?”

  Griff shook his head. “That’d be crazy. The Coachman’s coming back. He’s had a taste of your power. He’s going to want more. This is your only chance to put up a real fight.”

  I gave up. This was going to happen whether we argued about it for five minutes or we argued all night. “How much does it hurt?” Magic had a price. It often wasn’t fun.

  “The strain is more on me than you. In order to really see inside a person, I have to work myself into a deeply meditative, almost trancelike, state.” She stared at me, vulnerability naked on her face. There was something she wasn’t telling me, wouldn’t tell me even if I asked.

  A chill worked its way through my body.

  “Do I have your permission to scan you?” She tried to smile. “Please?”

  I nodded even though I wanted to say no. Anything to figure out a way to fight this new threat.

  GRIFF’S HOUSE had a split floor plan with the master bedroom on the ground floor and the other bedrooms on the upper floor. Separating the two upstairs bedrooms was a den of sorts. It opened onto a balcony overlooking the living room. At the back of this den was a small, separate room. Mysti called it her witch room and rarely invited guests inside. This was only my second visit.

  From the ceiling hung drying herbs. Piles of books sat in every corner. A huge wooden shelf with ornate carvings on its frame took up a whole wall. Jars of mystery potions sat next to totems and charms that made my skin crawl.

  Mysti pulled a roll of fabric from the bottom shelf. “This is a bedroll. I’d like you to lie on it while I do this. I’ll be kneeling on this.” She held up an oblong cushion.

  I nodded and helped her unroll the rough, dark green canvas on the floor and knelt on it while I watched her prepare.

  She first lit a bundle of sage. Using a tiny gold key, she unlocked a matching padlock hanging from the hasp of a rosewood box carved with symbols unfamiliar to me. From it she drew a velvet pouch. She upended the pouch into her cupped hand. I strained to see what she kept under lock and key.

  “This is seer quartz.” She held out her hand so I could take a look at the egg-shaped stone, polished so that it was clear with a cloud of topaz running through. I reached out one finger, and she drew the stone away. “I’m the only one who touches it. If you want, we’ll see about getting one for you.”

  I drew back my hand. Mysti had given me a couple of crystals, but I hadn’t used them much. Her magic and mine were different. I wasn’t sure how the crystals fit into what I could do. But I found myself drawn to her seer quartz. Maybe I would get my own.

  “Go ahead and lie down. Try to relax.” She tried to smile, which she did a lot, but this time her lips only quirked a little. “I’m going to go into my trance now. I need you to be as quiet as possible.”

  I lay down on the mat, apprehension sour in my mouth.

  “And, Peri Jean? Whatever you see needs to stay here, okay?” She watched me until I nodded, unfamiliar worry lines etched into her forehead.

  Mysti knelt on the pillow and lowered her head, curly hair falling into her face. From her came a whispered chant. I tried to make out the words but caught only snatches. “Eyes that can see, hands that can touch, fill me with the power of the old ones.” Over and over again.

  The sage smoke filled my senses, and I tried to relax. Not knowing what to expect made it hard. I never trusted things to be okay. I always prepared for the worst, never realizing until the horror had ended that things would be as they would be. My reactions and actions had little consequence in the big picture.

  Mysti stopped chanting. I slitted my eyes open. She raised her head. White orbs, with no pupils or irises, had taken the place of her normally golden brown eyes, widening them, making them bug out. She held the crystal over me, and the topaz cloud inside began to move like the sage smoke across the room. A beam of amber colored light came from the crystal and shot into me. It cut a path of fire to my center. My chest began to ache.

  The black opal around my neck heated at the magical intrusion. Mysti jerked as its magic touched her. Her lips moved, this time silently. I couldn’t hear or understand what she said.

  The glow from the crystal grew brighter, burning my eyes the way a bright light will after sleep. The fire inside me intensified. I clenched my teeth against it, determined to let Mysti finish what she’d started. I didn’t want to repeat this exercise.

  Mysti’s head lay back against her shoulders. A golden glow formed around her. Her hands holding the crystal had changed shape, their fingers thinning and lengthening. The nails were sharp and pointed, silver and shiny. My heart picked up speed. I looked away to calm myself.

  The burning inside me lessened by degrees. Mysti’s hands dropped to her lap, and she slumped. Her sides heaved with her hard breathing. She raised her head. Her eyes were normal again. I glanced at her hands to find them normal again too.

  “You saw?” Expression guarded, her gaze roamed over my face.

  I nodded. The tide of fear still roared through me. I steeled myself to it. Mysti accepted me for what I was, and I’d accept her for what she was. Even though I had no idea how to classify what I’d just seen.

  “I got it with ’Tunia’s mantle. Brad saw it first.” Her face stiffened.

  I snorted. The first guffaw nearly choked me, and I sat up, picturing the horror on Brad’s face, imagining his wimpy reaction to seeing his sister turn into some kind of monster. Mysti sat watching me for several seconds, face still and serious. I clapped one hand over my mouth. It did little to staunch my laugher. She joined in. We laughed until she had flopped over on her hip and held her sides. Sides aching, laughter still hissing from me, I slapped the floor. Tears streamed from her eyes.

  “You going to tell me what you saw inside me?” Then a thought came to me. “Or is it too bad?”

  “Let’s get this cleaned up and talk.” She stood, replaced the crystal in its velvet pouch, and locked it away. I helped her roll the bedroll and stow it on the bottom shelf. We put away everything else we’d used, went into the den, and sat on Mysti’s couch from her house in Tyler.

  It was an ugly old thing. Every cushion sagged in the middle, and the fabric was stained from years of Brad’s careless messes. But it was ten times more comfortable than Griff’s stiff new leather couch downstairs. Mysti curled her legs under her, and I did the same. Mysti bit her lip and frowned.

  “What’s the bad news?” Anxiety closed like a vise over my chest.

  “Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of it. Let me start by showing you something new.” Mysti took a hematite from her pocket and sat it on the scarred coffee table from her Tyler house.

  So this is yet another teaching session. Does she ever leave her teacher hat in the drawer? I leaned forward, trying to concentrate even though I didn’t want this. I just wanted to know what was wrong and how to fix it.

  “Each of us special ones has a magical core. That’s where the great creator saw fit to put all our magical ability.” She held up the hematite to let me know it represented my magical core. “When you took on Priscilla Herrera’s mantle, it should have absorbed into your magical core and become one with what you are.” She snatched a tissue out of the box on the coffee table and shaped it around the hematite. “That’s not what I saw inside you. Instead there was a layer of something like scar tissue surrounding your magical core.”

  “Scar tissue?” I tried to make s
ense of it and couldn’t quite get there.

  “The scar tissue was made up of all the trauma you’ve suffered. The deepest, most impenetrable layers were things that happened to you as a child. Your father’s murder. Your mother’s abandoning you to a mental hospital. And other stuff.” She chewed the corner of her lip.

  Other stuff. Like the way my ex-husband kicked me until I miscarried our child? Or maybe some forgotten wound, one buried so deep I couldn’t even think of it right now. Humiliation pricked at the mask I wore each day to protect myself. I stared at my legs.

  “Sisters like us have neither secrets nor shame.” Mysti cupped my chin and made me look at her. “I trust you with what you saw here. Can you trust me with what I saw?”

  I turned my face away. The idea of her seeing those awful things, knowing about the horrors of my life, made me feel dirty. But Mysti was the only person who could help right then. I nodded.

  She pulled me into one of her hugs and released me. “On top of the scar tissue was the mantle, unable to completely absorb into your magical core.”

  I began shaking my head. “That doesn’t make sense. After I took on the mantle, I could do things I couldn’t before.” Like read spilled guts the same way some fortunetellers read tea leaves. Like see the magic vibrating in every living thing and hear the hum of it within the earth.

  Mysti nodded and rearranged the tissue around the hematite so it looked like a wasp’s nest with a hole at the bottom. “There’s a crack in the scar tissue, so this really thin line of the mantle was able to seep through and get to your magical center. Otherwise, you taking on the mantle would have never worked at all.” She scooped the hematite back into one pocket, wadded the tissue, and put it in her other pocket. She let out a deep breath.

  “You haven’t told me all of it, have you?” It was a redundant question. Mysti wore her dread like an uncomfortable pair of shoes.

  She shook her head, gaze fixed on the carpet. “A spell caused that scar tissue to form and set it into place.” She shifted. “The mantle should have dissolved the spell. But it’s so entwined with you, like an organ almost. I think it must have been put there not long after your birth.” She sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a trembling breath. “Have I told you every witch’s magic has a unique signature? My gift of seeing inside people makes it almost like a second face, easily identifiable.”

  The subject change threw me. I stared at her, mouth open, barely able to shake my head.

  “The spell causing the scar tissue has a signature very similar to the signature of your magic. Someone related to you put this spell on you.” Her shoulders relaxed. She’d told me all of it.

  The information sank in with a thud. A million questions came from the reverberations. Who? Why?

  “My advice is for you to call your great-uncle Cecil.” Mysti searched my face. I could almost read her thoughts. She would know the betrayal I was feeling right about now. Cecil’d already had two chances to tell me about this spell and didn’t. Of course not. Cecil was a con artist. Information like this probably came at a steep price. And I hadn’t quite paid it. I’d show him. I lowered my head, gritting my teeth. Mysti shook my arm. “Don’t let your temper blow this out of proportion, not until you have all the facts.”

  I flopped back on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest. “Can’t you just remove the spell?”

  Mysti made a face. She didn’t like to claim any kind of shortcoming. “A spell like this is delicate. Done wrong, I could turn you into an amnesiac, maybe even a vegetable. That’s why I want you to talk calmly with Cecil. He may know the reverse spell.”

  Griff stepped into the room holding a stack of files. “I’m a million kinds of wrong, but I’ve been standing on the staircase listening.” Mysti threw her head back and rolled her eyes. Griff glanced at her and flushed. “Peri Jean, I don’t want you calling Cecil or going into that wolf den for advice.”

  4

  GRIFF SAT on the couch and scooted around like a bug had crawled up his butt crack. He clutched his stack of manila folders in both hands and turned his head away from me. If he was embarrassed about anything, it was having to admit he’d been nosing around again. The man snooped no matter where we went, no matter whose stuff if was. It was like some kind of compulsion. I caught him going through my things within a week of moving into his house. He’d apologized, promised it wouldn’t happen again. But here he was with a file of information about my family.

  I could already guess most of it. This morning’s breakfast had bleached my rose colored glasses. My family did what they wanted. “Another time maybe.”

  Griff’s gaze turned cold and direct. I tried not to squirm. I knew The Look and its intended effect. The time I spent dating a cop taught me all about it. Now it pissed me off. How dare Griff snoop around and expect me to reward him for it? I pushed my anger back, tried to calm down, and concentrated on Griff’s and Mysti’s scents. Mysti wore the same lotion Memaw had used. Griff used some fruity smelling tonic on his black hair to make it shine. These two people cared about me. They took me into their home when mine burned down. They did everything in their power to make me feel welcome. My irritation faded.

  “Look, Memaw never spared the truth when it came to my uncle Cecil. She said he and the whole family were a bunch of cons.” I tried to smile and hoped it worked a little. “Whatever you’ve got in that folder doesn’t change the fact that I need their help right now.”

  “But don’t you want to know what you’re walking into?” Griff still gave me The Look, only now it held a healthy dose of suspicion. It was like he knew I’d seen something. “Don’t you want to know some provable facts?”

  I turned to see Mysti’s reaction. Her normally placid face was creased into a frown. She played with the pendant she wore, a tiny crystal ball set in silver.

  “What do you think, Mistress Mysti?” I said my pet name for her jokingly, unnerved at seeing her so serious.

  “I wish I had known Griff had reservations before I told you to call Cecil.” Her frown deepened. “Part of me thinks you may not be all that put off. And that worries me.”

  Another tide of irritation surged through me. I wasn’t going to get out of here without listening to what Griff had to say. “Fine. Show me.”

  Griff opened the folder. “Let’s start with the recent stuff. You found your family at a carnival in Livingston in late December. Do you remember what you told me puzzled you about that night?”

  “How big a hurry they were in to get their stuff packed up and leave.” It was hard to keep the impatience out of my voice. “We drove almost all the way to Houston before we stopped at a truck stop. Then after Cecil and I talked for a while, a man came in and said they had to go right then.” After what I went through to find them, I expected more. The memory of Finn kissing my cheek, promising to catch up later returned, and with it something else. Finn told me not to go back to Livingston. I had a feeling I was about to find out why.

  Griff nodded. “Did you meet a girl named Dillon this morning? She’s your cousin Finn’s wife, even though she’s too young for him by about a decade.”

  Oh, good gravy. If whatever made them run had something to do with Dillon, I could only imagine what it entailed. I closed my eyes and wished this would go away.

  “Her legal name is Dillon Worley Gregg. But she goes by a dozen others. Your family probably had to beat feet out of Livingston because Dillon got caught stealing both Internet and cable from the park. She must have bribed a worker to hook it up for her. They couldn’t really figure out how she did it.”

  I knew exactly how she’d done it. She’d just asked.

  Griff opened his file and read from it. “Right after your family left Livingston, the RV park had a security breach. All the guest credit card information on their computer was compromised. The owner of the RV park said they never could find any proof your family had something to do with it or they’d have pressed charges. Your family always seems to get out in time,
like one of them knows when the jig is up.”

  Griff stopped reading and studied my face. My laughter shriveled in my throat. This wasn’t funny. Memaw taught me people who did stuff like this were no good. But I had a problem. I liked the people I’d met this morning, wanted to know them better. I reminded myself I might change my mind after I learned how I got the spell that caused the scar tissue. I nodded for Griff to continue.

  “When you left your family at the Cozy Corner Truck Stop, they drove on to a little beach town in southeast Florida. It’s a yearly trip for them.” That must have been where Cecil sent the postcard from. “They winter in a dumpy RV park right next door to a crummy tourist trap with mini-golf and other crap designed to separate you from your money.” Griff turned a page.

  “What do they do at the tourist place?” The question popped out despite me knowing I needed to keep my mouth shut and let Griff talk himself out.

  “Same sort of thing you found them doing at the carnival.” Griff took his gaze off the file and turned to me. “They came back from Florida earlier this year because a woman who travels with them, a Danielle Michalk, was suspected of pickpocketing.” Griff turned several pages in the file. “Something that minor might have faded away, but a guy turned up beaten to death in the tourist trap. His rap sheet implied he was a fence.”

  Beaten to death. That went beyond petty cons. It was some downright ugly shit.

  Griff leafed through his file. He held up a blurry picture of a tall blonde walking on a street. She had a silver cane extended in front of her. “Met her yet?”