by Alicia Rades
It wasn't until I was almost to the trees that I heard the sound of the back door slamming and her voice carrying over the lawn. My heart lifted, despite every warning bell going off that told me to leave this girl alone. She'd only get hurt getting involved with a guy like me. I couldn't taint the light within her with my own darkness. Besides, she was a curious soul—that, I could already tell. And there were things she would want to know that I could never tell her. It was best if I kept my distance, but apparently I'd decided that too late, because she was already crossing the lawn toward me.
"Lucas!" she called.
I put on my stone-cold expression so she couldn't read me. It was easier to keep my secrets that way. “Nad.”
I didn’t know why I called her that. Half her name slipped out, and the other half just didn’t. She didn’t seem to notice or care.
Nadine's eyes lit up when I turned to her, but the sparkle quickly faded as she took me in. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"
"No," I said. I hadn't even woken up in a bed, but I didn't tell her that. I'd been crashing at Grant's dad's place over the summer and sleeping on their couch, since the dorms were closed and I didn’t want to live at home. I couldn't wait for school to start back up and be back in my old dorm room.
"Then I guess you won't mind if I tag along," she said brightly, swinging her arms and bouncing on her toes like she had no care in the world.
"Um, I kind of do." Or so I claimed. I wasn't exactly stopping her when I started down the path and continued on my way. Of course, she followed, which I was starting to sense was a Nadine thing.
Yesterday, I thought she'd come after me because she knew who I was—because she wanted to use me for my gift. It wasn't unusual. People came to me all the time to ask what their loved ones' last thoughts were. They tended to be brutal—regrets, secrets, and mixed emotions—but I liked to make shit up and tell people what they wanted to hear. It gave me less to deal with that way.
Nadine wasn't like that, though.
"Did you talk to your grandma?" I asked.
She waved her hand. "Nah, she blew me off last night and is still sleeping."
Nadine looked wide awake, like she'd been up for hours. She was the kind of girl who had a natural beauty and didn't have to wear a ton of makeup to impress a guy—the total opposite of Chloe. It only made her that much more appealing. She had big curls in her hair that seemed light and bouncy. I wanted to run my fingers through them to see how soft they were.
Okay, I was officially a creep.
"Anyway, I saw you and thought…" she started, before she trailed off.
"You thought?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I thought maybe we could hang out."
Girls and guys didn't just hang out. Not in my experience, anyway. Why would Nadine want to hang out with me?
I raised an eyebrow. "By hang out, you mean I can tell you things your grandma didn't."
She sighed dramatically. "Oh, come on! The suspense is killing me."
It was clear she didn't know about the coven, which her grandmother should’ve told her by now. Big mistake. But Nadine wasn't going to take no for an answer.
So what do I do? The stupidest thing I can think of, because apparently I'm an idiot.
"How about I show you?"
Nadine's face lit up, and for a brief moment, I felt like I'd made the right choice.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked, gesturing to the backpack I was carrying.
I smirked. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
She squirmed. I was kind of enjoying how easy she was to toy with.
I led Nadine to the other side of the park. We stopped in front of an old house with paint so worn I could hardly tell what color it had originally been.
Nadine had been surprisingly quiet the last few minutes, but she looked skeptical as she stared up at the run-down house. "Is this where you take all your girls on the first date?"
I snorted—and immediately wanted to turn invisible. "Is this a date?"
She ignored the question and said, "You're not denying bringing other girls here."
A foreign feeling tugged at the corner of my lips, and I decided to play along as I started up the walkway. "Maybe I do. Does that scare you?"
Nadine hurried ahead and took the porch steps two at a time, until she was standing right in front of me, our bodies nearly touching.
"Nothing scares me, you hear?" She hesitated, then quickly added, "Even though this reeks of a kidnap scenario."
She narrowed her eyes at me, as if trying to judge whether I was going to tie her up in the cellar or not.
"Okay, then." I gestured to the door. "Ladies first."
I figured this could go one of two ways. One, she was fascinated by what she saw inside, or two, she’d be so freaked out she never asked to hang out with me again. Option two was probably best, because we could not be friends. She'd only get hurt.
I had enough on my plate already. It's why I was here. Professor Warren suggested I try to find some good in my gift. Okay, suggested wasn't the right word. He was pushing me—and pushing me hard. He said if I didn’t find the good in my gift, things would just get harder from here on out. The sooner I found the light, the better. I feared I'd eventually cave to the pressure, and I was terrified of that. I wasn't ready to give up, not like Eric had. So I had to find some way to deal.
To do that, I was paying a visit to the recently deceased. I didn't know the guy; I’d only heard of him. Everyone in town called him Old Man Keller, and I knew he was a Mentalist with telekinetic powers. I never thought much of him until I heard his thoughts come to me. Since then, I'd heard rumors he hadn't moved on. He just blatantly refused to go with the reaper who'd come for him. Which meant he had some unfinished business. Maybe my gift was enough to help him resolve it and move on.
The door was unlocked, which I was a little disappointed about. I bet my magic would’ve impressed Nadine. It wasn’t unusual to leave doors unlocked around here, though.
We stepped inside. If there ever was a haunted house, this was it. Even though it was early morning, it was dark inside. The curtains were all closed, and the whole place was in disarray, since someone had been moving things around to get the house ready to sell. A thin layer of dust covered everything, and the floorboards creaked under our weight. I swore the temperature dropped a few degrees, too. I wasn’t a Seer, but I could feel the shift in energy as we entered the house. He was already here.
Nadine glanced around, peeking into the bathroom and then up the stairs.
“In here,” I said quietly, like I might frighten the ghost.
Nadine followed me into the living room, and I plopped down right on the hardwood floor, even though there was a sofa nearby. The energy seemed stronger in here than it had in the entrance.
Nadine sat across from me. “What are we doing?”
I unzipped my bag and pulled out a Ouija board. It folded in half, which was the only way I managed to fit it into my bag. It was dangerous to use, since I could summon a demon by accident, but the chances were slim. I knew the ghost would be here, which meant he’d connect to the board before any demon could get his hands on it.
Nadine’s eyes widened when she saw the board, but it wasn’t like she was afraid. It was more like she was excited.
“You really know how to woo the ladies,” she joked.
“Is that what I’m doing?” I asked. “Wooing you?”
Nadine smirked, but simply said, “You know I don’t believe in Ouija boards, right?”
A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “We’ll see about that when we’re done here.”
I placed the board between us, then set the planchette on top. Nadine looked skeptical, but she placed her fingers next to mine anyway.
“Who are we contacting?” she asked.
“Everyone calls him Old Man Keller,” I explained, pretending like she believed me. “I don’t know a lot about him, other than I saw him walking
the Black Circle every now and then.”
“The Black Circle?” She made it sound like a biker gang or something.
I sighed. “Seriously, you need to talk to your grandma about this town the minute you get home. Anyway, the Black Circle is the trail that circles town. It’s fifteen miles long, and Old Man Keller walked parts of it every day with his cat.”
Nadine’s eyebrows shot up. “His cat? Don’t people normally walk dogs?”
“Pretty much everyone in Octavia Falls has a cat,” I said. “Anyway, what I heard was that he was on the Black Circle Trail when he tripped and hit his head on a rock. No one found him until it was too late.”
Nadine furrowed her brow. “And what happened to the cat?”
Good Goddess, was she serious? I just told her a man died, and she was wondering what happened to his cat?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Probably given to the family.”
“Okay.” She seemed satisfied with the answer. “Let’s get started, then.”
I took a deep breath, then called out to the dark room. “Old Man Keller? My name is Lucas Taylor. I’m here to talk to you about why you’re here. I’m hoping I can help. Are you here with us now?”
The planchette began to move across the board. I could feel the spiritual energy pushing it and knew it was Old Man Keller’s ghost, but Nadine looked shocked.
“You’re doing that,” she accused.
I just shook my head and focused on the board. The planchette stopped over the word yes.
Relaxing a little, I asked, “Do you remember how you died?”
The planchette wiggled a little, but it didn’t move off the word yes.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
The planchette began to move again, stopping on the letter F, then moving on to the letter I. Nadine read the letters out loud until they started to form a sentence. I gritted my teeth as it began to spell out the word find.
Not this again.
For some reason, Old Man Keller held on to his last thought, and that’s why he couldn’t move on. If only he could say something—anything—else. But that’s how ghosts were. They were confused and had a hard time communicating. Even a Seer couldn’t help us now, not if he couldn’t get anything out besides this nonsense.
That’s all it was, really. Nonsense.
Find the crystal cave. Whatever that meant. It was the last thought I’d heard from him and exactly what he was spelling out now.
Nadine noticed my fallen face. “What do you think it means?”
It was almost like she kind of believed Old Man Keller was communicating with us. But I could still see the skepticism in her eyes.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Ghosts don’t often make sense.”
“Mm…” Nadine thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you confused about your death?”
The planchette moved again and stopped over the word no.
I furrowed my brow. “He’s probably confused about that, too.”
“Maybe it’s a name,” Nadine suggested.
“A name?”
“Yeah, like a woman. Crystal Cave.”
“Then why say the crystal cave,” I pointed out. “If it were a woman, he’d say Find Crystal Cave.”
Heat flared throughout my veins. I thought I could help him, but there was nothing I could do if I didn’t understand his message. I wasn’t a freaking interpreter. This whole thing had been a bust.
I snatched up the planchette and folded the board, then shoved both of them back in my bag.
“What’s wrong?” Nadine asked.
Clearly, she thought we were just goofing off. But this was serious to me. My gift was fucking useless.
“Lucas,” Nadine pressed as I got to my feet and started for the door. She stood but didn’t move to join me.
I stopped and pressed my fingers to my eyes, then turned to her. “Look, Nad. I’m sorry I brought you here.”
There I went again, calling her by half her name.
“We should just go—” I started.
Nadine cut me off with a terrified scream. I whirled around to where she was looking, only to come face to face with a ghostly figure. I couldn’t make out his face. All I saw was a dark fuzzy outline of a body, like the shadowed imprint of a soul. The temperature in the room plummeted as he took shape.
“Find… the… crystal… cave…” His shaky voice filled the room.
I rushed over to Nadine, who was frozen in shock. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
I took her by the shoulders and shook her a little. “Calm down, Nadine. Ghosts can sense your fear. It might set him off.”
“It’s a… a…” She couldn’t get the words out.
“Nad, look at me!” I demanded.
She did, but it was already too late. Old Man Keller let out a hauntingly high-pitched scream, then charged. I threw myself in front of Nadine, but his spirit swept straight through me like I was nothing but air. It chilled me to the bone, and I could feel the buzz of my magic wane as he stole a portion of my energy.
I whirled around just in time to see the ghost’s figure slam into Nadine’s chest. His hands solidified, and he shoved her. She went stumbling back. I tried to reach her, but I didn’t have time. Her head slammed into the edge of the coffee table, knocking her out.
“Nad!” I cried.
I was at her side in an instant, cradling her head in my lap. Her whole body was limp in my arms. My chest twisted into knots.
“Nadine!” I slapped her face a little, until she moaned, but her eyes didn’t open.
I quickly glanced around for signs of Old Man Keller, but he must’ve used all his energy up, because he was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m so sorry, Nad,” I said, even though she probably couldn’t hear me. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
I cradled Nadine in my arms and carried her out of the house, back through the park towards her grandmother’s. The whole time, I couldn’t stop staring down at her, thinking about how this was all my fault—because I’d gone searching for the good in my gift.
Right now, I hated being the Reaper’s Apprentice more than ever.
Chapter 4
Nadine
Lucas’s scent surrounded me. He smelled like spiced apple and pumpkin, and I felt a warmth and comfort in the scent. Someone moaned, and it took me a second to realize it was me. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt heavy.
“It’s okay,” Lucas said. “We’re almost back.”
Where? Everything that happened this morning came rushing back. Did I seriously just get attacked by a ghost?
“What happened?” a stern voice demanded. I thought it was Grammy, but I was still so out of it I could hardly tell.
“Haunted house,” Lucas said coolly, like it was an everyday thing. “She hit her head.”
“Set her right here,” Grammy instructed. “I’ll get some ice.”
I felt my body being placed on a soft surface. My head pounded like a bass drum. Grammy placed an ice pack under my head, then I felt her part my lips and pour something down my throat. “Drink up, Nadine.”
I barely processed the words. I didn’t know what the liquid was, but it tasted sweet, so I drank it.
“What is that?” Lucas asked.
“A potion to cure the concussion,” Grammy told him.
I was barely in my right mind, but did I just hear potion?
That was the last thing I heard before I slipped off into a dark oblivion.
Whatever Grammy had given me must’ve knocked me out for hours, because I woke up that afternoon in my own bed. I didn’t know how I’d gotten there, but it just confirmed that everything that happened had been some wild, vivid dream—
Until I heard the sound of Lucas’s voice coming from the kitchen. I touched the back of my head, where it was still tender. How could that be? What had really happened?
I wanted to jump out of bed and demand answers, but my joints protested as I slowly pushed myself
to a sitting position. It took me ten minutes to drag myself out of bed. The world seemed to stay put instead of spin around me, so that was a good sign. I tried to listen to what Lucas and Grammy were saying, but they spoke so quietly that I couldn’t make out their words.
I made my way to the end of the hall and stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Neither of them noticed me.
“It’s almost done.” Grammy stood over a huge pot that bubbled over a burner on the kitchen island. No, not a pot—a cauldron. What the hell?
Grammy stirred the solution. Small glass containers filled with herbs lined the counter beside her. “We’ll tell her as soon as she wakes.”
Lucas glanced over his shoulder in the direction of my room. His eyes brightened when he saw me standing there. He straightened from where he sat on a stool beside the island.
“Nadine,” he said breathlessly. “You’re awake.”
“Am I?” I replied in a groggy tone. “What are you still doing here?”
The fact that he was still there sent a warm sensation to settle in my gut. It was like he cared. Which was stupid, because he didn’t even know me.
Lucas stood. He looked like he was about to approach me, but he caught himself at the last second and stayed put. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Okay, I guess he did care. Cool.
“My head is better,” I admitted, “but I’m going to need some answers.”
“And that’s exactly what I intend to give you.” Grammy gestured for me to sit.
I took the stool beside Lucas, and he sat back down, so close that we were almost touching. I could feel the heat of his body, which made mine turn to mush.
I tried to ignore that. “What happened? Did I pass out?”
That had to be it. I hadn’t passed out in years, but with my lupus in flare-up, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Grammy set her stirring spoon aside on the counter. She looked at me with a grave expression. “No, honey. You fell and hit your head.”
