by Alt, Madelyn
Her voice trailed off. Not really, but bells were going off in my head, ding-ding-ding! It took me a moment of reflection to understand why.
“Elias C.,” I whispered without thinking. “Elias. My Elias. Elias Christiansen?”
Marian heard me, despite waxing factual on the historic fire. “You mean the son, I take it. Is that just an educated guess?”
“It’s a long story. Marian, do you have any way of checking that?”
“I can check census records, when I get a chance. Call you back later?”
“You’d better.”
“Good. And then you can tell me why I’m getting cold chills up my spine.”
“Agreed.”
“The crosses, though, Maggie. The crosses are fascinating. A few of them are church quality and appear to have been store bought, but many of them are just two sticks of wood nailed together against the wall or fastened together with a length of rough twine. Some even with colored ribbon, like I used to wear on my ponytail. I have no idea what purpose they really served, other than they seem to indicate that someone was very, very afraid of something.”
Poor Elias. A child, lost in a tragic fire. It must have been horrific, if it was bad enough to take out the entire original building.
The air around me was changing as I stood there with the portable phone in my hands. I closed my eyes, testing it. Energy moving in. Spirit energy. I felt a crowning pressure at the top of my head, like a headband that was on too tight, pressing ever inward. It wasn’t painful or even unpleasant . . . it was just there, and it made me a little lightheaded. “Elias? Is that you?” I asked aloud.
The swirling of the air around me continued. I saw a silvery sparkle, just a flash really, out of the corner of my eye.
“That is you, isn’t it?” I breathed. My chest felt tight, like the squeezing was continuing down from my head. I gave up trying to talk and thought-projected my questions instead, the way I did when asking questions of my spirit guide. It was worth a try.
Do you want something from me, Elias? Is that why you haven’t moved on? Do you need someone to do something for you? Do you need . . . me . . . to do something for you?
Minnie bumped up against my ankles and twirled her body around them. Or at least I thought she did. When I glanced down, no one was there. But then, a wave of sadness flooded through me, enough that I wanted to dissolve into tears there and then. Somehow I choked them back.
Is that it? You’re sad? You want comfort? Oh, Elias, I really wish you’d gone to a stronger sensitive than me for help. I want to help you; I do. I’m just not sure I can.
And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, into my brain popped the letter clues he’d been giving us all along. Once more, with feeling: U-L-C.
I’ll see. I’ll see what? I was getting frustrated. I was really and truly afraid I wasn’t going to see at all. That I wouldn’t be able to help. That little Elias would stick around. As much as I liked kids, I just wasn’t sure I was ready to be a surrogate mother to a fifty-year-old phantom child.
Not to mention what that would do to my already lackluster love life.
U . . . N . . . I . . . C . . . E . . . filtered into my thoughts. I was seeing the letters in my head as I’d seen them counted out on the Ouija board.
Oh, great, now I was getting guilt trips from spirits, too? As much as the thought was appreciated—I mean, who wouldn’t like having their own personal admiration society?—it just served to make me feel even more a heel for wanting to send him packing to the Great Boy Scout Camp in the Sky.
You’re going to have to do better than that, I’m afraid, Elias, I told him.
S-I-S-T-E-R
And that’s not helping me, either. I already know my sister’s a pain. I’m watching her like a hawk. It’s all I can do.
M-A-G-G-I-E-B-E-C-A-R-E-F-U-L
He merged his previous Ouija board messages together in my head, two blips of thought, one directly on the heels of the other.
A warning?
And then he was gone, the sense of him, the pressure all around me. Gone. In an instant. And I was left feeling more lost and oblivious than ever, and missing that fleeting point of connection.
Chapter 16
I couldn’t stop thinking of Elias all afternoon. I also couldn’t stop thinking of the shadowy figure that Emily Angelis had seen flitting about the dark recesses of the property the night that Veronica Maddox was murdered. Was it the shade of Elias that she’d seen, released from the room that his spirit was imprisoned in? Or was Veronica Maddox herself hanging out around the site of her own murder, waiting her turn to be able to connect with someone in the physical?
Marian called me back just before closing time. “I have that information for you. Made a copy of it for myself, too, for the historical files,” she said.
I laughed at her efficiency. “I would have expected no less of you.”
“I aim to please. You know, because I’m a librarian. It’s what I do.”
We both dissolved into giggles.
“Now that that’s out of the way,” she said, “here you are. Elias Leonard Christiansen. Born to Ezekiel Lucas Christiansen and Elva Alice Fuehrer, June twelfth, 1948. Sister Eunace Letitia born to the couple the following year, June fifteenth, 1949. Death notice for Elva Alice Christiansen dated June sixteenth. Cause of death, postnatal hemorrhaging.”
Somehow knowing his identity and his history made Elias’s failure to cross over after death even sadder. Poor boy, dead in a fire at the tender age of eleven. A child, not even on the brink of puberty. Innocent of the world.
The sadness lingered for me as I locked down the front of the store and placed dust covers over the glass items. We hadn’t been working the evening hours this week—it seemed rather pointless to keep the store open when we’d had fewer than a dozen customers all week during the daytime hours, an unfortunate side effect of the Gazette’s opinion piece, which I hoped would be forgotten just as soon as the next scandal hit . . . probably sometime next week, knowing this town.
Was it too much to hope the next scandal wouldn’t somehow involve one of the N.I.G.H.T.S.?
I packed Minnie into the passenger seat of my car and started off for home. I hadn’t noticed it throughout the afternoon, but the sky appeared to be clouding up overhead for the first time in weeks. Maybe we’d soon be getting a respite from this heat wave after all. We could definitely use some rain and cooler weather. Of course, with my luck, all it would do is spit at us just enough to make the air really steam and the poor hapless folks who lived here in this one-horse town really swelter.
Home to my apartment I went, still feeling out of sorts and puzzling over what I was supposed to do, or think, or feel. The one thing I disliked most about being a lower-level sensitive is the confusion that comes along with the package. It was very difficult to gain both experience and confidence without feeling like an inept dope along the way.
One thing I didn’t understand—one thing among many—was why Elias’s spirit was bound to that secret, buried room to begin with. I knew that earthbound spirits who passed via an unexpected or traumatic death sometimes remained behind due to their own confusion that death had befallen them, and were often found in the places where their deaths occurred . . . but that wasn’t entirely the case with Elias. While dying in a tragic fire certainly qualified as a precipitous death, the buried room didn’t seem to have been a part of that 1950s catastrophe. His skeletal remains were not found down in that pit—only those of a couple of small animals. So why was he there? Why did he stay behind?
And the room was a mystery, too. Why didn’t Pastor Bob know of it? Why was it buried to begin with?
Why were there so many secrets in this town?
I settled Minnie in with a dish of her favorite Tuna Surprise Kitty Buffet and a healthy helping of milk—warmed, of course, I was a good kitty mommy—and went off to strip out of my work clothes and into something a little more comfortable. Comfortable and cool, that was the goal. I settl
ed on a pair of stretchy yoga pants—not that I did yoga, but they were good for the occasional Buns of Steel-style workout I did sometimes while happily ensconced in front of a really good (as if there are any that aren’t) episode of Magnum, P.I.—and a soft, fitted tank top, then slid my hair back from my face with a cotton headband. While I was at it, I washed off my makeup and decided tonight would be the perfect opportunity to apply a cool, deep-cleaning, pore-tightening mask. Nature’s Bounty, the label read, made with all natural ingredients that were guaranteed to leave behind a soft, dewy glow. I couldn’t help thinking it made me resemble some sort of swamp monster instead. But it was worth it. A girl can never be too vigilant about her skin care, especially in the kind of heat we’d been having. Besides, it’s not like I had anything better (read: male companionship imminent) to do with my time.
Minnie glanced at me as I came out of the bedroom, then did a double-take and crouched down, ears flat against her head, as I walked by. Not exactly a vote of confidence for her ever-loving human, but she’d just have to get used to it.
I wasn’t in the mood to eat yet, but I did grab a Diet Coke from the fridge and then settled back in my big, yuck-green wingback to meditate. Maybe if my mind was clear, I’d be able to make some kind of sense out of what I’d been perceiving. Drawing my knees up Indian-style, I closed my eyes and began to breathe deeply, in through my nose, out through my mouth, over and over again until the calm and serenity of being in The Zone began to descend upon me.
And that was when I was yanked rudely out of said Zone by the sound of the phone ringing.
Frowning, I dragged my eyelids open, blinking away the trance hangover until I felt my own energies return full force.
I picked up, expecting Steff or maybe even Liss. But a very male voice came down the line instead. Marcus. “Hey, Mags. What’s doing?”
“Well. Not much,” I said automatically, then realized that of course wasn’t the case. A lot was doing. So even though my heart had begun to flutter the moment I heard his low-pitched rumble on the other end and my cheeks were warm with a flush of pleasure because he had thought to check in with me, I proceeded to tell him all that I’d learned about the identity of my little shadow and the history of Grace Baptist Church.
“They found a book down in the caved-in room that had the name Elias C. written inside. We already knew that the former pastor at Grace Baptist was Zeke Christiansen, and Tom and I found out through Pastor Bob himself that this Grace Baptist wasn’t the original Grace, and that the pastor had lost a son in the fire. Marian did some research checking the census reports and found records for Elias Christiansen. That aunt of yours is really amazing.”
He listened to it all—really, really listened.
“Tom, huh? How is the good officer?” Marcus asked, his tone a little playful but with a seriousness behind it.
I paused. How to answer? The pause seemed to be the answer Marcus was looking for.
“Not great, I’m guessing?”
Guessing? Or hoping? I laughed noncommittally and moved on to telling him about Marian’s showdown with the construction crew at the scene of the crime.
We were laughing hard enough that tears were running down my cheeks when I reluctantly hung up the phone. I wanted to talk to him more about Tom and, well, everything, but I didn’t want it to be over the telephone. I needed to be able to see him, to look in his eyes, to judge his reactions. I needed to be certain . . . and I definitely needed to have that talk with Tom, as well. The sooner, the better.
Fifteen minutes later I was settling down for a snuggle with Minnie when a knock sounded at the door. Then another. The knock was firm but not insistent. Guess it wasn’t going to be such a relaxing evening after all. With a sigh, I got up and went to answer.
Who should be standing on the other side of the threshold but Marcus in all his glory, his hand lifted to knock again. My mouth fell open as my heart began to beat clumsily within my chest. A blank stare was all I could manage.
He grinned at me as his gaze flashed in an instant over my person, taking in my workout casuals. “Hey, sweetness. Hope you don’t mind. I was in the neighborhood, and since you didn’t have any company, I, well, I thought I’d drop by.”
In the neighborhood? He couldn’t have mentioned that fifteen minutes ago? But he was supposed to be out of town for a few more days still! Not that I minded. Hell, no! I mean, it was good to see him. Really good. Gosh, was it ever. How on earth did he manage to make a roughed-up pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt look so . . .
His grin spread even wider. Sillier.
I forced myself back to the world of the mentally functioning. “Well, of course I don’t mind. Want to come in?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off me. His lips twitched in . . .
Amusement?
“What?” I asked, lifting my hand to touch my cheek . . . and coming away with fingertips slimed with sticky blue-green goo. Immediately I felt my cheeks go hot beneath the cooling mask I’d forgotten about. “Oh. Oh, fudge.”
He reached for my hand and brought it to his mouth slowly. Somehow I knew what he was going to do. I had my chance to pull away. But I didn’t. He caught my fingertip lightly between his teeth, and his lips closed around it. “Mmm. Nope,” he murmured, his breath warm on my palm. “Seaweed and honey, maybe, but not fudge.”
He straightened again to stare down at me with those eyes that had a way of stripping me bare of all masks, all pretenses, and his lips curved in a smile that would have rivaled the superiority of the Cheshire Cat. I think he’d realized that I’d stopped breathing the moment he took my hand, and that I still hadn’t started back up again. It wasn’t fair for a man to know how off balance he could make you feel . . . was it? Clearly, I was at a disadvantage, because he seemed to be still very much in control of his faculties, and I was having difficulty finding the where-withal to string words together to form a sentence.
I could find my feet, at least. I stumbled backward. “ ’Scuse me,” I mumbled, then turned and ran to the bathroom, flipping on the faucet before I even had the door closed behind me. Minnie kept trying to pry it open with her tiny hooked claws but had to settle for rattling it incessantly instead.
“Don’t feel you have to take that off on my account,” Marcus called from the living room.
I could hear the undercurrent of laughter in his voice. The brat. I should never have let him in.
But something made me glad that I had.
I checked myself in the mirror to make sure I had rinsed completely, then checked my smile, too. As an afterthought, I grabbed the mouthwash and swished it around a few times for good measure, then spat it out and rinsed. A quick sweep of cherry-flavored lip balm, and I was done.
What are you doing, Maggie?
Damned if I knew.
Marcus was sitting in my chair when I came back out, kicked back with his big boots up and hands folded across his middle, looking very much like he owned the place. He smiled when he saw me. “Very pretty. Fresh.”
I was trying not to succumb to the pleasure his compliment gave me.
“Like a sweet little piglet that’s been scrubbed with milk.”
Screech! Crash. Burn.
He laughed when he saw my face. “Just kidding, sweetness. You’re beautiful and you know it.”
I turned my face away, because I knew he must just be pulling my leg still, and I didn’t want him to know that he’d struck a nerve. Not trusting myself to speak, I walked wordlessly past him to take a seat on the sofa, but he caught my hand and tugged me down onto his lap. My breath left me in a whoosh.
For one precious moment, I didn’t move, I just sat there with the warmth of his arms looped loosely around me, held captive by the light in his eyes. Then I came to my senses and cleared my throat, nervously pushing against his chest for leverage to get back up.
“Don’t go . . .” His hand came up, framing my jaw with his palm. Long fingers traced delicate shapes just behind my earlo
be. “Beautiful. Sweet. Maggie,” he said, his voice a husky whisper in the quiet room. And then his mouth dipped into my own, and there was not a single thing I could do about it but close my eyes and enjoy. My hands, needing a task to keep them out of trouble, closed around the soft front of his T-shirt . . . but I only succeeded in pulling him closer to me.
For some reason, I was fine with that.
Things blazed quickly out of my control.
I could say that I realized instantly that I had no right to be kissing him like that, at least not yet. I could say that I serenely rose and put distance between us, in order to preserve my good-relationship karma. I could even say that I allowed myself to slip a moment—I am only human, after all—and then drew from some heretofore unknown reserves of strength to do the honorable thing and rally my flagging restraint, all the while conscientiously reassuring him of his appeal for me.
I did none of those things.
I kissed him back.
Good.
And hard.
Repeatedly, even.
It was Minnie who saved the day and my self-respect. She leapt from the kitchen table all the way to the kitchen counter, knocking the toaster to the floor with a clamoring crash, then double jumping the rest of the way to the back of the chair. Within seconds we both had cat fur in our mouths as she forced her little body between us, purring to give the devil his due. In the next moment, as I leaned back precious body-cooling inches, Marcus had a sleek black tail beneath his nose in some weird imitation of a moustache, and a pretty, glistening pink tongue liberally applying itself to his earlobe.
And no, it wasn’t mine.
He looked scared.
“Um, wow. Does she do this often?”
I giggled and shook my head. “She doesn’t get the chance.”
Probably not the wisest thing to say, now that I think of it. His eyes flashed blue fire, and I nearly ended up sprawled back across his lap. Again. And I’m pretty sure we all know where that might have led.
Somehow, some vestige of respectability lived on inside of me, though, because when I saw the flash, I knew I’d better get out of the fire before I got burned.
