I had no other suggestions. So I handed him the small knife I’d conjured for the others, instructed him to cut himself, and started the incantation.
I was afraid he’d panic about the blood, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t react to any of it at all. That didn’t necessarily comfort me, but at least it was better than if he’d had a fit or something.
When he disappeared, I had a moment of panic, praying I’d see him on the other side. But praying was all I could do.
I turned to Rebecca next. “Phineas went to get a remnant for you. Can you stay with Norbert, when you get to the other side?”
“My sister’s finger,” Rebecca said. “I heard you tell him.” Her cold wolf’s stare had something of the old Rebecca in it, and I thought she was recovering more quickly than Norbert.
“Will you be okay with that?”
“I’ll do what I have to do.” Definitely recovering. That was good.
Phineas and Gwen came back with a bracelet, thankfully, instead of a severed finger. And by a stroke of good fortune, it turned out Rebecca had given the bracelet to Henrietta. Surely that would do.
“Ready?” I asked her.
Her eyes had gone vacant again, and I had to give her a shake, but eventually we sent her after Norbert.
Phineas insisted Gwen go next, rather than the three of us going at the same time, so he could make sure she got through okay. She hacked off a lock of Phineas’s hair, and we sent her through with instructions to watch over the others until we got there.
When she was gone, Phineas started to say something, but it was cut off by a scraping, groaning sound the likes of which I’d never heard before. We were pitched to the ground as a rift opened up a few feet away from us.
I clawed desperately at the sand as I rolled toward the chasm.
Will. Stop trying to save yourself with your fucking fingernails and use your will.
Phineas was ahead of me. He closed the rift. I put a tree on top of it, for good measure.
“Thank you,” I said. “Something tells me we’ve worn out our welcome here. Let’s go together.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Phineas. “You go.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“Alice,” he said.
“Shit.” I’d forgotten about her. We couldn’t just leave her behind. “We’re pretty sure she’s dead, right?”
“Pretty sure,” Phineas agreed. “But if she’s not, I don’t know what I’ll do without a remnant. Amias didn’t leave any bracelets behind.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s go.”
I started walking back in the direction of Alice’s tower, but Phineas grabbed my elbow.
“No, I’m serious. You go. It’s too risky.”
“I’m not leaving you here!”
“Lydia, we don’t have time—”
“—to stand around and fucking argue!”
I started walking again. This time, he didn’t try to stop me.
The clearing Alice’s tower was in had turned into a fetid swamp. There was no sign of her feast, and no sound of her song. The tower itself was crumbling.
“Alice!” Phineas shouted.
He ran to the tower. I tried to follow, but kept getting stuck in the mire.
Will, Lydia, for fuck’s sake.
But it did no good. I could do nothing to harden the ground, or dry the mud. I wondered if there wasn’t still someone else’s will at work here, after all. Was this new landscape Alice’s doing?
Just as Phineas reached the tower door, the whole building burst into flames. Which was a neat trick, since it was made of stone.
“Phineas!” I finally got to him, just in time to drag him back from the fire.
“Alice!” he shouted again.
I struggled to hold onto him as he pulled out of my grip.
“Phineas, you can’t—”
“—fucksake, Lydia, we’re about to set ourselves on fire to get out of here! What’s a little more fire?”
I didn’t know what the difference was, but I felt certain there was one. I actually jumped onto his back, trying to stop him from going into the tower.
We were still struggling with one another when the song rose up around us.
It wasn’t like the other one. There was nothing melancholy or wistful in this song. It was straight-up joyful. Phineas and I stepped back in unison, looking up in the direction it came from.
Alice was leaning out a window on the top floor, all her hair blowing around her, although I could feel no wind at the ground level.
She was on fire.
Before Phineas could even call out again, she jumped.
But she never landed. The fire winked out before it hit the ground, and the song abruptly stopped. And then there simply was no more Alice.
I shook Phineas out of his stunned silence. I didn’t know how I felt about Alice, or what hand she’d had in making her son what he was. But she’d saved us from Amias, in the end, and we would mourn her for that if for nothing else. Now was not the time, though.
We did the ritual there in the swamp, reminding me sharply of the last netherworld I’d escaped. I’d left others behind there. Here, at least, I was the last one out.
When I came around, on the hard floor of Ranulf’s tomb, it was to the sound of something slamming behind me. I sat up and saw Phineas, latching the coffin.
“Hell is now closed,” I said.
I kept my promise: the next time I knocked on Charlie’s door, I had Norbert with me.
Or, okay, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. I knew where the spare key was. So I just let us in. I called out as I opened the door, so as not to shock anybody senseless. It was dark outside, but I wasn’t sure what time it was. Or what day. Or even what month.
When Charlie tried to hug Norbert, Norbert reeled away and dove behind the couch, where he crouched on the floor, hands over his head, like he was expecting a tornado or a nuclear bomb.
Charlie started to go to him, but I grabbed his elbow. “Don’t.”
He stared at me, with no trace of the anger that had been there when I saw him last. Just a forlorn sort of misery. “What…?”
“Don’t try to touch him for a while. Where’s Warren?”
Charlie blinked at me, as if the question was a hard one. After a few seconds he said, “He went to a sleepover at Jack DeSoto’s.”
“Good. It’s probably best to ease Norbert in. Listen, Charlie, you’re going to have to look at this almost like PTSD. Like he just got back from a war.”
“Did he?”
“Sort of. Be gentle and patient with him, and when something triggers him, don’t take it personally. Just help him through it.” I looked down at Norbert, who was peeking out from under his arm now. I could see one wide eye.
“It’s okay,” I said to him. “You’re home.”
Norbert raised his head and looked around. “That’s right. We just got the key.”
“That’s right.”
I turned back to Charlie. “And Charlie… take his gun and hide it someplace. Don’t let him have access to weapons for a while. In case he gets confused.”
“What the hell happened?”
It was shitty of me not to give him a real answer, but I couldn’t handle the edge creeping into Charlie’s voice. Not then, anyway. I was completely drained. I just wanted to get my dog and go home. “He’ll tell you when he’s ready. But don’t push it.”
And then I left.
That night turned out to be Christmas Eve. I spent most of Christmas in bed, cuddled up with Wulf, except when I got up to thaw us a couple of steaks I had in the freezer.
It was after the new year when I next saw Phineas. His parents were well. His boss had given him some sort of award. But they were having a hard time destroying Ranulf’s coffin, or even moving it. It seemed to have been enchanted somehow.
“But the netherworld is gone,” I said. “What harm can the coffin do?”
Phineas shrugged. �
��I’d just rather have all the loose ends tied off.”
I couldn’t say I blamed him for that.
“What about Rebecca?” I asked.
“I don’t know where she is,” he said. “And I imagine that’s how she wants it. Her sisters are gone, her farm, most of her witches. It’s going to be a while before she’s okay. But she’s always been a strong one. She’ll figure it out.”
Before he left that day, Phineas said, “I do have one more loose end to tie off.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “To help ease the burden this whole thing put you under.”
It was a cashier’s check. An embarrassingly large one. Like, so large I was afraid the IRS—or the FBI—might ask questions about it.
“I don’t know what to say to this,” I said.
“You’re not going to get all proud and refuse to take it, are you? Because it’s not like my department doesn’t owe you some pay, you know. We wouldn’t have gotten him without you.”
I shook my head. “Pride is not a luxury I can afford anymore. But just thanking you doesn’t seem adequate.”
He shrugged, that familiar lopsided gesture. “It’s plenty adequate, considering all I had to do was get Justin to sign off on the request, and he offered no resistance of any kind.”
“Okay. Then thank you.”
That whole exchange had put things on too professional a level, maybe. Amias was gone, and our work was done. We didn’t really have any excuse to see each other anymore, which meant the only way to do it was if we didn’t pretend to need an excuse. And since I couldn’t exactly pop over to his plane any time I felt like it, it was up to him to take the initiative.
But he rarely did. After a few months with no word, I wondered whether he’d run off with his librarian, to whatever their equivalent of a tropical vacation was.
Things were equally awkward with Charlie, but at least he let me take Warren out to a movie once in a while. Norbert got steadily better, until he was almost his old self, outwardly at least.
And then Charlie called me one Thursday night in June. Out of the blue, as far as I could tell.
“I was thinking about how you used to come for Sunday dinner?”
“Yes…” I wasn’t being intentionally difficult, with my one word answer. I just honestly didn’t know what to expect. Which made me sad, because it never used to be hard to tell what Charlie was thinking.
“That was fun.”
“It was fun,” I agreed.
“So, you think we should do it again this weekend?”
“Sure. You want me to bring pie, or cake?”
“Both, obviously.”
He seemed disappointed when I arrived without Phineas.
“I haven’t seen him in a while,” I said. “And I had no idea you’d want to see him.” I glanced at Norbert. “Either of you.”
“Of course we want to see him. He’s important to you, isn’t he?”
That was kind of a hard question. Too hard to let it get me down that night. Warren was happy—wasn’t he always?—and Charlie seemed to be in a great mood. It was like old times.
Almost, anyway. Once in a while it seemed like Norbert heard something, or maybe caught a scent, that nobody else could sense. He’d stay very still, head tilted to one side, breathing deeply. Looking like he was barely containing panic.
Only for a few seconds, and then it would pass. But it was long enough to make me feel guilty. He was changed, irrevocably, because of me. Amias had changed us all.
Martha and Max came for dessert. While I made coffee and Martha cut the pies (including the cranberry-banana cream she’d brought with her), she asked me about my job.
“I don’t really have one to speak of, anymore.” I said. “My website is still limping along, but I kind of lost all my clients while I was off after Amias.”
What I didn’t say out loud was how worried I was getting about that very thing. The money Phineas had given me was running out. And putting my resume together in a marketable way was difficult. A lot of my skills, when you put them on paper, made me look just a tiny bit batshit crazy. My house was rebuilt by then, and Wulf and I had moved back in, but I was afraid it wouldn’t be for long. I’d have to sell it, if I didn’t figure something out soon.
“It was your websprite I wanted to ask you about, dear,” Martha said.
“Website,” I corrected.
“Oh, whatever.” Martha waved the pie cutter, and a very oddly colored dollop of custard landed on my shirt. “You know how to do that sort of thing pretty well, I gather?”
“I do,” I agreed.
“Including shopping and taking credit cards and all that kind of thing?”
I turned away from the mugs I’d started pulling out of the cupboard to give her a curious look. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I think Max could use something to occupy his time,” Martha said. “Some responsibility. And it wouldn’t hurt me either, to have work. And I’ve helped you a lot, with my library, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have.”
“So I can be useful. I thought we might build a little business. Selling potions and charms and spells online.” She smiled at me. “It sounds like you’re a little bit unemployed. What would you think of joining us, and designing our sprite?”
“Site.”
Now, there was an intriguing idea. I wondered if Wendy and Granny might think so, too. Not full time, maybe, but I bet they would love to make a few poppets now and then. And Caleb could hire more help at the shop.
I left Charlie’s that night feeling more optimistic than I had in a long time. I might have work. I had my house. I doubted things would ever really be the same with Charlie again. Too many unforgivable, or at least unforgettable, things had passed between us. But that was okay. That our relationship was being redefined wasn’t as important as the fact that we seemed to still have one. I thought I might just have my family back.
Or mostly back.
He’s important to you, isn’t he?
Of course Phineas was important. I just didn’t know what that meant, exactly. Christmas card important? Hanging out on weekends important? Wishing I’d let him kiss me important?
I figured it out once and for all—or really, Phineas did—less than a month later.
Wulf and I were greeted, coming around the corner from our morning walk, by a little scene from our past: Phineas, sitting on my porch steps. Specifically, the second step of three. High enough to avoid the threatening rain, not so high as to be presumptuous.
He stood as we approached. Wulf, of course, went nuts. Phineas crouched and hugged him and let Wulf slobber all over his face, and generally avoided eye contact with me for a minute or so. His ears were red.
“Did you come to smash something?” I asked.
He stood and shrugged one shoulder. “I missed you.”
So, what the hell, I just kissed him. Right there on the sidewalk.
He kissed me back.
It was the sort of kiss that makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it sooner.
His hands tightened convulsively on my arms when I pulled away, like he didn’t want to let me go, which was sweet. But I just had a question.
“Phineas, your kind, um… you’re the same as humans, physically, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?” That was a little alarming. What did it mean?
He laughed and pulled me back in. “You won’t find anything you don’t know how to work.”
And I didn’t.
So finally we get to it, a thing I’ve always wanted to say: Reader, I married him.
I doubt those words meant Happily Ever After for Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester being kind of a difficult guy, and all. And don’t worry, I’m not going to give you any Happily Ever After bullshit about me and Phineas, either. For one thing, I think I’ve established pretty clearly by now that Phineas is an asshole. And also that I’m a colossal pain in the ass.
And
then there’s the fact that he’s a magical being from another world, and I’m a retired ghost hunter turned semi-professional witch. Nothing about that combination suggests a contented-but-dull existence.
Plus we have a few unique sources of tension that the self-help books don’t cover, like that I’m aging and he’s not. He’ll almost certainly have to watch me die. Which sucks for him, but on the other hand, while I’m rotting in a grave, he can go on to live a long fulfilling life, possibly with another wife or so, and the children and grandchildren I won’t be able to give him.
We always find a way to come out laughing in the end—which I firmly believe is the key to a successful marriage—but it’s still Bickering Ever After as much as anything else.
That kiss was still a happy ending, though. For me, it marked the end of my adventures, in and out of the canteen.
My last bow as a solo artist.
Thank you for reading Crook of the Dead! If you’ve enjoyed Lydia’s adventures, you may also be interested in the Devilborn series, beginning with Grim Haven, which follows the story of a modern-day daughter of Amias.
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Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3) Page 22
