by D. R. Perry
“Hey, Lane.”
“Hey, yourself, kiddo.” Lane smiled. He always did that around me because he knows vampire fangs aren’t scary when you can talk to ghosts.
“You can come in.” I pulled the door wide.
“Wow.” Lane blinked. “Is your dad okay with that?”
"It doesn’t matter now." Standing aside, I let him in, then closed the door. "I need to talk to you before we head out.” I walked toward the kitchen, straight into the pantry.
Pointing at the chain above my head, I made as much room as possible for the vampire to get in there with me before he pulled it. After that, I ducked under his arm and shut the door behind us. I grabbed the can of Spam that wasn’t full of mystery meat product and said the words to activate the magipsychic soundproofing device Headmistress Thurston had given me, just in case.
“Okay, this only lasts a minute, so I have to talk fast.”
“Yup.” Lane nodded, which meant that, even if he wasn’t cool with being shut in a closet with his best friend’s kid brother, he could at least handle my paranoia.
“Something’s off with Sir Al. He’s acting less formal and seems jumpy. Same goes for Rob. I don’t trust them to let me do my thing, and I’m on a Quest.”
“Okay, so the parental wannabes are dropping the ball on you. I get it. But why tell me?”
“Because you’re my getaway Summoner. You’ve got to tell Al that the place we’re going won’t let Seelies in or something. I already asked Rob to follow Al for me, so that’s set.”
“Does Fred know about this?” Lane tugged one ear.
"Here.” I handed him the scrap of parchment where my brother had scrawled "trust the kid" with Hope’s old crayon stub.
Lane nodded. “So, what are we actually doing?”
"You’ll find out after they’re gone." The can beeped. "We’re out of time.”
I opened the door, pointed at the chain, and put the Spam back. Lane walked out and I followed, snagging a box of animal crackers off another shelf as I went. Good thing, too. Al had just come down the stairs, looking puzzled until he spied the cookies.
“Are you allowed to eat those this late at night?” Al pointed at my snack.
“I'm hungry. Didn’t get to stay for the queen’s lunch thingamabob.”
“This must be like jet lag for you, whether dessert at this hour is strictly in the rules.”
I didn’t answer, only looked at Lane.
“Al, we’ve got a problem. The place we’ve gotta go is strictly nocturnal—”
“Understood.” Al nodded. “I’ve got an errand I can run, anyway.” He headed toward the door. Over his shoulder, he added, “Bring your ghost friend.”
“Sure,” I fibbed again.
Lying to a friend's dad bugged me, even though it had to be done. Al headed out the door, and Rob sailed after him, unseen. Lane glanced at the kitchen clock and tapped his foot in time with the second hand. He gave Al a full minute before heading out and beckoning me to follow. He walked me around the corner and half a block down Camp Street before I spoke.
“So, where are we headed?”
“We’re here already.” Lane pointed at the space between two clapboard triple-decker buildings. Both looked old and uncared for, like the basement corner where you throw things you don’t have time to sort through.
One of them had a porch complete with a grungy rocking chair and the other a small storefront. Looking up, I realized I wasn’t looking at two buildings. The third floor on one and the fourth on the other joined above the narrow driveway. The longer I looked at them, the newer they looked, as though my eyes cleaned and polished the buildings, or possibly wiped away layers of Psychic impressions.
“Woah.” Lane pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Henry said it'd be weird, but I wasn't prepared for this. Okay, so do you know which one we want for your Quest?”
“I’m not sure, actually.” Running up the steps in front of the store window, I peered inside. I expected to see layers of dust or drop cloths over everything, but the stuff inside was clean. There wasn’t a sign out front, and the windows were too dingy for shoppers, but I saw the name of the place over the register. “Trash to Treasure. You ever hear of it before, Lane?”
“A couple-few months ago. And then tonight.” The vampire held up a battered old keychain with the shop's name. “It looks closed, so come over here and ring the bell, okay?”
We walked to the porch on the other side of the building. I didn’t see the bell at first because I expected a button. Instead, it was a rope next to the door, hanging just high enough that I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach it. It jangled inside. After a minute, someone shuffled up behind the front door.
“Wait a minute.” The muffled voice sounded off somehow, even through the door. When it creaked open, the man who stood in the narrow space between door and jamb was smaller than I’d imagined. He had the same nose and chin as his brother, Professor Watkins, but those were the only features they shared.
“You’re Edgar Watkins?” I didn’t have to tilt my head up much to look him in the eye. The black fisherman’s cap perched on a bald head where I’d expected hair, and one corner of his mouth drooped in a smirk he probably didn’t mean.
“Ayup, son. In the flesh, what’s left of it.” He nodded at Lane. “You’re the Meyer boy. Knew you were coming, both of you.” Nate turned watery blue eyes back to my face. “Your ghost off doing what you ordered him to?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “That’s good. Come in. I’m sick of standing around here.”
Watkins let go of the door and turned, one hand on the left wall. His feet shuffled, and I noticed that the floor was bare, the polish on the wood nearly worn away. The entry hall opened into a double parlor, but the old guy didn’t cross it. Instead, he lowered himself into a chair only inches away from where the hall ended. Seats of all kinds dotted the entire area like islands on the bay.
Stools, folding chairs, office chairs with wheels, even one high-backed club chair near an empty and cold fireplace. You could chart courses by them, like Edgar Watkins didn’t get around too well and had to sit down every so often. Or he used them to hold onto, like he’d done with the wall. Lines of chairs stretched to the kitchen, a back hall, the bathroom. He didn’t give me time to figure it out or ask about it.
“I know why you’re here, son.” He took a few shallow breaths. “And I want to help you find the box, but I can’t. Not now.”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “It’s gotta be in the store. Just let me in, and I’ll—”
“It’s not that simple.” Watkins rummaged in his pocket and pulled out an inhaler. He shook it, held it to his ear, and hung his head. “I don’t know where the Sprite hid it, you see.” The old man coughed so hard I could swear he left his body for a few seconds.
“Where do you keep them?” Lane held out his hand. “I’ll get you another.”
“Last one.”
“What?”
“Don’t matter. Won’t need it much longer. We wait.”
I would have asked who or what he meant, but Edgar coughed. He didn’t stop for such a long time I thought Lane might call 911. Instead, he sent a text. We waited, like the man told us. In the kitchen, I ran water into a chipped coffee mug. Lane picked up an old ukulele and strummed, then made a sour face and tuned it. Edgar sipped water from the mug.
“Kid!” Rob flailed his translucent arms outside the front window. “Al dropped a paper in the college library and went poof—ported out. And some lady’s out here—”
The doorknob turned.
“Joyce.” A smile to shame the sun rose on Edgar Watkins' face. The corners of his eyes glimmered with an oasis of tears.
“Eddie!” A whip-thin woman in better health but about the same age as Edgar rushed to his side. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“We have little time.” Edgar leaned closer, reaching up and putting his hands on either side of Joyce’s face. She hugged him. He whispered something in her ear.
>
Lane sat up, green eyes going wide. He looked pale, even for a vampire. His mouth dropped open, showing his fangs. I couldn’t do anything but sit there, even though I felt the shiver at the back of my neck that meant death was near.
“Oh, no, Eddie—” Joyce’s voice got thicker than a stack of encyclopedias, heavy with knowledge. She had to be Psychic, like Lane and me, and either a Telepath or Precog.
The energy in the room built toward what I knew would be its awful conclusion. Edgar took one too-short breath, then another. It rattled out, and after that, he breathed no more. Lane shook his head and tapped the left side of his chest to signal that the old man’s heart had stopped, too.
“All right, boys.” Joyce lowered Edgar’s body against the back of the chair, then closed his eyes. She wiped tears from her own. “I have to get the last pieces right. There’s work to do and not much time.”
“Work?” Lane narrowed his eyes. “What kind of work?”
“Nothing too impossible.” Joyce took the phone off the wall and dialed. “Only an adventure in an old rummage shop. And saving the world.”
When she finished speaking to the coroner, Joyce hung up and beckoned us upstairs. We followed her up and through a windowless hallway, emerging in another stairwell. The air in here felt different—haunted, even to a medium like me.
Downstairs the shop felt as cluttered as it looked. Aisles almost too narrow to browse comfortably warred with deceptive spaces where crates squatted on otherwise open stretches of floor. Lane picked his way toward some cases full of vinyl records. I held my hands behind my back, understanding that I wasn't powerful enough to handle any trinket or bauble might lead to a ghost.
Joyce sailed through the shop like her last visit had happened only yesterday. Her mouth moved along with one index finger that pointed out each item. What her movements lacked in speed, they made up in efficiency. Within minutes, she found it—the carved wooden box from my Quest.
Joyce tucked it in a mesh bag, the kind they used at the farmer's market down in Lippitt Park. After that, she left the conjoined houses, looking back once. She took us with her.
Her first stop was to see Tony Gitano and Olivia Adler at the Nocturnal Lounge. She had Lane call Margot Malone to meet us. Once the new arrivals joined us, Joyce marched down to the dorm basement, where Agent Derek Dennison and his partner Agent Johnson waited.
When she told us that Richard Hopewell’s magic only worked in Rhode Island, the agents knew exactly what to do. The Feds made rapid travel arrangements and the shifters sent texts, but without Joyce and me, they couldn’t have timed it right.
“You make sure the ghosts are on both sides to reinforce the sympathetic connection.” Agent Johnson tapped her nails on the table. “That’s the only way the Summoners can get one strong enough so the portal goes to the right places.”
“Are you sure Ed can do that alone?” Olivia blinked at me.
“I can.” I didn’t wait for anyone else to defend my abilities. “Horace won’t miss the chance to see Bianca again, even if it’s just for a few seconds through a portal.”
“And you think you can get the rest of them to Swan Point, Tony?” Joyce pushed a list of names on yellowed paper across the table.
"Yeah. I set it up so we meet Irina first. If one of them gives me trouble, her fiddle will change their mind.” Tony’s smile differed from the way it used to be. It seemed brighter somehow; less shadowy, like he believed he could do anything now. I caught it. "Olivia and I will go through with you, kid. You won't be alone."
Maybe Joyce was right. Maybe we could save the day.
Chapter Eleven
Hope
I hated having to go back to the nursery alone. Well, without Ed anyway. Instead, I went with the dragon lady and her egg. It was easy to slip away from them and down the hall. That lady only had eyes for her little baby, and the egg had no eyes to see me with.
I got to the door of unfriendly spider-man’s room—Toochie whatever. If I could bargain with the old geezer, maybe Ed wouldn’t have to owe anything. He had to see the sense in letting a medium off the hook to get a favor from one of the three magic bird shifters. I tried to knock, but the door opened, and I almost hit the big kid in the face.
“Um, sorry.” I stepped back to let the kid go by, but he stood there staring at my wings.
“You’re Hope Tolland, the Alkonost.”
"Yeah.” I twirled one finger. "Big whoop."
“I’m Cosmo. Wow, your wings are something else. Everyone told me about them, but I never thought they’d look so cool.”
“Wait, the only Cosmo around here is supposed to be a baby, I thought. But you look like you’re ten.”
“Well, I’m not even a year old. My mom had the Tsuchigomo age me because she gets visions and stuff. And they gave me this.” He pulled a crystal on a chain out of his shirt. It looked a lot like the one Hertha wore to keep her from dragoning out.
“It’s a bad idea to go around the Under telling random people everything about yourself, you know.” I squinted at the crystal, trying to see what animal form it kept good old Cosmo from turning into.
“You’re not random. I’m supposed to tell you. Mom said so, and she’s Precognitive, from an old family of seers.”
"Well, if it’s okay with your mom, I guess it’s fine with me." I shrugged. "But we’re in the hall. Anyone could hear.”
“Come in, then.” He made room for me to get by.
“But then the Tootsie—Tsuitchy—” I rolled my eyes.
“Tsuchigomo.” Cosmo grinned. The jerk.
“Yeah, that guy. He’ll listen in.”
“He’s okay.”
“But I thought he eats kids.”
"Not really." He shrugged. "I'm okay, anyway."
"But he's still super dangerous. He gets favors if you ask him questions, just like a faerie but without the iron allergies."
"Look, he’s helping my mom." Cosmo waved a hand at the open door. "He knows her family from way back.”
“Okay, then.”
We walked into the spider man’s room together. Dad would have yelled at me, but I think Mama would have understood. It was a matter of honor at that point, for Ed because I was there to rescue him behind his back and for Cosmo. He was bigger than me, sure, but way younger. My mother always told me I should stick up for younger kids no matter what, even if I might get hurt.
The old spider guy wasn’t in the front room. I figured he must be back through that webbed doorway I’d seen the last time with Ed. I sat down at a small table across from Cosmo. The chairs were cushiony and too big for us, so he sat back with his feet sticking out and looking like a goofball. I leaned forward, wishing my toes touched the floor.
“So, I’m figuring the enemy you mentioned is that Hopewell guy who just became the clown prince.” I winked, but the kid didn't think my joke was funny. Or maybe he didn't get it.
“That’s not set in stone just yet, but he could be.” Cosmo shrugged. “And maybe it’s you, Hope.”
“If I’m fated to be your enemy, it makes no sense for you to talk to me.”
“Except that this conversation decides it.” Cosmo sat there grinning and swinging his feet.
"Let me guess." I leaned my chin on one hand. "Your mama said so.”
“Exactly.” Cosmo tapped his nose.
“Hey, I don’t even want any enemies. I only came to see—” I waved my hand at the door on the other side of the room. “Him. The old guy.”
"Tsuchigomo. It’s not that hard to say if you practice." He leaned forward and whispered. "I’m gonna take a big chance here. Why do you want to see him?”
“Woah.” I blinked. Cosmo had seemed to have the hang of the whole not-asking-questions thing even though he was still a baby. Sort of. “Um, you ask two more, and you’ll owe me.”
“I know.” Cosmo grinned.
“Okay. I want to see the Tsuchigomo because I want to buy Ed Redford’s debt from him.”
“You c
an try it, but he won't make that deal, not in a zillion years.”
“I’ll just offer the same thing in exchange. Should work. Alkonost beats medium like scissors beats paper.”
“Most of the time, but not to a Tsuchigomo.”
“I don’t get it. For a faerie creature, especially on the Seelie side, it should be a no-brainer.”
“He’s only sort of a faerie creature, though. He’s stuck here until he gets what he needs to leave.”
“Hmm. This is hard.” I scratched my head. “It can’t hurt to offer, I guess.”
“You just don’t know much about the Tsuchigomo, that’s all. He needs to collect a bunch of abilities, all at the same time, in order to leave.”
“But I can see and hear ghosts. Talk to them, too, just like Ed.”
"Mediums can do more stuff you can't, though. Still, he might want something from you all the same. You’re right, it can’t hurt to try.” He grinned. "So go ahead."
I nodded and got out of my chair, looking around. Cosmo just sat there, smirking. I almost headed toward the doorway at the back of the room, but a flutter in the pit of my stomach told me not to. Instead, I looked up.
“Good evening.” The big old Tsuchigomo hung upside-down from the ceiling.
“I didn’t know you were part bat.” I flapped a few times, pulling air through my feathers to get up to his level and look him in the eye. One thick strand of web hung there, looking like a rope swing. He nodded at it, so I perched.
The Tsuchigomo giggled, almost like he was another kid. His hair had new streaks of black in it, and his face looked less wrinkly than the last time I’d seen him with Ed. I turned my head and shut the eye that wasn’t pointed at him.
“You seem younger.” I chewed my lip. What Cosmo had said made sense. “Yeah, I get it now. You don’t eat kids. You drink our youth away, like a vampire with blood.”
“Good.” The Tsuchigomo nodded. “I need the years from the young medium, as he promised.”
