by Nichole Van
We were in the back office of the family store. I had managed to quickly wash my hands and pull on gloves before letting the police into our palazzo. It didn’t take a genius to understand how it would look—me answering the door with Lucy missing and my hands bloody.
Paola had been grilling me for a solid thirty minutes. Turns out the gelateria down the street had video footage which meant we were so busted.
“As I’ve been saying, Inspector, I have no idea as to the current whereabouts of Roberto Moretti.” That had been my line from the start. The honest, if incomplete, truth.
“And again, Mr. D’Angelo, that is not the question I asked.”
Technically, she hadn’t asked a question; she had demanded. But given how Paola glared at me, I kept that observation to myself. I carefully maintained a neutral expression.
I knew she was just doing her job, and I couldn’t blame her for being suspicious. But I wasn’t the problem here and the sooner she and her sidekick left, the sooner I could find a way to get Lucy back.
“One more time, Mr. D’Angelo. Where is Lucy Snow?”
Wasn’t that the question of the hour?
“As I’ve been saying, I don’t know. She disappeared.”
Absolute truth.
“When?”
“Right before you rang my buzzer.”
Paola did another circuit of the room. Eyes taking in the papers on the desk, the books lining the walls.
“How did she disappear, Mr. D’Angelo?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I left the room. When I came back, she was gone.”
Paola harrumphed and stared me down some more.
“She just up and poof—disappeared?” Paola rotated her wrist and twirled a finger. A very sarcastic finger. “Sorta like little Grace Snow?”
“Yes. She just disappeared . . . exactly like Grace Snow.”
Silence.
Paola so wasn’t buying my explanations.
She leaned forward, dark eyes intent and way too seeing.
“There is blood on your shirt, Mr. D’Angelo.” She motioned toward my chest. “And why are you wearing gloves on a hot summer night in the middle of June?”
Crap.
Crap. Crap.
Somehow, I managed to keep the panic off my face. I glanced down at my shirt.
Yep. Definitely blood spots along my left side.
From Paola’s point of view, this looked very, very bad.
“I cut myself.” I tugged off my left glove and held up my sliced middle finger. I hadn’t had time to put a bandaid on it, but it had thankfully stopped bleeding.
“And the gloves?”
I shrugged. “A personal idiosyncrasy. Ask anyone. I always wear them.” I pulled the glove back onto my left hand.
Paola studied me, foot tapping.
“I will ask you one more time, Mr. D’Angelo. What did Roberto Moretti want with Lucy Snow?”
I clasped my hands together in front of me. “I have no comment to that, ma’am.”
She scrutinized me for a solid minute, the silence hanging heavy in the room.
Silence had never bothered me. I blankly met her stare with one of my own.
We sat like that for several minutes.
She flinched first.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have you arrested right now, Mr D’Angelo,” she finally said.
Her words hung in the room. My adrenaline spiked.
Her request, however, was easy.
“I’m innocent.” I met her eyes directly, letting my honesty shine through my words. “I have done nothing wrong. I care deeply for Lucy and little Grace and would never do anything to harm them. I want nothing more than their safe return.”
Paola studied me for a moment longer, then nodded her head.
“This isn’t the last of this, Mr. D’Angelo. You can expect to speak with us tomorrow. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will make your memory more . . . accessible. Good night.”
I rose and politely showed them the door, locking it firmly behind them.
Adrenaline humming, I walked back to the office, pulled my phone from my pocket, and collapsed into the desk chair.
My reaction to everything sank in with a vengeance.
Tennyson’s suicide attempt and weird ramblings.
Lucy’s sudden disappearance.
Inspector Paola’s accusations.
The worry that I would end up behind bars before I could solve this problem.
My hands shook violently. Panic squeezed my lungs.
Think, man.
There had to be a solution here.
I was sure Lucy’s blood on my phone had been the catalyst for something. It made too much sense. My own blood, however, didn’t trigger anything.
This had to be all tied up in Jack Knight-Snow somehow. His bloodline and Chucky.
I just needed the puzzle pieces to slot into place.
Gritting my teeth, I stared down at my telephone and pulled off both my gloves. Practically daring Chucky to come and get me.
Cautiously, I touched the phone with my left index finger.
Nothing.
And then . . .
Sunlight. Love. Lemon-verbena.
Stunned, I watched as an achingly familiar shape surged out of the phone. Hand. Wrist. A bit of bare arm.
Delicate long fingers. Pale skin. Freckles.
Lucy.
Her fingers wrapped desperately around my left arm, my finger still pressed against the surface of the phone. Pulling.
“Lucy!” I yelled. “Help me! Tell me what to do?”
Silence.
I tried to grab her arm with my right hand but, again, my hand passed right through. It was surreal. To my left arm, she felt so solid, but to my right, she was just air.
Only the hand connected to the keyed phone could feel her.
I shifted my left hand, keeping my skin in contact with the phone, but rotated my wrist, so my palm was up. I wrapped my fingers around Lucy’s arm.
She was solid. She was warm.
“Lucy! Love! Can you hear me?”
Silence.
She was tugging on me, like she wanted me to come in or, more likely, was trying to pull herself out.
I held on to her, trying to think through the logistics. I had to maintain contact with the phone, which meant I couldn’t draw back my hand to pull her out. How could I get leverage?
After a few minutes, her hand faded back into the phone.
It was the weirdest thing. Her solidity simply . . . melted away.
Panicking for real now, I broke contact with the phone and touched it again.
Sunshine. Lemons.
Lucy’s arm appeared, grasping mine.
“Bran-ell?” Her voice.
“Lucy!”
“ . . . help . . . stuck . . . can’t get . . . mirror . . . study . . .”
Her words were garbled. Like a staticky phone connection.
Her arm faded again.
Crap.
I touched the phone again and again.
Nothing.
Crap, crap!
Mirror. Study it.
That made sense. I needed to go to the source.
I could do that.
I yanked my gloves back onto my hands and crossed the room to the office safe. A moment later, I had it open. Carefully, I removed the ancient mirror wrapped in velvet.
Placing the mirror on the large table, I carefully unwrapped it, lifting the mirror with my gloved hand.
Now what?
Roberto had a whole plan with pentagrams, chanting and a water trap right at the peak of the summer solstice . . .
I had . . . a malfunctioning family curse and a truckload of determination.
It would have to be enough.
I turned the mirror in my hand. The engraved back glinted, catching the incandescent light from overhead.
Study it, Lucy had said.
So . . . I pondered it.
The figure dripping bloo
d into the bowl in the background left.
The couple embracing to the right.
The bearded man seated in the foreground, leaning forward, holding a mirror in his front hand, his back hand being pulled down into the ground by another figure.
Right. So how was this helpful?
Frowning, I looked at it again. Studying the scenes one more time.
It seemed more like a cautionary tale than anything to me.
You drip blood on this object, you’ll get sucked in.
But we already knew that.
I examined the guy in front being forced down.
Wait.
Was that it? Or was he pulling someone out?
Suddenly, that explanation seemed a lot more logical. Because the guy seated in front looked nothing like the person in the background, dripping blood.
No, the figure dripping blood behind looked a lot like the person rising from the ground.
My breath hitched. A flash of inspiration. Hundreds of loose threads suddenly snapping into a cohesive whole.
What if nothing about this mirror were allegorical? What if it were not a warning but a literal handbook?
An enchiridion.
An ancient sort of What to Do if Your Loved One Gets Stuck in another Dimension for Dummies.
Chills chased my spine. I studied the image again.
What if I were seeing a sequence of events?
The person in the back wasn’t scrying, but was the victim, dripping blood onto a reflective surface.
The man in front was not some random representation of love, but rather Tages, the oracle of the proper bloodline who could pull the person out.
The figures behind—Tages and the person who had been trapped—were embracing after being reunited.
A sense of intense rightness flooded me. This had to be the answer.
Okay.
I could go with that.
The key was the seated figure of Tages. How was he pulling the figure out? Were they coming from the mirror or the ground? As the mirror was in his front hand, it was hard to tell.
I squinted, studying the image.
No. The person was definitely rising from the ground, not the mirror.
Wait.
There were tiny ripples. That was water not solid earth.
Of course! The whole situation with Chucky had been unique in water.
The thought had barely formed before I was moving out the door, down more steps and into the pool room.
Lights flared to life, illuminating the water’s surface.
Chucky had felt decidedly different in water. Larger, more solid.
Perhaps water had been the key all along.
This was worth a shot.
I snagged a stool and walked over to the water’s edge.
Carefully, I mimicked the pose on the back of the mirror.
Me, sitting in the chair beside the water.
Mirror held in my left hand, reflecting into the water’s surface.
Right hand extended toward the water’s surface.
Nothing happened.
I stretched farther, dipping a finger in the water.
Nothing.
Sitting back, I frowned, studying the back of the mirror. And then I noticed it.
Duh.
The dude wasn’t wearing gloves.
Everything here needed contact with my bare skin.
I set the mirror on my knees and pulled off my gloves, fingers shaking, tossing them on the ground behind me.
I stared down at the mirror, chest heaving.
Touching something shiny and ancient was terrifying.
Pandora’s Box.
Hopefully not literally.
Gingerly, my left hand hovered above the mirror handle. Sucking in a fortifying breath, I grabbed it, wrapping my fingers around the cool metal.
Power surged up my arm. Charged. Eager.
A stallion pulling hard at the reins.
No sound.
That in and of itself was . . . astonishing.
I was holding something without a whisper of noise reaching me.
I savored the sensation for about half a second. Power arced through me, desperate for an outlet—tingling, burning the fingers of my opposite hand.
Angling the mirror so it reflected in the pool, I touched my fingertips to the water.
Instantly, Lucy’s hand surged out, wrapping around mine.
Slightly chilled. Clinging. Desperate.
Hallelujah!
It was the oddest sight. She literally came out of the surface of the water.
I flexed and pulled, lifting her out of the pool and onto the tile floor beside me.
Coughing and shivering, dripping wet, she wobbled to her hands and knees.
“Grace”—a ragged cough—“P-please, get Grace.”
I turned back to the pool and repeated the process.
Mirror, angle, water, reach.
A small hand leaped into mine. Fragile and cold.
I pulled and little Grace practically flew out of the pool.
Crying, she landed on top of Lucy, who instantly turned and gathered her niece tight against her chest. Both of them sopping wet.
Power coursed through me, arching my spine.
I dropped the mirror onto my legs, severing the contact.
My left hand tingled and stung, like hitting a baseball with a metal bat.
“Gracie, you okay?” Lucy ran her hands over Grace’s body.
The tiny girl hiccupped and curled into Lucy’s chest, wrapping her arms around Lucy’s waist.
“Gracie, talk to me,” Lucy urged, trying to see Grace’s face.
“I’s okay, Aunt Lucy,” she sniffed. And then she paused, looking around.
She met my gaze and angled her head in surprise.
“Who’re you?” She inspected me up and down and then twisted in Lucy’s lap, surveying the room again. “And where’s my Gruncle Jack?”
Forty Six
Lucy
Shock blazed through Branwell at Grace’s question. I could see it in the flare of his eyes. Heard it in his sharp intake of air.
“Where is he?” Grace continued to rotate her head, trying to see behind me. “We can’t leave Gruncle Jack inside.”
My mind reeled, barely processing the events of the past . . . however long it had been. An hour? Two?
“Branwell,” I whispered, meeting his eyes.
He blinked and then jerked back to life.
“Gruncle Jack. Right.” Branwell nodded. “Makes sense . . . I guess.”
I pulled Gracie closer to my chest. She was here. She was safe and in my arms.
Now we simply had to rescue Gruncle Jack.
Flexing the fingers of his left hand, Branwell grasped the mirror with his bare palm, angling the mirror over the water. He dipped the fingers of his right hand into the pool.
I gasped.
He looked just like the engraving on the back of the mirror facing me.
Nothing happened.
And then . . .
A hand surged out of the water.
Masculine. Long, expressive fingers and a broad palm. An arm in a loose muslin shirt followed. The hand wrapped around Branwell’s forearm, holding tight.
Grunting, Branwell leaned back, pulling the rest of the man’s large body out of the water.
Tan breeches, boots, blue waistcoat, white shirt, auburn hair and the beginning of stubble.
Jack Knight-Snow, in the living flesh.
Wow. Just . . . wow.
Branwell hauled Jack onto the tile next to Grace and me, poor Jack coughing and wheezing.
Branwell jumped up and carefully set the mirror on a nearby table. He turned to help, intent on lifting Jack upright.
But Branwell’s arms passed straight through Jack’s torso. Branwell staggered forward and then flinched when his leg passed partially into Jack’s neck.
I angled my head, finally realizing I could see the pool deck and water through Jack.
> My gruncle was as transparent as any Hollywood ghost.
Alrighty then.
Out of the spelled water, Jack had no substance, though he did appear wet.
Strange.
Branwell stepped back, eyes wary.
I lifted a hand to the light. Was I transparent now too?
I looked solid.
Concern evident, Branwell stepped around Jack, looking at me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “I think so.”
He bent down, cupping my face with his hand. He felt solid, warm and blissfully mine. Particularly when he leaned in and kissed me.
Grace giggled in my lap and patted my shoulder, looking at Branwell.
“He’s tissing you, Aunt Lucy.” She reached a small hand up to Branwell’s beard, stroking it. Giggled harder. “It’s tickly.”
I hugged Grace, kissing her soundly on her squishy cheek.
Mmmm.
I hugged and kissed her again.
She was maybe a little too squishy.
I held her hand up to the light, but Grace wasn’t transparent. Well, not like Jack.
Thinking of which . . .
I looked around Branwell at my gruncle, slowly pushing himself to his feet.
Or, at least, he tried. But his hand went straight through the stool Branwell had been sitting on. Jack’s head followed the momentum and would have cracked on the tile . . . if it had been solid enough to do so.
Rolling to his back in surprise, poor Jack sat up.
“Dash it all,” he grumbled, surveying his wispy hands. “I’ve gone plum gauzy.”
“Ooooh, you’re like a ghost, Gruncle Jack.” Grace laughed.
Jack shook his head. “Blast. Not sure how to fix this. ‘The shadow diminishes upon return’,” he quoted. “The translation makes better sense now.”
Smiling, I clutched sweet Grace to me, kissing her extra-squishy cheeks over and over. Tears finally caught up with me, happiness bubbling over.
Grace was back! I wanted to dance an awkward jig around the room and laugh maniacally. I settled for squeezing Gracie so tight she squeaked.
Branwell fetched us towels—Jack’s flew right through him when Branwell tossed it his way—but I wrapped one around me and proceeded to dry Grace off, tickling her until we were both breathless with laughter.
“What happened?” Branwell asked once Grace and I were dryer and snuggled together under more towels.
