by Ron C. Nieto
“That means... that there are more anchors for her? That she can actually kill me and be absolutely safe about it?” Lena asked, almost going into hysterics.
“Worse,” I said. “The couple we saw at the house that night means there's another set of ghosts... and they must be getting their energy from somewhere, too.”
“Couldn't they be human?” Alice asked.
“I... guess. I didn't see them. But we found records of that couple, and they died in the sixties. The nosy, scary neighbor hadn't seen anyone even approaching the house, either. Remember? And it'd take some kind of weird mojo to give you the illusion of a perfectly wealthy house when you went over to pick the furniture, so I'm kind of placing my bets on the ghost story.”
“It is ridiculous,” Lena interrupted, her eyes wildly going from me to Alice. “Why would they stick around? Forget the why. How?”
“That's what we need to find out.”
“Can I suggest colored Post-its?” Alice said.
“You don't want us to do a huge planner with information, right?” I groaned.
Alice grinned at me. “Well, I'd not say huge, but...”
My cell suddenly came to life and all three of us jumped. I checked the caller ID—my father—and the time—well past eleven p.m.
“Hey,” I said, picking it up without much enthusiasm.
“Are you okay?” It was funny, how he didn't ask where I was, or why I wasn't home, or who had told me I could go anywhere on a weekday night. We'd left all those questions behind years ago, when my mother died. These days, only being safe had any meaning.
“Sure,” I told him. “Listen, I'm sorry I didn't call. I planned to be back earlier, but got tangled up with something.”
“Are you at a friend's?” An uncomfortable note crept into his voice and I could hear the word “Alice” behind the meaning of “friends.” I held back a sigh, figuring that now he wondered whether I had gotten tangled up with homework or sheets.
“Yeah. We really need to get this done. I'm sorry. I don't know when I will be back. There's still stuff to wrap up here and we're all the way out in the outskirts of town so...”
That was a surreptitious way of telling him I wasn't doing what he thought I was. It also allowed me to tell him a measure of the truth, and I was more comfortable with that. Secrets and lies had never been a part of our family relationship, not until Beatrice came around.
“That's... pretty far off,” he said at length, totally dumbfounded. I could see him in my mind's eye, trying to figure out who was I friends with now, since obviously it wasn't anyone in my new small group. “Do you have a way to return home?”
My own two feet. I didn't tell him that, though, because then he'd get out of bed and drive to pick me up, whatever the time.
“Yep. Don't worry about it.”
“Let me know if there's any change in plans or if you need anything, okay?”
“Will do. Thanks.”
I hung up and turned to the girls. There was just Alice.
“Where did Lena go?”
“To get some paper, Post-its, color pens, that sort of stuff.”
“I can't believe we're going to do that. If anyone sees that chart, it'll be our one way ticket into the asylum,” I warned.
“It'll be fine. No one would believe we were discussing it for real.”
“If you say so. Before we get down to business, though, call home. If my father was missing me, your parents must be going up the walls.”
She pursed her lips but pulled out her cell, typed a text with lightning speed, and pocketed it again. “There. Feeling all better?”
“Slightly more responsible, yes,” I said, grinning.
Lena chose that moment to get back with a notebook and an armful of stationery goodies. She gave me a blue marker, handed a pink one to Alice and got a green one for herself. Then, she gave each of us a piece of paper.
“Start writing. Everything you know.” The sudden fear for her own life seemed to have brought a surge of energy out of her. Her cheerleader captain mind began organizing things and giving instructions just as the rest of her came to terms with a harsh truth—that teaming with us was had to be her best shot at survival because no one else in two hundred years had come as close as we had to thwarting Beatrice. “Then we'll share it and make one final, complete version.” She pointed her marker at my face. “And you can call your daddy again and tell him you're staying the night at your ‘friend's house' because no one is going anywhere until we figure something out.”
I texted him and then settled down to fill the paper. The marker was too thick to allow me to really write, and by this point, there were too many loose ends. I couldn't make a complete list. There was the issue of Beatrice's origin, but we had already talked about it. There was the house, which went from lived-in to ruinous in record time, but that was Alice's story to tell, since I had only been witness to the derelict half of it. There was the bit where students around us were coming down with temporary mental issues, but that was Lena's doing, so she knew all about it.
I tapped the felt point against the paper and sighed. There was just so much I could share, but I bent to the task at hand, focusing on the details and hoping we'd get to shed some light on the curse by dawn.
The first time I met Beatrice, it felt like it was my own idea. I got it while on set for Lady Windermere's Fan.
The first time I played the song, nothing happened but my cat went berserk.
The first time I lost control, Alice was the one to break me out of it.
The first time Alice distrusted me, I saw Beatrice.
There had been a portrait of Beatrice at some point. She hadn't looked kind or sweet.
The day we figured out that there was a ghost was the day I realized a ghost wanted to suck my soul dry.
The day I realized I was truly, genuinely in love with the real Alice and not with my ideal of her was the day I knew I would die for her.
The day after I didn't die, Beatrice's portrait disappeared from the set.
When it was all over, I began to fix the song that nearly killed me.
It wasn't all over.
Beatrice began to use my version of her song, and new victims started to survive her.
Surviving victims had random, violent reactions—usually targeting Alice.
Alice was assigned a furry bodyguard. Said bodyguard proved to be a danger to her house pristine state and to have an obsession with her British grandmother.
“Alright, stop,” Lena said. “Now that we're done, let's put it all together.”
“Who said we're all done?” Alice asked.
“Oh, you aren't?” Lena smirked when Alice had to bite her lip. “As I thought. Now, let's see those papers.”
It was nearing on one a.m. by the time we finished, but the method, however ridiculous, worked. We wrapped up the night with two pages full of small print, marker calls and post-it additions where the story was laid out in full.
We had already discussed the origins of the ghost and its curse, so there was little news there. Even so, Lena jotted a short version of it down, to have it all in one place she said. The next few years were reduced to Alice's notes: the articles about the curse, and how the Nightrays had migrated to the States to flee from it in the time of Jeremy Nightray, 1907.
At that point, there was a note from Lena describing the real reason for the locals and the Church of England getting too interested in their family affairs. There was a note to that note where Alice said there had been at least three recorded exorcisms, so Lena must be right.
Then, our notes moved to the years in the States: a list of all the deceased people I had found while in the library. In the sixties, Hubert Nightray came and went without children and the bloodline ended.
Lena wrote then that Hubert was her grandfather. When her mother had been born, he hadn't cared much either way. Lena's mother had met him just once, when she became a you
ng lady at the age of thirteen. I put in a note at that point—by then he had probably realized he wasn't going to get a legitimate son, so he was turning to his only other option. The girls both agreed, especially when Lena said that this one meeting had been all about instructions. That was how her mom had learned of the Nightray legacy, and Lena's mom had shared this information with Lena when she was thirteen.
The information had comprised all of the stuff noted above about origins and also an old ring hanging from a chain. The ring had belonged to Beatrice, and while stealing souls and having living family seemed to be enough to keep her around, Lena's mother was warned of the importance of the ring.
We inserted a Post-it there. Why was the ring important?
After a moment's consideration, I reached out and used my marker to draw a line from that Post-it to my own list: the portrait. Lena added a question mark at the end, and Alice leaned in and wrote another question: how many more?
She punctuated the mystery by yawning. I watched her carefully. She looked as tired as I felt, and while there were no signs of ghost activity going on, she needed to get some sleep as soon as possible. We all did.
“We should finish this tomorrow,” I said. “There's nothing to add. From now on it'll be a matter of thinking and finding the one thing we're all obviously missing. We're not going to find a pink elephant standing in the corner while we're like this.”
Alice agreed with me. In fact, she twisted a little, enough to burrow her face into the side of my neck. Lena gave our colorful work another once over, then looked at us. With a disgusted sigh, she nodded.
“You two will get the guest bedroom. We'll talk more tomorrow. Come on.”
There were about a thousand questions raised by that statement. I'm not proud to admit that not one of them was Beatrice-related. My worries began with how we'd get to school the next day, progressed to how we'd sleep, and stayed there.
Lena guided us to the upper floor and showed us a room with a king-size bed, generic but expensive decorations, and its own bathroom.
Alice motioned toward the bathroom. “You go first,” she said. “But don't use up all the hot water.”
I snorted. “I'll try not to.”
Chapter 19
I didn't use hot water at all. When I got out a few minutes later, even the cold air of a barely used room in winter felt warm to my freezing skin. Alice, who had been sprawling on the bed, got up when she heard the bathroom door open and gave me a funny look.
“Already done?” she asked, eyeing me dubiously.
“Yep.”
“Lena left one of her dad's sports shirts for you, if you can bear to part with your own clothes,” she teased with a smirk.
Parting with any kind of cloth barrier didn't sound like a good idea at the moment, and I was only seconds out of the worst cold shower I'd ever taken. The night promised to be long, even if we only had four or five hours left of it.
Alice slid past me into the bathroom, playfully pulling on the wet ends of my hair. She closed the door and I heard her complain about the lack of characteristic warmth second users always benefit from in the shower. Then she opened the water spray and I wrenched my thoughts away from that door.
Sure enough, there was an Ivy League grey T-shirt perfectly folded on the bed. I pulled mine off and dropped it on a chair, not really caring for order and neatness since the room was already pristine and sterile enough to give me the creeps. I liked to keep my things tidy, but at least you could tell someone lived in my house, as opposite to this home that offered a vacuum instead of a feeling of belonging. Then I put on Lena's father's tee and hoped he'd not take offence of my wearing it. Judging from the size, the guy was big enough to have played some kind of manly sport in his college days.
Since the shirt had been sitting on the left side of the bed, I took that to mean that that'd be my half and sat down, throwing back the comforters.
Then I sprung up again. Perhaps I should sleep on the floor or something. Assuming that we were going to share the bed felt kind of... wrong of me.
The floor wasn't carpeted. It looked cold and uncomfortable as all hell, which might actually have been a good idea. Except I wasn't such a good person, and I had no desire to step back. In the end, I sat down on the foot of the bed and waited for Alice to come out.
She opened the door after five more minutes or so, her skin glowing a rosy pink and barely concealed by the summer tank and shorts Lena had lent her.
I debated whether to curse the Queen for her choice or thank her for it.
Alice did a double take when she saw me sitting and staring at her and smiled. “Hey. I didn't know you'd be waiting like that,” she said, dumping her clothes on the chair, on top of my shirt.
“Like that,” meaning with this dumbfounded, creepy expression on my face?
At a loss for real excuses, I just shrugged.
She had pulled her hair up for the shower, but she proceeded to let it down again, shaking it loose and running her fingers through the strands a couple of times to make sure everything was in order. There were just too many things about that image that burned the blood in my veins, and nothing at all to give me the strength to keep my distance.
Except the thought that she was comfortable, trusting, and my mind couldn't get out the gutter. That helped sober me up a little, if not much.
“You aren't planning to sleep with your boots on, right?” she asked then, jumping to kneel on her side of the bed.
The laces were already undone and the socks off, so I leaned down on autopilot to take them off. When I straightened again, she was much closer. Close enough that I could see the slim rim of deep brown around her big, dark pupils. She reached out, her hand cradling the side of my face, and she pulled me in to meet her lips half-way.
“I'm getting the feeling that you're thinking about something stupid,” she whispered against my parted lips. I wasn't thinking much of anything, stupid or not. “Like, you're about to suggest taking the floor or a chair or staying on top of the covers.”
The idea had crossed my mind what felt like a lifetime before. At the time, I could only twist around to crawl toward her. Deep down, I knew that what she suggested would be the smart thing, the nice thing, and I wanted to do right by her.
Then again, they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I managed to acknowledge her words and shake my head in response before taking her lips again. She was so sweet, so perfect. The way her fingers threaded through my hair, pulling me to her with desire and without hurry, melted whatever sense still resided in my head.
“That's good,” she said when I left her lips to explore the column of her throat. “I didn't want to fight tonight.”
I didn't want to fight her, period, especially when this was all it took to make her happy.
Taking a deep breath and filling my senses with the smell of her clean skin with faint traces of whatever shower gel Lena's family stocked, I focused on kissing every inch of that skin. I could feel her pulse hammering in her neck, and when I placed an open-mouthed kiss on her collarbone, I felt her trembling.
Her hands reached to my waist and slid under the hem of my shirt, resting against the small of my back, and the warmth of her touch spread like wildfire along my spine. I sighed and trailed my lips along her collar, letting my teeth graze the skin and getting her to shiver.
God, I wanted her.
I swept aside the strap of her tank to kiss her shoulder; her hands kneaded my back and made my shirt ride up. And that was enough to break the spell.
It wasn't her tank. It wasn't my shirt. It was an impersonal bed in a house that wasn't ours, and didn't even belong to someone we cared about or trusted. This was not how it was supposed to go.
I pushed back, breathing too heavily for comfort, and sat straddling her hips, resting my weight in my arms and trying to regain control. Her hands slid down my back and hips a moment later, almost like a caress, a
nd I dared to look at her.
He eyes were still glazed, but her lips, swollen from kissing, quirked up at the corner. “It was nice pretending it was a good idea for a while, wasn't it?” she whispered. The charged mood dissipated into her smile and I had to laugh.
“Just nice?” I asked, mock-offended, and toppled down by her side.
“Mmmh. I might consider revising my statement whenever we can get to a second demonstration.” She scurried under the covers and curled up against my side when I did the same. Her voice, which had taken the snotty tones of her best Princess act, dropped to the tender, loving register that never ceased to amaze me. “For now, though, this is nice,” she said, pillowing her head on my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her and surprised myself thinking that yes, it was nice. And having her there, like that, and being the first thing she saw in the morning and falling asleep to the rhythm of her heart thumping against my chest? That was enough.
For now.
Chapter 20
The next morning, I woke up much too soon. I felt as if I had just closed my eyes. But my cell alarm screamed from the bedside table, which probably meant we were already late, so I sighed in defeat. The day was starting, with or without me.
“That alarm will have to go if we have any future in common,” Alice mumbled, her head pillowed by my side and nearly hidden under the comforters, which she had hoarded through the night quite fiercely.
“Good morning, you too,” I told her, kissing the top of her head.
“Bathroom's yours first.” Not a morning person. That was okay.
When we went down, hoping to catch something for breakfast, Lena startled from the cupboard she was rummaging through. She had done her full metamorphosis thing and looked like her usual self, but there was a crack in her mask when she saw us sauntering into her kitchen, as if she had forgotten we were spending the night at the place.
