by Hudson, Tara
“Oh, great,” I groaned, deflating. “Every time you make up your mind, it’s impossible to talk sense to you.”
His grin widened. “Yup. I become an immovable object.”
“Oh yeah?” I grumbled. “And did you ever think that maybe I’m the unstoppable force?”
His smile softened as he placed his fingers at the curve of my waist. “If anything in this life is unstoppable, it’s you, Amelia. Just ask Eli.”
I tried not to wince at the mention of Eli’s name. It provoked thoughts of other things. Things that I almost but not quite forgot each time I stared into Joshua’s eyes.
I suffered a near unbearable pinch of guilt when I thought about the Christmas present I’d planned for Joshua: abandonment.
Abandonment for his own protection, but abandonment still. Whether on my own or wandering with a pack of ghosts, I had no intention of staying.
“Amelia? Are you really mad about the Christmas thing? ’Cause if you are …”
Joshua’s voice called me back to the present, especially when he trailed off. The uncertainty in his tone reminded me to stay anchored in this moment. I had to maximize my time so that both he and I could remember our last minutes as happy ones—probably a disservice to him but a necessity for me, if I wanted to survive the rest of my eternity without him.
I mustered all my courage and flashed him my brightest smile. “I’m not mad at all. Not one bit. But I do have one requirement, okay?”
Joshua nodded. “Name it.”
I curved up one corner of my mouth and placed one hand on the front of his shirt.
“Let me give you your present tonight,” I said in a low purr.
Delight soon replaced the momentary surprise in Joshua’s eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, Amelia.”
“Good,” I answered, almost roughly. Then, without further warning, I pressed my hand on Joshua’s chest. Hard.
The force of my shove knocked him off balance, and he flew back toward the tiny bed, taking me with him. In the fraction of the second that we fell together through the air, I stopped his surprised laughter with a fiery, blissful kiss.
We landed on the bed in a tangle, pulling each other into another kiss as quickly as we could. His fingers in my hair, my arms around his neck: everything felt warm and fantastic and right.
While we kissed, I mostly focused on Joshua. But that quiet, desperate part of my brain continued to pray for three things: that Joshua and I would never have to stop doing this; that when we inevitably did, I would find a way to leave him kindly and safely—at least, safely for him; and finally, that just for tonight I wouldn’t have to disappear from his side.
The next morning came too quickly. Though we hadn’t done much more than kiss, I wanted to spend the rest of the day luxuriating in our time together. But Joshua was all jittery excitement as he jumped out of bed and hurriedly threw on new jeans and a sweater. Too soon, he dragged me down the staircase and into the tiny dining room where most of the Mayhew clan had gathered for breakfast. Even then—surrounded by family, friends, and a mouthwatering feast of fruit, bacon, and breakfast gumbo—he bolted down his meal without taking the time to chat, much less breathe.
While he threw down his napkin and gave his aunt Trish a mumbled thank you, I cast a final glance around the room. Ruth had once again failed to join her family. After last night’s little trick with the dust, I more than suspected that had something to do with my presence. All the more reason to follow Joshua on his mission today and get out of the house from which she’d tried to ban me last night.
Before we left, however, I noticed that another face was strangely missing from the breakfast table: Alex’s.
With the exception of their leader, the entire crew of young Seers had made it to breakfast. Annabel, Drew, and Hayley (who evidently had permission to stay over) all huddled together over steaming cups of chicory coffee, each looking the worse for wear after last night’s partying. Jillian also looked inexplicably tired as she glowered at her plate of fruit. She’d probably paced in her room all night, silently bemoaning her tragic social life.
But Alex must have chosen to stay in bed.
Odd, I thought. He didn’t strike me as the late-to-rise type. Then I reminded myself that I hardly knew most of these people.
And in two days I would no longer know them at all....
The warm grasp of Joshua’s hand in mine stirred me from that thought. After giving Annabel a knowing look (which I assumed meant she knew what my present was), Joshua pulled me gently from the dining room. I followed him through the foyer—a far less menacing place in the daylight—and out onto the sidewalk.
The French Quarter looked quite different in the sun, as well. No longer mysterious and shadowed, the streets were welcoming, their colorful shutters flung open to the day. Despite the bright winter air, green ferns cascaded over the balconies above us, some of their tendrils reaching up toward the sky. And although the Mayhews’ town house was in a somewhat residential area of the Quarter, the sidewalk bustled with camera-wielding tourists and harried residents carrying bags full of last-minute gifts.
Joshua gave my hand a quick squeeze before releasing it so that we could move less conspicuously down the street. From the corner of his mouth, he said, “Your present is a couple blocks away. That okay?”
I just nodded, too absorbed in the sights and sounds of the Quarter to answer. We rounded a corner and crossed onto what looked like a more commercial street. As we walked, I couldn’t help but gape into all the shop windows, which displayed everything from ornate, antique furniture to mannequins in outrageous clothing and wildly colored wigs.
When we crossed another street, I could see a motley group of street musicians about half a block away, setting up some makeshift seats next to an open guitar case on the ground. Only after Joshua and I walked out of view did I hear their music: lush, classical jazz … amazing, when I realized it came from their battered instruments. Listening to the music fade into the distance, I sighed wistfully.
To my surprise, my next breath brought with it a brief whiff of scent. Some sharp, delicious spice overlaying the briny smell of seafood. The sensation faded quickly, as my sensations always did, and I groaned softly. Once again I felt that all-too-familiar rush of satisfaction and frustration.
Hearing my groan, Joshua turned back to me with a concerned expression. I shook my head, indicating that I was fine.
Still, his steps slowed and he looked around the street … to make sure it wasn’t too crowded, apparently, because he reached back to take my hand. As he guided me into another alley, I held tight, letting the fire of our touch spread up the veins of my wrist.
I enjoyed the electric tingle so much, I almost didn’t notice that Joshua and I had left the busiest sector of the Quarter. When I started to pay better attention, I saw that our surroundings had shifted from flashy and eclectic to dusty and worn. Here, the shops looked grayer, shabbier. Nor did they boast crowds of onlookers and shoppers. In fact, only two other people were walking on this street. And judging by how they hurried along, they weren’t here on a leisurely stroll.
So I was more than a little surprised when Joshua stopped suddenly in front of a diner with a dirty, cracked front window. Inside, I could just make out the sputter of a neon light, sending off its death glow above several rows of empty tables. The place made me think of a few choice words, “sketchy” and “shady” being the forerunners.
Joshua pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and frowned down at a bunch of scribbles. He looked up at the diner—the Conjure Café, according to the chipped red paint on the window—then back at the paper.
“Um, Joshua?” I prompted. “What are we doing here?”
“I don’t want to tell you, but maybe I need to warn you in advance …?” he mused, more to himself than to me.
“Warn me about what?” I demanded warily.
He flashed me an anxious, close-lipped smile. Then he flicked his head in t
he direction of the diner.
“Well … your present—it’s kind of inside.”
I blanched. “In there? What are you trying to give me, the Plague?”
He shook his head, snickering nervously. “We’re not hanging out in the diner, Amelia. We’re going to the back. In the kitchen, I think.”
“Joshua, honey, I appreciate the effort, but I don’t really think I need to see the Conjure Café’s culinary masterpieces in the making.”
“I promise this isn’t about the food,” he insisted. “We’re supposed to meet someone in there is all.”
“Who?” I gasped, trying not to imagine someone holding my present in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other.
Joshua hesitated, about to say something. Then he shook his head again, obviously reversing course. “Please, Amelia. Just trust me.”
I pulled my eyes from his and peered into the dim interior of the diner. When I turned back to Joshua, I practically had to rip my bottom lip from my teeth to answer him.
“Against my better judgment, I trust you. But if I see Sweeney Todd back there, so help me God I’m running in the opposite direction, and you can fend for yourself.”
“Deal,” Joshua said, letting out a strangled laugh that made me wonder what made him more nervous: my possible reaction to his gift, or the fact that he’d have to go inside this place to get it.
Before I had the chance to ask him, he crossed in front of me and walked up the two crumbling steps to the front door of the Conjure Café. He pushed on the door, holding it wide-open for me since we didn’t have much of an audience. I took a little gulp for courage, sent up a silent request that I wouldn’t regain my sense of smell when we were inside, and followed Joshua into the diner.
The bell above the entrance gave a weak chime as the door shut behind us. I glanced up quickly, worried that a patron might notice Joshua holding the door open for thin air. But no one occupied the tables scattered haphazardly near the windows.
As Joshua and I moved cautiously toward the back of the dining area, I studied the place further. Besides the fact that this had to be the least-populated restaurant in New Orleans, something about the café felt … off.
The few tables held none of the “extras” you saw in normal diners: no napkin holders, no bin of sugar packets, no salt and pepper shakers. In fact, there didn’t seem to be enough chairs to serve a small dinner crowd. I couldn’t see a cash register anywhere, either. Not even on the long counter in the back, where a bored attendant stood flipping through a tattered magazine.
Something told me that, if people patronized this café at all, it certainly wasn’t for food. My suspicion only grew stronger when Joshua and I approached the back counter.
The attendant, an acne-scarred man who looked well past fifty, hardly stirred when Joshua leaned against the counter directly in front of him. Finally, after being ignored for longer than reasonable, Joshua cleared his throat.
“Um, excuse me?” he said, checking the slip of paper one more time. “I’m looking for … Marie?”
Still silent, the attendant raised one arm and pointed to a curtained doorway at the very back of the restaurant.
“Can we … I mean, can I just go on in?” Joshua asked.
The attendant merely nodded without looking up from his magazine. Joshua caught my gaze and shrugged. I could see my own discomfort reflected in his eyes, but I could also see his determination to follow through with this project. Gnawing wildly on my lip, I nodded reluctantly.
We walked toward the curtain together, and my misgivings intensified with each step.
“Will you just give me a little hint about what we’re doing here?” I murmured, grateful that the attendant completely ignored us.
My question must have made Joshua uncomfortable, because he paused with his hand only inches from drawing aside the curtain. In the softest whisper he could manage, he said, “I’ll tell you if you promise not to be mad.”
“I could never be mad at you,” I whispered back. “But you have this uncanny ability to seriously freak me out.”
Joshua bit his bottom lip—a bad habit he’d obviously picked up from me—and his gaze shifted to the closed curtain. He was silent for so long, I became impatient.
“Could you at least tell me where we are? I mean, where we really are?”
His hand lingered beside the curtain a moment longer, and then as if to answer me, he tugged back the fabric.
For nearly a full minute I had no idea what I was seeing. Instead of a sterile, brightly lit kitchen, this café had some kind of cavelike storage room in the back. At least that’s what it looked like at first.
The room had low ceilings and narrow walls painted dark brown and lined with endless rows of shelves, which were stocked with jars and books and little statues. Roughly hewn candelabra flickered through the dark haze of smoke pouring out of several incense burners.
I peered closer at the strange powders and liquids swimming in the jars, and at the skeletal-faced statues surrounding them. Then I recoiled.
“Oh my God,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “You brought me to a Voodoo shop.”
Chapter
FIFTEEN
My brain was in the process of sending a “run away” signal to my muscles when Joshua began to spill forth a rush of words, half of which made no sense.
“I know you’re mad,” he sputtered, “but I just had to tell Annabel about all the problems you’ve been having with materializing, and about all your bad dreams and worries and stuff, and then she told me about this place and how they might be able to help you feel better, or more ‘at peace,’ or something. And maybe it was a bad idea, but I’ve wanted to help you so badly that I sort of—”
While Joshua rambled through his explanation, I felt my vision blur with anger and fear. But before I had the chance to chew him out, someone else beat me to the chase.
“And just who might you be?”
Joshua and I turned simultaneously toward the paper-thin voice that came from the far, unlit corner of the room. There, hidden underneath a canopy of dried herbs, I could just make out the rounded shape of a person.
When the shape moved, I took an involuntary step backward. But I straightened my spine, steeling myself for what might come out of the shadows. Once the shape revealed itself fully, I took a tiny breath of relief.
As far as I could tell, the stately looking black woman who emerged from the shadows was neither a demon nor a ghost. Just a very, very old human. Thousands of wrinkles creased her face, around which only the slightest wisps of white hair—free from her severe bun—curled. She held her hands in a formal clasp in front of her dress and appraised Joshua suspiciously.
“Are you Marie?” Joshua asked.
In the shifting candlelight, I thought I saw the woman smile.
“That depends on who’s asking,” she said.
“Um … me?” he offered.
“Me, who?”
This time I definitely heard a laugh dancing its way through her words. For whatever reason, she was having a little fun at the expense of the young man who had so foolishly entered her shop.
Joshua, clearly intimidated by this woman, took a tentative step forward and extended his hand to her. “Joshua Mayhew, ma’am. My cousin, Annabel Comeaux—she sent me to you?”
The woman ignored Joshua’s hand. “I’ve never heard of the girl.”
Now her tone was cold and unyielding—all her amusement gone like a wisp of incense. She remained motionless in the corner, hands still clasped imperiously in front of her like some statue of an unfriendly god.
I watched Joshua flounder beside me for a few uncertain seconds. But quickly his resolve returned. He didn’t intend to leave here empty-handed, no matter how much wiser that course might be … no matter how much I might want him to.
“Ma’am,” Joshua said with more force. He dropped his hand but inched closer to her. “A person I care about needs help with her … afterlife, actually. My cousin
told me you were someone who could do stuff like that.”
A beam of candlelight fell across the old woman’s face, revealing an arched eyebrow. “And what do you think I could do for this person’s afterlife, young man?” she asked.
Joshua gave me a quick glance. “You could help her learn more about why she is … the way she is maybe? Help her learn how the dead can control things. How she could control things.”
Before he’d even finished his request, the old woman shook her head forcefully.
“I don’t provide those kinds of services, boy. I might help protect you from a ghost that means you harm, or make an offering to a spirit. But I don’t presume to guide the spirits myself. Besides, my spells are for the living—for their luck, power, or money. You want something like that, I can help you.”
“No,” Joshua insisted. “This isn’t for me. This is for someone who’s already dead. I want to help her.”
“I already told you, boy, I won’t do that.” She unclasped her hands and folded her arms across her thin chest. “Since you clearly can’t listen—and I suspect you’re cursed by this spirit—I’ll ask you to leave now.”
She can’t see me, I realized. She hadn’t once looked in my direction, and now she only suspected that Joshua was haunted. For all her potions and powders, she had none of the sight that Joshua and his family possessed.
I turned to tell Joshua as much, but he was too focused on the task at hand to hear me.
“I’m not cursed,” he replied angrily. “I just need your help. Are you refusing to give it to me because you won’t do anything, or because you can’t?”
Now Joshua had gone too far. I didn’t realize the woman had more inches to gain; but when she drew herself up to her full height, she seemed to tower over us. Her frail appearance was gone, as was her shaky, paper-thin voice.
“You will leave,” she commanded in a deep, resonant voice that seemed to reverberate much louder than it should in that tiny room.
