Speaking of which, Asher had been missing for most of the day. I wasn’t about to admit that I missed him, or that I worried that maybe I’d run him off, finally, with my nasty attitude. I caught myself looking for him, for the hundredth time that day, and it annoyed me. I didn’t want to be that girl. All needy and insecure, not to mention, controlling. I gave myself a little mental shake and forced my thoughts in a different direction.
Halloween is always a good subject, and one that I never get tired of. I’d already made plans to go over to Gwen’s house for Halloween night. Her mom, Missy always threw a big pitch-in dinner that turned into a block party for the neighbors. My dad would probably be working, so with neither of us home, I planned to put out a big bowl of fun-sized candy bars and a sign inviting the little ghosts and ghouls to ‘treat’ themselves. I just hoped that one greedy kid didn’t come along and take the whole thing. I’d done it that way the past two years, and so far, so good. At least I hadn’t come home to find toilet paper and rotten eggs all over the yard.
My attention floated towards the little girl watching me. The way she watched me creeped me out just a teeny bit. Really, I’m not that interesting. Yet she remained focused on me. It made me more than a little uncomfortable.
The strangest thing was, she was swinging on my neighbor’s porch swing, and nobody seemed to notice. Their cars were in the driveway, so I was pretty sure someone was home. I’d never seen her in the neighborhood before, yet there she was, swinging back and forth as the swing’s old, rusted chains squeaked in protest. Back and forth, the toes of her patent leather shoes barely brushed the concrete.
“You know, if you’re going to watch me, you might as well come over and help me.” I raised my voice a little, so it would carry across the street. The kid jumped like I’d screamed at her. She looked guilty, and a little shocked that she’d been caught. I smiled and waved at her, trying to be friendly. She looked both ways before motioning towards herself. “Yeah, you. Do you want to come help?”
The girl seemed to hesitate, then nodded as she smoothed the skirt of her dress and petticoats. Her smile was small, but beautiful. The old porch swing gave one final squawk and settled back into place as she hopped down.
She nearly gave me a heart attack when she crossed the street. She didn’t look for oncoming traffic, and the guy in the red Ford Taurus that sped by, never slowed down. Jerk.
She came up to me slowly, like she might want to run the other way, instead. “Are you crazy? That guy almost turned you into road kill!”
The girl turned and watched the car as it continued down the street. “He didn’t see me.”
“No kidding. You have to be careful. You don’t want to get hurt.” She backed up a couple of paces, eyes huge. “Look, I’m sorry. You just scared me, is all. I’m Izzy. What’s your name?”
It took her a moment to answer. I wasn’t sure she’d heard me the first time, and was about to repeat the question when she finally answered. “Madeleine,” she answered, shyly. Then, she bobbed an odd little curtsy in my direction. “My name is Madeleine Elaine Price.”
“Wow. That is an awfully grown-up name, Madeleine.” I held up a wad of fake spider web. “So, do you want to help me?”
She nodded, but didn’t look too enthused about the idea of being put to work. I laughed as I handed her the webbing. “Izzy? What is it?” She glanced at the webbing like she’d never seen anything like it before.
“Spider web.” No sooner had the words left my mouth, than she shrieked and dropped it. “It’s not real spider web, silly. It’s fake. Look.” I stretched it out so she could see the fibers and the plastic spiders that came with it.
She giggled, weakly. “Oh, sorry. You must think me foolish.” She had a strange vocabulary for such a little girl.
“I think you probably aren’t from around here.” I nodded towards my neighbor’s house. “Do you know the Browns?”
A shake of her head sent her curls flying. “No, not really.”
“So what were you doing over there?”
Madeleine glanced away before looking at me. “Watching you.”
“Really?” I was getting the idea that something was wrong with this kid. She dressed funny, she acted funny, she even spoke funny, and not in the ‘ha, ha’ sense, either. “You’re bound to have better stuff to do than watch me. I’m not that interesting.”
Her little heart-shaped face lit up with her smile. “Oh, but you are. You can see me!” And there is the crazy, I thought, as I sat down on my porch step. I knew, deep down, that she wasn’t what she’d seemed. There was more to little Madeleine than met the eye, but I sensed no threat from her.
“Sit down, kid.” I patted the concrete step next to mine. Madeleine sat down and smoothed her skirts down over her knees. She was quite the little lady. Kids these days don’t wear dresses like that. I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Madeleine, don’t people usually see you?”
She shook her head. “No. People seem to overlook me, these days.”
I held out my hand. “Can you shake hands with me?” She placed her tiny hand in my much larger one, and I felt the shock of pure energy coming from her. Energy, but no flesh. Madeleine was a ghost.
“Can you feel my hand, Madeleine?”
She pursed her lips into a perfect rosebud as she concentrated. Finally, she shook her head. “Not exactly. You feel funny. Not like the others. I thought you were different when you saw me the first time. Now I know you are, but what are you?”
“I have no idea. I’m still trying to figure that out. Want to be friends, anyway?”
She nodded quickly. “I would love that very much. I haven’t had a new friend, in ever so long.”
I’m generally not that fond of children. I make the exception for Gwen’s little Brother, James, because he’s extremely cute and worships me. He’s also Gwen’s Brother, and therefore family. Madeleine, I felt certain, would be another exception. There was something so adult and sad about her; I just wanted to make everything all better for her, even though I knew that was impossible. Whatever tragedy had happened to her, had happened long ago.
“Madeleine, do you remember the last thing that happened to you, before people stopped seeing you?”
Her little forehead wrinkled up in concentration, and I was almost sorry that I’d asked. She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought back. “There was a fire,” she said, slowly. “In our apartment building. There was a lot of smoke, and the baby was crying. There were firemen out in the streets with blankets, and my papa tossed the smaller children out the window to them.” Goosebumps crawled up my spine at her words, spoken so matter-of-factly.
She’d died in a fire. I was sick at the thought. “What else? Do you remember what happened to you?”
“I’m not sure. I remember falling, but then everything went dark.” She frowned at the memory. “I don’t think they caught me, do you?”
“No, honey, I don’t think they caught you.” I started to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but dropped my hand since I wasn’t sure she could even feel it. “Do you remember seeing anyone, right after that? A man, or a woman, probably someone you knew?”
“I thought I saw my granny, but it wasn’t her. It was a woman with red eyes, and she scared me, so I ran away. Sometimes, I see her and she still scares me.” She still saw her Reaper? Was that even possible?
“Madeleine, I know she may look scary, but believe it or not, that lady was trying to help you.”
Her eyes were huge, and I swear I saw tears pooling. “She isn’t trying to help, Izzy. She hunts us, and when she finds us, she sends us to a terrible place and they do terrible things to us. That’s what happened to Evan. She caught him, and he’s gone, now.”
“Who is Evan?”
“My friend. You saw him; he’s a little boy. And he’s gone, now, and I’m all alone.” She broke off in a ragged whisper, and the tears she’d been holding spilled over and ran down her cheeks.
> “I’m sorry, honey. Maybe Even isn’t really gone.”
She shook her head sadly. “No, I saw the bad lady take him. He thought you could help us, but it was too late by the time we found you again.”
“Help you? Why would Evan think I could help? I mean, I will if I can, but why would he think I could, in the first place?”
She sniffed, delicately. “Because, Izzy, he saw you, when that lady went to Heaven, and he told me that you were like the others, but not like them.”
“The others?” I had a tiny suspicion about Evan. He was the little boy I had seen in Wal-Mart, I would bet anything.
“The others,” she insisted, a frown line appeared between her brows as she tried to clarify what she meant. “The ones with the glowing eyes.”
I nodded, understanding. “Those are Reapers, Madeleine. I’m not really like them.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Evan thought you might be, though.”
“I’m really not like them, but I have a friend who may be able to help you.” I hoped Asher would be able to help her, but I didn’t know if there was really anything that he could do for her. She was one of the lost ones. A Sorrow.
Chapter 23…Izzy
“Absolutely not!” I backed away from Gwen in horror. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“It’s not that bad, Iz. Also, it’s not entirely my fault. The pickings were getting mighty slim at the costume shop. That’s what we get for waiting till the last minute to buy an outfit. If you’d just come with me, maybe you could have found something better, but it was either these or a chicken and an egg outfit.”
“First, I had a test to study for, so I couldn’t come with you, and second, I’d rather you had gotten me the egg outfit. You could be the chicken.”
Gwen smiled wickedly as she held the outfit up for inspection. “I thought you, of all people, could appreciate the irony of this.”
“A black-winged angel costume, Gwen? Are you serious? Are you trying to get me killed?”
“Come on, where’s your sense of humor, Iz?”
“Where’s your sense? I can’t go to your mom’s costume party wearing a slutty angel outfit.”
“This isn’t slutty angel. Slutty angel is just a G-string and pasties with wings. This actually has a dress with it. Also, slutty angel costs about twenty bucks more, even with less material,” she shrugged. “Go figure.” She draped the costume across the end of her bed. “This, my dear, is mysterious, possibly, Fallen angel.”
The costume was kind of pretty, I grudgingly admitted. It was more of a little black dress, really. The sleeves were detached, and made from some kind of gauzy, sparkly material that could be easily seen through. I fingered the material; it was silky, and as light as air. The sleeves attached at the shoulders and the back of the dress. When the arms were lifted, they billowed out into wings. Genius. The ‘wings’ were still pretty, but there wasn’t any big, fake feathered monstrosities on the wearer’s back this way.
“If you want, you can have the white angel costume. I was gonna take it, but you can have it, if you want. I’m flexible like that.” Gwen draped the twin outfit across the bed, next to the black one. They were perfectly matched, except where the black was highlighted with silver, the white one was done in gold.
I snorted. “Nobody in their right mind would buy you as the ‘good’ angel. Nobody who knows you, anyway.”
“That’s exactly what I thought, too. See-- irony at its best.”
The costume was beautiful, no doubt. It was also likely to get me killed. “It’s pretty, but not a good idea, Gwen. Where is the witch outfit you wore last year? I can wear that.”
“Even if it would fit you, which it wouldn’t because you’re a munchkin, it’s gone. Mom put it in the Good Will donation pile when she went through last spring and cleaned the closets out.”
“Crap.” There was only a couple of hours before people would start showing up for the party. We had been cleaning the house and making creepy finger food all morning: some of it looked like real fingers and toes. And eyeballs. I was kind of tired and really didn’t feel like going back to the party store in hopes of finding a different costume.
Gwen could tell I was wavering. “Just try it on. If you hate it, I swear I will trade you.” She gathered the dress up and shoved it into my arms. I marched into the bathroom. It wouldn’t hurt just to try it on. It would make Gwen happy.
“This may be the worst idea you’ve ever had, Gwen.” She shut the door on me with an audible click.
“Just try it on,” she called through the door.
The dress was tight, but it gave me curves in places that I never had before. I slipped the sleeves up and hooked them into the tiny buttons at the shoulders of the dress. It took some contortion and possible karate moves, but I finally got the button hooked at the back of the dress, too.
I took a deep breath and stepped back into Gwen’s bedroom. I smoothed the skirt down and spread my wings out with a little flourish. The dress came to about an inch above my knees. If I’d been taller it would have been a mini-skirt, but it was a good length for me.
Gwen’s smile was brilliant and wicked. “Wow. You look awesome, Iz. I can’t believe how long your legs look in that outfit.”
“Tee, hee. Yuck it up. That white dress is going to look like a shirt on you, Lady Long Legs.”
She only giggled as she circled me. “So, you’ll wear it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope. Not really.” She grabbed a hairbrush. “Sit down so I can fix your hair. No arguments.”
It wouldn’t do me any good to argue, I was sure. I dropped down on the edge of Gwen’s bed and waited patiently while she grabbed bobby pins and hair ties out of her dresser drawer. “So what are you doing to me?”
“I’m not sure.” She eyed my head critically, turned it back and forth like she’d never seen it before. “I think a braid, maybe, or just a curly up-do. Any preferences?”
“Surprise me.”
And surprise me, she did. Half an hour later, after much brushing and twisting, and only minor pulling, she turned me towards the mirror to reveal a braided bun with a few wispy curls escaping around my nape and temples. It was kind of elegant.
“Damn, I’m good,” Gwen declared, as she stepped back to admire her handiwork. “The purple highlights in your hair look awesome with that dress. I swear I should become a stylist.”
“It’s pretty, but you’ve been playing ‘Barbie’ long enough. You need to go get dressed.” I couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm. The whole outfit was a bad idea from the start. On the other hand, things had been fairly quiet for a few days, so maybe I could get by with it.
A quiet little knock on the door interrupted us. James barely waited for an invitation, before popping his head through the door. He came all the way into the bedroom and looked me up and down. “Looking good, isn’t she, Squirt?” He nodded his agreement, eyes huge. Gwen giggled at him, pleased that someone appreciated all of her hard work. “Hey, check this out.” She motioned for me to raise my arms.
I stood up and lifted my arms overhead so the wings could be seen, and did a little turn for him. James danced around me excitedly. “Those are so cool! Are you going to fly with them?”
I chuckled weakly. “I hope not.” I’d just about had enough of flying, thanks so much.
“You’re so pretty, Izzy.” He sort of turned his head this way and that, obviously trying to decide what I was supposed to be. Finally he gave up and asked, “Are you a butterfly?”
“Aww, you say the sweetest things.” I shook my head, and laughed. “You’re close; I’m an angel.”
“What kind of angel has black wings,” he asked. It was eerie sometimes, how much he reminded me of Gwen.
“An awesome angel,” I answered. “Your sis picked it out for me.” He nodded. If Gwen did it, then it must be awesome. Everything Gwen did was awesome, in his eyes. “You look pretty cool, yourself.” His outfit was red and gol
d, with extra padding where his muscles should be. He even had a glowing, battery-powered disk in the middle of his chest. “Iron Man, right?” He flexed a padded bicep for me and smiled, happy he was so easily recognized. “Where’s your helmet?”
“I left it in my room, for now. Can’t see out of it.”
Gwen patted the top of his blond head. “Probably better leave it off till you go downstairs, Squirt. We don’t want you landing head-first in the living room. A trip to the emergency room would ruin Halloween for everybody.”
“I’ll be careful, Gwen.” He was so sweet. I almost dreaded watching him turn into a teenager someday. Teenaged boys are usually horrible creatures with too much attitude and not enough good sense. I simply couldn’t picture little James turning into one of them, one day.
“Did you want something, Squirt, or are you just visiting? Because I really need to get dressed, myself. ”
“Oh, um, Mom said to tell you guys to hurry up. She’s still trying to get Daddy into his costume, I think, and she needs help. With the food and music, and stuff. Not with getting Daddy dressed.” He turned a little pink and giggled at his own joke.
“Got it. Tell her we will be down in a few minutes.”
“Okay.” He spun on his heel and ran full-speed down the hallway.
Gwen snatched her outfit off the bed and headed towards the bathroom. I opened her nail polish drawer and dug around till I found a quick drying silver glitter that would look good with my outfit. I figured I had a few minutes to kill while Gwen primped.
One hand was finished, and I was down to two fingers left bare on the right hand when I felt him. Asher was back. Stubbornly, I kept my back turned and my head down as I finished the last two fingers. His hand fell on my shoulder and trailed down my nearly bare back. I shivered at the contact, but couldn’t force myself to move away, even though I knew I should.
Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series Page 26
