“Yeah, it’s a tree. That’s where one would find birds. What’s your point?”
“What about that lady down there who has been checking her mail for the last thirty minutes it has taken you to find the nerve to get out of your car and stand here daydreaming?”
Turning, I see the old lady. She doesn’t appear to be watching us at all, making his question even more confusing.
“Oh, and my favorite, behind me, a jogger drinking from an empty water bottle.”
“What’s so special about a jogger?”
“He isn’t wearing shoes,” Jedrek whispers. “Sometimes they get things a little lost in translation.”
“Who does? Upper class?” I ask him, feeling like I’m lost in a verbal maze or one of those posters one must stare at for hours just to see a glimpse of an image.
His half smile finally reaches both sides. “You really don’t know.”
It isn’t a question. It’s a realization.
“How do you know I sat in my car?” I ask him, unwilling to further be a source of his amusement, at least this time.
He doesn’t say anything. He just wears the same smile and mirth filled eyes.
“Whatever.” Is the only reply I can muster. “Just behave?”
“Wounded you would think otherwise from someone who keeps saving your life.” He covers his voice in false sentiment.
“Potentially,” I correct.
He does an eyeroll, lifting his eyebrows as well with the motion. Pushing from the painted pillar, he maneuvers past me to ring the doorbell. When Miranda opens the door, he’s standing right beside me.
“You must be Miranda,” he says before she can open her mouth, but that isn’t what’s the most shocking.
Miranda smiles, something I have never seen her do. Her hand almost flutters to her chest, hovering like something from an old southern romance movie. If she had pearls, I’m sure she would be playing with them at this moment. I glance to him and it’s my turn to roll my eyes. There, on full display and wattage, is Jedrek’s smile and blue eyes peering over his glasses at the oddly, agreeable woman.
“Come in,” Miranda offers him, never looking to me.
“Thank you,” Jedrek tells her, but to me he whispers, “Always,” before slipping into the house.
I follow him with my face covered in disgust and annoyance. He strolls through the place draping and dropping his mask of flirtation each time Miranda turns away or turns to face him. He’s doing the same thing he had done earlier. His face may seem all for Miranda and every item she shows him, explaining every overly drawn-out explanation about it, but he’s actually looking for deeper hints of what the house may hold. Don’t blame him. How many painted bowls can one really care to hear about?
“You know,” he stops Miranda’s next avalanche of descriptions, “I could sure use a nice glass of water. How about you, Harper?” he asks turning to me with an innocent inquiry. “Do you need more water?”
“I wouldn’t want to put her out,” I say to them both, ignoring his jab about the bar.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Miranda almost coos, “I’ll be right back.”
Jedrek tilts backwards to watch the woman to be sure she’s completely gone. I know when she’s reached the corner of the room. Jedrek plasters one of his charming smiles, doing a little wave until she is fully out of sight and he can drop the act.
“Do your thing,” he whispers, still leaning to watch.
“My thing?” I whisper back.
“Yes!” Jedrek hisses, finally showing an emotion other than mockery and flirt. “That thing where you look like you’re daydreaming but doing something witchy.”
“I already did,” I tell him with a little annoyance and pride slipping through. “When you two were fawning over some painted egg, I searched the place.”
“And?”
“Nothing’s here.”
“You sure?” he asks, finally turning to look at me and not in the direction of the missing woman.
“You don’t understand,” I start as he turns his attention back to the path to the kitchen. “There’s nothing here. Not the family. Not the memories. Nothing. It’s a blank slate.”
Jedrek stands upright to fully turn towards me hearing my words. “How is that possible?”
I’m not sure if he’s asking me or just the space around us with spoken musing, but I choose to answer him since the chances of the house doing it is slim. “I was told, if someone wanted to be sure no one would find what we are looking for, they would be sure no one could find not only it, but any remnants of who it belonged to.”
“She wiped it so clean it’s a void,” Jedrek says with amusement and curiosity.
“She?” I ask, wondering just how much more he knows and isn’t sharing.
Jedrek shrugs, putting his smile back into place. He must have heard Miranda before I did for it’s all stage play and ‘thank yous’ when he turns.
“Harper here says your family has a little rumor issue?” Jedrek asks, sipping slowly from the glass of water. “Something about people thinking your daughter is back?”
“So silly isn’t it?” Miranda offers, as if he simply asked about what play her son was a part of for the past holidays.
“People will talk, won’t they?” Jedrek says, with a voice heavy with scandal and a face to match the claim.
He’s sitting on the large couch holding the glass like its expensive wine. With all of his dark clothes and dark hair you would think he would stand out like a glaring error, some décor glitch, but somehow, he seems to fit perfectly.
“How would one even do such a thing?” Jedrek asks, and when Miranda’s eyes swing to me, he sits up, pulling Miranda’s attention back to him saying, “I mean, obviously there are ways,” he drops his voice as if mocking someone right of ear shot adding, “so people say, anyway.”
Miranda, for the first time, looks nervous. With how she fidgets, I’m almost holding my breath waiting for her to confess everything to those staring blue eyes and disarming smirk.
“I wouldn’t know,” Miranda states. “Chad will be home soon.”
I watch her switch from flirtatious, to eager gossiper and now she has changed roles again becoming defensive. Unfortunately for Miranda, a little mention of a husband doesn’t faze Jedrek.
“You think he would know?” Jedrek asks, pulling on her fear of having too many conversations shared among too many people. “The strong husband and father dabbling in the dark arts. Positively scandalous.” Looking to me with more mirth than the situation deserves, he asks, “Whatever would the neighbors say?”
I’m out of my verbal league. I’ve been out of since I met him. Sipping my water with a raised eyebrow of a bluff, I stare at the woman whose mental battle is portrayed upon her face. I would love to tell the neighbors what a naughty little girl Miranda has been, and she knows it. In fact, the rest of the Ripples’ money cleared today. I may get a billboard made.
“You’ve seen the site.” Miranda turns to me, hoping our gender will seal us in some form of camaraderie. “Tell him there is no way I could do that. Tell him!”
“Your husband or Jedrek? Because honestly it’s only one of them you should care about.” I sip the water again as if I’ve won some medal of wit.
“Both!” Miranda’s hands are working harder than her face to implore me. “Tell them both.”
“You have no idea, not even an ounce of understanding, how your daughter’s grave keeps…” Jedrek pauses, looking at the ceiling as if the words he wants are upon it, “…becoming tossed like someone, or something, just crawled right up and out?”
If I had phrased it such, Miranda would have come unglued. Jedrek’s smile earns him a free pass.
“None,” she says. “Not a clue.”
“Well, that’s a pity the gossip mill just won’t let you live your life in mourning.” Jedrek’s face melts to one of compassion but his eyes still hold the mischief of a little
boy. He shrugs with his whole body before standing. “Thank you for the visit.”
His smile is for Miranda, but his eyes are for me and they aren’t very friendly. I’m not the only one who doesn’t believe a word she is saying.
“You don’t have to go.” Miranda is almost running to follow Jedrek.
“Oh, but I must.” He turns to her as if the hardwood flooring is ice, smooth and without a pause in his path. “Just think of the neighbors. A witch and now a man in the house of a wedded woman? Unaccompanied?” He shivers as if suddenly cold or frightened. “The scandal!”
Miranda had forgotten her one vice for a moment. Image is everything to her, and the thought of having it tarnished snaps her back to focus and less into his newest fan girl. She doesn’t say anything as Jedrek holds the door for me. He waves a little finger motion to where she has stopped, frozen with regret over his departure.
Once outside his act only dims a few wattages. Placing his sunglasses back upon his face, he strolls right to my parked car before I can ask or even invite him along. With one lift of his eyebrows, he makes himself at home in the passenger seat, watching me and waiting.
I want to scream with my frustration. This ‘demon’ has settled right into my life by a chance meeting. Now, he’s become my shadow and stalker all in the one.
“Coming?” He shouts out the window and I want to yell no.
I want to walk instead of riding in my own car with him. I want to demand he gets out of my car, that he takes his smirk and his blue eyes and gets out of my life, but I don’t. I won’t. I won’t do any of those things my mind is screaming for me to do and it’s becoming an annoying habit of mine.
We ride in silence. Me, seething in my frustration. Jedrek wearing his normal mask of a smirk while watching the view as if it is a scenic route. The ghost in the back is watching us both in her normal frump of a mood.
“Is she always this depressing?” Jedrek asks after another one of her long sighs.
“Is it so unbelievable not every woman is charmed by you?” I ask this but I keep my eyes on the road ahead. I don’t want to glance back and have Myrtle disagree with me. There has to be someone other than myself who is not moved by him.
“Actually, yes,” Jedrek says with that same annoying smile I was just mentally hating upon.
A thousand words are fighting to escape. A thousand rebuttals are waiting to try to dim the gleam in those eyes, but I don’t. A part of me knows he’d just enjoy the verbal battle.
“Home sweet home,” he says with a wide smile when I park the car in front of Great Hexpectations.
Slamming the door to the car, I don’t argue with him. I don’t even look to him, or invite him to follow me inside the shop. I know I don’t have to. He’ll do it anyway.
“GiGi?” I shout through the store when entering. “We’re here.” I drag the word ‘we’re’ so I can fully fill the syllable with contempt for having a sudden partner for this case.
“Making new friends?” GiGi Jo asks from beside me, chuckling when I jump hearing her voice.
“Maybe,” Jedrek answers before my anger could. “Tell me, how are you doing, Jo?”
GiGi doesn’t let his question stall her from rearranging the many decks of card on display. She’s adjusting them to her own measure of sorting with such concentration she can’t be bothered by him
“Same as I was when you asked last time and the same as I’ll be when you ask the next time,” she tells him, still balancing her display.
“You two know each other?” The pitch of my voice annoys me.
“I know all the witches,” Jedrek shrugs and begins to walk around the shop randomly touching items or tilting books by their spines.
GiGi shrugs, still fascinated with her attempted display.
“Nothing, huh?” I ask her back as she walks away.
“It’s like he said. They know all the witches.”
GiGi says this with nothing more than half interest, leaving me more confused. Which seems to be my pattern as of late.
“They?” I’m following her with my continued lines of questions. I swear she’s walking faster hearing me following her through the wooden shelves and to the counter.
“Oh, this one,” Jedrek mutters with mirth. “What a naughty thing you are not teaching her about her world.”
Something about his tone sets GiGi into an almost lectured child look. I’ve never seen the woman let someone belittle her before. She’s normally filled with more sarcasm than one should hold, and yet Jedrek somehow, with one sentence, has robbed her of all of it.
“Tell your grams what was in the tree today at the Torte’s house.” Jedrek is still roaming the store with false fascination.
“A bird. There was a bird in the tree,” I say with my arms raised in confusion. “Birds live in trees.’
“What color?” GiGi asks, finally finding her voice.
It’s my turn to shrug, but with confusion not avoidance. “Dark. It was a dark colored bird.”
“Did it sing? Make any noise?” GiGi’s face is one of concern and worry when she asks me.
I make a sound of confusion, unsure of what the bird did, or was doing. “It’s a bird!”
Jedrek smirks, almost chuckles and I have a feeling it’s not over the book in his hand. “Or the lady checking the mail, but my favorite,” he says, turning to face the two of us, “my favorite still has to be the jogger with no shoes. Just classic.”
He ends his statement with a smile so wide it almost looks genuine, but I’ve learned enough about him so far to know it’s not. It’s another toying, taunt at my expense.
GiGi sighs and it pulls her shoulders with the effort from it. “You’ve really stepped in it this time, haven’t you, Harper?”
I lift my arms in confusion and aggravation. Before I can open my mouth to defend myself from some unknown, at least to me, fuck up, I notice something I hadn’t before. The ghosts, normally roaming the store with peaceful ease, are hiding on the false upper floor. They are staring down where Jedrek stands in an almost fearful gaze. All except Janice. Janice is watching me as if I just betrayed her, as if I broke some best friend code.
“They can wait,” GiGi mutters, knowing well what my silent moments mean. “Tell me about what you found at the house.”
“Tell me why I should care about a bird.” I counter, still watching their strange behavior.
Jedrek flops most ungracefully into a reading chair. “Yes, tell her why we should care about a bird.”
GiGi glares at the man. “Because it wasn’t a bird, she wasn’t checking the mail and the jogger wasn’t enjoying the newly edged sidewalks.”
She sighs again. It sounds as if someone has stolen her favorite book and now, she has to come to the realization it’s gone. I have a feeling I’m the book.
“It was a magpie. She was a shade. He was a ghoul.” GiGi holds her hand to stop my stream of questions. “Magpies are used by witches to copy conversation and tell them what was said. Not the most reliable, but still used. Shades are servants to demons or other such beings. They are literally a shade, or replica, of someone who is real, or still living, so people don’t question why they are there. It’s the ghouls which have me worried. Why would vampires want to know what you’re doing?”
I look from Jedrek to GiGi waiting for one of them to start laughing or some kind of ‘just kidding’ moment. They don’t. GiGi has her concerns etched in every line of her age but Jedrek is still sitting, sprawled out over the chair’s wide arms watching us both with great interest.
I feel as if my head may explode. I knew there were others like me. There had to be, but a whole paranormal world, and not simply just sitcoms or sparkling remakes, but a real world all around me this whole time.
Before I can question her further, she flashes me a look of warning. It’s not just those above us who are holding mixed feelings about who is watching us.
“Now, your turn,” GiGi says
hoping I picked up on the hint to change the topic. “What did you find in the house?”
“Nothing,” Jedrek shouts from where he sits. “Weird, huh?”
“Like he said, nothing. Not even those who are currently living there,” I add to his answer.
“Not possible,” GiGi whispers it, but how she whispers it tells me it’s very possible.
“Exactly,” Jedrek states, standing with the same invisible thread-type of style as before. “Which means we aren’t dealing with a simple little housewife spell, not that a simple housewife could summon her daughter in full skin suit, but here we are ladies.”
“Why do you keep using the word ‘we’?” I ask him with more acid than I had meant to escape.
“Because we need him.” GiGi confesses as she wilts in the chair beside her. “We really need him.”
“Do we?” I almost shout to the woman who is normally ready to fight the world with angst or fists, whichever works best.
“You do, littlest witch,” Jedrek tells me, and for once he isn’t wearing his trademark smile.
“And why is that?” I ask him, wearing a mockery of his expression.
“Because I’m the only one who can keep you alive.”
There’s no flattery to his words. No boasting. No exaggerated gesture. He’s almost sad to admit it, which is what causes my stomach to twist.
“And this time, Harper,” he says, using my real name, “not just potentially.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask them both. “How are you the only one who can keep me alive? Better question,” I pause gesturing with my hands in a wide arch, “why would someone want me not alive?”
Jedrek is watching GiGi again. He’s holding his head between his hands in an almost boy like way. I’m starting to learn he does these types of things when trying to disarm someone. It’s the whole ‘look how harmless I am’ routine I’m sure serial killers do to lure their victims astray.
“Because you know, and now they know about you,” GiGi explains.
“Know what? About who? Me? What’s so great about me?” My voice sounds like a teen girl, again. It keeps hitting higher octaves with each word.
The Little Lies (The Great Hexpectations Series Book 1) Page 7
