I tried to tie her words to my confession. “What are you looking for?” I asked. The question felt larger than the words it was made of.
She wrapped her hand around the charm at her throat. “It is such a long story.”
“Oh,” I said, although I didn’t really understand.
“Do you ever find lost things?” she asked, after a while.
I kicked at the ground, and the swing arced up and back hypnotically. There were plenty of lost things I wanted to find, but most of those were people, or times, or places. Nothing that lurked in a box or under a pile of laundry.
“Not me,” I admitted. “But there are people here who do that.” As much as I wanted to be the one to help her, the thought that I’d try and fail terrified me.
“What do you do?” she asked gently.
“I see weird ghost boys,” I said, because at the moment, Tristan was all I could really count on. “So, tell what you’re looking for.”
She looked at me, her eyes shifting from green to blue and back again in the light that filtered through the breeze-blown trees. “Better than that,” she said. “I was coming to your room to ask… If you do not mind me playing your piano, it would, perhaps, be clearer for me to show you.”
Chapter 15
Russ
Eating breakfast alone was nothing new, since my dad was usually at work before my alarm even went off. So I’d developed my own rituals involving dry toast, lukewarm tea, and a bunch of books spread across the table, dog-eared, highlighted, and stickered.
Somewhere in today’s mess was a note. My father was big on notes and started leaving them in my lunch bag well before we’d moved to St. Hilaire. I’m sure some kids would have been embarrassed by badly drawn dinosaurs, or motivational quotes in advance of their math tests. But I wasn’t. My dad didn’t have any ability as a medium, but he knew me, and he made sure that I never had a reason to doubt my importance to him.
I moved a stack of napkins, a handwoven rune mat, and two books dissecting the Handel tarot, to find his latest offering. It read: Regardless of what else you do, be true to yourself.
The message was eerily similar to what Willow had hinted at. I thought about it as I twisted the bolt in my ear. I still felt I had that covered.
As I stacked my breakfast dishes in the sink and piled the books into a structure that vaguely reminded me of the Merchandise Mart, I ran through the discussion I was hoping to have with David Sheridan.
I wouldn’t get any more of a straight answer from Alex about why they’d wanted Dec’s piano than I had from Ian in my dream when I’d asked him how he’d died—evasiveness was a finely honed Mackenzie family trait—but David Sheridan was a weak link, one I wasn’t going to hesitate to break.
* * *
When I found him near the town square, David Sheridan was cowering against a picnic table, staring into an egg sandwich as if it held the secrets to the universe.
“Hey,” I said. And that was enough to startle David into flinging the sandwich into the dirt. A couple of St. Hilaire’s resident squirrels, fat from summer feasting, waddled over and helped themselves to the remains.
David had to know why I was there, and so I waited to see if he was going to say anything. When he didn’t, I cut to the chase. “The Guild will get to the bottom of things, you know.”
I was sure that David was just the fall guy for whatever Alex had planned, so the idea of the Guild stepping in and learning the truth should have been comforting to him.
“Oh, goodie. I just love dealing with them,” he replied, kicking the ground. “Look, I can’t talk to you about this.”
David wasn’t a bad guy; he was just kind of spineless. “Alex is a bully. You know that, right? He’s a coward. If you stood up to him, he’d back down,” I advised, even though I knew that David had never stood up to anyone before. “David, do the right thing here.”
A few feet away, the squirrels fought over the dropped sandwich.
David gave a strangled laugh, and the winning squirrel picked up its egg and hopped off. “Really glad we had this chat, Russ. You’ve been a big help. Thanks.”
“I’m trying to help,” I said and dug my hands into the pockets of my coat. This was just the kind of thing I’d face if I worked with the Guild. If I couldn’t even get David Sheridan to open up, I was going to be in trouble.
David shook his head. “No offense, but you don’t know anything about it. You don’t know what it’s like. What he can be like.”
I opened my mouth to protest. After all, I knew a lot about the Mackenzies. And I knew a lot about feeling as if your life was out of control. And mostly, I knew more than I wanted to admit about the place where those two things intersected.
Then I shivered. The hair on my neck bristled. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew who it was happening to.
David Sheridan looked at me, puzzled.
“I have to go,” I said. “Now.”
David’s brow wrinkled. He looked almost disappointed. “Sure. Great chatting with you.”
I felt bad for him, but I didn’t have time to stick around to express it.
Dec needed me.
Chapter 16
Dec
I couldn’t bring myself to sit next to Annie on the piano bench, so I hovered over her shoulder and watched her play. I knew the Unfinished Prelude. I could play it back note for note in my head and frequently did during boring lectures and séances and most of the time Harriet was speaking. None of that came close to hearing Annie play it on the piano—my piano.
The piece was alternatingly energizing and heartbreaking. I intellectually knew every one of the emotions it called upon, but watching her play brought them all to the surface at once.
I sank down in the window seat, afraid I might hyperventilate.
“Here it comes,” Annie called out.
I winced and willed myself to pay attention to the individual notes as they hurtled and jumped over one another. I knew where the piece stopped, and it was at such an annoying place, I usually muted the sound on the video a measure or two before it came to the final notes.
Now, I had no choice but to listen. When Annie played the last measures, which ended on an unresolved chord, they made my teeth clench. The tension in the room resembled a coming storm. I waited for the windows to rattle with it.
“Irritating, right?” Annie asked. “Your ears cry out for the missing tone.”
I struggled to open my jaw as she continued. “I read once that Mozart’s wife used to play an unresolved chord to get him out of bed. He would have to get up to play the resolution, or it would bug him all day.”