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ROSEMARIE
DEATH: THE END OF ONE PATH FOR THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING NEW
Val and I wait in the house’s library. Unlike the haunted antics I’d expected, this place is crammed with old books and older furniture. It smells like beeswax, ocean water, and eau de expensive. But there’s also a tingling sensation in the air much like the most magical places Lala took me to. If I was brave enough to close my eyes, I could almost imagine she’s nearby.
Almost.
Because this haunted house also sends a creepy otherness vibe crawling across my skin that’s different from anything I’ve sensed before, and with Lala taking me on pilgrimage after pilgrimage to sacred spaces, I’ve been exposed to lots of levels of weird.
Our tour guide announced moments ago that everyone has to tour the home separately, and I’m not okay with this despite my original plan to sneak off alone. He took Meg with him, closing the double doors to the library behind them.
“Do you think Meg’s all right with that guy?” I ask Val who sits on the edge of the antique desk as if she owns the place. Theo. That was the tour guide’s name. He was the kind of guy Lala would’ve called devilishly handsome.
“The waivers we signed had a detailed protection clause,” she says. “He won’t let Meg get hurt, not while she’s with him.”
Chills break out over my arms, a cold snapping through the room despite there being no hum of air conditioning. “Then what about Ava? She didn’t sign anything.”
She’d rushed off, saying she’d needed the bathroom when we’d stopped just a couple of miles back.
“She won’t stay away long,” Val says. “She wouldn’t miss a tour of this place.”
“You telling me she’s not already snooping?”
Val raises a brow in a smooth arch so perfect it must be practiced. “How’d you know?”
“I have six siblings, I’ve heard the best of lies, and Ava’s not a good liar.”
“Just don’t say anything. She’s convinced there’s something shady about the company running this place. I mean who names their corporation Underworld if they’re legit?”
“The creepy kind.” Every innocent noise including the tick of a clock, creak of the house settling, or scrape of a branch against a window has my nerves unraveling a bit more.
“Ava’ll be fine on her own.” Val hesitates a heartbeat, something so unlike her. “Right?”
“Yep, or you’ll terrify anyone who messes with her.”
“Damn straight.” She grins, and it’s a vicious flash of feral chaos wrapped in a pretty package. For the gazillionth time since we met, I wonder at the many layers of Val. While I school my expressions into masks for every occasion, she doesn’t have my people-pleasing affliction. Yet there’s so much more to her than she’ll reveal to even those of us she calls friends.
I glance at the door again. If Ava can fake an emergency and wander off from the guide, I can too. I only need a few minutes to do the séance. I’ve written the script and practiced the chalk drawings and crystal layouts. According to the diaries of the medium who practiced here before, I need something that belonged to Lala, something personal. Nothing’s more perfect than her tarot deck—the one she’d carried everywhere and read daily.
I pull the deck now and shuffle the cards. The soothing swish of paper on paper calms me. At least it stops the endless loop of memories spiraling through my brain. Walking out of the hospital, the thief brandishing the knife, fighting over my purse, the rush of black before I woke inside the emergency room…each scene plays on repeat like a horror flick in my mind that I can’t switch off.
How had I gotten to the ER?
Other than my insane fantasies about gargoyles coming to life?
“Rosemarie,” Val says, and from the edge in her tone, it’s not the first time she has called my name.
“Sorry.” Embarrassment floods me along with a not so small dose of guilt about hiding my reasons for being here from my friends—the only people who might’ve listened and cared enough to help me. “Yes?”
“I don’t know what’s taking them so long,” she says, rising from the desk to pace before the bookshelves. “This house didn’t look that big from outside.”
My stomach twists. She’s right. They should’ve been back by now. A door slams nearby, a heavy thump that has me jumping and my cards scattering.
Val rushes over to help me pick them up. “Death,” she says, holding the card sketched with a woman wearing skull makeup and a long lace veil. The figure clasps a lit candle in one hand. She holds a spider—OMG what’s the deal with spiders today?—in her outstretched palm. “The Death card landed right side up. That can’t be good.”
“It doesn’t mean literal death. Just new beginnings.” I can almost hear Lala’s voice in my head with her snippy little sayings about each card. She explained Death’s meanings so many times, tracing my smaller fingers over each symbol along with the number thirteen. But it has freaked Val out so I tuck it and the rest of the deck into my purse, slinging it onto my shoulder as though I might start my tour any second now.
“Then why call it a Death card if it’s not about—?” She draws a finger across her neck.
