“What?” I asked.
“It’s…” He laughed dryly. “I feel like all my knowledge’s going to waste here. I’m not used to not being able to keep up, you know? Something to get used to, I suppose.”
My shoulders sagged at the defeat in his tone. “You do know you don’t need to keep up.”
Wilson shrugged and placed a tray of steaming mugs in his lap before joining me at the table. “I should be asking you how you are.”
“Why? We’re both going through this.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the only one of us who’s come face-to-face with a demon.” He handed me my mug. “I overheard Rae saying something about it being here for a contract. Or maybe because of something that happened to Dad and your mom. Has the team told you anything about that?”
“A little. There hasn’t been a full debrief. I think it’s because I can’t sleep for more than two hours. She needs me to calm down first before dumping another load, I guess.”
“Fair. Tell me, how do you think we got so lucky as to buy a ranch stalked by a demon?” It was mostly a joke, but I could see a genuine spark of curiosity in his dark eyes. Wilson looked so much like our dad that on the days I missed him most, I would just stare and sometimes pretend I was little again. Life had still been scary with all the moving around back then but at least I hadn’t been in charge.
“God’s chosen,” I said.
“Since the day we were born,” he agreed with a low chuckle that harbored no actual amusement.
I chewed on my bottom lip as his brow furrowed. Wilson had gone through a lifetime of changes in the last year. He quit his job teaching and left his wife; two things I still couldn’t get him to talk about at length.
“It was just time,” he’d said over the phone.
“Time?” I’d asked.
“Yeah, everything there has run its course. We’d grown apart before the accident. And now, I think it’s time we both let go. I don’t want her to feel like she has to take care of me.”
Wilson changed the entire trajectory of his life overnight. He hadn’t given two weeks’ notice. He’d sent an email twelve hours before his next lecture.
“Don’t you need to consider it a little longer?” I’d asked.
“What’s there to consider? Lea’s miserable. My classroom’s full of students who offer me pitying attention. My colleagues—the ones who have been ruthless since I met them—open doors for me now. Even the automatic one. And I can’t find a decent bar to get a good drink. I’m done.”
“Not finding a decent bar was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” I’d tried to joke.
Wilson chuckled and agreed, “Truly.”
After his impromptu decision to leave, Wilson had called me from the airport, asking for a place to crash, and the joy in my heart at hearing he needed me was something I hid underneath a nonchalantsure. I was happy to see him but to be with me meant he left everything. I was selfish enough to want him to leave everything.
“Have you thought about what I said?” I asked. “Once all this…is it haunting if it’s a demon? Do only ghosts haunt?”
Wilson shook his head. “I’m not sure. The articles I’ve read use it as an umbrella term. So do Jones and her team. I haven’t been able to convince them to share things from thedatabase yet, so no official Guild lingo confirmation just yet.”
“I’m sure you’ll crack that case,” I said. “In the meantime, have you thought about what I said? Teaching again at the community college in Needle Point?”
After I got my dream of opening the ranch, I’d promised Wilson to help him reach his. The only wrench in this plan was that he didn’t seem to have one anymore. He was all about Elmwood and tending to the house and carving our furniture. My brother barely glanced at the posting I’d sent him from the community college in the next town over.
“Let’s figure this out before we talk about what’s next.” Wilson offered me a smile, a silentthank you for thinking of me but don’t bother.
“The money could help us,” I noted, even though that wasn’t the reason I wanted him to teach. Wilson spent morning, noon, and night in this house. He looked after Esther and me like a new parent afraid of leaving for a couple of minutes to take a shower.
“I’ll look into it,” Wilson promised.
“Thank you.” I looked down at the hot steam rising from my cup. We were quiet for a moment, just the sound of the floorboards creaking under the team’s footsteps upstairs before I forced myself to ask the question that’d been floating around in my brain. “Wilson…”
He rested his chin in his hand, watching me and waiting patiently for me to continue. When I didn’t, he said, “I know we’ll have to prove a lot to each other after all this time. But try to trust me when I say, I’m not going to judge you for whatever you want to ask.”
I smiled a little. “Yeah?”
