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“The future,” it said as it crawled up the armillary, looping the length of its elastic body around the base of tiny turtles and twining around the solstitial colure. I had once witnessed an encompassing darkness woven from these living shadows, but en masse they were indistinguishable one from another. I realized this amorphous shade was the manifestation of the entity’s truest form, and I shuddered at the thought of my sister, Maisie, lying with it in its guise as Jackson, her limbs entwined with this vaporous abomination. Even worse, the impassioned kiss I myself had once shared with it.
The creature’s nebulous form began convulsing; then what I reckoned to be its jaw came unhinged. Something like a watch fob spilled from its mouth and fell tangled among the points of the armillary’s Polaris star. My stomach clenched as I recognized it as Connor’s missing pendulum.
“Perhaps this will help your detective solve his puzzle,” Wren’s ever deepening and darkening voice rasped. Then the demon evaporated, leaving behind the flaccid chain.
TWO
Detective Adam Cook was not a happy man. He sat at our kitchen table without saying a word, tapping the bottom of his phone against the table’s top. Finally he looked directly into my eyes. “I’m really starting to miss the days when you used to lie to me.”
“You were given fair warning,” I said as what remained of Abby’s latest pie winked up seductively at me from its plate. As different as Abby, my self-proclaimed “white trash” cousin, was from my Aunt Ellen, their powers proved complementary. As Ellen could heal the body, Abby could aid the spirit, helping lead those who had lost themselves emotionally back to the light. Abby had given up everything, put her entire life on hold to come and help Maisie through her own homespun brand of magical cognitive behavioral therapy.
Food, especially baked goods, was to Abby as flowers were to Ellen. Abby’s creations were the epitome of comfort food, indulgent and truly magical. The way my maternity jeans were pinching me told me I might have become a tad too reliant on Abby’s form of comfort. I tugged at the elastic band and squirmed in my seat.
“You’re beautiful,” Peter had been telling me several times each day, somehow intuiting that my self-esteem had developed an inverse relationship to my weight. This morning I had rolled my eyes, and he pulled me into his clutches, tickling me. “Say ‘I am beautiful.’ Say it or I’ll keep going.” Laughing and nearly breathless, I finally gave in and said it. “That’s right,” he said and planted a wet kiss on my lips. I found myself smiling at the memory.
Adam was not smiling. He used his index finger gingerly to prod Connor’s pendulum. “So this Wren demon, he said this was the key to solving my investigation?”
“He’s a demon. Demons lie.” Even as Iris spoke to Adam, she couldn’t take her eyes off the fob and chain that had been her husband’s constant companion, nearly an extension of his very personality. The mere mention of Connor’s name could cause the joyous vigor to drain from Iris’s face. Now the sight of his pendulum had caused her to look a decade older, despite the youthful new styling of her honey-blonde hair and her recent habit of borrowing my non-maternity clothes without asking first. Truth was, I enjoyed her enjoying them as much as I enjoyed her relationship with Sam. It was like she was catching up on all the years she had squandered on her departed husband.
She sat next to me, her arms pulled tightly around her sides. “I thought he was gone.”
“I know. I thought Wren was gone too,” I said.
“I meant Connor.” Iris began to tremble. “I thought he was gone. Gone for good. I should have known it was too good to be true.”
Oliver and I shared a guilty glance. I sighed and nodded.
Oliver leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his thick blond curls. “Listen, sis.” Oliver paused as he screwed up his courage. He raised his eyebrows, and his lips puckered and shifted almost comically from side to side. His features relaxed, and he faced
his sister. “Connor is gone. Very gone.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“The night of the wake at Magh Meall,” I jumped in. “I decided to charge the atmosphere of the house, like you all wanted me to,” I added as a quick defense, “to see if I could shake loose any of the house’s memories about Emily and her activities. Connor’s spirit had been trapped here.” I didn’t want to finish, because I knew she wasn’t going to like that I had remained silent on that point.
“Yes?” she prompted as her eyes pulled away from the pendulum and flashed at me.
“Well,” Oliver took over. “He took advantage of Mercy’s own magic to launch another attack against her.”
Iris’s features softened. “I am so sorry. I have been such a fool. I thought we were finally safe.”
Her tone prompted Oliver to repeat the rest of the story with relish. “Oh, Mercy was safe all right. When Connor came out to play, Mercy shoved his sorry phantom ass into a spirit trap the old buzzard—I mean Mother Jilo,” he corrected himself as I glared at him, “taught her to make.”
“A spirit trap?” The way she looked at me with a twinkle in her eye told me she wasn’t really asking a question, merely expressing surprise. “Jilo did have such a flair for the classics.” She drew a deep breath and shrugged, like she was trying to shake off Connor’s taint. “What have you done with this trap? Where is it now?”
I lowered my eyes, not sure how she would react. I didn’t need to worry, as Oliver barreled on, still in full raconteur mode. “I had it sealed in a cement block then compelled the captain of a freight ship bound to Guangzhou to drop it overboard as they passed over the Mariana Trench.” He winked at me, oblivious to the unsettledness of Iris’s mood. “With the cutbacks at NASA, it was the best I could do.”
Iris stiffened in her seat. She turned away from her brother’s grin and looked at me. “When were you going to tell me this?”
I bit my lip. “I meant to tell you the morning after the wake, but you remember, I caught you doing your walk of shame? You’d just connected with Sam.”
Oliver snorted. “?‘Connected.’?”
“Shut up, Oliver,” Adam and I said at the same time.
“You’ve blossomed since Connor’s been gone,” I said. “You’ve been so happy. I’m sorry.” I reached out for her, and she patted my hand. “I just didn’t want to risk that.”
“Not to worry. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is a family tradition.”
