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She loved that ring.
No. She loves that ring.
“Ashley,” Maeve says, the word little more than a ghost of a sound in the hollow moonlight. “Your sister Chloe is here with us tonight. Do you feel her?”
“I do. I—” Ashley’s voice quivers. She closes her eyes and turns her face up to the sky. “I think I smell her perfume.”
A breeze makes the floral scent explode with notes of maple and lilac.
Hope sucks in a breath.
“She misses you,” Maeve says. “So much.”
“She said that?”
Maeve shakes her head. “It’s in her energy. All of it is encircling you, worrying about you. Wondering why you think you must keep your life small because hers was cut short.”
“It’s just not fair,” Ashley rasps. “She never got to—”
“She’s with you. She’ll be with you. Look for the pennies. She’ll leave them for you.”
A choked sob escapes from Ashley. Vicky steps into the moonlight, toward Ashley, and wraps her in a hug.
Hope slides a hand into mine. Her attention is wholly fixed on the scene in front of her. I’m not sure she realizes she’s taken my hand in hers. For about a dozen reasons, it’s all I can focus on.
“Oh my God,” Hope breathes. “She is the real deal.”
“Real deal?”
Tears run down her cheeks as she watches the scene between Ashley and Maeve. Maeve—whose eyes are all pupil, black saucers against stark whites—who is saying all the things a grieving sister wants to hear.
The others are as enraptured by the scene as Hope. After a while, Maeve dips her head and starts to chant. She asks us to join, and the others do. Even Hope. They would do anything for Maeve in this moment—do anything, share anything ... give anything.
That makes Maeve dangerous—more than I could have imagined.
11
HOPE
The events of the night buzz around my mind, too fresh to make sense of. Only one thing is clear as Will and I trail behind the others back to the cars: Maeve is more than the rumors.
“What did you think?” I ask Will once Maeve’s cottage is a speck of light behind us.
“It was ... like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” His voice is just above a whisper, as if he’s afraid to speak too loudly and shatter the magic of this night too.
“Have you ever been to a medium before?”
The moonlight gleams off his dark hair as he shakes his head no. “Have you?”
Something about the intimacy of the night we just shared makes lying feel especially wrong, but I have to wade through a deep pool of shame for the truth. At least, it’s easier to admit my gullibility in the dark. Or maybe it’s easy because Will makes it easy. We’ve just met, and I’ve already accidentally shown him some of my worst parts—my temper on the roof-deck, my grief in the tears at Maeve’s—and he’s still here, and he hasn’t tried to fix me once. “Last summer. I heard about this medium from my widows group. I went to see her in New York. Let’s just say, thousands of dollars later all I have is bad credit and a reputation for being gullible.”
“Oh,” Will says, and I brace for the blend of judgment and pity that comes next. “Well, it’s better than being a selfish asshat who writes a tell-all and then abandons his family to deal with the fallout while he chases fame and fortune, only to return with his tail between his legs.”
A laugh moves through my chest. “Fair enough. Thank you for putting that into perspective.”
“It’s the least I can do to make up for not telling you who I was.”
Silence falls between us, broken only by the sound of animals scurrying through the forest. Moonlight illuminates the dust rising up from the drought-dried ground. My breath matches his, and the calm rhythm is an antidote to the adrenaline of the night.
