Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (3 page)

But now …

“Thank you,”
Victoria whispered. “Are you … good?” she asked.

The triangle glided without hesitation, shifting in a slow circle before returning to the upper left.

YES

I glanced up at Victoria. Our eyes met.

“Are you sure you don’t want to ask anything?” she said.

I shook my head as the pointer again started to slide.

YOU

Her eyes went really, really dark, but her smile was pure brightness. “I meant Trinity,” she started to explain, but abruptly shifted gears. “So, like … are you here for a reason?”

Nothing.

At first.

From the front of the shop, over the assault of the rain, the sound of each second reverberated—until once again the pointer slid to the right, hesitating before landing on two dark letters.

NO

“Then, like … are you here because … you lived here, or something?”

The pointer shot left.

YES

Everything inside me stilled.

“Can you tell me your name?” Victoria asked through the stringy blond hair hiding her face.

In my mind, I ran through the history Aunt Sara had compiled while the pointer slid right, then left. Right, then left.

“Marie,”
Victoria whispered, shooting me a quick, questioning glance.

I shook my head. The name meant nothing to me.

“Do you know why we’re here?” she tried.

YES

“I like, need some help,” she said, and the ridiculousness of it all eased the tension from my shoulders. Here she sat in the cold shadows of my aunt’s back room with a storm raging outside, chatting away as if she were hanging with an old friend. “There’s this guy I really—”

The pointer shot to the top row of letters, stalling on the E.

“No, his name is…”

The triangle kept going, lower—to the V.

Then the I.

I yanked back, but Victoria’s finger clamped down over mine, and through the silence came a broken rasp. “Victoria—”

The distorted heart veered back to the top row.

I jerked hard, freeing my hand and curling my fingers into a fist—but beneath Victoria’s, the pointer kept moving, sliding to the L … en route to the E.

EVIE

She sagged. “I-I thought your name was Marie?”

The pointer didn’t move.

“Is someone else with you? Are there two of you?”

I’d heard that was possible—once a portal was open, anyone could come through.

Thunder shook the room. Victoria’s face went white.

There’d been no lightning.

“S-sorry,” she stammered. “We just got … got scared. Please d-don’t go! Marie! Evie! Whoever you are—”

Darkness pulsed, and the building groaned.

“Come back,”
she begged.

But the pointer didn’t move.

The green of her eyes went black. Her knees started to shake.
“Omigod.”
Her voice barely sounded human. “It’s so cold in here…”

The room breathed, and the storm laughed.

I’d been warned. Aunt Sara had told me not to mess around. Julian had told Victoria not to release the pointer without saying good-bye. I just hadn’t believed.

Drawn, I returned my finger to Victoria’s and felt the cold stab clear to my bone.

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking over the conversation as Victoria’s eyes got glassy. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

Along the stacks of crates and boxes, shadows dripped as the pointer started to vibrate.

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. The words just formed, as if they’d been there all along. As if I’d known, as if I’d always known.

As if I’d done this before.

The current intensified, streaking from the pointer to my finger, pulsing up my arm, through my flesh. Penetrating.

“Are you still with us?” I asked.

Slowly, the pointer slid to the far right of the top row before zinging to the far left of the middle.

“MN?” The bloodred walls pushed closer. “What does that mean?”

Seemingly possessed, the triangle zipped back and forth, back and forth.

M N M N M N M

My breath stopped. I wasn’t sure why. I tried harder—almost gagged on gardenia. “I d-don’t understand. What’s MN?”

“Not MN.”

Through tangled blond hair, the green of Victoria’s eyes glowed. “M-O,” she corrected. “M-O-M.”

Mom.

The word seeped through me, hot and cold and hard and soft, blending, merging. Destroying.
“No.”

The lights flickered.

Something unseen scraped.

I wanted to jerk back. I needed to jerk back, to yank my hands back and shove the table away from me, to bolt toward the shop, the door beyond. It wasn’t even ten o’clock. Outside Royal Street was wet and crowded and alive. There were people, motion, activity. I would—

Nothing. I would do nothing, because my body would not let me. Just like in my dreams. My mind raced.
My mind begged.
But my body would not work.

“Whose mom?” Victoria asked.

A sheen fell over my eyes. Mist spilled in. Edges fell away.

The pointer sat dead still.

“Evie?” Victoria asked. “Marie? Are you still here?”

I stared. Somewhere inside, something fierce and urgent hacked against the cocoon of ice.

But like the pointer, there was only stillness.

“Marie … Evie…” Excitement shook Victoria’s voice. “Are you mother and daughter? Did you die together—is that why you’re both here?”

The screaming started, deep, deep inside.

But Victoria remained glass calm. “Or maybe you’re looking for your mother—or your daughter. Is that what you mean?”

No.

No!

The golden flame froze against the darkness. The crystals glowed orange. But the pointer shifted, sliding to the bottom of the board. To the row of numbers.

22

Victoria’s sharp breath shredded the silence. “What’s twenty-two?”

Invisible chains wound tighter, binding me to the folding chair. Only my mind moved. Only my mind struggled.

The rest of me shut down, as the pointer kept spelling.

MOM

“Your mom was twenty-two?”

FIRE

Victoria’s knee pressed mine. “Your mom died in a fire?” she asked.

The pointer spun out an answer.

Everything in me tensed.

NO

“Who then? Who died in a fire?”

Victoria didn’t know. I’d never told her. It was one of the few things I kept to myself, the night fourteen years before, when flames ripped through a house and forever changed my life.

The pointer flew right, left. Right again. And there in the shifting shadows, I finally found my voice.
“No.”

“Wait a minute,” Victoria whispered as her eyes widened. “Didn’t
your
mom die in some kind of accident?”

I’d been told. I’d been given a few details. At first my grandmother had called it just that, an accident. But my aunt had told me the truth. There’d been a fire. I’d been two, asleep in my crib.

My
mother had been … twenty-two.

Everything flashed, lightning that wouldn’t stop, that blended together—and danced.
Smoke poured in. The heat. Coughing, I pulled myself up and grabbed the rails. “Mama! Mama-mama…”

No one came.

Brightness, shimmering white and red and orange. And a hiss, a roar. Crackling, like the sparks from Mama’s candles. But louder. Brighter.

I coughed.

“Mama-mama!”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. Desperately, I grabbed my stuffed kitty and tried to do what I’d been told not to: climb out of my crib. I had to. I knew that. I had to get out. “Mama—”

The smoke thickened. The darkness deepened.

Flames licked—

“Trinity!”

I blinked, coughed, stared at the girl across the table from me. Pretty, blond—white as a ghost.

“W-what’s going on?” Her voice sounded small and faraway, terrified.

“Mama…” Swaying, I blinked, staring at the odd wooden board on the table, the roman lettering. I blinked again, and the warped, heart-shaped pointer started to fly from letter to letter.

LOVE

“Omigod,”
Victoria breathed. “It is
your
mom.”

Moisture flooded my eyes. Something far more awful gripped my heart.

“Stop!” The word tore from me. I didn’t know why.

“What do you mean,
stop
? This is so cool! I mean—”

“No!” I tried to move. To understand. But all the pieces slipped and shifted, sliced. I was a little girl. I wasn’t a little girl. I was in my crib—I was in my aunt’s shop. I was two people at once, in two places. I was scared—I was euphoric. I wanted to run—

I could not move.

“It is, it is!” the girl said. No, not the girl. Victoria. Her name was Victoria. She was my friend. My
best
friend. I focused on her, on her tangled blond hair as if it were a lifeline, and tried to pull myself back into the moment.

The now.

Away from the fire.

“Her birthday!” Victoria gushed. “When is your daughter’s birthday?”

Frozen, I watched the pointer glide across the board, up and down … back and forth.

APRIL 14

Lightning flashed. I was sure it did. It had to be lightning. Nothing else could be that bright.

That violent.

But no rumble of thunder followed.

“Where did she grow up?” Victoria asked, smiling like she’d discovered the most phenomenal trick in the world.

MTNS

Mountains.

Numbly, I stared at the pointer, my finger pressed against Victoria’s, with its perfectly squared off, black-tipped nail. I was there. I was there! I could see myself, see everything. But from somewhere beyond my own body. Disjointed. Disconnected. Like I was floating … fading.

“This is so wild! Aren’t you going to say anything?” Victoria asked. “Ask her something?”

I looked up, opened my mouth. Or at least I tried to. But nothing moved, and no sound came out.

“Don’t be scared.”
Victoria’s voice was soft now, gentle. “It’s just your mom.”

Just. My. Mom.

The flame glowed brighter, sending off brilliant white trails of smoke.

And the door to the front room slammed shut.

Victoria glanced over my shoulder. Her eyes went wide. And we both started to cough.

“I-I…” she stammered. “I … bet you’re proud of your daughter, aren’t you?”

The pointer moved. More slowly this time. Left, right.

D I

My blood ran cold before the pointer ever reached the third letter.

E

Victoria gasped. “D-die? I … I know you did, and that’s so sad. But you’re here now,” she said, and I knew she was trying to keep her voice from shaking. “And your daughter could use your advice. There’s this guy, Chase … but you know that, don’t you? You know what’s going on and if you could just help her—”

The pointer zipped without warning, racing to the top, left, right, left—

The door to the shop swung back open, and Victoria screamed.

THREE

The candle went out.

Darkness bled.

But the pointer kept gliding, glowing now, slow, steady, so deceptively innocent.

G R A

Light flashed through the room. Thunder shook the windows. I tried to move, knew I had to move, but something invisible held me motionless.

C E

“Grace,” Victoria muttered. “What—”

From the shop, something crashed. And finally, finally, the invisible chains fell away. I jerked to my feet and twisted toward the door—

“Trinity, no!” Victoria shouted.

I wasn’t about to stop.

Muted light filtered in from the street, illuminating the overturned necklace display and the T-shirts on the floor, the votives flickering against the darkness.

Everything spun, tilted. I ran for the door, freezing as I saw the silhouettes crouched low and blocking my path.

“Don’t move,” I hissed, inching toward my cell phone on the counter—and the Mace Detective LaSalle had provided as a precaution. “One step and—”

The shadow lunged. “Trinity—no! It’s me—”

I caught the counter, braced myself. “Drew.”

His eyes wide and dark, his clothes soaked, Chase’s cousin stepped toward me, revealing his girlfriend crammed behind him.

Some things changed, but lots never did. Where Drew Bonaventure went, Amber Lane was sure to follow. Her black shirt and jeans were plastered to her skinny body, her long curls slicked back to reveal the heavy dark liner ringing her eyes, making her look very much like a starving raccoon.

“There she is,” she said all saccharine sweet. “Everyone’s favorite little voodoo queen.”

“Yeah, well, at least I’m not afraid of a hamburger,” I muttered as she slipped next to Drew, as if being next to him gave her relevance.

“Luc!” Victoria gasped, rushing toward a mannequin where her apparently on-again boyfriend slipped into view, as if she hadn’t batted her eyes at Trey half an hour before. Sheet white, her hair a disaster, she dove into his arms. “Thank God you’re here.”

The storm flashed, and for a frayed second I was again staggering from that horrible house in the Garden District to find Jessica and Amber and the others incredibly pleased with their little prank.

That was probably the last time Jessica had laughed.

“Lookin’ kinda pale,” Amber said, then smiled in that razor-blade way of hers. “Oh wait, let me guess. It’s a dark and stormy night and Trin-Trin had another bad dream?”

Drew shot her a look. “Amber—”

I kept my hand to the counter, made myself breathe.

But the shaking wouldn’t stop.

“Trinity?” Drew asked, stepping toward me. “You okay?”

Something had happened.
Something had seriously happened in that back room.

“You know I have Mace, right?” I detoured, not wanting them to know what was really going on. Not
them.
“Next time you decide to break in—”

“Dude, the door was open,” Lucas said. “We walked right in.”

Beyond him, hanging against the open door, the
CLOSED
sign still hung. I’d turned the lock. I knew I had.