Dead Letter Day (20 page)

I LAID THE SILVER LACE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COFFEE table so Ted, Alex and Norah could see it. “I found this up by Paul’s cabin.”

“Pretty,” Norah said, reaching for it.

Ted grabbed her wrist before she touched it, then looked at me. “Is it okay for her to pick it up?”

“As far as I can tell. It doesn’t seem to have any special power. I think whoever made it might have had a lot, though.” There was an interesting buzz to it, but it seemed to hover around it rather than infuse it. The buzz had quieted some since I’d driven back down the hill from Paul’s place.

Ted released Norah’s wrist and she picked up the silver, apparently receiving not the slightest jolt from it. It really was beautiful. The silver had been stretched into a fine filigree, and even though this was just a fragment, there was clearly an intricate pattern woven through it. It reminded me of a snowflake.

“I’m pretty sure it’s pure silver.” I glanced over at Alex. He had a few hundred years on me of knowing what was up in the world, both Arcane and Mundane. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Alex shook his head. “Not that I can think of offhand. That’s all there was of it?”

He was right. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t even the size of a handkerchief. I nodded and explained where I’d found it. “I can’t imagine Paul wanting something like that around.”

Alex took it from Norah and gave it a tug. “It’s pretty tough for how delicate it looks. Still…”

“I know,” I said.

“Care to let us in on the secret?” Ted asked.

I glanced at him to see if he was feeling testy. Ted took the whole protect-and-serve thing of being a police officer pretty seriously and it was darn hard to protect people if you had no idea what was out there. At the moment, however, he just looked curious.

“There’s damn little in the world that can stop a werewolf, but silver can definitely slow them down.” Alex lifted it up into the light. “There’s not much of it here, though.”

Quantity definitely mattered nearly as much as quality when it came to how dangerous silver might be to a werewolf. “It would have to be huge to bring him down. Plus I think I would have seen more of a sign of a struggle.” A few beaten down clumps of grass weren’t nearly enough.

“Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t feel right, though, does it?” Alex mused.

“Not in the least little bit,” I agreed.

Norah looked over at me, eyes wide. “But you said that it didn’t have any special powers.”

“I don’t think it does.” It was odd to me, however, that whoever had forged it hadn’t given it more powers than that. I have handled a lot of different kinds of objects during my years as a Messenger and there’s a wide variety of them and the kinds of powers they can contain. Not everything made for a magical purpose was magical in and of itself. This lace or whatever it was being a case in point.

More often, though, objects made by supernatural beings had powers in and of themselves. It made them more useful. Even ’Canes liked to multitask. Why not have a net that could maybe put someone to sleep as well? Or make them tell the truth? This seemed to be just a net. I turned to Alex. “Why not give it more powers than that, though?”

He shoved his dark hair off his forehead. “Good question.
Maybe they didn’t want whoever got hold of it to have too much power.”

“It looks like a net to me,” I said, expressing my worst fears about it.

“It does,” Alex agreed.

“I happen to know someone who knows a lot about nets.” I didn’t like to hang out with her much, but I could find her if I needed to.

Alex couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You’re going to see Cordelia? For a favor?”

“Information is not a favor.” Of course, Cordie might not see it that way. I’d better go prepared with something she’d like.

“Good luck with that.”

He was right. I’d need it.

SO IF I DON’T MAKE A DELIVERY, THERE ARE REPERCUSSIONS. I’ve only deliberately not delivered something once and quite honestly that was plenty for me. I didn’t think anything would happen to me if something was taken away from someone after I delivered it, but quite honestly, it was bugging me. I couldn’t stop thinking about Willow up on the psych ward, and something Sophie had said the night before to Sam had really brought that home.

There’d never been a time when I’d had to question what I was seeing or hearing. By the time I’d figured out how abnormal I was, abnormal was my normal. I’m sure there was a time that it was confusing, but I was too little to understand how confusing it was.

I’ve always been a little jealous of Sophie. I feel like coming into being a Messenger as a teenager has given her some opportunities and perspective that I didn’t have
coming into it as a toddler. I’d been so busy looking at how much greener her grass was that it hadn’t occurred to me that I was rolling in some pretty verdant stuff myself.

What would it be like to suddenly start seeing things no one else saw, or hearing things that no one else heard? I figure it could make somebody bat-shit crazy.

Willow hadn’t had anybody at all and look where she was, all 5150ed up in a locked ward.

I found some more lab results that needed delivering. “Hey, Connor,” I sang out as I breezed into the lab. “I was passing by. You have anything that needs delivering up on seven? I’m headed there next.”

Connor leaned over the counter and stared at me with a really funny expression on his face. “Oh, you are, are you?”

He looked pained, like maybe his stomach hurt really bad. “Um, yeah. Are you okay?”

“Oh, I am fine, Melina. Absolutely fine.” He held a handful of folders out to me, just a little bit out of my reach.

Now, in all fairness, I could have been over the counter and back with the folders in my hands before Connor even recognized that my feet had left the floor. At least, I thought I still could. I didn’t think the whole bun-in-the-oven thing had slowed me down too much yet. While it would be fun, it didn’t seem wise, so I just put my hand out.

Connor didn’t budge with the folders. “Do you want me to take them or not?” I asked.

“Oh, I want you to take them, sweetheart.” He leaned even farther over the counter.

Was he leering? Over lab results? Why wasn’t he looking at my face? I’d had enough. The folders were within reach without jumping the counter. I snagged them from his hand. “Great. See you later.”

I left him staring at his empty hand.

I WENT THROUGH THE DOUBLE-BUZZING ROUTINE AGAIN and dropped the folders off. I’d already seen Willow in the common room looking out the window. I slipped in while the nurse was busy filing the lab results.

“Hey, Willow,” I said, sitting down next to her.

She turned toward me before I even spoke. She didn’t even look like she was moving underwater anymore. “Hi. Melina, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right. How are you feeling?”

“A lot better. Thanks.” She glanced around the common room and then stretched the cuff of her sweatshirt out a little bit so I could see the edge of the bark against her skin.

“They didn’t take it?” Wow. I was surprised.

Willow smiled. “I hid it really well.”

She must have. If there was anything the staff of the psych ward was good at, it was figuring out who had contraband and where they’d stashed it. They had to be good at it. The people up here were here because they were a threat to themselves or others. It was amazing what they could turn into weapons. The staff had to be super-vigilant. “Nice work.”

She slid it back up her cuff. “It’s like I knew where to put it. It’s almost like it told me itself.”

I knew how that felt, too. I had a pretty good rapport with inanimate objects. I didn’t know too many other people who did, though. Was this another burgeoning Messenger? “Has that happened to you before?”

She shook her head. “No. Just this. I really appreciate you getting this to me, though.” She leaned toward me and whispered. “Before I had it, I sort of thought I might really be going crazy.”

I could see how she could have come to that conclusion,
what with the special jacket that made her hug herself and the padded room.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better. How much longer are you here for?”

“One more day.”

“You have a ride when you get out?”

She nodded. “So what exactly are you?” She cocked her head to one side and looked me up and down as if really seeing me for the first time. It was good to see how much more alert she was than when I first met her. Her eyes were clearer and her blonde hair was a lot cleaner.

The extra alertness came at a price, though. I didn’t really want to explain too much about myself. Willow had enough to absorb at the moment. “I’m just the Messenger. No one to worry about.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “But there are things to worry about, aren’t there?”

My mom was always honest with me. I didn’t always like it, but I always knew that I could trust her. At this point in my life, I’d rather be trusted than liked. I didn’t want to freak Willow out any farther than she’d already freaked herself. I mean, she’d managed to freak herself all the way into a locked ward. On the other hand, I didn’t want her to think there were nothing but rainbows and unicorns awaiting her when she finally got out of the locked ward. “Yeah. There are things you should definitely be afraid of.”

“How will I know?”

“Jenny will explain a lot of it. Some of it is a matter of experience, though. It’s a pretty gray world out there. Things aren’t completely black-and-white.” Wasn’t that an understatement? I was actually happy that my roommate was dating a vampire. That was confusing. One of my best friends was a werewolf. Neither of those groups made it onto anybody’s
“good guy” list, but both of those examples definitely made it onto my list of people to trust. More than trust. I relied on them.

“That sounds…scary.” She folded her hands carefully in her lap as if to consciously keep them still. I wondered if she was trying not to finger the piece of bark she had hidden up her sleeve.

“Sometimes it is,” I admitted.

She blew out a breath. “I suppose not as scary as not knowing if any of it was real or not. That sucked.”

“I can only imagine.”

She looked over at me. “Were you born knowing?” Again, she cocked her head to the side, almost like a bird.

“No. But I was pretty young. I can only imagine how weird it must have been to suddenly have things change for you.”

She turned away from me, as if it was too difficult to look at me while she spoke about it. “I was pretty sure I’d lost my mind. Then I tried to talk to some people about it and they were pretty sure I’d lost my mind, too. Hence the whole 5150 thing.”

“I’m so sorry.” I was, too. I couldn’t imagine how much that must have sucked. Perhaps I shouldn’t whine so much about my situation.

“It’s okay. It’s all getting better now. Of course, I’m not entirely sure that you’re real or that any of this stuff about wood nymphs and trees is real or if my craziness is really layered and realistic. I figure I’ll go with it for a while anyway. It’s better than staying locked up here, drugged out of my gourd.” Again, she smiled.

I thought about Michael Hollinger. Maybe he would be better if he knew he wasn’t losing his mind, too.

“Well, I just wanted to check in. I work downstairs. You’ll be able to find me if you need me.” I stood up.

“Thanks.” She looked up at me and then her forehead
furrowed. “Did your boobs get bigger since the last time you came up here?”

I looked down. My shirt was tighter than it usually was and my boobs totally ached. No wonder Connor had been so glad to see me.