Dead Spell (14 page)

“Here, I got her.” Adam held her around her waist and walked her to the kneeler in front of Harmony.

Jaxon looked frustrated, but kept his cool.

Brea closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning the strength to open them. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. I can do this.”

Harmony looked at peace, but wrong. The choppy hair cut hadn’t grown in and there were staples visible through the thinnest sections where the autopsy closures were made. Her ivory skin radiated against the black satin liner, but Beth, the undertaker’s wife, did the makeup too conservatively, like a young girl’s.

Brea set her hand on top of Harmony’s and the cold, hardness of them made her feel queasy. Her skin went clammy, the air around her was filled with floating, gray squares and she fainted.

“Brea. Can you hear me?” Adam caught her and propped her up against him, fighting Jaxon’s attempt to do the same.

“I got her,” Jaxon said.

She came to feeling like a wishbone between them.

Jaxon brushed the hair back from her face. “Are you okay?”

She felt weak, queasy, and unsteady. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Adam held her from behind by her shoulders.

She looked back into the casket. “Harmony would’ve hated this. It doesn’t even look like her.”

“I gave them a picture,” Adam said. “But, they just…”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry. I was thinking out loud.” Brea leaned into Adam and Jaxon gave her a dirty look. She backed away. “Do you mind if I have a few minutes alone with her?”

Adam shook his head. “I could use a smoke anyway.”

Jaxon glared at him. “After you.”

Adam walked down the aisle with Jaxon a good distance behind him. Jaxon pulled the viewing room door shut and Brea reached for Harmony. Her skin was cool, waxy and synthetic-feeling. The tattoo Lance gave her showed through the lace-trimmed sleeves of her black dress. She wondered if anyone had told him the news.

“Summerland. I hope you get there.” She wiped her tears and unzipped her purse.

This was the last time she would ever see Harmony and she wanted to memorize every detail. She couldn’t let her be buried looking like someone else.

She took a narrow, angled brush and a palette of purple eye shadow out of her purse and drew a dark line from the inner corner of Harmony’s glued eyelids past the outside edge, recreating the smoky eye that was Harmony’s trademark. She swept a little blush on her cheeks and colored her lips a deep purple-red.

“There,” she said. “Better.”

The loud click of the door handle announced Adam’s re-entrance.

“She looks good.” He wasn’t shocked or put-off. “She would’ve done the same thing in your position,” he said and went awkwardly quiet.

Brea managed a smile and nodded in thanks. “Was Jaxon out there with you?”

“Got a phone call. Probably that Rachael chick.”

Brea raised her eyebrow. “Harmony tell you that?”

“Said she told you, too. She said you should be more careful.”

“She was always paranoid.”

Adam reached for her hand just as Jaxon walked in. “In this case, I think she’s right.”

Brea could clearly see the jealousy on Jaxon’s face.

“You ready to go?” asked Jaxon.

Staying would only mean trouble. “I’m ready,” she said.

Adam wiped his nose with a tissue. “There’s not much of a service tomorrow, but the burial is at 10:00.”

“I’ll be there,” she said. “Thanks. For everything.”

Jaxon pulled Brea close, asserting himself as boyfriend.

Adam wasn’t Brea’s type. He wasn’t even interested in her, she thought, but as she turned to walk out, his expression made her wonder.

* * * * *

It took a few minutes for the car to heat up and Jaxon gave Brea his coat.

“Aren’t you going to be cold?” She laid it over her lap.

“I wouldn’t tell you if I was.” He smiled. “I’m sorry about in there. That Adam guy just rubs me wrong.”

“Funny, he says the same about you.” Brea looked over her shoulder at Adam smoking, alone, on the porch. They pulled out of the lot and she kicked off her high heels, trying to get comfortable.

“That was really something what you did in there. Her make-up and all. Weren’t you…I don’t  know…”

“Creeped out?”

“I didn’t want to say it.”

 “A little. But I didn’t want to remember her that other way. It wasn’t her.”

She thought about all the things she was too afraid to do in her life, the way her mother held her back, the way she, herself, held back.

“So, do you want to go right home? Or is there someplace I can take you?”

She took a deep breath. It was a night for big things. No fear. Revenge. She was going to have to face Rachael again and next time, she would be ready. “You can take me to Miller’s Pond.”

He looked at her and, even in the dark, she could see his shock.  “Brea, you’ve been through a lot. I…”

Her heart hammered as she touched his inseam. She leaned over the center console and kissed his neck, whispering in his ear, “Please don’t talk me out of it.”

And he didn’t. After that, he didn’t say another word until they parked at Miller’s Pond. “Are you sure you want to…?”

She took the condom from her purse that Harmony put there as a joke, for her mother to find. “I’m sure.”

A Pink Floyd CD played softly in the background. “Do you want me to leave the music on?”

She nodded and leaned over to kiss him.

His lips were tight and he seemed on-edge until she went from timid to almost aggressive. He slipped his hand inside her shirt to cup her breast, but the blouse was too tight. She unbuttoned it without stopping kissing.

“Ouch,” she said.

“What, I’m sorry…” He backed off.

She pointed at the raised emergency break handle. “It caught my knee.”

“Are you all right?”

“We’ll see.” She peeled off her pantyhose and fighting back the anxiety, climbed into the back seat.

The door locks clicked and he joined her.

She was straddling him, kissing him, feeling him growing and grinding eagerly beneath her.

“Can I ask you a question?” She pressed down on him harder, the seam of his pants pressing into her undies. “Why me?”

He slid her shirt down her shoulders. “Why not you?”

She reached back and undid her bra. “It’s my first time.”

He was quiet for a minute and lowered his eyes. “Mine, too.”

Hearing that flooded her with an unexpected, empowering relief. Eagerness replaced the fear of comparison, of failure, of awkwardness. She let him explore her, unrestricted, and let herself enjoy it.

The car windows fogged and everything moved like a roller coaster cresting the drop hill. There was no thinking, no turning back, no stopping.

24
.

It had taken some convincing to keep Jaxon from coming in, but when Brea saw only one light on in the house she knew she was either in the clear or in major trouble. She waved over her shoulder in a kind of awkward salute and opened the door.

Her mother was out cold, clutching the cordless phone on the couch. There was an empty Kleenex box on the coffee table and she had obviously been crying. Her crimson hair spilled around her head like blood from a wound and her mouth hung open.

Brea let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God.”

She was sore and disheveled, but the purest kind of happy and satisfied, willing to revel and mourn and dream.

She tossed a beige fleece over her mother and yanked off her white slip-on sneakers. She took the phone out of her hands and went quietly upstairs to change.

Her bedroom smelled like smoke and she looked at the bag of Harmony’s she’d yet to go through.

“I hope you have my back on this.”

Nervous as she was, she needed to talk. She needed her best friend however that could happen and the Ouija sticking out from a tear in the plastic was the only possibility.

If Tom’s end goal was for Harmony to be dead then he got what he wanted, she rationalized. He shouldn’t be a problem.

She lit a half circle of candles and set up the board.

 “Harmony, it’s Brea. Can you hear me? I want to talk to Harmony Wolcott.”

The candles flickered and she tried to keep calm.

H-E-L-L-O

The planchette moved slow and jerky.

“Who is this?”

H-A-R-M-O-N-Y

Knowing spirits can and do lie, she asked for proof. “How do I know this is you?”

P-H-O-E-N-I-X

Harmony slit her wrist at the Phoenix Motel outside of Reston a year before. She was high and drunk and had broken in through an unlocked window not long before cleaning rounds. Housekeeping found her all but bled out and called 9-1-1. The ambulance took her to Reston Memorial where they transfused her, medicated her, and admitted her to the Behavioral Health Unit for what Harmony had called the worst three weeks of her life--and that was saying a lot. They had kept Harmony in an anti-depressant stupor and she kept repeating the word “Phoenix”.

It
was
her.

Brea felt a moment of peace and a short-lived embrace that was jerked away violently and as quickly as it came.

There was a loud rap on the window followed by vast silence.

“Harmony, are you here?”

No answer.

“Harmony?”

The planchette looped a series of figure eights, and then starting at “Z”, ran through the alphabet backwards.

“Harmony, stop it.” She flipped the planchette upside down, but it kept moving: I, H,G. “Stop it.” she screamed.

The planchette stopped at “A” and Brea was shaking. She couldn’t have stopped it.

She was hit full-on, salivating with nausea, and swallowed the bitter vomit puree rocketing up her throat. Her chest tightened and her head ached.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and with the eerie but familiar feeling of sensing someone you can't see, she knew a presence was there with her.

 “Harmony, are you here?” She fought to keep her hands steady.

M-A-P-L-E 6

“Maple 6?”

The indicator picked up speed.

M-A-P-L-E-6-M-A-P-L-E-6