Midnight Soul (71 page)

She studied me another moment before stating,
“You didn’t answer my question about Noc.”

“All is well,” I lied.

She knew I lied, I could see it in the shrewd
look in her eyes, but I held her gaze, my chin lifted, my meaning
clear.

She had her business that wasn’t mine, even
if I wanted to be there for her to assist in any way I could.

I had mine.

She gave in. “We’ll work the spell
tomorrow.”

I inclined my head.

She tipped hers to the door. “I suggest you
watch this maintenance man and ascertain the best way we can make
an approach without detection. We need to be close to cast a love
spell and he should be alone. He doesn’t simply get stars in his
eyes, seek out our client and sweep her off her feet. My work is
much more subtle than that. Therefore, yours will be too.”

I nodded and stood.

Having been dismissed, and glad for it, I
made my way from her magic room to head to the room below where my
crystal ball was waiting for me.

I’d nearly made the door when she called,
“Franka.”

I turned to her.

Her gaze locked to mine.

“All will be well,” she said quietly.

I hoped she was correct, but the first time
since Noc entered the sitting room I was in at the Winter Palace
months ago, I felt my hopes would be dashed.

I said not a word and swept from the
room.

I went to my crystal ball, but when I got
there, I did not call up this “maintenance man” (whatever that
was).

I stared at it thinking other thoughts.

Dismal thoughts.

Fearful thoughts.

Insecure thoughts.

Doing all this finding myself entirely unable
to stop it or the growing emotion that rose up inside me, making me
feel useless and unworthy of the man who loved me enough to steer
me beyond a lifetime of pain when I could not offer the same.

Therefore, when ten digits appeared in my
crystal ball, I was startled.

I knew not what they meant or even how they
appeared.

I had not called for them (whatever they
were).

However, they didn’t go away.

I continued to stare, and as I did the
handbag I’d placed on the table by my orb after I’d arrived and
before I’d joined Valentine jumped in its place.

This meant I jumped in my seat and stared at
that.

My handbag skipped again and I heard a
distinct buzz that I knew came from my phone.

I released a relieved breath as I understood
what was happening and reached for it, for I was simply getting a
text.

I pulled the phone out of my bag and
activated it.

However, there were no notifications of a
text.

My eyes slid to my crystal ball and a frisson
of awareness slinked up my spine.

My ball was telling me something.

My
magic
was telling me something.

And what I knew was my magic was
my
magic.

Good magic.

So wherever that magic led me to, in my
bones, I felt it safe to follow.

I touched the phone button, went to my keypad
and entered the digits from my crystal ball into it.

Sitting straight in my chair, I lifted the
phone to my ear and listened to it ring.

Shortly into this, a man’s voice boomed, “You
got Lud.”

Lud?

Who was Lud?

“Yo? Hello?” the voice called.

Lud.

Oh no.

Lud!

As in…
Ludlum
.

The digits were for Noc’s father’s phone.

Balls!

“One more time, someone there?” he asked.

“Hello, Mr. Hawthorne?” I said it as a
question even if I knew the answer.

“Right, darlin’, no offense, your job ain’t
fun, but I’m not a big fan of marketing calls so do me a favor and
take me off your call list.”

“Mr. Hawthorne,” I stated but couldn’t, for
the life of me, decide what to say next.

“Will you do that for me?” he asked.

“This is Franka,” I declared.

He said nothing and I thought he’d
disengaged.

“Mr. Hawthorne?”

“Franka?”

I nodded swiftly even if he couldn’t see me.
“Yes, Franka. Franka Drakkar. Er, Frannie. I’m Noc’s…I’m, erm,
Noc’s…well, I’m just Noc’s,” I introduced stupidly.

Gods!

“Interesting way to put it,” he muttered,
sounding amused and then suddenly he did not sound anything of the
sort when he asked, “Is my boy okay?”

“Yes, yes, he’s fine. Absolutely. I mean,
yes. He is. In most senses. Very fine. I mean to say that….
Actually, what I mean is, he’s quite well. But he’s also…”

Drat!

Why didn’t I disconnect the moment I knew who
it was?

There was nothing for it, I hadn’t, so I had
to go on.

“He’s also, well…
not
.”

“Damn,” he muttered, seemingly knowing
precisely what I was saying. “Uh, sorry, honey. I mean, darn.”

“Cursing does not offend me,” I shared.

He was back to muttering. “Knowin’ my boy,
that’s probably good.”

He was right about that.

Abruptly, I got cold feet (not that they’d
ever been warm).

Damn my crystal ball.

“I need to apologize. I’m rethinking the
wisdom of calling you,” I told him even though I hadn’t actually
called him knowing I was doing any such thing.

“No, I’m thinkin’ it’s probably very wise you
called me.”

I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say
anything.

“Let me guess, he’s not in a very good mood
these days,” he said.

“Well, I think that I’m…what I mean to say
is, your guess would be correct but I do believe that it’s me who’s
putting him in that mood.”

“Frannie, honey, it is one hundred percent
not you.”

Again, I had no idea what to say so I
remained silent.

“He gets this way on the anniversary,” Mr.
Hawthorne relayed.

The anniversary?

“The anniversary of what?” I queried.

“Judy passing.”

Even sitting, I had to brace my hand to the
tabletop to steady myself.

Judy. His stepmother. The only mother he’d
known.

The mother he’d been forced to watch die.

“We had a thing,” he went on. “The boys were
young when it happened and it was me who made the decision, and Noc
didn’t agree with it so we had a go ’round about it. He shared how
he felt and he was clear on that, even then. This being she didn’t
wanna be buried but I wanted somewhere to go where I could be with
her. Where the boys could be with her. So I buried her. And every
year, day she died, I get my boys together and we go there to be
with her. Take some lawn chairs and lay ’em out. Bring her flowers.
Sit with her. Throw back some bourbon. Talk about her. Have her
with us for a while.”

I thought this lovely and horrible, in equal
measures.

Noc’s father kept speaking.

“Noc wasn’t a big fan I went against Judy’s
wishes and didn’t cremate her. And he’s also not a big fan of going
to see her. Know it. Maybe should let it go. But it’s the only time
I got with my family back together, all of us, and it may be me
bein’ selfish but I don’t care how old he is. I’m still his dad.
And she’s the only mom he had. So I feel he should give me that. Me
and Judy. He should give us both that.”

It took a moment for me to do it and my voice
was not my own when I replied, “I cannot say you’re wrong about
that, Mr. Hawthorne.”

“Lud, Frannie. Please call me Lud.”

“Lud,” I whispered.

“Knew he wasn’t gonna be able to come this
year, made him promise to do somethin’ to remember her there.
Reckon she’s with all of us all the time, the only way she can be.
So told him I want him to find a pretty, peaceful spot, just be
quiet and let her be with him. He said he’d do it. Maybe he’s just
humoring his old man but gotta say, as much as I know he doesn’t
like it, still hope he does it. And because I’m stubborn and love
my boy and my wife, the first one I still got, thank the Lord, the
last one we lost and it broke us in a way it took a lot of fixin’
and we still ain’t right, I want him here next year. Want him to
bring you. Want Judy to meet you.”

Want Judy to meet you.

I’d never felt more honored.

“I think…I think, sir, she already knows me
quite well,” I shared carefully.

And hopefully.

Further hoping she liked what she knew.

“I think you are not wrong. Looked after Noc
while she was breathin’ in a way there’s no way she’d quit even
after she’d stopped. He found you, she’d definitely start lookin’
after you.”

I said nothing, lost in the glory of knowing
after his mother died giving Noc to this world, to me, he had
another who looked after him at the same time feeling the loss he’d
endured when she went away.

“You there, Frannie?”

“I just…need a moment,” I murmured
stiltedly.

He gave me that moment but in his, he said
softly, “Damned you do.”

“Sorry?”

I heard him clear his throat before he
replied, “You do. Heard it in Noc when he talked about you. Now I
hear it in you. What I hear pleases me, Frannie, reckon you know
that, just reckon you don’t know how much. And it makes me look
forward even more to meeting you.”

I knew what he was saying and I was beside
myself with happiness he understood my feelings for his son.

But even if I had more information about what
was happening, I didn’t comprehend the fullness of it.

Before I could broach that, Ludlum Hawthorne
declared, “Obvious this is worryin’ you and thank you for givin’
that to my boy. And thank you again for doin’ the right thing and
callin’ his old man to have a chat about it. But I got it from
here.”

Oh no.

I knew what “I got it” means and I didn’t
have a good feeling about Noc’s father having anything if it had a
thing to do with all this.

“Um…Lud—”

“We’ll hash it out and get ourselves sorted.
Don’t you worry,” he assured without assuring me in the slightest.
“No doubt you know we got a lotta love in our family but that
doesn’t mean, four men, all of us pigheaded, we don’t clash. We do.
First time you see it, I can understand it’ll worry you. But you’ll
also see we get over it. We learned over and over again, doin’ that
the hard way, to hang on to what we got. And just so you know,
anniversary passes, he comes back to himself. My advice next time,
just wait it out. He’ll be good as new in no time.”

“Can I just say, Lud, that—”

He cut me off like he didn’t hear me
speak.

“Now I gotta go. Bad timing, Sue’s dragging
me out to lunch with her bridge cronies. Twice a year I gotta go to
this lunch and if they didn’t raise buckets of money for cancer
research, I’d be on my boat with a rod in my hand. But I’ll say,
regardless of the subject matter, sure was good to talk to you.
Next time we do it, I’ll make you giggle. I’m a comedian. A good
one. And don’t listen to Noc or Dash or Orly when they say my
material stinks. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m
damned funny.”

“I’m sure you are,” I replied swiftly but
didn’t get the rest out swiftly enough as he spoke again.

“Now you take care of yourself, honey, and
would say take care of my boy but seems to me you got that
down.”

He was so very wrong.

He was also so very much not done.

“And maybe Sue and me’ll get on a plane so I
can give you a hug in person and she can size you up for whatever
outfits she’s gonna buy you come Christmas. If they’re not your
thing, just give ’em to charity but don’t say anything to her. Only
way I’ll say it’s fortunate you live across the country, you won’t
have to dress up in the stuff she buys and she won’t see you not
doin’ it. She gave the boys all Christmas sweaters three years ago
and pouts that they refuse to wear ’em. Won’t listen to a word I
say on the subject that those sweaters are butt-ugly and laughable
besides. Noc’s has got a reindeer stitched on it with a bell for a
nose, for chrissakes. I mean, who in their right mind thinks a man
is gonna wear a Christmas sweater with a reindeer on it with a bell
for a nose? Love her to bits, she’s a damn fine woman, but that
don’t mean she don’t got some crazy ideas.”

I had no earthly idea what he was talking
about.

I also had no intention of asking. My anxiety
was building and I needed to stop him from “hashing” anything out
with Noc, and I needed to do that
now
.

To my grave misfortune, I didn’t get the
chance to get into it for I heard him shout, not at me, “I’m ready,
sweetheart, just on the phone with Noc’s Frannie!”

Gods.

“Yeah, Frannie!” he kept shouting. “Noc’s
girl!”

Gods!

“No,” he said, again not to me, “I’m sayin’
goodbye. You get on the phone with her, you’ll talk for a
year.”

“I will not.” I heard a woman say. Then I
heard, this time to me, “Well hello! Nice to meet you.”

Oh…

Balls
.

“I, um…well, right…hello to you too, Sue,” I
pushed out.

“What a wonderful surprise, you calling,” she
declared.

“Yes, well, erm…”

“I cannot
tell you
how
delighted
I was to hear Noc had finally found someone. But
really mostly when we heard how very taken he is with you. Lud told
me the way Noc speaks about you, we should be careful and not flip
out when we watch you walk on water.”

This surprised me (as well as parts of it
thrilling me) because I couldn’t imagine in this world where magic
was hidden that Noc would share I had it for I doubted it would be
difficult to do just that.

Though why I’d ever wish to walk on water, I
couldn’t fathom.

“That’s lovely, but could I speak with—?” I
attempted to ask.

“We can’t
wait
to meet you.”

“And I you,” I hurried out but had no
opportunity to say more.

“Wonderful,” she declared. “Now, I must let
you go because Lud is giving me the evil eye seeing as he doesn’t
want to go to this lunch and I’m making him, so I best not chat
with you for a year and prolong his torture. We’ll talk more later.
Lud’s got your number in his phone now, I’ll call you.”