My Tethered Soul: Volume 2 (Reaper's Rite) (10 page)

The three of us sat at the table, and Dad barreled into his rehearsed speech of what the family had been up to since our last visit. It was always strange watching Mom’s non-reaction to whatever we’d said to her. But now that I knew what she must have faced, I could completely understand. Most of it was the medication she was on, but some of it had to be the effects of the Reaper haunting her.

Lilura’s words entered my mind. Mom probably hadn’t used her powers since they had locked her up, and without dispelling any magic, the Reaper had more or less lost track of her. Was that true? Or did her Reaper come here sometimes to keep an eye on her?

My eyes swept to the hallway. A shadow shifted and morphed. I held my breath, eyes wide as I watched it. Finally, the golden corkscrew nurse walked out of the hall, bringing her shadow with her.

Get ahold of yourself, Zadie. Your mind is playing tricks on you.
I cleared my throat and reminded myself that I had to act normal, especially in front of Dad.

“Shadow of a doubt!” one of the game show watchers screamed.

Dad’s arm came around me just as he finished telling Mom about me going to prom. Mom’s eyes slowly found me. Even though I was sure she wouldn’t return the gesture, I smiled. Her eyes went back to Dad, and my spirits dropped another thousand degrees.

“Mr. Stonebrook, good to see you.”

We all focused our gaze on Mom’s doctor, who suddenly appeared behind Dad.

“Dr. Rupertson.” Dad stood and shook hands with the gray-haired man. “Hello.”

I stared at Mom while the doctor mentioned he’d like to speak to Dad in his office. This would actually be the perfect opportunity to get some information from her. But would she answer my questions? My gut told me no, but my heart hoped my gut was wrong.

“I’ll be right back, Zadie.” Dad stood and placed a hand on my shoulder before he followed the doctor down the hall.

As soon as Dad was out of sight, I jumped from my chair and slipped into the one next to Mom. She followed my movements, but didn’t blink. Looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was close enough to hear, I scooted my chair so I was inches from her.

“Mom, I have to ask you some questions. And I know you don’t usually… answer, but this is really important.” I swallowed before I continued. “You used to hang around some women when Mara and I were younger. They were Wiccans, though you probably thought of them as witches?”

Mom’s brows slowly come down. I thought I might have her attention, though there was no real way of knowing.

“You used to meet at a house on Ivy Lane.” I took her hand in mine, squeezing it gently. “Mom, is that when you started seeing the Reaper’s shadow? Is that where he haunted you?”

Mom’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes were unblinking, focused on me. She swallowed, the sound of it painful in my ears, and nodded once. It was such a tiny movement that if I hadn’t been paying attention, I might have missed it.

I was floored. Mom hadn’t communicated in years—and now she had just answered my question. I fought to control my emotions. There was more I needed to find out, and I had to hurry before Dad returned.

“But he was at the house too, wasn’t he?”

Mom’s fingers tightened around mine, then she looked away, lips thin and pressed together.

“You haven’t used your magic here, have you?”

Her eyes came back to me and, very slowly, she shook her head.

If Lilura’s theory about Vila magic setting off a beacon for a Reaper was correct, then Mom was probably safe here. I had no idea if I truly believed that idea, but I had to hope that it was true. For Mom’s sake. I wasn’t sure if I should mention anything about my sleepwalking or that it might be a Reaper controlling me. I didn’t want her to panic. That wouldn’t bode well in this place.

We sat there staring at each other quietly while one patient shouted “Bacon!” at the television and another yelled “George Washington!”

When Dad stepped back into the room, I straightened in my chair and let go of Mom’s hand. Her eyes went to him, but her expression remained the same. I was sure that as far as he could tell, nothing significant had happened while he was gone.

“Fiona.” Dad took Mom’s hand before he sat. “The doctor said you’re doing great. They may reduce your medication since you haven’t… well, since things have gone so well for almost a year. Isn’t that good news?”

Mom moved her eyes—but not her face—to me then back to Dad. The silent second that Mom and I shared was full of anxiety. Maybe Mom felt she was safe here. Maybe she was actually afraid to get better and come home.

Worry pulled Dad’s brows down, so I cleared my throat. “That’s really good news, Mom.”

But was it?

***

It was a relief to finally walk through the door and kick off my shoes. The ride home felt claustrophobic, the silence pressed in on me, since Dad neither talked nor wanted the radio on. He couldn’t possibly have had the same thoughts as me, but still his mind was reeling about something. Maybe he was making plans for when Mom came back home.

Mara bounded down the stairs to welcome us. I found myself relieved to see her. From her casual demeanor, I suspected nothing Reaper-wise had occurred while we were gone. Maybe things were starting to look up.

“Hey, Mara.” I wanted to ask her how things went at Lilura’s, but I would have to wait until we were alone.

“I didn’t make dinner.” Mara grimaced. “Lost track of time.”

Dad read a message on his phone as he spoke to us. “That’s fine. Why don’t you girls order a pizza? I, uh, might be leaving you two for a couple hours, if you don’t mind. My buddy Tim from work invited us all out for drinks for his birthday. I promised I’d at least stop by, and he just texted to remind me.”

Mara put a hand on his arm. “Go ahead, Dad. You deserve to have a little fun too.”

Plus, it would give Mara and me a chance to talk.

Dad handed me a twenty. “Thanks, girls. I shouldn’t be too late.”

We smiled at him as he waved goodbye.

Mara picked up the phone and raised a brow at me. “Pepperoni?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After she placed our order, Mara joined me at the table. I wasn’t sure if she’d ask about Mom or not. It could have gone either way, depending on her mood. I decided to wait for her to speak first.

“So,” she began, “Lilura was brutal today.”

Okay, I guessed we were skipping the Mom talk. “More brutal than usual?”

“Well, I’m used to her yelling at you.” She smirked at me. “First she had me change a glass of water to different colors, and then she gave me pots of dirt and had me dig holes with my mind.”

“Been there, done that.”

“Then she taught me the spell she mentioned on the phone. Only it’s super hard.”

“How hard?”

She cringed. “I’m not even a hundred percent sure I’ve got it right. I can try and teach you some of it, but Lilura says you need to come over tomorrow and learn the spell properly. Apparently it works better if you throw salt or something?”

“Okay. Tell me how it goes.”

Mara went over the rhyme Lilura taught her. The rhyme was rhythmic, but hard to keep straight. I thought I might be able to master it with practice, but at the moment, it was overwhelming. I found myself staring at Mara’s mouth to concentrate on what she was saying. By the time I’d memorized the first verse, the pizza had arrived.

We took a break from our spell rehearsal to wolf down the pizza. I must have been hungrier than I thought, because I had to fight Mara for the last piece.

As I sipped my soda, Mara averted her eyes and rubbed at her knuckles. “How’s Mom?”

The conversation with Mom flooded back to my mind. I ran my hands through my hair, tugging at it as if trying to pull the bad thoughts away from my brain.

“Mara, she answered my questions. I mean, it was just nodding and shaking her head a little, but she communicated with me. It was unbelievable. The doctors say she’s doing better, too. They’re going to reduce her medication.”

“Really? That sounds good.” Mara searched my eyes. “
Is
that good?”

“I think so, yeah.” I shrugged and nodded at the same time.

Standing, Mara scratched at her earlobe. “You think she’ll, uh, be well enough to come home sometime soon?”

I cleared the empty pizza box from the table. “Maybe?”

It was a huge thing for both of us to think about. Something that would change our lives. It wasn’t that we didn’t want Mom to come home. We just weren’t used to the idea yet.

Heading for the stairs, Mara let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. I’m going to bed. Gavin’s coming over tonight?”

“Yeah. But before he does, I need a hot bath. I think I carried hospital smell home on me.”

The side of her mouth turned up. “No, you always smell like that.”

“Ha ha. Goodnight.”

I trudged up the stairs and into the bathroom, ready to just forget everything for a while. After starting the hot water, I closed the bathroom door and stripped off my clothes, not caring where they landed. I didn’t want to care about anything at the moment. Not Reapers or whether Mom was getting better or spells or even whatever I had to finish before the last day of school. All I cared about was getting my cold body into the waiting tub.

I slipped into the hot water, letting the steam roll over my skin, allowing the warmth to envelop me and drown all my worries for the night. I willed my mind to wander to something pleasant: going to prom with Gavin. That seemed like a safe topic. I thought about my dress—the gorgeous dress Gavin bought me—and how I might just look lovely in it. I busied myself with thoughts about how I would do my hair and just how much makeup I could get away with, and soon, I found myself in a happy and relaxed state of mind.

I closed my eyes, the water sluicing between my fingers, the gentle splashing sounds soothing me. A whisper tickled my ear, and I froze. As I sat up straight, water poured off my shoulders and down my back.

Was that? No, I’m just imagining things. Like at the hospital when I imagined the shadow and that nurse walked out of the hall instead.

My eyes darted around the room, and I tried to remain as still as possible so I could hear better. But the only sound I heard was my breathing. Hesitantly, I slipped back into the steamy tub and let out a mumbled curse. I hated being constantly scared, especially when there was nothing to be afraid of.

Ten whisper-less minutes passed, but it was no use: I’d been jolted from my relaxed state. The water no longer soothed me, so I rose from the tub. I wrapped my towel around myself and approached the sink. Fog covered the mirror. With my hand, I wiped the film of steam away. Droplets of water condensed together, as if being pulled by some magnetic force. I stared as jagged words formed on the mirror.

you know what I want

I sucked in a rasped breath, my heart thundering in my chest, and frantically wiped the words away. But the droplets of water reconfigured, and the words appeared again. I gripped the towel around myself, my blood growing hot. I was frightened, but I was also angry. I bared my teeth, thrusting out my Vila energy toward the word, and stared at the mirror until it shattered.

“Leave me alone!”

As an answer to my shout, a low guttural growl filled the room. The floor began to shake, knocking items off the bathroom shelves and rattling the shower curtain. I backed up, searching the room for the shadow. My foot caught a patch of water and I fell backwards, landing on my back. A sharp-sounding
crack
filled the room as the back of my head hit the floor.

Cringing in pain, I grabbed my head. A shadow floated across the ceiling.

“Mara!” I screamed, unable to move.

The shadow swept across the wall, the form of the Reaper almost concrete now.

“Mara!”

The doorknob jiggled.

“Zadie, the door is locked!”

I turned my head, and was punished by blurred vision. I hadn’t locked the door. This was the Reaper’s doing.

The growl came again. Then the door was thrown open and Mara charged into the room. She gawked at the moving shadow for a split second, then ran to me, nearly slipping on the patch of water. Helping me to stand, she watched the shadow, panic in her eyes.

“Oh…um, um,” she began. I could tell she was trying to remember the words to the spell. But the crease of her brow and the way her mouth was turned down told me it wasn’t coming to her easily.

“Oh spirits of good, heed this plea,

Let demons touch not mine nor me—”

With a pop, one of the lights in the room burst. Mara screeched in surprise and grasped me, her concentration on the spell broken. The room shook again as the shadow raced along the wall. With just one wall light left, the dimness made it harder to track the Reaper.

Panting, wide eyed, Mara uttered the first words of the spell again.

“Oh spirits of good, heed this plea,

Let demons touch not mine nor me.

Expel the evil forces all,

Protect our bodies, mind, and soul.

No evil shall cross, no evil shall enter,

Keep pure the light…”

A curse flew from her mouth when she forgot the words. The rumble that sounded through the room was more like a laugh than an angered growl. Was the Reaper taunting us because Mara couldn’t do the spell?

Mara shook her head and closed her eyes, her voice quivering as she started the spell over again. This time, I took her hand and chanted with her, tears brimming on my lashes as I spit out the words.

“Oh spirits of good, heed this plea,

Let demons touch not mine nor me.

Expel the evil forces all,

Protect our bodies, mind, and soul.

No evil shall cross, no evil shall enter,

Keep pure the light of the divine center.

Oh spirits of earth, fire, water, and air,

Banish the demons that cause us despair.”