The Hidden (6 page)

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story …

—“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

T
he next week and a half passed by quickly, and I was just getting used to having the sling on when it was time to take it off. Caspian went with me to the doctor’s office, but it was when we got home that the real surprise of the day came. Cacey and Uri were waiting there for us, standing by a car parked at the end of our driveway as Mom pulled up.

They were both dressed in khaki pants and business shirts—outfits similar to what they’d been wearing when they’d come to my room right after Vincent had been there. But Cacey’s blond hair was blue at the bottom.

“Surprise!” Cacey said when Mom turned the car off. “We thought we’d come see you.”

Mom, of course, was thrilled to see my new friends. “Well, hi! How nice of you two to stop by. Aren’t you working today?”

Cacey shook her head. “Kame suggested that we come talk to Abbey to see if she wants to join the intern program at the real estate office with us. It’s such a fantastic experience. We’re sure she’d be great at it. There’s nothing more valuable than learning the lesson of hard work!”

Trying to keep a straight face through Cacey’s BS was becoming a monumental task. Real estate interns … Yeah, right. How long was she going to keep this act up? It didn’t help matters when she started winking at Caspian.

Mom must have noticed the winking, because she asked Cacey, “Are you okay?”

“I think I have something in my eye.” Cacey winked again and then grinned unabashedly. “So, do you want to come with us, Abbey? We’re heading over to the office now, and you can see what we do. Learn more about the program.” She stretched out the word “program” into two long syllables.

Mom glanced at me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cacey nod her head once. I followed suit. “Okay …”

Mom’s smile couldn’t have gotten any bigger. Clearly she was pleased by my “initiative.”

It’s not real,
I wanted to tell her.
They aren’t really interns, and Kame and Sophie aren’t real estate agents.

But the less she knew, the better.

“We’ll have her back by dinner, Mrs. Browning,” Cacey called, directing me to the backseat of their car. Uri said something to Mom to distract her, and Cacey motioned for Caspian to get in too. He slid in next to me, and I shut the door.

“What are we getting ourselves into?” he asked.

“I have
no
idea. But it must be important for them to come get us like this.”

Cacey got in the front passenger seat and pulled down the mirror, checking out her blue-tipped hair. “I know. I know,” she said, almost to herself. “That was laying it on thick. ‘The value of hard work.’ Ha! But I get so caught up in this little drama. I just love it.”

“What’s up with the whole pretending to be an intern thing?” I asked. “And the outfits?”

“Just playing a role. It’s better for us to fit in when we can.” She smiled at me, and I had the distinct impression of a shark eyeing its prey. Her clear, gray eyes were wide and focused. The
faintest scent of smoke, or burning leaves, filled the car, and then it was gone. I felt a rash of goose bumps run up and down my arms.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of creepy?” I said suddenly.

She burst out laughing. “Yeah. I am. Thanks for noticing.” Preening, like I’d just offered her a compliment instead of an insult, she patted her hair and air-kissed the mirror.

Uri came over to the car and got in. “Hi, Abbey.” His smile was genuine and friendly, his voice smooth like chocolate. He slammed the door shut. “Caspian.”

Caspian nodded back, and I wondered if this was it. Were they here to take me to my everlasting reward in a … “Hey, is this a Jetta?” I asked.

“Yup.” Uri kept his eyes on the road and pulled out of the driveway.

“Nice, right?” Cacey said. “Totally better than some of the other rides we’ve had. Do you have
any
idea how long a Volkswagen bus can continue to run? Even when the floorboards are rotting out and the dash is falling to pieces and the whole thing smells like a Sunday school nursery class?” She shuddered.

“Well, it’s no sweet chariot,” I replied, and grinned at Caspian.

He didn’t seem to get it.

Or maybe he did, because he frowned.

“Are we supposed to be impressed by your ability to remember church hymns?” Cacey asked. “Ooh, do you know one called ‘Amazing Grace’?” she deadpanned.

Heat bloomed in my ears. “No. I meant ‘swing low, sweet chariot.’ Like the song? Aren’t you guys ‘coming forth to carry me home’ and all that? Aren’t we, you know …
Going?
To my next destination? A long drop and a short stop?”

Cacey laughed, and it rang through the car like the clear high-pitched peal of a bell. “Dramatic much, Abbey? We’re just going to get some lunch.”

I sat back and looked morosely out the window, feeling duly chastised. Highway blacktop rushed up to meet us, and the single lane became two. I felt a slow flare of sensation in my knee and looked down. Caspian was trying to nudge it.

He gave me a sympathetic smile. “I thought it was pretty clever,” he leaned over to whisper. “The whole ‘sweet chariot’ thing.”

“Good-looking
and
loyal,” I whispered back. “You’re a deadly combination.”

“Deadly.” … Good going there, Abbey.

But if he noticed my poor choice of words, he didn’t let on.

“Hey, you two,” Cacey said. “This isn’t secret time. Do you want to share with the rest of the class?”

“No.” I crossed my arms.

“Fine. It’s rude, but whatever.”

Cacey was calling
me
rude? The same person who had drunk all of her soda in front of me just so she wouldn’t have to share any of it when I was in the hospital and practically dying of thirst, and who had a snarky reply whenever someone asked her something, was calling
me
rude?

I was about to launch into it, when all of a sudden Caspian leaned forward and said loudly, “So, Uri, about that Volkswagen bus …”

Instantly the tension in the car broke, and I laughed.

“Loyal, good-looking, and
smart
,” I said to him. “But you already knew that.”

Uri grinned and switched lanes. “It was a 1951 VW bus, and it was a beast. Already going on forty years old when we, uh, acquired it. It had some interesting history.”

“It was a crap-mobile,” Cacey said. “With pleather seats and orange shag carpeting. I swear it had to have once been a traveling sideshow circus car or something.”

“Do you remember the mummified mouse?” Uri asked her.

“Yup. Stuck between the seats.”

“
What?
Ew. No way,” I said.

“True story,” Cacey replied. “Someone had actually taken the time to mummify this thing.”

“How could you tell?” Caspian interrupted. “Couldn’t it just have been a really old dead mouse?”

Cacey tapped her mouth. “The lips. They were sewn shut.”

“God, Cacey!” Nausea roiled through me, and I wanted to barf at the thought of seeing some poor little mouse that way. “That’s just insane.”

“Do mice even
have
lips?” Caspian mused. Uri laughed, and they shared a grin.

“Moving on,” I said.

But Cacey obviously didn’t want to move on. “Its little fingers had been pushed apart. Splayed open, instead of curled shut.” She mimicked it with both hands. “And the eyeballs—”

“I’m not going to be able to eat lunch,” I warned her.

“Then there was the tooth,” she said.

“Do I even
want
to know about the tooth?” I groaned, and then promptly answered myself. “No. No, I do not.”

“… on a key chain,” Uri filled in.

“Lost baby tooth?” Caspian suggested. “A family memento?”

“Molar,” Cacey and Uri both said at the same time.

“Must have been pried right out of someone’s mouth with something blunt, because the ends were all damaged and jagged,” Uri supplied. “The bus came from a junkyard in West Virginia. Crazy-ass place. Who knows what happened there.”

Cacey laughed delightedly, and I shook my head at her. She saw me and stopped, but grinned at Uri. “Abbey thinks I’m creepy. She told me when she got into the car.”

Something passed between them—more than just a look—and I got the impression there were silent words being spoken. “She’s right,” he said. And then he put a hand on her knee. “You
are
creepy.”

Uri directed his next words to me and Caspian. “She totally gets off on this stuff. I don’t know why.” He shook his head bemusedly at her, someone who had obviously been putting up with his partner’s peculiarities for a long time and didn’t mind doing it.

“Why didn’t you just get a new car if that one was so awful?” I asked.

“Ooh! We’re here!” Cacey squealed. A restaurant called the Pink Peppercorn came into view, and we pulled into the parking lot. “First we go get a seat. Then I’ll tell you why about the car. Deal?”

I nodded, but she was already climbing out.

“Wait until I’ve stopped the car,” Uri admonished.

She did. But barely.

I got out and kept the door open long enough for Caspian to get out too. “Are we going to be okay going in?” I said softly
to Uri, nodding my head at Caspian and then Cacey. “I mean, all of us?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said.

Cacey heard my question. “He doesn’t eat much, right? Because it’s going to be embarrassing trying to explain
his
order.”

“I don’t—,” Caspian said.

“I know! I know!” She laughed. “I’m just teasing. Lighten up. It’ll be fine. Come on.”

I glanced at Uri. “It
will
be fine,” he said again, ushering us to the door. “She’ll behave.”

Doubtfully, I followed behind them as Caspian brought up the rear. When we got inside, Cacey flagged down a waiter, and he seated us right away in a large booth. The interior of the restaurant was decorated in pale pinks and grays, with tiny hints of black. It had a smooth 1920s vibe to it.

“How’d you get service so fast?” I asked Cacey, settling in next to the space where Caspian was.

“It’s the mind mojo,” she said absentmindedly, poring over the menu. “Works every time.”

“Mind mojo?” I asked. “What’s that?”

She pointed to the extensive listing in front of her. “Choose what you want to eat. Then talk. When he comes back, I want to give him our order. I’m
starving
.”

I perused the list. It looked like the Pink Peppercorn was strictly vegan fare. I’d never been to a vegan restaurant before. “Where’s just plain breakfast?” I asked. “That should be safe enough.”

Cacey flipped the menu and pointed to the back.

“I guess I’ll take the tofu scramble,” I said after a minute. “Spinach, soy cheese, asparagus, and shiitake mushrooms with home fries doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Yum! I’m going with the vegan hot tamale platter. And I want a Coke, like,
now
,” Cacey replied. “What are you getting, Uri?”

“Tofu burrito.”

“You don’t mind if we eat in front of you, do you?” Cacey asked Caspian. She didn’t seem to care that people might notice she was speaking to him.

“It’s not like I have a choice, do I?” he said. “Be my guest.”

The waiter glided over and took out a pen and pad. Cacey rattled off her order, and I could see that he was taken with her melodic voice, just like I’d been the first time I’d talked to her. He had a hard time paying attention to what he was writing as Uri and I told him what we wanted, and his gaze kept straying back to her colorless eyes.

“I would absolutely
love
a Coca-Cola to go with my meal,”
Cacey said, maintaining eye contact. “In fact, we all would.”

A funny metallic taste filled my mouth, like burned toast, and I reached for the pitcher of ice water that was sitting on the table. After pouring a glass, I gulped some of it down quickly.

“I’ll see to it,” the waiter murmured. “And I’ll get this order put in right away.”

“Thank you!” Cacey called as he walked away.

“Is she always like this?” Caspian asked Uri.

“Every time. Worse when she really wants something.”

“That’s enough from
you
.” Cacey pointed to Uri. “And you, too, dead boy.” She pointed to Caspian.

“Don’t do that,” I whispered.

“Do what?”

I made some abstract gesture with my hand. “Point to Caspian. Bring attention to him. People might see.”

She looked around us at the half-empty room. “Honey, these people in here have better things to do with their time than pay attention to us. They’re too busy discussing what will happen when they go home to their underground bunkers and assemble to conquer global hunger and world peace with hugs and teddy bears. They don’t give two shits about what we say or do.”

“
You’re
eating here,” I said to her. “Does that mean you go home to your bunker and hug teddy bears?”

Her smile turned sharp. “I don’t hug anything.”

Then she winked at me, and I laughed. “Okay, okay. Tell me about this car, then. Why couldn’t you just get a new one if the bus was so crappy?”

She leaned back in her seat. “Um, duh. Because we’re Revenants.”

She left it at that, and I swear to
God
I could have strangled her. Instead I raised an eyebrow.

“Neat trick,” she said.

I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Soooooo, are you going to give me the real reason?” I said.

She just stared blankly at me.

“Uri?” I pleaded, turning to him.

“We couldn’t get a new car because that was the one given to us to use for our job duration,” he explained. “You take what you can get.”

“So, wait,” I said. “Were you guys given the bus, or did you take it?”

They exchanged a look.

“A little of both,” Uri said.

“Is that because of the mind mojo thing?”

Cacey nodded, but Uri frowned.

“How does it work?” Caspian asked.

“Like all things wise and mysterious beyond your grasp,” Cacey said. “It just
is
. Accept it. Move on.”

“Do I have it?” he persisted. “Can I do mind mojo too?”