THE SHADOWED ONYX: A DIAMOND ESTATES NOVEL (12 page)

That day? The moments after she’d realized Melanie wasn’t sleeping had become blurred in her mind. Like watching a movie on rewind. “I … um … called for help.”

“Tell me what happened, if you can. Take your time.”

Joy couldn’t tell her counselor the details if she couldn’t remember them. She searched her mind for the painful memories.

“I remember the dispatcher telling me help was on the way. She promised they would be there in about six minutes, but it seemed like it took a lifetime.” Maybe it was a lifetime. Melanie’s. “She told me to stay with Mel. Which I thought was odd. What? Did she think I was going to leave?” Joy shrugged.

“She talked me through the steps to do CPR.” Joy’s fingers reached up to touch her lips. She had breathed into Melanie’s mouth, pounded on her chest. Sobbed. Shook her. Breathed into her mouth, pounded on her chest …

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It hadn’t helped.

“The worst thing was when they wouldn’t tell me anything. They packed her up and sped off in an ambulance and left me behind to get in touch with her mom to tell her to go to the hospital.”

“Tell me what’s wrong with my baby girl! Tell me! I have to know.”

Joy shuddered.

“What?” Mary Alice pressed. “What memory just repulsed you?”

“The sound of Maggie Phillips begging me to tell her the fate of her daughter. It was horrible.” Joy bit her lip. “She was desperate for me to give details. I almost lied and said Mel was conscious when the ambulance drove away. Just so she’d let me off the phone. So I wouldn’t have to say the words.

“I also remember they didn’t really do anything. They knew she was dead, so they loaded her in the back and went through the motions of their procedures. But there was no urgency. No hope.” Joy shrugged. “That’s when I knew for sure. That’s when I gave up.”

Mary Alice nodded. “I know this is difficult. Let’s try to go a little further, but we can stop whenever you need to. What happened next?”

“I got in my car and drove to the hospital. I think.”

“You think?”

Joy nodded and rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I honestly have no memory of the time between when they drove away and when I saw the doctor. None.”

“That’s actually pretty common. Those memories might come back or might not. It’s your brain’s way of sorting through the necessities and sloughing off the extra details that take up too much space and pain. At least for now.”

Exactly what it felt like.

“What about when you got to the hospital? What happened then?”

“One nurse.” A single tear escaped and ran down Joy’s cheek. She let it fall.

“What do you mean?”

“One nurse. Melanie had a single person taking care of her. Waiting for us to come.” Waiting for the grief to descend on the hospital room. “The tubes were gone, or maybe they’d never tried any sort of medical stuff on her. I never asked.”

Joy sighed. “Dr. Sinclair had been both Mel’s and my doctor since we were infants. In fact, she’d been in the room when we both were born.” She stared off into space. “So Dr. Sinclair was the one who finally told Maggie that Melanie had died. I was just so glad I didn’t have to do it.” Joy remembered being slumped against the wall while the two women, two mothers, clung to each other and sobbed.

“What were you feeling in that moment?”

“I don’t know. Mostly I wished I hadn’t waited so long to go talk to Melanie. If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, Mel would still be here. I believe that with all my heart.”

“Maybe.”

What? Wasn’t the counselor supposed to go on and on about how it wasn’t Joy’s fault? How she couldn’t know what would have happened? How she wasn’t to blame?

“But even if that’s true, even if she’d be alive, did you have anything to do with her death? Did you encourage it or drive her toward it in any way?”

Joy shook her head. “No.” The word came out more like a croak.

“So we’re going to work on letting go of the whole guilt thing.”

Easier said than done. “It might not be guilt like a shared responsibility. It’s more like regret, like … if only.”

Mary Alice nodded. “If only. Two of life’s most gut-wrenching words.”

What is this place?
Joy looked up and down the rows of antique-like trinkets and dark idols carved out of wood or jade. Ivory crystals hung from the ceiling, and the smell of incense flooded the room to the point where it was almost too much for her unaccustomed senses to take.

Raven smiled at the skinny, Gothic cashier taking money from a middle-aged woman draped in a muumuu and dripping with gold costume jewelry.

Joy peered at his name tag expecting it to say something like Zeus or Pegasus. Huh? It read K
YLE
. Really?

Kyle’s dark eyes widened. “Hey Raven. How’s it going? Haven’t seen you in here for a while.”

“Yeah, haven’t really needed anything but to save money, so I just stayed away.”

“I hear that.” Kyle turned his gaze onto Joy.

“This is my friend, Joy. She’s new. I just thought I’d show her around.”

Why did she have to say she was new? How embarrassing.

“Great. Well, poke around—recent additions in the back. Let me know if you need anything.” He turned back to his customer.

“So what is this place, exactly?” Joy whispered.

“It’s an unofficial consignment store of sorts. People share, trade, sell, or barter for the things they need to help them get in touch with the spirit beyond. You can get Ouija boards, crystals, and other beads and things like incense and candles to help you connect.”

Joy felt the edge of a leather journal. “But how do you know the difference between what’s legitimate and what’s commercial?” She picked up a furry rabbit’s foot. Come on, seriously? A rabbit’s foot?

“Good question.” Raven seemed to think through her answer as she held up a silver necklace with a five-pointed star dangling from the center. “Well, you need to understand that connecting with the spirit world isn’t about the actual game board or the bead itself. It has nothing to do with the individual crystal. It’s all about the faith you ascribe to a specific token or trinket. So if you truly believe the incense wafting through the air and the crystal shining in the candlelight is going to help you clear your mind and release yourself over to what’s beyond, then it will.”

Joy nodded. That helped, actually. She didn’t have to put her faith in a piece of glass. It was about her faith, not the glass … or whatever the item was. Made perfect sense.

“Remember the day we used the Ouija board and heard from Melanie?”

Joy winced. How could she forget?

“Lucas and I had complete faith we were being contacted by a spirit, so it makes it easy for it to happen.”

“Yeah, but I had zero faith, so why was I able to see?”

Raven grinned. “That’s the cool part. It was our belief at work allowing you to witness the truth.”

That sort of made sense. But really, did Joy need to fully understand it in order to accept it? She’d seen the very principles Raven described at work right before her own eyes. Unlike the churchy faith she’d been witnessing all her life. Apparently from afar.

Joy picked up a pack of incense and a few long candles. Was she ready for her own Ouija board yet? No. The thought of being at home alone in her bedroom while contacting spirits made her skin crawl. Evidently she wasn’t there yet.

Something told her it wouldn’t be long.

J
oy pulled back the bright blue tarp sealing the dusty kitchen off from the rest of the once-abandoned house and peeked inside. She moved aside so Raven and Luc could follow her in. The three of them scanned the space with flashlights.

Wow. Joy had to admit someone had been working hard. Wallboard was up where it had only been studs the last time she’d seen inside. The floor had been laid, at least in the downstairs common area, and the fireplace was in. Her parents had made a ton of progress toward making the Lake McConaughy rehab the Christiansons’ new home. But for now, it had another purpose.

She let the plastic fall and wiped the chalky drywall dust onto her jeans. She peered through the haze at the empty family room. Three ceiling fans hung from the rustic wooden beams of the vaulted ceiling. A huge fireplace with a stone chimney ran all the way up the back wall. Picture windows overlooked the private dock. Well, the space that would eventually hold their private dock whenever Dad got around to building it. Joy supposed the bathroom would come first—even though the dock would be way more fun.

Then again, the daydreams she and Mel had of languishing on a pontoon boat as they floated across the lake were never going to be realized. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun alone. Nothing would. Maybe she and Raven could be friends like that one day. But would Joy ever be able to let her guard down enough to let someone in to the same degree she had Melanie?

“Will this do?” Joy spread her arms and glanced at Raven and Luc. Was it too risky to have brought them here for their meeting? Maybe the empty house was too creepy even for them. It should be for her. But strangely, she felt … um … expectant.

Expectant. Yeah, that was the word. With Raven and Lucas at the helm, Joy knew something big was going to take place tonight.

Raven’s eyes explored the space from floor to ceiling. She grinned and looked at Lucas.

Lucas made a fist and punched it up in the air. “This is perfect. You have no idea how great this space is.” He closed his eyes and stood still for half a minute. “I can feel the energy here. It’s humming with activity.”

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? If only her fear would catch up with her resolve.

Luc opened his eyes and searched Joy’s. “You sure you want to do this?”

Surprisingly sure. Joy nodded. “I’m more positive than I’ve been about anything in a long time.”

“Cool. Here’s the deal.” Luc surveyed the space like an architect. “We need to clear space on the floor. A circle big enough for the three of us, but not much more than that. You have the candles?” He turned to Raven.

She slid six black tapers from the sleeve of her jacket and held them up. “Of course.”

“Great. Those will go around the perimeter of the circle along with the incense I brought.”

“Uh-oh. Incense? That’ll leave a smell, right?” What if Mom or Dad came out here before the scent wore off? They might assume it was pot or something.

Raven waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll open some windows and turn on the fans when we’re through. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Sounds good to me.” Joy dampened a cleaning rag with water from the bottle she’d brought with her and dropped it on the floor in the center of what would become The Circle. Using the toe of her black Converse, she spread the rag in a wide arc, three hundred sixty degrees around her. When the perimeter was drawn, they set to work clearing the inside of dust and debris, leaving a gleaming bull’s-eye on the otherwise pasty walnut floor.

Raven placed six golden candlestick holders evenly around the edge and set one long, black taper in each. Between them, she set a golden dish with a cone of incense in the center. She lit them, one by one, and the room took an eerie glow as the flickering of the candle flames danced on the walls and their faces. Soon the hint of cloves mingled with musk as the different incense buds let off their aromas.

Lucas’s eyes reflected the brightest light as he crossed his legs and lowered himself just to the left of center in the shiny circle. Raven stepped over the candles and sat down beside Luc, their knees touching of course. Joy moved around the candle nearest her and sat just across from them, facing the center, careful not to let her leg touch the flames. The flickers reflected off the drywall dust and looked like a mist swirling around them, engulfing them.

“We have a few important things to do, a few items to dedicate, and then a special request to make for Joy.” Lucas clasped his hands in front of him. All business.

“I have a question,” Joy whispered. “Who exactly are we talking to when we make this request? Like, are we praying to God? Or what?” It was the
or what
that made her really nervous.

“We’re talking to the universe, calling out to the spirit world that exists all around us. They’ve always been there just beyond your consciousness waiting for you to call on them.” Lucas grinned and shook his head. “Oh, how your life will change. You’ll have faith like you’ve never had it before. Your thinking will become clear as the blinders fall from your eyes. You’ll come face-to-face with what’s already been proven to you. What you accepted as true your whole life will manifest itself to you in ways different than you’ve known, but beyond what you could have imagined even in your dreams.”

It sure made sense. So much more than the religion and church stuff Joy had had shoved down her throat her whole life. Something niggled at her though. Movies and stories of people selling their soul to the devil were considered horror films for a reason. Surely she wasn’t doing that. How could something that felt so good and comforting be bad for her? Well, no matter, really. She was in far too deep to back out now. “Okay. I’m in.

What’s next?”

“Did you bring the letter?” Raven whispered.