Exaltation (Insight #11)(80)

“Well, Rydell, if you’re seeing my daughter now that must mean she invited you to Sunday dinner.”

Rydell looked down at Raven.

“I was getting to that.” No, she wasn’t! She knew Miss Thelma Ray would have a heyday messing with him, and not in a positive way. She was way more protective than Raven’s dad or Emery. “Um, I’m not sure if it’s your crowd, like everyone comes. More like a party on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Bring a friend,” Jamison insisted. “I think Soren mentioned a boy named Dagen that you ran with,” Jamison added.

“We’d be honored, sir.” Rydell said.

Jamison nodded once. “Five minutes, Raven,” he said as he turned to walk back to the porch.

Rydell pulled her into the shadows behind the bushes and before she could giggle his lips were on hers. It was a sweet, slow goodbye kiss that made Raven dizzy.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered as he watched her walk through the gate.





Chapter Twenty-Three

Raven couldn’t take the ridiculous grin off her face as she made it through the gate. She didn’t even glance at Jamison and Emery.

Jamison said her name right as she opened the screen door.

Raven turned as if to notice him for the first time.

“Anything you want to say, talk about?” he asked as he leaned back in his seat. Emery kept her eyes down.

Before Raven had left for work she’d hashed out a discussion she wanted to have with her dad. She was going to tell him that she thought there was a boy in trouble in the Veil, and she needed to find the house he was at to put her mind at ease. She knew it was going to be a hard argument, because according to her father the house didn’t exist. And even if it did, the dead were dead. There was no sanction of souls who respect the natural circle of life more so than the Dominium coven, there are things you can’t come back from—death was ranking right up there at the top of the list.

Even after being with Rydell and having real fun she still felt devastated about the day before. But at the same time she had some hope that if she stayed in the bliss bubble she was in she might actually get some sleep, and with sleep she could sort out her thoughts the next day, check her argument for flaws.

“Absolutely. I’m proud of you,” Raven said, choosing to aim this conversation in a different direction.

He raised his brows.

“Yep, you two listened to me. You’re taking time off of work and spending it with Miss Emery, alone. Bravo, man. I can’t wait to drop the Miss Emery and pick up the MOM word.” That was true. She’d accidently called her that more than a thousand times.

Emery blushed. Jamison had stayed every night there but he left before the girls got up. Not to hide but because he was trying to figure out this mess that was going on, how to get that boy out of the Veil. They had to find him first, and Raven was the only one that knew where he was.

They were still working out how they would explain their relationship to the girls.

“I meant about yesterday,” Jamison said after he cleared his throat, and tossed an ‘I told you so,’ glance at Emery.

Raven let the screen door close and leaned against it. She bit her lip to keep the conversation she had plotted within.

“It was scary but I feel safe now,” she finally said.

“I want to talk about what you said about the Veil,” he said, leaning forward and looking up at her.

“I just kept landing in scary places.”

“But you said you saw the old man, that he showed you a house—one you’ve seen before.”

“He was sitting in front of a home.”

“And?”

“And I don’t remember exactly what he said, something like the Veil is eccentric and if I said I wanted to go home it would not take it literally, or it would, one of the two.”

“And you saw a place you thought you saw when I took you in there?”

“Did, not thought. I did see a house the first time you took me in the Veil.”

Jamison glanced at Emery and saw the hope he was feeling in her eyes. Raven had been taken near this boy twice. The universe was trying to pull them together even though death was separating them.

If Jamison could find the boy, pinpoint him, then the coven could move to barter to free him from the prison of death. It would take time, but Jamison had faith it would happen—that it had to happen.

“Anything else happen?”

“Dad, for a few hours tonight I was happy. I was me again. I’m not a fool. I know there’s something dark lurking in my future. Something that will make me grow up, feel hard emotions, and make impossible decisions. But I want to be happy when I can be.”

“I want you to be happy, too. I don’t want you to fear anything. I just cannot stress enough how important it is for you heed whatever that man said to you.” He created your soul, Raven, he knows where the other half is…If only he could say such things and not rob her childhood, her innocence at the same time.

Raven looked down. “Is anyone in the Veil in pain?”

“Some. It’s a process. They have to come to terms with the past before they can move on.”

Raven fumbled with her mud caked fingers, picking the dry mud off of them. “And you can’t ease that pain, right? They chose. If they’re there it’s final.”