The Impossible Knife of Memory(56)

“It’s tree blood. That makes you a tree-sucking vampire. I bet you have splinters in your lips.”

“Maybe you should check,” he suggested, swooping in for a bite.

The doorbell rang.

“We’re ignoring that,” he murmured.

“All trick-or-treaters should be in bed,” I said.

But it kept ringing, and then came the heavy pounding. Finn cursed and sat back, his shoulders slumping.

“Damn,” he said. “I forgot to call them.”





_*_ 60 _*_

Gracie tripped over the threshold. Topher trailed behind her with a stupid grin on his face. Both of them were redeyed and buzzed.

“Did you drive?” Finn asked.

“Got a ride,” Topher said. “We escaped just in time.” “So many police cars,” Gracie said with a giggle. “Police?” Finn opened the door again to check. “They busted the party at the quarry.” Topher grinned like a ten-year-old. “We ran. They didn’t see us.” “We flew,” Gracie said, eyes wide. She pointed at Finn. “We

have to sleep here tonight. In fact, we’re moving in. We’ll be

hippies and have a commune and raise chickens. And goats.” Topher put his arm around her. “Sorry, dude,” he said.

“She’s a little messed up.”

“You two,” Gracie’s swayed her finger back and forth

between Finn and me, “are good. Friends.”

“I made pancakes,” Finn said.

“Dude!” Topher let go of Gracie and headed for the

kitchen.

“Hurry up,” Gracie called after him. “I want to talk to

dead people.”

Finn looked at me. “What did she just say?”

By the time we finished eating, Gracie had somehow convinced Finn to take the big mirror off the wall of his mom’s bedroom and set it on the floor of the family room with a fat red candle in the middle of it.

Gracie curled up under an afghan on the couch, her head on Topher’s lap, her fogged eyes losing the fight to stay open. Topher tilted his head back and fell asleep, too. I thought about dragging the two of them outside and letting them sleep under the bushes, but that could create massive deposits of bad karma for me and I needed all the help I could get in that department. By the time Finn came in from the kitchen with the rest of the bacon and a small bowl of maple syrup, the two of them were snoring, Gracie’s soft alto alternating with Topher’s bass.

“Turn off the lights,” I said.

Finn muttered something I didn’t catch, but shut the lights off and groped his way back in the dark. He sat across from me, the mirror between us.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Haven’t you ever done this?” I wrapped my shawl of feathers around me to shield me from thoughts of Trish and my father. “The veil between the worlds is thinnest on Halloween night. We’re supposed to be able to see dead people in the mirror.”

Finn crunched a piece of bacon. “My mom would never buy a mirror that had dead people in it.”

“You can be an old fart sometimes.” I leaned forward and lit the candle, holding my shawl away from the flame.

He pointed at the mirror’s surface. “See? You and me, very much alive.”

“Take off your glasses,” I said. “Let your eyes go out of focus.”

“If I take my glasses off, my eyes go out of focus automatically.”

I snorted. “Just do it, okay?”

Finn removed his glasses. “All right,” he said. “Bring on the dead. They better not like bacon.”

I took a deep breath, half closed my eyes, and let them go blurry until I could only see shapes. Oval silver mirror. Square red candle. Circles and then crescents of flame colored blue, yellow, white, and then gray until it faded into the lanky Finn-shaped shadow that melted into the darkness.

Time stretched itself like a cat waking from a long nap, luxurious and patient. I took a deep breath, held it while I counted to seven, and let it go. The candle flame jumped. I tried to lose myself in the light rippling across the face of the mirror. Another deep breath, hold it. . . .

An owl hooted a long, eerie call. Hooo-hooo-hoo-hoo!

“Whoa,” Finn said.

I put my finger to my lips. “Shh.”

The owl hooted a second time, much closer, and then a third time, so loud it seemed like the bird was about to shatter the window and fly into the room. A shadow crept into the mirror, a vague shape trying to take form. I was afraid to look at it directly, afraid that if I did, it would vanish. I wasn’t cold, but I shivered again, my feathers shaking.

Finn broke the spell. “This is creepy.”

My eyes snapped back into focus. “You ruined it. Someone was trying to get into the mirror.”

The owl hooted again, much fainter, like she was flying away.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment.

I didn’t answer.

“Think it was it Rebecca?” he asked. “Your mom?”

I stared at him through the waving, watery candlelight. “How do you know her name?”

He pointed at Gracie.

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“No.” He unfolded his legs and lay on his side, his arm propped up on his hand. “Just that she died when you were little.”