Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell #3)(20)

I almost laughed. He was making me feel better, despite everything swirling in my head. It was hard to be upset with all his energetic mile-a-minute chatter.

“Oh!” he said, suddenly changing gears. “Lemme read your palm. I read a book today in the library that teaches you how.”

Like that.

As Lon hung up the phone, I let Jupe spread open my palm and squint over the armrest, studying the intersecting lines in my skin by the soft blue glow of the dashboard and the brighter bud-green emanations from his halo. Skinny fingers traced flowing patterns as his spring-loaded, flouncy curls tickled my cheek.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re going to die, like, whoa! Three times. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.” He squinted harder, peering an inch away from my hand. I was tempted to smack him in the face, Three Stooges style. “That’s not your life line. What the hell kind of line is this? I can’t tell jack about any of these lines. That palmistry book was junk.”

He continued to mumble to himself, exasperated but fully intent on solving the mystery inside my palm. I nibbled the back of his neck playfully. He giggled and shoved me back with the side of his head. We were laughing. It was all good. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, I started crying.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Jupe dropped my hand in alarm. “I didn’t mean it. You’re not going to die three times.”

I covered my face with my hands and slouched in my seat. “I don’t even . . . know why I’m . . .” I gritted my teeth and groaned, forcing back tears. I felt so out of control, like I could lose it completely at any moment.

I couldn’t just break down like this. I mean, so what if my mom really was alive? She was on another plane. She couldn’t touch me here. And if we shared some sort of connection through the stupid Moonchild power—God only knew what sort of ritual magick she’d conjured up when conceiving me—then I’d either find a way to sever it, or just stop using it completely.

I took a few deep breaths. Lon and Jupe were staring at me in that Oh-Shit, Female-Is-Crying sort of way. “I’m fine,” I said, sniffing and brushing tears off my cheeks. “I’m fine.

“Maybe you’re, you know.” Jupe squinted at me knowingly.

“Know what?”

He gave me a superior look. “Oh, you know. ‘That time.’ ” He made air quotations with one hand. “Women get weird then. I’ve noticed a lot of girls crying at school on the same days. Kiya said it’s because when girls spend a lot of time around each other, they start to, you know, on the same schedule.”

“Well, right now I’m not, ‘you knowing,’ ” I air quoted him back. “But thanks for teaching me about my own body.”

“You’re welcome,” he said seriously. “See. I’m learning all kinds of things at school. Last year none of the girls were crying. But this year? Whew! Watch out, buddy.”

“Why does God hate me?” Lon murmured.

The SUV began its familiar ascent up the dark roads that led to Lon’s secluded cliff-top property. Soft moonlight filtered through pines and redwoods. I blew out a breath and relaxed in my seat as a mind-numbing exhaustion settled over me. I wasn’t going to think about my mom anymore. Tomorrow we’d track down this Noel Saint-Hill in Morella. Maybe I’d even just do the normal thing and file charges against him. Let the police handle it. Not try to fix things with magick for once.

Two roads led to Lon’s house: a zigzag deathtrap of a road that visitors used—and on which I’d once wrecked my car and been chased down by an Æthyric demon sent to kill me—and a hidden side road that only family used. Both roads led to locked gates that required either a key code or a remote to enter. But the side road gate’s auto-open feature had broken last week. You had to get out and open the gate manually, then shut it behind you once you drove inside; the guy who installed it was supposed to fix it soon.

Jupe had closed it when we left for the racetrack, but it was now open.

“Lon,” I said, sitting up straighter. My galloping pulse cleared the emotional fuzz from my brain. “The gate.”

“It’s fine.”

The only other people who used it were the housekeepers who lived on Lon’s property, Mr. and Mrs. Holiday. And they were more anal about security than Lon.

“I know I latched it,” Jupe protested. “You think a wild animal knocked it open? Maybe an Imp?” A circular magical ward kept the acre around Lon’s house safe from intruders and Imps: small transparent demons that have the ability to pop back and forth between the planes—the only known entity with a free pass to travel at will. They were like ghostly cockroaches, irritating but harmless.

But we’d just crossed over the house ward, so it couldn’t be Imps.

“Maybe it was Foxglove,” Jupe suggested.

“Dogs can’t open gates,” Lon said as he stopped the car. “Go shut it.”

“What if something’s out there?”

Hey, I didn’t blame the kid. These cliffs were heavily wooded, and Lon owned ten acres of property. The only other souls up here were the Holidays. It was peaceful, but kind of creepy at moments like this. “I’ll shut it,” I said, jumping out of the SUV.

I scoured the dark woods around me as I walked. It was quiet and serene. A biting wind whispered through the brush and scattered the scent of cypress and dead leaves. If I stopped to listen, I’d hear the surf crashing against the rocks half a mile down the cliff below. But I didn’t want to try, not when I felt this creeped out. I thought of the man hiding in the shadows of the racetrack parking lot and moved faster. The gate screeched as I swung it shut and latched the handle. I hurried back to the yellow-lit interior of the SUV and slowed when I heard Jupe make a joyous noise. Lon shushed him.