The Price Guide to the Occult(34)
“I didn’t know you were slated for valedictorian,” Nor shot back.
“No, that will be my cousin Charlie,” he said scathingly. “Look, kid, I don’t have all the answers. We might be part of the curse. We might not be.” He tossed his cigarette on the ground, stood, and started walking away. “All I know is I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to find out.”
“Trust me,” Nor called after him. “It wouldn’t exactly be a dream come true for me either!”
What a dick. But once he was gone, a different and more desperate feeling started to creep into the pit of her stomach. Though she hated to admit it, Nor sympathized with him. He was afraid, and she knew what it was to be afraid. She knew that fear hurt in a way that was hard to explain; it could make you say things you never thought yourself capable of saying, do things you never thought you were capable of doing.
Nor stared at the lights in the Tower. A moment passed, and then another, and her attention was drawn to his discarded cigarette, still smoldering.
Nor picked it up, studied the dying embers, and imagined pressing the lit end into the back of her hand. She thought about the white-hot pain invoking that familiar rush of adrenaline. How it would soon enough be replaced by a dull nothingness, both soothing and addictive, that she’d tried so hard to forget.
Nor dropped the cigarette and crushed it under her foot until all that was left was a scorched mark on the ground.
Nor walked back into the Tower holding Bijou. Reluctantly, she put him down; it felt better to have him in her arms, with his thoughts of rainwater and pelicans to calm her. She followed him through the kitchen and saw Pike and Sena Crowe standing in the foyer, stoic statues on either side of the woman Judd had called Dauphine. Each had a large knife slung on his hip.
“Oh, come now, Judd,” Dauphine was saying. “You’re being difficult for the sake of being difficult.” Sitting at Dauphine’s side was, peculiarly, a wolfhound, one as large and as old as Antiquity.
“I am doin’ nothing of the sort,” Judd grumbled. Judd’s posture was rigid. Her mouth was the taut line of a person who disliked what she was hearing. Antiquity loomed beside her.
Nor wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone argue with Judd before. Apothia and Judd could orchestrate a knockdown, drag-out fight with just eyebrow raises and flared nostrils; Apothia had a way of soothing Judd’s wild temper, and it certainly hadn’t ever been by matching Judd’s rage with her own.
“If you’re all so damned worried about it,” the older gentleman wearing the cowboy hat interjected, “I don’t see why you all can’t just come stay with us. You’ll be safe as houses up there.” He moved his hand as he talked. He was holding a knife, and briefly, it was all Nor could see, watching the flashing blade as he wove it deftly between his fingers.
“Because there is protocol to follow, Everly —” Dauphine reminded him.
“Dauphine —” Everly scoffed.
“And protocol,” Dauphine continued, “hardly calls for sequestering Blackburn women without irrefutable evidence that they are, in fact, in danger.”
“Too right,” Judd grumbled.
“I’d like to get back to the matter of the woman we found on the brink of death a few hours ago,” Dauphine continued.
Nor’s heart sank. “But she’s okay now, right?” she interrupted. Everyone turned to look at her. Nor turned to her grandmother. “You were able to heal her?”
“It wasn’t anything I couldn’t fix,” Judd rumbled. “So don’t you worry about that, girlie.”
Nor breathed a tiny sigh of relief. She could feel Dauphine studying her. There was something about her that made Nor wary of looking her in the eye, afraid that it would be just as blinding as staring into the headlights of an approaching car or straight into the blazing sun. The wolfhound at her side cast a lupine shadow like a menacing shroud. But unlike Antiquity, whose thoughts brimmed with memories of the hunter she had once been, this wolfhound’s thoughts were calm, as placid as a dank forest floor.
“For the time being,” Dauphine finally said, “I think we need to keep our focus on figuring out exactly what happened to Wintersweet. So far, there is nothing to support the idea that this has relevance only for the Blackburn daughters. We must assume that there may well exist a threat to us all.”
As the room erupted into a boisterous debate, Nor caught a glimpse through a window of Gage, who’d come back and was standing in the yard, his back turned to her. His cigarette sent a lone spiral of smoke into the morning air. Suddenly she felt like she was standing on the edge of a dark cliff, with an irresistible urge to jump.
Nor sat in a rickety wicker chair in front of Apothia’s little dance studio. A chilly March breeze came up off the water. Nor wrapped her sweater more tightly around herself. Across from her, Wintersweet set down a cup of tea. Her hand trembled as she passed another to Nor, the teacup rattling in its saucer. Nor leaped up to take it from her to avoid adding this one to the shards of broken porcelain she’d already had to sweep up. Wintersweet looked at Nor expectantly. Nor raised the teacup to her lips and took a polite sip of the air inside.
Judd had done all she could for Wintersweet. Any physical ailments Wintersweet had suffered that night two months ago were healed. But there were some types of pain that Judd couldn’t heal. Nor knew all too well that some pain would not be erased. Some pain demanded to be felt.