Cursed be the Wicked (8 page)

But that just sounds nuts.

“Research, for my article,” I tell her.

Finn studies me for a few seconds, then she makes a decision.

“Come on, Mr. Stone,” she says. “You’re not ready to go down this road yet.”

She jerks her head back toward my car, urging me to follow her. I do it because, quite frankly, I’ve had enough of memory lane for the day.

“Where are we going?” I ask her as we approach the rental car. She pulls the passenger’s side door open and slides in. It’s as though she’s slid into my car every day of her life. “Somewhere you
are
ready to go.”

“Okay,” I say, ready, willing, and able to spend more time with her.

Inside the car, she kicks her flip flops off, and then rests her feet up on the dash while I start up the engine.

As I pull away from my mother’s old home, Finn watches the scenery out her window.

She still hasn’t told me our destination, but I’m guessing she will eventually. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that wherever it is, it’s going be interesting.

Chapter 5

Essex Street

Essex Street is a place I tended to avoid as teenager every October. It wasn’t that I was against it on a personal level or that I despised or disapproved of the fair. It was the way it made me feel back then, when my mother would take me. More specifically, the creepy way some of the psychics make me feel when they would look at me. Like they were trying to “read” me or that they
were
reading me. Like they could see every secret I ever tried to hide.

Finn leads me through the crowded streets and I wonder if I made a wise choice in letting her bring me here.

“You seem a little tense,” she says as her fingers slide across some crystals and bones scattered throughout a display we pass. Watching them ghost over the items on the table has me wondering what they would feel like if they were on me instead of those trinkets.

Not that she’d ever have a reason to put her hands on me again.

“Mr. Stone?”

“Hmm? I’m sorry, what?”

“Your shoulders are all tight and stressed.”

I roll them and feel the tightness. Between the visit to my aunt’s house and the almost visit to my childhood home, I’m not surprised I’m tense. The fact that she picks up on things I’m not prepared to discuss with her makes me a little edgy, though, so I change the subject.

“Why are we here, Finn?”

“I was thinking,” she says.

“Uh huh.”

“If you’re doing a piece on the Festival of the Dead, you’re gonna need someone to show you around.”

I get why she would think that but the truth is, I don’t need someone to show me around. I know this city better than I care to. However, I want to see what she’s thinking, so I leave the door open and start following her trail of breadcrumbs.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you know, like a tour guide.”

I have a smile on my face now. I know what’s coming.

“I suppose you’re offering.”

She continues to walk ahead of me, admiring the knick knacks at a psychic’s table.

“I think you need me.”

“Really?”

She hums in response. “Haven’t really felt needed in a while,” she says.

I wonder, curious as to why she’d feel that way. “You have a job, right? At the B&B?”

Finn snorts. “That’s Gran’s Bed and Breakfast you’re staying at, by the way, Mr. Stone. I’m obligated to work there. And anyway, that’s not what I meant.”

“Well then—”

“You just seem lost. Like you could use my services. That’s all.”

Lost? Me? In Salem?

As satisfying as it might be to tell her I know this city ten times better than she ever will, I don’t. It’ll be more satisfying listening to Finn’s take on Salem.

With every turn of her head, flip of her hair, every odd, cryptic thing she says I find her more and more intriguing. I want to put all the puzzle pieces together and see the whole picture.

I watch her as she walks ahead of me. I appreciate the way her skirt sways from side to side in rhythm with her hips. My eyes travel to the backs of her knees. I want to reach out and feel her smooth skin when her calf muscles flex as she walks.

I smile and nod when she points things out to me as we walk, giving me what she considers tidbits about the area, people, places. Some things I already know. Some, admitted, are new to me, but regardless, I find it all fascinating when described through her eyes. There’s a moment where Finn stretches her arms out, revealing the ink on her wrist.

“So, what’s with your tat?” I ask her, trying to sound nonchalant about it but unable to ignore the ink any longer.

Her head turns my way but her eyes are on something off in the distance that holds her attention. “Hmm?”

I point, even though she won’t see me doing it.

“Your tattoo,” I try again. “The one on your wrist, I was just wondering what it is.”

She hears me this time and her eyes move to the ink, then she pulls her jacket down over top of it so I can’t see it anymore.

“No offense, Mr. Stone, but I don’t generally share personal information with people I don’t really
know
.”

“None taken,” I tell her, knowing, from the confident sound of her voice, that even if I try to push her, she’s not giving me anything more than what she already has.

The conversation moves on to other things pretty quickly. I ask questions regarding events I already know about, like the Dumb Supper and Ghost tours, and Finn gives me all the information that’s easily found in brochures, and then some.

For a while I’m not even paying attention to where we are or what she’s showing me, I’m too enthralled with the way she tells her stories and the excitement in her eyes when she’s discussing something she’s passionate about, like the history behind Tarot and the differences between voodoo and hoodoo.

It’s not until we come upon a small, hole-in-the-wall establishment that I realize we’ve wandered away from the main strip.

It feels darker out, here, despite the fact that it is still only mid to late afternoon and I can’t stop the shiver that runs directly up my spine.

“What is this?” I ask, having a strange feeling of déjà vu as we approach the shop. I’m struggling with why it feels so familiar.

I notice the paint is chipping away from some of its siding and the windows have cobwebs in the corners, as if the place has been there for centuries. I make an educated guess that maybe the owner
makes
it look like this for the month of October. Which is probably why I recognize the place. All haunted store fronts look alike, after all.

Finn is watching me, I notice, so I stop gawking.

“I have to pick something up for Gran,” she tells me. “But if you’re not comfortable coming inside, then you can wait out here if you want.”

“No, no, I’m fine, I just . . .”

Settle down, Coop.

“You don’t look fine,” she tells me.

I don’t answer. I just stand there, mystified by this store like it’s a portal leading to some other world I’m afraid to visit.

“Wait here then,” she teases, and disappears through the front door.

I follow her in and tell myself that it’s not because I’m curious about what she needs in there, but because I want to make sure she’s safe. She’s small and it’s getting late. Who knows what kind of people frequent this place.

Inside it’s even creepier than outside, with candle lit corners, crooked shelving and creaky floors. When I don’t see my newly self-proclaimed “tour guide” lurking around, I call out to her.

“Finn?”

There’s an eerie silence that surrounds me. The sound of my voice practically echoes throughout the store, but there’s no response from her or anyone else for that matter. There’s only one entrance and exit to the place, so I know she hasn’t left. It’s so cramped, honestly, that if any foul play
was
to take place, I’d know it.

I keep looking for her but I’m quiet about it. My steps are soft as I turn down each aisle and I try my best not to think about stories like “The Grudge” or “Bloody Mary” as I peek through the shelving to see if I can spot her anywhere.

I don’t see Finn but a strange crystal, sitting on one of the shelves, catches my eye. I do a visual sweep of the store before reaching out and picking it up. The second I do, I’m dizzy and my head swims as the trinket changes colors. Then I hear my mother.

“You can’t hurt him.”

It’s like a whisper across the air. I can’t decide if it’s a memory or a dream. But I’d have to be sleeping for it to be a dream so it must be a memory.

“If you’re buying that, it’s a hundred fifty-seven, even.”

My head snaps away from the item and I nearly drop the damn thing when I look over at the old, hunched-over woman suddenly standing next to me. She’s eyeing me with a crooked frown.

“Including tax,” she mutters.

I set it back down on its shelf, not bothering to answer her. I’m not sure it was a question anyway. That’s when I notice Finn, waiting for me by the door. I scoot past the store owner and usher Finn out the door in front of me.

“Where did you go?”

“I told you, I had to pick up something for Gran.”

“From
that
crazy b . . .”

“That
woman
happens to be the best contact around town for dried—” She stops herself. “Seasonings.”

“Seasonings,” I say sarcastically as we weave our way back through the thinning crowd to where I parked the rental car.

“That’s right,” she tells me as she looks up at the sky; it’s darkening even as we walk.

How long were we in there?
I wonder when I look up as well.

I see a faded moon. It’s huge and full. I remember bedtime warnings about moons like this one. Despite the fact that I don’t buy in to those old sayings, I trick my mind into thinking about other things.

“You went to a lady inside a store that may as well have been plopped down in the middle of a cemetery with all the dead things laying around in there for seasonings?”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re doing it again by the way.”

“Doing what?” I ask her, trying to keep up with the quick steps she takes. It seems like she’s walking faster and faster with every block we pass. In fact, she might as well be running.

“Repeating everything I say when it’s obvious I just said what I said.”

“I—” I start to argue. Even as I’m second guessing myself, someone interrupts our conversation.

“Well, hey there, Finnley,” a pompous sounding guy heckles from the sidewalk. Finn doesn’t seem happy to see him and his friends but she doesn’t look fearful either. It’s more like indignation.

She grumbles from beside me. “Lord, I am not in the mood for this.”

He starts to say something more to her, but then gives me a second look.

“Don’t I know you?” he asks.

I want to look away and avoid any possible eye contact with the guy, but I can’t. I simply eyeball him as Finn chimes in.

“What do you want, Raymond?”

Raymond. This is whoever she thought I was when I arrived the other night. I realize now, I know that name.

Where do know that name from?

He turns his attentions back to Finn when she calls him out. “I hear your old grandma is late on her payments again,” he says, like he’s trying to hold it over her head.

Finn clearly isn’t playing his game. She places a hand on one of her hips and shoots him an annoyed look.

“I’m pretty sure that’s none of your business.”

He shrugs.

“It’s my brother’s, though. Isn’t it?”

Arrogant laughter from his friends doesn’t faze her a bit.

“And?” she asks, impatiently. I almost get the feeling she knows this conversation all too well.

“He’s not the most flexible guy in the world, Finnley. But I can be.”

He smiles and it makes Finn scrunch her face up. Even I know she hates that name and yet he continues to use it. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of saying anything.

I love that.

“Gross, Raymond,” she says, then loses all that patience she didn’t have to begin with. “Why don’t you move along, I’ve got somewhere to be right now.”

She starts to walk past him, but he steps in front of her, then remembers me and shoots me a look.

“With him?”

And I’ve kinda had it with this punk, whoever he is.

“Yeah, actually,” I tell him. “Is that a problem, Raymond?”

The jackass laughs. He’s clearly not taking me seriously.

I hear Finn beside me. “You probably shouldn’t—”

I put a hand up to her.

“I don’t see the need for a scene here, guys. We’re all adults, right?” I tell him and his friends. He doesn’t look like he’s been of legal age for long though. I try to keep the situation light as I make my own attempt to usher Finn past them, but he steps in the way again.

“Don’t think you’re going anywhere ‘til I’m done talking to Finnley here,” he tells me. His friends snicker and I start wondering if there’s any way to walk away from this situation unscathed.

Highly doubtful, Coop.

So much for keeping it light.

“I think we’re going wherever the hell we wanna go,” I tell him. My tone is a little more serious and we’re toe to toe now.

“Says who?” the cocky little shit says.

“
Says who?
What are you, twelve?”

“Try twenty-one.”

I laugh because, damn, I just can’t help it.

Then he decks me, square in the jaw.

I swear I hear something crack and a metallic taste fills my mouth as I fly backwards. The back of my head makes contact with something hard and everything goes black for an instant.

I cough. “Shit.”

“Oh my God, are you okay?” I hear Finn. Then I blink my eyes open to see her blurry figure, turning her furious attention toward the jerks that are harassing her.

“If I were you, Raymond, I’d leave. Now.”

“Cut it out, Finnley. I hate it when you do that shit.”

I’m trying to focus on what he means, but I can’t. Things are too fuzzy for the time being.