Jillian Cade (20 page)

“A girl?” I said.

“She disappeared into thin air,” Sky told me. “Just
. . .
vanished. I probably would have thought it had all been a dream—a regular, normal dream—except for two things. The first was the scratch on my left shoulder blade, where someone had grabbed me. Even that I could have explained away, like maybe I did it to myself while dreaming.”

“But you still had my obituary.” It came out as a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” said Sky. “It came from my dream of the future. It was solid and it was real, and when I did an online search for you, I found your dad's website.”

“So you're not a crazy longtime fan of my father,” I said slowly, as the last of my anger slid away.

“I'd never even heard of him until I searched for your name online,” said Sky. “But once I realized he was a professor of the occult, I knew I had to learn as much about that stuff as I possibly could. So I watched his videos, and I ordered his books, and then I researched every other paranormal expert I could find.”

“That's why you know so much about succubi,” I murmured.

“Yeah, and about you.”

I cocked my head at him. “Then why put the obituary in my locker? Why not just hand it over to begin with, and save me the heartache and the torture and all of it?”

“Would you have bought it?” Sky asked. “Would you have believed that the new dude in school just happened to possess a partial copy of your obituary that came from the future? Would you have taken it seriously?”

I opened my mouth, and closed it. “Well
. . .
probably not.” I considered. “What did she look like?”

Sky frowned. “Who?”

“The shadow.” I was curious, but mostly I was trying to buy time while I sorted through my thoughts and feelings.

“I was just blinking awake, and she was gone so fast. I didn't get a really good look, but
. . .
I can still picture her eyes.”

My mouth went dry. “Why? What about her eyes?”

“They didn't have pupils,” said Sky. “They were white, like her hair.”

That's when I knew for sure that Sky was telling the truth.

“Rosemary,” I said. “That was my sister, Rosemary.”

Twenty-Nine

On Friday morning,
I took Norbert to school early. I had stayed over at his house again because, although I didn't plan on making it a regular habit, I figured a few nights would help defuse my aunt and uncle's great desire to watch over me.

Besides, it was kind of nice. Uncle Edmund made a delicious lasagna, and my aunt's homemade brownies were to die for, plus Norbert taught me how to play contract rummy. It felt safe there. Nice.

Normal.

Best of all, we didn't talk about any of it.

Until Aunt Aggie cornered me before I could get to my car where Norbert was waiting patiently in the passenger seat. She pulled me off to the side of the porch and peered into my eyes. We were about the same height. I had never noticed that before.

“It's not your fault,” Aunt Aggie said.

I blinked, not sure which part she was talking about or how much she knew.

“Rosemary,” my aunt clarified. “It's not your fault they sent her away. I offered to take her back to North Carolina with us, but your mom said she had to go further than that. Things were happening in the house, and your mother was afraid for both of you.”

My heart beat faster. “What kind of things?”

“Sounds, mostly. Like whispers in the air.”

I stared at her. “You said ‘mostly.' What else?”

“Oh, Jillian, it sounds so crazy when I say it out loud.” She shook her head, giving me a rueful smile. “Lights went out, and things would fall, and once—” She stopped.

I swallowed hard. “What? Say it.”

“Her crib burst into flames.” My aunt reached out to touch the arm she wasn't holding. “Rosemary was fine but your parents were scared. For both of you.”

“Where did she go?” My lips were numb, but somehow I got the words out through them.

“I don't know, honey, but I can tell you that on our visit, I saw the two of you together. Rosemary was in this little basket on the living room floor, waving her hands and feet around. You toddled over and peeked at her, and she looked straight at you. It was the first time I thought maybe she could see after all. Your mom ran over to pull you away, but your dad stopped her. He said sisters should get to know each other.”

The numbness had descended to my throat, becoming an iceberg of pain. I was afraid that if I swallowed again, it would shatter into liquid, and there would be only one place for the water to escape. My eyes.

Aunt Aggie's grip on my other arm tightened. “Rosemary smiled when she saw you,” she told me. “That time and every time you came near, she would smile. Sometimes you babbled at her, and sometimes you touched her, but every time—every single time when we were there—you made that baby smile. Rosemary loved you. You have a sister somewhere and she loves you.”

The sun came out. The iceberg floated away and melted. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for telling me.”

Then, for the first time ever, I initiated one of Aunt Aggie's angel-love hugs.

At school, I found Sky surrounded by lilac bushes, on the bench where Corabelle had first told us about Todd Harmon. I sat down beside him, breathed in the scent of the flowers, and gazed into those amazing green eyes. He reached for my hand, and I allowed him to take it. Then I said the three most difficult words I had ever spoken in my life.

“No more kissing.”

Sky frowned. “You mean at school, right? No more kissing at school.”

“Yes.”

He looked relieved. “Good, because at first I thought—”

“Or at home or in cars or succubus night clubs or on benches. Especially not on benches.”

“Jillian.” He scooted closer to me and leaned in, like maybe his nearness would change my mind. It came awfully close to doing so. “I told you the truth. I told you everything.”

“I know. I believe you. And that's why we can't be together.”

Sky released my hand, looking bewildered. “I don't understand.”

“You didn't come here for me,” I said, the hurt washing up and over me like it had late the night before when I'd made the realization. “You came for a
dream
of me.”

“But the dream was
real
. We are meant for each other. Your happiest futures all lead to me.” Lines appeared around his eyes and he looked sad. Confused. “Jillian, we are
supposed
to be together. It's fate, like I've been telling you all along.”

“Sky
. . .
” I paused, swallowing back the lump in my throat. This was even harder than I'd thought it would be, and I had thought it would be epically hard. “You don't know me.”

“Yes I do!”

“No, you know information that you found online, and we had a couple days of succubus hunting together, and you want to protect me so you can save the world, because for some unfathomable reason, I matter or—”

“Of course you matter.”

“—or at least my missing sister thinks I do. That's not
knowing
me.”

“I'm
getting
to know you,” Sky argued. “It's what I said I wanted at the very beginning. Knowing you,
really
knowing you
. . .
that part will come.”

“I agree.”

“You do?” His green eyes looked hopeful, and my heart clenched, aching with the pain of losing him. But it was better than losing myself
into
him.

“That's why we can't rush it. You want to save the world, right?”

“Right.”

“Then let's do that first. Let's find Rosemary. Let's figure out what the obituary meant. Let's make sure it doesn't come true. Let's find the bridge and burn it like my mom said, so the armies can't cross over. Let's do all
that
stuff together.” I was so intent on making him understand that I didn't realize I had caught his hand again until his hard, smooth fingers were sliding between my own. When I spoke again, my voice trembled. “You were right, Sky. You were right the whole time. There
are
bigger, scarier things out there, and now we are two of the very few people in the world who know they exist. That has to come first.”

Sky's gaze danced across my face for a moment before he slowly nodded. “You're saying fate can wait.”

“I'm saying kissing can wait.”

The part I didn't say out loud was that it was still about trust. It wasn't that I didn't trust Sky Ramsey to be truthful. For all of Corabelle's dark delusions, she had been right about one thing: the human heart was the weakest part of us. Sky cared about me because the dream had told him that he
had
to care about me. But until he came to me in his own way, on his own terms, it didn't mean what it should mean. It didn't count the same way. It didn't really count at all.

“We can still hang out together,” I told him. “Just no—”

“No kissing.” He completed the sentence with a rueful smile.

“Right.” I reached into the side pocket of my backpack and pulled out the email I had printed the night before. “Besides, kissing takes time. We're not going to have enough minutes in the day for a bunch of time-wasting kissing.”

Sky eyed the paper. “Why?”

“Because we got a new case.”

Sky's eyes darted back up to mine.
“We?”

“Yeah.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Unless you're not interested in being a part of Umbra. Unless you don't want to work with me.”

He made a grab for the paper, but I held it behind my back. “Hold on. I need to hear you say it.”

“It.”

“So funny.” I shook my head at him. “No, really. Repeat after me: I, Sky Ramsey, do solemnly swear to partner with Jillian on all things Umbra.”

“I, Sky Ramsey, do solemnly swear to partner with Jillian on all things Umbra even though I still want to kiss her.”

I made a face at him and kept going. “And to always tell her the truth about everything, past and present.”

“And to always tell her the truth about everything, past and present
. . .
” Sky leaned close to me. “And future.”

“Good point. Also I promise to do whatever she says at all times and in all—”

“In your dreams,” said Sky, nudging me.

“Hey, you're the one with the dreams,” I told him with a return nudge. We sat there for a moment, grinning at each other, and then I brandished the paper. “So don't you want to hear about our new case?”

“Let me guess. Is it another succubus?”

“Better.”

“Better than a succubus?” Sky considered. “A vampire? Ghost? Troll?” I shook my head after each guess. “An orc?”

“Please. There's no such thing as an orc.”

“Give me a hint.”

“Remember the week we just had.”

I watched him contemplate and fought back the desire to touch his streaked blond hair. There would be time for that after we knew each other better. “Think hard heads,” I said. “Anger issues.”

“Asterions
. . .
” Sky said slowly. “We do know there are at least two of them hanging around Los Angeles.”

“Bingo.”

Sky reached out again, and this time, I let him take the paper from me. I watched his eyes move back and forth across it before widening and lifting to meet my own. “Jillian,” he said in a whisper. “This isn't a case
about
a descendant of Asterion.”

“I know.” I felt the smile blossom across my face, all at once exhilarated and fascinated and—to be one hundred percent honest—a little bit scared. “It's a case request
from
one.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and then Sky grabbed my hand with his own and pumped it vigorously. “Let's do it.”

“All right, partner.”

At lunchtime, as usual, I spotted Norbert sitting in the cafeteria with his new freshmen buddies. We waved at each other and I headed outside. But I'd made a resolution. For the first time ever, I wasn't going to lose myself in the horde of screen-obsessed students on the front lawn or eat lunch alone on the hood of my car.

I was going to seek someone out.

Laura was leaning against a magnolia tree on the edge of campus—not far from the bird-poop bench where it had all started—when I plopped down beside her. “Okay to sit here?”

Laura looked startled. More than startled. She jerked upright with a little squeal, nearly knocking over her carton of chocolate milk.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn't expecting anyone.”

“So I can sit here?”

She blinked, and then nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course you can. Please, have a seat.”

It seemed rude to mention that I had already done so. And I was no longer going to be rude. At least, not if I could help it. I dug my spork into the cafeteria manicotti and held it up for a moment, letting it cool. “Did I miss anything important in class yesterday?”

Laura paused, waiting for a catch. I watched it slowly dawn on her that there wasn't one. I was just trying to be a normal girl talking to another normal girl.

“Not really,” she said. “Except Henry got in trouble for talking dirty. Something about Helen of Troy and a swan.”

“Sorry I missed that.” I popped the bite into my mouth and grinned through the tomato and starch and cheese.

She laughed. “Also, Mr. Lowe is going to have us team up on an epic hero project. Do you want to be in my group?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed my bite and nodded at the same time. “I'm in.”

“Great,” said Laura. “I'll email you the notes.”

And just like that, I had a friend.

The rest of the day was uneventful—in the good way—and that afternoon, I drove to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to pay my electric bill. After everything I'd been through, it felt like an accomplishment.

When I got back to my father's house—my house—and unlocked the front door, I hesitated a moment. This was the place where my sister had taken her first breaths. Where my mother had taken her last. This was a place of secrets and of regrets and, hopefully, of new beginnings and questions answered.

I reached in and slid my hand up the wall next to the door, turning on the lights. Then I did something I hadn't done in months and months.

I went inside and yanked up the window shades.

Sunlight flooded in, banishing the shadows and washing the room in gold. Maybe I only had six months to live, or maybe ahead of me lay years and years of life. Either way, I had learned a very important lesson.