Authors: Karin Shah
“Night.”
Honey lifted her head from her snowy paws as Devon walked through the kitchen to the bedroom. She’d already gone out a little while earlier.
Devon had to smile at the worried expression in the dog’s dark eyes. “Come on, Sweetie. Let’s get to bed.”
As Devon slid under the soft white linen and turned out the light, she couldn’t summon much worry about the demonic.
Not wanting to frighten her friend, she’d kept it’s new location away from Beth.
She smothered an ember of guilt. She probably should have mentioned the demonic now that Beth was staying, but after using so much energy that night, it was unlikely either spirit would materialize for several days.
She glanced over at Ethan’s picture before turning out the light. His eyes pierced her, making her stomach contract. As for discussing Ethan, only the excessive application of margarita’s had loosened her lips on that one.
The heavy weight of loss pressed down on her chest. Why couldn’t she see him as she did other spirits? Even that pale imitation of an acquaintance taunted from out of her reach. All she had were dreams. She blinked back the foolish stab of tears. “‘Night, handsome.”
Hand on the ornate doorknob, Devon walked into Colleen’s parents’ vast, rambling, old house. The door seemed huge and heavy, the lights too dim. Her hand shook as the door slammed behind her.
She looked around. What was she doing here?
She glanced at herself. And why was she wearing this old T-shirt? It had gone to the volunteers years ago.
Then she realized she was dreaming. Dreaming of that night at Colleen’s. The disastrous sleepover.
Oh, God! Wake up! Wake up!
But, she couldn’t. The dream had her too deeply. That damn Cuervo, too, of course.
She crept further into the elegant foyer of Frobisher Funeral Home. The space didn’t look right. The proportions were off, the ceiling too high, the curving staircase, too steep. But this wasn’t a memory. It was a nightmare.
Again, she tried to wake up, but Colleen was in front of her, all white teeth, bleached hair, and self-tanner, glowing skin. The queen. Her attendants, the “B’s” Brianna, Brittany, and Bailey, swarmed around her, buzzing, words as sweet as honey, and sharp as stingers.
True memory warred with the dark creation of her sleeping mind. The first part of the night had been fun. She’d been thrilled that she and Beth had been invited. Of course, Beth could have been a “B,” even her name fit, but though she’d never said anything to Devon, Devon had known their friendship would be the price of admission and Beth would never pay it.
They’d eaten and watched a movie, Colleen’s parents breezing in and out, keeping an eye on the proceedings. Then at eleven, the lights went out and Devon discovered why she was really here.
“Do a séance for us, Devon!” Colleen had put on a pouty face and held a flashlight under her chin. “We want to be scared.”
The dream skipped along, bypassing Devon’s protests.
Using her gift drained her, and she was vain enough not to want to collapse in front of them. Besides, she couldn’t even contact the person she wanted to see again more than anyone in the world. She’d almost killed herself trying in the days after her father’s death.
Finally, after much cajoling, she’d agreed. In life they’d taken some time gathering the materials. The dream simply carried her to the séance like a pebble in the current.
God, she’d been nervous. Yes, she was used to handling spirits, but this was a funeral home. Who knew how many spirits it might hold?
In the beginning, things went well. It’d been fun actually, being accepted. Brianna’s grandfather had some things to tell his granddaughter, a Civil War soldier crossed over, but Colleen wasn’t satisfied with the small stuff and began to agitate the spirits. Urging them to manifest, to speak, to throw things, to touch them. Beth later speculated it was because she was jealous of her mother, a member of Lily Dale’s spiritualist community.
Devon felt as if she were both present in the moment and watching herself from outside. As Colleen continued to exhort the spirits to come forward, Devon warned her younger self.
“Don’t do it! Come on, Devon, wake up! Wake up!” But nothing she did made a difference, she couldn’t break free.
The heightened emotions Colleen had stirred up seemed to swell through the room. The atmosphere darkened. Electricity sparked over her skin, raising the goosebumps on her arms. An angry spirit approached.
Weakened by her earlier efforts, the spirit took advantage of the bitter worm of grief and anger rotting inside her since the death of her father and burst through her defenses.
Like icy seawater over a drowning victim, the spirit filled her lungs, swallowed her body, driving her consciousness into a tiny, powerless corner. She grappled with the invading spirit, trying to call out, to move, anything, but the mass of rage and hate was too strong.
Her worst nightmare had become a reality. She was a spectator in her own body.
She could read the horror and fear in the other girls’ faces as she spewed filth in a man’s deep voice.
Screaming, Devon clawed her way out of the dream. Panting, she gazed into the darkness.
All those years ago, Colleen had run to get her mother and Mrs. Frobisher had cast out the invasive spirit, but the damage had been done.
Sighing, Devon rolled over and stared at the orange numbers on her phone. 2:00 a.m. She closed her eyes again.
Please God, let me dream of Ethan, or at least no more nightmares.
But despite her pleas, another bad dream carried her away.
She’d been re-hired by M and N, but as a legal assistant, not a lawyer, and she’d left important documents at home. She was called to takes notes in a meeting, but couldn’t find her pen. The meeting started and the lawyers spoke in a language she didn’t understand. But then, she looked up from her desk at M and N and saw Ethan.
The same black T-shirt and jeans he’d worn in the picture and on the beach clung to his muscular frame. His eyes gleamed hazel green, a fascinating mixture of green and amber.
He took her hand and led her from behind the desk. Once again, she marveled at his size. At just shy of six feet, no one could call her petite but he topped her by a good five or six inches.
Despite the tender expression on his face, and the way he held her fingers like he feared he might break her, there was an aura of bridled danger around him. A sense that something even larger and more powerful lurked inside him, waiting to explode past his control, and it thrilled her.
She shivered as he lowered his lips to graze her cheek. The gentle touch fluffed the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck.
She reached for him, wanting to feel the rough silk of his eyelash-short hair, to bask in the warm circle of his strong arms, but he backed away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t stay. I have to find the Queen’s seal.”
“The Queen’s seal?”
Devon stepped forward to grasp his arm, but he faded.
“Find the seal.”
He was gone, leaving her with an ache in her chest that she couldn’t explain.
Then as dreams do, it shifted without warning and she found herself back in her kitchen as she had been when she’d fallen asleep while meditating. This time Ethan occupied a chair at the table as if waiting for her.
“Hi,” he said, as if they were meeting for the first time that evening, but she didn’t question the opportunity to see him again so soon.
“Hi.” The thrill she got when she was with him was crazy, but habit forming, and she sank into the chair next to him.
He smiled, the bright morning sunshine making his eyes more emerald than topaz. “I like the dog.”
Devon ducked her head and studied her fingers. “I named her Honey.”
“I know.”
Devon felt her cheeks heat and groped for something to say.
“Who was that woman you met in Jamestown?”
Devon gasped. “You were there?” The heat in her cheeks became an inferno.
Duh, Of course he wasn’t really there. He’s a figment of your subconscious.
Still, subconscious or not, she enjoyed the dream encounters too much not to play along. “Her name is Colleen Frobisher. We went to high school together.”
His brow furrowed, “What was that she called you? S.D.?”
Wow, her subconscious really wanted to work through some issues tonight.
“Being a medium—” She shrugged. “—should be old hat so close to Lily Dale, but it’s always made me a little different. Kids don’t like different.”
He took her hand, tracing circles on her knuckles with his thumb. Suddenly, she couldn’t think. Her body too focused on the touch of his hand on hers.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
She licked lips too dry to speak. “Question?”
“Why did she call you S.D.?”
Devon let silence spin out between them for a second, her gaze locked on his sweeping thumb. Aware of him peering at her, his expression full of thoughtful concern.
“There was this slumber party when I was thirteen.” She glanced at the bumpy ceiling. “Someone thought it’d be fun to do a séance.” Her shoulder jerked into a half-shrug. “Things got out of hand. A spirit overshadowed, possessed me, and the next day no one would talk to me. Colleen said, I ‘skeeved’ her out. So they started calling me Skeevie Devee. Worse, after that I stopped using my talent. I was too afraid.” She glanced at him and let out a bitter laugh. “Skeevie Devee. It’s not even a very good zinger, but it hurt just the same.”
She blinked back tears and tried to tug her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her, taking her chin in his empty hand and staring into her eyes. “Hey, you’re not the only one who’s ever been rejected.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I can’t imagine anyone ever daring to bully you. I bet you were always the biggest in your class.”
His face puckered into a wry smile. “Try having people be afraid of you all the time. None of the other kids would play with me. I never even got invited to birthday parties. Parents assumed I was too rough, or I’d been held back because there was something wrong with me.”
Devon cupped his cheek, the stubble pricking her palm, and looked into his eyes. “Really?”
He nodded and lowered his eyelids. “Even my longest-lasting foster parents.” He took her hand from his cheek and held that one, too. “They were some of the good ones. Like real parents. Helping with homework. Showing up for games. Loving. But, not with me. Never with me. And then one day, when I was twelve, I heard them fighting. My . . . mom wanted to have me re-assigned. She was afraid of me. My foster father wanted me to stay.”
“At least he wasn’t afraid of you.”
A muscle jerked in Ethan’s hard jaw. “Oh, no. He admitted I frightened him, too, but they needed the money.”
He appeared so vulnerable for a moment, caught up in his memories, that Devon didn’t need much imagination to picture him as that lonely, unloved young boy. To wish somehow, she could have been there for him. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
His shoulders twitched. “I went to a new home the next day. Not one of the good ones, but I met my friends Jaden and Joe there and I managed to stick it out, until we were old enough to join the Navy.”
“I’m glad you found someone.”
“Well, I didn’t make it easy, I swear by that time I was like a wild animal, too wary to even try, but Jaden was big, too, and older. He knew what it was like. Always being blamed for starting fights. Having people think the worst of you.”
She let her forehead rest on his, then he slid forward to capture her lips . . .
Devon opened her eyes to a beam of bright sunlight slashing through a gap between the curtains and shade.
Damn it.
The dream was still vivid in her mind’s eye, her body still snared by that almost kiss. She wished she could go back to sleep, but a glance at her phone told her it was time to get up.
She groaned and fisted her sleepy eyes, venturing from the bedroom to make coffee for Beth, and found her friend in the kitchen already. She stifled a sigh. As much as she loved her friend. Beth was not the person she wanted to see in the kitchen. She clenched her teeth, angry at herself.
Snap out of it, Daughtry. The person you want to see doesn’t exist outside your dreams.
A stifled yawn staggered Beth’s greeting. “Morning. Made coffee. Got the paper.”
“Umm.” Devon yawned back, going to the fridge and letting the frigid air blast reality in her face.
In minutes, she’d whipped up steaming scrambled eggs and buttery toast, and they divided the paper between them.
Beth had the arts section and a small headline on the back page caught Devon’s eye. ‘Seal Stolen From Museum.’
A little jolt went through her as some coffee went down the wrong way. She sputtered for a moment and cleared her burning throat. “Hey, can I have that?”
Beth looked up, her eyebrows taut with inquiry. “What? You want this section?”
“There’s an article on the back.”
The paper crackled as Beth bent it so she could see the back before she handed it over. She giggled. “Yeah, I noticed that one. For a moment I wondered why a museum had a live animal.”
Leave it to Beth
. Devon let out a low chuckle as she turned to the column, folding the newspaper lengthwise to show only the pertinent article, the smell of paper and ink tickling her nose. “Drink more coffee.”
The article outlined a museum break-in and the loss of one item, the ceremonial seal of a long dead king looted by the Spanish in the 1500’s and recovered from a shipwreck two years earlier.
“What’s up?” Beth asked, her face buried in the depths of her coffee mug, making her voice sound echoey.
“Hmm?”
Beth poked her with a metallic-painted finger. “That was an awful long sigh.”
Devon shook her head while she decided what to say. “I had a dream last night where Ethan mentioned a seal.” She arched her eyebrows at her friend. “Not the animal, and then I saw this article and I thought it might help, but the seal in my dream was called the Queen’s seal. This one was the seal of a king.”