Fragile Darkness (7 page)

She kept her eyes on mine, steady, unblinking, the psychic's eyes locked on something only she could see.

“Shadows,” she said. “They surround you, and they're getting closer.”

Cold. Invasive.

“But it wasn't just you,” she said. “It was everywhere, desperation and darkness, something waiting, gathering.”

Madam Isobel shifted, sliding an arm around her granddaughter's shoulders.

And suddenly a few more pieces slipped into place. Everything happened for a reason. “You called Dylan,” I whispered.

The guilty answer flashed in Grace's eyes. “I wanted to know if he knew what was going on with you, if you were in danger.”

That's why he'd stood in the shadows, watching me. Why he didn't care that I walked away. He'd been there because for some suffocating reason, he thought he had to keep an eye on me.

Seeing things more clearly by the second, I filled them in on the unease I'd felt in the shadows of the Greenwood house, the flash of white/nonvision, and Kendall's fears about her boyfriend, the stabbing terror in her eyes, that something bad was going to happen to him.

“I'm going to talk to him,” I concluded, “like my mom used to do, just to check, to see if the vision finishes forming or I can pick anything else up.”

Madam Isobel let out a long, slow breath. “Trinity, I'm not sure that's a good idea. Telling people what you see is one thing. Chasing shadows is another.”

“But it's what my mom did, isn't it?” I asked. “Isn't that the way it works? If there's something there, don't I owe it to Will or his family, Kendall, to let them know?”

Her expression told me she didn't like my logic. “Owe it to them,” she said all oracle-like.
“Or to yourself?”

I pulled back, but before I landed on what to say to that, Grace slipped closer.

“I'll go with you,” she said and for a second I thought Madam Isobel was going to forcibly drag her granddaughter away. She turned on Grace, the sudden darkness in her eyes destroying the sage-like calm.

“Grace, no,” she said. “It's too soon. You're still healing.”

With a quiet, determined smile, Grace shook her head. “There will always be bad things,” she said. “You taught me that. Hiding from them doesn't make them go away.”

Her grandmother closed her eyes.

“We'll be fine,” Grace promised. “As long as we all stick together.”

*   *   *

We agreed to talk the next day, once Kendall let me know the plan.

“We'll figure it out,” Grace said, and for half a second, the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes made me think she was going to hug me. Instead, with her grandmother staring toward the blur of lights from the river, Grace retrieved something from the backpack stashed under her table.

“Here,” she said. “These are for you.”

I took the small wooden box, like a sea trunk shrunken to fit in the palm of a hand. The top came off easily. Black velvet lined the inside.

A steady vibration tingled against my fingertips before I even touched the pouch, also in velvet but the color of sapphires. Carefully I untied the strings of gold silk.

“They were your mother's,” Grace said. “We thought you should have them.”

Tarot cards.

*   *   *

Gold stars lay scattered against a dark azure background, some big and some small, all radiant and shining,
like a window to another world.

Long after I got back to the condo and found my aunt already asleep, I sat cross-legged on my bed amid the wavering light of seven white votives, with the amazingly well-preserved deck in my hand.

Delphi watched, a soft, monk-like chant drifted from my phone speakers, and for a heartbeat, there was no cold, not with the little waves of warmth zipping up from my fingers.

I cut the cards, shuffling them several times before fanning them against my quilt. Then, like the day in Madam Isobel's shop, I closed my eyes, stretched out my hand, and selected one.

 

SIX

VIII of Swords.

Against a bright blue background, a girl in robes of red stood in front of eight swords, all driven into the ground. She was bound and blindfolded. Puddles of murky water dotted the mud at her feet. Behind her, behind the swords, a castle rose on the hill.

Delphi wandered closer, rubbing her face against the unsettling image.

It was a long time before I put the card down. Needing to do something, I dragged my laptop closer and found Will's Facebook page. I hardly recognized him in the profile picture, or any of the other pictures, for that matter.

Most of them were posted by Kendall: their arms around each other along the levee and silly poses along Bourbon Street, standing with windblown hair in front of a bonfire and dressed in formal clothes for what looked like a Christmas dance.

In almost all of them, Will's eyes gleamed warm and bright, his smile wide. It was obvious how into Kendall he was and she into him. Her short, pixie hair emphasized the adoration in her eyes.

Most of the posts were from Kendall, too.

I love you.

I wished upon my lucky star, and like a gift, here you are.

I believe in you. I believe in us.

I believe in forever.

I believe in MORE.

The only entry from him was a photo album from ten days ago: a collection of black-and-white pictures of French Quarter doorways, all partially ajar, some drenched in shadows, others with light spilling from within.

He had 376 friends. His parents were teachers: his mom taught English lit at a local high school and his dad psych at Tulane. He had a younger sister, Caroline. For religion: it's complicated. He didn't list any favorites, just one quote.

The tragedy of life is not death,

But what we let die inside us while we live.

—N. Cousins

He hardly seemed like a guy on a collision course with something bad.

Hating the quick, tight constriction in my chest, I ran my hand along Delphi's fur, then reached for my journal and opened to the letter I'd started the night before.

Chase,

I'm so sorry.

I blinked against the burn at my eyes and brought the pen to the page, tapping it.

This isn't the way things were supposed to be.

Again, I had no awareness of falling asleep.

At 5:21 I woke up, exactly like I did every morning. But this time hot, salty tears squeezed from behind closed eyes. Dragging Delphi closer, I thought about everything Madam Isobel had told me, and waited for the sun to rise.

Kendall's text came late that afternoon, while I was at the shop with Aunt Sara.

R U free 2nite?

The old theater sat back from the dark, tree-lined road, surrounded by an empty sea of weed-infested concrete. The faded marquee still stood, advertising movies playing years before, when the storm hit—
RED EYE
and
THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
—as if time stood frozen, ready to resume despite the rot and decay.

From the street, everything looked deserted. No cars sat in the lot. No one loitered around the front doors. The windows had been painted black so no one could see inside.

But in the back, hidden by overgrown shrubbery and old Dumpsters, a lone metal door waited, with a dark red, upside-down “A” spray-painted toward the bottom. And every time it swung open, flashes of light and music shot into the night.

Will was supposed to be here. Kendall wasn't 100 percent sure, because he'd told her he had some stuff to take care of, but he'd mentioned the party Friday, and she thought there was a good chance he'd end up here.

She didn't understand why he was pulling away.

We left her car with lots of others in a clearing several hundred yards away, surrounded by a densely wooded area. After working our way through the moonlit trees, we stood in the shadow of the Dumpsters.

Wearing an awesome black maxi dress with short, layered hair blowing against her angular face, Kendall fiddled with her phone. Grace, with her no-longer-ghost-white hair falling in soft, brownish waves, stood with her arms open and her head tilted, as if breathing in the night.

That was the only clue she was here for something other than the party, that and her grandmother's big bulky black ring on her index finger. Between her denim shorts and flowy peasant top, dark eyeliner and shimmery pink lip gloss, she looked like your average teenage girl on a spring night.

I couldn't stop staring.

“Have you ever been to one of these?” Kendall asked.

“No,” I said as the door flung open and three girls in all black stumbled out. Laughing, they huddled together and skipped toward the wooded area.

“It's so beautiful!” one of them sighed. “Like the whole world is on
fire.
”

“They're nuts,” Kendall warned. “Basically anything goes.”

I took a quick sip from my water bottle. “Hopefully Will's here.”
And we'd find out if the flash of white had to do with him.

We started toward the door but I stopped when I realized Grace wasn't coming.

I turned back to her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her eyes suddenly solemn. With her gaze fixed on someplace in the distance, she lifted her right hand to her forehead.

“So art thou,” she murmured, “so am I connected to divine light and protection within myself.”

Everything inside me stilled. She looked dead serious.

“So art thou the Kingdom on Earth,” she said, drawing her hand down toward her middle, “so am I connected and rooted within my body.”

Kendall edged closer, shooting me the question with a quick widening of her eyes.

I shook it off.

The door shot open, spilling a syncopated rush of dubstep and three guys. They barreled by us, hesitating long enough to undress us with their eyes, before returning to their beers and heading for the woods.

Grace, with no indication that she'd seen them, lifted her hand to her shoulder and continued the chant-like murmur, a lot like Victoria's protective prayer before the Ouija board.

“So art Thou the Power,” Grace said, “so am I protected from all harm by thy Divine power.” She concluded with her hands clasped over her heart. “Forever and ever.”

“What was that all about?” Kendall asked.

A long reddish-brown wave blew against Grace's cheek. “Something my grandmother made me promise to do,” she said. “Just in case.”

Kendall's mouth tumbled open. “Just in case
what
?”

Grace made a funny, almost embarrassed, face. It was odd, given how wise and ancient and sure of herself she usually was.

“I kinda absorb things,” she said. “In crowded places, like malls or parties. It's like I feel what everybody else feels.”

And she was bracing herself for whatever blast she was about to receive.

“Here,” she said, pushing something into my hand.

I glanced down at the cool, glass-like stone.

“It's black obsidian,” she said. “One of the best stones for psychic protection. Put it in your pocket and listen if your gut starts to tell you something.”

The stone?

Kendall edged closer. “Can I have one?”

Looking less like a mystic by the second, Grace gave one to Kendall, too.

Then she pulled open the door, and vanished inside the electrified darkness.

*   *   *

Muted lightning assaulted the room.

Once it had been a spacious lobby, with movie posters and concession stands. Now, to the other-worldly rhythm of electronic drums, greenish lights strobed, quick, fleeting breaths of darkness interrupted by violent flashes of dancing, of faces twisted and arms lifted, bodies grinding in ecstasy.

Kendall went looking for Will, while Grace and I squeezed into the sweaty, mindless blur. Hundreds of people pressed from all directions, and from the tight look on Grace's face, I knew she felt every single one of them.

I felt something, too.

Gulping my water, I worked to the other side, scanning faces with each flash of light. But how did you find one specific raindrop, in a storm that stretched as far as you could see?

Closing my eyes, I lifted my arms as Grace had done before coming inside. But I wasn't seeking divine protection. I was opening myself to the frantic fusion of energy around me, hoping for another flash of white, and that this time it would last long enough for me to see.

I held myself there, motionless, as the party revolved around me.
Through me.
All that emotion. All that energy. It swirled through me like a riptide, pulling and pushing at the same time. Breathing hurt. Swallowing. Just being. But I made myself do all three, pulling in a deep breath and holding it until the hot rush ruptured from me, and salty tears flooded my eyes.

Music ebbed and flowed like a drug to the masses, a baseline giving way to a soft, distorted wail. I hovered there in a cocoon of clashing emotions, waiting,
feeling.
Feeling everything and nothing at all.

“Help me.”

I spun around.

Grace stood wrapped in her own arms, long tangles of hair streaking across her unnaturally pale face. Her eyes were wide and dark, fixed on some point in the distance.

I turned in the direction she was staring, but saw only a sea of writhing.

It hadn't been Grace's voice.

“Grace?” So much played across her face, nothing lasting long enough to register. “What is it?” I had to shout. The music tried to steal my voice.

Alone there, alone among hundreds, she started to rock. “Desperation,” she murmured, scanning the room with empty, lost-soul eyes. “Sorrow and fear.”

“Is that what you felt Friday?”

She hugged herself tighter. “Everyone is screaming but no one hears.”