Spirit (16 page)

“No, it gives me
hope.”

“Hope has no
place here,” she said. “This is the land of no hope.”

“That’s how the
Hunt takes you,” I said. “I don’t want to be part of the Hunt, so I’m not
giving up hope.” We stared at each other for a few moments, the sounds of the
camp falling away, leaving us in quiet.

“Please,” I
whispered, “if there’s a price, then name it. Otherwise, please just help me.”

“The price is
yours, not mine,” she said. After a moment, she huffed again and flung the
blanket off of her. She reached inside one of the many boxes in the back of the
cart and rummaged through its contents. I watched, wondering if she was giving
into me. Finally she pulled out a silver handled looking glass and held it out
to me.

The glass was
black and gave no reflection, set into two clear stones at the base of the
handle between it and the looking glass. There was no back to the glass,
allowing me to look at it from either side, almost like a large magnifying
glass. I turned it over in my hand, examining it, but I couldn’t understand.

“This will do
the same thing the water did? It’ll show me home?” I asked.

“It will show
you what you thinks you want to see,” she said, and for a moment, I saw a
flicker of sadness in her eyes, something close to pity. She really didn’t
think this was something I should do.

“But it’s the
same as the water? I just have to think about what I want to see and it’ll show
me?” She gave me a curt nod. I turned the looking glass over in my hands again.

“What’s the
price?” I asked, realizing I might be asking for more than I bargained for.

“The grief it
brings.” She settled back into the corner, pulling the blanket over her.

“You say grief,
I say hope,” I said, looking at the looking glass.

“Hope has no
place here,” she repeated. “It will only bring you grief.” With that, she
turned away, tucking her body into the corner and closing her eyes, effectively
ending the argument.

Carefully, I
climbed out of the wagon, landing in a puff of dust next to Balor. He lifted
his head to look at me, his white eyebrows arching in silent question. I held
out the looking glass for him to see. He put his pink nose to it and sniffed.
He huffed and looked back at me.

“Yeah,” I said,
“that’s what I was thinking.” I shrugged at him, clutching the looking glass. I
had been so excited, so determined to see more, and now that I had a tool to do
that, I hesitated. Mab’s words of warning rang in my ears; I had been so
careless in life and look where it had gotten me.

“So, you wanna
stay with me?” I asked Balor. In answer, he got to his feet and positioned
himself next to me, looking over his shoulder at me.

“Thanks,” I
whispered, leaning over to wrap one arm around his neck and hugging him
tightly. Finally saying that taboo word was actually nice. “I don’t have a nice
warm tent with a cushy place to sleep like Gwyn,” I said, waiting for him to
change his mind and bound off. Thankfully, he didn’t.

“All right,” I
said with a half-smile, “c’mon.”

We walked in
silence through the sleeping camp. I had taken to sleeping near the horses,
figuring anyone trying to sneak up on me would alert the animals and give me
enough warning to wake up and get away if I needed to. When we reached them,
they were tethered to a few carts since there were no trees in the narrow
valley. Balor and I sat on the ground by one of the larger carts. I put my back
to one of the wheels, feeling better with something solid behind me. Balor
curled up next to me, pressing against my thigh. Having some warmth while I
slept would be nice.

When Balor’s
eyes drifted closed, I put the looking glass in my lap and stared at it. I knew
what I wanted to see: I wanted to know what Steven did next, after he left
Anthony. I glanced up at the constant moon, my eyes narrowing in a glare, and
with that frustration inside of me, I steeled myself and held up the looking
glass.

Chapter 9

“Steven!”
Anthony called as he grabbed the door knob and flung the door open to rush out
after Steven.

“I have to go,
Anthony,” Steven said over his shoulder as he fished his keys out of his
pocket. “I’ll call you later.”

“But where are
you going?” He reached out and grabbed Steven’s shoulder, pulling him to a stop
and turning him around.

“I’m not really
sure, probably home. I gotta figure this out.”

“Figure what
out?”

“How to help
Shay,” Steven said exasperatedly, all patience totally gone.

“But—” Again Anthony
started to argue, but Steven held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s fine,
okay?” Steven reached up to take Anthony’s hand off of his shoulder. Instead of
dropping it, he held on, giving Anthony’s fingers a squeeze. “I get it, you
don’t believe me, but I still gotta do this.” Steven lifted Anthony’s hand to
his lips and pressed a kiss to the backs of his fingers before he let Anthony’s
hand fall.

Anthony looked
as though he’d like to say something, like he should say something, but he
couldn’t figure out what. He watched Steven walk away, pain etched on his face,
but his mouth clamped shut.

Steven’s long
legged stride had him at his car behind the apartment building in moments.
Steven stopped suddenly and turned on the spot. He looked around, squinting and
trying to see into the shadows all around.

“Shayna,” he
whispered, “are you still with me?”

I clutched the looking
glass and shook my head as I bit down on my lip.

“Shay?” he asked
again. “Oh, crap.” Steven sighed. “Are you stuck in his apartment? Shay, you
gotta give me a sign here, do something.” I wanted to give him a sign, and I
started to open my mouth to say something before I remembered I was watching
the past. A breeze wafted through the parking lot, making the fallen leaves
skitter across the asphalt.

 
“Shay, was that you?” Steven asked, his honey
amber eyes wide. He stood there waiting, minutes ticking by, hoping I would
answer him.

 
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “I mean it; we’re
gonna figure this out.” His voice broke and I saw his brown eyes were nearly
black behind unshed tears. I suddenly felt horrible for losing my temper with
him back in the apartment. When the first tear spilled over and rolled down his
cheek, I touched the glass, wanting to brush it away for him.

“Sorry,” I said
pointlessly.

“There’s time
enough for that later,” Steven said, scrubbing his face with the back of his
hand. “I’m gonna go home, okay? If you can come with me, great. If not, meet me
there. We’ll figure out a way for you to talk to me.”

“Okay, Drake,” I
said softly and watched as he got into his car and drove away.

 
Watching Steven navigate his way out of the
parking lot, I closed my eyes and thought of Steven’s house. I thought of too
many family members to count, of the smell of wondrous food cooking for hours.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw Steven’s empty living room in the looking
glass. The house was dark, and I assumed everyone was asleep, making the house
unnaturally quiet. Every time I had ever been in that house, it was always full
of life and energy with so many conversations going on you almost couldn’t
follow just one. People were always laughing and singing, children running and
chasing each other. To see it at night, quiet as a tomb, unnerved me.

The front door
opened, and Steven came in. He was squinting again, his face swinging back and
forth like he was looking for something.

“Figured out I
wasn’t in the car, huh?” I asked. Talking without being heard was weird, but I
just couldn’t seem to help myself. I had to talk even though he couldn’t hear
me. I shook my head when I saw him trying to look through a bush planted in
front of his house.

I laughed
quietly, feeling a stitch of pain form in my chest as I watched. Watching him
look for my ghost wasn’t really funny, but I took heart in the fact he hadn’t
given up on me.

 
“I guess you can’t ride in cars,” he said,
assuming I was still with him. “C’mon,” he said, closing the front door as
quietly as possible.

He rushed to his
room, not wanting to wake his parents or his younger brothers. When he was
safely in his room, he pulled his cell phone out and sent a text message. Less
than a minute later, his phone began buzzing.

“Jodi? You need
to get over here right now,” he whispered into the phone. “I know what time it
is, but this is really important.”

He paused and
tapped his foot. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, but eventually Jodi
agreed to come over. Steven sat on the edge of his bed and looked around,
looking like a cat trying to track a fly buzzing around the room.

“Shay, where are
you?” he finally asked. When I didn’t answer him, he said, “Okay. I talked to
Jodi. We’re gonna try to figure out a way to talk to you, okay? Everything is
going to be okay, okay?” I smiled down at him. He was rambling. The more he
said ‘okay,’ the less ‘okay’ he actually felt. He clasped his hands in his lap
and bounced his right knee nervously. His face was a little pinched, like he
wanted to keep talking, but he kept his mouth shut.

Steven’s phone
buzzed twice in quick succession. After clearing the text, Steven jumped up and
bolted down the hallway. I heard the door open and he shushed Jodi before they
came back into the room.

I was struck by
how Jodi looked. She was always so careful to look put together and coordinated.
But tonight, she had clearly fallen asleep in the clothing she’d worn to the
funeral, and when she woke up, she didn’t bother to straighten herself up. Her
grey tights had a three inch tear, her pale skin peeking through. Her hair was
flat at the back and slightly tangled, and a dusting of black mascara mixed
with the light freckles on her cheeks. Even her skirt was twisted a few inches.

She sat down
heavily on the foot of Steven’s bed, her arms wrapped around her middle, and she
looked up at Steven expectantly. I saw the worry on Steven’s face; I imagine my
face looked quite the same. Instead of explaining why he had called her in the
middle of the night, he grabbed a brush from his dresser and moved around to
sit behind her on the bed. He slowly brushed the tangles from her short bob, so
much like Gwyn that my breath caught.

I felt like a
caged cat waiting for Steven to hurry up and start talking, to get Jodi to
understand what was going on, and for them to start figuring out what to do.
But as I watched him care for Jodi, I knew there was no rushing it. She felt
the acute loss of her magical sister more intensely than Steven. Maybe because
I had known Jodi so much longer than I had known Steven and we had bonded over
magic at such an early age. Or maybe because Steven had Anthony to lean on and,
at the moment, Jodi didn’t have anyone besides him. Jodi was a very jealous
person; it was possible she was angry Steven was seeking solace in the arms of
another, even if she and he weren’t romantically tied.

“So,” Jodi broke
the silence first, “what’s the big emergency?”

“I’ll tell you,”
Steven answered, still pulling the brush through her hair gently, “but you have
to promise to hear me out, all the way through, and not jump up and storm out, all
right?”

“Yeah, all right,”
Jodi agreed, but with little conviction.

“Okay, you
promised,” he said, but Jodi said nothing. “You remember how I talked earlier about
trying to find Shay, try to bring her back?”

Jodi made a
noncommittal sound and bobbed her head, making her yellow blond hair shift
around her face.

“Well, we don’t
have to find her,” Steven said, letting his hands drop to his lap, staring at
the back of her head. “Shay found me.”

Jodi looked over
her shoulder at Steven, one fair brow raised, but she didn’t say anything.
Steven stared right back, his mouth a firm line and his eyes clear and defiant.
He was waiting for her to tell him he was crazy just like Anthony did.

“Shay found
you?” Jodi finally asked, and Steven nodded in reply. “Like, she’s haunting
you?”

“I guess,” he
said with a half shrug.

“Steven,” Jodi
said slowly, air sighing out of her as she closed her eyes.

“Yeah, I know
how it sounds,” he said, turning away from her. “Anthony already told me I was
crazy.”

“You told
Anthony?” For the first time since I died, Jodi’s eyes lit up, but in fear and
anger, not light and life.

“Yeah, I told
him everything actually.”

“Drake, you
didn’t!” Jodi yelped and stood. Her feet landed hip-width apart and her hands
fisted at her side. Hearing her suddenly use his elemental name was more than a
little jarring.

“Dude!” Steven
said, waving his hands and shushing her again. He watched his bedroom door,
straining to hear any movement outside. After a moment, he relaxed and looked
back at Jodi.