The 13th: Destiny Awaits (15 page)

She grabbed the phone, made her way down the stairs and then outside. She crossed the garden and had just stepped onto the path that led to Tyler's house, when her phone started to vibrate.

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” she murmured and without checking the caller she cancelled the call, but in the next second, the phone started to vibrate again.

She glanced at the display.
Ethan
. Why wasn't she surprised? She cancelled the call again, disabled vibrating and shoved the phone toward her pocket, but it slipped past it and fell on the grass.

Great, but at least it hadn’t fallen on the stones a small distance away. She squatted down, picked up the phone, brushed the bits of green away and checked for damage. There was none. She lifted her gaze, ready to stand up when a yellow butterfly floated by.

Now he was sending butterflies. She didn't mind butterflies that much, especially since she didn't need to reply to them. She offered the butterfly her finger, but it didn't come to her. Instead it turned away from her and toward the wall. It passed through.

Kate stood up, scowling. Could it be a normal butterfly? But a normal, real butterfly wouldn't be able to go through a wall as if it were nothing.

She rushed up to the house and peered though the kitchen window inside.

The butterfly rose and flew toward the stove. Nan, who stood beside it with her back to the window, lifted her hand. The butterfly landed on Nan's extended finger and dipped into it.

Kate blinked. What? How? She slumped down to the ground.

Could that mean...? But Nan was Tyler's grandmother and Nanael a Keeper. How could they be the same person?

“Do I have something on my face?”

Kate blinked and focused her eyes on the older woman, who sat on the other side of the kitchen island. “No.”

“Then why are you staring at me?”

“Am I? I'm sorry.” With her fork, Kate shifted parts of lasagne across her plate.

“And you’re not eating,” Tyler, sitting beside her, commented. “Are you still sick?”

“I feel fine.” Kate pushed the plate away.

“When you leave more than half your food on your plate, there's definitely something wrong with you.” Tyler shoved a big piece of lasagne into his mouth.

Not wrong with
her
, but... Kate glanced at Nan. According to the handbook, only the Soul Reaper, Awakener and Keeper could produce and intercept butterflies, and since only one person could occupy each of those roles, that suggested that Nan was the Keeper. It didn't make sense. Ethan had said Nanael was his mentor when he was in Japan at that time. How could Nan, who never left the neighbourhood for more than a day, be Nanael, despite the similarity of the name? But in her world, everything was possible, and she already knew how to confirm that Nan was a Keeper. With a butterfly. “Everything is fine.”

Tyler studied her for a short moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.” He dug into his food, making her believe that he wouldn’t push her for answers. He proved her wrong when he ambushed her at the back of her house and followed her inside to the living room. He seated her on the couch and then towered over her.

“Talk.” He crossed his arms.

She arched her brows. “About what?”

“What's going on with you?”

“Nothing.” She tried to stand, but he pushed her down. “What are you doing?”

“Tell me what's wrong. I'm not going away until you do.”

“Nothing is wrong.” She sighed. “Listen, I appreciate your concern, but there's nothing to be worried about.”

“Yeah, right, that's why you look as lifeless as you did that time, after they committed your mother, right?”

“I'm just a little tired. I was sick, remember?”

“That time I allowed you to distance yourself from me, thinking that when you needed me, you would come to me. You never did.”

“Tyler, there's really nothing wrong.”

“We have known each other since we were little, is it really so hard to trust me?” His eyes became narrow slits. “Am I really so untrustworthy?”

He wasn’t going to relent, was he? She sighed again. She wanted to tell him, even then, but the secret -- she couldn't share it with him. What would he say if she told him that she was the Reaper? Laugh at her? Think she had lost her mind?

And she couldn't confide in him about her infatuation with Ethan either -- that would be so embarrassing. “Everything is fine, it's just...” But she might as well tell him what had nagged her since they had committed her mother to the sanatorium and her father working overtime and taking long business trips become a daily occurrence. “I'm lonely.”

“When you have me? And Mandy and Ethan?” He squatted down before her.

“Ethan? Yeah right.” She snorted. Ethan, who had lied to her just to make her more cooperative while he had some sort of relationship with a ghost. What was up with that? “He's only using me to get rid of Sandra, which apparently isn't working.”

“But you two are friends.”

“Are we? I don't know.” She wished she could believe that they were, but... she meant nothing to him, didn't she? A crease cut into her forehead.

“But we are?”

“Huh?”

“We are friends, right?”

“Yes, of course. But I'm not talking about that kind of lonely. I'm talking about... I miss my mum and my dad and the way we were. I wish I at least had somebody like you have Nan, but my grandparents are dead.” It would be so great to have somebody at home, somebody waiting for her, somebody to say 'welcome home' and maybe even ask how her day was.

“A distant relative could work, too,” Tyler said.

“Huh?”

“Nan isn’t my grandmother, she's my mother’s great-great aunt or something.”

“What?”

“She has sort of become a grandmother, though. So, maybe if you have some distant relative who loves domestic chores socked away somewhere...”

Nan wasn't his grandmother? It didn’t mean anything, but... She tried to remember the first time she saw Nan, but she couldn't, it was like the old lady had always been there, like she belonged to Tyler's house. “When? When did she move in? And why?”

“I don't know when,” Tyler said. “And you know my parents; they’re so busy with their business all the time, like without their accounting services the world economy is going to collapse. For all I know, Nan probably visited one day, offered them some help and ended up as a housekeeper.”

“You offer them a finger and they take your whole body.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Tyler chuckled before he became serious, his eyes focusing on her while his hand found hers. “Don't push me away, okay? And don't shut yourself up like you did that time.”

“I can try.”

“Promise.”

She frowned. “I wish I could, but you know me.”

“Sometimes I think I don't.” He stood up and sat beside her. “You have secrets that you hide from me, I know.” He rested his head on the back of the couch. “I won't ask you to share them with me, but I do hope that you have somebody you can talk with. Maybe with Ethan?” He rolled his head sideways. “Mandy said that Ethan has secrets too, and that since you both have had a traumatic experience, you with your mother being taken away, and he...well, with his nervous breakdown, you two can relate. I guess that's why you get along so well.”

Yeah, they got along really well. “You two were talking about us? What have you told her about me?”

“What?”

“What have you told Mandy about me?”

“Not that much.”

“Did you tell her about my mother?”

“Everybody knows about your mother.”

True, but their knowledge came from neighbours who had observed everything from behind the windows of their houses, while Tyler had been there on the front line. He was there when her mother was put in the ambulance, thrashing in the restraints, while a doctor examined Kate's injuries, and more than once he had sat before her closet while she sobbed inside it, broken. He had witnessed the weak and shameful side of her, because of which she hadn’t been able to face him for weeks afterwards. “You told her about the wardrobe?”

“Yes.” He had the decency to hang his head.

“How could you?” She jumped up, her lips pinched. The wardrobe was her secret, one that he had no right to share.

“I'm sorry. But it's just Mandy.”

“That means that Ethan knows about that, too. You are such a moron. No wonder I can't trust you with anything.”

“That's not fair.” He stood up, too, and with his arms akimbo and his superior height, he appeared almost threatening.

But she was never afraid of him. “You had no right to talk about me!” Especially not about her refuge. And not to Ethan, even if it was indirectly.

“You are making such a big deal over nothing.”

How would he feel if she told Mandy what a wreck he had been after Sandra caused his team's temporary ostracism? About how miserable he looked crying into his pillow? She would have told him that, but then she would have exposed that she had seen him. “Get out.”

“Don't be silly.”

“Fine. Stay then.” She turned on her heel and stormed out of the living room, up the stairs into her room, where she threw herself on the bed. She couldn't lock herself in, her father had removed all the keys, but she didn't worry that Tyler would follow her. He knew her better than to make a mistake like that.

She closed her eyes and buried her face in the softness of the blue bed cover. Now Ethan knew about her sanctuary. She would have whined how unfair it was, but nobody ever claimed that life was fair.

She kicked her legs and pounded her fists against the mattress and felt a little better afterwards.

What would Ethan do? Try to blackmail her? Say that he would tell everybody about it if she didn’t comply with his wishes? His blue eyes and his charming smile flashed before her. She couldn't claim that she knew him, but she was certain that he would never stoop so low.

But now he knew almost everything about her. And what did she knew about him? Nothing, really.

Wait! She lifted her head. What had Tyler said? That Ethan had a nervous breakdown?

#

In the darkness Kate tiptoed toward the kitchen window of Tyler's house, careful not to step in the way of the outdoor-light sensor. From the side she peered inside into the well-lit kitchen. She saw Nan sitting behind the kitchen counter, an open magazine before her. Probably something food-related.

She took a deep breath. She had been composing a message for the Keeper for more than a day now and thinking about what she would do if she received a reply. Another deep breath as she leaned on the gritty wall and closed her eyes. She focused on the idea of the Keeper and formed the words in her mind.
Hi, this is Kate, the Soul Reaper. I'm sorry to bother you, but I need your help with something.

It was short and impersonal, something that one would send a stranger.

A yellow butterfly formed from the tip of her finger; his wings tickled her skin as he rose up.

Now came the moment of truth.

Kate's eyes followed the butterfly's ascent. It hovered beside her for a second, then twirled around and flew through the wall. It approached Nan and lingered beside her until the old lady offered it her hand. It dove into her palm.

So it was true; Nan was Nanael. How was that possible? Kate stared at the old woman. What was she going to do now that she had confirmed that?

A butterfly appeared from Nan's hand and a few second later it was absorbed into Kate's finger.

You could never bother me, Kate. Tell me, what can I do for you?
Nan's voice sounded slightly different and, without already knowing who occupied the Keeper's role, Kate would have never recognised it.

Kate squatted down, even though it would have been better if she returned to her house; to her empty, dark house. She sent a new message to Nan.
I need the names of the spells needed to set up the ward. If you would tell them to me, please?

Another yellow butterfly descended into Kate's hand.
Can't you find them in the handbook?

So Ethan had told Nan about giving her the handbook.
The handbook doesn't display all of them and Ethan refuses to tell me all of their names.

For the Ritual of Warding you need: Purifying, Bordering, Warding, and Conclusion.

So it was Conclusion. Kate had assumed that the spell that tied the whole ritual had to be something along the lines of ‘finishing.’ She had tried ‘executing,’ ‘completion,’ and ‘end,’ but none of those words gave her any results. She sent a thank-you to Nan and stood up. She needed to write down the words before she forgot them. Lately her memory was worse than a goldfish's.

She sneaked across the garden and into the house. She had crossed the dark hallway and climbed up the stairs when a butterfly, glowing in soft yellow, overtook her.

You are welcome. And if you need anything else, I'm here for you.

Yes, via butterflies, but not face to face. Why?
I'll keep that in mind, thanks
, Kate replied. When she reached her room she turned on the desk light, took the handbook out of her drawer and slumped on the swivel chair behind the desk. She opened the book.

The Ritual of Warding, Nan had said. As soon as she thought of it, the title appeared under the Table of Contents. Page thirty-four.

Kate browsed through the white, blank pages, the paper rustling in the silence. Ah, there it was.

The phone she set on the right edge of her desk started to vibrate.

She checked it. It was Ethan.

She had been avoiding him and the numbers of his texts and calls had increased. She should answer it before he appeared at her door, trying to barge in. But what should she say to him?

She puffed her cheeks, then released her breath in a long exhale before she picked up the phone and pressed it against her ear. “Yes.”

“Finally,” she could hear Ethan's voice. “Where are you?”

“Home.”

“You weren't fifteen minutes ago.”

No, she wasn't. “How do you know?”

“Because I was there,” Ethan said. “Where were you? In the back, reaping?”

“Yes,” she lied. He didn't need to know that she had learned who the Keeper was.

“I looked back there and I didn’t see you.”

“I'm always under the willow.” Hidden under branches from any prying eyes. But since he should have seen explosions of light, she justified their absence with, “You probably just caught me when I was taking a break.”

“Bad timing then, huh?”