Wildcat Fireflies (41 page)

Nicole met me in the kitchen. “Do you want the good news? Or the bad news?”

“M
eridian, can’t you tell me while we wait for Tony to get here?” Tens sat on the couch with his wood chunks, whittling a hamster-sized firefly.

I shook my head, not pausing to answer him with words. It was right here. I tucked a Post-it note between the pages of Auntie’s journal.

Thunder boomed, closer this time. Lightning lit the sky, making me jump.

“Are we supposed to get a storm?” I looked at Tens.

“I’ll check.” He flipped open the laptop and peered at the screen.

I went back to reading the spidery script in the Fenestra journal. Veils. Memories. “Oh no.” Tens’s voice broke my concentration.

“What?”

“There are three big storms heading straight for Marion County. That’s us.”

The roof vibrated. It sounded like someone was dumping buckets of golf balls down on us.

Custos whined, and we got up and went to the window.

Huge ice pellets blanketed the ground in a layer of white. Suddenly, more thunder rocked the place. Lightning flashed almost instantaneously. The lights flickered.

Tens grabbed the laptop and kept reading. “There’s a tornado warning.”

“Tornadoes? What the hell do we do for a tornado?” Portland had storms, lots of wind, some ice and snow, the earthquake possibility, and tsunami warnings, but the closest I’d ever gotten to a tornado was on TV.

Headlights cut across the cottage windows and for the first time I realized how dark the world was.

“That’s Tony,” I said.

Tens grabbed a rhinestone-and-daisy umbrella from by the door and rushed out to meet him.

They came back in as rain poured in sheets from every direction, washing ice chunks along the gutters and melting them off the paths.

I grabbed towels. Thirty seconds out in the storm and they were drenched.

Dripping wet, with ice pellets frozen in his hair, Tony
took a towel from me. “I came as quickly as I could. You said it was important. I haven’t heard more from Josiah.” Tony hung his tweed suit coat on the back of a chair and sat at the table. “What’s the text?”

“This is my family’s journal,” I said.

“It’s old.” He didn’t try to touch it, but I held it out to him in invitation. He took it with gingerly fingers. “I should be wearing gloves.”

“It’s not an artifact. More like a working document.”

“Still.” He unfolded reading glasses to peer more closely at the writing.

I appreciated his willingness to accept what he was told and take what was given.

“Is this about your grandfather?” Tony asked Tens.

“No,” I answered. “It’s about a girl named Prunella. But really it’s about Juliet Ambrose.”

He sat up and leaned toward me with excitement. “Juliet? You know her? How is she?”

Tens raised his eyebrows and gave me his lopsided grin of appreciation. “You figured it out.”

I nodded, my whole body vibrating with excitement.

Tens asked Tony, “What was the name of your children’s home?”

“Saint Emiliani’s. Please tell me, do you know this girl? Where is she? Is she okay? Can I see her? Have you heard from Roshana?”

Tens put the pieces together. “That’s it.” He asked Tony, “Want some whiskey in your tea for this story?”

I giggled. “Seriously?”

“Auntie said whiskey made the impossible possible.” Tens shrugged.

Tony slapped his thigh. “No spirits, just tell me what you know. If you had any idea how I’ve looked for her, you wouldn’t keep me waiting.”

I began to tell Tony what we knew about Juliet.

Tens made tea, and while the storm raged around us I told the story, leaving nothing out. It wasn’t much.

“Prunella was my great-aunt Meridian’s cousin. She was a nurse too. She wasn’t a Fenestra but knew about my auntie’s ability because she nearly died in 1943. She made it to the window and then turned back. Her heart restarted and she went on to live another forty years. However, because she knew too much and might endanger her family, a Sangre angel came to her and veiled her history. He took away her connections and started her over in another part of the world. He warned that if she ever saw Auntie again, she’d remember everything about her life.”

“You think Juliet doesn’t remember her mother or me? Or her first few years of life, because she was in danger?”

“That’s exactly what I believe. And I think you are the key to unlocking her memories. It’s the only way to get her to know.”

“But what if she does know and she thinks we let her live in that hell without helping? I couldn’t live with myself.”

“I don’t know. We came as soon as we were told—I hope that counts for something.” I shrugged. I didn’t
know if she could forgive and move forward, but it was our best shot.

“Let’s go to her. Now.” Tony stood and started for the door. “We need to find her and tell her. I can’t bear thinking she might have it all wrong.”

I stayed seated. “I know.” We had to plan carefully. We had to understand how to lift the veil. We couldn’t risk making everything worse.

Tony paced. “Her mother loved her. She died protecting her.”

I nodded as Joi burst through the cottage door and storm sirens began to vibrate the town around us. “Come on, all, we have to get into the storm cellar. There’s a twister five miles away that’s headed for us.”

I grabbed the journal and the quilt. Tens grabbed the laptop and me.

As we ran to the store’s cellar, wind tore at us and branches flew by. I heard glass cracking as parked cars took a beating from the elements. The sky was a swirling mass of grays and greens and blacks. We zigzagged around branches and airborne lawn ornaments.

My stomach dropped as we scrambled down into the cellar.

Please let Juliet be safe
.

“A
re you sure?” I asked Nicole again.

“I heard a crash and a thump,” Nicole whispered to me as we tried to stealthily creep toward the closed door of the office.

“What did she say exactly?” The good news was Nicole thought maybe something had happened to Mistress. The bad news was Nicole thought maybe something had happened to Mistress and Ms. Asura had done it.

“Under no circumstances were we to disturb Mistress. I don’t know, it feels wrong. She made me repeat it back to her. And then she looked out the window at you and Kirian and swore. That’s when she went outside and called him back.”

Why didn’t Ms. Asura like me talking to Kirian? She was the one who brought the postcards and mentioned him to me during her visits.

“So they left and then you heard the loud thump?”

“No, yelling first, thump next, leaving last.”

Sure, Mistress disappeared. Often. More so than ever before. She left the house for obscure meetings and to gamble. She sequestered herself in her office or living quarters. But she always told one of us, and left a list of things to do that would take weeks to accomplish. Neither of us had been given our daily list and we knew from Ms. Asura that Mistress was still inside her office.

“Now nothing.”

We tried to get close enough, an inch at a time, to press our ears to the door. After minutes of silence, I straightened. “I think I better knock.”

“Let me.” Nicole tried to tug me away. The knocker might very well be beaten.

“I’ll do it.” I rapped on the wood.

Nothing
.

“Mistress?” I knocked louder this time.

Nothing
.

Maybe she’d fallen. Maybe she’d knocked a glass over and was being ornery. But normally she’d take it out on the knocker, not suffer in silence.

I tried the knob. Unlocked.

“Juliet—” Nicole warned.

I opened the door, held my breath, and peeked in. “Mistress?” I called softly.

I saw her feet sticking out from behind the desk. I rushed into the room. Her desk was in a shambles, like she’d fallen against it and cleared it in panic. Files and papers covered the floor in a blanket of triplicate.

I knelt down. “Nicole, call nine-one-one.”

Nicole was right behind me. “I don’t think so.”

“Mistress?” I leaned in by her face. Blood from a gash was already thickly congealed. Her eyes were glassy, her body painfully empty of life.

“She’s dead,” Nicole pronounced.

“But—” I didn’t believe it. I felt for a pulse. Nothing. “Oh my God.”
She’s dead
. I wanted to dance and sing and whoop it up. I wanted to cry. “What do we do?”

“We back out of here and go about the rest of our day. When the night nurse comes to check in, let him find her.”

“That’s cold.”

“No more than she deserves. Think about it. We start this now and Ms. Asura comes back and takes us all away, to heaven knows where. Let’s make the meal you’ve been itching to cook, and have a party with Bodie and Sema. Buy ourselves a little time.”

I nodded. It made sense. It felt like a reprieve, like a gift. “But—”

Nicole just waited, her expression daring me to break a rule.

“The hell with it. Let’s cook.” I smiled, and shut the door behind us. “Let’s bring Enid downstairs with us.”

Nicole smiled. “Great idea.” Yet another rule broken—no inmates hanging out with the guests.

I opened the door to the Green Room and glanced out the big picture window, then gasped.

“I’ve been watching it roll in.” Enid lifted a hand toward the window.

Nicole was two steps behind me. “What’s going on?”

I pointed. “Have you looked outside lately? Those are twister clouds out there.”

The sky was an ominous shade of pea green, with black clouds boiling on the horizon. “It was breezy when I was outside with Kirian, but not like this. Have you seen any weather forecasts today?” I asked Nicole.

She shook her head and turned her troubled gaze to the storm out the window. “It’s way early in the season.”

“Not too early. I remember the twisters in ’sixty-four. They started before Lent and didn’t give up until August.” Enid shuddered. “Spent more time in the cellar that year than we spent on the farmland. Do you have a cellar here, dears?”

Yes. But no. The storm cellar was used for storage and for Mistress. House legend said that long before us, a couple of teen inmates used it as a private place. The girl ended up pregnant and from then on inmates were told to huddle in the bathrooms when the sirens sounded.

“Would you like to go down to the kitchen with us, Miss Enid? Juliet is going to cook up a feast.” Nicole tugged me
away from the window. The best place would be on the first floor, center of the house, just in case.

The old lady lit up. “That sounds lovely, but won’t we get into trouble?”

I shook my head with a tiny twitch of my lips. “Not this time. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

“She can’t hurt anyone ever again.” Nicole’s pronouncement dangled relief in my periphery.
Can we really be free of Mistress?

“What are we waiting for?” Enid threw back her covers, but she couldn’t move her legs across the mattress, nor stay upright for more than a few seconds at a time. She collapsed back onto the bed. “Oh dear. I’m a bit weak. I think I’ll stay here if that’s all right.”

“Sure,” I said, though really I wanted to force her to come downstairs where we might be safer.

“We’ll bring the food up to you when it’s finished.” Nicole patted her hand.

“That sounds lovely. Then you can tell me all about the inspiration for this party.”

“Sure.” I started to follow Nicole from the room.

Enid called, “Why don’t you send that Bodie up here; he and Sema can keep me company. They were so upset earlier.”

Thunder cracked, shaking the house and the windowpanes in their casings. My heart raced with each lash of the rain. I’d never been in a storm this bad. I wanted to be scared and hide until it was over, but I didn’t have time to indulge myself.

I stopped. I hadn’t seen either of the children since I’d come back in. I turned to Nicole. “Where are they?”

Nicole shrugged, her eyes widening and her cheeks paling. She shook her head.

Enid blanched. “I thought they went down to you. They said they were going with you. I thought they went with you.” Her voice trailed off as the darkness rolled toward us. We were all thinking the same thing—this was not the time to play hide-and-seek.

“Bodie? Sema?” I called, racing down the hallway. “Where are you?” I had to yell over the hail bombarding the house like icy shrapnel.

Nicole darted up the rickety steps into the attic calling, “Bodie. Sema. Where are you?”

I tore down the stairs calling their names. Nothing but the storm screamed back at me.

Nicole met me in the kitchen. “They took their backpacks.”

My feet and hands moved in a fury of desperation. “Where’d they go? The creek? They ran away? That doesn’t make sense.” I checked in the cabinets and under the table just in case.

“They said they were going with you. Where did they think you were going?” The pound of hail and rain made a normal voice impossible to hear.

The house protested with the creaks and moans of a thousand ghosts. I wondered if it could withstand such a ferocious onslaught.

“I’ll check the spot where Kirian had the picnic ready. Maybe they went out there.” I grabbed a rain jacket.

“No.” Nicole wouldn’t let me leave the safety of the house. “They’re not out in that.” The power blinked off, then came
back on. “If they were, they’d come back in as soon as it started to rain.”

“What about the creek? What if they climbed Bodie’s tree? They can’t swim. Nicole, what if they fell in?” I had to go out and find them.

“No, stay here.” Nicole yanked my arm as the tornado sirens peeled. The world dimmed, as if the power had gone out, but it was the storm blocking out light and turning the air a vibrantly ill green. “I’ll go. You get Enid to the cellar. Force her; you have to survive.” She opened the back door and ice was driven by the rain across the kitchen, soaking both of us.