“So I’ve heard. This is the first time I’ve made it up here, though.” He sort of jerked his chin in the direction of the table where his friends were sitting. “My friend Dylan saw an ad for this party in a campus paper or something, and so a group of us decided to come up and check it out.”
“Are you staying here?” I knew it was silly to ask, that he was a civilian and not the guy I’d spent the last five years dreaming about, but some part of me wanted to ignore all that, to pretend we could dance tonight and talk and maybe steal a kiss or two, and then meet for coffee in the morning like a couple of normal people.
He shook his head. “No. That is, not in Jerome. We got a room down in Cottonwood because everything here was already booked.”
“Good. I mean, that’s safer than driving a hundred miles back to Phoenix.”
“That was the idea.”
After that we both fell silent, but I didn’t mind that, either. It felt good to be out on the dance floor, his arms around me. It felt right, which was stupid, I supposed. Probably it was just that he was tall and dark-haired and good-looking, and so close enough to the ideal I’d held in my head for so many years that I wanted this dance to be more than it really was. And I would’ve known if he were like me — a member of one of the witch clans, that is. We didn’t exactly give each other the secret handshake or anything, but each of us has a little core of power within us that sort of gives off a glow others of our kind can detect. I didn’t feel anything like that with the man holding me right now. Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel something, but it wasn’t that.
The song ended, but he didn’t seem all that eager to leave the dance floor…at least, not until the band started in on “Werewolves of London.” Then he drew me to the side and bent close.
My heart started to pound. Was he going to try to kiss me? And if he did, would I even try to stop him?
But then he said, “Can I get your number? I think I might like to come back to Jerome in the near future.”
If Aunt Rachel had heard that, she probably would have shaken her head. No point in giving him any false hope. She wasn’t anywhere near us, however, and he was already pulling his phone out of his pocket so he could enter my information.
Taking a breath, I said quickly, “Angela McAllister. It’s 928 — ”
My name, echoed, interrupted me. I felt someone’s hand on my arm, and I turned around to see about the last person I expected: my cousin Dora, her face pale and her eyes brimming with tears.
“It’s — it’s Ruby,” she gasped. “She’s going, and she needs to see you. You have to hurry!”
The warm afterglow of the dance abruptly disappeared. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, please, you have to come now!”
Helplessly, I looked up at Zorro. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
He looked more than a little confused, but he just nodded. “Sure. It sounds like an emergency.” And, more softly, even as I was turning from him and beginning to follow Dora through the crowd, “I know where to find you.”
8
Passing the Veil
I didn’t have time to think about much else. Not the man I’d just left behind me, or my friends sitting at the table and probably wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn’t think about anything as I emerged into the biting night air, except, She can’t be dying. She can’t.
Out the front door of Spook Hall, then across the street and hurrying up the stairs through the park, the quickest route, even though my heels weren’t doing me any favors on those steep steps. The cold hit my exposed neck and chest and shoulders almost immediately. Or maybe that was simply the chill of realizing what my great-aunt’s passing would mean to me. To all of us McAllisters.
Dora a few paces ahead, the two of us hurried up to Paradise Lane, where Great-Aunt Ruby’s house stood. The light on the front porch shone forth serenely, as if nothing was wrong, but I knew better.
As soon as we entered the house, Dora paused in the entryway. “She’s up in her room. She — she wanted to see you alone.”
Mute with worry, I could only nod. Then I grasped the shining oak banister and more or less pulled myself up the stairs. Although I’d never been there before, I knew her room was on the left of the landing, in the location that would give her a panoramic view of the town and valley beyond. Not that there was much to see tonight. It was a dark night, heavy with clouds, the moon not yet risen.
Somehow I made myself cross the landing, knock on the door. “Aunt Ruby? It’s Angela.”