I couldn't say I blamed him. I’d entered into this bargain, not him. It seemed he was a spectator who’d gotten sucked into the turmoil.
“Go,” I said, laying my hand on his arm. He flinched and I withdrew my touch. “Go,” I repeated. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ll figure it out, and then I’ll figure out how to set you free, okay? There has to be a way.”
His gaze connected with mine and held it for a long moment. His sigh was soft, and his nod was slight.
A moment later, an enormous polar bear was running across the garden, trampling flowers. I suspected that was on purpose. I knew it was on purpose when he barreled through the edge of the labyrinth and fought his way out of the other side, tearing a big runway down the middle.
“That is completely uncalled for,” Edgar said. “I didn’t mess up his cabin, now did I?”
Niamh waved it away. “He wanted a new challenge in his life, he just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet. Give him time. He’ll come around. Come on. We have some serious cleanup to do.”
“I’ll go start digging graves,” Edgar said, then poofed into a swarm of insects.
“Blech!” I stumbled backward. “Gross.”
“It’s fine, he won’t run into you.” Niamh headed for the back door.
“No, no. There’s a doll infestation in there. Let’s stay at your house tonight.”
Thirty-Two
Niamh wasn’t any more lenient in my terror of dolls than she had been with Austin. After much name calling and comments regarding my hysterics, we’d worked together to march the dolls back into their room of horror.
And when I say worked together, I mean that I hid behind her and let her talk me through controlling them (to some degree). No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to make them self-destruct. It was a design flaw, I was positive.
With the dolls locked in their room, it was time to set the house to rights. Which was gross on so many levels.
The dolls had done their fair share of carnage—which would give me nightmares for the rest of my life—and the house had taken care of the rest, spraying them with darts, dropping chandeliers on them, and disposing of them in a number of other nerve-wracking ways. The body armor of the wraith had been found, though apparently those creatures couldn’t be killed in a traditional way. It was probably the only thing that had escaped. I was supposed to be able to control this stuff, somehow, but realistically I just wondered if it was going to turn on me.
Outside was worse. My four allies had created their own carnage. I wasn’t complaining, because they’d saved my bacon, but good lord was it gross. Not to mention morally ambiguous. I couldn’t keep my snacks in my stomach as we transported the wicked into their new dirt resting place, making me wonder how many others had found their permanent resting places here over the many long years.
“Now.” Niamh wiped her hair out of her face, her emotions pleased and content. Turned out, I could read everyone, not just Austin. I wasn’t sure if that was a great thing. It made me feel responsible for them. I’d already shipped my kid off, I didn’t want to have to look after adult kids.
She walked into the living room—posture straight, steps light and graceful.
“Are you pissed you still look…older?” I asked, following her.
“No, no!” Mr. Tom ran in with sheets. “Don’t soil the furniture!”
“Why not? It gives you something to do,” Niamh retorted.
“Insufferable woman,” he mumbled, draping a white sheet over an armchair right before she collapsed into it. “No respect for antiques.”
“Ah sure, I couldn’t give a dog’s bollocks what I look like,” Niamh replied. “I have the tools to do the job, and that is a blessing, I won’t say it isn’t. I would’ve been happy to retire, but now, after getting another taste of life in the fast lane…I don’t mind this so much either. I think I have the best of both worlds.”
Mr. Tom covered a chair for me, and then two more for him and Edgar—who hadn’t come in yet—and walked briskly out of the room.
Not long after he returned, carrying a highly polished silver tray. “Drinks?”
Edgar flew in behind him in the form of the swarm of insects.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, Edgar. No bugs in the house. Absolutely not.”
“Well, thank God you said it. I was thinking the very same thing,” Mr. Tom said as he paused in front of Niamh, handed her a glass of what looked like beer, and moved on to me. I got a glass of wine. Apparently we weren’t allowed to choose for ourselves.
Edgar’s drink was also deep red, but it wasn’t wine, and I didn’t want to think too hard on that fact.
“Ahem,” Niamh said, and saluted. “Here’s to new beginnings.”
“I would’ve liked to see my old beginnings in the mirror, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” Mr. Tom said with a sniff, then left the room.
“Trust me, even youth wouldn’t have helped that mug,” Niamh called after him.
“Have you tested your magic?” Edgar asked me, a red mustache from his drink.
I set my glass down, suddenly uninterested in its contents.
“I don’t know how to test my magic,” I replied. “I…don’t feel any different, honestly. I mean, my body feels more youthful, which is incredible, but…that’s it. That’s the only change I feel.”
“Give it time,” Niamh said. “You’re tired and this is all new.”
Mr. Tom re-entered the sitting room with a port-sized wine glass filled with white liquid. “I doubt you’ll ever feel any different,” he said. “That is why the house chose you, I am sure of it. To feel different would be an illusion. It would be an emotional response to your increased power and prestige. To feel like yourself means you are yourself.”
“Now we’ll just have to teach you how to use the magic,” Niamh said. “Too bad only Earl knows anything about it, and the male and female versions are wholly different.”
“She won’t need a teacher.” Edgar set his empty glass on the table next to him. “The house chooses, and the house provides. The magic will flourish within her naturally. She will not need an instruction manual, she’ll need an open mind.”
“Yes, the transition will be perfectly natural,” Mr. Tom said. “Because she is a natural.”
“The next time someone says natural, let’s all take a shot,” Niamh murmured.
The doorbell rang, echoing through the house. A stranger waited outside, I could feel it.
“Please, let me,” Mr. Tom said, literally catapulting off of his seat.
“How long do you think he’ll act like a kid on a pogo stick just because he can?” Niamh asked as he left the room.
“I can’t really talk. It feels good to change into my other form again,” Edgar said. “I half thought I’d die before it happened.”
“Why did you lose the ability?” I asked him.
“Age,” he responded, his fingers entwined in his lap, knuckles as knobby as they’d been before. “It requires a lot of energy, and when you get to six-hundred or so, you start to…fall apart. You just can’t hold it together anymore. By seven-hundred my goose was cooked, so to speak.”
“Six…ty, you mean? Six…”
“Jessie.” Mr. Tom poked his head back in, his eyes tight. “A couple of officers at the door.”
“What?” I stood, not even a little stiff. I just stood right up, not needing to struggle to keep everything in alignment, or give a little groan—everything worked in tandem. It was so…weird. And great.
“Officers.”
“What do they want?” Niamh sat forward.
“No, no.” Mr. Tom waved her away. “Not you. You’ll just make matters worse.”
“Why? I have a good rapport with Dick cops in this town,” she said, indignant.
Edgar started laughing. “You get arrested for drunk and disorderly every other month.”
“That’s only because Chuck doesn’t have a sense of humor. No one else brings me in.”
As I approached the door, I caught sight of the men on the porch, their faces hard, mouths grim, and thumbs tucked into their belts.
“Yes, officers?” I asked, terror squeezing my stomach. We’d just buried a bunch of people in the woods. Could they have found out so soon? I didn’t have any neighbors close enough to see into the backyard, but maybe someone had been flying a drone around?
The closest cop, a freckle-faced man in his early thirties, nodded in hello. “We’ve received a noise complaint about this residence, ma’am.”
“A noise complaint?” Niamh said from behind me, stationed near the archway under the landing. I hadn’t known she’d followed. “Who called it in? Snitches get stitches in this neighborhood. Was it that old blue hair, Betty Turnable? She needs a new hobby, if you ask me. Only crazy people paint rocks.”
“What does that say about people who throw them?” Mr. Tom said through his teeth.
“Are you all…having a party?” The officer’s eyes caught my messy mop of hair, probably the dirt on my cheek and clothes, and the little rip in my shirt from the place it got snagged on my way out of the heart of the house.