Chapter 19
NINETEEN
It may have been a placebo, but the air in the house was easier to breathe.
The lights from the lamps seemed brighter, as if the demon had been siphoning off so much energy for itself that we’d been living off the crumbs.
And the weird, moldy smell, the one I thought meant we needed to wash the carpets layered on the living room floor, disappeared.
Replaced with the peppermint tea Wilson had put on last night to settle us.
December had gone through the house with a lavender incense; the smoke and open windows helped clean out whatever might have remained undetected by our noses.
The team monitored my room while Wilson and I slept in the living room for the next week. Being close offered a small taste of comfort. But I continued to avoid mirrors. Rae’s necklace remained pressed to my chest.
Each day that went by without an incident was a day in which we ventured farther into the house.
We started entertaining possibility. The team—Rae specifically—encouraged said entertainment, citing the importance of keeping our anxiety levels down.
The wards were a window with a weak seal.
Drafts got in, and warmth got out. Creating more warmth meant not thinking too much about the cold.
“Are you coming with us?” my brother asked when I appeared in the kitchen in my nice jeans (they still had holes in them, but these holes were intentional, made under the guise of fashionability) and my locs freshly washed and twisted in twos.
I’d wanted to swipe a bit of mascara on and some concealer for a new, angry red bump right in the middle of my forehead.
But as soon as I got out my makeup, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I bought anything for myself outside of new work boots and sunscreen.
I threw away the tubes of old makeup because covering my breakout would always come second to getting a bacterial infection.
“Yeah…Rae said I didn’t have a choice.” I brushed my hands over my white top. It had lace panels down the sleeves. The only detail that made it feel like a going-out outfit. “Is this okay?”
Wilson gave me a one-shoulder shrug and gestured for me to grab the chair next to him. “You look fine.”
Fine. I scratched the nape of my neck but still sat down. I couldn’t expect my older brother to give me sound feedback on fashion. But I needed someone to give me something more than a lackluster “fine.”
“Where’s everyone?” I asked.
“Rearranging some of their things upstairs. And moving some of yours down. They said it shouldn’t take long and then we’ll head into town.” Wilson moved around the kitchen slowly, taking his time placing pots in their designated spaces.
“How are you?” I entwined my fingers, resting my hands on the woven table mat. “You’ve been locked in your room all day.”
“Nico let me take apart their sonar machine.” Instead of the usual wide wonder his eyes held when introduced to a new field of study, Wilson’s expression clouded.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s…” He laughed dryly. “I feel like all my knowledge’s going to waste here. I’m not used to not being able to keep up, you know? Something to get used to, I suppose.”
My shoulders sagged at the defeat in his tone. “You do know you don’t need to keep up.”
Wilson shrugged and placed a tray of steaming mugs in his lap before joining me at the table. “I should be asking you how you are.”
“Why? We’re both going through this.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the only one of us who’s come face-to-face with a demon.” He handed me my mug. “I overheard Rae saying something about it being here for a contract. Or maybe because of something that happened to Dad and your mom. Has the team told you anything about that?”
“A little. There hasn’t been a full debrief. I think it’s because I can’t sleep for more than two hours. She needs me to calm down first before dumping another load, I guess.”
“Fair. Tell me, how do you think we got so lucky as to buy a ranch stalked by a demon?” It was mostly a joke, but I could see a genuine spark of curiosity in his dark eyes.
Wilson looked so much like our dad that on the days I missed him most, I would just stare and sometimes pretend I was little again.
Life had still been scary with all the moving around back then but at least I hadn’t been in charge.
“God’s chosen,” I said.
“Since the day we were born,” he agreed with a low chuckle that harbored no actual amusement.
I chewed on my bottom lip as his brow furrowed. Wilson had gone through a lifetime of changes in the last year. He quit his job teaching and left his wife; two things I still couldn’t get him to talk about at length.
“It was just time,” he’d said over the phone.
“Time?” I’d asked.
“Yeah, everything there has run its course. We’d grown apart before the accident. And now, I think it’s time we both let go. I don’t want her to feel like she has to take care of me.”
Wilson changed the entire trajectory of his life overnight. He hadn’t given two weeks’ notice. He’d sent an email twelve hours before his next lecture.
“Don’t you need to consider it a little longer?” I’d asked.
“What’s there to consider? Lea’s miserable. My classroom’s full of students who offer me pitying attention. My colleagues—the ones who have been ruthless since I met them—open doors for me now. Even the automatic one. And I can’t find a decent bar to get a good drink. I’m done.”
“Not finding a decent bar was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” I’d tried to joke.
Wilson chuckled and agreed, “Truly.”
After his impromptu decision to leave, Wilson had called me from the airport, asking for a place to crash, and the joy in my heart at hearing he needed me was something I hid underneath a nonchalant sure.
I was happy to see him but to be with me meant he left everything.
I was selfish enough to want him to leave everything.
“Have you thought about what I said?” I asked. “Once all this…is it haunting if it’s a demon? Do only ghosts haunt?”
Wilson shook his head. “I’m not sure. The articles I’ve read use it as an umbrella term. So do Jones and her team. I haven’t been able to convince them to share things from the database yet, so no official Guild lingo confirmation just yet.”
“I’m sure you’ll crack that case,” I said. “In the meantime, have you thought about what I said? Teaching again at the community college in Needle Point?”
After I got my dream of opening the ranch, I’d promised Wilson to help him reach his.
The only wrench in this plan was that he didn’t seem to have one anymore.
He was all about Elmwood and tending to the house and carving our furniture.
My brother barely glanced at the posting I’d sent him from the community college in the next town over.
“Let’s figure this out before we talk about what’s next.” Wilson offered me a smile, a silent thank you for thinking of me but don’t bother.
“The money could help us,” I noted, even though that wasn’t the reason I wanted him to teach. Wilson spent morning, noon, and night in this house. He looked after Esther and me like a new parent afraid of leaving for a couple of minutes to take a shower.
“I’ll look into it,” Wilson promised.
“Thank you.” I looked down at the hot steam rising from my cup. We were quiet for a moment, just the sound of the floorboards creaking under the team’s footsteps upstairs before I forced myself to ask the question that’d been floating around in my brain. “Wilson…”
He rested his chin in his hand, watching me and waiting patiently for me to continue. When I didn’t, he said, “I know we’ll have to prove a lot to each other after all this time. But try to trust me when I say, I’m not going to judge you for whatever you want to ask.”
I smiled a little. “Yeah?”
“Have I ever given you evidence to say otherwise?” His forehead wrinkled with dismay and concern.
“No,” I quickly assured. “It’s just…time makes this stuff awkward.”
Wilson took a deep breath. “You know, when you were little, we were really close.”
I blinked, trying to recall a time when he didn’t keep to himself on his side of the car while we drove to a new city. What I remembered of younger Wilson was a quiet, moody teenager who didn’t like tagalongs and didn’t enjoy anything that combined “family” and “time.”
“You would want to watch the same movie repeatedly. Cars.” He smiled, remembering.
“That movie with the talking race car?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a cartoon, let alone obsessed over one.
“That one,” he confirmed. “You wouldn’t let any of us change the DVD on the road trip. And you’d ask me to recite the lines with you. You knew every single one by heart, so anytime I messed up, you got annoyed and begged me to rewind the scene.”
“I sound like incredible company.”
“The best.” Wilson’s smile made my throat tighten. “What happened to your Braves cap, by the way?”
I frowned. “Braves?”
“You always used to wear it whenever we drove. Said it was your pilot’s hat,” he explained.
I laughed. “Really?”
“You went on your first plane at…” Wilson closed one eye, trying to remember.
“Four? And you met the pilot. You immediately asked for his hat, and he said he couldn’t give it to you because it was how he flew so well, and if he had it, he’d get everywhere he needed to go safely.
You wanted all of us to have one after that. So we’d all be safe.”
A memory filtered back into my brain. A fuzzy image of me clinging to a cap. “I remember what happened to it.”
Wilson perked up, excited for a story.