Chapter 6
He was nervous, his fingers twisting the class ring the way he always did when he was waiting, the ring slipperier than usual because a little soap had gotten under the band when he’d washed his hands coming back from the bathroom.
Like he’d done when Anna had been taken away to have an emergency C-section.
When she’d had to have the mastectomy.
When Jeremy had needed surgery on his broken arm.
And now that Anna was sick again, and Jeremy was only ten, and her father had died, he was hoping there was a will somewhere that no one knew about. A will that left something to Anna or Jeremy. Anything, really, would help.
But he felt almost dirty asking for help.
The man at the desk—he’d recognized the man’s voice when he’d said hello—had told him to fill out some paperwork and that they might not have to pay.
So he had.
And now the medium was going to meet with him, even though he couldn’t afford it.
He didn’t understand, but he was grateful.
But he was still nervous.
He really needed the money.
I remembered that man. He’d been near tears when he’d left, but they seemed to be… not happy, exactly, but hopeful, so I hoped that his wife’s father had told him where the will was and that they’d been left something in it that would help with his wife’s treatment.
And I was glad I’d had him fill out the grant forms, even though he wasn’t the usual type of client for whom we provided money.
But Ward and Elsbeth Lefavre, the extremely wealthy owner of Lost Lineage Foundation, were often more generous than the strict terms they’d laid out for the Foundation’s grants.
I knew that even without a grant, Ward wouldn’t have charged him anyway.
I took the ring that I’d picked up—which had rolled into a corner of the hallway leading to the bathroom—and carried it back to my desk, dropping it into one of the tiny little pits in the molded plastic of the drawer organizer that I had no idea what to put in. This, apparently.
I then quickly sent an email to Ross Vogt letting him know that I’d found his lost class ring and that he was welcome to stop by during our opening hours anytime to pick it up.
I’d settled into the rhythm of reconciling receipts, invoices, money put in from Lost Lineage, and general expenses.
I wasn’t exactly a math guy, but there was something comforting about doing the reckoning of accounts, making the columns balance or—even better—resolve with Beyond the Veil coming out ‘in the black,’ as the phrase went.
Nobody else liked doing it, and while I wouldn’t say I liked it, exactly, I did get a lot of satisfaction from seeing it completed and knowing that I’d contributed to the company in a meaningful way—one that didn’t actually involve death or murder or having to expend magical energy. Sometimes, that was nice.
So I was contentedly absorbed in my spreadsheets when the bell over the door rang, and I looked over, surprised. We didn’t have any appointments this afternoon, so I wasn’t expecting anyone.
It wasn’t any of the usual people who would come in unannounced, either—not Raj or Hart or Dan Maza.
It was a woman, her medium brown hair just starting to go grey, her pale skin flushed and greyish eyes bloodshot. And she wasn’t alone, although I wasn’t sure she knew that.
The ghost behind her had to have been related to her somehow—their faces had similar features, like flat cheekbones, wide-set pale eyes, full lips, a cleft chin.
The woman pressed her lips together, clearly upset, and walked directly toward me, her eyes a little frantic as she pulled on a plain blue mask.
I pulled up my gaiter-style mask—I’d started wearing them so that they were already around my neck, just in case someone came in while I was moving around the offices and not at my desk. It was also more convenient for when someone came hurrying in and I had to react quickly.
“Hello, welcome to Beyond the Veil,” I said to her, trying to sound polite. “How can I help you?”
“I—I need—” She swallowed, her voice cracking. “I need a medium.”
I nodded. That was painfully obvious. To me, anyway. I wondered if she knew the ghost was following her. “May I ask what you’re attempting to determine?” I asked her.
She sniffed. The kind that suggested she was just barely holding back tears. “I need to—to talk to my brother.”
I’m right here, Betts.
My gaze flicked over to him, but he was still staring at her. His face was almost as anguished as hers. I wondered what I should do.
Ward wasn’t here, and neither was Beck. Mason was in his office in the back, but he wouldn’t be any help to her.
If her brother hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have been, either. But he was right there.
“Can you wait a few minutes?” I asked her, deciding that I was going to try to be helpful.
She nodded.
I stood, then turned to her. “You’re welcome to sit, if you would like,” I said, feeling awkward.
“Th-thanks,” she mumbled, then turned, although I didn’t wait to see if she would actually sit on the couch.
“Mason?” I asked, hovering in the doorway to his office.
He looked up, small wire-framed reading glasses perched on his nose, his odd gold-and-black eyes peering over their tops at me. “What is it?” he asked.
“There’s a woman here,” I told him. “She wants to talk to her brother—and he’s also here.”
He frowned and opened his mouth as though to ask a question, but then his expression smoothed, and he took off his glasses. “Her brother is deceased, I take it?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you asking if it would be okay if you handled it?” he asked me, studying me.
I nodded again.
He gestured back toward the front. “By all means. Would you like me to come with you?”
“No,” I answered. “Why would I?”
Mason shrugged. “If she were a witch or there was any sign that the spirit might turn hostile.”
“Oh,” I replied. “No, I don’t think so. He seems as desperate to talk to her as she is to him.”
Mason nodded. “Call if you need me, okay?”
I nodded in return, then headed back to the front of the office suite.
The woman was sitting on the couch, and she looked up. “He won’t see me?” she asked, a desperate edge to her voice.
I glanced over at her brother, who looked similarly stricken.
“I can help,” I told her. “I just… don’t normally, so I had to make sure it was okay.” I felt childish, telling her I’d had to ask permission to talk to her ghostly brother.
“Don’t normally what?” she asked me.
I gestured toward her brother, floating just beside her. “Speak to the dead,” I replied. “I’m not a medium, but I have… an affinity with the dead.”
She sat up a little. “You can summon my brother?” she asked, and her voice held that kind of desperate hope that didn’t dare believe what it said.
“I don’t have to,” I replied, nodding at the ghost. “He followed you here.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, tears filling her grey eyes. “He’s—here?”
You can see me? Her brother sounded just as urgent.
I can, I said to him silently. “My name is Rayn,” I told them both.
The woman sniffled. “Bethany Tripp,” she said, then swallowed. “I—I brought my checkbook—”
“We’ll deal with that later,” I told her. I had no idea what Mason might want me to charge her. If he wanted me to charge her, since I wasn’t exactly experienced in doing séances. I was about to ask her what she wanted to tell her brother, but she could just say it, whatever it was.
“He’s here,” I told her. “So whatever you want to tell him, you can.”
“Robby?”
I’m here, Betts. He looked at me.
“He says that he’s here. He… He calls you Betts,” I said, not sure if that was rude to say out loud.
She gave me a tearful smile. “He always has, yes,” she said softly, then the tears came.
“Robby, I am so sorry.”
It wasn’t your fault, Betts, he said, and he sounded miserable. Tell her, he said, turning to me, begging. Tell her it wasn’t her fault.
“He says that it wasn’t your fault,” I told her, although I had no idea what was going on or why she might have thought it was.
“I should have known,” she rasped. “I should have seen how unhappy—” She cut herself off.
Even I could read the silence.
No, Betts. He tried to touch her, but his hands just went through her shoulder, and he turned to me.
“He says no,” I told her. “And he’s—he’s trying to touch you, but he can’t.”
More tears fell down her cheeks. “We could have gotten help,” she said softly.
There was nothing that could have helped me, he said softly. I was dying, Betts.
I looked over at him. Dying? I asked, partly because I figured Bethany would want to know, and partly because I did.
Cancer, he said softly. Brain cancer. Inoperable. I—didn’t want anyone to worry. And I didn’t want to go through that. He looked at his sister, and it was clear how much he loved her. I didn’t want Betts to have to go through that.
Anyone? I asked him.
Betts. Mom. He looked away from her, meeting my eyes. Dad died from cancer. Not the same kind, but he refused to go to the doctor until he was already coughing up blood. I couldn’t make them go through that again.
I nodded. “He was diagnosed with brain cancer,” I told Bethany, and she gasped. “He didn’t want to… linger. Or to put your and your mother through that again.”
“Oh, Robby,” she sobbed, and her hand reached out and grabbed mine, squeezing. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I let her hold my hand, closing my fingers so that I gently held hers in return. “Robby…”
There was nothing they could do, he said softly, crouching beside both of us. I got four opinions. Just in case. The ghost’s eyes shone with tears, too. I tried, Betts. I really did.
I swallowed, then licked my lips, which were dry. “He got more than one opinion, just in case,” I told Bethany. “They all agreed there was nothing anyone could do.”
She nodded, tears still streaming down her face. “I’m still sorry,” she rasped. “I’m just… sorry.”
Robby nodded. Me, too, he said, his silent voice soft.
We sat that way for a while, Bethany’s tears slowing, her breathing growing more even. “Has he—has he been with me the whole time?” she asked.