Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Shannon?” I was frozen in place. She was there, but it was like seeing an illusion. I could see almost through her, my mind trying to tell me that no, she wasn’t there, even when my eyes were saying the opposite.
“Hey, kiddo.” Her lips twisted up. It was the same calm expression I remembered. It was the smile that broke me. I’d been in so many places by the time I met her and Marco, but she could get through every one of my defenses just by being more patient with me than anyone had ever been.
I showed up late to school even though she’d dropped me in front?
She’d smile and ask me what happened, not saying anything else until I confessed about the kid in first period who would kick my chair the whole class.
If I swore at the table? She’d smile at me and remind me there were kids younger than me at dinner and just because someone exposed me to foul language too young, I didn’t have to be the same way.
Even when I tried using my magic on the other foster kids in the house, she didn’t get mad, she just waited until we were alone and told me even though people more powerful than me had hurt me, it didn’t mean I had to become one. I didn’t have to hurt people weaker than me, just because I could.
If I hadn’t met her, I wasn’t sure who I would be. Someone meaner, for certain. Someone who didn’t care about the people he hurt or the things he broke as long as it got him what he wanted. Swallowing, I closed my eyes, half expecting her to disappear when I opened them.
She was frowning at me, her hip leaning against the sink when I opened my eyes.
“Parker, do you even do dishes? Some of these have mold in them! Don’t tell me you think that nice detective is going to stick around if you have a sink full of dirty dishes.
He doesn’t seem like the type who goes for slobs. ”
“Shannon, what are you doing here?” I asked. “How are you here? You’re in a coma.”
“You know I’m not,” she said. “And I’m here because you asked for help.”
I waved my hands in front of me like I was warding off a hive full of bees. “No, no. I did not ask for help. I definitely didn’t ask you to show up at my place! You should be in your body! If you can be here, you can wake yourself up.”
She pulled her lips to the side, grimacing.
“I’ve tried, Parker. I’ve tried a lot. There’s only so much time I can spend listening to goddess-blessed PBS before I go insane.
I mean, I think at this point I’ve seen the entire Hercule Poirot series!
And all of Inspector Morse. Even the one with the new kid. ”
“So you’re watching daytime tv?” I accused. “You always said that rotted brains! And you can’t haunt people’s dreams! It’s mean!”
Huffing, she said, “That’s mostly an accident. I don’t know how to control the dreams.”
“Maybe by not haunting people.” My stomach growled, and I pulled down a bowl and filled it with Choco Wolf Crunch. “I’m going to call Laurel and see if she can figure out how to get you back to yourself.”
“I’ve tried visiting her,” Shannon said. “She doesn’t even see me. Tell me I raised you better than that.”
I glanced down at the cereal and picked a spoon out of the drawer. “It’s just when I don’t have anything else to eat.”
“Really.” Her lips pursed. “And when do you have things to eat? Because it looks to me like you haven’t done any grocery shopping in a few weeks. And is that milk even safe to have in the fridge?”
“Will people lay off my milk?” Pulling out my phone, I pressed the button for Laurel. It rang once before she picked up.
“Parker, why did Shannon’s care facility call and say you agreed to pay more for her care?” she asked before I could say anything. “We can’t afford that.”
“The director thinks she’s haunting people,” I said. “And I never agreed to pay, I said we could work something out—”
“Great,” she muttered. “I have to call them back and deal with this nonsense. Haunting. People are so narrow-minded about witchcraft these days.”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about,” I said. “I think we might have an issue—”
“Oh, wait,” she said. “They’re calling me. I’ll call you back after I’ve dealt with this. I might even have the coven lawyer in on this call. Haunting. Artemis’s blessed, I’m ready to see some heads roll.”
She hung up before I could explain there was a good reason people thought Shannon haunted them, and it was because she was.
“I’m so proud of her,” Shannon said, fondly. I yelped at her proximity. She’d come closer when I was on the phone, ear tilted to listen in. “She’s such a good head priestess. I’ll bet she goes grocery shopping every week.”
“I remember you being nicer.” I glared at her.
“You were fifteen, Parker, I had to be nice to you. You were a really messed-up kid, who’d been in situations most grown adults couldn’t handle.
Even though you had an amazing amount of power, you had no training.
” She tilted her head, eyes crinkling in the corners in a smile.
Raising her hand, she stroked it down my cheek, and I got goosebumps, even though there was no sensation.
“But now you’re an adult and you need a reality check. ”
Taking a spoonful of my cereal, I narrowed my eyes. “Reality check?”
“You’re about to lose your apartment,” she said.
“No.” I huffed. “I have until tomorrow to get the money and if I can solve the case, then I’ll have more than enough money.”
Wrinkling her nose, she sighed. “So, say you solve the case today. Do you think the police are just going to cut you a check on the same day? Even if they do, will it clear your bank account so you can give your landlord cash?”
“How do you know all this?” I’d talked about a lot of my worries with her, but this was more detail than she should know.
Glancing up at the ceiling, she said, “So, I might have been visiting a little before now.”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“Well, it’s not like you noticed! And I do it with all you kiddos,” she said. “I worry. Can’t a mom worry?”
“So why can I just see you now?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Maybe you want to? Maybe you finally believe you can?”
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my head. “I know I’m going to lose the apartment. But, I don’t know what else to do. I have to follow this now, anyway. Acacia’s involved and that means I’m bound to it.”
“Who’s Acacia?” Shannon frowned.
“I thought you were the one who knew all my secrets.”
“I’m not always here,” she said. “Sometimes I disappear. It’s hard for me to stay in one place for long.”
“She’s the Summer Queen’s daughter,” I said. “I have to track her down.”
“And she’s involved in this police case?” Shannon asked. “How?”
“I don’t know yet.” Stirring my dry cereal, I watched as the flakes spun around.
“What’re you going to do, kiddo? If you get kicked out?”
“I’ll probably have to get a new place.” I glanced around. It would be a pain to move everything, but it would be possible.
“Do something for me?" she asked.
Surprised, I looked back at her. “Sure. Anything.”
“Wash that pile of laundry in your closet before your nice cop boyfriend sees it. It smells like donkey balls. If he sees it, he’s definitely going to leave you.” She made a face that looked like she’d eaten a lemon.
Groaning, I said, “Fine! I will do laundry and grocery shop.”
“You’ll figure this out, kiddo. Now, don’t you have leads to track down?”
“You said it was pointless, since I won’t get the money before tomorrow,” I said.
“You still have to make that Summer Queen rhymes-with-witch happy, and maybe you’ll get the money in time to make a down payment on a new place.” She looked around, and scrunched her nose. “If you do all your work, then I’ll listen to you whine about lying to your boyfriend.”
“It’s not whining,” I said. “I’m in moral crisis here!”
"Okay.” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ll listen to your moral crisis, then.”
“You used to be so nice,” I said.
She crossed her arms and waited and how did that still work when I wasn’t fifteen anymore and she was mostly dead?
With a huff, I stalked to my desk, taking out my phone and sending the picture of the class list to the printer.
When it came sliding out, I took out a yellow notepad and a pen and woke my computer.
Thanks to social media, it was ridiculously easy to find phone numbers for most of the people in the seminar. I started with the first name.
Using an app, I disguised my number as one of UCSA’s offices.
“Hi, Isaiah, this is Zachary Byrd,” I said. “I’m calling from UCSA’s Office of Student Conduct. We’re investigating a complaint about a student in your course.”
On the other end of the line, I could hear the hesitation. “Was it Tim? God, that guy is an asshole. Is he complaining his rights were violated?”
“How about you tell it to me from your perspective,” I said.
Shannon smiled from where she sat in the guest chair across from my desk. “You’re doing great, kiddo!”
Rolling my eyes, I listened as Isaiah described pretty similar behavior to what Woolworth had written in his statement. Even though it was a course on magical studies, anytime someone mentioned alchemists or witches, Tim would go off on a rant about Humans Are Human.
“Professor Woolworth—um, the dead one—she was really good about handling him. This new professor doesn’t really seem to care?” Isaiah said.
“Hmmm,” I said. “Could you tell me more about the course? I want to make sure I understand.”
Isaiah was more than happy to. He was a magical-studies major and talked at great length about everything the course covered. It sounded like a course most kids went to college to take. A passionate professor teaching in-depth about a subject she’d done most of the research for.
“Just to clarify.” I glanced at my notes from Nick’s case to see when Nate, the SoPa alpha, had been killed. “You were meeting May fifteenth?”
“No,” Isaiah said. “I was out of town, in LA. Was there a special session? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I’ll have to contact Professor Woolworth to see—”