Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
T hat evening, as the sun was setting, Stella got Judith’s old scrying candle off the shelf and set it on the floor in the center of her second-floor meeting room. Catherine, Ethan, and Jun gathered around while Stella and Marietta hung back, close to the exit.
“Flame, please, Stella,” Catherine said.
Stella snapped her fingers, and the candle lit. The flame was orange, signifying that their five living spirits were the only ones present.
“Your mother’s full name?”
“Claire,” Stella said as a lump lodged in her throat. She cleared it and amended, “Claire Elizabeth Aldren.”
Catherine nodded. “I’ll need a little room to work.”
Ethan and Jun backed up, joining Stella and Marietta against the wall, while Catherine circled the candle in a slow promenade, muttering her incantation.
“Judith didn’t do it like that,” Stella whispered in Marietta’s ear.
“ Shhh ,” Marietta whispered back. “There’s rarely one way to do anything.”
Catherine completed her third rotation, and though the candle flame remained orange, Stella thought she saw it flicker. Was the veil between worlds beginning to lift?
Stella reached behind her and wrapped her hand around the door knob, preparing to exit.
“The flame’s gonna go out,” Jun said as the candle dimmed, its flame reducing to barely more than a spark.
Catherine got on her knees in front of the candle and cupped her hands around it. “The energy is low, but it’s holding steady. Be patient. We can still have a good result.”
“Maybe if I left now,” Stella said, but Marietta squeezed her hand, encouraging her to stay. At least, for a little while longer.
“Claire Elizabeth Aldren,” Catherine beckoned, her voice going unusually low. “Will you speak with us?”
The fresh-bread scent of Catherine’s prophetic magic filled the room, something only Stella could smell, and she leaned forward, inhaling.
The candle flame swelled, but it didn’t lengthen—nothing to make Stella think her mother had arrived.
“Call to her,” Catherine said, and though she didn’t look up, Stella knew she was talking to her.
“I’m not part of this,” Stella said, which was a lie. She still hadn’t been able to make herself leave the room.
“Call to her,” Catherine repeated. “Then you can go.”
Stella glanced up at Marietta, who gave her a nod. Next, she locked eyes with Ethan, who dipped his chin encouragingly.
Stella took a step toward the candle. “M- Mom? Mom, it’s me. Stella.”
The flame swelled, then leaned toward the west.
“That’s good,” Catherine said. “That’s good. The energy’s growing. There are strong emotions behind it too. Ah! There it is.”
The flame turned blue, noting the presence of a spirit. But was it the right one?
Stella stepped back, flattening herself against the wall.
Catherine leaned closer to the candle. “Is that you, Claire Aldren?”
The flame crackled.
“We can’t quite hear you,” Catherine said. “There’s a young man here who’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Catherine tipped her head toward her shoulder, indicating Jun should move in closer.
Jun left his spot on the wall and knelt beside Catherine.
Stella’s heart was in a tug-o-war, desperately wanting to see her mother’s specter while knowing it would be a terrible mistake to stay. “We should get the hell out of here,” she whispered to Marietta.
“We will,” Marietta said. “Just one more second.”
“I understand you can magnify magic?” Catherine asked Jun. “Now, would be a good time to do that.”
“Ah,” Jun said. “Right. Um…”
He closed his eyes and bowed his head. In response, the flame immediately turned bright cobalt and sputtered loudly.
“Uh, hi,” Jun said. “I’m Jun.”
“ Claire ,” said a whispery voice.
Stella’s heart lurched at the sound of her mother’s voice, and she bolted. Marietta followed her out but didn’t close the door all the way.
“Perfect,” Jun said, his nervous voice slipping out into the hallway. “Um…I’m a friend of your daughter. Your daughter, Stella.”
“ Stella .”
Stella slapped her hand over chest, and her heart pounded against her palm as she whispered, “Shouldn’t we close the door?”
Marietta shook her head. “I’ll leave it open just a bit, so we can listen.”
“Marietta, it’s dangerous.”
Marietta put her finger to her lips. “Not if we don’t see her too.”
Stella wasn’t so sure about that, but her curiosity was piqued enough to concede.
“Is that a head and shoulders taking shape?” Ethan asked from inside the room.
“Yes,” Catherine said, sounding relieved. “Jun, ask your first question. Quickly. The flame is dim. The connection isn’t as strong as I’d like.”
“Right,” Jun said. “Um. We found a witch board. It’s, uh, hidden. Or rather, it was hidden in the Collector’s attorney’s office. That is to say, your husband’s attorney’s office.”
Stella strained to hear her mother’s response, but all she heard was her own heartbeat and the faint sputtering of a candle.
“Try again,” Catherine said.
“We found a witch board,” Jun repeated, this time a little louder. “We think it belongs to your husband, R.G. Aldren. Do you know anything about it?”
“Oh my god,” Ethan whispered. “There she is.”
“Mom.” Stella reached for the doorknob—she couldn’t help herself.
But Marietta grabbed onto her wrist and stopped her from opening it further, saying, “No. Just listen.”
“ Follow ,” her mother responded in a whispery voice. “ Stella .”
Her mother’s voice was so clear now that tears sprung into Stella’s eyes.
Marietta must have seen them, because she squeezed Stella’s wrist even harder, preventing her from dashing back into the room.
“You’re saying we should follow Stella?” Jun asked. “I got no problem with that, but I think Stella would like a little direction about where to go.”
“ Stella has the key to it all ,” her mother said.
“No,” Jun said. “I don’t think she does. We’re looking for help. Can you give us a clue about how to use the witch board? Or what it might mean?”
“ Closet .”
Jun sighed so heavily, Stella heard it from out in the hall.
“I’m losing her,” Catherine said. “She’s leaving. Give it one last go.”
“Claire!” Jun called out. “Why was it so important for your husband to hide the witch board? Can we use it to defeat him?”
“ The key ,” her mother said, now sounding very far away. “ Squid metal…key round…her arrest .”
There was a small pop.
“And…she’s gone,” Catherine said.
Stella whipped open the door to find a thin ribbon of gray smoke licking up from the extinguished wick all the way to the ceiling.
“Well, that’s more information than we had before,” Ethan said, optimistic as always.
Jun looked up at him in disbelief, and Stella had to agree.
“What?” Ethan asked. “At least we have confirmation about the round key.”
“Okay, but squid metal? ” Stella asked accusingly. “What does that even mean? And whose arrest, exactly?”
“Yours?” Ethan suggested.
“Why should I be arrested?” Stella asked, then she stopped and thought. Were people arrested for being unable to pay their debts? Was she going to jail when her store was auctioned off to the highest bidder next week?
“You’re not going to be arrested,” Marietta assured her, but Stella wasn’t convinced. What did Marietta know about foreclosures?
“I’m sure Antoinette and I covered our tracks well enough with Hurley’s body,” Jun said. “There’s been nothing on the news about foul play. I’ve been watching.”
“Oh my god,” Stella said. She hadn’t even thought about Hurley’s dead body. She totally should have thought of that. Of course, she’d been noticed last night. She’d been wearing that damn red dress.
“Take it easy,” Ethan said. “Maybe we heard her wrong. She could’ve been saying ‘at rest,’ or even ‘at best.’”
“Exactly,” Jun said.
Stella’s head pounded, and her body felt heavy. “What time is it?”
“Nine,” Ethan said.
Was that all? Stella closed her eyes. This day felt like it had gone on forever and she’d only been awake for seven hours. How was it possible that this was the same day she’d eaten pancakes in the wolves’ storage room?
“Everything all right?” Marietta asked.
“I don’t know,” Stella admitted. “Is it too early for me to go to bed?”
“You’ve had a busy couple of days,” Marietta said. “No one’s going to fault you if you turn in early.”
“Yeah, okay,” Stella said, glancing quickly at Ethan. He’d had the same amount of sleep last night, but he looked perfectly alert.
“I guess…” For a second, she thought about sticking it out for a while longer, but her body prepared its protest. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”
“Wait,” Jun said. “I need to get home to my wife and kids. This will be it from me for a while.”
Stella frowned—she hated goodbyes—but that feeling was overwhelmed by her gratitude for all he’d done. She opened her arms and pulled Jun into a hug.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing tight. “For all your help.”
“This won’t be the last you see of me.”
“I hope not,” she said, then kissed his cheek and left the room for the second time.
She headed up the ladder to her attic apartment. At the top, she picked her way across the floor and threw herself face-first onto the mattress.
It bounced twice before a deep voice asked, “Are you really going to bed?”
Stella yelped, twisted, and sat up. “Jesus, Ethan! You scared me!”
His eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t think I’d follow you?”
“I didn’t think you were a ninja.”
He laughed at that, finished his ascent, then crouched to close the hatch in the floor. “I think your nerves are shot.”
That could totally be true, but Stella rolled her eyes and flopped back on the bed.
“Do we need to debrief?” he asked. The floor creaked as he came closer.
Stella threw her arm over her eyes. “Where do we even start?”
“At the beginning.” He sat on the edge of the mattress, and it compressed under his weight. “Starting with, the Collector has a hit list of nonmagical persons and a revenge kink.”
“ Pfft . Ethan, stop.”
“He can disappear at will by adopting someone else’s appearance.”
And there it was. That image that Stella just couldn’t shake. Everyone had been so focused on David Hurley, had they never stopped to consider the disappearances they’d witnessed for themselves?
“Something has been bothering me about that,” she said. “It’s been bothering me for a while. The disappearances.”
“For good reason,” Ethan said, cupping her knee with his warm hand. “It’s unnerving.”
“The Collector disappeared on us at Trask’s Mill. Twice . Once when we rescued Abby. Then again when you rescued me.”
“Yeah.” Ethan dragged out the word, and his voice went up at the end like he wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“He changes his appearance so he can go unnoticed,” Stella explained.
“Right…” Ethan’s eyebrows pulled together. Clearly, he still wasn’t comprehending.
Stella hesitated for a few seconds, letting the quiet settle over them before asking, “So, whose appearance do you think he was using at Trask’s Mill?”
“What?” Ethan’s hand tightened over her knee.
“Whose appearance was he using at Trask’s Mill? If the theory is that he disappears by using someone else’s appearance, then that means he hadn’t really left when we thought he had. He was still in the mill somewhere, just looking like one of us.”
Ethan’s lips parted, and he stared blankly ahead.
“It was really dark in the mill,” Stella reminded him. “There was a lot of chaos both times. We were all focused on Abby the first time.”
“And on you the second time,” Ethan added.
Stella nodded, her lips pressed together, then she took a deep breath. “We might not have noticed if there were two Hawks, for example, or two Juns. All he needed was a few seconds to back slowly out of the scene and make his true escape.”
“We would have noticed if there were two of anyone.”
“Only if we could see them both at the same time. And if he was there, for even a little bit, then he was watching and listening to us.”
“Did we say anything that he could use against us?”
“That’s just it,” Stella said, sighing. “I don’t remember.”
“Too bad our little séance with your mother didn’t help much. The only things she said were ‘follow Stella,’ that you have the ‘key to it all’—a ‘round key.’ Something about a ‘closet.’ Then that bit about ‘squid metal’ and your ‘arrest.’”
“Not my arrest. ‘ Her arrest.’ We don’t know what woman she was talking about. But…”
Stella’s gaze slid from Ethan to the corner of her attic and more specifically, the door to the tiny storage cubby.
“But what?” Ethan asked.
“Oh my god.” Stella got off the bed and dug through a dresser drawer until her fingers brushed against what she was looking for. “Oh my god! I found it!”
She held it up for Ethan to see. It was a key. And better yet, it was round.
“No wonder your mother wasn’t convinced we’d found the right one yet!”
“What does it go to?” Ethan’s eyebrows had nearly hit his hairline.
Stella closed the key tight in her fist. “What would you say if I told you it was to a closet?”
Ethan’s face went blank with obvious shock. “You’re joking.”
“Okay, it’s not an actual closet, just a little cubby, but…” She moved swiftly to the corner of the attic and got on her hands and knees.
“The previous owners gave the key to me at the closing, but I’ve never used it. ”
She unlocked the tiny door and peered inside. Of course it was pitch black. She snapped up a few flames and passed her hand around the small storage area.
“Anything?” Ethan asked excitedly. He sounded like he was crouching right behind her.
“Empty,” she said, and the bubble of hope that had been expanding in her chest deflated. “I’m not sure what I was expecting.”
“All the answers to the universe?”
“Something like that.” She sighed and sat back on her heels. “Damn. I thought that was going to be it.”
“Don’t give up yet.” Ethan stroked the back of her head. “We’ll figure this out.”
She relocked the cubby and stood up. “You’re sure?”
“No,” Ethan deadpanned.
Stella laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Ethan put his arms around her. “Have I ever told you I love it when you laugh?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do. I like it when you make all kinds of noises.”
Stella arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Ethan reached around her and slid his hands down low. “Maybe you could demonstrate some of them for me?”
“Like what?”
“ Hmmm .” He squeezed her ass and ground his hips forward. “I am partial to your heavy breathing. Then, there are those little squeaky noises you make.”
“I don’t make squeaky noises.” She shoved his shoulders, but to no avail, and—truth be told—she hadn’t tried that hard.
“Wanna bet?” One of his hands left her ass and slid between her legs.
“ Ethan .”
He kissed her, and she let out a moan.
“Yeah,” he said, his lips brushing against hers. “I like that noise too.”