Chapter 10 Consequences, Schmonsequences
REMY IS NOT DEAD.
What he does have is a concussion. This might be for the best.
“Did I really see— I could’ve sworn I saw—”
“Shh, shh. You don’t want to say something you’ll regret,” I tell Remy as the officiant uses a broken guitar neck to herd the band, sheeplike, through the reception hall and out the mansion’s back exit.
I’ve just gotten my phone back from Bulan, but I hesitate to return James’s.
Under the moonlight, James and Eric limp along, expressions devastated, but their bodies otherwise uninjured.
At any moment I suspect they might abandon Remy and run back onstage to finish their set.
So the instant they’ve packed themselves into the back seat of my rental, I click on Child Lock.
“Erp?” asks James.
I salute the officiant goodbye and kick the SUV into first gear. Then I quickly shift into automatic again, before I kill us.
“Don’t worry,” I say with more calm than I feel. “I’ll come back tomorrow for your instruments.”
“And my station wagon?”
“Sure. I’m coming back for Bu—for my bags of décor, anyway.”
In the meantime, what I need to come up with now is a good lie that’ll keep James, Eric, and Remy from realizing they were gigging a paranormal wedding. Including some direct interactions with ghosts.
As I drive the boys out of the parking lot, Eric collapses with a thonk against the passenger window. “We only played one song.”
“Did we?” asks Remy. He sounds dazed. Encouragingly so.
“Yes. And then…” Eric, for his part, sounds like he’s halfway asphyxiated himself. “I’m not sure what happened. I mean… that couldn’t have happened, could it? They…”
I clench my teeth, readying a million excuses.
“…loved us,” finishes James.
The Vampire Weekenders hyperventilate the whole way to James’s family home in Winchester. Remarkably, in spite of driving a fair distance from Salem, I don’t turn into a human puddle along the way.
But then again, it’s well after 9 p.m., meaning Grandma Rose’s ascension is complete. For all I know, she’s left behind a pile of confetti in her wake, somewhere on the streets of Salem, or possibly atop her ghoulish grave.
I drop the boys off, waving them goodbye with a giant smile.
Who could blame me for being happy? In addition to no one dying, I just earned four thousand dollars, kept the wedding ceremony from spiraling, narrowly avoided my friends learning about ghosts or being served as vampire hors d’oeuvres, and flirted harmlessly with Hanry Burleson.
All in all, an excellent night. And now I can go back to New York, where I belong.
I connect the Bluetooth to my Spotify Cleaning with K-Pop playlist. That’s when it happens.
The SUV decides to explode.
By this I mean that electricity shorts out in the SUV, and when it comes back on, the navigation screen is fizzling, so it’s a minor explosion. The GPS headings scramble, and I’m thrown back into my seat as the car takes off, on its own, forcing me onto a magical autopilot for—
For Salem.
But I can’t be heading back there! You can’t be controlling me through technical wizardry, Grandma: you’re supposed to be dead, ascended, and at peace! And I’m supposed to be in the clear.
I have to be.
Once I hit the city limits, I jerk the steering wheel back into my possession and drive for Derby Street.
I whizz past the docks and the vaping tourists, their puffs of smoke glowing red from streetlights and brake lights, because of course they’re walking in the road instead of using sidewalks like normal people without a death wish.
When I get to Winter Island, I force the SUV to a halt and run for the disappointingly named Waikiki Beach.
The water line is high, lapping against dry, rock-speckled sand.
Confirming that the tides are, in fact, doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
It’s Grandma who isn’t with the program. Grandma, who is violating her own magical will.
Grandma, who is forcing me to stay here in Salem.
I pass out in my clothes, only stirring when my phone buzzes. It’s seven o’clock on Sunday morning, and sunlight rakes my face like a pleased cat with its claws out, ripping right through the gauzy guest room curtains.
The person joining in that aggression is my mother, calling my phone.
I stare at the ceiling, listening to the blaring rings, trying to remember the last time Mom called me of her own accord.
Is it bad that I wish it were Steve calling me instead, begging for forgiveness, asking if I want more time off?
Or Baldy, with an explanation for why all seven tides have passed twice over, but Grandma hasn’t kept up her end of the bargain?
But if I’m a bad daughter, Mom’s a worse mom.
I pick up the phone just before it goes to voicemail.
“Buenos Aires!” Mom screams into my ear. I fumble to activate the speakerphone and drop the phone on my pillow.
“Buenos días,” I correct Mom tiredly. “Buenos Aires is a city.”
“Did you say you were still in Salem?” she asks. “That looks like your grandma’s house.”
I guess we’re on a video call. Fun. I try to rearrange myself on my pillow, and frankly, it hurts.
My stomach’s killing me, and I can only chalk some of my ear-ringing up to Mom’s voice.
Are paranormal hangovers a thing? Or is this garden-variety exhaustion?
Also, my arms are putty. Who knew handling wedding decorations could be so physically taxing?
Presumably, real wedding planners.
“If you’d read my texts, you’d know Grandma’s lawyer won’t let me leave,” I tell Mom.
She gasps loudly, in a way that would be feigned for other people.
“Has he kidnapped you, Samantha!?”
“Yes,” I say into my elbow. “I’m kidnapped. Inside Grandma’s house. With my iPhone and everything. But don’t worry, I’m using my phone to make TikTok videos about my captivity. I’ll be famous by noon.”
“Now I know you’re joking. The last thing you want is to be famous.”
It must be the fatigue, but for some reason I blurt out, “Wow, you got me. It’s almost like you’ve paid attention to who I am since you fell down your herbal medicine whackadoo rabbit hole.”
Mom is speechless. Whoops. I peel back my puttylike arm and sit upright in bed.
I usually know better than to say anything too honest and unfiltered to her.
Not because she’ll take offense or use my words against me, but because being honest leaves me vulnerable.
The one thing Mom’s good at besides day drinking is shooting her arrows of apathy into my heart.
“Ha ha,” she singsongs. “You’re too funny. Anyway, when you get back home, can you send me a diffuser from that Japanese Moogi store?”
Yep. There she goes, ignoring me again. With effort, I say, “It’s Muji, not Moogi. And what do you need a Muji diffuser for?”
“They’re ultrasonic is why. Ultra. Sonic.”
“Can’t you just order it online and ship to your hotel? Or come back yourself, to—”
“Ay-ay-ay, mucho fuerte!” Mom interrupts with a giggle. I know that giggle, unfortunately.
I pinch my nose bridge. “Who are you talking to, Mom?”
“The pool boy!”
“Please stop flirting with people half your age. And massacring Spanish. Mom?”
A long beep informs me that my advice has fallen on deaf ears.
Well, that’s no surprise. I roll over. The mattress emits a flatulent creak, then leaves me to silence, which is weird after the last week of Bulan’s chatty, endless monologues.
I wouldn’t say I miss him, but his voice sure beats out my life-bringer’s.
He has a surprisingly nice tenor, actually. I wonder if he’s any good at karaoke.
Or if he could tell me why I’m stuck here, despite doing everything right.
After a shower, I dress in a carefully neutral plain white tee and jeans, grab a frozen, maybe-moldy cannoli from the freezer, and drive the rental back to the wedding venue.
Crested by a wash of cool sunlight, the mansion looks different from yesterday.
It’s derelict, but cozily so. The ceiling seems intact in every room, including above the ballroom stage.
And with the exception of Bulan, who greets me from a puddle of ragged curtains he’s made into a bed, it seems all paranormal activity has left the building.
The lack of bloodstains on the ballroom floor is particularly encouraging.
“No bloodbaths in Essex County last night?” I ask Bulan as we shove décor and wilted floral arrangements into garbage bags.
“None we’re responsible for,” the head answers with a cheery grin. “A twenty-four-hour Shaw’s had its butcher department cleaned out, however. And I think the local rabbit population may have been culled.”
“Amazing. So…” Where do I even start? With the simple things, I guess. “Where’d Dave and Amanda leave my payment?”
Bulan wobbles uncertainly. “I might be mistaken, but I don’t believe they left it anywhere, Sabby.”
Worry strikes me like a blow to the back, but I try to hide it. I was so busy planning the wedding that it only now occurs to me I forgot to set up a payment plan with the couple.
What if this means I don’t get paid?
But that wouldn’t happen. Though my family’s irresponsible, not everyone is. Most people follow through on their responsibilities. It’s all part of being normal. Besides, Dave and Amanda know how important it is to me to be paid… or at least, they should.
“Perhaps the happy couple left it at the shop,” Bulan consoles me.
They better have.
After I return the SUV, hoping the rental company doesn’t notice the navigation system’s new and improved fizzy personality, I walk silently to the apothecary with Grandma’s pet head.
I have Bulan in his increasingly well-established position of mimicking a puppet.
It’s sunny out, with puffy, marshmallow-like clouds polka-dotting the sky.
It should be a good day, a hopeful day. The day I was planning to head back to Manhattan—again.
Nevertheless, here I am. Feeling the dreadful grip of… dread? Despair? Terror?
Either that, or I’m once again a victim of Grandma Rose’s cooking.