Chapter Fifteen
Not just rainy-day gloom, Sonya realized. Even that miserable light faded toward deeper. Not pure dark, at least not yet.
She tried to level her breathing, tried to remember Dobbs wanted her fear. Wanted to feed off her fear.
“Don’t give it to her. Don’t.”
Cold swept over her like an ice floe. She watched her breath come in clouds.
Through Shawn Mendes, Clover urged Sonya to “Hold On.”
“Doing my best.”
As she started for the door, white-draped furniture slid across the floor. The draping billowed as whatever it covered seemed to growl its way over the floor.
It moved to block her, and she felt panic rising when she turned, and it moved again.
“It’s my damn house! It’s my damn stuff!”
But her voice wavered enough to push the panic closer to the surface.
Furious, she shoved a piece out of her way and started forward. It slammed back into her hard enough to knock her back, and nearly down.
She watched the ballroom doors begin to glow, and the elegantly carved wood bow out, bow in, bow out, and heard the deep inhale, exhale as it did.
Like some nightmare monster’s breath.
Overhead, the chandeliers swayed, crystals clicking, snapping together in a sound like ice breaking. The ceiling that held them seemed to groan.
Heart hammering, Sonya pulled out her phone. Time to call in the troops.
One of the white drapes whipped out, slashed like a whip at her hand. The shock sent her phone clattering away.
Breath shattered now, Sonya dropped down, grabbed for it. It skittered away from her fingers.
Leave and live. Stay and die. Stay and die, and fill my throat with more Poole blood.
The voice whispered, more terrifying than a shout.
I am mistress of the manor. I am death to Poole brides. My curse took seven, and holds strong as the first. Run away from this place, and I will spare you.
She shook, from the cold, from the fear, but she shouted back: “Kiss my ass.” She shoved a hand in her pocket, closed a fist over the hag stone she habitually carried now. “Show yourself, you bitch. You coward. I’m not going anywhere.”
As she scrambled to her feet, the undraped display cabinet tipped toward her. Boxed in, unable to evade, Sonya planted her hands on it, pushed.
Her feet skidded as she lost ground, and lost it, she realized, because the cabinet weighed heavier than it should have.
This is going to hurt, she thought, struggling to prepare herself. It’s really going to hurt.
In the cold, hard air, she caught the scent of a meadow.
The cabinet tipped back, just a fraction. Sonya set her teeth, pushed harder.
And nearly lost her grip when she saw Lilian Crest, Clover, her grandmother. With her young, pretty face fierce, blond hair streaming, Clover pushed with her.
“Push!” To Sonya, the voice sounded like music. “Come on! Harder!”
She bore down, gave it everything she had. Sweat trickled down her face, down her spine. Her breath came in gasps and pants.
Clover looked at her, bright blue eyes full of warmth. “I won’t leave you. Don’t give up.”
“Won’t. Can’t.”
“There’s my Sonya,” Clover said with a smile.
And the cabinet righted.
“Shove that up your ass sideways, bitch.” Now Clover grinned. “She can’t kill me again, right? I can’t stay like all corporeal and everything. Takes it out of me, but you needed to see me so you’d fight.”
Clover lifted her fists in a boxing stance.
“She’ll crawl back in her hole now,” she continued as Sonya simply stood, stared. “But she’ll come back. Be ready. You’re not alone.”
“Clover.”
“I really can’t stay like this, but I just want to…”
When she wrapped around Sonya, Sonya felt the slim frame, the smooth skin. The warmth. She hugged back, hard.
“I have so many questions.”
“I don’t have a bunch of answers. Except, I liked you from the start. And then? I loved you. I love you. And well, shit, it’s a real bitch, you know, but I need you. We need you. Don’t give up.”
“I won’t. I just—”
But she faded away. Her scent lingered a moment longer, then that, too, faded.
As it did, the lights flashed on, the balcony doors swung open to the rain and wind.
And with a war cry, Cleo burst in the ballroom doors, Yoda and Pye with her.
“Sonya! I couldn’t get them open.” Running forward, Cleo shoved tables aside, and reaching Sonya, wrapped around her as Clover had.
“Did she hurt you? What happened? God, I couldn’t get in!”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re freezing!”
“It’s okay. It’s over, and I’m okay. She stockpiled enough energy to trap me in here.”
“I was about to text Trey, and the handle moved. It hadn’t budged, but all at once, I could open the doors.”
“We’ll text him in a minute anyway. How long was I stuck in here?”
Cleo’s hands moved over Sonya, still checking for anything that hurt.
“I don’t know exactly. I was just finishing cleaning my brushes, and, Sonya?”
Out of breath herself, Cleo pressed a hand to her drumming heart.
“I think it had to be Jack. I heard a voice, a boy’s voice, say, ‘Sonya needs help.’”
“Jack.”
“Yeah. Come on, let’s get out of here. You should sit down, have some water. Then you can tell me what happened.”
“Yeah, that sounds…” Shaking her head, she stiffened her spine. “No. Damn it, no. You know what? I came up here to do what I want to do, what I need to do, and I’m going to do it. I’m not giving up.”
“Son, it’s not giving up to sit down and recover.”
Fury burned through the cold as she set her shoulders, balled her fists.
“The hell with that. I don’t need to recover. She’s done for now. She pulled out a lot of stops, and they didn’t work. Again. So she’s done for now. I’m going to do what I came up here to do. But I have to find my phone.”
Clover used Bon Jovi to give the location with “It’s My Life.”
“That’s right. Damn right. And I am going to live while I’m alive. Right here in my house.”
“You’re rubbing your hip.”
“Oh, she shoved something at me. Maybe that stand there.”
“Let’s see.” In the way of forever friends, Cleo just yanked down Sonya’s shorts. “Ouch. You got a solid bruise.”
“Yeah, and I feel it, but bruises fade. And she’s the one who left the field. See that display cabinet? She tried to push it over on me.”
“Well, shitfire! It’s big, and it’s heavy. You’d have more than a bruise.”
“But I don’t. And when we kick her crazy ass out of here, that’s going in the Gold Room to display Poole mementoes.”
“Okay, all right. It’ll be perfect. But, Son—”
“You text Owen, and I’ll text Trey. So they know where we are. Then how about picking a spot? We’ll start the hunt, and I’ll tell you what happened all the way through to the incredibly happy ending.”
She tossed off a cloth, opened a drawer of a bureau at random.
“Oh, and look, look, right off the bat.” She pulled out a long necklace, a rainbow of beads with white stars and crescent moons scattered in.
“How sweet is that? Love beads, right?”
Slowly, carefully, Sonya ran them through her fingers. “I guess. They’re hand-strung. Clover’s. I know it because she was wearing them.”
“When?”
“I’ll tell you,” Sonya promised. “I think, I’m pretty sure this was hanging in the room—my room—where she had my dad and Collin. I didn’t pay as much attention because—”
“You were focused on her, and what was happening.”
“Trey’s right, Patricia would have ordered whoever she sent up here to get rid of Clover’s things. But they missed this. Just didn’t find it. But she saved it for me.”
Her phone played Annie Lennox and “The Gift.”
“One I’ll treasure.” Sonya put it on. “Let me start at the beginning.”
They started another carton, earmarked pieces, and made the kind of steady progress Sonya had hoped for.
Then Cleo stretched her back, pointed. “Look, the sun. We haven’t seen that for a few days.”
“And it looks terrific. We should go down. We did good work here, and these two probably need to go out. Plus, I think I’m ready for that sit-down now.”
“How about we do that outside?” Cleo closed the terrace doors.
“I’m with you.” Sonya checked the time on her phone. “It’s nearly six. I didn’t mean to stay up there that long.”
“We did what we needed to do. I’ll throw a quick pasta together for dinner. In a bit. I want the sit-down, too.”
“Don’t worry about dinner. We’ll make some sandwiches or something. It’s been a day.”
She opened the front door for Yoda and Pye, then gripped Cleo’s hand. “Look at that. Oh, just look.”
A double rainbow arched over the sea.
“If that’s not a really strong sign, I don’t know what is. Get a picture.”
When Sonya took a few, Cleo nodded. “Good. You need to paint that.”
“I—” Sonya paused on her knee-jerk denial. “You know what? I will. Eventually. Let’s get a glass of wine and have that sit-down out front.”
They’d barely settled down when they heard the trucks coming.
“Ready to tell the story again?”
“Yeah.” Sonya ran her fingers over the beads. “And don’t mention that I forgot to bring that stupid BB gun out with me. Again.”
Sonya rose as Trey, then Mookie jumped out of the truck. He held up a large take-out bag from the Lobster Cage. “Got dinner. Picked up a couple of seafood platters, and sides.”
Now Cleo rose. “Bright blessings all over you.”
“I’ll put it inside.”
Owen and Jones got out of their truck, headed over.
“So an incident,” he said, studying them both. “In the ballroom?”
“That’s right.”
“If there was a battle, it looks like the good guys won.”
“Also right.” Sonya sat again. “And we’re just now toasting our victory.”
She saw Owen skim a hand over Cleo’s cloud of hair, and still studying her, lean in to kiss her.
That’s settled, she thought. He loves her. And knowing it added a little more warmth to the evening.
When Trey came back and the dogs occupied themselves with a wrestling match while the cat sat on the wall and observed, he sat beside her. Touched a finger to the beads.
“That’s new.”
“Actually, it’s old.”
“You said you weren’t hurt. Either of you.”
“No. I’ve got a little bruise.”
“From what?”
“Let me start at the top. Another rainy day, all caught up with work. I decided I’d make some progress in the ballroom.”