The Medium's Possession Page 6

  The grass on either side of the walkway was thick and green. Trees dotted the courtyard, which was edged on all sides by the building itself. This expanse of oasis existed in the very center of the structure—and he’d never known it was here. Ivy grew up the brick in many places, and expertly placed shrubs filled in spots where ivy didn’t grow so if you didn’t pay attention, it was easy to forget you weren’t in a park, or a well-maintained backyard.

  As he drew closer, making the approach slowly so he didn’t startle her, he saw that while he had thought she was alone before, she wasn’t truly. Besides the few spirits milling about, nurses and orderlies dotted the verdant space, quietly keeping watch, unobtrusively observing Miriam, and the few other patients, all keeping to themselves.

  Miriam raised her face to the sky, her dark, cropped curtain of hair falling back to reveal the tendons in her neck and the color in her cheeks.

  There was color in her cheeks.

  A swell of something like hope pressed against Callum’s chest. He tried to ignore it, but thoughts started pinging in his mind before he could brush them away. Was she improving? Had Trey helped? Could she be getting better?

  He stepped off the path, and a twig broke under his foot. He saw Miriam start, then turn to look at him.

  A warm smile grew on her lips and danced in her oversized eyes. “Callum?”

  His heart swelled. She hadn’t recognized him in months. What kind of miracle was this?

  Last winter, Trey had come with him to visit Miriam. They had thought that maybe he could do for her what he had done for Callum and Cecily after they’d been possessed by the Shadow in the fall. Trey had saved them then—maybe he could save Miriam. So they’d come to visit during a time when they knew Miriam wouldn’t be in her room since the runes would have prevented Trey from seeing her. Away from their protection, she was already skittish when Callum had approached her in the activity room and explained that he had a friend he wanted her to meet.

  It was a disaster. Trey had cleared her, he’d touched her and sure enough a black metaphysical sand had lifted from her skin. She’d glowed again in the same way Callum had all but forgotten she once had. But as soon as Trey did it, Miriam screamed and wailed, convinced he was trying to possess her, until the nurses had come to the rescue. It hadn’t helped her mental health at the time—but maybe there had been some sort of delayed reaction?

  Callum felt himself smile. He picked up the pace, no longer worried of scaring her. But as he walked, question knit into Miriam’s brow.

  Then her smile faded.

  She drew herself back. “You’re not Callum.”

  The swell of hope and the possibility of happiness floated away from him, like so many helium balloons.

  “No, you were right,” he said to her. “I’m Callum, Mom.”

  “Not my Callum,” she countered. “My Callum is young and bright. He shines like a beacon. You don’t.”

  He wanted to scramble for the ribbons of that invisible balloon bouquet, to collect them back, to hold on to them, if not for this visit, but for some future meeting. Instead, they rose higher and higher, faster than he could catch—until he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly held them at all.

  “Sorry. I don’t have my light on today, I guess,” he said. He motioned to the end of the bench farthest from her. “Can I sit down?”

  She eyed him for a moment, but ultimately acquiesced with a nod.

  “The nurse said you like to come outside,” he said after an awkward moment of silence she seemed completely comfortable to let drag on forever while she gazed up at the sky.

  She looked at him. “I do. The sun feels good now.”

  “Now?” His attention caught on that word. And asking about it meant something to talk about, so he went with it.

  “I used to not like it,” she said. “Now I do.”

  “Even without your runes?” he asked, searching for things to say.

  “I don’t need them anymore.”

  Callum felt his brow furrow. “What?” He caught himself. His tone had been a little too serious. He lightened it, softened his delivery. “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t visit me anymore,” she said simply.

  “Why?”

  She only shrugged.

  Callum threw a surreptitious glance around the courtyard. In addition to the three orderlies and three other patients, the spirits of a man and a woman were sitting together beneath a tree some feet away. And the faint spirit of a child in clothing from some long past era was dancing down the walk, towing a small toy behind him that Callum couldn’t see.

  “How many people are in this courtyard?” he said to Miriam.

  “Six others,” she replied without looking around. “Always six. Seven now that you’re here. Eight including me. It looks like it’s going to rain.”

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Zander winced as she pulled the tape across the top of the box, her head giving a pang of discomfort.

  God, that was an awful noise.

  She pulled the marker from her back pocket and scribbled the words “Z+C Bedroom” across the top of it.

  She stood when she heard a tap on her bedroom door to find Cecily peeking her head through.

  “Hey,” Cecily said. “What’re you doing?”

  What the hell did it look like she was doing? “I’m packing.” She grabbed the next empty box off the pile and tossed it onto the bed.

  “Obviously,” Cecily remarked as she came the rest of the way into the room.

  “Is Callum still visiting Miriam?”

  “Yeah, he’s only been gone an hour,” Cecily replied. “And after the new asshole you ripped him, I bet he’ll be gone a while longer.”

  Zander felt her brows furrow. “What asshole did I rip?”

  Cecily’s expression went all kinds of are-you-kidding, her brows raising high and her green eyes going wide. “The one where you accused him of slacking off, and then threw his mother’s mental illness in his face?”

  Zander’s chest went cold. What was she talking about? “I did not.”

  Now it was Cecily’s brows that were furrowed. “Yes. You did.”

  No, she didn’t. She’d thought something like that—and been shocked that the thought had even crossed her mind—but she definitely hadn’t said it.

  Had she?

  Oh god.

  Cecily must have seen the rising terror on Zander’s face because her expression turned worried. “Do you really not remember saying that stuff?”

  She hated the thought of having hurt Callum. She hated the look of concern in Cecily’s eyes—that look that said Cecily thought she wasn’t okay. She was fine.

  She was always fine.

  She wasn’t out of control.

  She was under a tremendous amount of stress. She was hungover as hell. She could explain that to Callum—if she’d truly said any of those things, he’d understand and they’d be okay.

  Cecily didn’t need to worry.

  She looked at Cecily and smiled with a dismissive laugh. “I wasn’t being serious,” she said. “He knew that.”

  Cecily’s brows rose again. “Um, I don’t think he did.”

  “Well, that’s on him,” Zander said. “I’ll make sure he knows I was joking when he gets home. It’s fine.”

  There was a pause before Cecily responded, and when she did her tone was laced with her disbelief—and a thread of frustration. “Okay, well, I’m going to work on packing the bookshelves in the living room, then Scott and I are going to go back to the shop this afternoon to finish up my tattoo. Good?”

  “Yeah, totally fine,” Zander replied, turning to grab the just-packed box off the bed and carry it to the living room.

  Cecily held out her arms. “Hand it over,” she said. “I’m going that way anyway.”

  Zander hoisted the box and handed it to Cecily. Then she closed the door behind her as Cecily carried the box down the hall.

  Alone, Zander sat at the foot of her and Ca
llum’s bed.

  She really, genuinely did not remember saying any of the awful things that had been spinning in her head this morning aloud. So then how had Cecily known what they were?

  Her sister talked to ghosts, but as far as Zander was aware she didn’t hear living people’s thoughts.

  Right?

  Was the entire world upside down? If a person could talk to ghosts, why couldn’t there be people who could hear others’ thoughts?

  Jesus, sometimes she wished shit still made sense the way it had when she hadn’t known about any of this.

  Her heart started racing and her skin got tight. Her breath was sawing in and out of her lungs, so she drew one good deep breath and held it, closing her eyes.

  She had to figure out what to say to Callum. That was step one.

  How could she have been so cruel?

  How could she have been so cruel and not remember it?

  No. She cut the thought train off.

  No. She was fine. Everything was going to be fine. She just... needed therapy or something.

  Or a straitjacket.

  No, not a straitjacket. She needed rest. And a licensed therapist. She could find one as soon as they got to Seattle.

  What are they going to do when you tell them you’re saying shit and then not remembering it? Huh?

  “I’m not saying things. I said something,” she said into the air. “It was once.”

  We’ll see about that.

  Zander stopped.

  That hadn’t been her voice. That hadn’t been her thought.

  Had it?

  The unmistakable click of the front door opening brought her ass up off the bed with a gasp.

  She didn’t need to move to know it was Callum who had just walked in, she could tell it was him in the way he tossed his keys onto the table beside the door, and the cadence of his footsteps down the hall.

  “Oh, hey,” she heard Scott say. “Uh, Cecily and I are heading to the shop.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Callum replied, his voice low and exhausted.

  “Unless you want us to hang around?”

  “Nope. You should go.”

  Then his footsteps were drawing closer, coming down the hall.

  With her next breath, the knob was turning, and a blink after that, there he was.

  Callum stopped when he saw her, then his eyes skirted away from hers. He passed her as he rounded the end of their bed without looking at her.

  “How was Miriam?” Zander asked, then, too late, realized how calloused that sounded in the aftermath of what she’d thrown at him this morning.

  His chuckle was devoid of humor, like he agreed with her silent assessment. But other than that sound, he didn’t respond.

  Zander sighed. She wished she could sink into the floor. “I’m a bitch. I’d suck the words back if I could.”

  He looked at her for a second, just standing across the room. “Yeah, it was a seriously shitty thing to say,” he said. “You weren’t wrong—”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she countered, cutting him off. In fact, that probably made it worse. She crossed to him, brought her hands to his chest and peered up at his flawless face. “Just... please know I didn’t mean it.”

  He looked down at her, his blue eyes clouded with leftover anger and hurt beneath his furrowed brows.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said again. God, let him believe her. Let him know how much she meant what she was saying now—and how completely she regretted saying what she had before.

  Show him. Show him how much you regret saying it. And don’t you dare let him know you don’t remember it.

  She had to show him how much he meant to her because her words were worthless after the morning.

  So she pushed herself up onto her toes and brought her lips to the side of his jaw. “I didn’t mean it.” To his neck. “I swear, I didn’t.” To his collarbone. “I love you.”

  It was like someone else was driving her body. Like she was the co-pilot without controls. She was watching. Or was she driving? It was so hard to tell.

  “You know I love you,” she heard herself say. “Say something.” She kissed him softly on the mouth.

  His face turned away by a fraction of an inch, the kind of involuntary movement he couldn’t have calculated, and might not have even been aware of.

  Tears burned in her eyes before sliding down her cheeks. “Say something,” she said again. Then her fingers were working the fly on the front of her shorts.

  She pushed them down her legs.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Zander—”

  She pulled her shirt up over her head.

  Callum’s hands around her wrists cleared her head. She swallowed as she peered up at him. His furrowed brow was different than before.

  “You don’t have to strip to convince me you care about me,” he said. “What is going on with you?”

  When she cried this time, they were her tears. “I don’t know.”

  Jesus, had she really just taken her clothes off? She shoved her arms back into her t-shirt. Mortified, she found Callum holding her shorts out to her when she popped her head up through the neck of her tee.

  “Thanks.” She pulled them up her legs and refastened the fly. “I don’t... I didn’t mean to do that. Not like...” She sighed as a small swell of anger rose in her chest. What, now she couldn’t even get words out of her mouth?

  “Zander, talk to me,” Callum said, his voice firm but caring.

  Which was more than she deserved right then.

  “You’ve been stressed, I get it. But—I don’t know, I figured once you left your job, it would get better. But you dropped the cloak last night. Then this morning it was like—like it wasn’t you I was talking to. Now this?” He stepped back. “What am I supposed to think?”

  “I don’t know. I just—it’s like I’m not behind the wheel of my brain or something..”

  Do you hear yourself?

  The furrow between Callum’s brows deepened.

  You sound like a fucking lunatic. Look at him, he thinks you’re out of your mind.

  “I’m not,” she said, then sucked it back when she realized she’d said it aloud.

  Oh god, something was really wrong with her.

  Could it be...? A thought surfaced, something that had first occurred to her within weeks of absorbing the Shadow all those months ago. She’d dismissed it easily, then. It had entered her awareness every once in a while since then, but she could always shrug it away: she was fine. Over the last few weeks, though, as her mood had darkened, the worry had surfaced again and had been harder to ignore. She peered up at Callum.

  Don’t you fucking say it.

  “What if it’s the Shadow?”

  Callum paused, his expression going from confused to disbelieving, his brows rising and his lips parting. “The Shadow? The one we destroyed last year?”

  The low, menacing chuckle that rang through her mind rose goosebumps on her arms. He doesn’t even believe you.

  No. No, he would believe her. He would. He had to.

  So, swallowing down the fear in her throat, she nodded. “What if... I don’t know. What if it’s still here?”

  “Zander, we destroyed it—you destroyed it.” His tone was caring, but still held a thread of disbelief and worry. “It’s not here. It can’t be. The house is runed. We’re safe here.”

  Oh god. Maybe he wouldn’t believe her. Maybe he was right.

  “Not here,” she said, willing him to understand but finding it hard to make sense of it, even to herself. “Not on this side. What if it’s... with me?”

  He just stared at her with an expression she didn’t want to decipher. Either he thought she was cracked, or fucked, and in either case, she didn’t want to see him thinking that about her.

  See? Drawled the voice. It’s just you and me.

  “Follow me.” Callum turned and left the room on long strides.

  Za
nder followed him down the hall, by the empty front room and across the empty kitchen, weaving between boxes.

  He opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio, then kept going until he stood in the grass before he turned back and ticked a nod at her. Zander followed until the green grass was cool under her bare feet and tickling her ankles.

  “Open the cloak,” he said simply.

  She felt her eyes go wide. “Here?”

  “Yeah. Here.” His shrug was laced with challenge. “I can’t exactly check for a shadow while we’re in a runed house, can I?”

  “But you’ll be exposed out here.” It looked like Rhia had left with Cecily, so Callum didn’t even have her protection.

  “For a few seconds,” he shot back. “I’ll be fine.”

  He was still mad, and she got that—she got why. She just... she wished she could make that go away.

  Well then maybe you shouldn’t have fucked with him so much, huh?

  She nodded. “Yeah, okay.” Then she closed her eyes and imagined the opaline colors, the bending and shifting of light that tinted the air around her. She’d practiced opening the cloak a few times over the last year. Mostly inside, and mostly alone, just to prove to herself she could do it. Once she’d done it while she and Callum were outside to see if Wren’s partner, Bridgette would come through and introduce herself, but she hadn’t. And each time she did it, it got easier. It got easier to visualize the colors, to picture them in front of her. So when Zander opened her eyes again, she was looking at Callum through the gossamer cloak. She brought her hands up and, with gentle fingers she had to concentrate on to keep from shaking, she parted the veil. It opened in front of her like sheers on a window. The light that spilled through made her squint; not only the light that sat beneath Callum’s skin, but even the sunlight shown brighter, like a glare on the water.

  “You’re good,” she heard him say.

  She forced her eyes open against the glare. “What?”

  “There’s no Shadow. You’re good.”

  No shadow? But that couldn’t be right. She continued to hold the cloak open. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he replied. “It’s just you. I swear.”

  Zander didn’t know what to say as a desperate kind of sadness settled over her—a weight separate from the cloak she closed around her again. “Okay. That’s good, I guess.”