The Cloak's Shadow Read online

  Zander nodded as she drew a sip from her straw.

  "It's pretty ballsy coming all the way to New Orleans for work," he remarked.

  She seemed pleased with that description, grinning then playing it off as she swallowed. "Thanks. I love my family, but it was time to get away for a while. And this job is a good opportunity. Even if it is kicking my ass at the moment."

  "I bet this feels like an entirely different country compared to Seattle," Callum replied. "I was there once as a kid. I barely remember anything about it, except that it was gray. Which alone is enough to know it's a total one-eighty from New Orleans."

  Zander laughed, shaking her head. "It really does feel like a whole other country." Then her expression changed, brows furrowing in question. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. As she consulted the screen, Callum watched her gaze darting back and forth like she was reading while her pink lips pulled into a smirk, then a smile.

  "Everything okay?" He asked when her expression registered a flash of sadness as she tucked the phone back into her pocket.

  "Totally fine," she replied with a smile, the flash of sadness gone so fast he wasn't sure he'd truly seen it to begin with. "It's just a text from one of my sisters. She swears their apartment is haunted."

  Callum froze with his coffee halfway to his lips. He had to force his brain to start working again. "Haunted, huh?" He sat back in his chair, going for cool and totally-not-caught-off-guard as he flicked his hair out of his face.

  Zander gave a laugh under her breath and rolled her eyes like the whole thing was a ridiculousness she tolerated out of love. "Yeah, she's the youngest. She says weird stuff only ever happens when I'm gone. They all do—my mom included. It's become a running joke."

  A running joke. No doubt, he thought as he swallowed another sip of his coffee. "So, two sisters, huh?"

  Zander nodded after her own sip. "Both younger. Cecily is the youngest—the one who texted. Alyssa is the middle. What about you?"

  Huh? "What about me?"

  "Do you have any siblings?" Then she caught herself. "Other than the brother you mentioned yesterday."

  "Oh. Ah, no. Not really," Callum replied.

  While what he said was true, the idea he'd left her with wasn't technically correct. And, damn him, he wanted to be honest with her—at least about this.

  "And the brother I mentioned yesterday, Scott and I aren't actually related," he added. "We grew up in foster care together."

  Zander paused, and Callum hoped he hadn't just made this weird. In his very limited experience—it wasn't something he normally shared—he'd found that people tended to have one of two reactions when they found out he'd spent the majority of his pre-eighteen years in foster care: they either froze and then changed the subject, or they were way accepting. Like, wanted-him-to-know-how-cool-they-are-with-it, used-to-have-a-friend-who-was-in-foster-care accepting. Both scenarios were awkward.

  "It's cool—you don't have to respond to the foster care part," he said in the hopes of heading off any weirdness.

  "No, no judgment there," Zander replied with an easy shake of her head. "I was just trying to figure out if I'd inadvertently pried that from you. Something in your expression said you kinda regretted saying it."

  Callum just stared at her for a second while he felt his grin slowly grow. Concern that she'd made him share something he wished he hadn't wasn't anywhere on the list of possible reactions he'd expected. She hadn't apologized like she had anything to do with why he'd been there; she hadn't told him about some cousin who'd had to be in foster care for six months while his mom got clean, or any of the other various things he'd have thought were coming.

  No. She was worried he was uncomfortable—she wasn't concerned about her own discomfort. If there was any. "You didn't make me say anything," he said.

  He watched as she tried to hide her own smile, looking down at her drink as she stirred it with the straw.

  Jeez, she was fantastic. And damn, this conversation was awesome. He wished his whole life could be this effortless. Hell, he'd settle just for his work life to be this easy.

  Huh. That gave him an idea.

  He took a flying leap before he had time to talk himself out of it, "Would you want to meet up for a working date?"

  Zander's gaze snapped up to meet his, her expression open but questioning. "Like, get together to just... work?"

  Callum gave a shrug. "Yeah. Unless that's lame." Please don't say it's lame.

  "Not at all," she replied. "You already know I'm drowning in work. So, yes, productivity sounds good."

  Then her eyes hung on him for a breath before she seemed to shake herself out of some train of thought and stood from the table. "Speaking of work, I should really get back to my apartment and log more hours online."

  He wondered what she'd been thinking about, but dismissed it. "That's very disciplined of you.” He raised his coffee in salute, then stood. "Let's say Friday at six? Unless you have other plans for Friday night?" Because most people usually did have Friday night plans, didn't they? He opened his mouth to tell her to forget the Friday suggestion, but she spoke before he could.

  "That's perfect," she replied.

  Callum's comfort swelled into something like excitement. Could this whole thing get any better?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cecily hit send on the latest text message to her oldest sister, then she turned off her cell phone and dropped it into the purse at her feet. She and Zander had been texting off-and-on since yesterday afternoon when Cecily had first told her about the latest spooky occurrence in the apartment. Too bad that had been nothing compared to the night she'd had after it. Not that she was going to tell Zander that.

  "It's been a while since I saw you last. I hope that means you've been doing well."

  Cecily looked up and smiled at the woman sitting in the matching oversized club chair across from her. "Yeah, I've been doing okay. End of the school year got busy with graduation and everything, so I had to cancel a couple of appointments."

  "That's right! You graduated from university recently, didn't you?" her therapist, Debra, replied.

  Cecily had to push past the catch in her throat before she could respond. "The ceremony was in June." Which was true. She'd even walked in it.

  "Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment," Debra said.

  Cecily swallowed down the truth and plastered a smile on her face. "Thanks."

  "Well it's good to see you," Debra went on. "What do you want to talk about today?"

  "Uh..." I might be losing my mind. "Nothing specific."

  "Okay," Debra replied. "What have you been doing since graduation?"

  "Actually," Cecily had to unwedge the words from her throat, "a friend of mine passed away in May."

  Concern joined the always-there expression of therapist-understanding on Debra's face. "I'm sorry to hear that. Were you close?"

  "Kind of." Closer than anyone. "We were good friends." Best friends. And infinitely more than that.

  More concern mingled with the understanding in Debra's expression. "Do you mind telling me how it happened?"

  "He was at a party," Cecily replied, skimming over the meat of the details because they didn't matter, and she didn't want to say them aloud. "He got a ride home with the wrong person. They were in a wreck."

  "That must have been very hard," Debra said. "To lose your friend so suddenly."

  "Yeah, of course." Cecily shrugged and slouched back into her chair, crossing her legs at the ankles and tucking them back. She held onto the bracelet she never took off and ran it around her wrist until it stung and she had to stop. The stinging might have stopped, but words rushed in to fill the void: "Yeah, it fucking sucked. He was—" But she didn't want to finish that sentence. "I mean, I knew I could handle it—I've handled worse." Or, almost worse, at least, when everything had happened with her parents.

  Debra nodded after a breath's pause that made Cecily worry Debra could sense the truths
she was omitting.

  "Mourning is like a muscle, in a way," Debra said. "It never gets easier, per se, but you grow more comfortable with the process the more you do it. Which is a blessing within tragedy, I suppose."

  Mourning. Was that what she was doing? Cecily wondered. Was that what she had done, back when her dad had freaked out and left them all? She supposed it was as good a description as any. That's what people did when they lost someone they loved, right?

  "Can I ask you something?" Cecily said.

  "Of course."

  "When people hear voices, what's that like?"

  Debra tilted her head, question intermingling with the understanding now. "Do you mean for people who have schizophrenia?"

  "Yeah, I guess," Cecily replied with a shrug. "I mean, it seems like it would be pretty scary. What do the voices sound like? Are they talking to them?" Are they recognizable?

  Because the voice Cecily had heard last night every time she started to fall asleep had definitely been recognizable.

  Debra considered her question for a moment. "The short answer is yes, they do speak to them," she said, "but not always. They can be aggressive, or comforting. They sometimes vacillate between the two. Why do you ask? Have you been hearing voices?"

  "No," Cecily replied. But that was a lie. She hadn't been able to sleep since the sound of her name had woken her up, and not for lack of trying.

  Each time she'd managed to drift off, she'd heard his voice again.

  That's probably something you should tell your therapist. "Sort of," she said aloud, revising herself again. "But I don't think it's like that. Maybe it was just a dream."

  That's what she'd told herself. It was just a dream. She didn't know if she believed it, but it was the only explanation that didn't scare the hell out of her.

  She paused to examine Debra's expression: interest, understated curiosity, and understanding, of course.

  "Last night, every time I fell asleep, I could hear his voice," Cecily finally said, forging on. "My friend's voice, I mean. It was like he was talking to me." Like, directly talking to her, though she never caught the whole sentence. Stuff like “...wish you could see me,” and “...know I'm here,” had made her breath catch over and over again, snapping her alert.

  Debra smiled, a relieved kind of understanding in her expression now. "Yes, likely just dreams," she said. "That's not altogether uncommon after a loss. You're coming to terms with it all. How did it make you feel when you heard his voice?"

  "It sort of freaked me out," Cecily replied honestly. "But I figured it must have been a dream, you're probably right." Even though it hadn't felt like a dream.

  Debra nodded. "I can certainly understand how it would be disconcerting. If you're worried about it, we can have you evaluated—I don't want you to feel like I'm dismissing it."

  "No, I think I'm fine," Cecily replied, ready to drop the whole topic. She was almost sorry she'd brought it up. "The dream thing makes sense."

  Debra smiled again. "Okay. Let me know if you change your mind."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Cecily shoved her key into the ignition of the green VW Jetta Wagon she shared with her Mom and sisters—well, one sister now that Zander had moved away—and cranked the car on. Then, as routine dictated, she connected her phone to the cord that let her play her tunes through the car stereo before buckling her seatbelt. Ten-and-two on the steering wheel, she peered into her rear-view mirror, waiting to back out of her parking spot.

  The rest of the hour with Debra had been comfortably uneventful. Cecily supposed that was to be expected when you'd been seeing the same therapist at regular intervals for nearly five years. She found a certain amount of comfort in the fact that the summer's hiatus hadn't made the appointment awkward. She often quipped about Debra's omni-understanding expression and tone of voice, but truthfully, it was one of the things she liked most about her. Cecily felt like she could tell the woman anything and receive nothing in the way of censure.

  Well, almost anything.

  A steady line of cars was coming and going behind her, and Cecily took the moment to look at herself in the rearview, instead of at the traffic.

  "It was a dream," she said aloud to her reflection.

  Just a dream, she thought again when her reflection appeared not to buy the story.

  No, it hadn't felt like a dream. And no, if she was honest, she didn't think it had been a dream at all. But she didn't really think she was losing her mind, either.

  "Well, if it wasn't a dream and I'm not losing my marbles..." What other option was there?

  With a sigh, Cecily turned the mirror back into place. Was it possible to lose just one or two marbles, without scattering the whole bag?

  Before she could concentrate on the cars in the parking lot again, the music coming through the stereo changed.

  We sing the same song, you and I.

  She hadn't been paying much attention to the music before, and she might not have even noticed the change in tune, except it was that song. The song that stole all of her attention every time she heard it—and probably always would.

  She hit the skip button, stopping the song mid-lyric and moving to the next; her phone was set to shuffle so it was anyone's guess what she'd hear.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when what came through the speakers was innocuous and light.

  The steady stream of cars having finally thinned in the lot, Cecily backed out of her spot. She'd top off the tank and drop the car back at the hospital where her mom was pulling another graveyard shift, then walk home from there. The hospital was a quick walk to the apartment—but after twelve hours on her feet, Cecily knew her mom would appreciate the car more than the exercise.

  We sing the same song, you and I.

  She nearly drove into the guardrail.

  Glaring at her phone, she pulled up to the meter light to wait for her turn to enter the freeway. How was this song on again? Maybe she'd hit the back button instead of the skip button when she'd changed the song, before? So, with special care, she touched her finger to the skip button icon on the screen of her phone. Immediately, the tune changed to something different.

  A not-quick-enough-for-her-liking drive later, Cecily swung the nose of the car into the parking spot in front of her apartment. It wasn't until she'd killed the engine that she remembered her plan to leave the car at the hospital for her mom to drive home. She groaned, annoyed at her own distractedness.

  That song had come on again and again in the minutes it had taken her to drive home. And every time she'd hit that damned skip button, she'd grown a little more pissed off.

  "What do you want?!" she'd finally barked the last time it had come on. But even that had irritated her. Nobody wanted anything. Her phone was on the fritz—that was all.

  Cecily sighed and let her head rest against the back of the driver's seat. It was warm outside, and the car was heating up, but the omnipresent Pacific Northwest cloud cover meant the mercury was on a slow climb—she had a minute to mellow out before she cranked the ignition and drove over to the hospital, following through on her original plan.

  This had been the worst summer of her life. Even while, from the outside, it had looked completely average.

  Words started spinning in her head.

  That song. A few months ago, the meaning of it had changed, and she feared she'd never be able to hear it again without breaking down.

  It had been their song. A song they had shared, that had defined their relationship. That had been one of the first things they'd bonded over.

  And now he was gone.

  She'd spent the summer acting like nothing was wrong, crying in private or, more often, not allowing her tears to fall at all.

  We sing the same song, you and I

  Cecily's head snapped up from the headrest so fast she saw stars, her eyes sharp on the phone that sat in the cup holder beside her.

  "Fine!" She snatched the phone up and snapped at the screen like the thing might ta
lk back. "Fine, I'll listen! What the hell do you want from me?"

  Minutes later, the lyrics had drawn streaks of saltwater down her cheeks and turned her anger to something slow, blunt, and pleading. Eyes burning, chest aching like her ribs would crush her heart, she pressed her forehead to the top of the steering wheel and fought the sobs that were trying to shake her shoulders.

  She missed him. No matter how much she tried to pretend she was above it, no matter how much she knew she didn't need other people's sympathy to prove what they had was real. She felt suddenly alone and, for the first time since he'd died, lonely. She'd loved him so much—and he'd cared for her just the same.

  And nobody knew.

  Nobody knew how much they'd meant to one another. Nobody knew about the promises they'd made, the firsts they'd shared, the conversations they'd had late at night about the future, the past. They’d talked about their life together as much as their individual goals and dreams—how it could all coexist. Talks about how they had mere months of college left, and when they should tell their families about their together-plans. Would they get them all together, two families who had never met? Or would they do it separately? They'd tried to guess how each scenario would turn out.

  It hadn't been out of secrecy that they'd kept their relationship to themselves for as long as they had. At first, it had been a fling not worth talking about. Two friends who had hooked up when they'd lost the fight against a sexual tension they couldn't ignore. His family wouldn't have approved of their relationship if they'd known about it, especially the casual-physical parts of it, religious as they were, so they'd kept it all a secret. But then their relationship had grown, like a living thing, and before she knew it, it had developed its own strength, digging in its own roots. When Cecily's family had begun to unravel, Trey had been the rock she'd clung to in the choppy waters of her father's mental illness, the whipping winds of threats and substance abuse, separation, and divorce. She’d kept their relationship a secret from her family then because how could she tell them she was in love when everything else was falling apart? While her own mother was watching her decades-long relationship dissolve? The time had passed but it had never felt right to tell them. It wasn’t a secret—it just wasn’t something she shared. It was the one thing she had that was hers in the tiny apartment the four of them lived in together. Her relationship with Trey was a reprieve. Her getaway when her love for her family and her anger over everything that had happened meshed and she had to get out of that apartment or she thought she might scream.