Soulmates

'You could join us for seances,' Ivy suggested. Her smile warmed him through.

'Lyons, Van Dyke, and Spirit. Sounds good,' he said, but he knew that when his mission was over he wouldn't come back. None of the angels Lacey had known ever returned.

Ivy was still smiling as she walked around Caroline's kitchen. He saw through her eyes as they slowly adjusted to the dark. 'It looks as if you've been searching the house,' she said, observing the open bkitchen drawers and cabinet doors that hung ajar.

'Lacey and I searched here back in August, long before you got the key, but we didn't leave the place like this,' he replied. 'Someone else has been here since.'

He heard the thought, though she tried hard to repress it. Will.

'It could have been a lot of people,' Tristan said quickly. 'Gregory or Eric. Or Will,' he added as softly as possible. 'Or even that guy who visits Caroline's grave and leaves her red roses.'

'I saw a long-stemmed rose there.'

'Did you see him?' Tristan asked as Ivy peeked inside the open cupboards.

Most of them were empty, but she found a flashlight in a shallow drawer.

'No. What's he look like?'

'Tall, slim, dark-haired,' Tristan replied. 'His name is Tom Stetson, and he works at Andrew's college.

Lacey followed him around at your Labor Day party. Ever hear anyone talk about him?'

Ivy shook her head, then said suddenly, 'If I shake my head, or make a face, I guess you don't know it when you're inside me.'

'I know it. I feel it. I love it when you smile.'

The smile grew so that it seemed to wrap itself around him.

'So what do you think?' Ivy asked. 'Was Tom Stetson Caroline's new love? Was he involved somehow?'

'I don't know,' Tristan said, 'but both he and Gregory must have a key to this house. I think Tom's the one who's been boxing things up.'

'And searching through cupboards and drawers at the same time,' Ivy said.

'Maybe.'

She reached for the string around her neck and pulled out the key that was dangling beneath her shirt.

Under the beam of the flashlight, its silver shaft and two jagged teeth gleamed.

'Well, I'm the one who's got the key,' she said. 'Now if we can just find the lock…'

They began to search together. In the living room they discovered a desk with a locked drawer which had been forced open. Close by, on the mantel, was a box with a brass lock whose hinges had been broken. It now lay empty. Ivy tested the key in both locks and found that it had not been made for either.

In the bedroom Tristan called Ivy's attention to a rectangular design pressed into a bureau cloth, as if a heavy box had sat there for a long time but was gone now. Caroline's closet was still full of shoes and purses, which looked as if they had been searched. Ivy pulled them out and felt behind them. They moved on to other rooms. An hour and a half later, their search had turned up nothing.

'There's a lot of junk here, but we're not getting anywhere,' Tristan said, frustrated.

Ivy sank down in the corner of the hallway. He noticed that she avoided sitting in any of Caroline's chairs.

'The problem is, we don't know what's been carried out of here already or where it's been carried to,' Ivy observed. 'If only we had some clue about what we were looking for.'

'How about Beth?' Tristan asked suddenly. 'What if we got her to help?

She has a sixth sense. Maybe if you show her the key, let her hold it and meditate on it, she'll be able to tell us where to look-at least give us a hint.'

'Good idea.' Ivy glanced at her watch. 'Can you come with me?'

Tristan knew that he shouldn't. He was tired and needed to pace himself if he wanted to keep from falling into the darkness. But he couldn't give her up. Something told him there was not much time left for him to spend with Ivy.

'I'll come, but I'd better just observe,' he said. He was quiet most of the way to Beth's house.

Mr. Van Dyke must have been getting used to Ivy's calling at unexpected times. Standing in the doorway, he glanced at her over his half glasses and law brief, hollered 'Beth!' and left Ivy to find her way upstairs.

Tristan was startled by the sight of Beth and her room, but Ivy told him silently, 'She's been writing.'

Beth blinked at Ivy as if she were worlds away. A binder clip held her hair in a lopsided ponytail. An old pair of glasses sat partway down her nose; they also were lopsided, since they were missing an arm. She wore baggy gym shorts and scuzzy-looking slippers with animal heads on them and popcorn embedded in their fur.

Ivy reached toward Beth and pulled a yellow Post-it off her T-shirt.

''Lovely, lingering, delicate, devious, delicious,'' she read, then said, 'I'm really sorry about barging in like this.'

'That's okay,' Beth replied cheerfully, and reached for the Post-it. 'I was looking for this-thanks.'

'It's just that we need your help.'

'We? Oh.' Beth closed the bedroom door quickly and cleared a spot on the bed, dumping folders and notebooks on the floor. She studied Ivy's face, then smiled. 'Hello, Mr. Glow,' she said to Tristan.

'Beth, do you remember the envelope Eric's sister gave me?' Ivy asked.

Tristan saw the sudden brightness in Beth's eyes. She had watched Ivy open the envelope at the cemetery and must have been dying with curiosity.

'This is what was in it.' Ivy pulled out the key and placed it in Beth's hand.

'It looks as if it goes to a box,' Beth said, 'or a drawer. It could be an old door key, but I don't think so-it doesn't look long enough.'

'The envelope it came in had Caroline's name and address on it,' Ivy said. 'We've been searching her house but can't find what it goes to. Can you work on it? You know, keep it for a while and think about it and see if anything comes to you?'

Tristan saw Beth draw back. 'Oh, Ivy, I-' 'Please.'

'She's afraid,' Tristan said softly to Ivy. 'You have to help her. Her own predictions have frightened her.'

'I'm not asking you to predict anything,' Ivy said quickly. 'Just hold it and think about it and see what comes to you. No matter how strange or ordinary it seems, it may be a clue to tell us where to look.'

Beth looked down at the key. 'I wish you hadn't asked me, Ivy. When I do something like this, it stirs up all kinds of other things in my mind, things I don't understand, things that frighten me sometimes.' She turned and looked longingly at the computer screen on her desk, where the cursor blinked, waiting for her to return to her story. 'I wish you hadn't asked me.'

'Okay, I understand,' Ivy said, picking up the key.

Beth's hand closed around Ivy's. Tristan could feel how cold and clammy it was. 'Leave it with me till tomorrow,' she said. 'I'll give it back to you at school. Maybe something will come to me.'

Ivy threw her arms around her friend. 'Thank you. Thank you. I wouldn't have asked you if it weren't important.'

A few minutes later Ivy headed home. 'You're still with me,' she said as she turned up the long driveway.

The happiness in her voice warmed Tristan, but he could not throw off his weariness and a growing sense of dread that the darkness would soon overtake him. What if he was in the darkness when Ivy needed him most?

'I'll stay with you until you get to your room,' he said. 'Then I'll return to Beth's.'

As they passed a bush Ivy suddenly bent down. 'Ella? Ella, come out and say hello. Your buddy is with me.'

The cat's green eyes glinted at them, but she didn't budge.

'Ella, come on, what's wrong?'

Ella mewed, and Ivy reached into the bushes to pull her out. She lifted up the cat, rubbing her in her favorite spot around her ears. The cat didn't purr.

'What's wrong with you?' Ivy said, then gasped. Tristan felt the shudder run through her as if it rip pled