“So I will stay out of view during this. So that if anything goes awry, we will have a plan B,” Ian recommends, clapping his hands together.
“You can stay here tonight so that there is no chance of her seeing you at the hotel,” Juniper offers. “Then tomorrow we will strike.”
We all agree, fully aware that the plan is still half-baked at best, with plenty of conjecture and unknowns fueling it all. Her power, capabilities and knowledge are a mystery, and I just pray that we aren’t being deadly arrogant in our approach, but I see little choice. If her goal is being with me, I’ll certainly not be able to fulfil that. There are far too many people in there already without me joining the party.
I sigh and look at my phone. I’ve not spoken with “Kat” since that night, and I’m quite afraid that I will be unable to cultivate a convincing ruse. I’m terrified of her and all I can think of is her twisted form skittering across the floor with malicious glee in her blackened maw of a smile. It’s not exactly a social lubricant.
My mind floats to my parents and Monica, but I push it away. I am still not ready to even give credence to the thought that their deaths weren’t just bad luck. I can’t. I can’t and then pretend for even a moment to be kind to this thing while weighing that as a possibility.
My hands are shaking as I finally pick up the phone and with a final nod I call her and she picks up almost immediately.
Chapter 22
Erik
“Well?” Kayla asks expectantly, as I round the corner into the kitchen, seeing the three of my fellow ghosthunters arranged around the kitchen table. “How did it go?”
“Awkward from my end, but she was very eager to come over,” I tell them, recalling how her voice had immediately been sultry upon hearing mine. Desire had practically dripped from her tone enticingly. Had I believed that she was actually Kat it would have been a potent aphrodisiac. But knowing what she was, it made the exchange much harder to pull off naturally.
“Do you think she buys that you want her here and don’t know who she really is?” Ian asks, placing his apple down and leaning back in his chair to address me properly.
“She agreed to come and that’s all I know,” I shrug and take the pile of sharp objects I’d gathered up from the seance, to put them back in the outdoor shed. I doubt Mary needs sharp objects to damage us, but why make it easier?
“We need to be careful,” Juniper says, her cane rests against her lap, and her expression is anxious, and I feel a stab of emotion at her resurgence of disquiet. Her reprieve from this was so hopeful and the sudden re-emergence so crushing. “She will be suspicious, I’m sure of it.”
“She’d be an idiot not to be,” Kayla remarks, moving about the kitchen, putting a kettle of water on. Both she and Ian show their stress only through constant motion. Placid faces attempt to hide it, but their busy hands are a window into their state of mind. “After how you left the other night.”
Juniper nods and replies, “She will have learned from that. As I reflect back to her in my childhood, it occurs to me that she is a great pretender. Before she became angry with me, she had been so kind. She knew what I needed and what I wanted.”
“What was that?” Ian inquires and it occurs to me that he hasn’t heard much about Mary when she served as a childhood friend for Juniper.
“I needed attention—someone to listen to me, treat me as though my childish musings mattered,” Juniper answered, her voice far off as she remembers. “It was a ruse, of course, but I trusted her.”
“She groomed you, Juni,” Kayla says gently, coming to stand behind her, placing her hands comfortingly on her frail shoulders. “You never had a chance when her only goal was to pull off whatever it is that she’s doing. You were just a little girl.”
“Thank you,” Juniper says, lifting her small, pale hands up to pat Kayla tenderly. “I can’t begin to tell you how everyone’s empathy helps me. I had felt alone for a very long time, and I got used to it, but it’s much easier to grapple with all of this with support.”
While I know that she doesn’t intend her comment as a slight on me, it hits me in the gut. My regret is overwhelming, doubly so because it had only in recent days occurred to me that I had been wrong. I had been so convinced that Juniper’s insistences of Mary and the paranormal had been ramblings of trauma and hallucinations that I had further isolated her, despite living with her. Always so close, but always so very far away.
“I don’t know how to properly convey my remorse, Juni.” I offer, my voice trembling with the emotion of it. So much is packed into so few words, and they feel ineffective for their great purpose, but I persist. “I am so sorry. I should have believed you.”
“No, please no,” her voice chokes up, making her soft voice thick. “You’ve lost more than me. I don’t blame you.”
“Thank you,” I manage, then pause as I struggle to get my next words out. “Do you talk to mom?”
“Yes,” she answers with a beatific smile. “I do frequently.”
“Can...can you tell her I miss her and love her?” my voice is so tremulous that it’s almost unrecognizable to my own ears.
“She can hear you, she is here,” Juniper says wistfully. “She aches for you. She is proud of you.”
I nod, looking down, feeling tears approach my eyes, brimming over my lashline. “Thank you, mom,” I say aloud, my words are shaky and plaintive as I imagine her receiving them from whatever plain she exists in. I imagine an ephemeral
