Page 15 of Saint of the Shadows

Marisol checked her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t believe that Annie picked this number out, and at this hour on a Saturday night, no place would be open to offer a more sensible alternative. The silver sequin gown hugged her body, displaying every curve, crease, and the divot of her belly button. The neckline’s deep V exposed the tops of her breasts, and the string-like straps crisscrossed her back, ending at the dimples above her buttocks. She adjusted her abuelita’s cross necklace at her collarbone. “That’s right. You need Jesus wearing this dress in public,” she said to her reflection.

Marisol tossed her straightened hair back. She finished her look with blood-red lipstick. Now for the real blood. She selected Annie’s number on her cell with the full intention of harassing her over the ridiculous dress, but it went straight to voicemail. “Annie! Pick up your phone!”

The only other gown-adjacent attire she owned was a tennis dress with attached shorts. Though showing up in that might be a good laugh, she settled for half naked in silver. With one more glance in the mirror, she put on her worn, oversized coat, officially de-glamorizing her appearance. Her phone rang, and she answered it. “Annie?”

“This is Mr. Varian’s driver. I am waiting for you downstairs,” an oddly modulating but pleasant feminine voice greeted.

Maybe Annie was already with their ride to the ball. “Does there happen to be an over-caffeinated woman in that car with you?”

“I do not understand the question.”

“I’ll be right down.” She hung up the phone.

During the walk down the stairs to the car, she constructed reasons why Annie didn’t pick up. She was in the middle of sticking on eyelashes, or the psychic death glares Marisol sent out because the dress had actually killed Annie.

The backseat of the town car was empty, so Marisol tapped the tinted partition in search of answers.

The glass lowered, and she gasped as it revealed nothing. A voice spoke from all sides of the car. “Your driver aims to serve. How may I help you?”

The wave of the future hadn’t exactly reached Marisol’s side of Shadowhaven. She had read about driverless cars, but to see an unmanned dashboardin action stunned her like a ghost sighting. “Can you take me to 8th and Chavez?”

“Your driver aims to serve,” the voice said. The partition rolled up, and the car took off.

The driver stopped at Annie’s apartment. With the spare set of keys, Marisol entered the place. Annie’s ball gown hung on her closet door. She hadn’t been home. Marisol’s stomach knotted, but it was too early to worry. For now. If she hadn’t been home, there was only one other place Annie could be—her true home.

The car arrived at the alley behind Varian Family and Research Hospitals near the back entrance. Marisol followed the typical path down the dingy hallway and up the beat-up elevator to the lab, dragging Annie’s garment bag behind her. Why hadn’t she been answering her phone? Why hadn’t she been home today? When Marisol finally turned the corner, she saw Annie through the window. Disheveled and dressed in the same clothes she had worn the morning before, Annie stooped over a stack of old papers. Marisol caught her attention with a wave.

Annie opened the door. “Ball time?”

Marisol said, “You’re the worst date, you know?”

Annie resumed her perch over the scattered papers with a grunt.

“Why weren’t you answering your phone? I thought something horrible happened.” And thedreadful moment arrived—Marisol became her mother.

Annie said, “Phone dead. Can’t charge. Been busy.” Hours in the lab had worn away her ability to produce multisyllabic words. She studied a paper with brown edges and chewed the end of her pencil.

Marisol put her hands over Annie’s eyes, but backed away when she discovered over a day and a half in the lab coated Annie in a funk. “You need a bottle of dry shampoo and a shower.”

“I need to read one more thing.” Annie gripped onto the sheet of paper.

“We’re already late! And I’m dying to tell you about yesterday’s shift.” Marisol retreated to the counter and attempted to hop on top of it to take her usual seat by the mouse, but the gown impeded any movement that wasn’t sultry or graceful. In the cage on the counter, the mouse had a smooth, tumor-free body. “Did you get a new mouse?”

“No.” Annie kept her head bowed over the papers.

“Where did its tumors go?”

“Cured. I think.” Annie’s blank tone belied the scientific revelation.

“What?”

“I think I cured it?” Annie finally looked up.

Suddenly the temperature-controlled room grew hot and stuffy, and Marisol pulled at the collar of her coat. “Oh. That’s what I thought you said.”

Annie and Marisol raced out of the hospital, having primped with miraculous speed. Annie had showered away the funk of her research bender in the doctor’s locker room, and she styled her hair into a simple chignon. Unlike the spectacular gown she had ordered for Marisol, she wore a relatively simpler deep purple sheath gown. Yet Marisol’s anger over their dress discrepancy retreated behind the excitement of a possible new discovery.

They entered the town car, and Annie flipped on the overhead light to put on some makeup.

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