Page 31 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I took a deep breath. My Sight was still dulled from the night before, but as I stood on the threshold of my childhood home, something inside me perked up, like a startled cat from its sleep.
“Everything okay?” Reina looked around suspiciously.
I swallowed. “Yeah. Just jittery, I think. The house seems to recognize me.”
Not the actual house, of course, but its history. Or the history all of us had left here.
I unlocked the door, and we walked inside. Immediately, I froze and dropped my duffel to the ground.
“Good lord,” Reina breathed, eyes wide as she stared into the house. “Do you feel that?”
I glanced at her. “You do?”
Reina shuddered. “I…not like you do, I’m sure. But I definitely feel something. The energy is…wrong, no?”
I peered inside. It had only been a few days since I’d received Sybil’s telegram, but the house felt like it had been uninhabited for much longer. Gran was an assiduous cleaner, and a few days shouldn’t account for the visible layer of dust coating all the hard surfaces, including the wood floors. The air was heavy and stale. The light felt wrong.
Then I realized why.
The memory descended like a bat. Or maybe it wasn’t a memory at all. A shadow fell from the ceiling, heavy like a mantle, carrying with it something that was real and yet wasn’t. In the back of my mind, an unintelligible male voice chattered with a thick English accent, taunting and insidious, but muted, as if covered by a thick blanket. A glance at Reina told me she couldn’t hear that, exactly, but she sensed my reactions and the fact that something here was very wrong.
I took off a glove and reached out a bare hand so I could See whatever she did. Her eyes widened and then squeezed shut with mine while we both listened as hard as we could.
Give it to me give me the Secret I will not wait I need it where is the ssssssec?—
The blare of a telephone yanked Reina and me out of our mutual terror, and both of us shrieked.
“Goddess.” I pressed a hand to my thundering heart.
Reina swore under her breath. “What the hell wasthat?”
The phone rang again. The shadow seemed to have disappeared, but I was still spooked. I’d maybe heard that phone ring twice since I was twelve. No one had this number.
“You’d better get that,” Reina said.
She brought in my bag while I crossed the room and picked up the antique gold handset. “Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice was male, but noticeably not English. “Is…is Penelope Monroe at home?” He sounded Irish, a lot like Gran.
No, it wasn’t the voice I’d just heard, but it was yet another mysterious stranger. And I’d had just about enough of them.
“She’s deceased,” I said, a bit too sharply. Goddess, that hurt to say it out loud.
There was a long silence.
“Oh,” said the man finally. “Oh, my. I’m…I’m so very sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said shortly. “Is there something I can help you with? I’m her granddaughter.”
“Her granddaughter?” he repeated in the same tone as if I’d announced I was Penny’s pet unicorn. “Penny had a granddaughter? She had achild?”
I scowled as I drew a heart into the dust on the console, then rubbed it away. “That’s correct. And you are?”
“Oh, ah. Just an old friend. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Before I could reply, the line went dead. I stared at the handset for a moment before replacing it in its carriage, then blew away some of the dust that had gathered from the top of the phone.
The phone was just one item of Gran’s treasures. The dust, though. It really was strange. She was as protective over her hoard of antiques as a dragon. What had happened in the last months that had made her neglect everything this way? The Venetian blinds over the picture windows facing the ocean were drawn too—something she never did because she loved to watch the tides.
