I pulled the handset away and held it for a long moment, pondering the painful news. I’d known the two of them for what seemed like forever. They had been together ever since we’d met, and the idea of them splitting up now was completely foreign. Even though there was no mistaking what Allison had just told me, I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the concept.
I had just settled the phone back onto the base when the squeal of locked brakes and skidding tires sounded on the street in front of the house. I headed out of the bedroom and back up the hallway, only to be greeted by the dogs bellowing at the door as a frantic pounding began against it.
I rushed to the door, fully expecting to find someone who had just hit an animal, or worse a pedestrian, in front of my house. I twisted the deadbolt and swung the door wide, only to be greeted by RJ, a member of the Coven.
His eyes were wide, and he wore a frightened mask across his features. The moment I saw him, the anguish that made a perpetual home in the pit of my stomach was released in an explosive torrent. Hollowness filled my chest, and my body tensed. The coffee cup left my hand and shattered with an unceremonious crack against the floor, sending hot java and ceramic shards in all directions.
RJ’s mouth was open in preparation to say something, but I never gave him the chance.
Words were spewing from my own mouth automatically; the three word sentence came as a guttural bellow. “WHERE IS SHE?!”
CHAPTER 12:
RJ didn’t even try to compete verbally with my frantic shouts. He simply gestured for me to follow him as he turned and raced back down the stairs and then continued across the front yard. He was only just barely ahead of me when we hit the curb. In a quick motion, he unlatched the side door of the still running mini-van.
In the recently fallen dusk, soft blue shadows ran in oblique lines through the back of the vehicle, muting the interior. A streetlight just up from us painted a harsh glare across the tinted pane of glass to obscure it even more. Still, beyond the swath of reflected brilliance, I thought I could see movement in the back seat.
As RJ wrenched the sliding door back, dim, yellow-white light flooded the inside of the van, emanating from the dome light. The shrouded incandescent bulb struggled to chase away the darkness, while my eyes fought to adjust to the rapid changes in illumination they had been subjected to between the front door and here.
At first, I saw only Cally sitting near the door. When she looked up, I could see the same fear creasing her face that RJ had-and still was- displaying. I could see that she was rocking gently, and when she looked back down, I followed her gaze with my own. Felicity was lying beside her in the seat, body curled into a loose semblance of a fetal position. Her head was resting in Cally’s lap, and the young woman had an arm wrapped around my wife’s shoulders, holding her fast.
I knelt into the side door of the van and carefully brushed a tangle of hair back from Felicity’s face. Even in the dimness, I could see red froth on her lips and a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth, evidence that she’d been gnashing her teeth against her tongue during a violent seizure. The crimson trail smeared across her pale skin in an opaque blemish, but other than that, I could see no obvious injuries.
I watched her, my eyes following the rise and fall of her chest as she took slow, even breaths. I relaxed a bit and took in a deep breath of my own. In my throat, I could feel the thump of my heart and imagined that it was only now starting to beat again; although, it didn’t seem to be in any hurry to drop back down into my chest where it belonged.
I knew just by looking at her that at least part of my earlier fear had been realized. Still, my mind was already heading in more directions than I could count, so I blurted the first, most obvious, thing that came to mind.
“What happened?” I demanded, shooting quick glances at both Cally and RJ.
“It was just all of a sudden like,” RJ answered, voice almost shaking. “We had just gotten started. She was talking to us about Dark Moon spells, and just like that she stopped saying anything. When I looked up, she was staring off into space, all blank ya’know.” He waved his hand in front of his face wildly as if trying to illustrate what he meant. “The next thing we knew, she was on the floor shaking and flailing her arms and stuff.”
“Gods Rowan, it was like deja vu or something,” Cally added, shaking her head slowly. Her own voice tensed with anguish.
“Yeah, Rowan,” RJ agreed. “It was just like what happened to you at Nancy’s house a few months ago.”
“Dammit.” I muttered the word at first, but my voice grew more forceful with each successive utterance. “DAMmit, DAMMIT!”
“Oh man!” RJ suddenly exclaimed. “That’s where we were tonight, Nancy’s! Is that what it is, Rowan? Is it the house? Is it Randy’s spirit or something?”
RJ fired the questions in rapid succession, focusing the last one on Nancy’s murdered husband- a victim of Eldon Porter and the very same Randy I had referred to when Felicity had pressed me to go with her earlier.
“No,” I replied, still stroking my wife’s forehead. “It’s not the house, and it’s not Randy’s spirit. It’s probably a spirit, but not Randy’s.”
“Whose then?” Cally interjected.
“I’m pretty sure it’s Tamara Linwood,” I answered flatly.
“Oh Gods,” she moaned. “You mean the missing schoolteacher that’s been on the news?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I think so, but she’s not missing anymore. She was murdered.”
“But why is this happening to Felicity all of a sudden?” RJ implored.
“I wish I knew,” I said. “How long ago did the seizure start?”
“About forty-five minutes I guess,” Cally replied. “Maybe an hour. We tried to call you but the phone was busy.”
“Cats knocked bedroom phone off hook,” I explained simply. “I just noticed it a few minutes before you pulled up.”
“The first one really didn’t last long,” RJ offered.
“What do you mean ‘first one’?” I demanded. “She had more than one?”
“Yeah, she had two,” he continued. “The first one just lasted a minute or so. Once she stopped shaking and could talk, we got her up in a chair. We all wanted to call nine-one-one, but she kept saying no, we should call you.”
“When we couldn’t reach you on the phone, she tried to leave,” Cally added. “But we weren’t about to let her drive.”
“Yeah,” RJ echoed. “Good thing too, ‘cause we were halfway here when she started shaking all over again.”
“Then she just went limp and passed out,” Cally said.
My hand was on automatic pilot, still stroking Felicity’s cool skin. I felt her jerk slightly, and we all turned our attention back to her when we heard movement against the upholstery. As she began to stir, she let out a low, pitiful sounding moan.
“It’s okay, honey,” I told her softly. “I’m here.”
“Caorthann?” The thin whisper of Felicity’s voice met my ears as she called my name in Gaelic.
She still hadn’t opened her eyes, but she was slowly starting to unfurl from her tight posture.
“Yes, I’m right here,” I soothed, brushing the back of my hand lightly against her cheek.
“I’m dead,” she whispered again.
“No sweetheart, you’re fine. You just had a seizure,” I replied softly.
“No,” she spoke again, her voice still a thin whisper, then she tried to shake her head but quickly gave up. I could see a tear beginning to glisten in the corner of her closed eyelid. “No, you don’t understand. I’m… I’m… Ohhhh…” She moaned.
“Shhhhh.” I soothed. “You’re okay.”
“Rowan… I’m… She’s… I’m dead.”
“It’s okay,” I repeated, realizing now what she meant. “Ben just told me that they officially identified the remains.”
“No,” she insisted, quiet but adamant nonetheless. “No, they haven’t found me yet.”
I had naturally assumed she was referring to Tamara Linwood, but her objection set my mind racing in yet another direction. It was suddenly apparent to me that she had seen something on the other side; or to be more accurate, this time around she remembered what she had seen.