Brad had fallen in love with the house while they were making their initial tour of Brooksville. While Ellis had serious misgivings about it, he’d relented because it was the first thing Brad had acted really passionate about other than his art since the accident.
But…it needed a lot of work. Brad spent a few hours almost every day pecking away at it. Once the plumbers and electricians had taken care of their parts, Brad wanted to do the rest. Ellis had put his foot down about what would eventually be the guest bathroom, calling in a contractor to finish the second-floor bathroom so they could move in. And the central heat and AC systems.
It had four bedrooms, including a master bedroom with an en suite. A second bathroom upstairs, the one that was now finished, and a powder room downstairs. Brad had claimed the attic as his studio, where they would eventually add yet another bathroom. With a new roof, and plenty of insulation, the AC kept it a comfortable temperature.
And Brad seemed content.
For his part, he was sick of washing dishes in a mop sink in the utility room because Brad couldn’t decide between an old country kitchen scheme or a modern look with granite countertops. They had an electric range oven, which sat unplugged in one corner of the kitchen, and the fridge sat in the hallway, plugged into an extension cord. They cooked with an electric skillet, a hotplate, a toaster oven, and a microwave.
But he’d do it for Brad.
Not for the first time he wondered if the move to the house from the apartment at the office had triggered Brad’s new symptoms. Brad had settled well into the apartment after leaving Tampa, even though with two small bedrooms and an efficiency kitchen it’d been a tight fit.
Maybe the stress is getting to him.
He’d quit hinting around about calling in contractors to finish the house once and for all. It only irritated him when Brad refused.
And the irritation always made him feel guilty, like a real shit.
At least he’s not a hoarder.
Ellis let out a snort and finally followed Brad into the house.
Mandaline sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. She didn’t understand why Julie had bought a king-sized bed a few months ago. It felt huge, even though it was comfortable.
Beside her, Damiago had pressed himself into a tight, purring ball against her thigh.
On her other side, Persnickety lay with his rump pressed against her other thigh.
She had the TV on, tuned to Cartoon Network. On the lap desk she’d laid out a spread of Tarot cards from the Rider-Waite deck she frequently used for readings for customers.
Her meeting with Ellis and Brad earlier still played through her mind. She knew a rational person would explain her sudden interest in the men as an easy way to focus on something other than the loss of her friend.
Tonight she did not want to be a rational person.
Tonight all she wanted to do was not think about how lonely she felt and how much her heart hurt.
Tomorrow she’d meet with Sami and Matt. She knew they were hurting, too. They were the only ones who could truly understand the pain she felt right now. They’d loved Steve, and they’d liked Julie. They were also burdened by guilt not theirs to shoulder.
Not unlike Ellis.
She sighed as she looked at the cards. They were as muddled as her mind.
I can’t read for anyone right now, much less myself.
She gathered them up, shuffled them, then returned them to the drawstring bag she stored them in before putting it and the lap desk on the chair next to the bed. It was the third deck she’d tried that evening with the same results. She had yet to sage her personal The Quest Tarot deck. She had barely been able to stomach picking it up the other day and moving it to the office, where it still sat on a shelf near Julie’s…her desk.
She wasn’t even sure if getting herself a new deck would help, or if she’d have to abandon that one altogether based on the memories she now associated with it.
Ellis and Brad kept creeping into her mind. After they’d left, once she finally convinced Sachi and the others to go, she’d closed the store and looked up Brad’s art online.
Breathtaking was only one word for it, and a completely inadequate word at that. His style was indefinable simply because he didn’t have a style. Every piece was unique, exquisite. Whether drawing, watercolor, acrylic, charcoal—there was an honesty and simple beauty in his work that she couldn’t remember seeing anywhere else before.
She didn’t even mind that Ellis admitted he didn’t believe in anything supernatural. She couldn’t blame him. She was just glad he’d been upfront and honest about it. His dedication to Brad more than showed what a good heart he had.
Leaving the TV on for noise, she turned off the bedside lamp and rolled onto her side.
What is so urgent about them, Julie? What did you see when you shook Brad’s hand? She didn’t doubt Ellis’ account of Julie’s handshake with Brad. Like Mandaline, Julie’d had finely tuned empathic senses. There was something special about Brad, beyond what Ellis recounted.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Brad lay on his back in bed, eyes open as he stared at the ceiling. Julie went quiet not long after they returned home. When he’d gone up to his studio to work, he’d only managed about an hour before the shadows started flickering at the edges of his vision again, darting in and out of the periphery just to disappear when he turned his head.
He also didn’t like what he painted. The colors were dark, depressing.
It scared him a little.
He’d repainted several canvasses the past couple of weeks, things he didn’t want Ellis to see. Although Ellis never came up to his studio without asking first, or without him inviting him up. He loved Ellis for that, that he wanted to give him privacy to work.
He didn’t like the way his mood darkened, either. That was something else he hadn’t told Ellis yet. But then again, Ellis hadn’t asked him about mood changes, so Brad hadn’t felt compelled to tell him that.
And he didn’t like the feeling of being watched in the studio. The feeling went away when he came down to the second or first floors, but after spending time in the attic, he always felt like someone was watching him.
Even though he’d asked the unseen presence to talk to him, it never did. He didn’t even know if it was really a presence, like Julie or some of the others that talked to him. And the noises he heard sounded like voices, but muffled, as if from a great distance away, indiscernible.
He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. He really wanted to see Mandaline again. Alone this time, so he could talk to her without Ellis hearing and asking questions. He wanted to know if Julie was real, or if he was imagining her.
Mandaline awoke the next morning with eyes so puffy she didn’t know how she’d make it through the day. She ran cold water over a washcloth and stood in the kitchen with it pressed against her face while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
I wonder what stage I’m in. She knew grief was a process, that she wouldn’t magickally wake up on the other side of this experience all happy and bouncy.
She had quickly passed through denial and bargaining about the same time that first evening after seeing Julie’s body in the morgue and knowing nothing she did or said would bring back her friend.
But today was Thursday, marking a week since…that.
She felt the dark edges of anger beating at her soul and struggled against them. Julie hadn’t been a person to harbor grudges. She simply moved on with her life, not looking back.