They all dispersed after that, talking quietly. Adam was watching me with something like awe, which I didn’t really understand. After all, he’d seen me work magic before. But then I realized this was the first time I’d actually led such a large group, been the one to direct all that energy. In the past, Great-Aunt Ruby would, as prima, have been the one to take on such a role. There was power in me, of course, although it was nothing compared to what it would be when she passed the strength of the prima to me and I had found my consort.
Cousin Dora had said Ruby was too tired to perform the task today. Was she really too tired, or was this her way of telling me it was time I stepped forward and showed everyone that I really was capable of taking on the mantle of prima?
I didn’t know for sure; my great-aunt was eighty-eight years old, and if there’s one thing you’ve earned at eighty-eight, it’s the right to be tired. Even so, I couldn’t help wondering.
Aunt Rachel began taking the items I’d used in the ritual and putting them back in their places under the counter. As she worked, however, she looked from Adam to me and back again, her gaze thoughtful.
“Thank you, Adam,” she said after an awkward pause. “I think Angela’s pretty tired after all that, so….”
He wrenched his eyes away from me. “What? Oh, yeah, I guess I should get going, too.”
“Thanks, Adam,” I added, realizing I was sort of falling down on the job here. However I might feel about his unwanted intentions, he’d certainly come to my aid tonight, and the very least I could do was express my gratitude…even if he might prefer that I express it a little bit differently than with a simple “thanks.”
“No problem,” he replied, too casually. Then he said, in a quick undertone clearly intended for my ears only, “You know I’d do anything for you.”
He left after that, hurrying to the back door, since of course the front was still locked. For a minute or two after he left, neither Aunt Rachel nor I said anything.
Finally, after closing the little storage area under the counter and locking it, she asked, “Is that going to be a problem?”
“What?” I blinked, then realized what she probably thought the “problem” was. “You know there isn’t anything between Adam and me.”
“I thought I knew that…until I saw the two of you show up on Tobias’s doorstep.”
“He saw me at Grapes and basically invited himself to sit down with me. But he was the one who convinced me to go to you and tell you what happened, and yeah, I was glad to have him walk with me. After what I saw, I was kind of spooked, you know?”
Her expression gentled. “I do know. I only felt traces of…whatever it was…and that was enough for me.” She came out from behind the counter and moved toward me, pulling me into a quick, fierce hug before she let me go. “I won’t lie and say I’m not worried, but things do seem quiescent for now. Still, Angela, if anything like this happens again, come to me at once. I don’t care if you have to pull me out of bed with Tobias. Understood?”
My cheeks flamed at the thought of having to interrupt my aunt having sex with her boyfriend. “That’s a mental image I didn’t need.”
She shot me a warning look.
“Okay, okay. I know. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. Too many things coming at once, I suppose.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t offer any more remonstrances, but only nodded. “Well, I think we’ll both feel better after a good night’s sleep. The house is cleansed, and safe. There isn’t anything here that need worry you.”
I still wasn’t completely confident on that point. Voicing my misgivings probably wouldn’t be all that productive, though, so I allowed myself to nod and then said, “You’re right. I’m going to get ready for bed.”
Never mind that it was barely nine-thirty on a Saturday night. Right then I only wanted to sleep. I didn’t even want to dream of him. My thoughts were roiling enough as it was.
My Great-Aunt Ruby summoned me the next morning.
I say “summoned” because that’s what it felt like — a summons to the royal presence. I was sure she’d heard about all the events of the day before…and maybe my run-in with Perry at Main Stage on Friday night, too. Part of a prima’s responsibilities included keeping tabs on her clan members, especially the girl who happened to be the prima-in-waiting.
Since I’d gone to bed so early the night before, I was up before eight on Sunday, and had toast and instant oatmeal before Aunt Rachel had even come downstairs. She wasn’t much of a morning person, and since the store didn’t open until eleven on Sundays, she tended to sleep in then even more than usual.
Nothing so prosaic as a text or email or even a phone call to let me know Great-Aunt Ruby wanted to see me. No, I heard her voice in my head, saying, Angela, I want to see you. That was her particular power, to be able to reach out to any of us mentally whenever she needed. I thought it was probably a little more useful than being able to talk to ghosts.
At any rate, I didn’t dare ignore that voice. And I also took a little more care than usual with my appearance that morning, ditching my jeans and cowboy boots for one of my few skirts, a long sequined piece from India, and a pair of ballet flats. Nobody in their right mind wore heels in Jerome, unless their plans only included walking a few steps from their car to a restaurant or something.
The air was cool that morning as I let myself out, the sky dappled with clouds. I didn’t see a lot of people out on the streets yet; most shops in town didn’t open until eleven or twelve on Sunday, and while there were a few places that offered breakfast, the tourists generally came up for lunch or dinner. I paused for a minute or two on Main Street, letting the wind ruffle my hair, breathing in deeply and feeling the air currents as they moved and shifted around me.
No sign of the shadowy presence that had manifested itself the night before. Not even an echo of that unearthly chill, or the laughter I thought I’d heard but must have imagined. It was just a clean, bright Sunday morning, the sun warm but letting me know the seasons were shifting, and winter wasn’t far off.
I shook my head, then began the climb up to Great-Aunt Ruby’s house.
The large Victorian house she occupied had once belonged to one of the mine’s overseers. How exactly it came to be the residence of all the McAllister primas since then was somewhat murky. I don’t want to say that long-ago overseer was exactly coerced into giving it up, but I had gotten the distinct impression that he’d sold it for a song without recalling exactly why he’d been willing to let go of his beloved home for so little.
When I was younger, my great-aunt frightened me a good deal, not simply because she was the prima and therefore in charge of the whole clan, but also because she had seemed so very old to me. My grandfather was the youngest of Randolph McAllister’s four children, and Ruby the eldest, with almost fifteen years separating them, so she was much older than my grandparents would have been…if they were still alive.
Another tragedy there, since Grandpa Logan had tried to break up a bar fight years before I was even born, and gotten a knife between the ribs in thanks, and my grandmother had sort of withered away after that. She’d never been a very strong witch, according to Aunt Rachel, who seemed disproportionately disapproving, considering Grandma Irene was her own mother. But maybe Rachel was still hurt and angry, since my grandmother had passed away when her two daughters were only in their teens. No wonder my mother had grown up to be such a wild child.
At any rate, Great-Aunt Ruby had always seemed as if she came from a generation even further removed than that of my grandparents or other people their age. Her own two sons were still in Jerome, of course, Lionel a noted sculptor and Joseph the chief of the fire department, but even they didn’t seem to be quite the same force of nature she was.
Eventually I made it to the front steps of her house. Up until even a year ago, my great-aunt had managed all the hills in Jerome without batting an eye, but time seemed to be finally catching up to her. I paused for a second or two to catch my breath, watching the clouds move against the blue sky. The red rocks of Sedona to the north and east seemed to almost glow as the fast-moving shadows passed over them.
I wouldn’t let my gaze move any farther than that. After last night, the last thing I wanted was to be looking into the dark heart of Wilcox territory. That seemed to be inviting more trouble than I already had.
The rosebushes on either side of the walk up to the front door still had a few blooms, but the grass in the tiny pocket handkerchief lawn was already starting to appear yellow and tired. As always, though, the rest of the place looked immaculate, the paint in its shades of ivory and blush and terra-cotta gleaming. Not every house in Jerome was maintained quite so well, but the prima had to keep up appearances.
Just as I approached the front door and raised my hand to knock, it swung inward. I didn’t see any sign of Cora, who lived here and acted as a sort of nurse/companion, but that didn’t surprise me too much. Great-Aunt Ruby did like her little theatrics.
“In the sitting room,” came her voice from within the house, so I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
“Coming, Aunt Ruby,” I replied, and made my way to the chamber that was her favorite, in the octagonal tower on the southwest corner of the house.
It didn’t really surprise me that it was her favorite room, since it provided staggering views across the Verde Valley and into Sedona, and southward along the Black Mountains. From here I could see the line of cottonwoods following the path of the Verde River. Those trees were just beginning to burst into their autumnal finery of bright yellow; the lighter patches seemed to gleam like flame amongst the dark green of the leaves that hadn’t yet turned.
My great-aunt sat in an imposing chair of about the same vintage as the house; I guessed she liked it because it looked like a throne. Her gaze seemed to be fixed on the landscape outside the windows, but she turned her head slightly as I entered the room, and pointed a wrinkled hand at a smaller chair just to her right.
“Sit down, Angela.”
I did as she requested, of course, glad I’d decided to put on that skirt and those ladylike shoes. The world had changed a lot since Ruby was a girl, and she’d changed with it…just not to the point where she was happy seeing the next prima of the McAllisters wearing faded jeans and cowboy boots that needed resoling.
At first she didn’t say anything, but only looked me up and down, as if recommitting my features to her memory. Then, “I heard you did well last night.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised. I’d been worrying that she would take me to task for not going to Aunt Rachel about that apparition or entity or whatever it had been first thing, rather than attempting to fortify myself with some pizza and wine beforehand.
“Yes. It isn’t an easy thing, to hold the energies of that many people in your hand, to use them to strengthen and guide you. That was the work of a true prima.”
“But…I’m not the prima.”
“Yet,” she said crisply, and fastened me with a pair of blue eyes that were still very sharp, despite their faded color. I don’t know what she saw, but she sighed then and glanced away, her gaze once more returning to the landscape of golden fields and purple-hued mountains miles beyond the windows. “Angela, my time is coming soon. I can feel it.”
Cold began to work its way down my spine, even though the room was quite warm — warmer than I would have usually preferred, especially after my hike up here. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. There was supposed to be a long time after the prima-in-waiting found her consort before she had to take over as the clan’s new leader. It was only because my mother had refused to do her duty that so many years separated my great-aunt and myself. “Don’t say that, Aunt Ruby — ”
“I will say it,” she interrupted. “I am eighty-eight years old, child. Being a witch does not make one immortal.”
I didn’t reply to that, only clasped my hands between my knees, knowing I wasn’t going to like what was about to come next, and also knowing that I had no choice but to listen to it.
She nodded, but I didn’t know if it was in approval of my silence, or because she was mentally going through what she meant to say next. “It’s been hard. I lost my Pat fifteen years ago, and oh, how I wanted to go with him. You’ll understand, when you find your consort.”
If I find him, I thought. I doubted she wanted to hear that…then again, maybe she knew I was thinking it. Contrary to popular belief, being a witch doesn’t necessarily make you psychic, and anyway, that wasn’t Great-Aunt Ruby’s gift. However, she of course knew all about my failure to find my own match, and it didn’t take a mind reader to figure out I was feeling a little disheartened by the whole process.
Bony fingers tightened on the carved arms of the chair. “But I held on, because I knew you weren’t ready. How could you be, at that age? So I’ve been waiting this whole time, waiting to see if you would be able to manage when the time came…and I think you will be.” She shook her head, correcting herself. “No, I know you will be.”
“How can I, when I can’t even find a consort?” I argued. Her talk of the “time coming” and all that was frightening me more than I wanted to admit, even to myself. She couldn’t go before I found my match. I’d be vulnerable.
I’d be alone.
“You will. The more difficult the search, the stronger the bond, when it comes.” Her expression grew dreamy, and beneath the lines and the fine, paper-thin skin I could see a ghost of the beautiful young woman she’d been so many years before. “How they came to court me, back in the day, and I wouldn’t have any of them. Just like you, Angela. My mother despaired and my father blustered, but I hadn’t a care in the world. I knew he’d be there when I needed him. And so he was — Patrick Lynch, come up from Payson on business, not thinking of anything except selling some cattle. Certainly not thinking he’d be the consort of the McAllisters’ prima. But I was down in Cottonwood, shopping with my mother, and there he came walking along the street, and I knew. I knew the second I laid eyes on him. Just as you’ll know, Angela.”
I nodded, albeit sadly. I wanted to feel that conviction. I wanted to look up and suddenly meet those cool green eyes I’d seen so many times in my mind, and know the doubt and worry were over at last. How I wanted that more than anything in the world. Wanting something, though, wasn’t quite the same as actually getting it.
“Why, you’re seeing him already in your dreams. He wants to come to you, just as you want to come to him.”
“Well, he’s taking his sweet time,” I remarked, my tone a little more acid than I’d intended. Her brows lifted, and I hastily added, “I know, I know. These things happen as they’re meant to be. But I barely have two months left.”
“A lot can happen in two months, even though it might feel like an eternity to you. The worst thing you can do is allow yourself to become discouraged. That only leads to a lowering of your spirits, and that makes you vulnerable.” Her mouth tightened. “And that is the thing this clan needs the least.”
Something in her tone told me she was making an oblique reference to the spirit or entity I had seen. “Did you — did you feel it?” I asked.
She didn’t bother to inquire what I’d meant by “it.” A nod, and she replied, “Faintly. I was sitting here, napping a little, I suppose.” Another pursing of the thin wrinkled lips. She didn’t like to admit to any weakness, even something as harmless as taking an afternoon nap. “It felt to me like a cold draft blowing through a crack in the wall. Then it was gone, and until Rachel sent out the call to the coven, I thought I must have imagined it.”
“It is — it is gone, though, isn’t it?” Even though I could sense no trace of that malevolent presence, it still nagged at me, as if it were hiding somewhere just out of range.
“As far as I can tell. It was a good cleansing. I sense no negativity here now…unless you want to count the drivers going over the mountain cursing as they have to slow down to ten miles an hour to get through town.”
That remark made me smile. I guessed she’d made it on purpose in an attempt to banish my lingering worries. “So what should I do?”
“As you have done. Be vigilant, of course, but don’t let yourself worry too much. Everyone is here for you, and will be, no matter what happens.”
I regarded her steadily. “And you, Great-Aunt Ruby? Will you be here for me, too?”
She didn’t blink. Those blue eyes were sharp as a hawk’s. “You’ve got to take off the training wheels sometime, child.” Then she made an impatient gesture with one hand. “That’s enough for now. You go — your aunt will need you at the shop. It’s almost eleven.”
If it had been anyone else, I might have tried to argue, press her for more details…plead with her to hang on until I’d found my consort. Maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t. But that time would be of her choosing, and none of mine.
I got to my feet. “I’ll talk to you again soon,” I said firmly.
“I’m sure you will,” she replied, tone neutral.
After bending down and giving her a swift kiss on the cheek — the expected farewell — I went back to the front door and let myself out. A cloud moved over the sun in that moment, and I barely kept myself from flinching. Heck of a way for the McAllisters’ next prima to act…jumping at shadows, always looking over her shoulder.
Shaking my head at myself, I went down the hill to my aunt’s store.
I didn’t look back.
As Sundays went, it was busy but not horribly so. Enough to keep me somewhat occupied, but not so much that I couldn’t keep worrying at the nagging problem of the unwelcome spirit who’d shown up here the day before. Yes, everyone seemed to think it was gone, and I’d have to accept that for now, but the one topic people seemed to be avoiding was the question of what it actually had been. Maybe no one really had a clue, and so didn’t want to profess their ignorance. It made some sense; in Jerome, I was the ghost girl. And if I didn’t know what that thing was, how could I expect anyone else to figure it out?
I decided I’d better go directly to the source.
We closed the shop at five, and Aunt Rachel went upstairs to check the roast she’d left cooking in the crock pot all day. Tobias would be coming for dinner, as he did every Sunday, but we wouldn’t be sitting down until six-thirty. I had some time.
Except for the few tourists staying at the local hotels and B&Bs, and a few stalwarts who remained behind to squeeze one last dinner out of their weekends, Jerome tended to clear out on Sunday evenings. I slipped down to Hull Avenue and around the corner of Spook Hall, a place where Maisie tended to hang out…if you could call what a disembodied spirit did “hanging out.”
“Maisie,” I whispered, as the sun began to drop behind Mingus Mountain and the shadows lengthened. “I need to talk to you.”
Nothing at first, which didn’t surprise me. It was quiet down here; the wine tasting room a few doors down had already closed, and the hall wasn’t hosting any events that day, so there wasn’t anyone else around. I leaned against the cold cement wall and waited. True, Maisie had much more time on her hands than I did, but acting impatient or agitated was the surest way to keep her from appearing at all.
At last I saw her shiver into existence a few feet away from me, her form slowly becoming more substantial as I watched. She wore a simple white high-collared blouse and dark skirt, and looked a lot more respectable than most people might think a mining town prostitute should. Then again, she may have decided she didn’t want to spend eternity wandering around in a camisole and corset. Her curly blonde hair was pulled up into a loose knot on the top of her head, although a few tendrils waved around her face, and moved in a breeze that had little to do with the wind currents in Jerome at that time of day.
She showed no surprise at seeing me. “Angela.”
“How are you today, Maisie?”
Her mouth quirked, and she raised an eyebrow. “’Bout the same as always, I reckon. What did you want?”
“Can we talk a bit?”
Her lopsided dimple deepened. “Sure. Not like I have anything else I need to do right now.”
This sort of an exchange had turned into a ritual for us. It had always seemed sort of rude for me to jump right into asking her for what I needed, and so we always shared a little banter to get things started. “Let’s go down to the stoop.”
About halfway down the side of the building was a raised area outside one of the exits. I settled myself on the edge, but Maisie remained standing. I’d actually never seen her sit down, but I didn’t know if that was personal preference or because she really couldn’t sit.
I settled myself in place, and she watched me from a few feet away. It always startled me how much she looked like a regular girl, even in her 1890s getup. If someone had seen her, they’d probably think she was just a local historical reenactor of some sort. There really was no way to tell that she’d died only a few feet from this spot almost a hundred and twenty years ago.
As far as I could tell, though, I was the only one who could actually see her. Anyone passing by would see me standing there and talking to myself, but that sort of behavior was mostly ignored in Jerome.
“So, Maisie,” I began, then hesitated. There really wasn’t an easy way to ask the question. “Did you feel…or see…or hear…anything strange late yesterday afternoon?”
She’d been staring past me at the square, stolid bulk of Lawrence Hall, but her gaze sharpened at once. “Laws, yes. I was wondering if you were going to come poking around and asking about that.”
I should have been relieved at a chance to clear up the mystery. Somehow, though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say. “So you know what it was?”
“Now, I didn’t say that. I just said I felt something strange.”
“What did you feel?”
“Cold. I shouldn’t feel cold…I don’t feel anything at all, most days, although every once in a while I fancy I can feel the wind on my face. My imagination, I s’pose, but there it is.” A frown pulled at her fair eyebrows, at skin that would never see a line or wrinkle. I always had to remind myself that Maisie had been younger than I was now when she died.
“I felt it, too,” I told her, and tried to repress a shiver, not all that successfully.
She shot me a curious glance. “And you don’t know what it was, neither?”
“That’s why I was asking you. I thought you might know something more because you’re a, well — ”
“’Cause I’m a ghost.”
“Well, yes.”
Her shoulders lifted. “Never felt nothing like it before, that’s true. It wasn’t one of us.”
By “us” I knew she meant the thirty-odd spirits who’d made Jerome their permanent abode. I’d already guessed that much, since I knew all of them as well as I knew the members of my own family, or the residents of the town who weren’t McAllisters but were trusted with our secret.
“But do you — do you think it was a spirit who used to be someone?”
“I am still someone.”—Somewhat indignantly.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. Or rather, I attempted to and was stopped by a tangle. My hair tended to drive me nuts, since it was halfway between wavy and curly, and could never make up its mind what it wanted to be. “I just meant the spirit of someone who died.”
“Not like any I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.” I’d never thought I’d see a ghost looking scared, but at the very least she looked troubled, if not downright frightened. “I didn’t like it. See, we all know each other here, the good and the bad. We rub along. But this — ” Another shake of her head. “I’m glad you made it go away.”
“So it is gone.”
“Far’s I can tell. And I think I’d feel it if it was still here.”
That was something. Not much, but better than nothing.
“Thanks, Maisie.” I pulled my cell out of my jeans pocket. Six-ten. Aunt Rachel would want me back home to help put the finishing touches on dinner. “You’ll tell me if you feel anything else strange, won’t you?”
“If you come and ask,” she said.
That was ghosts for you. Always wanting it done their way.
“Sure,” I replied. “You take care of yourself.”
“Bit late for that, I think,” she said tartly, and disappeared.
Since there wasn’t anything left for me to do, I began to walk up Hull Avenue toward the back entrance of my building. Even as I went, my mind worried at the problem. So it wasn’t a ghost. Other types of spirits existed, dark entities whose purpose was anything but benign. They had their counterparts on the light side, but of course what I’d felt was definitely not good. And if one of those dark, inhuman presences had somehow decided to make me its prey, it might require more than a cleansing ritual and a charmed pentacle on the door.
Suddenly the shadows of the buildings around me felt too black, and I found myself hurrying home, hurrying toward the safety, however spurious, of my aunt’s house.