I realized I was freaking out over nothing and relaxed. “There’s no way. How could you possibly set something like that up so fast?”
“That’s just how I roll, I guess.” She did a gang sign of some kind, probably inviting groups of bangers to shank us in the showers, then added, “Bam, bitch. I got this shit covered.”
I sank into my seat and crossed my arms over my chest so I could glare at her. Due to my giving nature, I decided not to remind her that no forty-five-year-old white chick should be throwing gang signs, and asked instead, “Is this payback for the bird thing?”
“No. I set this up before the bird thing. Like three days ago.” She pushed her coffee-stained notebook over to me. “I have some basic designs for our business cards you need to approve—”
“Oh, now you need my approval?”
“—and a couple for a promotional poster. We need a slogan.” She looked up in thought. “Something like, Breadcrumbs, Inc. Your loss is our gain.” When I just stared, she added, “Get it? Because you find lost things?”
“Annette, how much coffee have you had?”
“How much coffee have you had?” she asked, deflecting.
“Annette Cheri Osmund.”
She wilted in defeat. “Fine. If you must know, that box is the second one I bought this morning.”
“You drank a whole takeout box?” I practically screeched the words, and Minerva stirred. Not much. Just enough to let out a moan of protest before falling back into oblivion. Sadly, she fell asleep on a waffle-patterned kitchen towel. She was going to have a wicked design on her face when she woke up.
“Yes,” Annette said.
“And you’re still alive?”
“’Parently.” She leaned over and sketched a few lines on one of her designs. It was either a penguin holding a hockey stick or an angel holding a scythe. I couldn’t see how either would represent us accurately.
“For the record,” I said, watching her work, “twelve minutes of sleep between cups of java does not count.” My only hope lay in the fact that she couldn’t possibly have gotten the word out for a séance so quickly. Surely no one would show up. We weren’t established, and there were plenty of other spiritual gurus offering their services in town. We were in Salem, after all. “Nette, I don’t want you to get your hopes up about the séance. These events need to be planned months in advance. And promoted. If no one shows up—”
“Are you kidding?” She snorted. “It sold out in minutes.”
“Minutes?” Disbelief hit me first, then panic. It rushed over me in pulsating, nauseating waves. I sat in stunned silence a long moment before replying. “You do realize I don’t know to perform a séance?”
“Pfft,” she pffted. “Sure you do. We see it in movies all the time.”
“Right, because that’s exactly the same thing.”
“And Percy can help. Right, Percy?”
Vines flourished around us, like a garden blooming in a fast-motion video, and I glared at him. “Traitor.” I redoubled my efforts and marched onward. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll agree to do the séance”—Goddess help us all—“if you’ll try to shift.”
“What?” She was appalled. I’d appalled her. I did that. “I will never try to shift. What if I get stuck? What then? I’ll tell you what, since you’re asking.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I’ll have to live my whole life as an ugly feathered crow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I leaned over and took her hand. “You’re an adorable crow.”
She melted. “Really?”
“Or you would be if not for the beady eyes.”
“I knew it.” She pulled her hand out of my reach.
“Kidding. You were the most adorable crow I’ve ever seen. And practice makes perfect.”
She almost gave in. I could see it in her eyes, but she changed her mind at the last minute and picked up her phone with a sassy “no.”
“Please.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’ll do the séance.”
“You’ll do the séance either way.”
“Yes, but I can either give the evening my all, really throw myself into the role, or I can confess to everyone that I have no idea what I’m doing and give them their money back.”
She inhaled a sharp breath, the act so drawn out, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her lung capacity. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said with a hiss I found almost as funny as the curl bouncing in front of her left eye.
“Would, too.”
She set her jaw, too stubborn for her own good, and started tapping on her phone, ignoring me.
I bit my lower lip and waited. When I could stand it no longer, I asked, “Are you trying?”
“No.”
“Are you trying now?”
“No.”
“What about now?” Gawd, she was fun to pester.
“No. And I won’t. Don’t ask me again.”
“Annette.” I draped my body over the table, mimicking Minerva. “How are we going to know if you can do it at will, if you can control it, if you don’t try?”
She sniffed, scrolling through her friends list. Probably to unfriend me. “It’s… it’s very personal.”
“Wait a minute.” I straightened and looked past her turquoise lenses and into her stormy gray eyes. The ones she was purposely averting. “You’ve already tried, haven’t you?” When she didn’t answer, my jaw fell open. “No way. You did it!”
Minerva groaned.
“You shifted,” I added, only quieter.
She brushed a feather off her sleeve. A feather I should have seen the minute she sat down.
“Oh my God.” I pressed my fists over my mouth in excitement. And I may have squeaked. “Please, show me.”
“No.” She put down her phone. “I already told you, it’s very personal.”
“This is the coolest thing ever. First Roane and now you. I just want to see it, you know? What I created. How it works. Like, do your feathers sprout from your skin? Do your bones crack? Does it hurt?”
“You’re like an addict jonesing for a fix.”
“Your point is?” When she didn’t answer, I changed tactics. “I’ll tell you a scary story.”
She paused but didn’t look at me. “I don’t like scary stories.”
“You love scary stories. And if it scares you, truly scares you, you have to show me.”
“Is it a true story?”
So easy. “Yes.”
She put down her phone with a huff. “Fine.”
“Okay. I woke up in the attic this morning.”
“That’s weird. Not scary.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Okay, but for real? You woke up in the attic?”
I nodded. “Upright. I was standing up in my sleep.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” she lied.
“Staring at one of the doors.”
“The door?”