“Oh… okay, night.”
I kept hold of Annette’s hand as Roane led us into the house. The door opened when we approached. “Thanks, Percy,” I said.
He’d used the vines to open the massive wooden door and closed it softly behind us.
“Thank you, Percival,” Annette said.
The vines shrank back, but not before they paused and bent slightly, as though tipping a hat to her. She eyed them adoringly. They stilled a long moment then slowly faded into the woodwork. Fascinating.
Before I could follow Roane into the kitchen to inspect the damage, a cat rushed over my feet, its claws adding to the needles prickling my frozen skin. He was followed by a tiny spectral of a boy, blond and dimpled and precious. But only the cat would’ve been affected by the smoke, and he looked to be on his last legs as it was.
He scurried under a hutch in the drawing room, trying to hide from the boy, but it would take more than that to ditch a ghost.
“Ink,” I said, kneeling down to look under the hutch. Though he looked as though he’d been at the epicenter of the explosion, his tattered charcoal fur and battle-scarred face were part of his everyday countenance. Then again, he was over forty years old. He had a right to look as though he were at death’s door. Especially since he probably was. “Are you okay, buddy?”
The boy, still wearing the Puritan attire he’d died in, replete with a wide white collar, knee-length breeches, and buckled shoes, turned to look at me with his huge blue eyes. “He keeps running away.” He crossed his arms and lowered his blond head to pout.
“I’m sorry, Samuel.” I started to reach out to him before remembering my hand would go right through him.
Roane took a knee beside me and tapped on the floor. Ink shot out from under the hutch and flung himself into his arms. Samuel was clearly traumatizing the ragged thing. Roane wrapped him in his embrace, the hills and valleys of his biceps contracting with the movement, then beckoned Samuel over with a nod.
The boy beamed at him and stepped closer, his shoes silent on the hardwood floor. Ink let Samuel run his hand through him, mimicking a petting motion. The three-year-old cooed, and Ink purred, content to be in his owner’s arms.
But it was the look on Roane’s face that turned me into a soppy pile of mush. The warm smile he gave the boy. The patience he exhibited as he let Samuel pretend to pet him. An odd pressure tightened around my heart.
Roane would certainly understand the circumstances of how a child could die so young, having done so himself. We didn’t know how Samuel died, but considering the time period, it probably had more to do with an illness than anything malicious. Unlike Roane’s tragic passing.
The surrealness of my situation hit me again, as it had often over the last few weeks. Those in which I was conscious anyway. If I were to explain my current predicament out loud, no one would believe me. It would sound like the opening of a joke. A wolf, a cat, and a ghost walk into a drawing room…
I wrapped the blanket closer and rose to my feet to see Annette doing it again. Staring. I followed her line of sight to Samuel, looked back at her, then back at the boy.
“Annette?” I asked warily. She’d never been able to see the light from my spells, yet she did that very thing moments earlier. And now she was looking at Samuel, an entity she could not see yesterday, as though she was seeing a ghost. Literally.
But why now? Had my turning her into a bird really given her the ability to see into the veil? Had I somehow created a supernatural creature in all her curly-headed glory?
I stepped closer. She’d tried to clean her glasses, but she must’ve used her shirt, which was just as soot-covered as the rest of her. The lenses were still streaked with black and gray, and I wondered if she’d let me grab my phone to get a few shots. For posterity’s sake. If I ever had children—not super-duper likely at forty-five—they’d need to see the trials and tribulations of what their auntie Annette went through. To appreciate her even more.
Her eyes began to well up behind the glasses.
I poked an arm out from under the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Annette, you’re going to smudge your smudges.” After laughing at my own joke, I looked closer. Her face was covered in soot, yes, but there were fine lines all over it like the silhouette of something she’d been behind when the blast hit her. In fact, they looked like vines. Had Percy tried to protect her? Was that how she came out of it unharmed?
While I marveled at this new discovery, Annette continued to stare. “He’s beautiful,” she said, her tone wistful.
I glanced over my shoulder and teased her by asking, “Which one?”
“He’s so tiny.” She covered her mouth with her fingers. “He’s so…” She blinked, then turned to me slowly, her angelic face twisting into a scowl. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Taken aback by the sudden turn of events, not that it was unusual for the fiery vixen, I tucked my arm beneath the blanket again. “Tell you what?”
She pointed and then cast an accusing glare on me. “That.”
After glancing between her and Samuel again, I glared back. “I seem to remember several conversations involving our newest guest.”
“But he’s so tiny and little and small.”
“Have you been reading your thesaurus again?”
“He’s just…” Clearly distressed, she covered her mouth again. “How did he die?”
“I’m still a little shell-shocked by the fact that you can see him.”
“Right?” she said, snapping out of her stupor. “Ever since the bird thing.”
I cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” She went to pat my arm but had refocused on Samuel and ended up patting my face. Oblivious, she knelt beside Roane and held a hand out to the little rascal. “I’m Annette.”
He looked at her and giggled. “Your face is dirty.”
“Really?” she asked, clearly in love, then his words sank in. “Wait, really?” She wiped at her cheeks. “Like how dirty?” She stood and whirled around to me. “My face is dirty? How’s my hair?”
After Annette ran upstairs, utterly mortified, I mourned the loss of my chance to snap a few shots for the children I would never have and followed her and Minerva upstairs to change. I ordered an exhausted Minerva to bed and hurried to my room.
Five minutes later, I came down in the same tee, but with an actual bra underneath and a pair of sweats below that. And just in case there was any broken glass, I donned my sneakers as well.
I stopped just outside the kitchen and girded my loins, metaphorically, before walking in. Roane was right. It’d been all but destroyed. The fact that no one was hurt was a miracle. I had to wonder again if Percy had anything to do with that.
Ruthie and the chief were wiping soot off the upended breakfast table and chairs.
“Gigi, I can get that,” I said, hurrying forward to help.
She finished wiping down her chair and sat down in it to surveil the battleground. “I just needed a place to sit down.”
Percy’s massive kitchen was part industrial and part antique. A charming blend of several centuries. At least, it had been. Hopefully a good cleaning would fix most of it, but I feared the oven was a goner.