Chapter 3

" M ake it stop." Josie, crumpling in the parking lot, clutched her head in her hands. "Make it stop."

Hose forgotten, Matty skidded in the gravel to reach us, but I threw out my hand. "The tree."

"What about Mary?" He froze halfway to us. "What's wrong with…?" Then he got it. "The tree."

Panic had a way of making you forget common sense.

Josie was a dryad. She was on friendly terms with all the trees in the county, but the one across the road must be near enough to our property that it had bonded with her. Knowing my sister, despite it being an old elm tree with more holes in its trunk than in a whole block of Swiss, she had been tending to it as if it would put food in our mouths. Now it was in pain, crying out to her for help, and their bond was blazing.

"Go," she panted, sweat beading her brow. "Save it."

Only my certainty that protecting the tree would do the same for my sister pried me away from her side.

The one thing we had no shortage of was gardening equipment. I didn't have to go far to locate another, longer hose. Armed with the sprayer, I cranked the water on as high as it would go then sprinted toward Matty, who was already blasting the crackling limbs, and joined him in soaking the poor crispy tree.

As soon as it was good and doused, not a speck of ember to be found, Josie limped up behind us.

"I've got it," she slurred, her eyes verdant green and glowing softly.

"And we've got you." Matty made it a promise. "Don't overdo it."

Twisting the nozzle on his hose, he turned off his water flow, and I did the same.

"I'm sorry," Josie murmured as she embraced the tree, her skin turning brown and rough. "So sorry."

Her tears caused my throat to tighten, but there was nothing we could do to help. Except for turning our backs to give her privacy. That left Matty and me standing shoulder to shoulder, listening for the familiar sound of her inevitable crash after expending too much healing energy.

"When we first moved to Thunderbolt," he said after a minute, "I didn't believe the folks who told us the town got its name from random lightning strikes, but I'm starting to wonder if they weren't telling us the truth." He tipped his head back. "Not a single cloud in the sky. Where the hell did that lightning come from?"

Pretending I hadn't been mesmerized by it, that I hadn't hoped for a split second it was heralding Kierce's return, I mumbled, "Lightning can travel several miles away from the storm producing it."

This exact scenario was how the phenomenon earned the name a bolt from the blue .

Even though, in this case, it had been more of a bolt from the starlit black.

"Let me guess—" he bumped into me, "—if I hadn't slept through science class I would know that."

"There's a reason they say to go inside as soon as you hear thunder."

Not that there had been thunder or any other warning before the tree went kaboom .

"Guys?"

We spun toward Josie, who gazed up in wonder at the lush green canopy swaying above her.

"Wow." I gawked at the elm's transformation. "You do good work."

Staring at her palms, Josie flexed her fingers. "I'm not sure it was me."

"How could it not be you?" Matty caught her wrists. "Trees don't spontaneously heal themselves."

"I was channeling energy from the other trees to help Elmo when it…kind of…vomited it back on me."

"Trees don't vomit." I envisioned the sheen of yellow coating the vehicles in the lot. "Except pollen."

"I've always pictured it as more of a sneeze," Matty began before Josie growled at us.

"Elmo?" It hit me a beat later. "You named an elm tree Elmo ?"

"He likes it." She sniffed. "I'm going to quarantine him until I figure out what's going on."

"Do you need our help?" Matty inched closer to me. "We can?—"

"No." An exhalation pursed her lips. "You guys go on." She turned away. "I'll handle this."

After rolling up our hoses, Matty and I parted ways on my landing with a promise to watch out for Josie.

And if I took first watch, staring out at the formerly burning tree, well, that was what sisters were for.

I definitely wasn't watching to see if a figure stepped from the trunk like it was an otherworldly portal.

That would be silly.

Sleep refused to come to me, and I couldn't go to it. Armie made sure of that. The nightmare was always the same, which showed how little imagination I possessed when it came to that sort of thing. Mostly an awkward mashup of the events the night I snuffed out Armie's soul, I almost wished for new material.

I texted Vi about the recent drama but didn't expect a response. Next week was our scheduled meeting. I could hold it together that long. Her grandson, Rollo, wasn't a fan of mine. He would do his damnedest to prevent me from contacting her a second before I was penciled in.

The jerk.

From her cat bed, Badb stared at me with dark, knowing eyes.

"I'm going for a run." I tossed off the covers. "Want to come?"

Pumped for an excuse to visit the cemetery, or so I imagined, she beat me to the door.

Granted, I had to dress in my eye-searing neon-green running gear, strap on my flashing wrist lights, fasten my orange reflective vest over my chest, and center the headlamp Josie insisted I wear on my forehead first. No more stealthy night runs for me. Nope. I was a beacon. No one would miss me. I stood zero chance of being run down again.

Unless it was on purpose.

Again.

Certain I looked as ridiculous as I felt, I plodded out onto the landing where I locked the door.

A caw stuck in Badb's throat I was certain was a laugh at my expense as she lit on my shoulder.

"Keep it up, Chuckles, and I'm going to band your ankles with flashing lights."

Her flat look warned I would regret that decision. Or that I would live to regret trying. One of the two.

As I crunched across the parking lot onto the road, I found myself across from the formerly flaming tree.

Badb studied it from her perch, tilting her head this way and that, a sad noise rumbling from her chest.

"You really miss Kierce, huh?" I scratched under her beak. "Me too." I tipped my head against hers, as if I could lighten her sorrow. "I would have liked to know him better."

A single leaf spiraled from its limb, igniting halfway down. I jumped back, wary the whole tree was about to spontaneously combust again, and the leaf followed me. As it gave lazy chase, an uncanny knowing lit my bones, convincing me to hold still and offer out my palm.

The leaf drifted to rest there, teardrop shaped with serrated edges still burning, but I didn't feel its sting. "Kierce?"

The gust of air from his name extinguished the fire in my palm, leaving an intact and unharmed leaf with the lingering scent of petrichor. For no good reason, I stuffed it into my pocket, careful not to tear it. The crow on my shoulder watched this, made another raspy noise smacking of laughter, and then took flight before my scowl finished forming.

"Everybody's a comedian," I grumbled, leaning into the first of a series of stretches.

The cool night was a balm to my skin, clearing my head and helping me shake off the stress of the day. A heady relief pounded through me every time my feet struck the pavement, as if I was stomping my guilt and worries into dust with every step.

All too soon the cemetery came into view, and I had to force myself to take the usual route. I climbed an ivy-shrouded wrought iron fence, landed in a crouch, then rose and turned on Stoddard Way, which edged the northern end of the property.

A rustle of dead leaves swirled around me, and my heart lodged in my throat. I stopped as the sudden wind died and turned a slow circle. The pulse hammering in my ears deafened me, but the slight blue figure who flung another handful of leaves, aided by a spectral breeze, yanked the plug on my anticipation, allowing me to hear his boisterous laughter at having pranked me.

Tommy, the youngest of the three spirits known as the Buckley Boys, grinned at me through gapped teeth.

Tipping the brim of his 1920s newsboy hat, he announced, "Got a message for ya."

Unable to help myself, I smiled at his chubby cheeks, smudged with the memory of dirt. "Lay it on me."

"Morris Lynch done told Johnny he seen this old geezer asking around about a missing girl."

Ah, yes. Already my lapse in judgment was coming back to bite me on the butt. "And?"

"Lynch didn't say nothing to the geezer, on account of not knowing him, but he said to Johnny. He said a new girl's been showing up on La Roche Avenue, near Skidaway River."

"New?" A shiver trickled down my spine. "You mean…?"

"Figure she drowned." He wiped his nose with his palm. "Hair's all wet. Clothes too."

Nausea swirled in my stomach at his report, but I was grateful for the news. "Tell Johnny I said thanks."

Hope burning in Tommy's eyes blurred his soft features with energy. "Will you pay the usual way?"

Payment only came due for me when the boys got bored. The gossip business must be slow this week.

"Absolutely." I focused on him enough I could ruffle his hair. "Meet me at home in thirty."

Quick as a blink, he shot off into the ether with a yahoo echoing behind him.

For the past two years, I had been teaching the three boys how to read. Johnny's idea. He felt they could expand their business with mastery of the written word. But no matter how lofty their ambitions, I was a poor teacher, and their short attention spans hadn't given me much chance to become a better one.

As a result of our mutual frustrations, I ended up reading out loud to them as payment more often than I offered them the lessons they bartered for originally. The compromise suited me fine. Kids deserved the pleasure of enjoying a good book, even if they couldn't read it for themselves.

Aware it was useful information for Harrow to have, perhaps even critical, I called him. "Hey."

A beat later, he rasped, "Hey back."

"I got a tip Leonard Collins is asking around cemeteries about his granddaughter."

"Does that mean—" he yawned, "—he's convinced she's dead?"

"Damn it." I flinched hearing myself swear out loud. "I woke you."

Using curse words outside the safety of your head at St. Mary's Home for Children, where us Marys met, often had lethal consequences. The sisters forbade us from using foul language. Anyone caught speaking it had, on a good day, a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Either they beat you with a jeweled and gilded bible the sisters reserved for holiday services, weighing in at nearly twenty pounds, until you passed out...

…or they ate you.

Which, and I could be wrong, I was pretty sure wasn't the Christian thing to do.

"You're fine." He sanded away his coarseness. "Answer the question."

"I'm not sure he's convinced so much as he's doing everything in his limited power to find her but…"

"But?"

"Word is there's a new ghost haunting La Roche, a girl who appears to have drowned."

"La Roche Avenue." Clarity swept into his tone, faster and faster. "Will we have to drag Skidaway River?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think a body was found, but my source didn't say. I called you as soon as I heard."

"Could she have come from somewhere else? A transient spirit? You know a few, right?"

"Most spirits have a short range from their graves, but yeah. I know a few exceptions."

More than a few, really, but they were also special cases and not your average spirits.

"Would she appear there, looking that way, if she had been given a proper burial?"

"The level of trauma often dictates how spirits see themselves." A few dedicated ones even learned how to change their clothes for the heck of it. "An accidental drowning wouldn't leave the same scars as a…"

"…murder." He absorbed that. "How good are our chances of questioning her?"

"The better question is if she's a residual, which means she's locked into repeating the events leading up to her death. Or if she's fully fledged and can interact with this world and her surroundings."

"Would a fully-fledged spirit return to the same spot every night?"

"Without a grave? Yeah. She might be anchored to where she died or just not know where else to go."

"And if she does have a grave?"

"For her to fixate on that location, it would have to be nearby. Catholic Cemetery is about four miles from La Roche. Forest Lawn Memory Gardens is nearly five. Colonial Park Cemetery is about six." I kept ticking off names in my head long after I ran out of fingers. "There are nineteen within a ten-mile radius."

"The whole city is a graveyard."

"Technically, the whole city is a cemetery. Only burial grounds on church lands are graveyards."

"Hence the yard."

Now he sounded amused, and I flushed at sharing a nugget of useless knowledge. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be." I heard his smile. "I like your macabre factoids."

Face hot, and not from the exercise, I cleared my throat. "Um, thanks?"

"How long before you finish your run?"

"I'm only twenty minutes in, so it depends." I slowed to a jog. "What are you thinking?"

"You're awake, and I'm awake. Do you want to drive over to La Roche and look for the girl?"

To do that, I would have to reschedule with the Buckley Boys, which would put me further in their debt.

"Sure." I wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist. "Let me go home and change."

I would also have to wait on the boys to appear and barter new terms with them.

"Finish your run. You wouldn't be out at this hour if you didn't need it."

"Are you sure you want sweat all over your seats?"

"I'll put down a towel if you're that worried." He grunted, no doubt sitting up in bed. "See you soon."

After ending the call, I knocked my pace down to a brisk walk. I wasn't going to find my Zen tonight with news of the girl stuck in my head. Plus, I would rather cool down before Harrow arrived if I was skipping out on fresh clothes. The idea I might leave a damp booty-shaped print on his seat mortified me. Sure, he had offered to bring a towel, but the saying was better safe than sorry for a reason.

When it came to Harrow, I already had plenty to be sorry about. Why not try being safe for a change?