12. 12
Poppy, my mother, and I sat in Victorine's parlor, surrounded by half a dozen open books, as Victorine paced the floor. Claudette, Victorine's housekeeper, quietly rolled in a cart of something that steamed.
"Tea, thank God," Poppy jumped up from the couch and rushed for the teapot.
"Thank you, Claudette," Victorine said, her tone both polite and indicating that we would serve ourselves.
Claudette retreated, closing the parlor doors as she went.
I flipped through Preparing for a Seance, a dusty book printed in 1875 that, from the looks of it, hadn't been opened since. "This says ‘No person of a very strongly positive temperament or disposition should be present.' Does that mean positive like Poppy or positive like dominating?"
"If so, that's you out of the mix," Poppy said.
I ignored the crack and turned the page. "‘Subdued light… open the seance with prayer or music, vocal or instrumental'... and only ‘subdued, quiet, and harmonizing conversation'? What does that even mean?"
"It means," Victorine said, "the kind of conversation you're incapable of having."
I shut the book. "So you're saying I'm the opposite of everything we need to hold a successful seance?"
Victorine didn't respond. Instead, she took her time pouring a cup of tea, then gracefully sat on a side chair. "I would be saying that, if I thought a single word of that was worth the paper it was printed on."
"But these are primary sources," my mother said, holding up a copy of The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse, the title of which still made Poppy snort-laugh into her tea.
"So am I," Victorine said. "You forget that I was present for the mania of Spiritualism. I was in one of the drawing rooms when the two sisters who claimed they received messages from the beyond performed. It was all a hoax. The supposed ‘tapping' of ghosts was nothing but the cracking of the sisters' joints."
"If it's all bunk, then why are we looking at it?" I said, tossing my book aside.
"Because we don't have any other ideas?" Poppy said.
I sighed and put my face in my hands, feeling my cold fingers press against my tired eyes. "I thought maybe some of this would connect to the kind of magic we do know: fire, or water, or air. Even if it was just a hint." I lifted my head and looked at Victorine. "Or that you would know something about the Blessed."
"I know everything about the Blessed."
"But nothing about ghosts."
"Give her tea, Poppy," Victorine said. "She is fussy, like a child."
"Not enough tea in the world to fix that," Mom said.
Everyone laughed but me. "I'm glad I amuse you all while I'm trying to banish a dangerous otherworldly monster," I said, instantly regretting how pouty I sounded. I stood up, stretched. Poppy put a cup of tea in my hand and I got a fistful of cookies for myself. "I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated. I thought this was over."
Mom came to my side and put her arm around my shoulder. "We'll fix it. Don't you worry."
"You're not supposed to be fixing it at all," I said. "You're supposed to be safe at home."
"Like I'm some kind of helpless old woman?"
"Can't I be protective?"
"Can't I be protective?" she fired back.
Victorine cleared her throat. "Will you be getting up to see the reverse Manhattanhenge?" she said, smoothly changing the subject.
"The what?" Mom said.
"Manhattanhenge. Named after Stonehenge. A solar event in which the sun aligns with the city grid at sunset or sunrise. If it is at sunrise, it is known as a reverse Manhattanhenge. It only happens a few times a year, and the next one is in a few days."
Mom looked delighted. "I'd love to see that."
"If you're not back at home by then," I pointed out.
"Stop ruining my fun, Zelda."
Feeling that this outing was rapidly becoming unavoidable, I addressed Victorine. "Which part of the grid does it align with?"
"44th Street, east of the library, is considered the best viewing."
At library, Mom's interest perked up even more. "Is that the library with the lion statues?"
"Patience and Fortitude, yes," Victorine said.
"Fine," I said. "I'll take you to see the sunrise."
Mom made a happy noise and bit into another cookie.
I swear, they get to a certain age and you can't tell who's the parent and who's the child anymore. "Now could we possibly focus?"
Poppy had already dived back into one of the books. "Most of it seems to be about setting the mood. There are a few objects mentioned—"
I looked up. "Oh?"
"Mirrors, for one. You wait for an apparition to appear. Or you can try to tempt them out with what's called a ‘trigger object.'"
"What's a trigger object?"
Poppy finger skimmed the text. "A trigger object is an object used to lure a ghost into interacting with you. It could be something that belonged to the person, or something important to them. It can work even better, supposedly, if you are in an environment familiar to the ghost."
"Prospero's apartment," I said.
"Daniel's apartment," Victorine murmured.
"What could be a trigger object?"
While Victorine was considering, Poppy jumped in. "The sword canes!"
"Yes. Good," I said. "What else?"
"The Mirror Seal," Victorine said.
"It's in pieces," I said. "What good would that do?"
"It was the most important thing to him."
The shattered glass had made me so uncomfortable that I'd shoved it in a closet and tried to avoid looking at it. The idea of hauling it to Prospero's made the tea and cookies tumble around my stomach like it was a Kitchen-Aid mixer. "Okay…" I said. "Let's say I summon him. Great. But the point isn't actually summoning him—it's banishing him."
Poppy flipped ahead. "Destroy the trigger object."
"Destroy—the Mirror?" I tried to wrap my mind around destroying something so powerful, with so much history.
"It's symbolic," Poppy said. "Scares them off."
"How would you destroy it?" Mom asked.
"That's something elemental magic would work for," Poppy said. "Burn it. Melt it down."
I pictured the beautiful carvings on the empty frame, all decorated with sparkling crystal dewdrops. Burning it would be like burning art, or books. "Just the glass?"
Poppy shrugged.
I looked at our resident vampire expert. "Victorine?"
Her shrug was more elegant, but just as lacking in answers.
"Fine," I said. "Prospero's apartment. The Mirror, or what's left of it. Fire."
"Isn't this a little… off the cuff? Even for you?" Victorine said, mild as she knew how to be.
"That's how I roll."
"How reassuring."
"I'm open to other genius ideas." I looked around the room: Poppy, Mom, Victorine. Myself in the mirror, the same one I'd seen myself in that fateful day of the party. "No? Then off-the-cuff it is. Tonight."
"Tonight?" Mom said. "Are you sure?"
"I won't sleep well until I know he's six feet under, and staying put."
That night, I pulled on my jacket and added a scarf and a hat, but tucked my gloves into my pocket, leaving my hands bare. Poppy and my mother had to do one final magical top-up before I left.
"Are you sure I can't come?" Mom asked.
"What if something happened to you?" I said.
"You couldn't stop me from coming if I really tried," Mom said, drawing herself up to her full height, which wasn't much.
"I could certainly take a run at it."
"You wouldn't dare. I'm your mother."
"It's not just that I don't want you there—"
"A-ha!"
"But that he seems to show up when I'm alone."
Mom subsided, looking troubled. "I know. I understand, really." She took my shoulders and looked into my eyes. "Soon I'll be going home, Zelda, and I won't even be here to protect you. It worries me."
It meant exactly what she said but it also meant more, so much more that it suddenly hurt to swallow over the lump in my throat. "It's not that I don't want your help," I said. "It's just—I can't take the risk of scaring him off. I have to go alone."
She gave me a squeeze and a little shake before letting go of my shoulders. "At least pet the dog before you go. You said he was lucky, right?" She scooped up Jester, who had been standing between us in hopes of being included in whatever fun thing was happening.
"Is this a bad idea, boy?" I said, scratching his head. He looked at me with eyes that were simultaneously wise and absolutely clueless. "Be good," I told him. "And don't worry. I'll be back soon."
"Or I'm coming after you," Mom said, carefully setting the dog down.
"Me, too," Poppy added.
"Fine," I said. "Everyone can come after me. Now, can you unload some fire magic on me so I can do this?" I held out my hands.
They each took a hand. I closed my eyes, the better to concentrate, and focused on finding that sweet spot between passively absorbing the magic, as I usually did; and outright drawing it in, as I had done with Jessica.
I was a thick hunk of bread sopping up soup in a bowl.
Poppy's magic felt cozy and well-worn, like a velvet sofa in a pool of midday sun. Mom's magic was both new and aged, like a vintage bottle of wine that's just been opened. I took it in until my head spun with the sheer sparkling overflow of it all. "I'm good," I said, letting go of their hands.
"Call us the minute you get done," Poppy said.
"Yes, mother. And Mom," I said, nodding to my real mother.
She hugged me. A little more magic flowed through the embrace. Or maybe it was love.
"I'm just banishing him," I said. "I'm not doing anything dangerous."
"Be safe," she said, letting me go.
I put on my gloves and left.
Outside, the sky was already as dark and chilly as cold coffee in a black mug. Unseen clouds spat cold rain, and the lights of passing cars slid over the wet ground. I pulled my coat tighter against the night.
One too-short taxi ride later, I stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the redstone building, a dark castle only touched by a little of the warm streetlights, the lit windows less inviting and more of a multi-eyed monster peering into the darkness. Looking for me.
How many times had I gone to Gramercy Park and had my life turn on a dime?
I rode the small elevator to Daniel's floor. Everything that had already happened rode with me; everything that could happen, I tried to leave behind when I stepped into the hallway. Only the now, only the present, could come with me.
I knocked.
Footsteps, then Daniel opened the door. "Hey."
"Hey yourself," I said, stepping inside. "Where's Jessica?"
"Out." Daniel was dressed to leave: tailored slacks, polished leather shoes, a thick sweater that looked like it'd been hand-made for a millionaire. His overcoat draped the chaise lounge, and I had a brief vision of using it like a blanket, to curl up underneath and hide from everything.
"Nice sweater," I said. I didn't feel the need to flirt with him anymore, but without it, I didn't know what to say instead.
"Thanks," he said, falling silent for a moment, as if it were the same for him. "You sure you're okay to do this?"
I laughed. "I'm never sure I'm okay to do anything. And yet, here I am."
"Here you are," he said.
Oh, the silence. Like a violin string around the neck.
What were we? Friends, yes, but something else was different. Daniel, the Lord of the Blessed, and me—untitled but also somehow the balancing point between the witches, the Blessed, and the Gentry. It had been easier to ignore when we were simply flirting with each other to pass the time and remind ourselves how smoldering we were. Without that, we weren't just people. We were factions.
"Can I get you anything before I go?" he said. "A drink? Something to eat?"
"You have food?" I said, momentarily distracted from my own thoughts by the surprise. Daniel's refrigerator was usually as clean and unoccupied as Antarctica.
"Cheese—good stuff—some fruit, cold cuts, bottled water… and some fresh bread and salted nuts in the cabinet."
I stopped myself from noting out loud that he didn't actually need any of this. "Thanks," I said. "Maybe after." Unlike at any time in our long history, I wanted to set him at ease.
He seemed to want to do the same.
This friendship stuff was strange.
"I'll get out of your hair, then," he said. With that, he scooped up his coat and moved to the door. He opened the door and turned back. "I'm not going far. Call me if you need anything." Then he left.
I waited for his footsteps to fade. "Alone at last," I said to the empty room, trying to crack a joke, only to have the room suck it up like a vampire of humor instead of blood.
Time to get cooking. And if there was one thing I'd learned in cooking school, it was to make sure everything was in its place before I started: mise en place, as the French said.
I threw my own coat where Daniel's had been. Out of my bag, a pillowcase filled with the crumbled shards of the Mirror. The witches' copy of Preparing for a Seance.
I pulled a sword cane out of the stand, withdrew the blade a few inches, and snapped it back into place.
Then I went to Prospero's room.
Daniel was so neat I could have easily thought he didn't even live there. Best to go with that. Prospero's house. Prospero's room, as if those simple thoughts would summon him.
I surveyed the layout again, with a different eye than when Berron, Daniel, and I had ransacked it. I needed a place to lay the book. A place to put the broken glass. A place for the sword cane.
I propped the book on the mantel, open to a list of instructions. The sword cane and the pillowcase of Mirror fragments went on the mantel, too.
Seasoned wood and old copies of the Times lay ready next to the fireplace. I set logs and paper in place for a fire.
Returning to the open book, I read aloud: "Subdued light." I left Prospero's room and dimmed every light in the apartment for good measure. "Never let the room be overheated." I cracked a window and a cold draft sliced into the room. Opening a second window in the parlor created a freezing cross-breeze. "Prayer or music." I'd thought of playing music on my phone, but the idea seemed ridiculous standing in Prospero's room.
Instead, I went to the Victrola and looked inside the cabinet. A record already lay on the turntable: "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (Longing to Be Near Your Side)."
I turned the crank and the music crackled out of the horn.
Promise then you will not sever
From the ties that bind us two.
Say you will be mine forever,
Tell me that you still are true…
I was ready. Almost.
"Let's light it up," I said. I kneeled by the fireplace and extended my hand, palm-out. Silver magic sparked like tiny fireworks, hitting the paper and wood. Orange flames lit and smoke curled upward as the fire spread.
In my mind, Patty Melt the fire mouse stirred to life, ears and whiskers twitching.
"Hello, girl," I said, adding a few logs to the fire. "Stand by."
She hunkered down and half closed her eyes.
I straightened up and fished in my pocket, then pulled out Prospero's bow tie, the one I'd shown to Lily.
I brought it to my nose, realizing I was holding my breath against the weirdness of what I was about to do. You don't go around sniffing people's clothing without a damn good reason.
I forced myself to inhale.
Prospero's bow tie didn't smell all that different from the rest of the apartment—a little antique, a little musty, some kind of faint old-world cologne—but it was the closeness of it I was going for. The intimacy. As if I could find Prospero's ghost in the ghost of the scent he'd left behind. This was how Jester went through the world: by smell. All that information, coming through in signals that dodged the conscious brain and burrowed right down to something more instinctual.
I lowered the bow tie to my lips. "Prospero," I whispered, my breath clinging to the silk and warming it.
Meanwhile the fire warmed my feet, and the Victrola droned on.
I regret the harsh words spoken,
That I know have caused you pain,
And my heart is nearly broken,
Say you love me once again…
"Come on, Prospero," I said, placing my free hand on the sword cane and concentrating harder, remembering every interaction we'd had: the charity market, the museum, the apartment, the abandoned church, the ice field.
The wind whistled and the fire danced, but no Prospero.
What would get his attention?
I set the bow tie on the mantel and picked up the bag of glass. I felt its weight—physically, but also in magic and memories—and then I carefully placed it on the fire.
The fabric burned slower than I expected, blackening and curling before disappearing into flakes of ash.
I held my hand palm-up and summoned Patty. She appeared in my hand in a burst of light and jumped into the fireplace. She seized a corner of the pillowcase and bit down, all the while glowing brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. My borrowed fire magic shielded me from the worst of the heat but I still felt it, like the Florida sun in early September when it feels like there will never be any relief.
I turned both hands toward the fire and stoked it with magic. It couldn't burn bigger—I'd burn the building down—but within the strong old bricks lining the fireplace, I could burn it like a lighthouse beacon, strong and concentrated.
I had only as long as the fuel lasted, though. Magic could start the fire, even generate it all on its own for a while, but to go on any longer you had to have something to burn.
"Come on," I said. "Show yourself. I'm right here. Come get me."
Having incinerated the pillowcase, Patty Melt dashed in circles. The smoke and flames began to turn, then spin. The firelight dazzled my eyes till all I could see in my mind's eye was Prospero himself, dapper and sinister.
The flames were so powerful they hummed like the beehives on the roof of the Whitney museum. The fire mouse wasn't even visible, just a circular blur of furious light.
I closed my eyes. Afterimages blazed, red and orange light across the darkness.
Unbidden, unasked for, diamond-colored magic poured over me. Fire, ice, magic, and music swept away control like a fast-moving river. I was shaking uncontrollably, my hand gripping the mantel as the magic did what it wanted, transforming me against my own will.
The fire crackled like bitter laughter.
When I finally looked in the mirror above the fireplace, Prospero looked back.
Not Prospero's ghost, but his illusion—me, as Prospero.
I held my own red-eyed gaze. Yes, I was afraid. Yes, I wanted him gone. But as much as I wanted all of that, I needed him to hear what I had to say. And if I had only myself to say it to, that was better than nothing.
"I'm sorry," I said, quietly. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Not even you. Even if you deserved it—I wish there'd been another way."
Over my shoulder, in the mirror's reflection, a blue haze wavered.
He was behind me, a ghost of moonlit electricity.
Zelda…
My disguise faded, simply, silently, leaving the two of us reflected together in the mirror, closer and more intimate than we had ever been. "Prospero," I said, my voice barely audible.
I hardly dared move. Or breathe. Whatever I'd planned on saying before, my great plans for banishing him, turned to ashes like the pillowcase.
The fire, which had roared and buzzed only a second before, dwindled down to a lazy pop or two just to remind me it was still there.
Prospero's outline wavered. He raised his hands, and I had to stop myself from seizing the sword cane, turning, and ripping his ghost into pieces.
"Don't move," I said, trying to sound brave. The waver in my voice ruined it.
His ghostly hands rested on my shoulders. The heat fled my skin where he touched, so cold it burned. Zelda. His voice was firmer, as if touching me had summoned some kind of strength. She is coming. His eyes, so red and vivid in life, burned cold blue fire in death.
"Who is coming?" I said, already knowing, in the pit of my stomach, the answer.
You must stop her, he said, as if he couldn't even name her.
His form wavered, lost focus. He was falling apart.
"How?" I cried. "Tell me how!"
But it was as if his strength only stretched to a few words. Protect them, he said.
Then—far off—
Bells.
Prospero's head tilted back as if he was in great pain. Each pinpoint of light that outlined him pulled apart as if by a great riptide, his essence torn in silent slow motion, light devoured by darkness.
Gone.
I whirled around as if he would still be there behind me, but there was only the empty bed with its curtains blowing in the draft from the window.
He hadn't been trying to harm me.
He'd been trying to warn me.