Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

The queens were gone, and I felt their absence acutely. I’d kind of hoped they’d procure a home in my sleepy Georgia town and stay forever. That wasn’t going to happen. Crossing my fingers, I hoped I would see them again. Glancing out of the window, my stark reality came roaring back.

The sky had grown scarier, and the time to move was now.

I just didn’t know how.

Tim pulled out his notebook and started talking. “Now that we’ve solved what the significance of three means, I believe we should tackle the rest.”

“I agree,” Carlie said as he stood by the window and watched the sky. “The sooner the better.”

When we’d come back in, Charlie had fixed the front door with a little magic. That was welcome. The temperature had dropped dramatically. Alana Catherine slept in Jennifer’s arms on the sofa. My human friend dozed right along with her. The communication with Pandora had clearly exhausted my baby. The thought of taking her with me to the Higher Power’s plane was not good. My mind raced to figure out a way around it.

I couldn’t come up with one.

Candy Vargo paced the room in agitation. Gram, Mr. Jackson, Lura Belle, Dimple and Jolly Sue floated en masse right behind her. Gideon stood as still as a statue next to the fireplace. His expression was unreadable, but his clenched fists at his sides gave his tension away.

“Tim, please read the message,” I said, hoping I sounded normal but knowing I probably didn’t.

“The game is a riddle. Three must play to win and break the evil spells,” Tim read aloud. “The show will go on and the wheels will turn. The answers are questions. The price must be right or the innocent will pay. In the end the choice will be on the strongest. The strongest shall emerge the victor. Anything is possible. You just have to believe. Time is running out.”

Closing my eyes, I nodded and let my mind wander. Hell, the first couple of lines sounded like game shows— Wheel of Fortune , Jeopardy and The Price is Right. That was absurd. There had to be deeper meanings. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of one. However, it was interesting that the word riddle kept coming up. Steve had said it and then Alana Catherine had communicated it to Pandora.

“Only parts of it makes sense to me,” I said, twisting my hair in my fingers. “The time is running out part is pretty freaking clear.”

Candy Vargo, chewing on a toothpick, sat down on the floor crisscross applesauce. It was bizarre. She looked up and me and patted the floor next to her. “Wanna join me, asshole?”

“Not really, but I will.” I sat down next to the insane woman and waited to see why we were sitting like this. “Speak.”

She offered me a toothpick. I took it.

“You speak,” she countered. “Get all that shit out of your head. Can’t muddy the waters when you don’t know what’s lurking beneath.”

I took a deep breath and let it rip. “I don’t know where I’m going or what to expect. I’m fully aware that I’m supposed to take Gram and Alana Catherine with me. I don’t want to. I’d rather go alone. Risking them makes me sick. I’ll be worried about protecting them and might screw up the mission. Not to mention, I don’t know how to bring them with me. Honestly, what I’d like to do is rip the Higher Power a new asshole, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s probably a bad plan. I’m seriously concerned about Steve, Sam, Sister Catherine, Agnes, Birdie and John. I have no clue what a tear in the Light means, and I have even less of a clue how to fix it. Right now, I’d like to puke.”

Candy Vargo flipped me the bird and grinned. “Slow down, mother fucker. First, you’re goin’ to the Higher Power’s plane. You’re gonna slow your fuckin’ brain down shortly so you can go to sleep and get there.”

“What if I go to the wrong place?”

Charlie spoke. “You’ll focus on where you wish to be, not where you want to go. Don’t think in a linear fashion. Human reasoning rarely works with magic.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll wish to be where the Higher Power is. Not about a place per se.”

“Excellent,” he said. “You’re getting the hang of this Immortal stuff.”

“From your mouth,” I muttered with a weak smile.

“Next on the list,” Candy said. “You ain’t got no choice about who goes. Alana Catherine spoke and we’re gonna listen. So, wipe that shit about goin’ alone right out of your pea brain. As for how to do it, we’ll get to that in a bit. Also, I’d suggest not attacking the Higher Power. It won’t fuckin’ end well. You feel me?”

“I’d rather not,” I replied.

The Keeper of Fate threw her head back and laughed. “You best watch that smart mouth, shitball.”

“You’re one to talk, turdknocker,” I shot right back.

“I ain’t the one goin’ to the Higher Power,” she reminded me.

“Point. Taken,” I replied.

“As for the dead that ain’t supposed to be here, they’ll go back once you’ve mended the tear.” She paused and scratched her head with the toothpick that had been in her mouth. “I don’t know what the tear means, and I don’t know how to fix it. But remember, nothing is impossible.”

“I just have to believe,” I said, finishing the phrase that had become our motto.

“That’s right, motherfucker,” she said, patting me on the head. “You’re a badass. Be the badass.”

She was correct. I was the badass. People I loved were in danger. I was about to believe more than I’d ever believed. “How will I take Gram and Alana Catherine with me?” I hated the words that left my lips, but time was moving forward and I wasn’t. If it was destined to be the past the present and the future, then it would be. I would not screw around with fate. Period.

“Gram can slip inside you as a ghost. Just make sure that you don’t mind dive with her. That’ll fuck everything up,” Candy said.

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth to keep from telling Candy to fuck off. That would serve no purpose other than getting myself electrocuted by Candy and yelled at by Gram for dropping an F-bomb. I didn’t have time for that. “I’d have to hug her with the intention to dive into her mind to make that happen,” I told her. “How can Gram slip inside me? Will she get stuck like Pandora did with Cecily?”

As much as I loved Gram, it wasn’t an appealing thought to think she might live inside my body for the rest of time.

“I think it’ll be just fine, baby girl,” Gram said. “Might be a little cold, though.”

Cold was an understatement. When a ghost went through a living being it was like being stabbed with icy daggers. The saying ‘no pain, no gain’ came to mind.

“Gram, I don’t mind being cold as long as you’re safe,” I told her.

“Daisy, you in menopause yet?” Jenifer asked, waking up from her snooze and hearing the tail end of my response to Gram. Jennifer couldn’t see or hear the ghosts, but she usually got the gist of the conversation by what everyone else said.

I wanted to remind my buddy that I was only forty and had just given birth, but being rude to Jennifer was not necessary. “I’m not.”

“Well balls,” Jennifer said. “I was thinking if you got hot flashes, it might counteract the cold. My psychic, Becky, had ‘em bad. Poor gal could look right as rain one minute then the next she looked like she’d just taken a shower while fully dressed. Y’all remember Lettie May from the butcher shop?”

Candy Vargo squinted at her. “The nut job who tried to off her husband with a salami?”

“That’s the one,” Jennifer confirmed. “Lettie May’s hot flashes were so terrible that she went into the meat locker to cool down and got locked in their for three days.”

“Wait. What?” I asked. “That can’t be true. How would no one know she was missing?”

“Her son of a bitch husband locked her in there thinkin’ she’d freeze to death,” she explained, much to our horror. “The joke was on him. She loved it! She wasn’t sweating, and there was plenty to eat. Although, she did try to off him with a spicy, three-foot-long frozen deli stick when she got out. Concussed the daylights out of that old fool. Lettie May got the butcher shop in the divorce. Renamed it Salami Slammer in honor of her ex doing six years for tryin’ to kill her and the beautiful fact she beaned that bastard with a log of meat. She makes a mean summer sausage.”

“True that,” Candy Vargo agreed.

“Menopause is such an interesting phenomenon,” Tim announced, flipping pages of his notebook. “I’ve studied it so I can be helpful to my friends. Did you know that women not only suffer from hot flashes, mood swing and insomnia, but can gain weight too? Also, menopause can affect your sex life making the vaginal cavity dry and uncomfortable for copulation.”

All of the women in the room gave Tim the evil eye—even the dead women. Tim turned bright red and slammed his notebook shut.

“Too much?” he whispered, mortified.

“Way,” I said. “Do not ever utter those words in that order in front of a woman again. Ever.”

“Good to know, friend,” he said.

I shook off Tim’s unfortunate overshare and got back on track. “No one ever answered if Gram would get stuck in me.”

“Because we don’t know,” Charlie admitted. “While I don’t think so, I can’t be definitive in my answer.”

That wasn’t great at all.

“Should we try it now, Daisy girl?” Gram asked, zipping over to me and hovering in the air by my side.

“Hold that thought,” I told her with a smile. I glanced over at Candy. “How will I make sure Alana Catherine is with me?”

“Reaper, you wanna handle this?” Candy Vargo asked.

Gideon closed his eyes for a hot sec then walked over to me and sat down on the ground. “I can bind her to you with a spell.”

“Literally?” I asked, confused.

“No, not as in she’s glued to you. It just means for the next twenty-four hours she will be where you are.”

I took it in and thought about it. “Will it hurt her?”

He shook his head. I could tell he wanted to say more. I had a gut feeling I knew what it was…

“But it will hurt me,” I stated.

He nodded. His expression was grim and I could tell he wanted to put some more holes in the plaster. He wasn’t happy. “It is painful,” he said tightly. “You have the ability to take both your pain and hers.”

It was the first time I smiled with relief all day. “That works for me.”

“It doesn’t sit well with me. Seeing you suffer isn’t my idea of a good time,” Gideon said flatly. “But it can be done.”

“Think about it this way. My pain is our baby’s gain.”

Gideon cupped my cheek in his hand. “I love you, Counselor.”

“I love you more, Reaper,” I replied, placing my hand over his.

“Not possible.” He raised a brow and kissed my nose.

I wasn’t going to fight him. I’d call it a draw. “What about Gram? Can you bind her to me as well?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s dead. It only works with those who breathe.”

The pain I was about to go through would suck. Hard. But if the icy daggers and whatever agony Gideon’s spell would cause would be worth it. No pain, no gain.

I had a lot to gain if this worked and too much to lose if it didn’t.

Stealing Cecily’s catchphrase, again, I leaned over and kissed the man who made me feel whole. “Let’s get this party started.”