The mood was somber onboard, and no one greeted me as I searched for Mr. Voorhees.
Sneaking in to meet Timmy might be easier than I thought.
“Ah, Grier,” Captain Murray boomed to my right. “I worried we scared you away.”
“Not at all.” I picked my way to him across a pile of dry rotted boards. “How is Marit?”
“She’ll make a full recovery.” He placed his hand on his heart like any other outcome pained him. “She’s such a bright girl. Sean and I have been friends for years, and she dated my son for a while. Marit is very important to me. She’s the closest thing I have to a daughter.” His eyes shimmered. “Thank you for saving her.”
“I’m glad I was there.” Though I had probably been the cause of the attack in the first place. Necromantic energy had a way of riling up spirits.
“Tonight you’ll be working with Arnold’s crew on the downstairs parlor.” He indicated a barrel-chested man covered in tattoos. “Come find me if you need anything. Sean won’t be back the rest of the week, so until then you will report to me.”
“I’ll do that.” Tightening my grip on my bag, I crossed to Arnold. “Reporting for duty.”
“Start peeling paper,” he grunted, indicating an interior room. “Bag it as you go. Keep it tidy, yeah?”
Segregated from the rest of the crew, I plucked and tugged and pulled until I finished an entire wall and my fingers pruned from the solvent. The isolation didn’t bother me, I was used to that, but conversation would have made the task go faster. Maybe the others thought I was bad luck or cursed. The stigma didn’t bother me, either. I was other, and I couldn’t blame them for their suspicion.
I was admiring my handiwork when Arnold ducked his head in and grunted in my direction. “You’re on break.”
“Already?” I checked the time on my phone. “I’ve only been here an hour.”
“Twenty-five minutes.” He tapped his watch. “Starting now.”
After wiping my hands dry on my pants, I set a timer for twenty minutes on my cell then returned it to my pocket. I rooted through my bag for a brush and a bottle of Maud’s ink. Linus’s pen was handier, but it was a tool meant for flat surfaces. This job called for ink that would flow over rusted metal and warped boards without breaking any lines, assuming I got to that part.
The first step in my plan was to test the obfuscation sigil, so I pulled up my shirt and painted an intersecting row of them across my abdomen where I could hide them easily. The crew would freak if it didn’t work and I showed up bloodied again. Humans could only withstand so much trauma without breaking.
With that done, I took a slow lap around the deck. No one looked up or otherwise acknowledged me.
That wasn’t totally unexpected, since I suspected they believed I cavorted with knife-wielding ghosts, so I made a point to kick boards and boxes of nails as I went to see if the clatter got their attention. It did, and I almost popped my arm out of its socket patting myself on the back.
Certain of my relative invisibility, I crept up to the second deck. Not a single body wandered this level. A bonus for me, since that meant I could talk to Timmy without being overheard. I lifted my shirt and painted on protective sigils in a tidy line beneath the others, and then I attempted to commune with the dead.
“My name is Grier Woolworth, and I’m a necromancer.”
I gave him time to absorb that, to wonder at what it meant.
“What do you want?” I walked the length of the room. “Why are you angry?”
The lights remained sure, the temperature steady, and no projectiles launched themselves at me.
“Who are you?” I made another circuit, this one slower. “How can I help?”
Still nothing indicative of a haunting.
I painted a sigil across my palm to heighten my perception and swept my hand in slow arcs like a treasure hunter swings a metal detector in search of coins. A prickle across my knuckles had me turning, and a small boy appeared before me. Other than his faint blue sheen, he appeared solid enough. “Oh. Hello.”
His lips moved on silent words.
“I can’t hear you.”
His eyes, black and empty, blinked imploringly at me.
Out of ideas, I used the amplification sigil once more on my arm, hoping a signal boost might help.
“The night eternal comes,” he said, his voice static like an untuned station on a radio.
On reflex, I glanced out the window at the moon. “What does that mean?”
“He comes.” Fat tears as black as tar rolled down his pale cheeks. “The devourer.”
“That sounds…bad.” I held still so as not to provoke him. “How can I help?”
“You can’t,” he sobbed. “No one can.”
“Will you harm me if I try anyway?” His narrow brow crinkled, and I hesitated. “You hurt my friend Marit, remember?”
“You’re…different,” he whispered. “I thought you were like him.”
“Him?” I kept my voice low. “The devourer?”
Wrong thing to say.
“He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming.”
Timmy vanished in a gust of cool air that carried with it a lost boy’s wails.
No matter how many times I reworked my amplification sigils, there was no calling him back.
The timer on my phone buzzed in warning, and I hit the stairs. I ducked into the bathroom, washed off the blood, and rinsed out my brush then returned to the parlor and secreted away my supplies.
Four hours after I arrived, Arnold cut me loose for the night. No one mentioned I was a part-time hire, but the incident with Marit seemed to have landed me on probation. With hours to kill until Amelie got off work, I decided to drive out to Tybee and pay the visit I owed Odette.
The petite black woman who completed the troika that had been Maud, Mom, and Odette, stood in the driveway leading up to a bungalow that reminded me of peppermint still in the wrapper. A pastel dress that might have been teal in another life flapped around her ankles, torn by the same breeze clacking the coral beads threading the long braids of her white hair. Her bare feet burrowed in the sand, and her arms opened to me before Jolene came to a full stop.
“Ma coccinelle.” She adjusted her thick glasses on her pert nose. “I had a feeling in these old bones I would see you tonight.”
“I got off work early.” I crossed to her and let her gather me close. “I have a date with Amelie later. Do you mind if I hang out until then?”
“Pah.” She kissed both my cheeks. “You need no excuse.”
Grinning, I followed her inside, kicked off my shoes, and took a seat on her bone-white couch. “I’ve had an interesting couple of days.”
“Do tell.” She made herself tea, the hot kind, but I declined. I preferred mine with ice cubes and enough sugar to congeal it. “What adventures have you had since last we spoke?”
With my legs curled under me, I unburdened myself in fits and starts. I told her everything from Linus and the grimoire to Taz and my self-defense lessons to Detective Russo and her suspicions to Timmy and his fears. Woolly would be so proud. I could feel the warmth of her approval already. She was right, as usual, that sharing my secrets with someone made carrying them lighter.
“This ghost child.” She stirred her drink with a carved-bone spoon. “He won’t trouble you much longer.”
A pang of guilt arrowed through me. He had been so afraid. “Why do you say that?”
“He spoke to you.” She sipped and sighed with pleasure. “Self-awareness in a poltergeist is rare. Usually, they’re a brute force. They spew whatever hatred has kept their souls tethered and act out whatever revenge they see fit, but they have no higher reasoning. They are loops, as all ghosts are, but they are more powerful and can exist within several loop variations. Each sequence of events, such as throwing silverware, will fade as he dissipates, until all that’s left is a wisp of a boy seen from the corner of an eye.”