The stars appeared above her, blinking into existence one at a time until the universe was once again filled with their twinkling light. Callie felt the cold wetness of snow engulfing her, her breath racing in and out of her lungs in feverish bursts as she tried to collect herself.
“Are you okay there? You hit the ground really, really hard.”
Dragging her eyes away from the night sky, Callie saw a pale-faced young woman in a bubblegum pink wool hat and scarf standing above her, cascading blond curls of hair poufing out around her face like lemon cotton candy. Her cornflower blue eyes were filled with concern, her powdery-rose lips turning down at the corners while she considered the image of Callie lying like a bag of discarded refuse in the chilly slush of a snowbank.
“I think I’m okay,” Callie said, sitting up slowly so all the blood in her head didn’t rush out in a flood, leaving her woozy. “Where am I?”
“What did she say?” another voice chimed in and Callie turned around to see its owner, a tall brunette with a turned-up nose that bore a thick spackling of freckles across its bridge. She was standing on the far side of the snowbank wearing a dark blue hoodie pulled taut over her head and tied tightly at the base of her throat in a futile attempt to keep out the cold.
The blond girl shook her head, looking up at the brunette quizzically.
“She wanted to know where she was,” she replied, wrinkling her pretty nose.
“How hard did she hit her head?” the brunette asked.
“I’m fine. My head is fine. I’m just freezing my ass off,” Callie interjected, wishing she’d had the forethought to put on a snowsuit instead of the light blue wrap dress she’d shimmied into that morning. “And when the hell did it start snowing?”
“Um, are you kidding?” the blonde said. “It’s been snow central for like three months.”
Callie tried to stand up, holding on to the blonde for support as she struggled not to slip in the slush, her very inappropriate footwear—a pair of Jimmy Choo peep-toe pumps—making it hard for her to keep her balance.
“That’s not true,” Callie said, letting the blonde’s arm go as she managed to finally right herself. “There was no snow on the ground when I got here earlier tonight.”
September had been unseasonably warm for the East Coast, with highs in the sixties and seventies, so this bit about snow being on the ground for the past three months was pure bunk. Besides, there’d been no hint of snow in the air when she’d arrived at class, let alone was it possible for that much snow to have fallen in the hour since she’d—
Callie paused mid-thought as she realized that no matter where she set her eyeballs, there were no modular classrooms anywhere in her vicinity. In fact, no classrooms or administration buildings or gyms or anything else that might evoke the grounds of an elementary school.
“Okay, where the hell am I?”
The blonde blinked.
“You’re in Queens, New York.”
The brunette nodded her agreement.
“But that’s not possible. Where is PS 181?”
“What’s a PS 181?” the blonde asked curiously.
Exasperated, Callie sighed.
“It’s an elementary school where I was taking—”
She paused, realizing she’d almost divulged more information than she’d intended to.
“—um, an adult education class.”
The two young women gave her a funny look. Then the brunette, who was proving to be far more officious than the blonde, said, “Agatha, I’m gonna go over by that tree and I want you to tell me what you sense.”
“All right, Happy, I’ll give it the old college try, but you’re gonna have to stand pretty far away,” Agatha replied, pointing to a copse of trees that was about a hundred feet from where they were standing. “Probably over there to start with.”
Happy—Callie had a hard time associating the name with the serious-looking brunette—nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as she left the confines of the sidewalk and began the slow trudge through the snow toward the trees. The blonde, Agatha, gave Callie a honey-sweet smile and reached out, taking one of Callie’s frozen hands in between her own warmer ones.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Agatha seemed to be concentrating on the physical connection between them, but it didn’t appear she was having much luck.
“Still too close,” she murmured under her breath just as Happy arrived at the predetermined spot.
“Keep going?” Happy called out from beneath the wide shadow of the tree line.
“Yep, keep going!” Agatha replied, eyes still closed, pink mouth in a firm line.
Callie watched as Happy shook her head, then turned around and started crunching through the snow again, passing the snow-topped pines and heading farther out into the woods.
Woods? What woods were there in Jamaica, New York? The place was a veritable concrete jungle—Starbucks and bodegas on every corner, houses and apartments taking up whole city blocks. Yet, as far as the eye could see, she found nothing but trees and a thin line of a freshly cleared road beside the snow-covered sidewalk they were standing on.
“What are you doing?” Callie asked after a few more seconds of protracted silence, but Agatha only shook her head.
“Just give me one more minute.”
Callie stood there, shivering in the pitch-black night, her teeth chattering in double time as she tried not to lose her patience. She wanted to know where in the heck the wormhole had taken her, but she was starting to get the horrible feeling it wasn’t so much a “where?” as it was a “what?” kind of a question.
“Um, so I’m starting to get the feeling that—”
“Shh!” Agatha shushed her, then she squeezed Callie’s fingers so tightly it felt like the meaty bits of muscle might burst through their fleshy casings like overcooked sausages.
“Anything?” Happy cried from another spot a few yards away from the original stand of pine trees.
Agatha didn’t answer, but her eyelids fluttered.
“No way!” she breathed, eyes flying open to look at Callie—to really look at her, almost as if she were some alien specimen trapped inside a bottle of formaldehyde.
“What did you say?” Happy yelled, but Agatha’s rigid stance had piqued her interest, and she was already making her way back toward them through the snow, the crunching of her boots a riot of sound in the muted hush of the wind and the flickering buzz of the streetlights.
“Who are you?” Agatha breathed, the look of wonderment on her face disconcerting.
“I’m Calliope Reaper-Jones,” Callie said to peals of Agatha’s laughter.
“No, silly,” the other girl said, playfully punching Callie in the arm. “Who are you really?”
Well, that’s a loaded question, Callie thought.
“I mean, your aura is on fire,” Agatha continued. “You have the craziest vibrations I’ve ever seen.”
No shit, Callie thought, wondering just how much Agatha was able to sense about her—and if she’d been able to pick up Callie’s connection to Death, Inc.
“And what are you really?” Callie asked, turning the mock interrogation on its head. “One of those crazy psychic ladies who goes around giving people annoying psychic readings that they don’t want?”
“Agatha’s no Cassandra.” Happy snorted, having reached them just in time to overhear Callie’s last comment. “She’s an aura reader . . . and a pretty damn effective one, too.”
“This gal’s full of psychic ability,” Agatha said, turning to Happy. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone whose aura was so fully charged—”
“Look, I’m not psychic, but, you know what, I am freezing,” Callie interrupted, the real fear of becoming hypothermic making her cranky. “Is there somewhere warm we can go?”
“Well, we were on our way to a very exclusive acting master class,” Agatha began, but Happy cleared her throat loudly.
“No, you were going to a master class. I was only going to watch you take it.”
Agatha pouted, her large heart-shaped lips turning down at the corners again.
“But you said you’d participate!”
“I did not,” Happy sputtered, looking put upon. “There is no way in hell I’m taking that class. No way, no how.”
“As cute as the witty banter is, ladies,” Callie said, the cold making it hard to feel her face. “I need to get somewhere warm before I turn into a Popsicle.”
The two girls gave each other an inscrutable look, then Happy nodded. “Okay, we’ll take you with us, but on one condition.”
Callie nodded.
“Okay, whatever you want. Just get me to a fire.”
“You have to tell us what you are!” Agatha chirped, unable to wait for Happy to get the words out. “You’re like Pat Boone or something, dropping out of the sky like he did in that movie The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
Pat Boone? Callie thought, shuddering on the inside. I think someone is in dire need of a pop culture tutorial.
“No, if I were David Bowie, I wouldn’t be in this situation.” Callie sighed, daring either one of them to contradict her. “But I think I’ll save any and all explanations until we’re out of the snow.”
“Then follow us,” Happy said, crawling over the snowbank so she could join them on the sidewalk. “It’s just down the street.”
—
Down the street was a relative term, especially when you were hobbling around in a pair of peep-toe pumps in the snow.
After ten minutes of walking, and freezing, they left the darkened woodland landscape behind them and stepped out into a better-lit suburban street. Only there were no tract homes here, no cookie-cutter little boxes or white-picket fences neatly arranged in a row along the curve of the street. Instead, there was a sprinkling of older Victorian homes, all decorative curlicues and clapboard siding in a myriad of pastel colors.
Interstitial bits of broken Gothic wrought-iron gating separated the lots, which were large and overgrown, and deciduous trees, denuded of their autumnal skins, giddily waved their skeletal branches back and forth in a hobgoblinlike greeting.
“Is that a cemetery?” Callie asked, her eyes resting on a lot at the top of the street where a hulking Victorian mansion sat vigilant over the rest of the neighborhood, its side yard crowded with a bevy of headstones, in various states of neglect.
“Looks like it,” Happy said, her words ripe with distaste.
“Is that where we’re going?” Agatha asked, looking to Happy for the answer as they continued their procession through the snow.
The wind and precipitation had picked up as soon as they’d started walking, dusting the sidewalk with a thin layer of wet powder that made the trek almost unbearable for Callie. Finally, Happy and Agatha had taken pity on her, each girl taking an arm and helping her navigate the quickly accumulating sludge.
“I think this is it,” Happy replied, pausing long enough to pull a piece of lined notebook paper from the back pocket of her jeans. “We’re going to 4316 East Elm Street, so, yeah, it looks like the right number.”
“You’re kidding me. You’re taking an acting class there?” Callie said in between shivers as she pointed up at the Victorian monstrosity that loomed above them.
“Oh, I know it looks scary, but it won’t be once we get inside. I promise,” Agatha said, eyes sparkling with excitement. “Count Orlov only offers this master class once every three years and he chooses a new, haunted setting each time. Believe me, it’s so exclusive, it’s . . .”
Apparently, Agatha couldn’t think of a word that was more exclusive than exclusive and let the sentence trail off. Callie looked over at Happy, who shrugged.
“So maybe this is a dumb question, but why didn’t you guys just drive here?”
“Orlov’s rule,” Agatha said, rolling her eyes. “Everyone has to park back at the Waldbaum’s grocery store parking lot, so they can then come humbly on foot to seek the count’s instruction.”
“That’s why you were walking?”
“Isn’t it a lovely gesture? All that humbleness in one place.” Happy grimaced.
“Happy, don’t be mean,” Agatha said, her blue eyes flashing. “Count Orlov is a very humble person! Besides, I don’t pay you to make jokes at my expense.”
“I’m Agatha’s personal assistant,” Happy said, answering Callie’s unspoken question.
“My untouchable personal assistant—”
“Untouchable?” Callie asked.
“Don’t be stupid,” Agatha said, looking bored. “Everyone knows an untouchable is someone who absorbs psychic power. They’re like a negative psychic. Everyone who’s anyone has one.”
Callie didn’t like being called stupid. It was a word she found highly distasteful—and it made her want to dig in her heels right there on the sidewalk and not move another inch.
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Callie said, feeling frustrated by the conversation. “And it’s not stupidity. It’s a lack of local knowledge. Your world is way kookier than mine.”
“Which leads us back to our bargain—” Agatha chirped, but Callie shook her head.
“No divulging of information until I’m between four walls and a roof,” Callie said, slipping in the snow. “Which actually brings me to another question: What’s this Orlov dude gonna say when an uninvited guest shows up with you guys?”
It appeared Agatha hadn’t thought of this eventuality, but luckily, Happy was on top of things. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and pressed On, the screen lighting up even before her finger had released the button.
“I was thinking I could call you a taxi once we got there—”
“No! You’ll get us kicked out of the master class!” Agatha shrieked, reaching for the cell phone, but only managing to knock the electronic device out of Happy’s hand, where it bounced once on the sidewalk and fell into the street.
“Agatha was asked not to bring any electronic recording devices with her,” Happy offered in explanation, stepping off the curb and out onto the snow-covered asphalt, the knees of her jeans getting wet as she bent down to collect the tiny black cell phone from the snowy gutter.
She pressed the On button again, but this time the screen—which had a new jagged crack across it—stayed black.
“You broke it,” Happy said, giving Agatha a nasty look, but the blond girl was made of Teflon, and Happy’s distress slid right off her.
“Good, now we won’t get in any trouble.”