I was about to put the phone back down when I noticed that there had been a call during the night with no message left. I recognized the number. It was Bran’s.
I was up and out of bed in an instant. I stood bouncing nervously on my toes as I phoned him back and was fed directly into his voice mail. “Bran, it’s Kate. I saw that you called last night. Call me back.”
I tightened the Ace bandage the doctor had given me and, after checking the kitchen and finding a note from Mamie, went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Leaning forward into the mirror, I gently touched the swollen flesh beneath my eyes. Pulling out a concealer stick, I went to work to make myself look normal. A couple of minutes later, I was tiptoeing into Georgia’s bedroom where I stood watching her sprawled, snoring form before poking her gently.
“Georgia. Get up.”
“Wha . . . Goway,” she mumbled, opening one eye before pulling the pillow securely over her head.
“Georgia, it’s almost noon. Papy’s at his gallery and Mamie went out. I need you to come somewhere with me. But we have to leave before she gets back, or she’ll want to know where we’re going.”
She just lay there, hiding as I poked again. Finally she sat up and tossed the pillow to the floor. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m grievously injured?” Eyes still closed, she lifted her chin to show her face. Her multicolored bruises had now consolidated into half-moons of deep purple and black under her eyes and one cheek was swollen like an apple. My sister looked like a boxer post-knockout. Or a hit-and-run raccoon.
My heart tugged seeing her so banged up, but I knew her injuries were just surface deep. And there were more important issues at stake. “Georgia, I need you to go with me to find Bran. He might have an answer to what’s going on with Vincent.”
She fluttered her eyelids for a few seconds, not in a girlie way, but because they were totally stuck together with eye goop. “I think I’m blind,” she moaned. I handed her a facial wipe from her dresser and she swabbed her eyes before squinting at me. As soon as she saw my serious expression, she was alert. “Sorry, Kate. Forget about me. What’s the plan?”
“Do you remember me talking about those special guérisseurs? The healers that deal with revenants? I need you to go up to Saint-Ouen to find one of them with me.”
She squeezed the bridge of her nose to wake herself up. “Okay. But it’s Friday. A school day.”
“Mamie called school to tell them we weren’t coming, remember?”
“That’s right,” Georgia said, still nose-pinching with eyes closed. “So you and I are sneaking out . . .”
“Mamie’s gone. We’ll just leave her a message that we’re popping out for a few minutes.”
She let go of her nose and stared at me. “We’re going to leave her a message that her two granddaughters who got mixed up in a battle between supernatural creatures yesterday, one of whom has multiple injuries, and the other whose boyfriend was killed, are just popping out unsupervised to . . .”
“Hunt down a member of an ancient family of healers in order to get information to protect my dead boyfriend’s ghost.”
The corners of my sister’s lips curled up. “Right. I’m in.” She hopped out of bed and began pulling clothes on. “What do we do if we run into her on the way out?” she called from underneath the shirt she was tugging over her head. I winced as I saw the bruises on her ribs where Violette had kicked her. It wasn’t as bad as the contusions and swelling on her face, but she ignored her injuries as she grinned at me.
“We’ll tell her we’ve gone out for bread,” I replied.
“The one excuse a French person would never question. Baguettes or die!” Georgia cheered, and we raced out before my grandmother could return.
We were all the way across town before I realized I had left my cell phone at home. “I’ve got mine,” Georgia said, patting her coat pocket.
“Yeah, but Ambrose was supposed to let me know if anything happened.” My chest constricted with anxiety. Today was not the day to be out of contact.
“Call him,” Georgia offered, holding her phone out to me.
“No, that’s okay. We’re here,” I said, pointing ahead to Le Corbeau’s darkened storefront.
Georgia peered dubiously at the old wooden sign with the store’s namesake raven creakily flapping back and forth in the staccato gusts of winter wind. “Are you sure this place was actually ever open? It looks medieval,” she said, pulling her coat tighter to her.
I rapped on the door window, but it was obvious that no one was in.
“Is that a giant tooth?” Georgia asked, leaning toward the window display.