By dinner the sound was driving Finley absolutely crazy. -Squeeaaak—clink. Squeeak—clink. She’d successfully pushed it away all day, taken her exam, attended a class, and spent the rest of the afternoon studying in the library. She felt good about herself. Studious. Doing the right things. Jason, the guy she’d met before class, had left before she’d finished her test. Finley had halfway expected him to be waiting for her, and was relieved (and a little disappointed) to find he wasn’t. He was the kind of guy you could get in trouble with; she could just tell. She could just see herself, back at his place—some seedy studio somewhere—smoking a joint. So, better not to even have the temptation.
On the ride home, she couldn’t hear it at all. She drove around for a while, just for the pleasure of the silence inside her head. But that evening, when she was preparing dinner for herself and her grandmother, feeling the weight of mental exhaustion, the sound just grew louder.
At the table, she finally lost it, put down her fork with a clatter. “What is it?”
Finley didn’t even know what to call it. An auditory vision? There had never been just a sound before.
“I don’t know,” said Eloise. “But it’s loud. It must be important.”
Her grandmother was frustratingly calm, her eyes tilted up to the air as if considering a puzzling but benign trivia question. The world-renowned psychic, responsible for the solving of countless cold cases and the rescue of abducted women and girls, guest on Oprah, and Finley’s personal mentor should have more to contribute, shouldn’t she?
Of course, there was nothing about her gray-haired, bespectacled grandmother, who sat primly in a pressed denim dress and white cable cardigan, that communicated her sheer power and ability. And in truth, it was hard for Finley to think of her as anything but her kind and loving grandmother. Right now, though? She’d happily trade her adoring grandma for badass psychic medium Eloise Montgomery—if she would help make the goddamn squeak-clink go away.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Finley asked.
“You have to listen, dear,” Eloise said. She took a nibble of stir-fry. “Listen until you hear.”
“I am listening,” said Finley.
“Are you?” asked Eloise. “Or are you trying to make it go away?”
Finley blew out a breath and dropped her head into her hands. “I had other things to do today. I can’t give my life over to this.”
When Finley looked up, Eloise nodded in that way that she had, understanding and nonjudgmental, as if there was little she hadn’t heard before.
“In my experience, these events are like children. You may be able to delay attending to them, but they won’t grow any quieter from being ignored.”
This was a point on which Agatha and Eloise differed. Agatha Cross was Eloise’s mentor, the one who had advised Eloise on all things related to her abilities, helped her to navigate her new life after the accident that took her husband and daughter and left her with a gift she didn’t understand. And Eloise often directed Finley to Agatha when she felt the other woman had more to offer her granddaughter. Agatha was more about tough love; they get dealt with on your schedule, they don’t get to demand and dictate. (After all, Agatha said, they have all the time in the world.)
Eloise, on the other hand, felt that if someone needed her, it was her responsibility to give herself over, that there was no point in delaying it. If you don’t give, they take. Who was right? Finley had no idea, though she was well accustomed to two authority figures having strong differences of opinion, thanks to her constantly arguing parents. The good news was that she got to choose a little from column A, a little from column B. No one was right all the time; sometimes you just had to trust yourself. Of course, that was the hard part.
The lights flickered a little. The wiring in the old house also needed addressing. But Eloise seemed content to let that go, too, as if it were too earthly a concern to trouble her. “I need your help,” said Finley. “I don’t understand this.”
“You will,” Eloise said. “And I’m here. You know that.”
She sounded so tired. There were blue smudges of fatigue under her eyes. And was it Finley’s imagination, or did Eloise look thinner?
“Are you okay?” Finley asked. Eloise hadn’t touched her food, had just pushed it around.
“Don’t worry about me,” said Eloise, rising quickly with her plate. “I’m fine, dear. Let’s worry about you and figuring out what they want.”
“How do I do that?”
“How do you find the answer to any of the questions you have?” asked Eloise. She cleared her plate into the garbage.
“Internet search,” said Finley.
“Okay then.”
“That’s it?” said Finley. “That’s your advice?”