Rain slapped against the balcony windows, and a scratching was coming from somewhere. It sounded like the pointed tips of tree branches dragging across the glass, like nails. It was the sermon of the storm, all wanting to come inside.
The windows and doors were closed, doing their best to trap the whistling wind outside. Still, the tempest caused the air in the house to swell. Lights in the house flickered on and off, and outside the balcony doors, waves grew louder, churning harder, whitecaps pounding against the sea cliffs.
The old house fell into utter darkness, and I grabbed hold of the railing, walked carefully down the stairs.
In the hall toward the kitchen sat the vintage hutch. Inside, an assortment of candles. I grabbed candlestick holders in one hand and filled my arms with candles of all sizes. I opened the drawer and shuffled through the clutter, feeling my way for the match book’s square shape.
Each time lightning struck, navy-blue ripped across the gray skies, giving me little light to see my way to the living room. Thunder clapped behind every strike, and I unloaded the items in my arms onto the coffee table, lighted each candle, and scattered them throughout the house.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight, the feeling as if someone were watching me, but the house was empty. The only soul inside these walls was my own, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling.
I sat, curled in Gramps’ recliner, listening to the scratching, the rain, the thunder, when a dark shadow moved across the living room floor. I jerked my head toward the window, catching half a silhouette of a figure on the other side of the fogged glass. It was only for a split second before it disappeared.
“There’s no one there,” I convinced myself. “It’s not real.” How was it that I was more afraid of the living than the dead at the moment?
I pulled my grandmother’s thick quilt tighter around me, but the strange feeling never went away.
Then three loud and striking raps cracked against the front door. I got to my feet, grabbed a candle from the side table, my heart strumming like the door knocker’s stray echo.
No one would come here, especially during this storm. And it couldn’t be Julian. He’d never knocked on the front door before. He’d always walked up the balcony steps, entered on his own. Who the hell was it?
When I opened the door, Kioni’s smile was tucked into a straight line as she stood, shivering in her purple raincoat.
“Are you going to let me in or what?”
“Are you crazy? What are you doing here?” I stepped to the side as ferocious winds grabbed at my hair, pulled on my cardigan. Kioni quickly slipped out of the storm, and I fought against the winds to close the front door again, locked it in place.
Kioni stripped off her drenched coat, and I grabbed it from her, hung it from the coat rack. When I turned back around, she was fixing her hair.
“I borrowed Bibi’s car. You shouldn’t be alone in this right now,” she pulled off a boot, then the other, “You know how long I’ve been sitting in your driveway, counting how many steps it would take to get to the door before I got struck by lightning? That’s a real friend.”
My shoulders relaxed. “Oh, it was you in the window?”
“Me? No, why? Did you see someone in the window?” Her head cocked, gaze darting to the window.
“No, I guess not. It doesn’t matter.” I hugged her, just happy she was here.
Kioni squeezed me back, and when I released, she held up a finger before opening the bag in her arms. “I brought us some snacks. When was the last time you had a sleepover?”
Aside from Julian? “Um…never.” I laughed, then there was another knock at the door. “Now who in the world could that be?”
Kioni stepped behind me when I opened the door. The wind howled as two bodies pushed through the door, and I slammed it close behind them, the entryway feeling too small. Monday and Fable stared back and forth at Kioni and me.
“This is going to be a strange night,” Monday muttered.
“You’re telling me,” I pulled my cardigan around my waist, “What are you even doing here? You’re not welcome in my house!”
“You and me,” Monday’s finger waved between us, “We need to talk. You might hate me right now, but at least hear me out. Besides, you can’t kick me out when there’s a storm. That would be cruel.”
“Oh, so you have it all planned out.”
“Yeah, I kinda do,” Monday said, dropping her bag onto the floor beside the iron coat tree stand. “I brought Fable as a referee, but it looks like you have your own.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t want to talk to you.” Thunder shook the house, and Monday lowered her eyes. Fable looked down the hall awkwardly. Kioni stood beside me with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed at the two of them. Did she not like them for a reason? I’d noticed it from day one, never thought to ask about it until now. “You can stay until the storm ends.”
“But no eating my Whoopie Pies,” Kioni blurted.
“No one wants your Whoopie Pies,” Monday scoffed.
Kioni rolled her eyes. “Everyone wants a Whoopie Pie.”
Fable lifted a finger. “Yeah, I might want a Whoopie Pie.”
“Oh, for fucks sake, stop with the Whoopie Pies,” I groaned.
The grandfather clock chimed, ringing in midnight. The four of us had been sitting in the living room. Not talking. We were all spread out by at least three feet. Fable and Monday on the far couch, one at each end. Kioni by herself on the longer sofa, and me back in Gramps’ recliner.
It had been awkward as hell, but the storm was still going strong, and no one was leaving any time soon.
“I have an idea,” Fable blurted. She’d arrived in leggings and a large drawstring hoodie with a Voodoos logo, a skeleton in a top hat with neon colors. She unfolded her crossed arms. “Let’s drink. I’m sure Benny has good alcohol in this house somewhere. He’s a Grimaldi after all. Fallon, do you mind? Or …”
“Yeah, because alcohol solves everything,” Monday said from the other side of the couch.
“It’s fine.” I waved her off.
Fable stood from the couch. “Alcohol does solve everything … temporarily,” she muttered, walking around the couch, on her way to the kitchen. “At least it will get us through the night, because … awkward.”
Monday’s gaze followed behind Fable when Kioni jumped up from the couch and headed for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I asked, turning in the recliner, not wanting her to leave me alone in the room with Monday.
“There has to be something here we can do. I’m going to go look in the spare room, see if I can dig something up.”
The sound of pots banging against the floor echoed from the kitchen. “I’m good! Everything’s good!” Fable called out.
I sucked in my lips, settled back in the recliner, refusing to look at Monday. The tension blazed as I felt Monday’s solemn stare on me.
“I’m sorry about Benny,” she said low from across the room. “I had no idea what happened, and if I would’ve known …” she shook her head. “No one meant for that to happen, Fallon.”
My eyes widened. “It wouldn’t have happened at all if Kane didn’t break into my house,” I reiterated. “You don’t get it, do you? We’re not talking about a ruined dress or a lost pair of earrings, Monday. My grandfather is dead. Dead! because of Kane’s stupid prank or whatever the hell that was. My grandfather, Monday. Kane should rot for what he did, but he won’t. Nothing will happen to him. He’s an asshole. Why are you even hanging out with them?”
Monday bit her lip, eyes watering. “You know why. I told you why. Sacred Sea is my only family. I thought you understood that.”
“Well, that stunt took the only family I had left, and you just expected me to forgive you?”
“No, I never expected you to forgive me, but I at least wanted you to hear me out.”
Fable’s voice drifted from the kitchen, interrupting us. “I found a bottle of tequila literally shaped like a heart. And not a Valentine’s heart, an organ heart.” When she stepped into the living room, she shook the bottle above her head with four plastic cups in her other hand. I flashed Monday a glare, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “Can I have the bottle when we’re done?”
“You don’t honestly expect us to finish that bottle in one night, do you?” I asked, perplexed with my brows pushed together.
It should have bothered me that they were all here, going through his house, drinking his liquor. It didn’t, though. This was all stuff. Insignificant things a person couldn’t take with them when they died. Not once had a spirit asked me to keep their purse or wrist watch safe. None of those things mattered anymore.
“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Fable challenged, placing the bottle and cups over the coffee table. She began to pour when Kioni’s footfalls resounded off the stairs. “One for you, and one for … you.” She began passing around the plastic cups with Hobb’s Grocery printed on the sides.
When Kioni plopped back on the couch, she had a box in her hands and a hat on her head, a deep purple one with a peacock feather from something of the Gatsby era. Her palm smoothed the dust off the front of the box. “I haven’t worked with a Ouija board in a long time.”
“It’s like sex,” Monday mumbled. “Nothing in the game has changed.”
Fable took the last cup, returned to the couch. “I wouldn’t call it a game.”
“Are you sure a Ouija board is a good idea?” I didn’t mean for my voice to come out so nervous.
Kioni smiled. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The four of us took our first shot of tequila, pulled pillows and throw blankets off the couches and onto the floors, sat around the Ouija board, the bottle of tequila between Fable and me.
Monday sat across from me, and the candles flickered in the dark room, casting dancing shadows across the walls. Outside, the rain still hit hard in a calming and rhythmic sequence, and the storm whistled through the crack under the door.
“Okay, so how do we do this?” My eyes bounced between all three of them.
Monday nudged her head. “Kioni’s the psychic girl.”
Kioni stretched out her arms, cracked her knuckles. “Just because I come from a line of psychics doesn’t mean I know how.”
Monday quirked her brow. “So, you don’t know how to do this?”
“No, I know how to do this. I’m just saying…you shouldn’t assume.”
“That makes no sense,” Monday smiled, incredulous, “You’re psychic, and you’re saying I shouldn’t assume, even though I was right.”
Kioni closed her eyes, placed her fingers over the planchette. “Hush, you’re giving me a headache, and I need to concentrate.”
Monday groaned.
“Okay, okay, okay, let’s just do this,” I told them, and the rest of us laid our fingers over the planchette too.
We all went silent, and the only sounds remaining were the ones coming from outside the house. For a brief moment, nothing moved when someone asked, “Shouldn’t we get like paper and pen before we start?”
I peeked one eye open. “We’re not calling upon a ghostwriter, expecting a novel,” Kioni explained, her face deadpan, and a laugh slipped between my lips. “We’ll ask simple questions, and I’m sure we can remember the letters. Now everyone take another shot and close your eyes. And don’t force the planchette. The movements happen on impulse from the other side.”
“Okay,” we all agreed and swallowed down a shot.
I was last, making the mistake of holding the burning liquid in my mouth and drinking it down slowly, which was worse. It tasted like straight nail polish remover.
“Are we ready?” Kioni asked one last time, all of our fingertips now on the planchette.
Fable and I said “yes” in unison.
Monday stayed quiet.
Kioni’s eyes closed, her expression turned calm, and her chest expanded as she inhaled deeply, then released it through slightly parted lips like she knew exactly what she was doing. The candlelight glowed over her face with a soft flicker like that of a projector.
“Are there any spirits who would like to come forth?” she asked with a serious and calm, velvety tone.
I peeked one eye open again, seeing Monday trying to contain her laughter when the planchette started to move. “Oh, shit,” Fable gasped, “Okay, who is doing that? Monday, is that you?”
“No, dude.”
The planchette moved over the “Yes,” and we all whispered the word simultaneously.
“Okay, okay, okay, thank you, this is wonderful.” Kioni was in her respectful mode. “Can you tell us your name?”
“W … H …”
“Are they trying to spell Weeping?” Fable asked, “What’s W H? What does it mean.”
We all hushed her.
“O … O … P … I—” Monday’s laugh slipped “—Whoopie?”
Kioni dropped her hands from the planchette. “This isn’t funny.”
“Maybe we should’ve started with an offering,” Monday smiled, “Where’re the Whoopie Pies?”
“No one touches the Whoopie Pies!” Kioni grabbed the organ bottle, drank from it, passed it around as everyone fell into a fit of laughter, including me. “Okay, let’s be serious this time.”
It took a minute or two for our laughter spell to die before our fingertips returned to the planchette. “Calling out to any spirit who would like to come forth,” Kioni started to say. “We are ready for you. Please, tell us your name.”
Candlelight flickered as if on command, and the room darkened. A chill swept between us, and I darted my eyes around, not seeing any ghosts present. The planchette slid swiftly across the board. It was fast this time, and we could hardly keep up. “F,” we chanted, and it slid again, “I.”
Monday’s eyes widened. “Okay, this is not me this time,” she admitted, shocked.
“N” … “D” … “M” … “E” …
The planchette stopped, and goosebumps coated my skin, my heart in my throat.
“Find me,” I whispered, my fingers falling from the planchette.
I shook my head. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be the ghost who’d left me so long ago. The one with the white hair and the galaxy in his eyes. Eyes so black. Demonic. The one who first came to me when I was only eight-years-old.
“I can’t find you if I don’t know your name,” Monday called out with her palms face up at her sides.
“Because he doesn’t remember his name,” I whispered to myself.
“Fallon?” Kioni laid her hand on my thigh. “Everything okay?”
I nodded, shifting in place. I fixed my pajama shorts, my cardigan, wrapped it tighter. I couldn’t sit still. “I’m fine, pass the bottle.”
“Are you sure—” Fable began.
“Yes,” I choked, cleared my throat. “I just need a drink.” I waved my hand in a pass-it-over gesture. The tequila burned going down, warmed my chest and my cheeks. I exhaled in relief.
“Let’s just not do this,” Kioni spoke up, setting the planchette back in the box, folding the board.
Fable sighed. “I’d like to know what the hell just happened.”
“And I liked to know why on earth you’re wearing that stupid hoodie.” Monday plucked the fabric.
“So, we can get drunk there every Friday night, but I can’t sport the merch?”
Monday’s brows snapped together. “And Phoenix Wildes has nothing to do with it?”
“What are you implying?”
My eyes bounced between them like a tennis match.
“I see the way you look at him every Friday night with those fuck-me eyes,” Monday said, and the two continued back and forth.
At my side, Kioni shoved an entire Whoopie Pie into her mouth. I grabbed the bottle from Fable’s distracted hand, unscrewed the cap.
Kioni leaned to the side and dropped her mouth to my ear. “Are ‘ey a’way’ ‘ike ‘is?” she asked, her mouth full and eyes on the girls arguing.
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
Kioni swallowed, then clapped her hand once. “Fable Sullivan, I have an idea on how to settle this,” she stated. “Want to meet your husband tonight?” The two girls snapped their heads toward Kioni, and Kioni’s smile spiked in the corner. I admired the way she so easily broke up the tension. “Come on, it’s October.” She shrugged. “Or have you done it before?”
“No way,” Fable shook her head. “I haven’t and I won’t. I’m not messing with my fate. I don’t want to know.”
“Afraid to see Phoenix in the mirror?” Monday asked, and turned to Kioni and me. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“During the month of October, they say if you go into a pitch-black room with a candle, stare into the mirror, you will see your one true love’s reflection over your shoulder,” Kioni explained.
“It’s just a superstition,” Monday added and waved her hand out in front of her. “Fallon doesn’t believe in those sorts of things.”
“So, I’m the perfect subject,” I said, then looked to Kioni. “I’ll do it.”
“But if you see him, it’ll fuck with your head, and you could subconsciously screw things up without knowing,” Fable replied lazily, the effects of alcohol getting to her. “You can’t have your cake and eat it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, I’ll take my chances,” I said, rising to my feet. “What do I have to do?”
“Fallon Morgan, look at you.” Monday smiled a sly smile from below. She leaned over and reached for the base of the candlestick holder, held it up for me. “Take this and go to the bathroom.”
“She has to eat an apple,” Fable stated and looked up at me with glossy hazel eyes. “You have to eat an apple, or it won’t work.”
“She doesn’t have to eat the apple, she just has to peel it,” Kioni corrected her.
I looked between all three of them, the hot wax dripping over my fingers. “You guys are so strange.”
Five minutes later, I was standing in front of a mirror in the downstairs bathroom. The candle reflected a soft glow around my face in the mirror as it sat on the sink. I held the apple in one hand, a peeler in the other.
“This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” I told myself, then tore my eyes from the mirror and began to peel the bright red skin into one coiling spiral. The color reminded me of Julian’s lips.
It had been long—too long—since I’d tasted them, since I’d felt them on my mouth. The last time I’d seen Julian was at Gramps’ funeral, which had been days.
I had never expected him to be the one to make it so memorable for me or for his coven to be supportive.
Julian hadn’t returned to the balcony since then, and my chest ached, missing him. My fingers gripped the peeler tighter. A drop! ... drop! … drop! … sounded like a heartbeat from the leaky faucet, and flashing sheets of rain pounded against the bathroom window.
I kept my focus on the apple and what my hands were doing, unsure if I wanted to do this, or if I was even doing this right. But I couldn’t stop either.
Something took possession of me as my fingers kept moving, the apple spinning between them.
The air was cold all around me, and the small hairs on my arms stood straight, a soft buzz in the room.
“Fallon.” The whisper of my name weaved into the air, but I kept peeling, my body humming. “Look at me.” A deep voice so soft and angelic.
I shook my head, kept peeling and peeling and peeling. Julian wasn’t here, and even while I thought that, it hurt somewhere inside me. Julian wasn’t here. Perhaps if I said it often enough, I would start to believe it. And it wouldn’t hurt as much.
Julian wasn’t here.
The peeler sliced my finger, and the apple dropped from my hands. Blood ran red over the white porcelain and down the sink’s drain. I watched as the blood dripped from my finger, and my gaze followed the crimson current.
Hypnotized, my eyes grew lazy as the blood moved into a pattern, drawing a shape by an invisible finger. Crossing patterns at first, until it made up a star. A five-pointed star.
“Fallon,” the voice came again, along with a drop in temperature. White mist clouded from my lips. It was so cold.
That was when I felt his chest press against my back.
Five beautiful fingers trailed down the length of my arm until he grasped my finger and pulled it off the sink’s edge. He guided my hand upward, and I lifted my gaze to the mirror’s reflection.
Julian stood behind me, the impala skull attached to his face. Two ash-brown horns pointed toward the ceiling. Silver chains hung from around his neck, one with the cylinder urn—ashes from someone he loved.
My breath caught, and he brought my finger to his lips and dipped it inside his warm mouth. I felt his tongue slide up the length, and I couldn’t move.
“Julian,” came out upon a shaky exhale, and he grabbed my waist with his other hand, bolted our hips together. He was so real, I could feel him all around me. Everywhere …
I closed my eyes as Julian’s palm moved over my bare stomach under my shirt, just below the waistline of my shorts. Heat exploded inside me when his fingers grazed the sensitive skin. I opened my eyes, locked them to silver ones as his tongue swirled around my finger.
Then he pulled it out of his mouth and painted his bottom lip with my fingertip. Every touch of him was light but like touching a nerve-ending, intense.
“I miss you too,” he whispered into my ear, knowingly, and I wanted this to be him because these sensations were combustible … these feelings were dangerous … it was all too much …
“Where were you, why haven’t you come back to me?”
“They bound me to the woods as punishment, I can’t leave. I’ve been stuck here, and I can’t stop them. I want them to stop,” he said into my neck almost painfully. “Please, Fallon. Come to me. You have to come to me.”
Bang! bang! bang!
And then, “Fallon, it’s been a while, are you okay in there?” someone asked.
Fable?
My eyes snapped up from the sink, seeing only myself in the mirror again. I took a step back, and the blood in the sink was gone. There was no cut on my finger. When I looked down, my body shuddered.
Around my feet, the apple peel spelled out one word.
Real.