Chapter Seven

Iris

Iris slammed her bedroom door, locked it, and dropped her backpack on the floor. “Where are you? You get inside my head when I don’t want you there and jump ship when I want to talk to you.”

Well, someone is liverish today. If I knew you desired to speak with me, I would have answered. I thought you wanted me silent.

“I do want you silent.” Iris crossed the room, removed the panel, and took the hatbox out of its hiding place. She plopped down on the bed with it and untied the ribbon. Her stomach dropped as she lifted the deck of tarot cards, and her fingers shook as they gripped the braided hair. She secured the rope around the deck, then snatched up the matchbox beside the candles on her nightstand and placed her used cereal bowl on her knees.

She eyed the three-quarters-full water bottle beside her alarm clock as she took out a match. One strike, two strikes, three… The match ignited. She put the flame against the glossy purple box with green vines on it. The flame danced across the surface before going out. There wasn’t a burn mark. Iris lit another one, and the same thing happened.

Are you quite finished? I could have told you it would not burn, but you wished me silent. Only the fate changer who controls the cards can destroy them.

Iris tossed the bowl, cards, matches on the bed and pressed her palms against her eyes. “What did you do to her? To Lauren? And how did that card––how did it fall out?”

I only did what you wanted me to—deep in the corners of your mind. Revenge. She abandoned you when you needed her most.

“Go away. Just go away. Leave me alone.” She rubbed her eyes and slid the hatbox to her side. At touching the notebook, a sharp pain shocked her head like a lightning strike across her skull.

You shouldn’t touch what isn’t yours. Pick up the deck.

“No,” Iris said, barely audible.

Not this again. I hate causing you pain, dear one.

“Don’t call me that.”

You hurt me. I thought we understood each other. Do as I wish, and there will be no pain.

Iris groaned in agony. It was as if her brain were being wrung out like a dishtowel. She was nauseous, so she picked up the wastepaper basket and leaned over it. It’s a tumor. I must have a tumor or something. She heaved into the trash. Her throat was on fire. She grabbed the half-filled water bottle and chugged it down.

Another sharp pain hit her right temple and she winced. “Stop. Please.”

Had enough, dear one?

“Yes,” she moaned.

The tarot cards. Pick them up.

The pain subsided and her stomach settled. Iris put down the trash can and picked up the deck. She needed help. No one would believe her if she told them what was happening to her. Or maybe they would. Especially after all the crazy stuff that went down with Aster. She had to tell Violet. Her sister would help.

Sit down! The voice sounded pissed. I would never let you tell anyone about me. You do, I will force you to give them a bad fate.

Iris sat back down on the bed and picked up the tarot cards.

Shuffle through them.

She flipped over a card at a time onto her turquoise comforter with the white irises on it. The images on the cards were blurry with the tears glossing her eyes. She had entered a nightmare and had no idea how to get out of it.

No, not that one.

Iris flipped another card.

That won’t do, either.

And another.

Hmm… The Justice card. That could work. Touch it.

Iris decided not to fight it. How could she anyway? The woman was in her head. She knew her thoughts. She could hurt her family.

I’m pleased to see you’ve finally accepted that.

“You’re ruining my life.”

Nonsense. I’m helping you.

She touched the card with a queen wearing a red robe, sitting on a throne, and holding up a sword. Inky black moved across the green vines, consuming them. “Who gets this one?”

That worm. Perry.

Iris’s head was floating. “What will it do to him?”

He harms others, so he shall suffer.

“You won’t hurt or kill him, will you?”

No. An eye for an eye.

“If I give it to him, you’ll leave me alone?”

Yes. I get tired and must rest. I am new to this body.

“All right.” Iris wasn’t too sure she should trust the woman or spirit or whatever she was. How did Iris know the spirit would keep her word? It was a spirit, after all. Was there even a code ethics for specters?

That’s my dear. Tomorrow will be judgment day for Perry.

“Please stop calling me dear,” Iris said.

There was no response from the voice. Blood trickled from Iris’s nose. She touched the wetness with her fingertips and stared at the red stain on her skin. “Oh my God—” A guttural sob broke from her lips. “What are you doing to me?” She yanked out a few tissues from a box on her crowded nightstand. Holding her nose with the tissue, she leaned her head back. Please…just leave me alone.

When the silence lasted for more than ten minutes, Iris put the things back in the hatbox and returned it to its hiding place under the window seat.

Someone knocked on the bedroom door.

“Just a minute!” Iris held the tissue to her nose with one hand as she put the panel back in place with the other one, then she slipped the tarot card in the front pocket of her backpack. “Come in.”

Violet eased open the door. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

She stepped into the room. “I don’t know. Could it be you’re banging things around and your nose is bleeding?”

“I hit it looking for something.” Iris removed the tissue and dabbed at her nose to see if it was still bloody.

“And what is that smell? Did you puke?”

“Yeah,” Iris said, placing her hand on her stomach. “I must’ve eaten something bad today.”

Violet looked as if she wasn’t sure what to do or if she should go. Actually, Iris wasn’t sure, either.

Grasping her hands behind her back and brushing the carpet back and forth with the toe of her shoe, Violet definitely had something on her mind.

“What is it?” Iris asked. The expression on her sister’s face concerned her. It was a cross between worry and begging. She was about to drag Iris into something. Usually, it was some cause. They’d participated in many before. From save the dolphins to recycling campaigns.

“Lauren,” she said. “I’m worried about her. I know how she feels. It sucks being violated like that.”

“Okay.” Where was she going with this?

“Okay? That’s it?” She walked across the room and sat on the window seat. “She wants to talk to you. To apologize and maybe get to be friends again.”

Iris sighed, a long, drawn-out one. “When I needed her the most, she turned her back on me. She stood by and let them bully me so many times. I can’t even—”

“She’s not happy about it.”

“I’m not happy about it. Who cares if she’s not?” Iris glanced at the bloody tissue in her hand before dropping it in the wastebasket.

“She was scared.”

“I was scared.”

Violet huffed. “Will you stop doing that?”

Iris noticed the panel underneath where Violet was sitting hadn’t been secured properly. Though her sister knew the hatbox was hidden in there, Iris worried she would get suspicious with the panel loose and ask Iris if she’d been messing with the hatbox.

“Doing what?” Iris sat at the edge of her bed, trying to keep her eyes from going to the panel.

“That repeating thing you’re doing.”

“Repeating thing?”

Violet let out an exasperated breath. “See, that. You keep repeating whatever I say.”

The doorbell ringing downstairs muffled through the walls. “That must be Wade here to tutor me,” Iris said, grateful to get Violet out of her room.

Violet stood when Iris did. “I feel like we got nowhere with this. Anyway, I think we should show some empathy and accept Lauren into our group. Carys agrees. And we’re going to throw a huge Halloween party. No one needs Josh and his zombies or Marsha’s crazy parties. Someone always gets hurt at them. Lauren isn’t the only one who was tricked into taking damaging photographs, you know. If we all band together, they’ll be outnumbered and they won’t be able to hurt people anymore.”

Iris hated Marsha’s parties. Violet was right, bad things always happened at them.

“We only have a few weeks to plan the party,” Violet said. “So are you in?”

Iris opened the door. “You seriously need a nomination for sainthood. If you can forgive her for doing terrible things to you, then I can try. Keyword being try here. I’m on decorations. And my zombies will definitely resemble Josh and company.”

“That’s all I ask,” Violet said and hugged Iris from behind. “We can change the world, you and me.”

“Seriously?” Iris chuckled. “We haven’t said that in years.”

“But it’s true, right?” She bopped down the hall to her room.

“I doubt it,” Iris muttered, watching her as she closed her bedroom door. How Violet had turned around from complete desperation to faithful hope was beyond Iris’s comprehension. The meds and doc must be a great recipe. Maybe she should seek help from Violet’s doctor. Because if it wasn’t magic haunting her, then Iris was going certifiably insane. And if it was magic, she was determined to find a way to stop it. She suspected that hatbox had the clues she needed, but the voice wouldn’t let her explore it.

Miri. The woman who had tested her and Violet to see if they were fate changers. She would know.

Iris waited to hear if the craggy voice would get mad at her. The only sound was the voice of her little sister, Daisy, and Wade coming from downstairs. The voice had said she needed rest, and the old bat probably wasn’t listening to Iris’s thoughts now. She rushed to her desk, wrote a quick note, and stuffed it into her backpack.