Chapter Fourteen

“Is she going to be okay?”

I chattered the fearful question to a white-clad woman who stood, looking tired and exasperated, in the blue-painted hallway of Butler County 24 Hour Pet Hospital. Aubrey was beside me, gnawing pensively on her pinky. There were bags beneath her eyes.

The veterinarian sighed, swiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “Zipper will be perfectly all right,” she informed me. “A little beaten up, sure, but nothing stitches can't fix. But it'd probably be best if you leave her here for the night and pick her up tomorrow. We wouldn't want anything more to happen to her, after all.” With a barely disguised yawn, the woman led us away from the operating rooms and back to the lobby. She glanced at us over her shoulder as she walked. “It looked to me like she was attacked by something—a raccoon, maybe. You need to keep a better eye on her in the future.”

I quickly bit down an attempt to defend myself, remembering what I'd said to them when we first arrived: that the back door had been unlocked, Zipper had sneaked out unnoticed, and I'd found her when she started making noise. The veterinarian hadn't even blinked.

“We'll keep that in mind,” Aubrey said, speaking for me. We stepped into the waiting room, our shoes clicking against the pale linoleum. Both of us were still in our pajamas, which probably explained the look of pity on the woman's creased face.

“Great.” She flashed a half smile, already beginning to close the door connecting the lobby and the hallway. “You can get pick-up information from the desk.”

The man sitting at the desk had disheveled hair and vacant eyes, but he told us that we could pick up Zipper after noon the following day. He then stared at us, hovering across the table, until we took the hint and turned to leave.

A few feet from the door, my cell phone began to buzz. I dug it out from my boot, immediately pressing accept when I realized it was Logan. I'd called him on the way over and left a frantic message, but he hadn't answered his phone.

“Parker?” he gasped, lethargy clouding his words. “My God, are you okay? I just got your message. Where are you?”

Relief swept through me at the sound of his voice. “I'm fine,” I replied. “Aubrey's here, and we're at the pet hospital in Butler. If you can meet us here, I'll explain everything.”

There was an affirmative sound from the other side, and Logan hissed, “Be there soon,” before hanging up the phone.

“He's on his way?” Aubrey asked, watching me stow my phone with her hand on the door handle. I nodded silently, and she pushed open the door.

The snowfall had ceased, making a clear path to Aubrey's car from the building. Unlike when we had arrived, I could actually see air in front of me; it wasn't just sheet of white. It was still cold, though: colder than the cruel boy's frozen lips.

Aubrey silently unlocked her rental truck with a beep that echoed across the parking lot. Her hands, like mine, were buried deep into her sweater pockets. I crunched through the snow en route to the passenger door, pulling my sleeve over my fingers to open the door without freezing to the metal. That, I thought, was the last thing I needed.

Sighing, I slipped into the car, parking my butt on the seat just as Aubrey keyed the ignition and the heat came on at full blast. I tried to focus on the smokey airflow rather that the metallic smell hanging in the air: the scent of iron, the carmine stains on my sweatpants, the blood that rushed from the three claw-like wounds slashed into Zipper's side.

Don't close your eyes, I told myself, or you'll see it all again.

But I couldn't help it. I was tired—exhausted—and the car was so warm that I thought it wouldn't hurt to let by eyes drift shut, just for a moment...

Big mistake.

Immediately, the images lit the blackness of my closed eyelids: dark shadow, moving dog, handsome boy, auburn hair, onyx eyes, icy lips, painful cry, ugly smirk, then running, running, throbbing arm, kitchen light, open door, frozen snow, and blood, red on white on white on white, and red means death, dying, dead—

“Parker.”

Aubrey's voice was gentle but firm, and it drew my mind from its state of half awareness. When I opened my eyes, she was peering at me with a look of concern. She had turned off the radio, and the cab was painfully silently.

“Sorry,” I said gruffly. I tucked my hair behind my ear, catching sight of my frazzled appearance in the rear view mirror and hardly caring. My mind was not in the right place to be worrying about that, though, not at all. Not when my mother was AWOL, my dog had been attacked, and a person—a living, breathing, human person—had appeared in my bedroom in the middle of the night. This was beyond nightmares; however twisted it might have been, this was reality.

“Parker,” Aubrey repeated, resting her palms against the steering wheel, “when you told the vet what happened to Zipper, you were lying.” It was a statement, not a question: simple and matter-of-fact. “I think you should tell me what happened for real.”

I stared straight ahead, out of the front windshield and into the night. The time flashed green from the dashboard clock: 1:46 AM. Nearly two in the morning, and my test in the morning was suddenly the farthest thing from my mind. Sighing, I ran my tongue over my teeth and tried to formulate a response that would sound the least crazy.

I didn't think there was one.

Eventually, I just went for it, because Aubrey was waiting and I was far beyond caring. “Well,” I said dryly, “I'll tell you what happened, but try not to think that I'm insane.”

I explained it to her, from the beginning of the dream to the waking end. And Aubrey listened silently, her head constantly bobbing and her lips pressed together in thought. Not once did her features take on the look of incredulity that I expected, and she didn't give me that nervous laugh like she thought I was joking. She didn't speak at all until I'd finished completely, feeling considerably better, though my throat was dry.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. I saw the words processing in Aubrey's mind, the gears whirling in her brain to build a proper answer. Which, I was certain, would contain the words: you are nuts.

But she said no such thing. Rather, with a disbelieving shake of her head, she turned to look me full in the face, her eyes wide and very serious.

“Look,” she began, licking her lips. “I believe you. You may not believe yourself, but I believe you. I've done some informal research on parapsychology, met people who discussed it with me. And...I don't know if that has anything to do with what's happening to you, but I know that this isn't normal. You've probably realized that by now.” I nodded, and she smiled slightly. “So I get it. I understand, and I don't think you're crazy. But I really can't help you.”

I felt my eyes widen, disappointment bubbling up in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean you can't, you—”

Shaking her head, Aubrey put a finger to her lips. “I mean that I can't. But,” she said, “I know someone who can.”

◙════════════◙

The thing about driving through the city to see a psychic medium at two o'clock in the morning is that, with the darkness and the silence and the fatigue behind your eyes, you can trick yourself into believing that the trip is completely normal. Even as your best friend's sister is behind the wheel, explaining how she made a friend in her first year of college who could talk to ghosts and taught her about the the spirit world, you just take in everything and don't question a word.

At least, not until you pull up in front of the so-called paranormal communicator's house. That's about when reality hits.

“Aubrey, what are we doing?” I demanded, staring out the window at the massive white Victorian house that seemed to eat up half the block. “I know that my dream was weird, but you can't be serious about this.”

She fixed me with a dry stare. “Don't kid yourself, Parker; that wasn't a dream, and you know it. Just trust me, all right? I know what I'm doing.”

“Sure you do,” I mumbled.

Aubrey ignored me, instead asking, “Is Logan on his way?”

I nodded. “Last time I checked, he was just getting on the freeway. But I'll call him again.” Leaning over, I picked up my phone from the dashboard and dialed his number. It only dialed once before Logan picked up, his voice crackling through the receiver.

“I'm almost there,” he said, muffled by his speakerphone. “But Parker, the hell is this place? It looks like some kind of Pennsylvanian Beverly Hills.”

I snickered despite myself. “No idea,” I admitted. “Some kind of super rich neighborhood, I'm guessing?”

“No kidding.” Logan paused, then said, “I just turned the corner, I think I see Aubrey's car.” Sure enough, when I glanced out the windshield, I saw two yellow headlight beams slicing cleanly through the night, providing a dim back-light for Logan's car.

“I see you,” I said, hanging up the phone. Logan slowed, hugging the curb as he brought his car to a stop behind Aubrey's and cut the headlights.

Aubrey turned to me. “Ready?” She already had a hand on the door, waiting.

I shrugged. “Aw, hell. Why not?” Before I could stop myself, I popped open the door and hopped out into the snow, simultaneously pocketing my phone. Logan approached us on the sidewalk, his skepticism obvious even beneath the dimming streetlights.

“Parker, what's going on? Why are we here?” He toed the ice, kicking up a geyser of ice that dusted over his gray sweats. It appeared that he hadn't changed out of his pajamas either, though his fleece sweatshirt and beanie looked considerably warmer that my skimpy jacket.

I explained quickly, keeping my words blunt. “I had another dream, and Zipper got attacked by...something. Aubrey drove us to the animal hospital, but then she suggested we come here to visit her friend.”

“And who is your friend, exactly, dear sister?” Logan asked, raising his eyebrows at the sprawling property. “The president?”

Aubrey didn't bat an eye, though I had to steel myself for Logan's reaction to what she'd say next. “Actually, she's a psychic medium, and she's going to help Parker, because you know those dreams she's been having? They aren't dreams.”

Logan's features took on a look of such furious incredulity that I flinched. He fixed me with an open-mouthed glare, spitting out a single word: “What?”

“You heard me,” Aubrey said briskly. She turned on her heel, marching down the front walk. Logan looked at me with narrowed eyes.

“You're kidding,” he sneered. “Don't tell me you actually believe this bull!”

I put a hand on his arm, chewing nervously on my bottom lip. “Just...try to keep an open mind, all right? Please?”

Logan scoffed, but followed me up to the porch, where Aubrey was waiting. Trying to ignore the tension in the early morning air, I jumped up beside her on the wooden floorboards. They creaked beneath my weight. A dimmed sign in the window read: PSYCHIC: No Appointments Needed.

“Will she even be awake?” I asked dubiously, staring up at the darkened house as Aubrey rang the doorbell. I felt more than a little trepidation at the thought of speaking to this woman—whoever she was.

“She'll be expecting us,” was Aubrey's ambiguous reply.

I don't know what I was expecting; maybe a stooped old woman with wild hair and ethnic clothing, or a Professor McGonagall lookalike with a witch's hat atop her head. Instead, when the door was thrown open, I was faced with a bright-eyed young woman in plaid pajamas who couldn't have been much older than me.

“So you did come,” she said, brushing her platinum blonde braid over one shoulder. She had a strange, lilting accent, though it was very faint. “Please, come in. She told me you'd be here.”

I looked at Aubrey, confused, but she merely shook her head and silently led the way into the house. I hesitated at the threshold, wary of this strange girl and her big, soul-searching eyes.

“Well, come on then.” She stared me and Logan down, unblinking, until we both stumbled into the foyer. I glanced at him, and he wore a look of uncertainty that probably mirrored my own.

“Long time no see, Aubrey,” said the girl, glancing back at us as we trailed her through a vast and surprisingly modern living room. “I knew you'd come crawling back eventually.” Her tone was deadly serious, even mocking, but Aubrey let out a laugh.

“Sure you did, Laury,” she said dryly. “Glad to see you, too.”

Laury glanced over her shoulder, and there was a wide smile perched on her lips. She stopped abruptly at a door, laying a hand on its handle. We had been led down a corridor, and this door appeared to mark a dead end.

“You're Parker, right?” I nodded, and she smiled warmly. “Your sister has told me tons of great things about you.”

I gave a start, leaning away slightly as Laury gazed at me with her big gray eyes. “Wait, what? How did you—”

The girl looked at me, laughing strangely. “It's my job, darling.” She then turned to Logan, who hovered just behind me, and the smile slipped slowly off her lips, freezing in a sour half-sneer expression. “And you must be Logan. The skeptic.”

“Uh—I—” Logan stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yes?”

“Mm.” Laury gave him a last narrow-eyed look. Her hand was still on the doorknob, and she turned it slowly, moving so that her body blocked the doorway. “This is my sanctuary,” she announced seriously. “I ask that you please respect it and treat any visitors we might encounter with utmost respect. Can I count on that?”

Logan and I shared bemused looks, but Aubrey just rolled her eyes and elbowed her way past her friend, disappearing into the room beyond the door. All I could think as I followed her in was: man, this chick is weird.

Laury turned around suddenly, startling me as I slipped through the doorway. She was about my height, and her permanently doe-eyed expression hung parallel to mine. A small smile flirted with her lips as she said, “All of us are weird in this business, darling.”

I learned three things about Laury in one minute of standing in her dark and curtained-filled “sanctuary,” watching her prepare a table for us to sit.

One: she ended nearly sentence with “darling.”

Two: she moved like a marionette.

Three: she never blinked.

I kept close quarters on her face, trying to catch any movement of her eyelids, but there was none. Her eyes stayed open, painfully wide, for the entire duration of our visit. I wasn't quite sure what to think of her.

“Please, sit,” Laury said, gesturing to the fold-out plastic table that now sat in the center of the room. She had pulled up four plush arm chairs that had previous lined the bookcase walls and surrounded the table with them. The seats dwarfed it completely.

Awkwardly following Aubrey, I climbed into a chair between the two siblings, directly across from Laury. Neither of the girls had said much to each other, but I could tell from their comfort level around each other that they were good friends. I wondered how they had met; compared to Aubrey, Laury was...oddly eccentric.

And she was staring at me as if she heard everything I thought.

“So, Parker,” she said, not breaking her gaze. “I know that we're here because of you. What do you need from me?”

“Uh...” I stared at her, unsure of what, exactly, I did need. I looked to Aubrey, who gave me a reassuring smile.

“Go on, Parker,” she urged. “Just tell her everything.”

So, nervously, I started at the beginning, explaining my dreams and all the strange things that had been happening since they started. Laury listened to all of it with a frown, her unblinking eyes downcast. At the part about Zipper and the frigid boy, Logan stiffened, and she looked confused. When I finished, she tilted her head, filling her cheeks with air and then blowing it out in a noisy exhalation.

“Well,” she said flatly, after a moment, “I can tell you one thing for sure: this isn't what you think it is. Sleep paralysis a real condition, but this is different.” She stood up suddenly, darting over to one of the many bookshelves and deftly selecting a thick volume. Heaving it onto the table, she simply let it fall open and pushed the book toward us.

On the paper, stretched across two pages, was an image that looked vaguely familiar. It was a painting of a woman in a white dress lying on a bench, her head lolling off the side. A demented creature sat on her chest, wrinkled and ugly like a gargoyle. And in the shadows, sticking out from a scarlet curtain, was a black horse head with wild red eyes.

“That's The Nightmare,” Logan said excitedly, recognizing it immediately. “Remember, Parker? Henry Fuseli's piece? Dr. Hennessy was telling us about it.”

I looked closer, quickly realizing that the painting reminded me of the drawing our professor had shown us in class. Both depicted sleep paralysis with the old hag on the sleeper's chest.

Laury glanced down at the painting, the looked around at us. “So,” she began, “what do you think?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Um, it's...nice?” I offered.

The girl rolled her eyes. “No, I mean, what do you think about how this relates to your problem?” Under her breath, as if we couldn't hear, she muttered, “Christ, I always forget that these people can't read my mind.”

I frowned, glancing closer at the painting and trying to coax my tired mind to piece together an answer. “I don't know,” I said eventually, stifling a yawn. “I don't get what you want me to say.”

Laury regarded me with careful patience, her smile becoming condescending. I stared back at her with steely eyes and willed myself not to blink. On either side of the table, I felt Aubrey and Logan holding their breath.

“Do you know the Angelic Salutation?” she asked suddenly.

“As in the Hail Mary prayer?” I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?”

Laury still did not blink. Her gaze was giving me goosebumps.“Say it.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling my eyes become slits. In the back of my mind, I was remembering the way my mother had demanded the same thing of me, what seemed like an eternity ago.

“Why?” I questioned.

“Just say it.”

Silence blanketed the room. My eyes wandered to the sheaths of purple and red and brown fabric hung from the ceiling, then to the candles that rested on the wall in iron sconces.

Might as well, I thought, then began, realizing that Laury knew I would.

“Hail Mary, full of grace”—I paused, immediately feeling a strange tug in my stomach—“the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women”—worse now, an actual pain—“and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Je—shoot.”

Our of nowhere, my entire abdomen clenched, slashing apart my intestines and caving in at my stomach. I pitched forward, hitting my head hard against the table before falling to the ground. I heard a faint shout, and it sounded like Logan, but there was something trying to eat its way out of my stomach and the voices didn't seem so important right now.

Someone screamed; it might have been me. It felt as if I had vacated my body and been thrown into a foggy astral plane full of moving shadows that looked somewhat like my friends. But the pain was still there; furious and all-consuming, it gnawed and tore at my body. It stung and burned and ached all at once, a combination of every uncomfortable sensation that brought tears to my blurry eyes and made my head pound.

“Parker!” The voice cut through the haze in my mind, dangerously close to my ear. Then there were hands on my shoulders, shaking them, drawing me back into reality. I blinked my way into the room, the dim light suddenly feeling extremely bright. The initial pain was gone now, leaving deep, rolling waves of nausea in my stomach and a deep throbbing against my skull.

“Parker, what was that? Are you okay?”

That was Aubrey. Both she and Logan were kneeling beside me, their concerned, horrified faces floating into my view. And behind them, standing with her arms crossed and her pale hair falling into her face, was Laury. She wore a twisted, strange smile on her face as she stared down at me, nodding slowly.

“Well, well, well,” she said, “it looks like we have an incubus on our hands.”

◙════════════◙

Somehow, we ended up at Laury's kitchen table, sitting in the hard plastic chairs with mugs of tea in our hands in a room that was just as strangely modern as the rest of her house. She hadn't given so much as a breath of explanation, instead hurrying us out of her demode sanctuary because, as she put it, “some things are best discussed over tea.”

I couldn't argue with that, especially not when whatever herbal concoction she'd given us was warming me more and more by the second.

Logan, beside me, did not look nearly as placated. He was bouncing his leg, his lips pressed tightly together. The room was silent as Laury swept about, quickly arranging a plate of cookies and pre-cut sandwiches. It was fast approaching three AM, yet it seemed that she had been expecting us.

When at last she sat down, her serious eyes snapped to focus on Logan. He continued fidgeting, staring at the wall as if he didn't notice Laury's gaze. Pressing my lips together, I reached out and tapped his elbow.

“You have something to say,” Laury said as Logan jolted back into the present, spluttering. “Well, don't keep it a secret, skeptic. Why don't you explain?”

“I—” My best friend looked around the table, his eyes wide. I was chewing on my sleeve and Aubrey was sipping her tea, but we were both staring at him. “Explain what?” he questioned at last.

“You know. About the incubus.”

Logan sighed.

“It's just that I read something,” he admitted, “in those notes Dr. Hennessy gave us. Do you remember them, Parker?” He looked up at me, hopeful, as if I could take over explaining for him. “They were about incubi and succubi and the legends behind—no? Okay.”

I coughed guiltily; evidently, my expression had given away my confusion. The word incubus sounded undoubtedly familiar, but I still had a headache, and nothing was processing very clearly.

“Why don't you describe what an incubus is, Logan?” Laury prompted, like a school teacher.

He frowned. “C-can't you?”

“Well, sure. But since you know, I thought you might want to tell us.”

I saw embarrassment and annoyance pass across Logan's features, the tips of his ears turning pink. He grabbed the handle of his mug, released it, and then clapped his hand behind his neck.

“Incubi,” he said eventually, quietly, “are—uh—demons. Supposedly, they're actually, um, angels, but they were cast down from heaven because they were—ah—lusting after women. And according to legend, now that they're on Earth, they lie on sleeping women to, um...”

He trailed off, his freckles standing out in the harsh fluorescent lights. His cheeks were becoming suspiciously red.

“To what, Logan?” Laury demanded gleefully.

“To have, um—to father children,” he managed. His words blurred together, making the phrase an ambiguous mush in my ears. But my mind sorted through it, and when I realized what he was saying, I let out a shrieking gasp.

“What?” I slapped the table with one hand and my stomach with the other, suddenly lucid. “I don't—I—tell me he's joking.” I turned to Logan, desperate for some kind of consolation, but he merely shook his head.

“But Parker, you know this is ridiculous,” he insisted, then looked up at Laury and his silent sister. “This is ridiculous. Incubi don't exist. None of this supernatural bullshit will ever exist in the real world.”

Quite suddenly, Laury began to laugh, a hysterical, shattering sound, and finally closed her eyes, just for a moment. Her eyelids were pale and crossed with blueish veins. Then she snapped to attention, her lips curling into a solemn frown.

“Logan,” she began, as if nothing had happened, “in your reading, did you come across the five ways to overcome the attacks of an incubus?”

Logan was silent.

“I know you did. Why don't I begin for you? For starters, there's exorcism. Isn't that right?”

He nodded stiffly.

“Then, of course, there's Sacramental Confession, excommunication of the demon, moving the victim to a new location, and the Sign of the Cross. Or, instead of that last one...”

“The Angelic Salutation,” Logan murmured gruffly. “The Hail Mary prayer.”

Laury smirked. “Correct!” She turned to me then, but I was already putting two and two together. My heart was racing, but I tried to still it long enough to formulate a response. I saw Laury's anticipatory expression; in her weird way, she probably already knew what I was about to say.

“Let's just pretend, for a second, that all this is real,” I said slowly. “You just said those five things help to overcome incubus attacks. I'm pretty sure that when I said the prayer, something attacked me. And the boy I saw—the one that appeared in my room. How does that factor in? He wasn't some kind of spirit. He was real.” I unconsciously touched my lips, still feeling a ghost of the chill. “He was definitely real.”

Laury tutted. “Well, firstly, the demon was trying to fight back. It didn't want you to expel it, or try to, or even to fight against it. Obviously, its first reaction would be to attack.” She shook her head, as if that should have been evident. “And secondly, well, I guess haven't been entirely honest with you. I think that what you're dealing with is a form of an incubus. It's a demon and it's certainly evil. But it's not the conventional creature that I'm used to seeing.”

I gaped at her. “Then why the hell did you say that it was?”

“Because I don't know what else to call it!” the medium spat, tugging at her hair. “This thing is something that I've never dealt with before, and I don't entirely know what it is. What they are. I don't think I would've ever encountered them if Rose hadn't contacted me.”

“Rose?” I blinked slowly, my voice breaking. “Rosemary? My sister?”

She nodded. “Your sister, yes. She approached me because you were in danger, because she knew that Aubrey knew me and figured you would end up here. But she can't say what they are, not completely—they are preventing her.”

I felt a shiver trace down my spine. “But...but how?” I breathed. “How does she know who...they are?”

Puzzlement tilted Laurie's head, her doll-like eyes growing wider. “I thought you knew,” she whispered, scratching the glass table with one nail. “They are the ones who killed her.”

The silence was terrible. I felt it gnawing at me, swallowing all the air in the room. My head was spinning from a sudden lack of oxygen.

Dead. My sister was dead. I knew that. Murdered. I knew that too.

They had never found the killer.

They never found the killer because the killer was in her dreams.

I licked my lips; they were suddenly dry. I could feel everyone staring at me, waiting, but it felt like I had to swim across an ocean before I could make any words leave my mouth.

“So it's not an incubus,” I said, trying to focus on my hands in front of me instead of the sterile, white kitchen. The blue polish on my nails was chipping.

“No,” Laury affirmed. “Besides the matter of your sister, these men you've been seeing, they—they don't fit in. But they—or it—were affected by that prayer, and that means it's related to the incubi. Not to mention that right now, you positively reek of the thing. I nearly didn't let you in because of the stench, but it appears that your little...friend either can't attack you right now, or isn't trying to.”

She peered at me, her laser gaze seeming to bore holes right through me. “But yes, it is certainly there.”

I leaned away, feeling intruded upon. My head still felt funny. Discomfort climbed through me as I locked eyes with Laury, infesting my muddled thoughts with poisonous malcontent. This incubus nonsense—it could be real, could it? Logan had to be right. This wasn't a demon. It couldn't be. That was ridiculous.

Yet I remembered Edith Hummel's words.

Your mother made a deal with the devil.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the young medium bolted upright in her seat. She looked quickly between me and Logan, then clapped a hand over her lips.

“Oh my—oh, my, my. You two have a test tomorrow, don't you? Oh, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't be keeping you.” She stood quickly, swiping the mugs and plates off our table. I reached for my half-eaten sandwich, but she was faster. “Go on, shoo,” she blustered. “You'll need rest. Keep me posted, and if anything happens, just call this number.”

There was suddenly a business card pressed into my hand, but I didn't get to so much as glance at it. In a whirlwind of movement, we were ushered out of the kitchen, through the living room, and back into the foyer. I was confused by the abruptness of it all, and was no longer sure if our visit with Laury had unearthed anything at all. But as she opened the door, sending us back into the snow, I thought once more of Rosemary.

“Laury,” I said, reaching out but not touching her. “You—you mentioned earlier that you talked to my sister. I-is she here?” I glanced over her shoulder, as if Rosemary would appear in the foyer behind her.

Laury's expression deteriorated quickly, her entire face seeming to droop in sadness. She took my outstretched hand in her cold grip, genuine regret in her voice as she said, “I'm afraid not, Parker. She tries to get out as much as she can, but their hold on her is very tight. She will try to contact you soon, though, I'm sure. And remember: if you ever need help with any of this, don't hesitate to call me.”

I nodded numbly. Laury inspected me with wide, careful eyes, then, after a moment of deliberation, darted forward and enveloped me in a chilly hug. I stood, frozen, unsure of how to react.

“It will be all right,” she assured me, her voice muffled by my hair. “It will. And, darling, I think when your mother returns, you should have a nice long chat with her.” I froze; I hadn't said anything about my mother leaving. But Laury was wearing that knowing smile, and before I could respond, she said, “Now go—your friends are waiting.”

She pulled away, and I began to shuffle toward Aubrey and Logan on unsteady feet. Just as I began to descend the porch steps, however, Laury's voice called me back one more time. When I glanced over my shoulder, there was mischief in the medium's eyes.

“By the way, Parker,” she said mysteriously. “The answer is four.”

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Dedicated to R2D2moonlight for her lovely comment on the last chapter c:

A/N: i'm nearly caught up to where i've edited this which means i'm actually going to have to use effort and rewrite the next chapter noooo-- but as you can probably tell this is where the story begins to become increasingly paranormal aka completely out of my comfort zone

p.s. i totally picture laury as an american luna lovegood, js