Banishing the Dark
Page 61

I strained to see anything that might indicate location: mail, calendar, family photos, letterhead. But no. Nothing and more nothing. It was the blandest, least personal house I’d ever seen.
“Come on, give me something,” I murmured, as if that would help. It wasn’t sentient; the images were already prerecorded, so to speak. What I saw was what it had retrieved. I hoped it would move into another room where I might see something more—magnets on the refrigerator or a takeout menu on the counter. But the servitor’s metaphysical lens only moved to the far end of the room, where an oversized grandfather clock sat near the fireplace.
Deer and trees and wood nymphs were carved into the massive wooden base. A stag’s antlered head jutted above the gold clock dial. A terrible familiarity washed over me at the sight of it. Some dusty, long-forgotten memory cowered in the corned of my mind.
I’d seen this clock before.
The servitor’s gaze bobbed and floated down to the bottom of the clock. In a swift movement, it pushed forward and ghosted through the base, but there was nothing but darkness. Darkness, and more darkness, then—
Pop!
The servitor’s transmission ended, leaving me sitting on the hotel floor with Lon’s pocketknife stuck into the bar of soap.
“What did you see?” Lon asked, squatting next to me.
“A house in the woods, no cars. I couldn’t even tell where the woods were—Oregon? Maryland? Florida? I don’t know. There was nothing identifiable, Lon. Just a grandfather clock. But maybe that was the clue the servitor was trying to show me. And it’s weird, but I think I remember it from when I was a kid.”
“Your parents’ house in Florida?”
“No, that’s long gone. And we didn’t have a grandfather clock. Maybe I saw it somewhere we went. Another house.”
“Family vacation?”
“We never went on vacation.” Like, never. And strange, but the word vacation triggered a whole other nagging feeling inside my brain, that déjà vu sensation. Plane tickets. Skiing. Mountains. Christmas. Where the hell was this all coming from? Someplace more recent? I couldn’t piece it together.
“Did you ever visit anyone?” Lon pressed, unaware of my warring memories. “Friends of your parents? Another lodge, maybe?”
“They never took me anywhere. They were gone half the time, traveling.”
Lon’s phone rang, tearing me out of my brain strain. He slid his fingers over the screen to answer the call. Even with the phone against his ear, I could hear Jupe’s urgent voice. Then Lon said, “Hold on.” He put it on speakerphone and held it between us.
“Cady?”
“I’m here,” I confirmed. “What’s wrong?”
“You guys need to come home,” Jupe’s voice said. “Right now.”
Nine hours later, after speeding our way across the state, we sat on the most comfortable sectional sofa known to mankind, in the cleanest-smelling, coziest home in the world. Stack stone and pale wood. Soft rugs. Black-and-white photographs. Large plate-glass windows and sliding doors that looked out onto a covered patio and a redwood deck and the dark Pacific beyond.
If I could, I’d never leave Lon’s house. Ever. In the midst of the shitstorm that was my personal life, his home felt safe and familiar and good—so good it helped dull the shock that trickled through my body like medicine dripping down from an IV.
“Are you sure that’s everything Mrs. Vega knew?” Lon asked. “You positive she had no idea where this winter house was located?”
“I’m sure,” Jupe said from my side, then reluctantly added, “I used my knack on her.”
Lon’s jaw twitched. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Jupe’s long legs were folded up against his chest. He leaned hard against my shoulder, smelling faintly of coconut oil and chamomile, while Mr. Piggy sniffed his bare toes. I knew he was still worried that he was in trouble for sneaking around; considering Lon’s simmering, barely restrained anger and this latest confession about his knack, I was pretty sure a long grounding was in Jupe’s future.
But I personally wasn’t mad at the kid. Confused by what he’d learned from Mrs. Vega? Oh, yes. Very confused. Which was probably why I couldn’t stop holding his hand. I craved comfort, and he was the only thing between sanity and a whole lot of travel-weary, sloppy-ass tears.
“I made Mrs. Vega not want to tell anyone about our visit and what she told me and Leticia,” Jupe added.
“How did you meet this Leticia?” Lon asked. “She doesn’t go to school out here.”
Jupe’s groan was so low I felt it more than heard it. “She kind of, well, she goes to school in Morella. I sort of, kind of, met her . . . well, it doesn’t matter.”
God, he was the worst liar in the world. I forced myself not to laugh as I tried to put a face to the name. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Leticia Vega; I’d only ever talked to Grandmaster Vega on a handful of occasions. I never attended the Morella lodge as a member; I only went to them for help when I needed it. “She’s your age?” I asked.
A dreamy sort of daze breezed over Jupe’s features. “Uh-huh.”
Oh, boy. I’d seen that look before, whenever Jupe was in the same room with Kar Yee. “So she’s cute, huh?”
Slow grin.
“And she’s helping you, so she must like you.”