Cold Hands

Stitches

I hadn't even thought about how I would get back home. My mom was in her office at the church, Chelsea was at work, and Ephraim and Cane were preoccupied with whatever witchy things they were doing in the Coventus. I called Salome, but she didn't pick up. I would have to make my way back myself. It was already getting dim outside when I left the shop; I needed to hurry.

I didn't think it was that far from Main Street to the Manor, but the road through the woods seemed a lot longer and twistier in a wheelchair than it did in a car. Wind whistled through the trees, rustling the leaves. My teeth chattered and my ears ached. I flinched every time a car passed.

But in a way, a good walk was just what I needed to let everything process. It wasn't like I couldn't handle it; I liked to think I was made of reasonably tough stuff, but this would be a lot to think about for anybody. Just a few weeks ago, I didn't even believe in the moon landing. Now I found out my new friends were a coven of actual Witches, and I had seen them conjure spirits and turn tourist shops into cathedrals. I had a two hundred year old dead slave living in my attic, and he seemed pretty chill and bandaged my leg for me. Chelsea, for all I knew, was probably a mermaid.

And there was another ghost, somewhere in this town, killing and mutilating innocent people for sport.

I stopped dead in the middle of the road. I had forgotten about something.

There was another ghost in the manor, too. Something that left footprints and wet journals, and banged around upstairs. Had I told Ephraim about that? I couldn't remember.

I was starting to feel very exposed and vulnerable, on an empty forest road alone at night, in a wheelchair. An easy target.

Somewhere, an owl hooted. My skin crawled. I shook my head vigorously and picked up the pace. This was a much longer journey than I had anticipated.

When I finally rolled up at home, my ears felt like they were about to fall off and my arms were sore. My mom's car wasn't in the driveway. I checked my phone—9:00 already. Dang. She hadn't texted me, which bugged me a little. That didn't seem like her, but I shrugged it off. Probably out late working on one of her articles or something, she'd been known to lose track of time in a journalistic frenzy before.

I clunked my way noisily up the porch steps and into the foyer. The house was dark and eerily quiet.

"Home sweet home," I said irritably. It echoed.

I went back to my room. I could hear the scratchy sound of music playing through the door.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves

The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

"Who's there?" I demanded, pushing open the door.

The room was empty, but the record player was open again. I snatched the vinyl out with a growl.

"Careful with that," said a voice behind me. "It's an antique. You already busted my favorite one."

I whirled as quick as I could, ramming a wheel into the record cabinet in the process.

He was sprawled casually over my bed, swinging his legs back and forth over the edge. I swore he hadn't been there just a second ago.