The Coming | The House of Voices #2

Thirty One - Tell

Tell

I couldn’t bring myself to go back into the den – not until I’d decided what I was going to tell Parish – so I just sat there on the loveseat in Gomez’s office. After making me promise that I’d close the blinds and the door before I left, Spade left me to go tell Ace about the new developments. I’d insisted that I be the one to tell Parish, and Spade hadn’t argued. It was why he’d shown me the book before Parish in the first place, he thought I would know the best way to break it to him.

He was wrong there. I had absolutely no idea how to tell Parish that his mother was the Conduit who’d come to The Black Tarot for help when she’d realized that her powers were affecting her son. Spade had gotten that detail wrong, we realized. He thought her husband was the Sponge, but obviously it was her son.

I stayed in Gomez’s office for almost two hours, thinking and thinking of how I was going to tell Parish. What was I going to tell him? How would I start? Would he freak out? Or would he be unsurprised, having already guessed?

When Ace and Spade walked into the office at around seven to tell me that they had to leave for an emergency job, I still hadn’t any idea what to do.

“Hey,” Ace said, kneeling on the ground in front of me. “Just rip the band aid off and tell him. The longer you stall the more difficult it’s going to get.”

“I know,” I sighed.

She smiled at me sympathetically and patted my hand. “This one’s going home after, but I’ll be back as soon as I’m done with this job, okay?” She jerked her head in Spade’s direction. “He’s fallen asleep on the couch, so you can either wait for him to wake up, or tell him now – it’s up to you. But you’ve got to tell him tonight, October.”

“I know,” I repeated forlornly. I hadn’t told them the things I’d figured out, so they probably didn’t understand why this was so hard for me. But they were right, I needed to tell Parish. The longer I waited the worse it was going to get.

I stood up and walked over to the window to close the blinds just as Ace and Spade walked out the door. By the time I was closing the office door behind me, I could hear their bikes revving up outside. Clutching the book close to my chest, I padded slowly into the den, where Parish was just waking up, roused by the sounds of the Spellcasters’ bikes.

“Hey,” He said when he saw me, a slow smile breaking out on his face. “You were gone for a whi—What’s wrong?” His smile changed into a concerned frown as he took in the look on my face. “October, are you alright?”

I inhaled deeply, steeling myself. “Parish,” I started, moving over to sit beside him on the couch. “We need to talk.”