Ryder chuckled and then used the back of his hand to wipe away his smile. “You, little miss, are a right piece of work, ain’t you? You’re a pretty little thing, but you done and picked yourself up some real bad manners. I’ll gladly help you correct ’em.”
Normally, two out of three isn’t bad, but I had failed to compel this Ryder to take off. I’d have to talk to Oliver about it. Find out where I had gone wrong, but now I had a more pressing matter at hand. I breathed deeply into my diaphragm and envisioned a wall growing between us, not only separating us, but pushing Ryder backward, forcing all three of them to move on. Ryder’s tattooed arm reached out toward me, but then quivered and fell to his side.
He gave me a dark look and stepped up with his arms held wide open, bumping his chest against the invisible barrier I had built between us. He was not in the least little bit frightened of my magic. Worse, the look in his eyes told me he was thinking of challenging it, but then he turned away and swaggered back toward the river. Joe followed him, tagging a few steps behind like an enamored puppy. Birdy stood her ground the longest. “I don’t like you,” she said, giving me one final, hate-filled glare. The feeling was more than mutual, but I didn’t think it wise to antagonize her, especially since I had won this battle. I held my tongue.
“Birdy,” Ryder commanded, and she scurried to his side.
I watched until they were gone, and then turned my attention back to the lock. I slid a smidge of energy into it, envisioning the force molding to the inner workings of the mechanism and then condensing, hardening. My heart was in my throat as I turned it. I was thrilled when I heard the click—for once, my magic had worked as I’d intended.
I hurried inside, slamming the door behind me and quickly turning the deadbolt. I leaned against the locked door and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I nearly jumped on the bar when a bell rang out. The old landline phone, yellow with gray buttons and absolutely no form of caller ID, sounded again. I hesitated, but then answered.
“Hello, sweet girl,” Colin said, the clunky receiver faithfully relaying the sadness in his voice. “I’m glad you picked up. I couldn’t remember your cell number for the life of me, but this one’s been in my head for thirty years.”
“Peter isn’t here yet, Mr. Tierney.”
“Ah, I know that darlin’, he’s here with his mother. That’s why I’m calling. The man who the police found. He was . . . he was family.” I grasped the bar to keep from falling flat to the floor. Accident or no, the guilt of what I’d done squeezed my chest like a boa constrictor, pressing the air out of me. “We won’t be opening tonight, so you best lock up and head on home.”
“Wait, Mr. Tierney. I’ll stay. I’d like to be here for you and Claire,” I said, even though my head reeled at the thought. I had no idea how I would ever face Peter’s parents after what had happened. Somehow I’d have to find a way to own up to it.
“I don’t want to hurt you, my girl, but Mother and I need some time for private grieving. We’ll be relying on you and my little grandson for comfort soon enough, but tonight, you’ll have to leave us be. Mother wants her boy with her, so I wouldn’t count on seeing Peter till tomorrow. I should get back to them now.”
“Mr. Tierney,” I called out before he could disconnect.
“Yes?”
“Who was he?”
“My Uncle Peadar, my father’s brother. Here for a surprise visit, I guess. We haven’t seen him in decades now, not since Peter was still in diapers, but Claire still felt very fond of the old fellow. Good-bye, Mercy.”
“Good—” I began, but he had already hung up.
SIX
I spent a nearly sleepless night and was haunted by nightmares of Peter’s great-uncle each time I drifted off. When I woke from the one that ended with a cottonmouth snake hissing out through the hole I’d left in the man’s chest, I decided that enough was enough and that I’d rather stay awake to greet the dawn. I found my phone and saw that Peter had texted me at some point while I was wrestling with his relative’s zombie in a dream. Peter’s messages said that he loved me. That his mom was upset. Really upset, considering that they hadn’t even seen Uncle Peadar in over twenty years. Maybe because the police thought he might have been murdered? He’d call after he finished the walkthrough with Tucker at the site of the job he was taking on.
First light found me up and heading to Colonial Cemetery, looking for Jilo. She did her magic a bit farther out, at a crossroads hidden off the dead end of Normandy Street, but she handled the money end of her business here in Colonial.
“Well you been busy, ain’t ya?” she said as she plodded across the field toward me, using the lawn chair she always carried with her to Colonial as a makeshift walker.
“How did you know?”
“Girl, they a police station right next door to this here boneyard, and Mother may be old, but she ain’t deaf. Now you tell her what you been up to.”
“A man showed up after you left the powder magazine,” I confessed, relieved to share with someone. Maybe it was unfair, maybe not, but I couldn’t help resenting my mother for her silence. She had to know I needed her. I touched the chain of her locket and pushed the thought away. “The poor man was sick,” I continued, trying to focus on the story I could share with Jilo. “Confused. I think he might have had Alzheimer’s or something.”
“Mm-hmm,” she prompted me.
“I was talking to him, trying to figure out where he belonged, when he keeled over. He wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse . . .”
“And you thought you would jolt him back to life with a wee touch of magic?”
I nodded.
“And ended up burning a hole clean through the old buzzard,” she said, and then started laughing, that unnerving wheezing of hers that always ended up sounding like a death rattle. She winded herself, and leaned most of her weight against the folded chair while she wheezed. I reached out toward her, but she held up her hand. “Don’t you go helpin’ Jilo none. She done seen what yo’ kind of help leads to, and she ain’t ready to stand outside them pearly gates just yet.”
She burst into another bout of laughter, but managed to gain control of herself again when she took note of the tears that were forming in my eyes. “Shoot. You stop worryin’, girl. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong. Ain’t got a thing to feel bad about. That old fella of yours, he already dead when you put your hands to him.” Jilo did her best to offer me absolution, but it didn’t stick.
“How could you know that? You weren’t there.”
“Did he have a pulse? Was he breathing?”
“No. He had turned blue.”
“Well, there you go then. A blue cracker is a dead cracker.” A smile of encouragement quivered on her lips. She reached out and wiped at my tears with her calloused fingers. “Hell, most folk would have never even stopped and tried to help him anyway. You a good girl. You done all you could for him,” she said, but then gave me the stink eye. “They somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ Jilo, though, ain’t they. Get on with it, girl. You tell Mother.”
She flipped the lawn chair open and eased her way into it. Sometimes she seemed like such a force of nature, but lately I could tell she was growing frailer. I sat down at her feet, and she pulled my head over to her knee, running her gnarled fingers through my hair. I don’t know exactly when it had happened, but over the past few weeks, I’d grown quite attached to the old woman of the crossroads, and I knew that whether she liked it or not, she had come to feel the same way about me.
