The goddess reached out, letting her hand brush mine. Her touch was light, but the warmth traveled deep.
“You can. It just takes practice. And ritual. You are not accustomed to worship yet, Poppy. But don’t worry. You will learn.”
My eyes turned to follow a shadow that was darting between the trees. “What’s that?”
The goddess smiled. “A test. A harbinger. Something that pushes you to see the limits of your power, to choose courage when fear whispers in your ear. Do not think to strike it down blindly. Understand it first. And always remember: you’re not alone. I am here. Always.”
I swallowed, feeling the motherly presence like a blanket around my shoulders. “I… I think I understand.”
“Youthink,” the goddess said, laughter in her voice. “And that is how all daughters start.”
“And after that?” I breathed.
She leaned in. “After that, youwake up.”
Chapter Eleven
Finn’s screams woke me from a dead sleep, sending icy shards of terror straight into my heart.
I was on my feet, all but sprinting in his direction before I realized that the sexy nightie I’d worn to bed with Andre wasn’t exactly something I wanted my son to see me in. But I also didn’t want to pause. He needed me, and I needed to be there. I compromised by grabbing a blanket to curl around my shoulders.
Even that short delay felt like a betrayal. I ran even harder, pelting down the hall double-time to make up for the pause. Andre was close on my heels. His stride was almost double mine, so he reached Finn’s door first. He was the one to fling it open. What we saw inside locked us firmly in place, both of us staring in horror.
Finn’s room was in shambles. The small bookshelf stuffed near his closet was overturned, and his bedside lamp was smashed against the far wall. It had been thrown with enough force to leave a dent in the wall. The posters he’d plastered to the walls had been peeled like the skin off a kiwi. As we watched, the wallpaper split open and burst outward like an overstretched balloon.
Finn had pressed himself flat against his bedcovers, hands over his head as more objects went flying. Ouire was right beside him, his ribbon tail between his legs as he cowered in front of Finn. As to my son, he was pale and trembling, barely keeping himself from crying out as his math textbook rose off his bedside table and ripped itself neatly in half. The homework inside was reduced to confetti that rained down on him. The familiar hunched posture reminded me so viscerally of his eleven-year-old self that memories of that awful time came back to assault me all over again.
“Mom!”
Finn’s desperate cry had me bolting up from my loose-limbed tangle on the couch. I’d tried to stay up, hoping to outlast the ghostly intruder. I must have nodded off, and Frank had finally taken the opportunity to make his move.
Damn it. I was always too late. The screams mocked me, leaving me feeling a hollow, desperate ache in my gut. The one person I was meant to keep safe was suffering. I had to stop this. But how?
“Poppy!”
Andre’s crisp British accent drew me out of my panicked haze. I turned slightly, trying to keep him in view while the world went to hell around me.
“It’s a poltergeist,” I said, starting forward so I could reach Finn. That was all that mattered.
But Andre’s hand around my upper arm stopped me. I turned to face him, not understanding why he was stalling me. Seeing him standing there, clutching a slim length of dark wood between his fingers, made my heart ease, just a little, because it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t in this alone. He was here. He could help Finn and so could I.
Andre flicked the wood between his fingers like a conductor’s baton. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was shaped like a wand. Not the white-tipped plastic I was used to magicians wielding, but a genuine wand inlaid with sigils I couldn’t make out. His movements weren’t theatrical—more like he was fencing with something just out of sight, each arc and jab met with resistance that made his sleeve jump or his shoulder jolt.
“I don’t think it’s a ghost,” Andre said, stepping up in front of me. His eyes were narrowed on the room, darting this way and that, as though he could see something in the dimness that I couldn’t. His shoulders twitched at odd moments, like something was yanking at the edge of his shirt, and he grimacedas though bracing against a force I couldn’t see. The wand jerked once in his grip, and he tightened his fingers until his knuckles bleached white.
“How can you be sure?”
He shrugged. “I can’t. This just doesn’t have the… feel of a ghost, if that makes any sense. I feel energy, but it’s not the cold of the grave.”
I looked forward, trying to ascertain what he was feeling, but all I could feel was panic that Finn was still in the middle of it. “Whatever it is, I have to get to him.”
Andre nodded. The air around himshimmered with tiny, angry motes of golden light, as though whatever-invisible-thing was trying to wrap itself around his wrists. He swept the wand through the air and the motes snapped back like elastic. His jaw clenched, breath hissing between his teeth. “You get Finn away, and I think I can hold it—whatever it is—off until you get your potions.”
Potions! How the hell had I forgotten the potions I kept in my nightstand? Ever since Frank had haunted our house in Silver Lake, I’d kept a stash of potions next to my bed, including Fiery Command Oil, Mystic Veil, and various uncrossing potions. The rest of the limited stock I kept in the house was downstairs.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, half-shouting over the continuing din. Finn had finally stopped screaming, but his eyes were still wide as unseen hands raked the covers off him, leaving him trembling in the bed. He had one arm wrapped around Ouire as if he was trying to figure out when to make a run for it. I tried again to go to him, but Andre held me back. Sweat had beaded at his temple, and the muscles in his forearm corded as he wrestled with forces my eyes refused to track.
“Not yet, Poppy. I’m going to strip the bastard of the shield it’s hiding behind.”
