The faucet was still running. I turned it off with shaking hands.
Murdered. Rosaria had been murdered. And I was apparently the only one who could see her, which meant I waseither developing supernatural abilities at fifty-two or having a complete psychological breakdown.
I walked back to the kitchen on unsteady legs. The bowl of soggy Cheerios was still sitting on the table where I’d abandoned it. The cottage was quiet except for the tick of the radiator and the distant crash of waves against the rocks.
On the shelf by the window, one of Aunt Amelia’s books caught my eye.When the Veil Thins: A Practical Guide. I’d shoved it there weeks ago, not wanting to deal with whatever weirdness my aunt had been into.
Now I pulled it down and opened it to a random page.
The gift often awakens during times of hormonal transition, the text read.Many mediums report their abilities emerging during puberty, pregnancy, or menopause. The body’s changes seem to thin the barrier between worlds, allowing communication with those who have passed.
I closed the book. Opened it again. Read the passage three more times.
Then I poured myself a very large glass of wine and sat down at the kitchen table, in my dead aunt’s house surrounded by mirrors and herbs and books about talking to the dead.
Rosaria wanted me to solve her murder. Fine. If that was what it took to get her out of my bathroom, out of my life, out of myhead—fine. I’d figure out who killed her, hand the information to the police, and wash my hands of the entire Ferraro family forever.
How hard could it be?
The hot flash that hit me twenty minutes later came with Rosaria’s voice, distant but unmistakable:
“That wine is terrible. I always said you had no palate. And do something about your hair before you go anywhere. You look like you have given up on life.”
I put my head down on the table and seriously considered screaming.
This was going to be a long investigation.
CHAPTER TWO
The eggs were burningand I didn’t care because I was busy proving to myself that last night hadn’t happened.
I stood at Aunt Amelia’s ancient stove, spatula in hand, watching the edges of the fried egg go from golden to brown to something approaching charcoal. The kitchen smelled like burnt butter and denial. Outside, November sunlight filtered through the window over the sink, making the dust motes look almost pretty. A normal morning. A completely normal morning in which nothing supernatural had occurred.
“You imagined it,” I said out loud, because apparently talking to myself was fine but seeing dead people was where I drew the line. “Stress hallucination. Hormones. Maybe the Cheerios were expired.”
I scraped the ruined egg onto a plate, stared at it, and scraped it into the trash. My appetite had packed its bags and left sometime around three a.m., when I’d woken up drenched in sweat and immediately checked every mirror in the house. All empty. Just my own tired face looking back at me, puffy-eyed and unconvinced.
The cottage felt too quiet. I’d left the TV on all night for company, some home renovation show where couples arguedabout backsplashes, but I’d turned it off when I realized I was jealous of people whose biggest problem was subway tile versus herringbone.
I needed to get out. I needed to do something aggressively normal, something so mundane it would overwrite whatever had happened in that bathroom. Grocery shopping. That was it. I’d go buy milk and vegetables like a functioning adult, and by the time I got back, my brain would have reset itself.
I grabbed my coat, my keys, and the reusable bags I kept forgetting to bring, and headed for the door. The hallway mirror caught my reflection as I passed. I flinched, then forced myself to look.
Just me. Dark hair with its silver streaks, the ones I’d stopped bothering to dye. Brown eyes, a little bloodshot. No dead Italian women offering unsolicited beauty advice.
“See?” I told my reflection. “Normal.”
My reflection did not look convinced.
The little grocery store on Main Street was called Harbor Market, and it had the kind of narrow aisles where you couldn’t avoid making eye contact with everyone you passed. I’d been in Starfall Bay for three months and I still didn’t know most people, which suited me fine. Back in my old life, I’d known everyone at the supermarket, the dry cleaner’s, the school pickup line. I’d smiled until my face ached. Here, I could be anonymous. Here, nobody knew I was the woman who’d supposedly killed her mother-in-law with a divorce announcement.
I was squeezing avocados—badly, I’d never been good at picking produce, Sal had always done the shopping because he said I bought things that were “past their potential,” which in retrospect was probably a metaphor—when the warmth started creeping up my neck.
Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just that slow, unwelcome climb from normal body temperature towhy is it so warmin here, the kind that made me want to unzip my jacket and stand in front of the frozen foods section until someone called management. My face flushed. The back of my neck went damp. I set the avocado down and tugged at my collar, breathing through it the way my doctor had suggested, which was about as effective as breathing through a building collapse.
The fluorescent lights above the lettuce display flickered. Once, twice. The mister that kept the greens damp sputtered and went off-schedule, spraying a fine mist directly into my face.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered, wiping water from my eyes.
