Pride curls Rainier’s lips. Is he pleased to have outsmarted a ghost, or that his daughter’s so well versed in corrosive metal and zombiesque apparitions? And what the hell do radio frequencies and electromagnetic radiation have to do with ghosts anyway?
Still on the ground, Gaëlle wipes her wet cheeks.
“It’s only temporary. He’ll be back. The copper disrupts the electromagnetic waves he uses to appear but won’t keep him away.” Adrien wears his usual know-it-all air.
My eyes go to Cadence’s. For once, she doesn’t seem all that flummoxed or impressed.
“Gaëlle hasn’t defeated the curse yet, though, right?” I ask, which is a dumb question since no shiny leaf has sprung out of the ghost.
Adrien gestures to the sticks in the snow that formed the X. “Leading him to his bones was supposed to trap him long enough for Gaëlle to bind him.”
Rainier lets out a long sigh. “I fear we have to dig him up for this to work.”
Silence settles over the white clearing. Matching looks of horror bloom across my partners’ faces. I, on the other hand, am not overly bothered. Won’t be the first time I disturb the dead this past week. Not that it did me much good the first time around.
“The ground’s frozen, Papa,” says Cadence. “There’s no way we can dig through it.”
“Guess we’ll have to un-freeze it.” I remove one glove and pull my phone out. The goose egg ring emits light like a blood-soaked disco-ball.
Gaëlle sits up, rubbing her neck. There’s a nasty necklace of bruises developing below her jaw. “His body . . . it’s not buried deep.” She glances up at us, a haunted look on her face. “I-I only dug a couple feet down.”
Pulling up a link, I tap the screen of my cell. “Says here to try a charcoal fire and then boiling water to soften the dirt.”
Rainier gestures to the shed at the end of the drive. “There might still be bags of charcoal in there. If they stayed dry, maybe they’ll work. There’ll be shovels, too.” He digs around a leather pocket snapped into the seat of the snowmobile. “Here, Roland.” He hands over a shiny set of keys. “I’ve been meaning to give these to you, but between the ring andgroac’h, well . . . I forgot.”
I scoff because De Morel doesn’t strike me as someone who forgets anything. After all, it’s his legs that are cursed, not his mind. “You sure you were going to mention it to me?”
He frowns so hard vertical and horizontal lines appear on his forehead. “It’s not fit for living at the moment. No heat, no water, no electricity. But it’s in your list of assets. The papers are all in order. Once we’ve taken care of the Quatrefoil, I’ll get your whole inheritance together.”
“Right. You said you’d do it two days ago.”
“I’ve been busy, Slate.”
“Yeah. Me, too. But, hey, I get it. The Quatrefoil comes first.”
“If you want to live, it does.”
“Convenient that my life’s tied—”
“Slate, come on . . .” Cadence’s soft voice snatches my attention off her old man. “Save this conversation for later, okay? Matthias will be back any moment.”
The keys’ serrated edges bite into my palm as I turn and trudge through the snow toward the shed. I sense a presence behind me. I look over my shoulder to make sure it isn’t the ghost. When I see it’s Cadence, the knots lining my shoulders loosen.
“Can you please give Papa a break?”
I stash my phone back into my pocket and grab my glove before I add frostbite to my list of grievances. “You’ve seen my dorm room.”
“It’s warm, clean, and has a bed.”
“Pfff. He’s really rolled out the red carpet. Some of the bedrooms in my old foster homes were better.” Not true. I just feel like whining. And I want her to take my side.
A flash of pain crosses her pale-blue eyes. I almost feel bad, but when she raises a compassionate smile I decide I don’t feelexcessivelybad. I want to ask her what happened back in the art building when she nods to my fist.
“You’ll need the key.”
I unwrap my fingers, grab the clunkiest one, and jam it into the lock of the wide red door. Unfortunately, the door opens outward, so I have to yank on it, then shut it several times to clear the thick layer of snow before I can worm my way inside. Cadence slips in behind me, cell phone up, flashlight beaming.
It smells like dust and mildew and gasoline. Garden tools hang from pegs all along one wall. An old lawnmower stands upright near the back window. Folded up lawn chairs covered in cobwebs lean against a wrought-iron table piled with a bucket of clothespins, a watering can, and a striped green hose. Two vintage bicycles with flattened tires and crooked spokes hang from large ceiling hooks. A dusty toddler’s car seat sits in a corner beside two stacked buckets, a shovel, and an industrial-sized bag of coal. A tiny, one-eyed teddy bear is propped up in the car seat. He smiles at me, and it flicks my heart, because I imagine he was mine.
