Alice sniffed, her feelings obviously hurt. “I did my best to capture the ghost.”
I patted her arm. “And you did a fine job. The problem is that we know she isn’t the real banshee.”
Alice shut the camera off and hooked the strap over her arm. “Well, I’m not going to let that stop me. Birda may have been able to dog us about the other night, but she can’t dog us when it comes to this video. No way. I’ll make sure she retracts that statement she made.”
Ruth rubbed her neck. “What? Or it’s the last thing you’ll do?”
Alice considered that. “Why yes,” she said as if realizing for the first time that was an option. “Yes. If it’s the last thing I ever do, by God I will make sure that Birda takes back every bad thing she’s ever said about us.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
Ruth patted Alice’s shoulder. “Alice, it’s late. I don’t know about you, but I need my beauty sleep.”
“Let’s go,” Alice said.
They shuffled from the house, leaving Tart and me alone. I shut the door and rested my back against it, trying to figure out a way to bring up Roan.
“That boyfriend of yours,” Tart said.
Oh look, it appeared my biological mother would spare me the difficulty of thinking.
“Yes?” I shoved myself off the hard wooden door and crossed back to the kitchen. “He’s great, isn’t he?” I added, not giving her a chance to argue.
“I’m sure he is,” she said slowly. Tart sat at the table. Her fingers were threaded together, and her mouth dipped into a deep frown.
“He seems very nice.” Her gaze darted to me. “Like he cares about you a lot.”
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I knew my mother and I were on the mend, but the suspense was gnawing at my heart. “Cut the crap.”
She blinked in surprise.
“What’s your problem with Roan?Inoticed it.Henoticed it.” My heart twisted in pain. “It’s one thing for me to realize it, but Roan is no idiot. He knew you kept him from coming with us for a reason.”
I planted my palms on the table and glared at her. “Out with it. Why’d you make my boyfriend uncomfortable?”
Tart’s mouth tightened. “There are things you need to know about your powers.”
My stomach coiled. I didn’t like the sound of that. “What sort of things? I’ve lived with these powers all my life and know everything there is to know about them.”
She smiled gently. “You know everything there is to know about how you deal with your clairvoyance, but how your gift interacts with others is different.”
“Okay.” The word came out slowly.
Why did I get the feeling that whatever my mother was about to tell me wasn’t going to be a picture full of sunshine and roses?
“Your clairvoyance is generally a gift of the light. You can see bad spirits, and you can open the light to them, right?”
I nodded. “Yes. The light is always there. I simply allow it to be seen. And of course I can communicate with spirits.”
“Yes,” Tart agreed. She rubbed a hand over her arm, scratching a spot just above her elbow. “You know about positive and negative, of course. If you think of the light as a positive, then the other side, the side that deals with evil, is dark.
“Now…” She pulled her attention from her arm and pointed it back at me. “The dark tends to be demons and beings that are truly evil. That was one reason why I wanted to come tonight. I trust your judgment. You’ve been doing this a long time, but I still wanted to see the banshee and make sure you weren’t opening yourself to something more of the devil.”
“No, just annoying,” I joked.
Tart didn’t laugh, though she gave me a quick but tight smile. “When I first met your father, I did my best to deny the attraction between us. He did as well.”
“I understand. It was against the rules.”
