I grimaced. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Let’s just say I’m glad your dad was there to stop it.”
I chuckled. “Everything takes time.”
“So I hear. Listen, I’m calling because I just put a batch of double fudge brownies in the oven.”
I moaned. “I can smell them from here.”
“I thought maybe you could come over for dinner…”
“I thought we were supposed to stay away from each other—no contact.”
“Blissful.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I couldn’t stay away from you if I was chained underwater.”
My heart flip-flopped. A tidal wave of sadness racked itself against my body. I felt myself breaking apart.
I knew what it was to have lost someone I loved. It happened once with my adoptive father. I didn’t want to do it again.
“The way I see it,” Roan continued, “if we stay away from my place and bad spirits, all will be okay.”
Since I’d discovered the true identities of my “parents,” fissures of doubt about why Roan and I couldn’t be together had started to lay their groundwork in my brain.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s your idea?”
“A moonlit picnic in front of a bonfire. I’ll admit it might be a little chilly, but I’m willing to risk it.”
I smiled so widely my face hurt. In fact, every inch of me ached to see Roan. Even my toes missed him—and not because of the amazing foot rubs he gave, though those certainly added to the mix.
“I would love to join you for a bonfire.”
“Great,” Roan said, “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
We hung up, and joy coursed through me. I was tempted to run through town singing at the top of my lungs, but then I remembered that I couldn’t sing and I would rather die than make a public spectacle of myself.
So I decided to turn my attention toward other things. I gazed around my living room until my eyes snagged on the video camera with the image of Francine tucked away somewhere.
I picked it up, thumbed it on and scrolled through the menu, trying to figure out what had happened to the video Alice had taped.
It wasn’t in the files, but I remembered an old trick from a video camera my dad had when I was young. I opened my laptop and plugged the camera in. After uploading some retrieval software, I was able to locate the deleted file and restore it to the video camera.
“Bingo!”
I watched the file on my laptop. It was dark and very grainy, but I could make out Francine as the banshee. She glowed like a white halo. You could hear me talking, but it sounded more like a mumble than clear words. At one point Alice panned, and though most of the frame was dark, something glinted up in a tree. I stared at it, trying to figure out what could possibly shine at night.
It was in the middle of that thought when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Blissful, this is Devlin Monk. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all. I was just salvaging the video Alice got of the banshee. You know, the one you accidentally erased?”
He paused. “Oh, right. Alice was pretty ticked at me.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well it’s all fixed now. Looks like a great shot of the banshee. Maybe you should run this next,” I joked.
“Maybe so. I was calling to see if you’d seen the paper?”
