I frowned. That didn’t sound like my father. What could he need to do with the living? He’d been dead long enough that if he’d wanted to come back sooner, he would have. Why now? And why use Lucky for the extra juice?
“He was ticked at me earlier; I don’t think I’ll ever know.”
“You realize, don’t you, that you could use the helmet to magnify your call and snare him so that he’s forced to face you.”
“Yeah, and die like the last person who used it? I don’t think so, Zelda. Thanks but no thanks.”
“What are you talking about? Die like the last person?”
I hedged. Maybe this wasn’t something I was supposed to say. “Lemon told me the last person who used it died from a brain hemorrhage.”
Zelda stared at me a moment before throwing her head back and laughing. “And you believed her? I know it seems logical. I invited you here and said you might lose your powers, then I suggest you use another object. But I would never, ever have allowed you to put yourself in any kind of harm’s way, Blissful.”
Well, silly me for thinking it, then.
She tutted. “No, no. Lemon lied to you.”
Now I was annoyed. It was one thing to perhaps fib, make me think that something you said might be an exaggeration, but to lie? Oh, that was going too dang far.
“Why did she do it?”
“I am so pale.” Zelda glanced at herself in the mirror and dragged a hand down her face, pulling her skin. “And old. I wonder if there’s something in the afterlife that will make my wrinkles go away.”
“Lemon,” I reminded her before Zelda went off on a tangent that I’d never get her back from. “Why would she lie to me about the machine?”
“Oh, that. She’s always been jealous of my power. You see, my daughter wanted to be a medium. Wanted it very badly, but it didn’t work out for her. She never got one ounce of my psychic abilities. You know how it goes—sometimes the power skips a generation.”
I was adopted so I didn’t know much about my real parents, but I had heard of that before. “So she lied because she’s jealous?”
“Obviously. She didn’t want me to like you because that was competition to her. At heart, Lemon is a five-year-old.”
I let her words wind about my head. If Lemon had lied about the helmet, what else had she lied about? Being innocent and not killing her mother?
Zelda started to grow faint, and at the same time I heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” playing downstairs. So the Christmas music was back on. That was probably thanks to Alice.
Light cracked through a seam in the ceiling. Zelda glanced up at it, mesmerized. “I’ve never seen the light before. It’s so beautiful. It’s calling me.”
I rose. There was little time left. If I was going to get any answers from Zelda, it would have to be now.
“Who killed you?” I demanded. “Who did it? We’re stuck here, in this house, until morning. I need to know who killed you, Zelda.”
She lifted her hands. “I don’t care about anything else anymore. All I want is to go to the light—to go home.”
“Wait!” I reached for her, but Zelda slipped up to the ceiling, sliding into the crack and disappearing from view.
I closed my eyes. She was gone, and with her went her secrets—every last one.
Chapter 15
Iwound my way slowly back toward the séance room and everyone who was tucked away in it. There was no point in rushing—after all, there was a lot to think about. Zelda wanted me to use the helmet. It made sense. It was the quickest way to ensure that I could drag my father out of hiding to speak to me, but it still bothered me that Lemon had said it would kill me and Zelda had declared that it would not.
Dead, Zelda had nothing to gain by telling me the truth. Was it simply that Lemonwasjealous and didn’t want me near her mother? Or was it all part of some grand scheme that Lemon had—tell me I would die and then kill Zelda?
She hadn’t pointed the finger at me for her mother’s murder, but would she? Was that another part of the plan?
As I crept through the downstairs rooms, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
I whirled around and found Lucky Strike floating in the corner of the library. He bent his finger, gesturing for me to join him.
