I salute the officiant goodbye and kick the SUV into first gear. Then I quickly shift into automatic again, before I kill us.
“Don’t worry,” I say with more calm than I feel. “I’ll come back tomorrow for your instruments.”
“And my station wagon?”
“Sure. I’m coming back for Bu—for my bags of décor, anyway.”
In the meantime, what I need to come up withnowis a good lie that’ll keep James, Eric, and Remy from realizing they were gigging a paranormal wedding. Including some direct interactions with ghosts.
As I drive the boys out of the parking lot, Eric collapses with athonkagainst the passenger window. “We only playedone song.”
“Did we?” asks Remy. He sounds dazed. Encouragingly so.
“Yes. And then…” Eric, for his part, sounds like he’s halfway asphyxiated himself. “I’m not sure what happened. I mean… that couldn’t have happened, could it? They…”
I clench my teeth, readying a million excuses.
“…lovedus,” finishes James.
The Vampire Weekenders hyperventilate the whole way to James’s family home in Winchester. Remarkably, in spite of driving a fair distance from Salem, I don’t turn into a human puddle along the way.
But then again, it’s well after 9 p.m., meaning Grandma Rose’s ascension is complete. For all I know, she’s left behind a pile of confetti in her wake, somewhere on the streets of Salem, or possibly atop her ghoulish grave.
I drop the boys off, waving them goodbye with a giant smile. Who could blame me for being happy? In addition to no one dying, I just earned four thousand dollars, kept the wedding ceremony from spiraling, narrowly avoided my friends learning about ghostsorbeing served as vampire hors d’oeuvres, and flirted harmlessly with Hanry Burleson. All in all, an excellent night. And now I can go back to New York, where I belong.
I connect the Bluetooth to my SpotifyCleaning with K-Popplaylist. That’s when it happens.
The SUV decides to explode.
By this I mean that electricity shorts out in the SUV, and when it comes back on, the navigation screen is fizzling, so it’s a minor explosion. The GPS headings scramble, and I’m thrown back into my seat as the car takes off, on its own, forcing me onto a magical autopilot for—
For Salem.
But I can’t be heading back there! You can’t be controlling me through technical wizardry, Grandma: you’re supposed to be dead, ascended, and at peace! And I’m supposed to be in the clear.
Ihaveto be.
Once I hit the city limits, I jerk the steering wheel back into my possession and drive for Derby Street. I whizz past the docks and the vaping tourists, their puffs of smoke glowing red from streetlights and brake lights, because of course they’re walking in the road instead of using sidewalks like normal people without a death wish. When I get to Winter Island, I force the SUV to a halt and run for the disappointingly named Waikiki Beach.
The water line is high, lapping against dry, rock-speckled sand.
Confirming that the tides are, in fact, doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
It’s Grandma who isn’t with the program. Grandma, who is violatingher own magical will.
Grandma, who is forcing me to stay here in Salem.
I pass out in my clothes, only stirring when my phone buzzes. It’s seven o’clock on Sunday morning, and sunlight rakes my face like a pleased cat with its claws out, ripping right through the gauzy guest room curtains.
The person joining in that aggression is my mother, calling my phone.
I stare at the ceiling, listening to the blaring rings, trying to remember the last time Mom called me of her own accord. Is it bad that I wish it were Steve calling me instead, begging for forgiveness, asking if I want more time off? Or Baldy, with an explanation for why all seven tides have passed twice over, but Grandma hasn’t kept up her end of the bargain?
But if I’m a bad daughter, Mom’s a worse mom.
I pick up the phone just before it goes to voicemail.
“Buenos Aires!” Mom screams into my ear. I fumble to activate the speakerphone and drop the phone on my pillow.
