HauntingBeauty
Chapter Seven
AFTER Sean had gone, Danni didn’t know what to do with herself. She had a to-do list a mile long, but the thought of hustling and bustling like her whole world wasn’t shaking made her stomach hurt. Her shower did nothing to dispel the one million questions in her head. Nor did it help to cool her blood or ease her frustration. Reciting the reasons why she shouldn’t be so hot and bothered over Sean Ballagh only made her feel a fool.
Because she was. It was like he’d crawled beneath her skin and was there, even now, brushing those long fingers against the curve of her spine, pressing his lips to the sensitive place behind her ear, teasing her with the hot flick of his tongue. She gave a heartfelt mental groan. How could he do all that if he was dead?
The last question stopped her as she got in her car, list in hand. Maybe she’d been wrong about that. Maybe the newspaper article was mistaken. Didn’t that make more sense than the other alternative? She didn’t just see him; she felt him. Could feel him even now. If he was dead, she might be able to see his ghost, but not feel it . . . right?
She bonked her head against the steering wheel three times. She was rationalizing what a ghost could and couldn’t do. If that wasn’t nuts, she didn’t know what was.
But since the air had turned and she’d seen Sean standing in her kitchen, nothing had made sense or seemed in the least bit sane. She desperately needed someone to talk to, but who did she turn to with such a weird, supernatural problem? It wasn’t something you called your best friend about. Not something she could discuss with Yvonne over a cup of coffee.
She decided she’d just pick up the necessities—eggs, milk, coffee. Everything else would have to wait. There was a Safeway in the strip mall on the corner and she pulled in, circling for a while before she found a spot. Mild sunshine streamed from a vivid sky and the warm breeze rustled the palms overhead, calming her jangled nerves. She concentrated on the warmth against her skin as she walked.
She didn’t notice the young woman standing on the sidewalk watching her until she was only a few feet away. She had white blonde hair worn in pigtails and bright blue eyes with long pale lashes. Her toasted brown skin marked her as a sun worshipper. In twenty years she’d probably look like aged leather, but now she looked only young, tan, and healthy. She wore a sleeveless silk top the same color as her eyes and satiny pants with a paisley pattern.
She stared at Danni with pointed attention, making no attempt to appear casual. Danni faltered, thinking of altering her course to the store, but the woman moved quickly forward and smiled at her.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.
Danni looked over her shoulder. “Me?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “You don’t remember?”
“I think you must have me mixed up with someone else,” Danni said. “We’ve never met.”
The young woman shrugged and held her hand in a “come this way” gesture, indicating the entrance to a shop called Pandora’s Box. The double glass doors were painted with a gold tree that sprouted up the center. Leafless branches spiraled across the panes, reminding Danni of the patterns on the sterling comb the white woman had held out.
“I’m headed to the grocery store,” Danni said, with a shake of her head. She pointed at the Safeway farther up the walk. “Sorry.”
“You came to me,” the woman murmured. “You asked me to help you.”
Danni swallowed, but her throat was dry. The way the woman had worded the statement raised a flag of awareness. You came to me . . . Wasn’t that exactly how she thought of Sean appearing in her kitchen? He’d come to her. . . .
“Please, let me help.”
Unnerved, but undeniably curious, Danni followed the blonde into the store where the scent of incense hung heavy on the air. Soft nature music played in the background and fluted chimes tinkled from corners and nooks. The store was open and airy, with books on one wall and windows on the others. A comfortable seating area gathered around a towering bookcase and scattered displays of crystals and incense burners; charms and tarot cards stood in between. Five or six tiny black kittens scampered around a woman in a pale purple dress manning the cash register. A sign propped on the counter read “help us find homes for our kittens.” There was more below it describing the dangers black cats faced from cults and other un-savory sects.
Several cocktail-sized tables had been set at intervals, each with two chairs. A thin, well-groomed man in a charcoal sweater and matching slacks sat across from an overweight woman who listened to him with avid interest. At another table, a heavily made-up older woman who looked like she might be auditioning for the role of the Good Witch Glinda sat alone. She stared as Danni followed the blonde to an empty table in the back. A pale blue cloth covered the surface and a tea light in a rose-shaped holder flickered across an array of crystals artistically arranged to one side. A deck of tarot cards lay in an arc across the center.
“Sit down,” the blonde said. “I’m Alice.”
“You’re a fortune-teller?” Danni asked, embarrassed by the judgmental tone that housed the question. She couldn’t help it, though. She looked around her, thinking these people couldn’t be legitimate.
“I’m a guide,” she said. “Did you know there’s a spirit with you?”
Alice looked at a spot to Danni’s right and all the hairs on Danni’s arms stood as she glanced over her shoulder. “You mean right now?”
Alice nodded and her eyes closed for a brief moment. “He’s been looking for you for a very long time.”
Sean.
“He’s only just found you though. Do you know who he is?”
“Yes,” Danni said softly, feeling silly and scared at the same time.
Alice’s eyes opened. “I don’t think you do. It’s not someone you know. Not yet.” She didn’t wait for a response. She picked up the deck of cards and shuffled it before setting it down in front of Danni. “Please cut them,” she said.
Danni did as she was told, still feeling strange about being here at all. Alice gave her a sweet smile.
“Weren’t you hoping for someone to talk to?” she asked.
Danni shrugged, but it was, of course, the truth. Alice began to carefully place the cards, pausing to study each one after she set it down. After a moment, she tapped the one in the center with a blue-polished nail. The card showed a person trudging over a terrain of hills and low wetlands. In the sky the moon eclipsed the sun. Cups lined the bottom of the card.
“You’re at a crossroads,” Alice said. “You don’t see it because you’ve been blind for a long time, bound like a mummy by your inability to recognize what is real. But you must break free and find the deeper purpose. Do you know what I mean?”
Danni shook her head.
“I feel that you’ve . . . shut away some important part of yourself. But it’s something you need, and without it, you’re simply stumbling through your life. You’re blind and you don’t know how to free yourself. Even now, you think you want to stay that way.”
Danni made a small sound of disbelief. “Why would I want to stay blind?”
“Because you may not like what you are forced to see if you choose to open your eyes and be whole again,” Alice said with monotone certainty. Despite Danni’s skepticism, a chill danced over her spine.
Alice flipped another card, this one of a tower. Fire spilled from its small windows and people jumped to escape—or jumped to their deaths, hard to say which, though the plunging fall didn’t look like a good option either way.
Danni blew out an amused breath, but really, what filled her wasn’t humor. “So what is that? The death card?”
Alice cocked her head, considering the question with more solemnity than Danni wanted. “In a way, perhaps. But not necessarily death of the body. Death and rebirth are part of our everyday world. If you don’t embrace it, you are only living on the surface. Maybe the old you has to die in order for the new you to survive.”
“That’s a little too out-there for me.” But she was thinking of that grave and her body at the bottom.
“If you say so,” Alice answered mildly.
Alice pulled the next card from the deck, and Danni thought this one looked even worse than the last. A tall figure in gray stood with a lone lantern in hand in a dark world. Nervously, she watched Alice’s reaction.
“There is someone you are looking for. This person is important to you,” she said, pausing to chew on her lip. “It’s a man. I think he is the reason you are blind now. You need to know what he is and to do that, you must ask.”
“Ask who?”
Alice shook her head. “I cannot say. But you must seek in order to find, knock if you want to enter. The promise is found in your own heart.”
“Well, that’s as clear as mud.”
“There are dangers in what you seek. On the surface, it appears to be everything you think you want. But there’s untruth about the people you will find. I’m seeing . . .” She closed her eyes. “I’m seeing a mask that hides the true person inside. Does that mean anything to you?”
“I don’t think so.” Danni shifted, not liking the sense of understanding pushing its way up from her subconscious.
“But you are looking for someone?”
Danni wet her lips, unwilling to give any hints, any clues to this strange woman. “Isn’t everybody looking for someone?”
Alice’s smile said she knew what Danni was thinking. She flipped another card—this one of a man hanging upside down on a giant T. “I see a break in trust, this time within yourself. You’ve forgotten who you are.” She fanned the deck in her hands and asked Danni to pull one out. Danni felt hollow as she did.
Alice studied the card for a long moment before placing it on top of another. “This Five of Wands. It represents strife, a struggle. I sense it’s something even greater though. A battle of some sort.”
“A battle,” Danni repeated, with a feeling of falling in her stomach as Alice pulled yet another from her deck. “Listen, I don’t know why you were waiting for me or if that’s just the line you use to pull customers in, but I have a lot to do today. Tell me what I owe and—”
“Have you always run away from them?” Alice asked, unfazed.
“From them, who?”
“Your battles. Is that why you want to be blind? You are here, now, because you won’t fight. But this card . . .” She tapped the last card with her blue fingernail. The card showed a man lying on his stomach with ten swords sticking out of his back. “This represents the loss of all you value. It means that in running away, you destroy yourself.”
Danni pushed back her chair and stood.
“The spirit that follows you—he wants that. His aura is changing even now. I can see it. It makes him happy. He wants you to run away.”
Danni looked desperately around the store, not wanting to hear what Alice might say next. Not wanting to think of the gleeful spirit over her shoulder. “How much? How do much I owe you?”
Alice stood as well. “You have the power to change everything,” she said softly, and her eyes fluttered closed again. Her face was serene, but it seemed a fine static hovered around her. If Danni were to reach out and touch her, the spark of it would snap against her skin.
Danni’s mouth was dry, her stomach tight as she took a step back. “Thank you for your time,” she said, fumbling her wallet from her purse.
“Take off the blinders, Dáirinn,” Alice whispered. “Face what you fear.”
“What did you call me?”
Alice opened her eyes and looked at her without answering. For a moment that seemed to stretch like a timeless void, the two women stared at one another. But what Danni saw was the fanning pages of the Book and the dark red that seeped from between them. If that was the thing she had to face, Danni didn’t think she could do it.
“Everything all right over here?” a poised woman in a shimmering lilac dress asked. Danni had noticed her behind the cash register when she’d walked in. “Alice, are you okay?”
Alice blinked and then came out of her trance. She smiled pleasantly. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Hesitantly, the woman looked back at Danni, who still held her wallet in a tight grip. “How much do I owe you?” Danni insisted stubbornly, wanting to pay—to eliminate any debt between them and get the hell out of there as fast as she could. Alice had pried loose something deep inside her, and Danni was afraid it would be blown free now. And who knew what would come out?
“Alice charges forty for a reading,” the woman said in a wary voice. She was looking over Danni’s right shoulder, just as Alice had. Great. Could everyone in this place see the invisible spirit?
Danni pulled her money from her wallet and set it on the table. Without another word, she turned and hurried from the store, aware of the eyes following her. She stepped into the bright sunshine with a feeling of escaping. But the cloying scent of the shop clung to her skin.
Focused only on reaching her car and getting far away from Pandora’s Box, Danni didn’t see the man watching her from the other side of the parking lot. But she sensed him, and it pulled her gaze from the ground and forced her to look around. She scanned over the people on the walkway, not even registering the familiar face until she’d passed him. She spun back around, searching for the face again. For a moment, she’d thought she’d seen her father—or at least a man who looked a lot like he had in the picture. But that was impossible. . . .
She’d almost convinced herself she’d imagined him when he appeared again. For an instant their eyes met across the busy parking lot and Danni stilled with surprise. Slowly, he smiled, and Danni was struck by the way it transformed his face. He didn’t just look like the picture; he looked like he’d stepped out of it. It had to be her father. For reasons she couldn’t begin to guess, her father was here in Arizona and Sean didn’t want her to know it.
She hurried toward him, her heart swelling with hope as she neared. But before she could reach him, he turned and stepped into one of the other shops lining the strip mall. She followed him into the crowded store, looking up and down the aisles, but somehow she’d missed him, and now he was gone.
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