Page 29 of Wicche Hunt

“Oh.” She looked down at her hands. “I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to wake you or not, but you sounded so scared, I grabbed that pair that was sitting on your worktable so I could touch you and not make it worse.”

She held up a gloved hand. “Are these special? Should I not have touched them?”

I let out a gust of breath. “No. It’s fine. I have gloves stashed everywhere around here.” Reaching out, I squeezed her hand. “I’m not used to people checking up on me.”

She brushed curls out of my face. My heart clutched and I had trouble breathing. Why did epiphanies always come in the middle of the night? I loved my mom but had bitchily been snarking about her for as long as I could remember. In my defense, she could be a real piece of work. But she hadn’t always been. She’d been sweet and loving when I was small, and then it had disappeared one night with a vision about her sister.

I’d gone from her baby girl to be cuddled and indulged to the problem child who needed to be endured while being pushed away. I hadn’t understood why, to my mind, she’d stopped loving me, but I knew it had to do with the nightmares, the visions. I knew the problem was me but didn’t know how to fix it, so I’d withdrawn, not wanting the darkness in me to hurt anyone else.

And now here was Hester, treating me like a child deserving comfort and willing to give it. When my eyes filled with tears, I went to the kitchen. “I could brew some soothing tea, so you can go back to sleep.”

“I’m fine. You should try to get more sleep, though.”

I blinked my eyes dry and then turned back to her. “No. I’m done for the night. This is when I’d usually bake, but I have an image in my head that I need to get out, so I’ll paint. You should go back up to bed, though. Hopefully you can get a few more hours. Thankfully for you, painting is quieter than baking.” I smiled, trying to project mental stability, but Hester wasn’t buying it.

“Can I hug you?” she asked, opening her arms.

I almost waved her off, saying I was fine, but stopped myself. I walked into her arms and was hugged in a way I could barely even remember. If she felt the tears soaking through the fabric on her shoulder, she didn’t say anything. Eventually, I got myself under control and went back to the kitchen to brew us a pot of tea.

“Would it be all right if I watched you paint?”

I nodded, handing her a fragrant cup. “It’ll be boring, but you’re welcome to stick around.”

I was afraid her presence would make me self-conscious and effect the painting, but once I started mixing paints and staring at the canvas, I forgot she was there. My head was in the darkened corridor. I was seeing every detail, intent on recreating the vision.

When I finished, I saw the early morning light leaking through the shutters. Flicking my fingers, I turned off the overhead bulbs and opened the shutters. I’d wash my brushes in a minute. Right now, I needed to let the cold wind skating over the ocean blow the dark images from my head.

I went out on the deck and hung over the railing. “Good morning, Charlie. Morning, Herbert. Greetings and salutations, Cecil!” A tentacle splashed the surface of the water. I glanced around the deck but didn’t see the tennis ball. “Good morning, Wilbur, wherever you are.”

A moment later, the tennis ball arced over the railing and bounced across the deck. I ducked into the studio to get the plastic throwing doohickey and found Hester standing in front of the painting, studying it.

“Oh—I’m sorry. I completely forgot you were here.” I shook my head. “Too used to being alone. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She turned and smiled. “You didn’t. I was watching you paint. I did drift in and out a little, but the last hour or so, I’ve been wide awake and watching. You’re extraordinary,” she said.

The wonder in her voice made me well up again. What the hell was wrong with me? “Let me at least get you a muffin.” I hurried past, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

“I mean, I watched you,” she said again. “The canvas was blank, white, and then you knew exactly what to do, which colors to use, how to apply the brush, how to layer the colors and the strokes until where there was nothing, there’s now a creepy corridor.”

“Does it feel creepy to you?” I walked back, studying my own work.

“Absolutely. Evil things are happening behind those doors.”

Nodding, I said, “I believe you’re right about that. I just don’t know what those things are yet.”

Hester pointed to a painting in the corner. I followed the gesture and recoiled.Shit.

“I don’t like that one.” She patted my shoulder. “No offense intended. You know what I mean, don’t you? I keep telling myself not to look at it and then my focus would drift from the corridor to the water. And every time I looked at it, the pinch to my heart became a jab, and then a slice.” She paused, staring. “It’s what my Pearl saw as she was dying, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t lie to her, as much as I wished I could. She already knew. I nodded and then she did too.

“I thought so.” She looked between me and the painting. “Should I take it? Should I ask for my girl’s final minutes?”

I shook my head. “No. This was me working out what I’d seen in a vision. Just like you saw me do with the corridor. Painting what I see can help me process it. Sometimes details I don’t even remember come out in the painting. These are like—I don’t know—journal entries. They’re my dreams. I don’t sell them.”

I turned Pearl’s death to the wall. “She wouldn’t want you to see it, let alone have it. You heard her. She wants you to teach your neighbor how to garden.” I took her gloved hand in my own. “She wants you to live, not follow her into death.”

She nodded, but her heart wasn’t in it.

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