Evocation, p.18
Evocation, page 18
“I drank too much. I was out of control, and I was bound and determined to take the people closest to me down with me. You couldn’t tell me shit; I was twenty-four and thought I was invincible. Rhys had every right to leave.”
“It wasn’t all you,” Rhys heard himself say, to his even greater surprise. This was usually territory he would rather burn to the ground than cede to David, but the long day and Moira’s searching eyes took the fight right out of him. “I was controlling. You needed me to listen, and I tried to micromanage you instead.”
“Yeah, you always had a thing about being in charge,” David said, breaking the somber atmosphere with a salacious smirk.
Rhys nearly choked on his beer, and Moira cackled with laughter.
“Alright, alright,” Rhys said, feeling the tips of his ears burn red. “That’s enough of that. My turn.”
Rhys leaned over the table and presented his palm to Moira, who took it between her hands. David watched with an amused expression, his green eyes studying Rhys in a way that made Rhys feel like he was on display, somehow. Like he was an artifact in a museum that existed for David’s careful perusal and appreciation.
Rhys tried to ignore the feeling and studied his own palm instead.
“See anything interesting?” he asked, as though Moira hadn’t read his palm a half dozen times before. She would sometimes laze in bed with him, tracing the lines in his skin and naming them off as though she was cataloguing constellations.
“Let me look,” she said. “Oh, a strong, defined fate line. This is a man who knows what he wants and how he’s going to get it. A strong mount of Jupiter here, beneath the index finger. That indicates a born leader.”
“What’s this one?” David asked, leaning over the coffee table to trace one of the lines in Rhys’s palm with his little finger. The sensation sent a shudder up Rhys’s spine. Moira’s finger joined David’s, tracing the spot where one of the lines split into two clear forks.
“Could represent a heart divided. Or someone with two great loves.”
When Rhys looked up, he found that Moira was giving him that heavy, meaningful look her mother would call the magician’s eye. She wasn’t just speculating; she was making some kind of prophetic pronouncement.
“Interesting,” David mused, withdrawing his hand. Rhys couldn’t read his expression because his eyes were downcast, shaded by short, thick lashes.
Both David and Moira were so close, close enough that Rhys could smell the vestiges of oat soap clinging to Moira’s skin and see the details of the fine stitching on David’s cuffs.
It would be very easy to kiss them both, if he wanted to.
The thought flickered through his mind like lightning, shocking and momentary, and it terrified him. He closed his fingers and pulled his hand back on his side of the table, sitting on his heels.
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
“Alright,” Moira said, turning to David. “Now teach me something.”
David tapped her beer bottle and named it in Russian, simple syllables that she was able to repeat without fumbling.
“Good!” David exclaimed. “That’s beer.”
“Give me a harder one,” Moira said with a grin.
David touched the underside of Moira’s chin with his knuckle and said something else, a string of sounds like water rushing over rocks. The word settled low in Rhys’s stomach, and he swallowed dryly. He had always enjoyed the sound of David speaking Russian, maybe more than was strictly decent.
Moira tried to repeat the word and mangled it. David repeated it slowly, savoring every sound, and his eyes flickered over to Rhys for a fraction of a second. Rhys, for his part, studied the bottle in his hands.
Moira finally managed to get to word out, and David beamed.
“Good! We can work on your accent.”
“Was that the word for woman?” Moira asked.
“No, it’s one of the words for pretty.”
Moira’s hands flew over her face, covering a bashful smile, and David jostled his shoulder against hers with a laugh. A sharp pang went through Rhys’s chest. This was David at his best: charming without any ulterior motive, kind simply because it pleased him to be, and Moira at her most radiant, confident, and gracious.
A strange emotion rose up inside him as he watched the two of them joke with each other. It almost felt like jealousy, but that wasn’t quite right. It was more like longing, although he had no idea what it was that he wanted so badly. Maybe just more of this: companionable chatter in a drafty old library with the sun setting outside. Real friendship and the tentative bloom of affection, without any sort of sarcastic edge or undertone of argument. Rhys had spent the last few years of his life believing that any proximity between he and David was a toxic thing, a web of cruelty that other people got caught in. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Before he could investigate his feelings further, Rhys’s phone rang. The caller ID took him off guard.
“Excuse me,” he said, clambering to his feet. “I need to take this.”
Moira and David waved him away, and he ducked down one of the dark hallways leading away from the library. Rhys found an alcove to lean against and cleared his throat, then answered smoothly.
“Wayne.”
“Hello, Rhys! I hope I haven’t called at a bad time. How are you? Are you alone?”
“I’ve got some privacy, yes,” Rhys said, pressing back further into the alcove. “I’m a little tied up at the moment, unfortunately, so if you need me to come by Cambridge and unlock–”
“No, no,” Wayne said. “Nothing like that. I wanted to talk to you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do this in person, but I couldn’t wait to speak to you any longer.”
Rhys’s heart did a two-step. He was either in serious trouble, or he was about to get the best news of his life. Rhys leaned his head out of the alcove and looked back towards the library. Moira and David were wrapped up in private chatter, their heads bowed close together, oblivious to his conversation.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve made up my mind and I picked a successor. I know there was some contention about that, but it’s within my rights, and I want it to be you, Rhys.”
All the air left Rhys’s lungs in a rush. The close, dark hallway spun and then righted itself again. Wayne was still talking, Rhys realized.
“You’re the best and brightest of any of us, Rhys. The Society needs someone with vision, someone who can lead us into the 21st century. I believe that man is you.”
“Thank you,” Rhys said, pressing his fingers to his mouth. His heart galloped in his chest. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say you’re up to the task. That’s all I ask.”
“I’m up to it,” Rhys said automatically. There was no thinking about it. There was no turning Wayne down. He had been working towards an accomplishment like this his entire adult life, and he was swept along on the heady euphoria of success.
“Good man,” Wayne said warmly. “Come by the Society tomorrow and we’ll discuss the logistics. And Rhys? Please don’t discuss this with anyone else, at least not yet.”
And just like that, the conversation he had been waiting for since Wayne’s retirement announcement was over. Rhys stood in the darkened hallway for a moment, stunned.
When he returned to David and Moira, he found them sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor. Moira was leaning forward with her palms on her crossed knees, talking animatedly about something, and David was watching her with an amused quirk to his mouth. There was a genuine fondness in his eyes that Rhys hadn’t seen in ages, one that the psychic would be quick to deny if pressed about it, probably. But Rhys knew what he was looking at. Friendship. Genuine, impossible affection between two opposing energies. The sun and the moon orbiting each other in perfect synchronicity.
Pain shot through his ribcage. He knew that feeling. He had felt it at eighteen, when David had smiled brazen and wide at him while they chalked out their first summoning circle, and he had felt it again at twenty-two, when Moira had teased him in a dirt crossroads about his style of magic.
It was, he realized with creeping horror, love.
“Why are you hanging around the doorway?” Moira asked. “Come here and help me finish this beer.”
“And help me with this curry,” David said, leaning back on his hands as leisurely as a prince lounging around his castle. “I’m stuffed.”
Rhys opened his mouth to tell them everything, to confess that he had just been awarded the highest honor he could think of through some stroke of celestial benevolence. But David was smiling at him with that same fondness that lit up his face when he looked at Moira, and it was enough to nearly send Rhys to his knees. The moment David found out that Rhys had been named High Priest instead of him, his gaze would shutter and ice would glaze over his countenance until there was nothing else but bitter haughtiness. All the progress the three of them had made would be undone, all in the name of Rhys’s boundless ambition.
He couldn’t do that to David. Not here. Not now.
He would tell him later. But not like this.
“Sure,” Rhys said, swallowing back the maelstrom of emotions gathering in his throat. “Scoot over and make some room.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MOIRA
Summer descended upon Boston all at once. One day, there was still a chill in the air, and the next, the students were out in full force in board shorts and sundresses, and all the neighborhood bars had their windows thrown open to the world. Moira spent her free afternoons working in the nearby community garden, or meeting up with old friends from RISD for mimosas and oysters, or strolling down the main thoroughfare of Jamaica Plain with Rhys on one arm and a bouquet of flowers under the other.
Saturdays remained dedicated to sessions with David, who, true to his word, had helped her hone her psychic intuition to a fine point. He hypnotized her with swinging pendulums and guided her through visualizations, all with his trademark mix of brashness and the weird but wonderful sense of closeness that had started to develop between the two of them. She was becoming less frightened of the phantoms she saw lurking in empty seats on the T, or of the strong senses of emotion she picked up from the various establishments she walked into. When a mournful ghost child tugged on her skirt in the supermarket, she didn’t even cry out. She was getting stronger. Braver.
On the second Saturday in June, Rhys had a fire at work (some professor had spilled an entire cannister of – strictly forbidden – coffee in the special collections room) and got pulled back to the library. Moira expected David to cancel on her, but instead, he asked her to meet him somewhere entirely new.
“What are we doing on Newbury Street?” she asked, striding alongside him in platform wedges that made her legs look miles long. David was wearing Ray Bans and a breezy linen shirt that practically screamed ‘I summer in Capri’. “I thought you hated crowds.”
“I do,” David said, weaving through the throngs of tourists queuing up for fancy brunch or window shopping at overpriced boutiques. “But crowds mean energy, and energy means ghosts. Consider this your final exam.”
“Oh, we’re giving out grades now?” Moira quipped. “In that case, I’d say you’re currently hovering at a B minus in spiritual self-defense.”
“Give me a break,” David said, but he was smiling, that crooked grin that Moira had come to associate with jokes, and verbal sparring, and everything that felt quintessentially David. He placed a light hand between her shoulder blades as they weaved to avoid a woman with a stroller, and Moira was surprised at how easily she ceded to him, how they fell into perfect step with one another. “I figured we’d get a little lunch, do a little people-watching, and see if we can spy any ghosts. Nice way to spend a Saturday, right?”
“The stuff dreams are made of,” she said sarcastically, but found to her surprise, that the prospect of spending an entire afternoon alone with David Aristarkhov, once the makings of her personal hell, now didn’t sound bad at all. It almost sounded, well, enjoyable.
“Are you charming me?” she said suddenly. If he was laying it on her, she would shove him into the nearest trashcan and train herself right back home.
He raised his eyebrows at her over his sunglasses. “Right now? No way. Trust me, if I was trying to charm you, you’d know it. While effective, that little party trick isn’t exactly subtle.” His grin broadened. “Are you feeling charmed by me, Ms Delacroix?”
Moira snorted, and David laughed, and that was that. They fell into an easy rapport of chatter, sometimes discussing things as mundane as the wares in a nearby shop window, or the fragrant blooms on an overhanging tree, and it all felt impossibly, magically normal.
Moira, who had heard plenty about David’s flair for trying to buy people’s approval, wondered if he had booked them some eye-wateringly expensive restaurant for lunch. But instead, to her delight, he led them to a food truck parked on the curb outside a jam-packed bookstore. It was so pedestrian; she didn’t think he had it in him.
David ordered two carnitas tacos while Moira pushed up on her tiptoes to read the chalked menu. Seeing the trouble she was having, he snagged a paper menu from just inside the truck and passed it to her.
“Coming right up,” the man operating the truck said with a big smile. “And what will your wife be having?”
The tips of David’s ears turned pink. “What? Oh no, no you’ve got us wrong.”
“You’re blushing,” Moira needled.
“I’ve been on Nathan’s boat; I’m sunburned. Listen, we’re not… I’m gay, and she’s–”
“Got standards,” Moira put in, rescuing him from the awkward interaction despite the pleasure she took in watching him flounder.
“Ouch,” David said, pressing a melodramatic hand to his heart.
“Come on, now,” Moira said as she sifted through her coin purse stitched with butterflies for the proper number of bills. “You’re not my type.”
“That’s right, you prefer brooding former emo kids.”
“Be nice,” Moira chided, but she was giggling so much it undercut any bite in her words. “An al pastor burrito for me, please.”
“Two waters, as well,” David said, bumping her aside with his hip and using his height to swipe his card before she could pay.
Ten minutes later, they were seated on the steps of the Boston Public Library, enjoying their Mexicali and the sunshine.
“Cities are spiritual vortexes,” he narrated, his green eyes watching passersby closely. “They draw in life, but they can also trap death. The more crowded a location is, the more likely ghosts are to be drawn to the energetic signatures of the living.”
“Do you reckon the ghosts don’t know they’re dead?” Moira asked. “So, they go on gathering in the usual places, acting like they’re alive?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s possible they’re stuck in a loop, repeating actions that came easily to them in life. Waiting for the bus, tending to children, tidying up the house… Following the path of least resistance, if you will. So,” David said, cleaning his hands with a napkin and polishing off the rest of his water, “do you see any ghosts around here?”
Moira glanced out to the street before them, and the tiny park and stately church beyond. There were people jostling around as far as the eye can see.
“I don’t know, David. This place is pretty crowded.”
“Exactly. Think of it as a spooky little game of Where’s Waldo. Just give it a shot for me, alright?”
Two months ago, David asking her to do anything ‘for me’ would have been enough to make her eyes roll back in her head. But now, she found she did want to try for him. He had tried for her, after all. It was only fair.
“Fine, but you’ve got to give me a hint. How many ghosts do you see right now?”
“In my direct line of sight? Four.”
“Goodness gracious.”
“Don’t focus on the numbers, just focus on the energy. Block out all the noise and hone in on what you want. You can do this.”
What I want. Moira didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what she wanted. She was usually too focused on other people’s needs, always placing her own desires dead last. If you talked to her mother, it was her best quality. If you asked Rhys, it was her worst.
What do I want?
Moira closed her eyes and quieted her mind. Right now, she wanted to be strong. She wanted to look right through the veil and see, truly see, what was in front of her. She was done running from herself.
I want to see what’s really out there in the world.
When Moira opened her eyes again, she did so with a medium’s deliberateness. She scanned the bustling groups of people slowly, parsing faces and posture, and then let her gaze drift to the margins of the crowd, where some figures stood stock still, or paced in idle circles. One of them, a woman Moira could at first only glimpse out of the corner of her eye, began to take shape. She wore a mournful expression and a high-necked Edwardian gown. Her skirts drooped behind her, tarnished with mud and debris.
“I see her,” Moira breathed.
David perked up at that. “Who? Tell me.”
“The woman in the park. It looks like she’s waiting for a cab, or a carriage.”
“Waiting for someone who isn’t coming,” David said with triumph. “I see her too.”
“Will you hold still for me? I want to try something.”
David looked wary, but he did as he was told. Maybe he was finally learning to trust her.
Without looking away from the woman, Moira reached out and settled her hand on David’s knee. Bolstered by his energy and his psychic prowess, the watery outline of the woman firmed into a deliberate shape, and little details, like the pale-yellow color of her hair, and the tear tracks on her face, coalesced. The woman looked around more and more fanatically, and then, as though making some awful decision, she rushed headlong into traffic.
