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  His body isn’t the only thing that’s changed; his attitude has too. Barnaby’s always been snippy. He’s my little brother, and he’s been scrawny most of his life, so he’s had to compensate verbally for what he lacked size-wise. But this is beyond growing pains. His voice is ugly.

  “What I do is my own business, not yours,” I seethe.

  “And what if I fill Louis in on your business?” he asks. “I’m sure he’d love to know that his new daughter is a tramp.”

  I laugh in Barnaby’s face. If that’s the worst Louis thinks of me, I’ll take it. “There are things in this world that Louis and you don’t need to know about,” I admit.

  My brother takes a brave step forward. He’s not afraid of me. Not yet. “Like how Daddy died?” he asks.

  The mention of my father makes something inside of me snap, like when my limbs break and push me toward my fate. Time to shove Barnaby closer to his.

  “Daddy died for both of us!” I scream.

  “No, he didn’t,” he replies, his voice unnervingly calm. “He died for you.”

  The wolf that I’ve brought back with me takes over, and I grab Barnaby by the throat and lift him off the ground. Looking at my brother I swear I can see a red-furred claw gripping his neck, where I can see his veins widen and push against his skin as if they want to rip open his flesh and douse me with their blood. I smile at the thought of it. Shower me with your blood, Barnaby; let me taste what’s inside of you.

  When I see his eyes turn black, I know that his blood will taste like poison.

  Gone are his beautiful blue eyes, the same color as my father’s; gone are his eyes entirely, and in their place is complete darkness. The whites are gone, the irises, everything, replaced with black the color of Luba’s hair. I’m staring at my brother and my enemy at the same time.

  Terrified, I release my grip and throw Barnaby out of my room, slamming the door shut behind him. Just as Napoleon reached out through Arla to communicate with Archie, Luba is reaching out through Barnaby to communicate with me. Both sending warnings that this game is far from over. The curse was only the beginning.

  And that an all-out war is about to break out.

  Chapter 18

  Welcome to Curse 2.0.

  In one night it’s as if this curse has mutated, become something new and different, something that I have to decipher and overcome yet again. I feel like I’m right back where I was a year ago, in the dark, blind, and blindsided. This time I don’t have my father to look to for comfort and salvation. But I do have my mother.

  If I’m completely honest, however, I’m not sure if I wound up here at The Retreat because I want to find some peace with my mother or because I want to find some chaos with Nadine. Since our last late-night meeting that I still don’t fully recall, the twins haven’t been in school due to a joint case of the flu. The real reason is because Luba’s the one who’s sick.

  Nap sent Archie a cryptic message saying he and Nadine had to stay home and help his grandmother heal. Guess I was right: Psycho isn’t invincible; she needs her slaves to be in attendance while she tries to recuperate. I was kind of hoping Nadine would take a break from monitoring Luba’s temperature to return to work, but Essie informs me that Nadine isn’t scheduled to volunteer today. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll see her again soon, and hopefully by then my memory will return. In the meantime it looks like Original Essie is back.

  Sitting behind her desk, Essie is uncoiffed, unmakeup-ed, and unapologetically miserable. It can mean only one thing.

  “Having boyfriend trouble, Es?” I ask.

  “For that I’d have to have a boyfriend,” she replies, rolling her eyes dramatically.

  So that’s what’s bothering her, romantic issues. My heart folds up a little bit upon hearing about Essie’s breakup; I really was hoping that her new guy would be a keeper. I’m hardly an expert, but I get the sense that Essie doesn’t have too many girlfriends, so I decide to offer my services, even if I only listen to her problems. It should make her feel less alone.

  “It started out like a fairy tale,” she begins. “An answer to my prayers. But I guess fairy tales aren’t for old women, and before I knew it . . .”

  She abruptly stops in mid-sentence, ending our “just between you and me” girl chat. That’s because it’s no longer just the two of us. We have company.

  The front door bursts open as if thrown off its hinges by a sudden wind gust, but instead of a howling whoosh of air, the hallway is filled with laughter. It’s Winston Lundgarden and what looks like a fox. My mouth waters, remembering how delicious fox meat tastes, but this isn’t an animal; it’s a woman wearing a floor-length red fox-fur coat. She can’t be from around here, because women in this part of Nebraska opt for parkas when it’s cold outside, or maybe, if they’re fashionable, a shearling coat. No one around here ever looks that sophisticated. Which makes sense because the woman Winston is canoodling with isn’t from around here; she’s from Connecticut. Winston’s lady friend is Louis’s lady friend, none other than Melinda Jaffe. I wish I were telepathically connected to Arla so I could fill her in on what I’m seeing.

  And what I’m learning! Seconds before Essie speaks, my wolf-girl instinct kicks in just by looking at Essie’s expression, her face is one huge snarl.

  “I can’t believe Winston dumped me for that . . . that . . . witch!” she whisper-screams.

  My world just got a bit more complicated. Just like Melinda Jaffe is two-timing Louis with Winston, Winston is two-timing Essie with Melinda Jaffe! Winston is Essie’s boyfriend, not Louis. Well, ex-boyfriend to be exact.

  The way that Mrs. Jaffe is glaring at Essie, she clearly has the same level of animosity for her rival. Or wait a second, is she looking at me? I can’t really tell. Lundgarden, still annoyed by our last conversation, has his hand on Melinda’s fur shoulder and is trying to get her to walk quickly into his office, but she obviously likes the scenery. Perhaps I’ll give her a show that she can tell her kids about later on when she slinks back to her haunted house.

  Imitating Luba, I raise my left hand, letting my thumb and pinky finger touch, and point my remaining three fingers in Melinda’s direction. Her face goes pale, and she needs to lean into Winston for support as she recognizes the sign of Orion. Learning your enemy’s code is always a good strategy. Pushing my luck, I wave. “Hi, Mrs. Jaffe, nice coat,” I call out, my voice dripping with cheerfulness. “I have one just like it.”

  Involuntarily, Mrs. Jaffe runs her palm down her sleeve as if she’s awakening the dead red fur, willing it to come alive. Even though I’ve always been against wearing fur to make a fashion statement, I have to admit she looks pretty good in the luxurious pelt. Not as sumptuous as I do when I’m wearing mine, but pretty good nonetheless.

  Lundgarden, his face contorted into a malicious sneer, practically shoves his girlfriend, or whatever Melinda is to him, into his office. But just as they’re about to disappear, Melinda flicks her shoulder to free herself from The Cell Keeper’s clutch and reenters the hallway. She doesn’t move, and Winston doesn’t join her; she just stares. I think I’ve just won my first tiny battle with this woman. Nope, wrong again. Melinda isn’t looking at me; she’s staring at Essie. Have I made another mistake?

  When Lundgarden’s office door closes behind them, Essie lets out a very long breath.

  “Dominy, honey, you shouldn’t have done that,” Essie admonishes.

  Turning to face Lundgarden’s ex, I ask, “And why not?”

  As she swallows hard, Essie’s fingers nervously tap dance on her desk. She squirms in her chair and pulls herself close to her desk, until the edge is pressing into her stomach. Only when she feels secure and in a familiar position does she respond.

  “Wins . . . Mr. Lundgarden is a very . . . powerful person,” she says.

  Speaking slowly for maximum effect without giving too much away, I reply, “And, Essie, so am I.”

  Eyes darting down the hall toward the front office, Essie scoots her chai
r even closer to her desk as if to anchor herself so she can’t be suddenly yanked away and tossed outside. She doesn’t look like a scorned girlfriend any longer; she looks frightened. Could “powerful” be a euphemism for something more menacing? Could Lundgarden be linked to Luba too? Maybe, maybe not. The only definite is that Essie got off lucky.

  “You’re too good for him, Essie,” I say. “I hope you know that.”

  Essie can only nod her head and force herself to smile.

  “And Melinda isn’t half the woman you are.”

  In response to this comment, Essie can’t even force a smile; the nod exists on its own.

  I can’t think of anything else to say that Essie will want to hear, so I just give her a hug that she half-heartedly reciprocates and continue on with my real reason for being here.

  As I turn the corner to enter The Hallway to Nowhere, I steal a glance at Essie. Head down she’s poring over her celebrity magazine, but she’s disinterested; the spark’s gone out of her face, the spark that had only recently returned. I hate The Cell Keeper almost as much as I hate Psycho Squaw.

  I don’t know if I’m more upset than I care to admit about Essie’s thwarted romance, but when I turn the doorknob to enter my mother’s room, I’m anxious. I almost turn around to leave, but I can’t think of a good reason, so I stick to my original plan. Exiting early would’ve been the better decision.

  A yellow light fills the entire room, and hanging in the air is such a strong aroma of cherry blossoms, I would swear the ceiling is lined with perfume sachets of the scent. The only explanation for the appearance of these phenomena is that Jess is paying a visit. But why?

  When I see the empty bed I literally gasp and stumble backward, not stopping until I crash into the wall. Unable to look away from the terrible sight, I stare at my mother’s bed, its covers pulled down as if my mother just got up to go to the bathroom or take a walk to the little garden out back. I clutch at the wall for support, but its smooth surface doesn’t offer any. I look like a cat trying to sharpen its claws.

  “M-m-mom,” I stutter. “Mom, where are you?”

  Nothing breaks the silence except my panting.

  Silently I pray that this doesn’t mean that my mother has died and they’ve taken her to a holding area in The Retreat until an ambulance is ready to take her to the morgue. The words tumble out of my mouth as if I’ve known them my whole life, as if I recite them each night before I crawl into bed. Truth is I haven’t prayed in years, even when I should have; even when my life depended upon it, I couldn’t remember the words. Now I can. The sheer ability I have to speak these words aloud doesn’t offer me solace; it frightens me. If I remember how to pray, I must suddenly have the need.

  Our Father who art in heaven . . .

  By the time I say amen I’m sitting on the floor shaking. This can’t be happening; my mother can’t leave me. I need her now! I need the hope that she symbolizes! She’s fighting the demons surrounding her like I have to fight mine. She is not allowing the disease flowing through her veins and her mind and her soul to overtake her and possess her completely, like I’m not allowing this curse to destroy my life. But if she’s gone, if she’s dead, that means she didn’t win. So I could lose too.

  The yellow glow flickers, and I hear static electricity in the air. I gaze up and expect to see that one of the long, cylindrical fluorescent lightbulbs has burnt out, but instead I see another miracle. All the yellow light in the room has gathered to swirl like a jaundiced cloud above my mother’s bed. Crouched on the floor I’m watching the sight, partially amazed and partially terrified; I have no idea if I’m watching something good or something bad.

  Finally, the yellow light stretches into a thin vertical line, and I expect to see Jess appear like she usually does, but instead I see my mother. She materializes out of the glow and floats horizontally for a few seconds in the air before gently descending back to her bed. Everything is back to normal; my mother looks the same as she always does. But where the hell did she just come from?

  “Someone asked to see her,” Jess answers. “Someone who couldn’t make the journey, so I brought your mother across the final divide.”

  Jess’s voice whispers in my ear; I can feel her breath against my earlobe. I whip my head to the right, but she isn’t there. She’s speaking to me from another dimension, beyond the grave, or wherever she hangs out when she isn’t near me.

  “Who?”

  I’m so confused and disoriented and shocked that I don’t even bother to ask my question silently. Not that there’s anyone else in the room who can hear me.

  “Who had to see my mother?!”

  Jess doesn’t answer, but my mother does.

  “Your father says you need to listen.”

  I don’t see my mother’s lips move. She isn’t looking at me, her eyes aren’t even open, but I know she spoke those words, and I know she was speaking them to me.

  Instead of being grateful that Jess drove her to dead-man’s land to chat with my father and bring me back some words of caution, I’m furious with her. If she can speak with my father, why the hell can’t she break free from this coma?!

  “Listen to what?!” I scream. “Wake up and tell me exactly what he said!”

  Never in my entire life have I spoken this harshly to my mother. Not when I was a little girl and didn’t completely grasp the meaning of respect, and not when I got older and became frustrated with the fact that my mother was never going to speak to me again. But in this past year she’s opened her eyes, she’s spoken to me, she’s proven that she can sever the shackles that are keeping her in this horrific vegetative state, and yet she chooses, for the most part, to remain silent. And now she can actually allow Jess, a supernatural entity, to help her visit her dead husband. It’s not fair! If she can do all of that, it’s time that she start acting like my mother again!

  “What’s wrong with you?! Why are you just lying there instead of helping me?!”

  At some point during my tirade, the door must have opened, because there are people standing next to me, but I don’t acknowledge them; I continue yelling at my mother.

  “Why are you ignoring me when I need you more than ever?!”

  “Dominy!”

  I can feel a hand on my shoulder, and I fling my arm up into the air with such force that whoever was trying to grab me is now rising up into the air. I watch Winston Lundgarden crash onto the floor, and he does not look like a happy man.

  “Young lady!” he cries, awkwardly on all fours. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing!” I shout back.

  He is so flummoxed, his jaw actually drops. I guess no one’s ever talked to The Cell Keeper like that before, the way he deserves to be spoken to.

  “I am the director of this facility,” he pompously informs me, finally standing. “And I will not tolerate such inappropriate behavior from you. Despite the fact that your mother is one of our permanent residents.”

  Is he smiling? Is he smiling because my mother’s coma has been diagnosed as irreversible and she has no chance of leaving The Retreat except to move from her bed to a coffin?

  “May I remind you, Dominy,” he says, “this is a hospital.”

  Like hell it is!

  “I don’t know what this place is, Lundgarden, but it’s definitely not a hospital,” I reply. “Essie may think you’ve got some power that makes you untouchable, but I don’t. And I intend to find out exactly what you and your staff are doing here!”

  It’s not until I’m practically in front of the door that I realize Melinda Jaffe is blocking my exit.

  “Tell me, Dominy, what else does that old woman think of Winston?” Mrs. Jaffe purrs. “And of us?”

  Oh my God! What have I done? Why do I get the feeling that I’ve just sealed Essie’s fate?

  “Nothing,” I say quickly and stupidly. “Nothing at all.”

  But Melinda knows I mean exactly the opposite.

  “That
’s what I suspected,” she replies.

  Shaking my head erratically, I try to get the image of the woman standing in front of me out of my head. Not because I agree with Essie’s declaration that she’s a witch, but because in this room she looks exactly like my mother.

  No! I close my eyes so the image disappears and in my mind so does the resemblance. “Get out of my way!” I command, eyes closed tight.

  Stumbling into the hallway I’m so distraught and confused and outraged that I start to walk right into the depths of The Retreat instead of to the left toward the front desk. I’m about to turn around to correct myself when I hear squeaking. Nadine is here. She’s not carrying her clipboard, which is usually soldered to her hands, so this must not be a professional visit. When I see her staring at me, smiling devilishly, her hands clasped in front of her, I know that her trip here was completely personal.

  “Hello, Dominy,” she calls out. “I have something to tell you.”

  Her voice is different. It’s deeper and flatter and devoid of any emotion. This is who she really is, a soulless creature, just like Luba. And this is why my father wanted to talk to my mother, to tell me to listen to whatever this freak has to say. Jess probably can’t relay such messages, but there’s no law stating that a mother can’t talk to her own daughter.

  Even if Nadine weren’t leading the way, I would know that we were headed to Room 48. Once inside Luba’s room, however, I would never have imagined I would find Napoleon sitting in a chair next to her. I must look shocked, but it’s not for the reason Nadine thinks.

  “You haven’t forgotten my grandmother already, have you?” she asks.

  The plastic bag is ripped off my head; globs of honey are spooned back into the jar; the truth returns to my mind like water rushing through empty streets during a flood. I couldn’t stop the memories if I wanted to. Luba is Napoleon and Nadine’s grandmother; Melinda is Luba’s daughter-in-law; and I’ve officially been lured into enemy camp.