“I can’t really talk. It feels good to change into my other form again,” Edgar said. “I half thought I’d die before it happened.”
“Why did you lose the ability?” I asked him.
“Age,” he responded, his fingers entwined in his lap, knuckles as knobby as they’d been before. “It requires a lot of energy, and when you get to six-hundred or so, you start to…fall apart. You just can’t hold it together anymore. By seven-hundred my goose was cooked, so to speak.”
“Six…ty, you mean? Six…”
“Jessie.” Mr. Tom poked his head back in, his eyes tight. “A couple of officers at the door.”
“What?” I stood, not even a little stiff. I just stood right up, not needing to struggle to keep everything in alignment, or give a little groan—everything worked in tandem. It was so…weird. And great.
“Officers.”
“What do they want?” Niamh sat forward.
“No, no.” Mr. Tom waved her away. “Not you. You’ll just make matters worse.”
“Why? I have a good rapport with Dick cops in this town,” she said, indignant.
Edgar started laughing. “You get arrested for drunk and disorderly every other month.”
“That’s only because Chuck doesn’t have a sense of humor. No one else brings me in.”
As I approached the door, I caught sight of the men on the porch, their faces hard, mouths grim, and thumbs tucked into their belts.
“Yes, officers?” I asked, terror squeezing my stomach. We’d just buried a bunch of people in the woods. Could they have found out so soon? I didn’t have any neighbors close enough to see into the backyard, but maybe someone had been flying a drone around?
The closest cop, a freckle-faced man in his early thirties, nodded in hello. “We’ve received a noise complaint about this residence, ma’am.”
“A noise complaint?” Niamh said from behind me, stationed near the archway under the landing. I hadn’t known she’d followed. “Who called it in? Snitches get stitches in this neighborhood. Was it that old blue hair, Betty Turnable? She needs a new hobby, if you ask me. Only crazy people paint rocks.”
“What does that say about people who throw them?” Mr. Tom said through his teeth.
“Are you all…having a party?” The officer’s eyes caught my messy mop of hair, probably the dirt on my cheek and clothes, and the little rip in my shirt from the place it got snagged on my way out of the heart of the house.
“Oh no. No—well, kinda.” I shrugged. “It was a garden party, but we’re all done, now. Everyone has gone home. Mostly.”
The cop took a step back and looked up. “Seems awfully dark. You might see about getting a porch light.”
“Yes, sir, of course—”
“The illumination on our porch has nothing to do with you, officer,” Niamh called.
I pulled the door closed a little to block her out and gave the guys a smile. “Sorry. She’s off her meds.”
“I heard that!”
“Well.” The front cop looked around a bit more. The one in back kept his eyes trained to me. “Okay. Just keep the noise down.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Sorry, sir!”
“Don’t grovel to them, we haven’t done anything wrong,” Niamh said.
“Would you shut up, woman? We just buried—”
I kicked Mr. Tom. The two of them needed to be separated at all times. That was utterly clear.
I waved to the cops as they left the porch, one of them stumbling a little, and got into their car at the curb. Before I shut the door, I noticed a figure standing off to the side. He stood so still, I half wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me, but once I’d noticed him, I couldn’t help but zero in.
Dressed in a tailored black suit, with a black dress shirt open at the neck, he stood with his hands in his pockets. His black hair was slicked back and a dark goatee adorned his handsome face. The only pop of color on his person was a red pocket scarf decoratively tucked in his expensive suit.
A sly smile lifted his lips. He brought up his hand, kissed the palm, and then blew it at me. It wasn’t the kiss that rode the breeze, though, it was words, as though he’d spoken them right next to my ear.
“Sometimes all a lady needs is a little nudge toward greatness. I look forward to meeting you soon.”
With that, he vanished. There one minute, gone the next.
I gulped and closed the door.
“I don’t think Betty would’ve called us in,” Mr. Tom was saying, back in the sitting room. “The golem she keeps in her basement has howling fits sometimes. She doesn’t want any attention for that. She wouldn’t want to get on our bad side.”
“Well someone called,” Niamh said, outraged.
I had a sinking suspicion it was the tall, dark, and handsome stranger who’d been standing just beyond the Ivy House property line. He’d wanted to deliver his message, but he clearly understood what the house could do. He hadn’t wanted to chance his luck by stepping onto my property.