The Graves of Saints (42 page)

Tori looked around the inside of the store and felt herself genuinely smiling for the first time in days. They had needed the support, and they had gotten it. While she had sat in bed and
watched CNN reporting from the sites of all four breaches, tallying the dead and interviewing mages, her wife and their friends and employees had gotten on with the business of life. While
self-defined experts had blathered about demons and parallel realities and vanishing vampires and pondered whether or not the world was safer now or in more danger than ever, apples ripened and
pumpkins fattened, and people came to buy them.

All over the world the dust settled and life went on, but in the aftermath of all that had happened during the equinox and afterward, Tori had felt as if she had been frozen in ice. Then, last
night, Cat had snuggled up beside her in bed and told her to take her time, promised that she would take care of everything until Tori felt up to rejoining the rest of the world, and Tori had felt
the ice melting.

This morning, things had felt different. Still, she had taken things slowly, but now – with the lunch hour approaching – she knew she was ready to dive back in. Questions still
nagged her and the absence of friends haunted her, but she owed it to the living, herself included, to get on with her life.

Many voices and smiles greeted her as she walked through the store, searching for some way to be helpful. She made mental notes about some of the baked goods and an order she’d have to
place with the woman who made the funny little holiday wall signs that sold so well, and then she turned and saw Amber Morrissey unpacking a crate of lettuce and putting it on display.

‘Good morning,’ Amber said.

‘Hey,’ Tori said, a bit shyly.

Amber had been staying with them, but even though the young woman had been in her house, they had barely spoken in that time. Cat had been playing hostess, and it was a role for which she was
ill-suited.

‘Listen,’ Tori went on, ‘I just want to thank you for sticking around and helping out.’

Amber gave a little nod, sad in spite of her smile. ‘Happy to do it.’

The rest of it went unsaid, but just as Tori did not need to see Amber’s true face to know it was hiding under there, she didn’t need to hear the words to know they were there, just
waiting. Amber wanted to go home to Massachusetts, but she had come to Brattleboro with the ghost of Miles Varick, her friend, and though she’d had no communication from him these past few
days, she was hesitant to leave without him.

But she would, soon enough. Time would pass and it would seem awkward for her to be waiting, and she would go home.
Or perhaps not
, Tori realized abruptly. Perhaps she would rather be
where there were people who knew what she was and were not afraid of her. Though, if Tori were honest, she was a little afraid.

Tori started to move further into the store, but she paused when she saw the empty display case at the back with the sign still hanging above it that read
Sweet Somethings
. The
chocolates had mostly been sold and others had been packed away and refrigerated. It was Keomany’s little shop inside the larger store.

‘What are you going to do about the space?’ Amber asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Tori replied. ‘Whatever we do, I don’t think it’ll be candy. It would feel wrong. Disloyal.’

‘I don’t think Keomany would—’

Tori frowned. ‘It isn’t about what Keomany would think. It’s about how Cat and I would—’

Almost as if summoned by the speaking of her name, Cat came rushing in, moving through the store at a pace just short of a run. A ponytailed soccer mom jumped out of her way and swore under her
breath, but Cat did not even slow to apologize.

‘Tori,’ Cat said. ‘Outside, now. You too, Amber.’

Cat took Tori’s hand and led the way, weaving back through the displays without any apparent concern for the stares of staff and customers alike. Amber followed, asking questions every
step, but Tori said nothing. She just followed her wife, knowing the look in her eyes all too intimately. Cat Hein was angry and afraid in equal measure, and the only thing that made her feel that
way was the unknown. She didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Together, the three women stormed out of the old, converted barn. Outside, Tori thought the scene seemed unchanged. A man on his cell phone was arguing with someone in a hushed voice, but other
than that, all she saw were people drinking coffee and eating cider donuts and gathering up their purchases to head back to their cars.

Then Amber breathed a single word. ‘Miles.’

Tori glanced up, even as Amber ran past her to meet a man almost no one else could see. An obese man with a walrus mustache wiped sugary fingers on his faded Harley Davidson t-shirt and turned
to say something to a gray-haired woman beside him, and that was when Tori saw Peter Octavian striding toward them from a rental car he’d left parked in the road.

Octavian caught her eye but did not smile. He had lines on his face she had never seen before and was in desperate need of a shave. His sweater and jeans were both gray and rumpled

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Cat said as he approached.

The people around them became spectators, and they watched as Octavian ignored her. He focused instead on Tori.

‘Is she here?’ Octavian asked, his voice grim and clipped.

For a moment, Tori was distracted by the sight of Amber standing beneath a tree by the road, chatting happily to thin air.

‘Is—’ she began.

‘Keomany,’ Octavian said, eyes alight with purpose. ‘Is she
here
?’

‘What? No.’

‘We thought she was with you,’ Cat said, standing beside and almost between them.

Octavian exhaled, deflating a little, and when he raised his eyes again Tori saw the pain in his gaze.

‘She took them,’ he said. ‘All of them. Evil sons of bitches like Cortez and my friends, too, like there was no difference between one and the next.’

‘The vampires,’ Cat said.

‘
Shadows
,’ Octavian corrected. ‘Kuromaku, Allison, and the others . . . they were Shadows. My people. My friends, and she put them in one Hell or another. They could
be dead right now, or suffering, and I don’t know how to reach them, how to get them back. So you tell me, right now . . .’

He turned to look at Cat, indigo light spilling from his eyes like flames.

‘Where is she?’

Cat swallowed. ‘We don’t—’

‘Don’t lie to me!’ Octavian shouted, raising his voice for the first time.

Birds burst from the trees and all of the voices around them fell silent. Tori blinked and looked around in horror to see that everyone had frozen in place, as if Octavian had stopped time for
everyone except himself, Tori, Cat, and Amber, who now stared at him worriedly, whispering to a ghost.

‘What did you do?’ Tori asked, raising her own voice now.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Octavian said. ‘But I want the truth, Tori.’

‘You’ve got it!’ she snapped. ‘Keomany never came back here. I know you don’t trust Cat, but I’ve never given you reason not to trust me. I’m sorry
about your friends, but that’s got nothing to do with us. Keomany isn’t here!’

He turned away, hanging his head, then looked up at the sky as if searching for answers.

‘I don’t know where else to look,’ he said.

Grief radiated from the man. Tori reached out for him, but Cat caught her hand and pushed it back down by her side. Octavian did not see.

‘What are you going to do?’ Tori asked.

Octavian frowned thoughtfully. ‘Only one thing
to
do. They’re my friends. Wherever Keomany stranded them, I’m going after them.’

‘But if she’s really closed all of the breaches, sealed the world off from other . . . dimensions, or whatever,’ Cat said, ‘how are you going to get through?’

‘There’s a way,’ Octavian said. ‘There’s got to be a way.’

Without another word, he turned and left them, striding back through the motionless crowd.

‘Hold on,’ Amber said as Octavian passed. ‘Miles and I want to help. We’ll come with you. Just let me get my bag.’

But Octavian walked by as if she, too, were a ghost. He climbed into the car he’d left at the roadside and slammed the door. The instant the engine growled to life, the paralysis broke
around Tori and Cat and all of the customers were moving and talking again, some of them staring at the place Octavian had been, then glancing around as if he had simply vanished.

In a way, Tori thought, that was precisely what he had done.

She stood hand in hand with her wife and watched Octavian drive away, road dust swirling up behind the car as it went over a rise and disappeared. Amber stood silently with the ghost, staring
after him, as if they thought Octavian might come back for them, but the car did not reappear.

Tori noticed that the trees that lined the road had seemed to bend slightly, as if they too were watching Octavian drive away, and were now upright again.

Just the wind
, she told herself.

But the morning had brought only a light breeze, barely enough to loosen the autumn leaves from their branches. Frowning, she studied the trees again, but they did not move at all.

Just the wind
, she thought again.

‘You all right?’ Cat asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I think I am.’

Tori turned to stare up into the branches of the nearest oak.

Wondering.