With a little sigh, Blue made her way down to the kitchen. She pushed open the back door, using two hands to close it silently behind her. After dark, the yard was its own world, private and dim. The high wooden fence, covered with messy honeysuckle, blocked out the lights from neighboring back porches, and the inscrutable canopy of the beech blocked the moonlight. Ordinarily, she would have had to wait several long minutes for her eyes to adjust to the relative dark, but not tonight.
Tonight, an eerie, uncertain light flickered on the trunk of the tree. Blue hesitated just outside the door, trying to make sense of the sputtering light as it shifted on the pale, gray bark. Laying a hand against the side of the house — it was still warm from the heat of the day — she leaned forward. From here, she saw a candle around the other side of the tree, nestled in the bare snake-roots of the beech. A tremulous flame vanished and lengthened and vanished again.
Blue took a step off the cracked brick patio, then another, glancing behind her again to see if anyone watched from the house. Whose project was this? A few feet away from the candle was another tangle of smooth-skinned roots, and a pool of black water had gathered in them. The water reflected the flickering light, like another candle beneath the black surface.
Blue held her breath tight inside her as she took another step.
In a loose sweater and broom skirt, Neeve knelt near the candle and the little root-pool. With her pretty hands folded in her lap, she was as motionless as the tree itself and as dark as the sky overhead.
Blue’s breath came out in a rush when she first saw Neeve, and then, lifting her eyes to Neeve’s barely visible face, her breath jerked out of her once more, as if the surprise were fresh again.
"Oh," Blue breathed. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here."
But Neeve didn’t reply. When Blue looked closer, she saw that Neeve’s eyes were unfocused. It was her eyebrows that really did it for Blue; they had no expression to them somehow. Even more vacuous than Neeve’s eyes were those formless eyebrows, waiting for input, drawn in two straight, neutral lines.
Blue’s first thought was something medical — weren’t there seizures where the symptom was just sitting there? What were those called? — but then she thought of the bowl of cran-grape juice on the kitchen table. It was far more likely that she’d interrupted some sort of meditation.
But it didn’t look like meditation. It looked like … a ritual. Her mother didn’t do rituals. Maura had once told a client hotly, I am not a witch. And once she had said sadly to Persephone, I am not a witch. But perhaps Neeve was. Blue wasn’t certain what the rules were in this situation.
"Who’s there?" asked Neeve.
But it was not Neeve’s voice. It was something deeper and farther away.
A nasty little shiver ran up Blue’s arms. Somewhere in the tree above, a bird hissed. At least Blue thought it was a bird.
"Come into the light," said Neeve.
The water moved in the roots, or maybe it was merely the moving reflection of the solitary candle. As Blue cast her gaze wider, she saw a five-pointed star marked around the beech tree. One point was the candle, and another the pool of dark water. An unlit candle marked the third point and an empty bowl the fourth. For a moment, Blue thought that she was mistaken, that it was not a five-pointed star after all. But then she realized: Neeve was the final point.
"I know you are there," not-Neeve said, in the voice that sounded like dark places, far away from the sun. "I can smell you."
Something crawled very slowly up the back of Blue’s neck, on the inside of her skin. It was such a hideously real creep that she was badly tempted to slap it or scratch it.
She wanted to go inside and pretend she had not come out, but she didn’t want to leave Neeve behind if something —
Blue didn’t want to think it, but she did.
She didn’t want to leave Neeve behind if something had her.
"I am here," Blue said.
The candle flame stretched very, very long.
Not-Neeve asked, "What is your name?"
It occurred to Blue that she wasn’t exactly certain that Neeve’s mouth moved when she spoke. It was hard to look at her face.
"Neeve," Blue lied.
"Come where I can see you."
There was definitely something moving in the little black pool. The water was reflecting colors that were not in the candle. They shifted and moved in a pattern completely unlike the movement of the flame.
Blue shivered. "I am invisible."
"Ahhhhhhh," sighed not-Neeve.
"Who are you?" Blue asked.
The candle flame reached tall, tall, thin to the point of breaking. It reached not for the sky but for Blue.
"Neeve," said not-Neeve.
There was something crafty now, to the dark voice. Something knowing and malicious, something that made Blue want to look over her shoulder. But she couldn’t look away from that candle, because she was afraid the flame would touch her if she turned away.
"Where are you?" Blue asked.
"On the corpse road," not-Neeve growled.
Blue became aware that her breath clouded in front of her. Goose bumps pricked her arms, fast and painful. In the half-light of the candle, she saw that Neeve’s breath was visible, too.
The cloud of Neeve’s breath parted over the pool, like something physical was rising from the water to break the path of it.
Rushing forward, Blue kicked over the empty bowl, knocked over the unlit candle, scuffed dirt in the direction of the black pool.
The candle went out.
There was a minute of complete blackness. There was no sound, as if the tree and the yard around it were not in Henrietta anymore. Despite the silence, Blue did not feel alone, and it was a terrible feeling.
I am inside a bubble, she thought furiously. I am in a fortress. There is glass all around me. I can see out but nothing can get in. I am untouchable. All of the visuals that Maura had given her to protect herself from psychic attack. It felt like nothing at all against the voice that had come out of Neeve.
But then there was nothing. Her goose bumps had disappeared as quickly as they’d come. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness — though it felt like light leeching back into the world — and she found Neeve, still kneeling by the pool of water.
"Neeve," whispered Blue.
For a moment, nothing happened, and then Neeve lifted her chin and her hands.
Please be Neeve. Please be Neeve.
Blue’s entire body was poised to run.
Then she saw that Neeve’s eyebrows were ordered and firm over her eyes, though her hands were quivering. Blue let out a relieved sigh.