A glance in the mirror stopped her thoughts abruptly and scattered them in shock.
The rash was gone. Her face was exactly as it had been when she’d removed her makeup before bed, her complexion a little uneven without her foundation, merely one small pimple setting up camp on her chin.
Wanting to scream again, she realized all the air was locked in her throat. Backing out of the bathroom, the reflection of herself, eyes wide, skin clear, chased her as she stumbled into her room.
“Jesus, I’m going crazy,” she murmured out loud, then regretted the sound of her frightened voice ringing in the dark silence.
Flipping on every light she had, both overhead and lamps, as she went, she jogged to the nightstand where her cell phone was. She had entered Felix’s number in the coffee shop, though at the time she hadn’t been sure why he’d offered it, after springing out of his chair like he had suddenly realized she bored him.
But he had said to call her if she needed to talk.
She needed to talk.
And for very obvious reasons, she thought this was something Felix would have a better understanding of than her friends.
It was incredibly rude to call him at two in the morning, but Regan was freaked out so thoroughly, all her social graces vanished as completely as the figure in black.
He answered right away. “Regan, what’s the matter? Did something move again?”
Regan immediately felt relieved that she had called him. He didn’t think she was insane. “I just had a dream that the girl who wrote the journal was visiting the girl she used the rash curse on. And then I woke up and I went into the bathroom and I had a rash. The same rash. On me. Then I saw a woman standing in my doorway, a spirit, in Victorian mourning clothes, and then my rash was gone. And I don’t even know that she actually used that rash curse on another girl... Why in the world am I having these dreams? And how could I have a rash, then not have it? It was so creepy, so... scary.”
She barely took a breath as she blurted it all out, then paused, panting, waiting for him to comment. Glancing around her bedroom, she saw a shadow play across the chest of drawers. Letting out a scream, she backed up and collided with her nightstand. “I think I just saw something.”
“Alright, it’s okay. Why don’t you go into the living room and turn on the TV and I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
Regan instantly felt better, and she swallowed hard. “You would do that?” She was both touched and relieved. Part of her felt like she should protest and demur, but she couldn’t manage it. She didn’t want to be alone.
“Yes, I would do that.”
“Thanks.” She blew out the breath she’d been holding. “Thanks.”
Glancing at the time on her phone as she hung up, she tried to gauge how long she would have to wait until Felix got there. He lived only a few blocks away, but he probably needed to get dressed, then he would walk... the quiet of her house closed in around her as she anticipated having to wait ten minutes or more. She kept touching her face to feel for sores and glancing toward her bathroom, expecting to see the girl in black again. Her bedcovers were destroyed, tossed in every direction, a sign of a restless sleep.
The house was dark and achingly silent around her. The air seemed to move, the quiet absent of any individual sounds, but becoming a presence in and of itself, as if her house were breathing, in and out, in and out.
God, she was losing it. She needed to do something, distract her mind, occupy her hands, so she dragged on jeans and changed her T-shirt with trembling hands. Darting her eyes left and right, she went into the living room with her iPod and speakers, flipping every light on as she went, and turned on some music. At first, she put on classical, what Beau had taught her to appreciate, but it was too lilting, too haunting for her mood. Flipping through her menu, she selected pop dance music and turned it up to a healthy volume, hoping it would overcome the silence of the room.
Then she started contemplating placement on the walls for her photographs. Using the level and the hammer gave her a focus, though she kept glancing over her shoulder.
It wasn’t the sense that someone was watching her so much as she had the feeling she wasn’t welcome in this house. It wanted to be alone with itself, its own aging plaster and long-held secrets.
Which was crazy. Giving the house emotions was crazy. Even Felix had thought houses didn’t have emotions.
Regan forced herself to methodically measure, hammer, hang. She had one photo up over the console table, awaiting its trio of companion photos, when the doorbell rang. Her phone vibrated at the same time. She opened the text from Felix as she headed downstairs for the door.
I’m here was all his text said.
A shiver ran through her at the words. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know anything about him at all, really. Who was to say he wasn’t psychotic? He had been a party hire for the law firm, nothing more. No one could vouch for him personally.
But he seemed to know how to deal with whatever was in her house, and she was truthfully more afraid of that than him.
Felix stood on Royal Street and stared up at the house that he should have never been allowed entrance to. He hadn’t been born a slave, but his mother Louisa had, the child of a mulatto slave and her French owner. Louisa had followed in her own mother’s footsteps and became the mistress of a wealthy Creole, with Felix the result of their arrangement.
Back when Camille had inherited the house in front of him from her parents, Felix had walked the narrow fence of social conventions between two worlds. He was wildly popular with the New Orleans society ladies for his spells and voodoo gatherings, but they always came to him. None of their doors were actually open for him to enter.Except for this one. Camille had defied all rules of convention and insisted he perform his rituals within its walls.
Despite the wealth of his father and his clients, Felix had never seen how the rich really and truly lived until he had entered this house. Even though his own father had been fairly generous with both his money and his affections, frequently visiting Felix and his mother at the house he had purchased for them on North Rampart, Felix had never seen his father’s house.
It was that social distinction, that sting of humiliation that had driven Felix more than a hundred years ago, fostering his greed, and leading him to make destructive choices.
Now he was back at the house on Royal Street, not a greedy and arrogant young man, but an immortal demon servant, chained for eternity in servitude, and he would do anything to give it all back.