Ricky extended a hand. "Rick Gallagher."
"Isn't it Ricky?"
He smiled. "Yes, thanks, though I learned to stop introducing myself that way when I passed my twelfth birthday. Thanks for giving Liv a place to hang out for a while."
"She's welcome anytime." Rose turned to me. "I'm sorry to hear about James, Olivia. More sorry you were the one to find him."
I nodded and was about to reply when I caught a movement behind her. A black cat had stopped halfway down the stairs. Rose stepped aside, and we went inside.
"Hey, TC," I said. "I'm back."
His tail twitched once, as if to say, Oh, it's just her, and he headed back up.
"Good to see you, too!" I called after him. "We'll catch up later."
"He missed you," Rose said.
"I'd be shocked if he realized I was gone."
"He did. Now, take Ricky into the parlor and I'll make tea. Gabriel should be here momentarily."
The parlor doubled as Rose's office, and it was my favorite room in the house. It's like a museum of folklore and spiritualism, filled with antique tools of the trade. There's a wall of books, too, with a shelf of British and Celtic lore, and as I looked at it, I made a mental note of everything I'd been wanting to ask about since I'd seen her a few days ago.
"I have no idea what most of this stuff is," Ricky said, looking around. "But . . . wow."
"Yep," I said. "It's an amazing collection of occult paraphernalia. Over there is--" I stopped myself. "Sorry. Get me started and I won't stop."
"Did I mention my nana and her stories? I might not be able to identify anything except that Ouija board, but I'm definitely interested."
"Well, first, that's not a Ouija board. It is a planchette, which is similar. Ouija is a brand name. Not that I knew that, either, until Rose told me. . . ."
NOT EVIL
Rose could hear Olivia and Ricky in the parlor. Yes, she was thinking of her as Olivia now. She'd been calling her Eden, if only to herself, but had come to accept that the possibility of "slipping" made it inadvisable. She liked and respected the girl, which meant she shouldn't call her something she clearly didn't wish to be called.
Speaking of names . . . When she'd heard that Rick Gallagher went by Ricky, she'd dismissed him. He was younger than Olivia, and his choice of diminutive only seemed to emphasize his youth. He'd be cocky and brash, immature and insubstantial, a pretty plaything for a young woman in desperate need of distraction.
As she eavesdropped on them in the parlor, she realized that Ricky was indeed distracting Olivia, but intentionally, guiding her attention away from shock and grief, immersing her in a subject she enjoyed. He listened to her explanations, made insightful remarks, asked intelligent questions, and coaxed out laughs along the way. Neither immature nor insubstantial.
Damn him.
Rose had slipped her deck of tarot cards out of the parlor before they arrived, and now, as she fixed the tea, she consulted them, hoping they'd tell her that Ricky Gallagher was a duplicitous bastard and the sooner Rose squashed this dalliance, the better off Olivia would be.
The cards said no such thing. They did tell her there was trouble. She'd known that from the moment she'd woken this morning from a sleep plagued by swirling nightmares. Tragedy, danger, darkness, grief, circling Gabriel and Olivia--and some shadowy third party. As soon as she'd seen Ricky Gallagher, she'd known who that third party was, and it had been easy to pounce on the conclusion that he was the cause of the rest. But the cards said no. He was intricately involved, and there was blame here, but it was through impulsiveness, not evil intent.
Olivia and Ricky laughed, and Rose slapped two cards on the counter. The Queen of Swords and the Knight of Wands. She swore under her breath. She shuffled, focused on the young couple, and tried again. The Queen of Swords and the King of Wands. Even worse.
The Queen of Swords was Olivia's card. Bright, perceptive, intuitive, independent--it fit her perfectly. As did the reverse position, the more negative qualities that could slide to the fore in the wrong situation--cold-hearted, critical, cynical. The Knight of Wands was Ricky Gallagher. Energy, passion, action, adventure--those were the traits that guided the knight, and from what she'd seen, the card fit Ricky. Reversed, it meant he had a tendency to be easily frustrated, to act in haste. As for the King of Wands, that suggested a process of evolution--that Ricky was becoming a leader, someone with vision and honor, the reverse retaining that impulsiveness and adding a streak of ruthlessness.
She should seize on that last one. Ruthlessness. A sign of evil, was it not? Sadly, no. There was nothing wrong with ruthlessness. It was a trait she admired, and the only way for a young man like Ricky to come into his own.
Good cards, both of them. Excellent, in fact. Which was the problem. She wanted something minor for Ricky, something forgettable, a sign that he himself was inconsequential. But a knight evolving into a king? Not inconsequential at all.
Rose put the King of Wands aside, flipped over so she wouldn't have to look at it. Then she cut through the deck until she found the card she wanted. The King of Pentacles, symbolizing control, power, security, and discipline. Reversed, it suggested a tendency to be controlling, authoritative, domineering. Gabriel's card.
She smiled at the austere and foreboding figure on the front. She laid it beside the Queen of Swords with a snap of satisfaction, stepped back, and . . .
Her grandmother's voice sounded at her shoulder. You can't do that, Rosie. It doesn't work that way.