Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

“Serves her right!” Rebecca shrieked. “Kids, breaking into my house, stealing my things. Almost as bad as those developers. The floorboards didn’t rot so fast on their own, you know. Those people wanted to cause an accident. Force my poor Timmy to sell.”

I dropped beside Tori and touched the side of her neck. I thought I could feel a pulse, but my fingers were trembling so much I wasn’t sure. I glanced at Derek. He was already kneeling on her other side and checking for a heartbeat.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Rebecca said. “Well, as long as she didn’t snap her neck. But if she did, it would serve her right, breaking into other people’s property. Probably meeting some boy here. That’s what they all do. Boys and girls. In my house. Upstairs, in my—”

“Would you shut up?” I said, so loud I startled Derek. I turned to him. “Is she—?”

“I said she’s alive,” the old woman said. “I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d have seen her ghost, and the only one I’ve seen is that woman who followed you here.”

I turned sharply. “Woman?”

“Oh, now you want to listen to me, do you? Is this how you treat ghosts, girl? Ignore them until it suits your fancy? Well, let me tell you, I don’t—”

She kept ranting. I turned back to Derek, who was on his phone, calling his dad. I shook Tori’s shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered and she groaned.

“She’s going to be okay,” Derek said. “Your aunt’s coming.” Aunt Lauren was a doctor. “Did you say something about a woman?”

“She says one followed me here. Another ghost.”

I turned back to Rebecca Walker. A month ago, I’d have been tripping over myself to apologize for ignoring her. I credit Derek for that too—teaching me I don’t need to be so polite all the time. I still believe in being nice, but with ghosts, if they’re nasty to me, I have to give them attitude right back, or they’ll take advantage.

“Do you want us to call the police too?” I asked. “Report this accident? Or would you rather we kept it quiet so your son doesn’t get in trouble?”

She stopped ranting.

“We’ll make you a deal,” I said. “We won’t tell anyone what happened here. In fact, we’ll alert your son to what the developers did. In return, you’ll tell me everything you know about this woman.”

Now she started squawking that she didn’t know much, that it was just some lady who must have been following me because of my necromancer’s glow. She’d come in here, seen Tori fall, and taken off.

“I can’t tell you more than I saw, girl, so you’d better not hold out on me.”

There was genuine panic in her voice. That’s another thing Derek made me realize—I often feel that I’m at the mercy of ghosts, but it’s the other way around. They’re stuck, and I’m their only chance for contact with the living world.

“We had a deal,” I said. “I’ll do my part, if you tell me what this ghost looked like.”

Rebecca jabbed a finger in Tori’s direction. “Like her. Same height. Same hair. Skinny. Blue eyes, though. And older. Maybe forty. Dressed all fancy, too, like she thought she was something special.”

“Diane Enright,” I whispered. “She’s describing Tori’s mom.”

He swore under his breath. “She used a glamour spell.”

“A what?”

“Glamour spell. It makes a witch look like someone else. It only works if you’re expecting to see the other person.”

“Like when that other person disappears from sight, then returns. Or seems to.”

I marched from the room. Derek came after me.

“Stay with Tori,” I said. “Please. I don’t want her to wake up and hear this.”

He hesitated, but agreed, and watched me head up the stairs. I went out the back door. As I gazed around the empty yard, I swallowed. I might have marched up those stairs, but my knees were trembling. This was Diane Enright. Tori’s mother. The woman I’d raised to kill Dr. Davidoff. To murder Dr. Davidoff.

Oh God. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face her. Couldn’t—

I had to.

“Mrs.—” I took a deep breath to steady my voice, then channeled Derek, putting a snap into my voice as I shouted, “Diane! I know you’re out there.”