Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

The ghost of who she had been stared back wonderingly. Their forms were identical. They both had regal ivory features and bloodred hair, but they were far different from each other. The Phaedra from the past was transparent, but even so she had a brightness of spirit, a light in her face. She felt straight and strong and beautiful, and Grace knew this was who Phaedra had been before Lethe had imprisoned her, before she had become the dark.

In contrast, the present Phaedra’s razored edges and black center felt especially wrong. There was nothing wrong with the dark, Grace thought, as she considered the living sea inside of her. Darkness can be a beautiful thing, and the night had a velvet embrace that the day could never hope to match. But darkness was an entirely different thing from this brokenness.

The present Phaedra’s face contorted. She screamed, and the sound was so full of rage and pain, so full of shattered glass and catastrophic ruination, that it almost doubled Grace over.

She was horrified at what she had initiated. I’m so sorry, she wanted to say. But before she could find her way to the words, the ghost sprang, faster than thought, and wrapped around the present Phaedra.

Who screamed and screamed, beyond anything a human could produce. The strength of anguish behind it finally had Grace clapping her hands over her ears as tears streamed down her face. How could anybody survive with something like that inside of her? It was intolerable. No creature should reach a place of such pain that caused a scream like that.

Underneath the screaming, Grace began to hear something else.

Choose me. Choose me. All but inaudible, heard only in the mind, the ghost said it over and over, Choose me.

The screaming stopped. What it left behind was a pounding silence.

The ghost sank into Phaedra, whose body shuddered and rippled. Grace felt Phaedra flex convulsively. Then with a concussion that rattled the house, her presence snapped into a different alignment.

Oh, please let that be a good thing.

Grace wiped her eyes. When she could see again, Phaedra’s form was barely visible. The Djinn’s presence felt fragile and fundamentally changed. Grace said, “Tell me what I can do to help you.”

I must rest. Then Phaedra said slowly, Call on me when you have need, and I will come. I owe you a favor.

Grace felt something settle into place as the Djinn’s presence faded. It was a tiny, barely perceptible thing.

A thread of connection.

She turned, braced her elbows on the counter and leaned there for a while until her racing heart slowed. She couldn’t wait to tell Khalil what happened. Either that, or she dreaded it. Maybe both.

Phaedra had felt so paper-thin and delicate before she disappeared, hardly capable of surviving.

But there was a connection.

Grace wanted to pack it in cotton and wrap it in a bow. She could stare at it all day, hovering and fretting, except she had things to do.

The Oracle’s moon was a nexus, as the veil between times and worlds thinned and possibilities converged. It could be unpredictable and dramatic as hell.

So that was done and over with, right? Because she was calling a moratorium on unpredictable drama for at least a couple of weeks. Well, as long as she was calling a moratorium, she might as well make it a decade. She would insist on no more unpredictable drama until both the kids hit eighteen, but Chloe was going to reach puberty well before then, and Grace just hoped she had benefits at that point because she thought she was going to need a therapist to get through those years.

Khalil’s reaction was going to have to wait for now. She had to pick up the kids.

She made coffee, filled a travel mug and started her errands. The first order of business? Make an ATM deposit at her bank with that insane check before she did something stupid, like dump coffee all over her purse. She started laughing as she punched in the right sequence of numbers and watched the machine suck in her deposit envelope. Yeah, that was probably going to mean a phone call from some startled bank employee tomorrow.

Then she drove south to the nearest superstore and spent the last of her cash on a small, inflatable, rainbow-colored kiddie pool, bright plastic waterproof toys, a red bucket, two packages of glow-in-the-dark stars and children’s sunscreen.

When would Khalil come by? Like the love-struck fool that she was, she missed him fiercely. She wanted him more than ever, and she hadn’t eaten a proper meal since yesterday morning, and she already needed a nap. She was exhausted, terrified and euphoric, running on caffeine and an overabundance of dumbfounded endorphins. She instinctively knew they had only begun to touch on all the sensual possibilities they could share, while she barely comprehended what they had already done. What he had done to her.

Huh. He really was the bane of her existence. She just hadn’t realized that might be a pretty spectacular thing.

As she pulled into the driveway at Katherine’s house, Chloe raced squealing out the front door, blonde hair floating around her head like dandelion fluff. Laughing, Grace stepped out of the car. Chloe beamed and threw her arms around Grace’s middle. “Max missed you so much!”

“Did he?” Grace hoisted the little girl onto her hip and hugged her tight. “How about you?”

“I was a big girl.” Chloe put her head on Grace’s shoulder. “I was fine. But overnight is an awfully long time.”

“It is, isn’t it? I wasn’t a very big girl. I missed you like crazy.” Grace kissed her cheek. “I bought you presents.”

Chloe’s head popped up. She looked electrified. “What is it?!”

“You get to see when we go home.” Grace set her on her feet. Katherine’s children Joey and Rachel had run outside too. When Chloe shrieked and skipped in circles, they joined her. Grace went to talk with Katherine and collect Max and their overnight bag.

Katherine met her at the front door with Max on one hip. When the baby saw Grace, he squealed and tried to fling himself forward. Laughing, Katherine handed him over. “They were great, as always. Chloe struggled a bit last night and cried to come home, but other than that I think she had a good time. How did yesterday go?”

The babbling part of her brain almost got control of her mouth, but as Grace received a slobbery baby kiss, she managed to wrestle the internal babbler into silence. She was not up to dropping bombshells that would kick off a three-hour visit of explanations. That could come at a later time. For now she said simply, “Very productive. We got a lot done.”

Katherine told her, “Well, you look good but exhausted. Everything all right?”

Grace smiled. She couldn’t believe the older woman didn’t hear the whistling fireworks rocketing through her head. “Everything’s great. I’ll call you in a couple of days. We should set up a time when I can take Joey and Rachel, so that you and John can get away for the weekend.”

Katherine’s pleasant face lit up. “That would be awesome!”

“Why don’t you talk it over with him and figure out some possible dates then let me know what you come up with?”

“Absolutely!”

By the time Grace got the kids home, she had reached a crisis of hunger that mere coffee couldn’t stave off any longer. She needed a hot meal, but the leftovers from the Russian Tea Room were gone, and all they had in the freezer were Tater Tots, packages of peas, broccoli and corn, and concentrated juice.

Meanwhile Chloe was in a frenzy over the presents. Grace looked wryly into Chloe’s agonized face and said to herself, yep, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?

Life narrowed and became one foot in front of the other again, one step at a time. Her higher thought processes took a hike. Even the babbler fell silent. She blew up the inflatable pool until she was dizzy, put it in the backyard in the corner near a shady tree, and yanked the old leaky hose over to add water to it. Not much. Enough for them to splash and have fun, but a small enough amount so that the sun could warm it quickly.