Chapter 27: Rory - Entities to Lovers

These ghosts have taken too much from me.

Including all the lights in Ye Olde Spirit Shop.

It’s been a full seventy-two hours since Mara’s wrath warped the circuit breakers, and Temperance’s curse has kept the electrician from getting to us in any reasonable amount of time. It’s the second workday where my mom and I sit in a darkened store, burn through plenty of candles, and hope we don’t set the shop on fire. Temperance has also lit up the Check Engine lights on both of our trolleys. She is the queen of rubbing salt in all my wounds.

I’ve treaded as carefully as I could for the past days, even staying upstairs with my mom to keep from being hit by a car on my way to and from the store. I also…don’t know how to go home to an apartment Ezra shared with me for however brief a time and know he’s not there anymore. I’d rather stay in an apartment with no electricity than wallow at the sight of the bag of clothes he left behind, the tie he draped on the edge of my couch, or the smell of his cologne woven into my bedding. All I’m going to think about is the devastated look in his eyes as he broke my heart—and maybe his own, too.

I have no idea who to blame for everything that’s gone wrong. I want to blame him, but it’s hard to not blame myself for letting him quit on us, too.

So, I’ll blame Temperance instead.

I sit at my séance table with the charred brooch in front of me, surrounded by several crystals, a deck of tarot cards, and two blue candles lit in front of me. Blue candles signify healing, tranquility, and most importantly, communication. I sometimes burn them when I’m trying to connect with a particularly pesky spirit, and Temperance counts as the widest definition of the word “pesky,” among other things.

It’s Halloween, and any other year, the store would be bustling with tourists and locals, coming to get a taste of spooky season or hitting up one of our tours. But the past two days? It’s been a ghost town. We’ve technically been open, but when everyone realizes we’re working by candlelight and they can’t actually see anything? Yeah, the vibes are not great.

They’ve also snatched my favorite holiday from me. My mom’s been putting on a happy face for the trick-or-treaters who stop by the store, despite the fact that our own decor is darkened and barely visible, and we may not be able to run ghost tours on the busiest night of the year. Yet she seems completely calm. I simply cannot relate.

I rest my fingertips over Temperance’s brooch and take a deep breath.

“Temperance?” I say. “I know you’ve been trying to teach me a lesson, and I want to learn. I want to grow. I just don’t know how.”

Ezra and I tried everything. We got to know one another, we formed a bond—we may have started falling in love? But it still wasn’t enough. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to contact her in the past two days, but it’s by far the most desperate attempt. My hands shake and my stomach is queasy because Hayden and Hallie are due here shortly, and we still barely have the means to shoot an episode. Of course, I’m sure they’re prepped with lights and night-vision cameras, but should they need to plug anything in or charge a battery, we’ve got no way to help them. Batteries tend to die quickly when we bring spirits into the mix. We haven’t told them about the blackout in case we get some twist of fate at the last minute, but it doesn’t look like we’re getting any help.

And I can’t say I’m thrilled to try and commune with any spirits these days.

Something stirs in the room, and the wall creaks, like someone leaning on it. My first thought is of Ezra, and the way he could lean on any surface, looking effortlessly handsome and rakish in ways that made me so angry for so long. Now I’d give anything to see him lean against the door to my alcove. His absence at Ye Olde Spirit Shop is staggering. In addition to the hindered tours and business, everything feels worse without him here. I’ve never felt more cursed than I do now.

My bottom lip quivers. “I can speak to ghosts, but I’m not a mind reader. You’ve gotta help us out, Temperance. Can you please tell me what it is we—I—need to do? I’m alone now, but I deserve a chance.”

I wait in silence…but nothing comes. It’s radio silent like dead air and a phone call that won’t connect. One blue candle on my table flickers, and extinguishes, like Temperance is here and she refuses to play nice. What the fuck else is new?

I groan. “I need that to see, since your asshole friend blew the wiring!”

I reach for my box of matches and light the candle again. The curtain to the alcove opens and my mom peeks in.

“Trying to reach her again?”

“No dice.”

My mom nods and slips into the alcove with two cups of tea in hand. One for me, one for her, and she sits across from me at the table. We’re missing out on crucial business on our busiest week of the year, and she should be stressed and angry, but if she is, it doesn’t show. We do what we can during the day, but each night, we’ve sat in the shop or in the apartment telling spooky stories in the dark, or working our way through a bottle of wine as I spilled my heart to her about losing Ezra. It’s safe, which is exactly what I need right now.

“Phone tag,” she mutters. “This is very Quaker of us, huh?”

“Sipping tea in the dark?”

She nods. “Yes, but this tea might be a little indulgent.”

I take a sip—a warm cinnamon one I blended for her a few weeks ago, but there’s a kick to it. Delicious and spicy. “Is there alcohol in this?”

“Just a little nip of spiced rum. Figured you could use it.”

“Before the shoot?”

“You’re going to be nervous on camera. We have enough stress going on with all…” She waves to the defunct lights. “This. You should have fun with it. It’ll be a good opportunity for you.”

“So far, I’m not on the best track.”

We’re supposed to give Hayden and Hallie a tour of the shop and they’ll do their thing. They’re so natural together and can make a joke out of anything, and then we’ll try to commune with some of the haunted objects we have in the store. I plan to show them Clementine, but I’m unsure if Clementine can perform under pressure. I’m not sure I can either.

“Eh, these things happen,” she says, waving off the concern I know she’s carrying. Since the blackout, she’s had to do work by hand and run her laptop off a mobile hot spot, and it costs us money and customers when we’re cash only.

“Not like this. You don’t usually have ghosts blowing out your electricity or your in-house psychic making customers cry,” I begin.

“That was a little funny.”

“I did not think so.” I sip my spiked tea again. “This was supposed to be a big chance for us. It’d get us new customers, more exposure, more money for the shop. Instead…I blew it. I don’t even think I can blame this damn curse. I think it’s all me.”

Not her, not Temperance, not Ezra. Failure is in all my cards.

“Says who?” she asks. “You’re not allowed to say a spirit. They have to be alive.”

She’s propped her chin on her hand, listening intently. I recognize it from ice cream trips after bullies in school brought me down, and after my first heartbreaks, and I’ve even seen it a lot the past couple of days. A genuine sympathy, a soft place to land. It’s a reminder I’ve always had it and always will.

When I don’t respond, she sighs and grabs my hands across the table. This time, it’s like we’re trying to conjure peace rather than a spirit.

“Sweetheart, look at me.” I do as she asks. “I know we haven’t had it easy. We’re an odd pair and always will be, but we do the best we can. God, there were so many days when you were little that I wished I had someone to lean on. Another parent, close family, someone to ask if I was doing it all right or if I was royally fucking up a perfectly nice little girl. I always worried I’d never be a good enough mom for you, especially on my own.”

“You always were,” I reassure her.

“I couldn’t know that. I still don’t. I wing it half the time running this damn store and hope for the best. It’s all we can do.”

“But I can’t do it like you do. I can’t take those risks and hope for the best because if I fail, it’s all my fault. That’s on me.”

“Right,” she laughs. “Just like it’s on me if I fail. You gotta know and trust you have a safety net and you’ll be okay. Everything is easier when you don’t have to face it alone. Even those hard days? I knew I had you. I had a good group of friends. I had the community. Every time I made a mistake or ended up in a bind, I leaned on all of them. You need to learn to use your village.”

“I don’t have a village, really. I have you.”

“And Ezra,” she says. His name strikes me hard. I’ve resisted calling him or texting him several times now. I’m angry, upset, and I didn’t know how much I cared for him until he was gone.

“I don’t really have him anymore,” I reply. My eyes burn with tears. “And besides, we were never going to work out. Temperance’s curse just…we couldn’t figure it out. We couldn’t figure us out.”

I say it, but I don’t believe it. I miss him like a phantom limb. I pull cards and want to tell him about them. I feel fleeting moments of joy when I’m hanging out with my mom or at the shop, and I want him there for them. But we both walked away. He started it, and I let him. His insistence on quitting on us cut deep, but I could tell there was an even deeper wound hurting him at the time.

“Do you want my mom advice?”

“I feel like you’re going to give me no choice,” I say, knowing she’ll be right—she always is.

“You’re right about that.” She clutches my hands again. “You, baby girl, are one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine where you get it from.”

We both laugh.

“I love how independent you are. I love that you are so openly your own person, even when you try not to be. You’re sweet, and care about people and things so deeply, but it also means you can hurt deeply, too. I know it might seem like being alone is the easiest way to protect yourself, but a one-woman army? There’s going to be some weak spots in the armor if you’re doing it all by yourself. If you let people in, let them protect you, you stand a better chance of winning the battle.”

“But it also means they’re close enough to hurt me,” I argue.

“Sure, but it means you’re cutting out the best healers. The best strategists, the best confidants. You might not always agree with those people. You might fight and butt heads, and need to take your space, but you come back to the people who matter most to you.”

I think of all my bratty teenage days, wanting piercings and tattoos when my mom said no (because the designs were stupid), or not wanting to do my homework or clean up the kitchen. We’d take our time and cool off, but even in the angriest moments, I knew my mom was on my side. It didn’t mean it was always easy.

“It’s also so much harder to back away when you’re scared if you know you don’t have to do it alone.”

If there’s one thing Temperance’s curse has shown me, it’s how many things there are to be afraid of. I’m scared of messing up, being seen, falling in love only to get hurt. I’m afraid to ask for help when I need it—from human helpers when maybe it didn’t have to be that scary after all.

“I think you and Ezra have that in common, too,” she finishes.

Ezra, who feels like he’s never living up to his potential, who is just as terrified of failing as I am. And yet, I didn’t step in when he needed someone to be brave with him, too. We failed each other when we needed each other most, because running and accepting defeat was easier. The problem is, I don’t know how to get him back, to tell him that for me he’s worth the fight—every single time. Even when it makes me angry and annoyed and it’s against my wishes.

He’s something I want to work for.

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt me,” I tell her.

“I don’t think that either,” my mom says. “I’ve known it from the start. You two have something special. Unique. A twin flame.”

“Not you, too,” I laugh, wiping my tears away.

“It doesn’t have to be some salacious thing,” she says, laughing, too. “It’s someone who understands you. Someone who helps you to keep becoming the best person you can be, and who you help in return. People like us? I know we can be tricky to love, tricky to figure out. But when people do? It’s the best kind of love.”

I sniffle and nod. Bravery has never been hard around Ezra. It’s always easy to challenge him, prove my worth against him, or raise the stakes. All things I struggle with alone.

I wonder if this is what Temperance wanted me to see—how the best people bring out the best in us. And mine was right in front of me, if I was willing to work for it.

The skeleton keys above the door jingle and we both return to the main store in a hurry. It’s probably Hayden and Hallie, confused as to why we’re sitting here in the dark like absolute weirdos. And why I’m crying. Or maybe Hayden will be thrilled because it’s great for telling scary stories.

But it isn’t them. It’s Vic.

Vic and a generator.

“Oh, thank god,” my mom gasps, and then, as if I can handle another plot twist in my life, my mom kisses him. Not just a nice peck, but an actual kiss. “One of our village members has come through! You are a hero.”

My mom’s dated throughout my life—some good, some questionable. Sometimes, those relationships last for a few months, or up to a year, but no one really melded into our lives the way maybe she’d hoped.

There’s peaceful glee in her expression and Vic even wraps an arm around her. It’s a display of human emotion I didn’t know he partook in. I swear to god, if he speaks…

“A pal in Somerville didn’t need it, so it’s yours for the weekend,” he says. Vic’s voice is deep but gentle, with a thick Boston accent. I can’t believe this. He speaks! “Also, the engine light was a sensor issue on the Grisly Fate, so…”

“We’ve got one trolley!” she cheers.

“Uh…” I say, drawing the attention back to me. “Mom, is there something you should tell me?”

“Uh…Vic and I…” she divulges, patting his shoulder. “We haven’t put a label on it yet, but we’re getting there.”

“…Nice,” I say, a little stunned, but mostly heart-warmed. “I’m glad you two are happy.”

“Well, I’m thrilled now that we have a generator and a bus!” she cries. “We have a bunch of episodes of Angel City Noir to catch up on.”

The door swings open again, and this time, it’s exactly who I was expecting. Hayden and Hallie stand in the doorway, lugging two big suitcases full of filming equipment behind them.

“I think I’m supposed to say trick-or-treat,” Hallie mutters to herself. “But it feels like…maybe not.”

As Hayden enters, he’s so tall the skeleton key mobile ruffles his hair, and when he turns to look, he quickly fixates on a jarred specimen behind him. Hallie, meanwhile, gets down to business. She reaches into her backpack and grabs a flashlight and flips it on.

“We swear this place looks better when the electricity is working,” my mom says, “but we’re thrilled to have you both here! We’ll make it work! I’m Delia.”

“Hallie,” she replies, offering her hand and a smile. “And you must be Rory.”

She’s a few inches taller than me, wearing jeans, a shearling jacket, and a pair of silver Doc Martens. Her hair is light brown at the roots, bleeding to a bright aqua blue at the ends. When the show first started, it was fully blue, but with each season, she’s let the full dye job grow out but always keeps either blue streaks or a balayage woven through. “It’s a hurdle, but we have lights, and it looks like you’ve got a generator, so we should be good. Hayden? Hayden.”

Hallie’s flashlight streaks across the store and finds Hayden kneeling in front of Clementine. I should have expected she’d be one of the first things he found. Clementine’s little porcelain face doesn’t change emotion, but the energy around her feels at peace. I think she likes him.

“Holy fuck, what is that?” Hallie gasps, jumping back.

“That’s Clementine,” I tell her.

“Come on, Hal,” Hayden teases. “Nothing to be scared of unless you think she’s haunted, right?”

“I don’t like her eyes. It’s like she knows things about me.”

“Clementine’s not supposed to be scary,” I tell her, but I’m getting the impression Hallie’s not so easily swayed. She takes a step away from the doll. “She brings people things if she likes them. She brings me little flowers. She gives—”

I stop, thinking of the doting way Ezra speaks to Clementine, always happy to accept her coins and see their value when someone else might not.

I don’t need to keep explaining, because Hayden rises from in front of the doll, holding something in his hand. It’s a tiny plastic spring. Is it a…cat toy?

“I think she likes me!” Hayden touts. “Look.”

The spring rolls around in the palm of his hand. Hallie takes it from him. “Is this…?”

“One of those springs Cthulhu likes to play with,” he says.

Even though it came from a doll she deemed creepy, Hallie softens. “Aw. He ran out of his last batch.”

“They’re all under the fridge,” Hayden confirms. “We’ll find them when we buy a house and move out.”

Hallie rests a hand on the small of Hayden’s back and kisses his arm. “But I don’t care how much the doll likes you. We’re not taking her home.”

“She’s not for sale,” I confirm.

“Fine,” he sighs, at the same time Hallie says, “Oh, thank god.

“All right,” Hallie pivots. “We should start getting ready. I’m going to freshen up and redo my makeup before we set the equipment up.”

“We have a bathroom in the dressing room back there,” my mom says, offering to show her the way while Vic works on setting up the generator. “Come with me.”

She lets go of Hayden and follows my mom. “Great, thank you. Hayden—please don’t buy anything haunted while I’m gone.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “No purchasing cursed objects.”

It’s easier said than done in Ye Olde Spirit Shop. Once Hallie’s in the back room, Hayden steps in and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Do you have somewhere we could talk?” he asks, keeping one eye on Hallie to make sure she doesn’t come back.

“The doll isn’t for sale,” I repeat.

“No, no,” he insists, “she seems happy here. This is something else.”

“Sure,” I say, guiding him into my alcove.

Once we’re inside and the curtain falls closed, Hayden gawks at the paintings on the walls and some of the relics I have perched on the bureau and gazes into the haunted mirror behind the table. He squints at it, waiting for it to do something.

“Sometimes shadows appear in the corners of the mirror, but they can be unpredictable,” I tell him.

“Fascinating,” he gasps.

“What can I help you with?” I finally ask.

“Right.”

The tone in Hayden’s voice shifts from his usual deep, steady bass to something a little shakier and more unsure of himself.

“Have you guys ever done a proposal on one of these tours before?” Hayden shoves his hands into his pockets. I pause and blink up at him.

Oh, this isn’t bad at all.

You don’t need to be a psychic to see the way Hayden and Hallie adore one another. They’re wildly different—her logical and him with his head in the clouds—but they play off one another incredibly well and understand their differences, complementing each other.

Which is not only great for them, but for us as a business. Their presence here would already bring in plenty of new fans, but knowing it was the site of their favorite pairing’s engagement? We’d more than see a surge. I’m more grateful than ever that Vic managed to get the Grisly Fate up and running. We canceled tours and gave employees the night off, but I’m here, so I can take this special tour. I wish I had my favorite fellow ghost to haunt with…

“Uh, no,” I tell him, letting myself sink into a moment of pure happiness after a hell of a week. “That would be a first, but we’d be thrilled to help. You tell me what you’ve got in mind, and I’ll make it happen.”

“Great,” he sighs in relief. “Hallie and I met for the first time on a ghost tour, and I really want to propose to her in the same way—granted, okay, I made a huge fool of myself with fighting with the tour guide, and it was a whole thing. I won’t do that this time, I promise. I mean, like, maybe for show, because I want to film it.”

He’s rambling, like he’s the only one in the room. It reminds me of Ezra when he goes off on his tangents that lead us to talking through a whole movie.

“Oh, trust me, we tour guides like a show,” I say, and I am already imagining Ezra and me helping to facilitate something so cool and romantic. But he’s not here. A pit of despair aches in my stomach.

“Awesome. Thank you, really.”

His nerves dull slightly, like one step of his plan has fallen into place, now the rest of it needs to go off without a hitch. I sincerely hope Temperance won’t shove a wedge between another couple.

“I’d been waiting for the right time for a while. This whole shoot and episode fell into place easily, like…”

“Fate?”

He nods, smiling faintly. “Yeah, just like that.”

“Can I ask you something?” I say before I change my mind.

“Sure.”

“How did you know Hallie was your person?”

Hayden raises his brows and rubs his hand along his jaw like I’ve stumped him. “There wasn’t a single moment. Lots of little moments. Things she said or things she did that left their mark.”

“But what kind of proof do you have? How do you know?”

Hayden laughs. “Rory, I believe in a lot of things without proof. I just know. I know on my worst days—and I have plenty of them—where nothing’s going right, when I’m at my lowest? I want her there. Nothing feels as bad when she’s around. We both had to work on not running when we get scared. I’ve learned it’s better to hold on to people in those times rather than run away. We couldn’t be more different, and hell, we spend half our time arguing about god knows what, but it’s always coming from a place of love. Or fun. Hallie’s never afraid to challenge me to be a better person. And I am, because of her. The best loves aren’t easy from start to finish, but they’re easy to choose to fight for.”

I spend so long looking for proof in the stars or in the cards, I look for answers from beyond because they must know more than I do. But if what Hayden’s saying is correct, sometimes there isn’t any proof. Sometimes, you just know, and you have to fight for it anyway.

“Thanks,” I say. “I know that was probably a weird question.”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “I’ll take any excuse to talk about my girl—”

“Hayden?” Hallie calls from outside the alcove. “I forgot I put my curling iron in your bag.”

His eyes widen, like we’ve got the best timing in the world to wrap up this conversation. He covertly nods at me and dips back out into the main area of the store. It leaves me alone in my alcove, which feels painfully overwhelming with all my confused thoughts. I stare down at the tarot deck in front of me and sit at the table.

I give the cards a shuffle, and then another, until a single card jumps out at me. The Lovers. Again and again, this card keeps appearing to me, and at first, I thought it was some kind of mockery, then I thought it was a little on the nose. I’m a good enough tarot reader to know there’s always a deeper meaning. Something to show you. I stare at it for a second longer, and the generator hums to life and a few lights flicker back on. I follow signs and messages from the universe, and I think the universe is telling me I’m getting closer to the right path.

I snap a quick picture of the card and begin to type.

RORY (5:32 PM): I just pulled this, and it made me think of you. Not for the obvious reasons. The Lovers can indicate a choice to take action, rather than run away from it. I listen to the cards more than I listen to my heart, but even they’re telling me I’m missing something. You should know you’re more than worth the fight for me. And I don’t want to quit on us.