to the window, where I expect to see nothing in the backyard. Instead there’s someone standing right underneath my window, looking up. My heart skips a beat. It’s him.
Pebbles. It was Josh throwing pebbles at the window, not spirits blowing by on the wind. My cheeks heat, even though he can’t have known what I was thinking.
I shove the window harder than I need to, with a bold push. The last thing I want is for him to think I was scared of a few pebbles. The night air wafts in, heavy with the scent of gumbo and hibiscus from the garden plants near the fence. “What are you doing here?” My heart thumps in a one-two-one-two beat at the sight of his face tilted up toward mine. The memory of powdered sugar ghosts across my tongue. It’s almost impossible to associate his hard body with soft, warm beignets. He is not soft, I remind myself. He is the same man who stalked around me in the warehouse and made my pulse race. If he’s really working with Caleb, he’s far more dangerous than the average man lurking in the city’s cemeteries. Far more dangerous.
“Come down,” he tells me. The tone of his voice is light. Simple—just go down. I should shut the window and lock it. But a flimsy window lock would never keep Josh out. I’m not even sure I’d want it to. Voices rise beneath the floor. Mamere’s made contact, it sounds like. This is the perfect time to leave. I’d almost risk walking right out, but then I’d have to pass by her. If it interrupts the séance it’ll inspire another lecture. Mamere is afraid I’ll become like my mother. A stripper by the time she was my age. Pregnant with Caleb by nineteen. It wasn’t the path Mamere wanted for my mother, and it’s not the one I’m taking. That doesn’t stop Mamere from wringing her hands about it.
So I slip on my shoes and go out the window instead.
The old windowsills are wide and sturdy, and my dancer’s body has no problem finding footholds on the way down. The difference now is that Josh is watching. He doesn’t step forward to offer a hand. He lets me choose my own descent. My last stop is a strand of ivy that stretches across the house. I predict it’ll hold my weight for the breath I need to get a toehold on the frame on the window below. I’m right. Gravity and I shake hands and I land lightly on my feet, letting my knees absorb some of the shock from the grass.
Now Josh and I are restored to our natural order.
He grins down at me. “Love the outfit.”
My face flushes all the way down to my chest. I didn’t dress for company, clearly. “You asked me to come down. I’m assuming I don’t need formal wear for that.”
Not that I have a lot of formal wear. I have one thrifted gown I got for the homecoming dance last year. One size up, so I could wear it again this year with different accessories.
And not that Josh asked me to come down. He didn’t.
He told me to, and I obeyed him.
“So,” he says. “Psychic Readings for twenty bucks.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s my grandmother.”
“You don’t believe she’s psychic.”
“It’s just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.” Sometimes she does feel psychic. Even my brother has an uncanny sense about people. I’m lucky my brother’s not inside. He’d have sensed this by now. No part of me wants to find out what would happen if he saw me standing with Josh at an unscheduled time like this.
Maybe a small part.
No—that would be awful.
My shoulder lifts. “When people come in through the front parlor there’s incense and curtains. Even a few voodoo dolls to complete the effect. I’ve seen the place in the early morning, with a cup of coffee by the crystal ball and my math textbook under the tarot deck.”
“It’s like sausage.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve seen how the sausage gets made. Now you don’t want to eat it.”
That makes me snort. “Are you disappointed? Maybe you wanted me to tell you your fortune. Maybe that’s why you came.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe not. The future’s a scary place.”
My eyebrows raise. We have enough people coming to the house desperate for answers. It’s strange to meet someone who doesn’t seem to want them.
He tilts his head toward the back of the yard. “Let’s go.”
My pulse is a drumbeat that won’t settle. You’d