Raelean nods, catching on to what I’m telling her. “And if you do, then you can ‘walk the veil.’” She air-quotes the last words.
“If this works, that pretty much makes me a genius.” I waggle a bottle of Goldschläger I find. The gold flakes swirl in the bottom. Thankfully, there’s a little more than a swig left.
“I’m fairly certain that’s not how genius works.” Raelean grabs a shot glass—which she has plenty of, too. She snatches the bottle from my hand and fills it up.
We both look at the perfume bottle of Sin Eater Oil.
“I ain’t touching that,” she says, eyeing it skeptically.
I pause. A knot twists in my gut. We could be mistaken. Am I really sure this is what the recipe is calling for? I mean, if I do this and I’m wrong, then it could kill me, right?
And if I don’t, I might not learn what Adaire wants me to know.
“Okay. Let’s do this.” I pluck the mismatched stopper from the top and carefully tilt the bottle over the shallow glass of Goldschläger. A slow drop of ooze slips toward the lip of the spout—I half expect a puff of smoke when the two liquids converge. The dollop of oil drops into the alcohol with a plop.
Instead, something much more enchanting happens.
Crackling veins of iridescent blue light fracture the thick black drop, setting the shot glass aglow. The alcohol seeps into the cracks, causing the oil to roil and writhe as if it’s a living thing, born into something new. The oil gives in to the alcohol and melts into a thinner substance, diluting the liquid to an inky blue.
Tiny crackling embers pop, the last remnants absorbed. A faint blue glow haunts the glass.
“It’s cold,” I say, surprised when I pick it up. My fingers frosty numb as if holding a chilled can of soda. I give it a smell. The glowing liquid ripples from the closeness of my touch, alive and thriving...waiting for a kiss.
“Are you going to drink it all?” Raelean stops me short of taking a sip.
“Should I?” I look at the liquid, wondering if a sip is enough.
“What if you die?” Raelean scrunches up her nose.
I was ready to dismiss that thought until she said it aloud. I set the glass down and sit back. Dying isn’t on my agenda today.
I stare at the inky blue liquid as it begins to fade. A realization slipping into my thoughts.
“Fuck it.” I snatch it up—
“Damn it, Weatherly.” Raelean jumps out of her chair with a halting hand. Her urgency stops me cold. “If I have to call your grandmother and tell her you’re dead, so help me God, I’ll bring you back and kill you myself.”
Something in my gut nudges, and a thought comes to me. “If I die, call Bone Layer.”
“Are you freaking cracked?” Raelean huffs a laugh.
“You heard me.” I look at her, stern. Not in a mean kind of way but with an unspoken understanding that says, Follow my wishes, even if they don’t make sense.
The gravity of what we’re doing forces Raelean to sit back down as she resigns herself to what’s about to happen.
She nods. Once. Ever so slightly.
Here goes. I slug the foul-smelling liquid down. Frosty cold, it ices my throat, leaving an aftertaste of rotted fish and cinnamon. I cough and press a fist to my mouth, trying to hold it down.
I wait, not sure if I’m going to suddenly get slurring drunk or if visions will just reveal themselves in front of me. Or if I’ll die.
Except nothing happens.
“I don’t feel a thing,” I say to Raelean, and set the glass on the table. When I do, my hand leaves behind a blurry trail, as though I’m moving in slow motion. “Whoa.” I look around the kitchen expecting the whole room to melt into a dizzy haze. But it’s the same sad kitchen as always.
“Are you seeing this?” I wave my hand back and forth to show Raelean. “It’s kind of like a ghosting delay. Oh, wait, can you see—” I pause.
Raelean is sitting there, frozen-faced, her eyes affixed to the chair I’m in.
“Hey,” I say a bit firmer and snap my fingers in her face. My hand an echo of itself. She doesn’t even flinch. Then I notice the dust particles in the shallow kitchen light, how they no longer float, but are perfectly still. The second hand on the clock has stopped circling. And a drip from the faucet dangles in the air.
Everything in the room is frozen in time.
A melodic hum snakes into the silence, the sweet warm sound of a soul-song. Not inside my head, though. Nor my chest, like it does when another soul is preparing to leave this world. That beautiful hum, plucked from my childhood, is coming from outside. Adaire.
It snakes into the trailer through the cracks around the door.
The pull so alluring, I’m helpless to its call. I walk to the door and briefly pause, turning back to see the slow dragging of my body as it catches up with me. Raelean still sits at the table, staring at the spot where I just was.
I step out onto the porch—
The sight of Adaire standing there catches me off guard. Her back is turned to me, but I’d know that scratchy short hair anywhere. Her clothes the same we buried her in: black-plaid pants with her favorite red Journey T-shirt. The colors are muted, like the tones of a faded photograph.
When I call to her, no sound comes. Only a flatness of nothing refracts back to me. Black smudges the edges of my vision. A hazy frame around this in-between place I’ve stepped into.
Coolly, Adaire turns her head to look at me over her shoulder. I smile. Even though she sees me, her expression is emotionless. Then she turns around and walks off the porch.
I throw out a hand to catch her; my foot missteps off the porch—
