She kept reassuring me that the bird was okay, but we both knew that when I closed my eyes, I didn't see a broken and rotting bird, screaming and flapping in terror. I saw a child. Until now, I'd only imagined what I intended to do to these children. Now I saw it, heard it, smelled it.
"We'll find another way." Jeremy's voice, somewhere above me, his words drifting past.
Eve said nothing, but I could feel her tension as she held her tongue.
"We'll find another way." His voice was beside me now, as if he'd dropped to his knees.
"He's right," Eve said finally. "This was a bad idea--"
"No. I'm going to do it."
"You don't need--" Jeremy began.
"Yes, I do." I followed the sound of his voice, forced my gaze to focus and saw him crouched beside me. "This time I'll release the soul as soon as we see something. We don't have time to back off now and do more research. Better to--" I swallowed, "--just do it and do it fast."
Jeremy hesitated, then nodded. "Would you like me to go? Leave you be?"
"No." I met his gaze. "Please don't."
So, with him beside me, and Eve scouting, I began again. My heart beat so hard I could scarcely breathe. When I closed my eyes, I saw the bird again. Every time a child's ghost touched me, I jumped, as if in guilt.
"Take some time," Jeremy murmured. "Everyone inside is busy packing. No one's going to bother us."
When I couldn't relax, Jeremy tried distracting me with a story from his youth. Any other time, I'd have hung on his every word, sifting through the tale for insight. But even though his story took place in his late teens, it made me think of childhood. Of the children. And underscoring his words, I heard them whispering.
As I leaned forward, sweat dripped onto the chalk symbol. I picked up the chalk to fix it, but my fingers were trembling so badly I snapped the piece in two. Moving to grab the fallen end, I accidentally erased the chalk edge with my knee.
"Here," Jeremy said, reaching for the larger piece of chalk.
I managed a weak smile as he filled in the missing parts. "Now I'm a true celebrity necromancer. I even get professional artists to draw my symbols."
A joke weaker than my smile, so I didn't blame him for not smiling back. When I looked, though, he seemed not to have heard at all, but had withdrawn into his thoughts. After a moment, he lowered the chalk to the paving stones and drew something to the side of my ritual setup.
"Remember those runes I mentioned? The ones I see?" he said as he drew. "This is one of them. Not for protection, but for calming."
He finished the simple design, then took my hand and laid it on the symbol.
"Now, maybe these are just part of some secret code I found on a cereal box when I was a boy but--" He met my gaze. "I think--I feel--there's more to them than that."
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And as I knelt there, his hand light and warm on mine, the rough stone beneath, the edges of the rune running past my fingers, I could feel the anxiety and panic seeping from me, as if drawn into the stone.
I began the incantation, my hands on the rune, his on mine, and the words flowed with a confidence I rarely felt.
The sound came quickly. The same soft noise I'd heard earlier. Coming from the same direction. My gut twisted, half bitter disappointment, half frustration.
"The bird again," I said as I pushed to my feet. "It's that damned bird. I tried focusing on a child, but--"
"Wait," Jeremy said. "Let's be sure before you release it."
We followed the sound to the same garden. I could see where Jeremy had reburied the bird, but the ground there was undisturbed. My gaze shot to a spot a few feet away.
"The cat?" I said.
But that patch of earth was still too. The whole garden was still. And quiet.
I glanced at Jeremy. "The sound. Is it gone?"