It was the best I would get out of the situation. Of course, I wasn’t going to just hand her the note and walk out the door. But knowing I had something to read when I inevitably stumbled over my words was a comfort. I planned to tell her first thing in the morning. I didn’t have to meet Don at Union Station until noon.
If I saw Cara at all before I told her, I knew my face wouldn’t be able to hide what was going on. There was a thrilling amount of electricity running through my body. It was almost enough to put a smile on my face—almost.
I spent the rest of the day wondering where we were taking the train to. I had never traveled much outside of Indiana. Danny and I used to spend time before bed dreaming up elaborate and wonderful vacations. We wanted to visit London and Paris and Orlando to see Disney World and Boston and San Francisco. It felt wrong to be going anywhere with my son stuck in Valparaiso, never able to leave again.
But I couldn’t deny there was an underlying excitement deep inside me. It was a twisted thrill from fantasizing about my bare hands being the thing to end a demon’s existence. If I was ever to move on, which I still wasn’t convinced I could, that was the only way it would happen.
The promise of revenge made my nerves tingle. It was the entire reason for going along with Don. I needed the thing that killed my son to be gone forever. We both couldn’t survive in the same world together. One of us had to go.
I lay in bed on the second night, back to tossing and turning with sleep nowhere to be found. I was still awake when I heard the front door open, close, and lock. Cara’s second shift ended at midnight so I knew it must be almost one in the morning already. Even though the rational part of me said no burglar or demon would lock the door behind them after breaking in, a quick rising fear still spread through my chest.
Her soft footsteps creaked up the old stairs. I expected her to continue past my door to her room, which was my old room, at the end of the hall. I sat up immediately when my door cracked open. My heart pounded and my palms were wet with sweat. It was a reaction I couldn’t control, even though I knew it was Cara who was entering the room.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said as she turned on the light. “Were you asleep?”
I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands as they adjusted. “No, just thinking. Everything okay?”
She was wearing her diner uniform, which consisted of a white blouse tucked into a soft pink poodle skirt. The leash of the dog went up and around her waist. Her small feet crammed into stiff saddle shoes with the laces tied into perfect bows. When she had left the house, her honey hair had been pulled back into a perfect retro ponytail secured by a frilly scarf, but after sixteen hours of work it had all but fallen out, tied at the nape of her neck.
“What time is it?” I asked with squinted eyes.
“Two thirty.”
“You’re just getting home now?”
“Yeah, I took an extra-long lunch, so I told Jerry I’d stay late to help clean and prepare for tomorrow,” she said with a soft smile on her pink lips. “I got you something.”
I cringed. I hated gifts. I always felt like I had to run out and buy the person something equal or better than what they had gotten me, and if it was a surprise gift, like this was, I felt awful for not getting them anything in return. She handed me a small silver box with a large bow tied around it.
I looked up at her and pursed my lips. “I know that I’ve been single for over half a decade now, but I still don’t think I’m quite ready to play for the other team just yet.”
She shoved me lightly on my shoulder and giggled in her usual girlish manner. It was nice to hear her laugh, even if I couldn’t. “Just open it,” she said.
I tugged at the ribbon and the bow fell apart. Inside was a necklace with a large silver pendent in the shape of angel wings as long as my index finger. Immediately I wanted to roll my eyes. It was a reflex from being given or shown anything religious. I believed everyone was free to practice whatever religion they wanted, so long as they didn’t push it on me. Cara knew this and even though she was a devout Christian and still went to church every Sunday, she never once tried to convert me. The necklace felt like a religious intervention.
“I know you don’t believe in angels, but that’s not why I got it,” she jumped in when she saw the panicked look overtake my face. “I got it because it looks like your birthmark.” Her fingertip pressed into the right side of my neck halfway between my ear and collar bone. “Danny had the same one in the exact same spot. I know you hate the word, but that’s a miracle. You had a miracle in your life, even if it was only for a short time. I didn’t want you to ever forget that.”
Tears gathered in my eyes. “Thank you,” I said in a shaky voice. “I love it.”
Cara didn’t hold back. She let her tears flow and sniffed into the collar of her shirt. “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. You’re the strongest woman I know.”
It was the perfect time. I had to tell her.
I reached over and opened the nightstand drawer. Inside was the crumpled piece of notebook paper I had scribbled my explanation onto. As I smoothed out the wrinkles, Cara straightened herself on the bed and wiped at her wet cheeks. She looked at me with a knitted brow and let out a breathy laugh of confusion.
“I have something important to tell you. I don’t really know how to say it except to just spit it out and hope it makes sense.” When I paused my eyes fluttered up to hers. Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, I reminded myself. “I met someone, a neighbor of ours, the other day on my walk and he told me things about Danny’s death.”
Cara leaned forward. Her eyes grew to the size of quarters. “Oh my god, does he know who did it? Did he see something? Did he—”
“No, he didn’t see anything. He just knew things about that night that I never told anyone, even you. Like that the thing I found in Danny’s room wasn’t a ‘who’ at all. It was like something I’d never seen before. He says it was a demon.”
I left Cara in silence to let the words sink in. She straightened herself back up cautiously, never taking her eyes from mine. Her lips tugged downward. She didn’t say a word, so I continued.
“Anyway, he says he works for some Chamber or something as someone who gets rid of these evil things, and he wants to take me to learn how to do it too. He said there’s a chance I might even find the one who killed Danny.”
Cara’s brows pulled together and her eyes narrowed into furious slits as she stared me down. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“Well, I wanted to wait for the right time to tell you I was leaving and I also didn’t want to just blurt it out so I took a few days to—”
She held up her hand and cut me off with a wave of her finger. “Not about you leaving, about Danny’s killer being a demon?”
My mouth hung open. I was shocked. The whole time, I worried she would be mad I was leaving with some stranger. “Um, I wasn’t really sure what I saw, I guess.”
“And you didn’t think I’d believe you if you told me?” She stood up, her poodle skirt flying around her calves in a flurry.
“Of course I didn’t think you’d believe me! Even I don’t believe it half the time. Demons? It’s insane!”
She rushed back to the bed and sat down, her face within inches of mine. “The world is full of evil, Kamlyn, and no matter what I’ll always believe you.”
Her arms flew around my neck as she pulled me in for a strangling hug. I patted her on the back with one arm and balanced myself on the mattress with the other. Every muscle in my face tightened from her reaction. She had accepted the notion of demons so quickly. Was she just as insane as I was?
“So, when do you leave?” she asked as she pulled away.
I straightened my shirt and pushed my hair back behind my shoulders. “Tomorrow. I have to be at Union Station at noon so I should leave here around ten, just to make sure I’m not late with the transfer from the South Shore Line.”
She n
odded her head and wiped at her eyes with the tips of her middle fingers. “For how long?”
My shoulders shrugged up to my ears. That was the question I wanted answered most. Cara nodded her head and stared off into space. I had no idea what was going through her head. She blinked and her eyes returned to the present with a faint smile on her full lips.
“Well, get some sleep and we’ll have breakfast in the morning before I take you.”
I smiled back at her with my head lolled to the side, resting on my shoulder. “Thanks.”
Her hands clutched to her chest over the small cross pendent her mother gave her when she was thirteen. She stood from the bed and turned off the light on her way out.
With a pause, she turned back around. “Just promise me something,” she said in a soft and loving voice.
“Anything.”
“When you start your hunt for the demon, I want to help.”
I opened my mouth in protest, but she cut me off.
“Even if I can’t be in the action with you, I want to help in some way. I want to know that when that thing is destroyed I played some part in it…because you will destroy it, Kammy.”
I smiled in the faint light, hoping she could see the gratitude I tried to convey. She nodded her head once. The door shut behind her and enveloped me in darkness once again.
I laid back down on the cool pillow, but my body was restless. A crazy, strange, and amazing journey was ahead of me in the morning. I didn’t know where it would take me or what would be at the other end of that train ride. All I knew was I had to go.