While Joshua rambled through his explanation, I felt my vision blur with anger and fear. But before I had the chance to chew him out, someone else beat me to the chase.

“And just who might you be?”

Joshua and I turned simultaneously toward the paper-thin voice that came from the far, unlit corner of the room. There, hidden underneath a canopy of dried herbs, I could just make out the rounded shape of a person.

When the shape moved, I took an involuntary step backward. But I straightened my spine, steeling myself for what might come out of the shadows. Once the shape revealed itself fully, I took a tiny breath of relief.

As far as I could tell, the stately looking black woman who emerged from the shadows was neither a demon nor a ghost. Just a very, very old human. Thousands of wrinkles creased her face, around which only the slightest wisps of white hair—free from her severe bun—curled. She held her hands in a formal clasp in front of her dress and appraised Joshua suspiciously.

“Are you Marie?” Joshua asked.

In the shifting candlelight, I thought I saw the woman smile.

“That depends on who’s asking,” she said.

“Um … me?” he offered.

“Me, who?”

This time I definitely heard a laugh dancing its way through her words. For whatever reason, she was having a little fun at the expense of the young man who had so foolishly entered her shop.

Joshua, clearly intimidated by this woman, took a tentative step forward and extended his hand to her. “Joshua Mayhew, ma’am. My cousin, Annabel Comeaux—she sent me to you?”

The woman ignored Joshua’s hand. “I’ve never heard of the girl.”

Now her tone was cold and unyielding—all her amusement gone like a wisp of incense. She remained motionless in the corner, hands still clasped imperiously in front of her like some statue of an unfriendly god.

I watched Joshua flounder beside me for a few uncertain seconds. But quickly his resolve returned. He didn’t intend to leave here empty-handed, no matter how much wiser that course might be … no matter how much I might want him to.

“Ma’am,” Joshua said with more force. He dropped his hand but inched closer to her. “A person I care about needs help with her … afterlife, actually. My cousin told me you were someone who could do stuff like that.”

A beam of candlelight fell across the old woman’s face, revealing an arched eyebrow. “And what do you think I could do for this person’s afterlife, young man?” she asked.

Joshua gave me a quick glance. “You could help her learn more about why she is … the way she is maybe? Help her learn how the dead can control things. How she could control things.”

Before he’d even finished his request, the old woman shook her head forcefully.

“I don’t provide those kinds of services, boy. I might help protect you from a ghost that means you harm, or make an offering to a spirit. But I don’t presume to guide the spirits myself. Besides, my spells are for the living—for their luck, power, or money. You want something like that, I can help you.”

“No,” Joshua insisted. “This isn’t for me. This is for someone who’s already dead. I want to help her.”

“I already told you, boy, I won’t do that.” She unclasped her hands and folded her arms across her thin chest. “Since you clearly can’t listen—and I suspect you’re cursed by this spirit—I’ll ask you to leave now.”

She can’t see me, I realized. She hadn’t once looked in my direction, and now she only suspected that Joshua was haunted. For all her potions and powders, she had none of the sight that Joshua and his family possessed.

I turned to tell Joshua as much, but he was too focused on the task at hand to hear me.

“I’m not cursed,” he replied angrily. “I just need your help. Are you refusing to give it to me because you won’t do anything, or because you can’t?”

Now Joshua had gone too far. I didn’t realize the woman had more inches to gain; but when she drew herself up to her full height, she seemed to tower over us. Her frail appearance was gone, as was her shaky, paper-thin voice.

“You will leave,” she commanded in a deep, resonant voice that seemed to reverberate much louder than it should in that tiny room.

“But—”

Suddenly, from another corner of the room, a jangling crash interrupted Joshua’s objection, and all three of us whipped around toward the noise.

Almost immediately, the woman uttered a foreign oath and pulled a bristly knot of what looked like hair from the pocket of her dress. She rubbed it furiously as she crossed the room and then bent down to examine the remains of the glass jar that had dropped to the floor.

Joshua and I, however, were more focused on the person who’d done the dropping. She stood in front of the doorway leading farther into the recesses of the café, and she now stared back at us in what could only be described as shock.

Even in this dark room I could tell she was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen up close. She looked about my age—if not a little younger—but she was much taller and curvier than me. Beneath a gorgeously wild Afro, her smooth coffee-and-cream skin perfectly offset her radiant blue eyes.

Eyes that were looking right into mine.

The girl let loose an incredibly vulgar string of words. Then her gaze darted to the old woman, who’d started to remove shards from the puddle of whatever the jar had held. The girl pressed her lips together, obviously debating something, before releasing them to blow out a low whistle.

“Sorry, Marie,” the girl mumbled. “I’ll clean that up after my break.”

The old woman ignored the apology and continued sifting through the soggy mess, muttering to herself in some foreign language. Apparently, this girl was her employee, and, apparently, this girl was clumsy.

“Sorry,” the girl repeated halfheartedly. Then, after giving her unresponsive boss a flippant shrug, she brushed past Joshua and me without acknowledgment.

Once the girl had drawn the curtain back by a few inches, however, she paused. In a soft hiss—so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it—she whispered, “Both of you: outside. Now.”

The words “both of you” echoed in my head even after she stormed out and let the curtain fall back into place behind her.

Afterward, the room was completely silent except for the wet sounds of Marie’s cleanup efforts. Joshua and I stayed rooted in place until—finally—we exchanged matching looks of confusion and misgiving.

He twitched his head toward the curtain. Follow? he mouthed.

Catching my bottom lip with my teeth, I peeked at Marie. She hadn’t stopped her frustrated muttering, nor had she looked up from the broken jar and its contents. Clearly, the mess meant we’d been forgotten. Which also meant she probably wouldn’t put a hex on us for bothering her.

I turned back to Joshua, placed my index finger to my lips, and flicked my eyes in Marie’s direction. Understanding my meaning, he nodded and pulled the curtain aside for me. As quietly as possible, we slipped out of the room and then hurried through the diner before anyone could stop us. Joshua opened the door with a minimal amount of chiming, and we practically flew out of it. We bolted down the crumbling steps, only jerking to a stop when we realized that the shop girl had actually waited for us outside as she’d promised.

She leaned against the gray brick of the building just out of sight of the café window. Because she had rushed outside without her coat, she now furiously rubbed her hands against her bare upper arms in an attempt to protect herself from the wind. Really, her entire outfit—a billowy, gunmetal dress over bare legs and thigh-high gray boots—looked less than winter friendly. I wasn’t surprised to hear her teeth chattering as we approached.

Despite her clear discomfort, the girl was all business. Joshua had barely introduced himself when she cut him off with a wave of her hand.