Ritual Magic

her cup and hunted up Aunt Mequi’s mobile number in her contacts list. Mequi and her mother were close, so she was an obvious choice to ask about Ronnie Winsome. If she’d never heard of him, Lily would have her ask the rest of the family, except for Lily’s father. Lily would talk to him herself.
    First she checked her texts. No word from Rule.
    She wanted to be at the other hospital, where her mother was. She wanted Rule’s touch. She wanted to be with her mother, who wasn’t really her mother right now, but a girl named Julia. She wanted . . .
    She called her aunt.
    Mequi didn’t know anyone named Winsome. While Lily was talking to her, she got a text. She got Mequi to agree to ask the others, disconnected, and read what Rule had sent:
Edward delays to consult other doctors. Sam says no time. Implementing Grandmother’s plan, but I can’t talk to Julia yet. Your father is with her
.
    Lily heard a rushing in her ears. It was happening. They were circumventing her father. Rule would persuade Julia—he had to—and Julia would go to Sam’s lair.
    Would her father forgive them? He’d feel so betrayed . . . but they had to do this. And now she had to call her father and ask him about Ronnie Winsome. Knowing she was acting behind his back, knowing . . .
Do it,
she told herself.
    Edward Yu didn’t answer. Maybe he’d turned his phone off. He was with her mother, so that was possible. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted. He might worry that the sound of the phone would wake Julia.
    Did she keep trying? Send someone from the family to get him? She could have another agent conduct that interview . . . and that was pure cowardice. If this had been a normal case, she’d send someone to him to ask him to either call her or turn on his phone so she could call him.
    Lily was about to call Aunt Mequi to do just that when her phone buzzed. It was the ring tone for calls forwarded from her official number. She answered.
    The voice on the other end was crisp, female, and unfamiliar. She identified herself as Dr. Harris at UCSD Medical Center. Within moments, Lily had disconnected and was calling Ruben, not her father.
    Dr. Harris had admitted a patient earlier that night, Barbara Lennox. Barbara Lennox was seventy-eight and lived with her son and his wife. At eight fifteen in the evening she’d appeared to suffer a stroke—or so her son and daughter-in-law thought when they called the ambulance. On arrival at UCSD Medical Center, she’d not reported any pain, but had been disoriented and extremely anxious. Brain scans had shown no sign of damage.
    Barbara Lennox was now catatonic.

EIGHT

    T HE room was cold and dirty. Julia couldn’t see the walls. This was supposed to be her room, but she couldn’t see the walls or her bed, and if she couldn’t find the walls she couldn’t turn the light on. It must be getting dark outside because it was sure dim in here.
    She was supposed to get her room ready. They’d moved to this big, dirty house for some stupid reason, and she had to get her stuff unpacked. There were so many packing boxes . . . boxes piled up and tumbled around everywhere. Boxes taped up tight. Julia pulled and tugged and tried really hard, but she couldn’t open any of them. “Mama,” she called. “Mama, I need some scissors. Where are the scissors?”
    Her mother didn’t answer. That made her feel cold all the way down, so cold that she started shaking. Why had they moved here? Why couldn’t they live in their old house? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t make sense and she couldn’t remember and that scared her. “Mama?”
    No one answered. Julia scrambled over some of the boxes and saw the door. She gasped in relief and yanked it open.
    The hall was dark, too, even darker than her room, but Mama was out there somewhere. Julia looked both ways as if she were crossing a street before she stepped out in that dark hallway. She couldn’t see the end of it, but she could see doors on either side, so she opened one. More boxes. Big and little boxes, some in tidy stacks, some looking like they’d been tossed in every which way. All of them taped shut and she didn’t have any scissors, so she closed that door and went to the next one.
    Another room full of boxes. After that, another one, and she stopped calling for her mother, who never answered. She wanted out of this terrible house, but none of the doors led out, they just opened up on more taped-up boxes, and she was sobbing