A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter Thirteen

It's been close to a month since I left hospital, and there's still no sign of Connor. The police came by for an update, of which there was nothing to update. Admittedly, I probably shouldn't have made that joke to their faces.

The nothingness of it all makes me feel like a sitting duck, like we're waiting around for Connor and his posse to track us down. What am I supposed to do? Just sit around twiddling my thumbs until the police find my brother? What if they never find him? This blessed place is lovely and everything, but I don't want to literally spend the rest of my life here. At this rate, screw it, I'll throw caution to the wind and track Connor down myself.

It would be safe, sort of. Maybe. I'd just need someone with a blessed stone attached to me at all times. With Lucy gone, there's no more energy Connor can track, so it would only be partially idiotic to go undercover and find him myself; least I assume Lucy's gone. Passed over. There's been no sign of her since her boyfriend's brother was arrested on the suspicion of her murder, which was the result of an anonymous tip off. It turns out Northern Irish isn't the only accent Carmen is ace at. I just hope Lucy's passed over to the right side.

I'm ranting about our lack of progress on the Connor detection front to Chiku the day after the police visit, and she without a doubt can't understand a word I'm saying, but it feels good to complain, so I keep going anyway. She's pretending to listen, which I appreciate.

"You know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah sure, I might die, blah, blah, blah, but this is so boring."

Chiku makes a hm sound, but her attention is fully invested on the antique show flashing on the TV. I'm not sure how well she's following the whole thing, but she starts tutting when a contestant decides to buy a candle stick instead of an old jewelry box.

"The guy isn't stupid," I continue. "He's probably not even breaking a sweat trying to hide from the police, and I know I'm avoiding uni, but we're hardly far from the city. He knows I lived there. We can help the police, try and find him our--"

"Whoa, they should've picked the jewelry box," a voice interrupts from the doorway, and I nearly wet myself.

"Holy shit, Ava, how long have you been standing there?"

"Ah! No! No swear!" Chiku snaps as she bats one of her hands at me.

I apologise. Ava is leaning against the door frame, her eyes transfixed on the television. She's eating--What the hell? She's eating a stalk of celery. She takes a bite, and it makes a loud crunching sound.

"There is something we can try," Ava says absentmindedly.

Her eyes are still on the TV, and I've got no idea what she's talking about.

"Tell people," she continues, which makes even less sense to me.

I furrow my eyebrows, and Ava turns away from the television. As if remembering where she is, she blinks and shakes her head as she looks at me. She takes another bite out of the celery. She stands there, just sort of chewing for a minute or so, before speaking again.

"To try and locate Connor and his dark spirits," she explains. "We can tell other spirit talkers about you."

Wait, what? The Medakis have kept this to themselves?

"I thought--Haven't your family said anything?"

"They've warned the families we know about a spirit talker turning dark and trying to bring dark forces together, and have asked them to pass the message on, but it's all been vague." She shrugs as she takes another bite of her celery. "Don't worry, it's groovy, nobody knows about you," she says with a mouth full of green.