The Curse of Tenth Grave

She clicked again. “I guess, but you don’t know who, or what, that video could attract. Do you think that’s why the Vatican has a file on you?”

“What, that video?” I took another bite. “According to their watchdog, they’ve had a file on me since the day I was born. So, probably not.” In the next photo, a boy was covered in scales. “Fake.”

She didn’t bother to ask before clicking again. “What if the wrong forces get ahold of it, though?”

“Like what forces? Unless you mean the armed forces, because that could get fun. All the other forces know what I am. And I’m a freaking beacon, so they also know where I am. I don’t know how a person could be less hidable. To the supernatural world, anyway. Fake … fake … fake … just creepy … fake…”

“But what about someone in this world? Someone who doesn’t know but would be very interested? I mean, very, very interested.”

I could feel her anxiety level rising. “Cook, who cares? What will something like that mean to anyone?”

“But—”

“First of all,” I said, totally interrupting, “nobody will believe it. They’ll think it was wires or CGI.”

She shrugged one shoulder as she studied the next photo.

“And second, even if someone did take note, I ask you again, what could they do?” I glanced at the next picture. “As fake as the day is long.”

“You know, you kind of take the magic out of this stuff.”

“I know. Sor—” I’d started to apologize, but the next image on her screen stopped me mid-grovel. I leaned forward. Squinted. Then stilled. “What is that?”

Cookie stilled, too, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Don’t even tell me that little girl could really remove her head like that.”

“Oh, no, that’s totally fake, but that in the background.” I pointed closer. “That little boy. What’s he doing?”

In the background of a ridiculous picture of a little girl holding what looked like her own head by her long blond locks was a little boy pointing to a storefront window.

“That little boy?” She pointed to the one in the street, as there were several in the background. He wore vintage clothing. Short pants. Knee socks. Suspenders. A newsboy cap on his head. He was looking straight at the camera and yet pointing at the store window.

“Yes.” I put down my fork, pushed my plate aside, and leaned all the way over the desk, flashing my cleavage, but Cookie never took the bait. Damn it. She coulda been a contender. “Print that.”

“Ooooh-kay,” she said slowly, her voice wary. “Do I need to be freaked out?”

“I don’t know.” I hurried over to the printer and grabbed the image before it was done printing, so I played tug-of-war with the printer until it gave in. Then I sat back down and pointed again. “Look at that store window. What do you see?”

“Dirt. Well, mud, actually.”

“Like in a pattern? Like in a strange font or perhaps pictographs?”

“Not really. Just splotches of mud. It’s all pretty Rorschach-y. Why?” When I continued to study the picture without answering, she said, “Charley, what? What do you see?”

“That little boy standing there in vintage clothing? His hands are muddy, like he wrote on the plate glass window. It’s what’s on the window that caught my attention.”

“What’s on the store window?” Cookie said, growing more fascinated, and more wary, by the second.

“It’s angelic script.”

“Angelic script? Is he an angel? The boy?”

I almost laughed. “Not exactly. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Can you read the script?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, dread slithering up my spine like a snake made of ice.

“And?”

This was unreal. It didn’t make sense.

Cookie reached over and put her hand on mine to draw me back to her. “What does it say?”

“It’s a message, but how?”

“From who?”

“If I’m not mistaken, that little boy is Rocket.”

“Rocket? Our Rocket? From the asylum Rocket?”

“Yes.” I looked closer at the round face and the boyish features. He would have been a boy right about that age at the time.

“What does it say?” Cookie leaned closer, trying hard to see what I was seeing. “I don’t understand. How do you know it’s him?”

“First, it looks like him, only younger. And second, it says, ‘Miss Charlotte, what’s bigger than a bread box?’”

She looked up, still confused.

“He’s the only one who calls me Miss Charlotte. But I have no idea what he means and how on earth he got a message to me. He wouldn’t have died for another twenty years after this was taken. And I wouldn’t meet him for over fifty more.”

“The store is a bakery. It’s painted to look like a bread box.”

“Okay.” I’d have to take her word on that.

“My grandmother used to have one just like this. See, there’s the handle.”

It did begin to resemble a bread box with a handle across the top. And over that was a sign that read MISS MAE’S BREADS AND CONFECTIONS.

“So, then, what’s bigger than that building?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”

“Me neither. And how is that even possible?”

“Well, actually, there are a lot of things that could be bigger than that building.”

“No.”

“A bigger building, perhaps?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“A skyscraper?”

“Charley.” Cookie was trying just as hard to figure it out as I was. “This picture has to be from the forties or something.”

“It’s the thirties, to be exact.” I studied him harder and became more and more convinced that Rocket was sending me a message from the past. “I need you to find out everything you can about this picture.”

“You got it, boss. Boy, the creep-factor in this room just spiked tenfold.”

“That’s because your husband is about to walk in.”

She looked around and then back at me in awe. “You really are psychic.”