Free A Scrying Shame by Donna White Glaser

to keep doing normal things.”
    As if to prove Chandra right, the visions receded a bit while they ate their meal. Arie still felt them, though. They lurked at the edge of her awareness as if waiting to pounce the moment she dropped her guard.
    After supper, Arie was able to tell Chandra about some of the other elements of Marissa’s death vision—the wedding ring, the diary and papers, the trailer.
    Chandra was suitably grossed out by the image of the cockroaches scattering from under the medicine cabinet mirror. “That is so creepy.”
    “The whole thing is creepy. And I know I’m not remembering everything. It’s hard. I can’t separate myself from her when it’s going on. I can’t concentrate. I know I’m forgetting things. Did I even tell you about the weird angel chorus?”
    “You’re kidding, right? Angels? ”
    “Well, something keeps chanting the word ‘holy’ over and over again. And then this other voice, really loud and booming, says something about the blood calling to him. You know . . . like in the Bible?”
    “That’s your department, preacher kid, not mine.”
    “Genesis. Cain kills Abel and God finds out when Abel’s blood calls to Him from the ground and, like, tattles, I guess. Then God curses Cain and so on.  Don’t tell me you never heard that one before.”
    “Well, yeah,” Chandra said. “But I didn’t know about blood calling or whatever. So does this mean God’s talking to you or something?”
    “I don’t know.” Tears welled in Arie’s eyes. “I don’t want God to talk to me. I’m freaked out enough as it is.”
    “Okay, I can’t help you with the God thing. Way above my pay grade, but as far as forgetting things, why don’t you try writing it down the next time?”
    Chandra jumped up and rummaged through her bookshelf. She came back with a half-used spiral notebook and handed it to Arie.
    It was a good idea. Arie set it by her purse, then retreated to the bathroom to wash her face and put on one of Chandra’s oversized sleeping T-shirts. Time for bed.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Arie overslept. Worse, the assault of visions continued, and it showed. She didn’t even have time to head back to Grumpa’s house for a change of clothes. No makeup either, so she ended up using Chandra’s. Her friend favored dark and dramatic. Not Arie’s best look.
    The more she thought about Chandra’s theory that Marissa Mason had unresolved issues, the more anxious she grew. It felt right, but she didn’t know what that meant for her. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
    Grady put them right back to work on the carpet. Guts was coming by to check on the job that afternoon, and they would need to evaluate how extensively the flooring had been contaminated. That meant pulling up the plywood underlayment, and that couldn’t happen until the carpet was dealt with.
    “How are we going to do this?” Arie asked.
    The Mason condo was the top floor of a five-story unit. Arie couldn’t imagine how they would navigate the flights of stairs with a sodden, blood-soaked roll of carpet without contaminating their path every step of the way. She was exhausted even thinking about it.
    Grady’s answer didn’t sound any better.
    “We’re going to cut it into strips, roll them up, and bag ‘em. It’ll be a lot more trips back and forth—”
    “You mean up and down, don’t you?” Arie was still thinking about those five flights of stairs. Using the unit’s only elevator was out of the question. The condo’s homeowners association was already upset at sharing the tiny elevator with “janitors of death” in their banana-yellow spacesuits and crates of cleaning supplies. The residents had voiced numerous complaints—and that had been before they’d started hauling out bright red biohazard bags filled with the gory realities of violent death. The HOA president owned several area bars, and Guts wanted to work out a contract for whenever the inevitable bar fights broke out and involved