The Second Premonition

by Tamara Geraeds

  I nod.

  Mom calls from downstairs. “Bye, Dante!”

  “Bye Mom, have fun!”

  As soon as the front door closes behind her, we run to the kitchen.

  I smack myself in the head. “Oh no, I forgot to take the herbs. Now we’ll have to go back to Darkwood Manor.”

  Vicky shakes her head and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out an impossible amount of stuff. Herbs, candles, incense, salt, a jar.

  I gape at her. “Where did that all come from?”

  “From my very deep pocket.”

  I take a step closer and move my hand towards her pants. “Let me feel.”

  The look on her face is a mixture of astonishment and delight. Before she can argue, I stick my hand into her back pocket. I can feel her butt through the fabric. It feels so real that I almost forget she’s a ghost.

  “So?” she whispers in my ear. “What do you feel?”

  Heat rises to my cheeks. She’s reading my feelings again. That is so unfair.

  I move my hand lower into her pocket and feel the bottom. “Nothing much,” I tease. “Just a normal pocket.”

  “That’s because it only works for the ghost itself. I can put an unlimited number of things into my pocket. As long as they fit into a normal pocket.”

  I’m so distracted by her proximity, that I hardly register what she’s saying.

  She brings her mouth closer to my ear and pushes her waist against mine. “How’s my ass?”

  I suddenly realize what I’m doing and pull back my hand as if she’s smoking hot.

  Actually, she is. Just not literally. I, on the other hand, am now burning with shame, so much that I probably resemble an Englishman on his first day on vacation in Turkey.

  I remind myself I really shouldn’t make out with a ghost. That just can’t end well.

  “What did you say about your pocket?” I ask, ruffling my hair.

  With a glint in her eye, she repeats her words and I burst out laughing.

  She puts her hands on her hips. “You don’t believe me?”

  I wipe a tear from my eye. “Of course not. Your name’s not Hermione, is it?”

  She grins. “I love Hermione.” She picks up all the things she pulled out of her pocket earlier. “And me and her have something in common, besides being unimaginably attractive.”

  “And besides the ability to do magic?”

  “Yes, that, too.” She waves at the space around us. “Give me something you could put in your pocket. Not too small.”

  I turn towards my desk and pick up my stapler.

  “Does that fit into your pocket?”

  I try it. “It sticks out a bit.”

  She holds out her hand. “That doesn’t matter. Look.” She turns her back to me and puts the stapler in her back pocket. It shouldn’t fit, but it does. She just drops it and it’s gone.

  My hand shoots towards the pocket. I touch it. “I don’t feel anything! How is this possible?”

  She looks shocked. “You don’t feel anything? Are you sure?”

  “It’s gone. The stapler, it’s just…”

  Vicky grabs my other hand and pushes it against her breast. “How about now? Do you feel anything?”

  Before I can answer, she pulls me closer. Her lips are on mine in a second. I want to pull away. We have to focus on protecting the house. We have someone to save. We need to… Oh my God, this feels so good.

  I lose all sense of time. I can’t keep track of what I feel, so I just go with the flow. Soft lips, skin under fabric, pulsing electricity. It’s like making out in a rollercoaster.

  I move my hand from her breast to her neck and cheek. Suddenly, there’s only air under my touch. I open my eyes. Vicky is gone.

  My heart beats in a loud panic. “Vicky?”

  She reappears just out of my reach, swaying on her feet.

  I grab her arm. “Are you okay? What happened?” Gently I push her down onto the bed.

  “I’m sorry, this happens sometimes.”

  “What does? What happened?”

  She clasps her hands together. “Every time someone touches my grave, I get a glimpse of my past. A memory. It pulls me towards the Shadow World for a second.”

  I drop down next to her. “You mean a memory about how you died?”

  She shakes her head. “No. Yes. Sometimes.” She raises her hands. “It can be any memory, from any time in my life.”

  I push her hair behind her shoulder. “So what did you see this time?”

  She sighs. “Not much. I tripped.”

  “You tripped while you were pulled from here?”

  The corner of her mouth twitches. “No, I tripped in my memory.”

  “Were you able to see when it happened?”

  She stares into the distance, silent for a moment.

  “I think I was about the age I was when I died.”

  “So it could be just before that. Or even the moment itself. Maybe you fell and broke your neck?”

  She strokes the symbol on her neck with a pained expression.

  I kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “That’s okay. I love how you’re trying to help.”

  CHAPTER 7

  After Vicky takes everything we need out of her impossibly deep pocket, she gets ready to cast the protection spell.

  She forms a square with four candles and puts all the herbs in the jar, which I take from her. She whispers the right words to me and I shake the jar nine times.

  “Smoke and herbs, nine times nine

  Guard well this home of mine.”

  I light the sage Vicky hands me. Then I call upon the elements, while lighting the candles.

  A rumbling in the distance tells me it’s working. After the last candle, I call out towards the ceiling.

  “Powers of High, listen to my plea.

  May I always be protected by thee!”

  I finish the spell and the flames are blown out by an invisible force.

  Vicky gives me several tubes made of rolled up white paper, and a matchbox. “Light these and blow them out to create smoke. Spread the smoke below every entrance, like you would do with the salt.”

  I take it from her and light the first match.

  Vicky holds my gaze above the flame. “Make sure there are no holes. You need solid lines of smoke to make this work.”

  “Okay.” I light the first paper tube.

  “Don’t blow it out until it’s burned for about two thirds. I’ve got more tubes if you need them.”

  I grin and look at her over my shoulder. “Oh, in your never-ending pocket?”

  She presses a finger against her lips. “Shh. Concentrate.”

  When I blow out the flame, pieces of paper twirl through the air and land on the new floor. I step on them, hopefully before they cause stains.

  Vicky rushes to my side. “I’ll take care of those. You focus on the spell.”

  I move my hand along the window, forming a line of white smoke.

  “Pure smoke protect this place,

  keep out all with evil pace.

  Make this house a place to hide,

  keep us safe from harm inside.”

  I glance at Vicky. “Like that?”

  She takes the burned tube from me. “Exactly.”

  We move from room to room and end with the front door. I breathe in deeply. “We probably need to open all the windows, to get rid of the smell.”

  “Right. And clean up the mess in your room. In the meantime, I could start heating up the card?”

  “Good idea. I don’t know how much longer Mom will take.” I take the cards out of my pocket and hand them to Vicky. “I’ll see you upstairs in a minute.”

  I open several windows all around the house to let in some fresh air. The burned paper tubes end up in the trash can outside, at the bottom, so Mom won’t find them.

  When I step into the
bathroom, it’s empty. I walk into my room, but there’s no one there, either. “Vicky?” I yell, looking into the hallway.

  There’s a soft thump behind me and I whirl around. Vicky collapses on the bed. Her chest goes up and down fast.

  I sit down and wrap my arm around her. “Are you okay? Did it happen again?”

  She’s almost hyperventilating and I pat her on the back. “Calm down. You don’t need to breathe anymore, remember?”

  Tears drip from her eyes. “That doesn’t help much, Dante.”

  “I’m sorry, that was insensitive. Just try to relax. You’re safe now.”

  She buries her face in her hands and I just sit there, wondering what else to say.

  After a while she straightens up and wipes her cheeks. I’m surprised she’s still able to cry, being dead and all, but I decide not to mention it. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  “I saw my mother.” She sniffs. “She died.”

  I pull her close. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Police told us she fell and broke her neck. She died instantly. I was always afraid that they were wrong, that she had suffered before she died.” She sits back up again. “At least now I know it’s true.”

  I want to tell her again how sorry I am. I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch your mother die, even if she has been dead for years. But a disturbing thought tugs at my brain.

  “Vicky?” I wait until she looks up. “You said she fell. About an hour ago, you saw yourself falling. Isn’t that a strange coincidence?”

  Her eyes grow wide before I even finish. She has reached the same conclusion I have.

  “What if your deaths weren’t accidents?”

  She blinks several times. “But I didn’t see anyone, in either memory.”

  “If someone used magic, they wouldn’t have to be there, would they?”

  “That’s true.”

  I hear a car door slam outside and jump up.

  “It’s just the neighbor,” I say when I turn back from the window. “But we should hurry. I don’t want Mom to see the cards.” I gesture towards the bathroom. “Did you manage to heat it up?”

  She retrieves the cards from her pocket. “Half the pictures were visible when I was jerked into the memory.”

  She’s already walking into the bathroom, but I’m frozen in place. “Wait. Something doesn’t add up.” I follow her. “You said you get sucked into a memory from your life, right?”

  She picks up Mom’s hair-dryer and points it at the demon card. “Right.”

  “But you never actually saw your mother die. So that was not one of your memories.”

  She gasps. “You’re right. So what do you think it was, my mother’s memory? How could that be?”

  I shrug. “Maybe you have a strong connection?”

  “Wouldn’t I have noticed something sooner then?

  “Maybe she didn’t have anything to say before.”

  “Oh, and suddenly she wants to tell me someone killed her? And maybe me, too?” Vicky moves the hair-dryer over the card frantically. Pictures appear, but neither of us pays much attention to them.

  “There must be a good reason for that,” I argue. “We just don’t know it yet.”

  She sighs. “More mystery. Great.”

  I stroke her arm. “Let’s focus on the cards first, okay? Maybe the answer to what you’ve seen will come to us later.”

  “Another screen.” She points at the picture at the top of the card. “The letter M, an eagle, a star and a woman with a hair bun on fire?” She turns off the hair-dryer. Everything gets vaguer instantly. The dark substance crawls back onto the card.

  I hold up my hands. ‘Wait, keep it warm for a second.”

  She repeats the process and as soon as I find a piece of paper and a pencil, I copy the pictures.

  I wave my hand in front of my face. “Wow, that really smells.”

  Vicky turns off the hair-dryer. “What does?”

  “That pitch. It’s worse than the smell of new tarmac. It’s like…” I sniff the air. “A combination of tarmac and sewer.”

  Vicky gives the cards back to me and rubs her hands on her pants. “It feels like it, too.”

  “I wonder why the one who sent it put that stuff on. There are easier ways to hide those pictures, you know.”

  Vicky taps her lips. “You’re right. It must mean something.”

  “We should take them back to the others. See what they think.”

  I tuck Dad’s notebook back under my waistband in case I need it. We’re halfway down the stairs when I remember something. “Didn’t you have something to tell me?”

  She blinks at me. “Tell you? Are you fishing for compliments?”

  I chuckle. “No, seriously. At the mansion you said you wanted to talk to me. Then Maël came in and I asked if it could wait.” I smile. “Maybe it wasn’t important?”

  She shakes her head. “Oh no, it was. I just forgot for a minute. My mind is one big web of conflicting priorities. I just don’t know where to begin anymore.”

  “I can help you with that,” I respond, leaning over and kissing her.

  She pulls me closer. It feels as if her transparent body merges with mine. She becomes a part of me. Her hands move over my back, but she touches more than just my shirt and lips. I wouldn’t be surprised if sparks actually flew from us.

  The sound of the front door opening pulls us from our private world. I back away and almost trip down the stairs. When I look up, Mom tilts her head and looks me up and down.

  “Are you okay? Why are you panting?”

  Vicky giggles behind me.

  “No reason, I just didn’t hear you come in.” I grin sheepishly. “So how was lunch?”

  “Great! You should have come.”

  I wave my hand. “Oh, that’s okay. I was busy.”

  She drops her handbag on the table. “You want some tea?”

  I bring my hand to my forehead. “Oh, I’m sorry Mom, but I’ll have to leave you again. I’m meeting Charlie.”

  “No problem, honey, I wanted to start on a new skirt. I sold one this morning.”

  I kiss her on the cheek. “Have fun.”

  I signal to Vicky to follow me to the front door, but Mom stops me before I open it.

  “Why do I smell smoke?”

  I turn around slowly. “Oh yeah.” I hesitate, my mind reaching for a solid excuse. “I burned some toast. Sorry. I did open the windows.”

  “As long as you don’t burn down the house, it’s fine.” She peeks into the kitchen. “And you washed your own dishes already. What a surprise.”

  I cringe a little. Since I inherited Darkwood Manor, I haven’t done much to help her with the household. “I’ll do the rest later, I promise. I have to go now.”

  Mom waves to me from the door, while Vicky tickles the back of my neck. It takes all of my restraint not to shiver or swat away her hand. I just paste an innocent smile onto my face and wave back. I try not to pull out too fast. Phoenix splutters loudly, as if she knows something is different.

  Vicky pats the glove compartment. “Don’t worry, babe. He still loves you, too.”

  I flash her a look before turning left.

  “What?” she asks innocently.

  I shake my head. “Could you be any more perfect?”

  She throws her head back. I love how she can still laugh with such passion even in dark times.

  She ruffles my hair. “You’re so adorable.”

  Air escapes my lungs in a huff. “Ouch, great way to spoil the mood.”

  There’s an explosion of giggles next to me and I forgive her instantly. I can’t help it. This girl is magical. And not just in the literal way.

  “Okay,” I say, turning right and parking on the side of Oak Lane. “What was it you wanted to tell me?” I turn to face her and do my best to ignore her mesmerizing eyes.

  Her expression changes quickly. A shr
oud of concern falls over her. “It’s Maël.”

  I have a feeling I know what she’s going to say, and silently pray it’s something else.

  “She has changed since we freed her from the Shadow World.”

  “Changed how?”

  “She’s weaker. And it’s not just her power. Her whole being is weakening.”

  I rub my hands together to drive out the sudden cold. “I noticed that, too. She looks tired, worn.”

  We stare out into the southern forest for a while.

  “Maybe she just needs some time to recover,” I finally voice my hopes.

  “I don’t think so, Dante. I think that tree took some of her power and energy.”

  “So what do you propose we do about it? Go back into the Shadow World to retrieve it?”

  “That won’t work. The tree is gone. But there might be a spell to restore her powers.”

  I scratch the stubbles on my chin. “We should probably talk to Maël and the others about it.”

  “I’m not sure she’ll-“

  She whirls around in her seat and sticks her head through the side of the car. “What was that?”

  My skin tingles with fright. “What?”

  She pulls her head back and reaches for the keys in the ignition. “I think I saw a demon. Start the car.”

  Before I can even move my arm, there’s a loud clang. Phoenix rocks on her wheels. I turn the key, but she just gurgles. “Oh no, not now baby!”

  Something slams onto the hood and I press myself against my seat. Two black eyes stare into my soul. I recognize them immediately. The demon from my premonition. The one that killed me in my bedroom.

  “What is that stuff on its back?” Vicky whispers.

  My gaze moves to the body rising up behind the round head. Black moisture creeps in from all directions, oozing from its hairy skin like sweat. “It looks like tar or something. Just like on the card.”

  The window fogs up when the monster moves closer on its eight legs.

  “Boiling tar,” Vicky adds.

  Suddenly, I remember how my premonition started. I clasp my fingers around the key again. “Please start. Please.” I turn the key and the engine roars to life.

  The demon is already moving its head back, getting ready to slam it through the window, just like it did in my bedroom.