“Pendejo,” Yesenia whispered as she stared at the steam wafting out of her mug.
“What did he want to know?” Cel asked.
“He asked about you and Parker’s relationship, the last time I’d seen Parker, if you’d ever mentioned Lauren to me, if I could vouch for your whereabouts the past few days. Stuff like that. He even asked Omar—oh yeah, that reminds me. Omar said to tell you he’s sorry he had to leave without saying goodbye. Kris called him this morning and said something was wrong with one of their monthly reports, and he needed Omar to help him fix it before Monday’s meeting.” Natalie shrugged. “I don’t know. Anyway, I answered all of Detective Hart’s questions, and then I told him that you didn’t have anything to do with Parker’s or Lauren’s disappearance, and that they needed to start looking at other people, like maybe Lauren’s kid’s dad or something, and he said they were.”
“Lo que sea,” Yesenia said. “You really think they’ve polygraphed anyone else?”
Natalie’s eyes widened and her jaw slightly dropped as she looked at Cel. “They polygraphed you?”
Cel took a sip of tea and nodded. As she told Natalie about the polygraph test and her morning encounter with Jennifer and Jill, Natalie’s wide eyes and dropped jaw gave way to narrow eyes and pursed lips. “They can’t blame what happened to their mom on you.” She slowly shook her head. “I think they were lying about Parker. I’ve known you guys my whole life, and I’m around you all the time. He loves you. There’s no way he was about to leave you. No way. They’ve always had it out for you and are just using this as an excuse to bully you. Don’t let it get to you. They’re not worth it.”
Cel put her hand on top of Natalie’s and flashed a closed-lip, thank-you-for-your-support smile. Natalie had always been the most naive and optimistic of all the Cricket Hunters. To a fault sometimes, but that was okay. Welcome even. Cel loved her like a sister and was grateful to have someone like her, someone whose bright aura remained unfazed day-in and day-out despite circumstance, in her life. Especially during dark stints.
Natalie turned her hand around, touching palms with Cel, and squeezed. “You’ll get through this. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Cel squeezed back and followed Natalie’s gaze when Natalie looked at the papers covered in Yesenia’s handwriting that were on the edge of the table. They sat partially atop a hand-painted board. One side of the board appeared water-damaged, and the black paint used to create the partially-visible geometric symbol in the center, the Spanish letters circling the symbol, numbers on the bottom, and the words Si and No in the upper two corners, were lined with tiny web-like cracks. A crudely cut, black wooden triangle sitting on the papers with a hole in the center was webbed with cracks as well.
Natalie met eyes with Yesenia. “Is that the spirit board you told me and Omar about last night?”
Yesenia nodded.
Natalie looked at Cel. “Were you about to use it?”
Yesenia lifted her mug with both hands and crooked a brow at Cel.
Cel eyed the papers and board. Before she could respond, Natalie added, “I’d like to help if you were. Your grandma said you had to be the leader, but that the more people around who were connected to Abby the better.” She glanced at Yesenia. “Right?”
Yesenia nodded.
“It might not even be Abby,” Cel said. “It might not be a spirit at all.”
“What if it is?” Yesenia asked.
“Yeah,” Natalie agreed. “We won’t know unless we try. I say we do it.”
Cel watched Natalie’s committal bring a slight smile to Yesenia’s mouth, a spark of achievement to her eyes. Her abuela had no doubt told Natalie and Omar about the spirit board the night before in hopes of them convincing Cel to participate.
Cel chewed on her bottom lip, her thoughts filing through her recent failures—the reconnecting ritual for Parker, the blocking doll under Lauren’s bed. “What if nothing happens? What if we don’t learn anything about what happened to Parker?”
“If nothing happens, nothing happens,” Natalie replied. “No harm done. But don’t you want to at least try? For Parker.” She touched Cel’s arm. “I think it’ll help you feel better, too.”
Cel could tell by the look in Natalie’s eyes that Natalie believed the last statement, but she also guessed her abuela had fed something similar to Natalie and Omar the previous night. Cel met eyes with Yesenia. “You know not all spirits are good. What if it’s bad one? Or a lost one? A desperate? A trickster having fun with me?”
Yesenia tapped the papers on top of the board. “I put all the safe guarding spells to protect you if that’s the case. And if it is muy mal, we need to know so we can cast the proper rejection spell and perform a separation ritual.”
Cel’s eyes slid back and forth from Yesenia to Natalie. The two people who’d always had her back through thick and thin, dark and light. Two people she never wanted to disappoint. “Won’t we need something personal of Abby’s?”
Yesenia shook her head. “The summoning spell I chose is for general contact, which is easier to perform and requires no personal objects. You and Natalie being her friend is enough.”
“But aren’t general contacts more dangerous?”
“It can be, mija,” Yesenia said. “But you three are strong enough to handle it if you follow my instructions.”
Cel turned to Natalie who was watching her expectantly. Her eyes dropped to Natalie’s stomach, rose to her face. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean…you’re pregnant and—”
“I’m sure.”
Cel closed and rubbed her eyes. If there was any chance at all that this could help her find Parker…
“Okay,” she eventually said. “Let’s try it.”
Natalie flashed her newly acquired proud-mother smile and looked at Yesenia. “Where is the best place to do it? Here in the house?”
“No,” Cel answered for her abuela. “We need to do it out in Hunter’s Haven, where I took the pictures.”
Yesenia nodded in agreement and then eagerly walked Cel and Natalie through her notes. She explained the proper way to summon, ask questions, and handle the planchette, and then she told them about certain signs to watch for that would indicate whether they’d contacted a hurtful or helpful spirit. After answering their questions and forcing them to regurgitate the information back to her, she retrieved glass jars filled with herbs from the pantry and helped them create protection sachets.
Cel struggled to keep the bundle of nerves squirming in her gut from affecting her hands as she filled her sachet with rosemary, angelica, sage, three cloves, and a pinch of salt and tied it around her neck. She had listened to her abuela and Tia Dillo discuss séances many times, had secretly watched them communicate with the dead on three occasions when they had friends over, but she’d never participated in one. Inciting interactions with the dead, opening a gateway to their influences, was something only the most seasoned brujas and curanderas should attempt, and even though Yesenia had said she was strong enough, Cel didn’t consider herself seasoned by any stretch.
On the back porch, Yesenia performed a shielding ritual over Cel and Natalie, rubbing fresh aloe juice on their foreheads, hugging them, and sending them on their way.
As Cel crossed the backyard and overgrown field beyond the fence, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with a fellow Cricket Hunter, carrying a spirit board under her arm, a candle, planchette, and bag of dried wormwood in her pocket, wearing a protection sachet around her neck and smear of aloe on her forehead, on her way to summon a ghost in hopes of solving a mystery, she felt closer to fifteen than thirty. When they pierced Hunter’s Haven and escaped the glare of the afternoon sunshine, Cel said, “This feels surreal. Like we’ve stepped back in time or something.”
Natalie gave Cel a wistful smile. “Right. I feel it, too.” She jiggled the sachet hanging around her neck and arched her brow. “Like we’re Cricket Hunters again. On another magical mission to right a wrong.”
Cel returned a smile, and they continued on in silence, keeping their eyes peeled for Cel's lost chanclas as they navigated the game trails. Cel didn’t know with one hundred percent certainty where she’d taken the pictures but had a good idea. She knew that when they came across the chanclas, they would be close. Natalie spotted the first one in a clump of weeds when they rounded a sharp bend, and Cel found the other about twenty yards up the trail.
Cel scooped up the chancla, surveyed the area, and quickly located the two trees she thought the spirit had hidden behind. “This is it,” she said, meeting eyes with Natalie. “Let’s set everything up.”
Cel found a stick, and, while whispering a request for protection and guidance from the Source, drew a large circle in the soil. They sat cross-legged in the center, the spirit board on the ground in between them. Cel lit the candle, set it next to the board on top of Yesenia’s notes, and then whispered another incantation as she sprinkled dry, crushed wormwood over the flame. When she placed two fingers from each hand on the planchette, Natalie dutifully copied.
Cel looked at Natalie. “Ready?”
Natalie held eye contact for a moment before nodding and fixing her gaze to the board like a soldier set to task.
Cel inhaled a slow, deep breath of wet-earth-scented air. Anxiety hummed off of her like radio waves. She closed her eyes and mentally recited her go-to calming spell three times. When she opened her eyes, she read the summoning spell word for word off of Yesenia’s notes, focused on the board, and asked the first question.
“Is anyone here with us?”
The leaves in the treetops rustled overhead, but the planchette didn’t move.
Cel waited, calmly repeated the question, and this time the planchette sprung to life, drifting up to the word Si in the corner of the board.
Cel’s pulse quickened. She glanced at Natalie, who looked up. The surprise in Natalie’s eyes assured Cel that Natalie hadn’t purposefully manipulated the planchette, either. They appraised one another for a few seconds before looking back at the board.
If Cel had cast a specific summoning spell, the next step would’ve been to verify the spirit’s identity by asking for a full name, age, birthdate. But with a generic summoning, getting too personal would make a connection with a bad spirit harder to sever. So Cel cut to the chase. She needed to keep the interaction short.
“Do you want to talk to us?”
Si.
“Do you have a message for me?”
As a gust of wind rustled the treetops and stirred up fallen leaves, the planchette jerked their fingers to the center of the board and moved in a circle, then in the shape of a cross, circle, cross. Yesenia had warned of this type of nonverbal response. It was either a sign of a weak spirit, or a sign of an agitated one. A sign to hurry, either way.
“Did you see Parker Lundy out here three days ago?”
The planchette slid to Si. Slid off. Back on. Off. On. The wind escalated. Ripping some of the weaker leaves off their branches and sending them sailing through the air.
“Was he alone?” Urgency highlighted Cel’s voice.
The planchette moved to No and stopped cold.
“Who was with him?”
The planchette traced the circle of Spanish letters. Once. Twice. Three times. As if unsure how to spell. Then it cut back and forth in jagged, connected lines, creating a continuous star pattern over the geometric symbol in the center of the board.
Is it messing with us? Or…Cel let the thought die as the significance of the symbols hit her like a bag of bricks. A chill iced her spine.
“Did someone we know hurt Parker?” Her tone urgent and hemorrhaging fear now.
The planchette swirled in an endless figure eight pattern. Clouds moved over the canopy, blocking out all traces of sunshine. The wind strengthened. The candle flame flickered, vanished. The papers beneath it fluttered. Static crackled in the humid air. Cel’s arm and neck hairs stood on end. Her legs begged to run. She made eye contact with Natalie whose eyes were scared-big. They should’ve never come out here. She needed to end this. But she couldn’t help blurting out her biggest fear: “Is Parker Lundy dead? Is he there with you? Did you hurt him?”
The planchette ricocheted from Si to No.
A giggle (Abby) echoed in the woods somewhere behind Cel, followed by a deep-throated howl. A bolt of fear shot through her. Her heart fluttered, breath caught. When she took her right hand off of the planchette and reached for the page with the separation spell on it, her two fingers still touching the planchette suddenly felt pinned down. Glued to the wooden triangle by an invisible hand.
As she read Yesenia’s words, the planchette pulled her and Natalie’s hands around the board. Making a circle then a cross (Sniper’s cross-hairs). A star. Over and over. Cross-hairs. Star. Cross-hairs. Star. The candle toppled over from a gust and rolled into the brush. Time slowed. A large elm branch cracked, snapped, crashed to the ground behind Natalie, just outside the protective circle in the dirt.
“…thank you and goodbye.”
The planchette finally stopped moving after Cel’s final word.
Separation.
Natalie jumped to her feet. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Cel nodded, picked up Yesenia’s notes, the spirit board and planchette, and ran down the game trail with Natalie on her heels.
They burst out of Hunter’s Haven in a dead sprint. Sweat adhered their shirts to their upper chests and backs, strands of hair to their cheeks. The sun shone bright. Not a cloud in the sky. Only a slight breeze. A different world from where they sat minutes earlier. They slowed to a brisk walk as they approached the backyard gate but didn’t stop to catch their breath until they reached the safety of the kitchen.
Natalie immediately burst into an explanation for Yesenia when they’d returned. Cel nodded in agreement with Natalie’s account and with Yesenia’s subsequent assurances based on that account, assurances that their experience was not abnormal, not horrific, that they’d probably contacted a random spirit anchored to Hunter’s Haven, the spirit of a long dead hunter maybe, a bored trickster who preferred to manipulate nature rather than communicate, but Cel didn’t agree with either. In Natalie’s explosive, run-on telling of the short-lived séance, she never mentioned hearing the giggle—Abby’s signature giggle—or the deep-throated howl. And she’d said the planchette had “gone crazy” in the center of the board, not drawn the symbols Cel had recognized.
Cricket Hunter symbols.
The cross-hair Parker had carved on his cricket stick.
Cel’s infinity.
Abby’s star.
Though Cel’s version and conclusions differed from Natalie’s and Yesenia’s respectively, she could tell her abuela’s assurances were soothing to Natalie and didn’t want to disrupt that. Disputing either of them would just reinject fear and anxiety into her friend and her friend’s baby. Natalie was still in the high-risk-for-miscarriage stage of pregnancy. Fear and anxiety were two of her worst enemies. Assassins Cel had met face-to-face and had no intentions of introducing to Natalie.
An hour later, Craig texted Natalie, letting her know he was on his way home with Chinese take-out, so Cel walked Natalie to her car, hugged and thanked her, and told her she’d call in an hour or so to check on her. When she went back inside and found the bathroom door closed, she knocked.
“You okay, Buela?”
“Si. I’ll be out in a bit.”
Despite having drunk two cups of yerba buena since arriving back at Yesenia’s, repeatedly reciting her go-to calming spell, and performing a cleansing ritual with Natalie, Cel still felt far from calm. On the contrary, she felt vulnerable. Scared. Targeted. So, with a small window of opportunity, she hustled to Yesenia’s bedroom, opened the old chest in the closet, and swiped a page from the grimoire labeled FAMILIARS—the page containing the same ritual she’d helped Yesenia perform with Mina the night of Tia Dillo’s death.
She’d contemplated asking for a copy on her wa
y inside after seeing Natalie off, but she imagined her abuela would say that chopping off, cooking, and gnawing on Mila’s leg was unneeded, an overreaction, that the protection measures they’d taken had worked and she’d be fine. Or that her bond with Mila wasn’t strong enough for the ritual to work. And maybe she would be fine. Maybe she was crazy to think her bond with Mila was strong enough for the ritual to work. Maybe she was grasping at straws. But she didn’t want to hear, debate, or argue about it. She was teetering on the edge of Meltdown Cliff, and for her own peace of mind, she wanted—needed—to perform the ritual as quick as possible. She needed something to grasp on to.
So she took it without asking and hurried home without a goodbye.
Chapter 33 - Cel
Cel parked askew in the driveway and hurried inside her house. She locked the front door behind her, pulled the folded piece of paper out of her back pocket, and called out for Mila.
She made it halfway down the hallway before Mila emerged from the computer room. She knelt and held out a welcoming hand as Mila sauntered her way, meowing. She wiggled her fingers. “Come here, girl. Come here.”
She didn’t notice the infinity necklace dangling from Mila’s neck until Mila was a few feet away and the silver symbol caught a ray of light. She gasped and brought her hand to the hollow of her throat. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t anything.
Spellbound, she didn’t notice the figure creep up behind her, either. Not until she eventually mustered the courage to reach out for the necklace and it tackled her, driving its weight into her back, pancaking her into the carpet face-first. She struggled beneath its weight to no avail and screamed in surprised pain when she felt a sharp sting in her shoulder. A burning sensation trickled down her arm and into her upper chest seconds later. Within half a minute, she was too weak to struggle and her extremities went limp.
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