Of Spirits and Superstition

by Nyx Halliwell

  Is that so? “And I was hoping to not have an irritating ghost in my bedroom this morning! How did you even get in here? I have wards. Sigils.”

  “I’m a spirit guide—not a ghost, hon. Besides, your protection spells could use some work. Let’s just get through this as fast as we can, shall we? I’ll help you find your true life path as a medium, and you help me move up in the spirit world so I can be a guide for someone more my type.”

  “Your type?”

  With a pop and a flash, Coyote shapeshifts into his human form, standing too close once more. “Her path is that of a shaman. She’s not here to become a reality TV star.”

  “TV?” I squeak. I can’t even stand being interviewed by Autumn for her blog. “Definitely no to the nth degree of Hades on that. And I can’t do the shaman thing full-time like Dad, not when I have my sisters to take care of.”

  “She needs to up her game,” Persephone says to Coyote, ignoring me. “She’s a spirit whisperer.”

  Coyote’s lip curls. “She walks the way of the shaman.”

  I feel like I’m caught in a nightmare again. “You need to take this argument elsewhere.”

  Coyote continues. “She’s to follow in the footsteps of her father. She can travel between worlds. And she has me. I’m her spirit guide. She doesn’t need another, especially an inexperienced one like you.”

  Persephone’s eyes, so much like Mama Nightengale’s, light up with an inner fire at the challenge. “Take it up with the Big Guy.” She points toward the sky. “Winter is meant to help millions, not a scant handful here and there. And she can’t help anybody hiding in this cabin all the time.”

  Millions? My head feels like it’s going to explode. I definitely need copious amounts of caffeine. “Enough. I am not dealing with the two of you this morning. Be gone.”

  Persephone continues to sit. She points a finger toward the bed. “What about him?” Shade sleeps with me every night, her ghost form a bit on the chilly side, but I use extra blankets, which seems to soothe her as well as keep me warm.

  “She’s my familiar.”

  Persephone tilts her head in question. “Hate to tell you, hon, but that’s a guy.”

  I whip around and my heart nearly stops. Floating a few inches above the bed is Ronan.

  He lies straight on his back, hands on his abdomen, eyes closed. He looks like he’s…

  Dead.

  I put my hands on either side of my head, my temples hammering. “Smoke and fire,” I swear softly. “Ronan?”

  At the sound of his name, his eyes flip open and he glances around, taking in me, Coyote, and Persephone. Shade stretches at the end and goes toward him. He sits up and continues to scan the room before his gaze comes back to me. “Winter? Where am I?”

  “My cabin.”

  He reaches out as if to pet Shade and his hand goes right through her. He holds it up in front of his face, his ghostly fingers transparent. He wiggles them in front of his eyes and I see the expression on his face when he looks at me again. “Am I…dead?”

  “You’re in a coma. Your spirit’s floating around.” I hastily check cell phone on the nightstand. There’s no missed calls telling me he’s passed. “You dropped in briefly last night after it happened, and I’ve been trying to find you ever since.”

  He realizes he’s floating above the bed and makes to stand. It seems to take some effort, but he gets his feet under him. “Who are these people?” he asks. “How did I end up in a coma?”

  I give him the story as succinctly as possible. “Do you remember any of that?”

  A shake of his head. “Is my mom okay?”

  “She’s fine. Hale, too.”

  Coyote, standing next to me, says in a commanding voice, “Get him back in his body. The longer he stays out of it, the more likely his soul will never return.”

  “Like I don’t know that,” I murmur under my breath. “How do I do that?”

  Coyote shoots a hard glare at Persephone. “Maybe your new spirit guide knows.”

  She pushes out of the chair, much more human than spirit. “Actually, I do. You could probably go on one of those shamanic quests or whatever, couldn’t you?” She says it to me, but she’s staring at Coyote with the same intense glare.

  Goddess save me. “I am so done with both of you,” I tell them. “Out. Now.” This is one area that magick helps me with. I don’t even have to raise a hand—they simply disappear when I imagine wrapping them in a magickal bubble and tossing them into the snow.

  Ronan’s eyes widen slightly. “That’s pretty cool.”

  “Oh, Ronan.” I reach for him, even though he’s a ghost. “We have to discover how to get you back.”

  “Maybe that guy is right,” he says, referring to Coyote. “Is he really one of your spirit guides?” In the back of my mind, I realize there’s a tinge of jealousy in his voice.

  “Yes, he’s one of my very annoying spirit guides. I need to get a cup of coffee and put on clothes, and then I’ll see what I can do to get you into your physical form.”

  “Don’t mind me. I’ll just…float around, I guess. Hey, can I go through walls?”

  As he experiments, I turn on the coffeemaker and get cleaned up. When I leave the bathroom, I find Ronan standing at the fireplace, looking at a picture of me and my dad. “Do you really think you can help me?” he asks.

  There’s a fissure of fear deep in my belly. I actually have no expertise with this sort of thing. The spirits I deal with are dead, and I help them move on sometimes to the other side, but I’ve never tried to put a spirit back in a body. I do happen to know a necromancer, and I think about contacting him, but first I’m going to try my own idea. I pour coffee into a travel mug, put my winter coat on, and zip my boots.

  “Okay,” I tell my ghostly boyfriend. “Let’s see if you can follow me outside, to the Conjure parking lot and my car. I’ll drive you to the hospital, like I would a normal person.”

  He claps his hands together but they make no sound. “I’m ready.”

  I open the door and walk out, turning to watch him. He floats forward, smiling at me.

  But the moment he crosses the threshold, he disappears.

  6

  My mother used to say the most powerful magick was usually the simplest. Whether prayer or spells, intention is the most important ingredient.

  Nothing about the spirit world is easy or simple. Frustration wells in my chest, and I stomp my boots on the porch. “Ronan?” I call. “Can you hear me? Are you still here?”

  The morning is gray and white. There’s no response, and even the birds in the woods, singing just a moment ago, fall silent.

  The sun is a hazy ball behind the cloud cover and icicles hang from my porch roof. Shade joins me and meows.

  She rubs against my leg as I stand there looking around, asking the heavens to give me a clue as to what just happened to Ronan. Wherever he went, it’s not here. I send feelers of magick out and don’t sense his energy anywhere.

  Back inside, I remove my boots and coat, open up the travel mug and take several chugs. I need to get my brain online and working, because right now, I’m totally freaking out.

  Dialing Dad, he assures me Ronan is still breathing, and Tala is on her way to stay with him again. The swelling in his brain has lessened, bringing all of us good news.

  I relate my morning with him, and Dad finds it curious Ronan always appears to me, inside my cabin. What is the anchor?

  Me, I think. I’m just not sure why. We’ve only been dating a few short months. Why isn’t he drawn to his mom and brother?

  Dad believes we should let things run their course, that once the swelling is gone, Ronan will wake up naturally.

  I disagree, even though I keep it to myself. I’m not a patient person, and while I don’t fear death, I’m not hip on it either. There’s no way I can sit back and not try to help. Yes, Ronan’s receiving the medical care he needs, but at times, that’s not enough.

  Outside, Coyote howls. As if h
e’s standing next to me, I hear his voice. Let the spirits of the sun, moon, and earth guide you.

  I’m on the right track, even he agrees. I say goodbye to Dad, promising to check in later.

  Knowing Autumn’s up—she rises with the sun—I call and talk to her for a moment. She’s an expert on out of body experiences and astral travel, and I want to know if she has any tips I could give Ronan the next time I see him. Maybe he can return to his body on his own.

  She has a few ideas that don’t require anything as extensive as Dad’s shamanic quests, so I make notes and stick the paper to my refrigerator with one of my Conjure magnets.

  More coffee, and I feel the wheels in my brain starting to catch up. While my cabin has gas heat, I prefer the fireplace, so I stoke a fire and sit down to think.

  One of my friends lives in Atlanta. She’s a medium, too, although she keeps it a secret, working as a wedding consultant and event planner. Her mother’s ancestral line is descended from a woman infamous for her spirit communication in the sixteen hundreds. While Ava’s spent a good deal of her life repressing her gift, with me, she’s open about it.

  I need to figure out where Ronan’s spirit is going when he disappears. I call Ava, and she answers after several rings. “What are you doing up this early?” I can see her doing the mental math with the time difference from East Coast to West. “It’s six-thirty there, isn’t it?”

  “I have a problem.”

  “O-kay.” She sounds tentative. “Tell me you need a wedding dress. An event catered?”

  “Afraid not. This has to do with the spirit world.”

  “Lawd. Anything but that, Winter.”

  The amount of coffee I drank is starting to turn my stomach to acid. I put her on speaker in the kitchen and make toast as I tell her about Ronan and his coma.

  She’s silent for a long minute after I finish. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “That’s the biggest thing you got out of that whole story?”

  She chuckles. “Sorry, I’m just a little surprised. I mean, I was kidding earlier about the wedding dress, but if this thing turns serious, I expect you to hire me, y’hear?”

  Her southern drawl is sweet and teasing.

  “I can’t marry a ghost,” I remind her, leaning against the counter. “But here I am—I finally have a boyfriend, and blood and bones, I’m about to lose him. Like, for good, A. I need help! Any ideas on what I can do? Even if the swelling fades and he’s physically okay again, if his spirit doesn’t anchor to the body, he’ll be a vegetable.”

  “This is surreal, isn’t it?” I hear the squeak of her chair as she leans back in it. “I mean, I’ve heard about this type of thing, but I’ve never actually had experience with it. What about a spell? Is there any magick you can do?”

  “Scrying didn’t work. Outside of a séance, I don’t know how to force him to materialize.”

  “Voodoo Hoodoo,” she mutters under her breath, like a curse. “Be careful with that stuff.”

  This makes me think of Mama Nightengale. The real one, not my new spirit guide impersonating her. She practices magick, just a different version than ours. Autumn claims it’s based in Voodoo or Santeria. “Even if I do get his spirit inside the casting circle, how do I get it in his body?”

  “Sorry, friend. I have no idea.”

  The toast pops and I slather my favorite strawberry jelly on it. We talk another minute or so, and hang up. I immediately call Mama Nightengale and explain what happened. “Tell me you know some kind of spell to help me.”

  “Hmm.” I hear the ding of her cash register at her convenience store down the road. “That’s an interesting situation you’ve got there. Let me call you back.”

  As in, she can’t talk in front of her customer.

  Pacing, I munch on the toast and stare at the last few bananas on the counter. My phone rings and I click the talk button.

  “You know I’m your gal if you decide to do a séance,” she says, and I know the coast is clear. “But before we try that, I have another idea. I read not long ago about a flower that can bring a spirit more clearly into the physical world. Maybe it could anchor it as well. I was going to ask Spring if she could get some for me. I just have to remember the name of it.”

  “I’ll look it up and ask her. Thank you!”

  We say goodbye. An internet search turns up a reference to mimosa and I text Spring to see if it’s something she’s familiar with.

  She tells me she doesn’t grow it, but she has a supplier in Northern California who might have some. She’ll check.

  I’m rinsing my plate when Persephone materializes next to me.

  “That Ava, she’s got a bright future ahead of her, too.”

  I nearly drop the dish, whirling on her, “I don’t remember inviting you back.”

  She’s no longer wearing Mama N’s countenance, and now resembles Carol Brady, complete with short, blond hair and a blue polyester pantsuit.

  “The Brady Bunch called,” I grind out. “They want that outfit back.”

  She waves me off and floats toward the door. “Come on, hon, let’s get to the hospital.”

  “Did something happen?”

  But she’s gone.

  I dry my hands, put on my boots and coat once more, and hustle after her.

  7

  Three inches of snow fell overnight.

  Quinn brought his truck with the blade on the front and is scooping out the parking lot when I reach my car. He waves and lowers his window, “Any change?”

  “Not that I know of.” There’s no message from Dad, so regardless of Seph’s cryptic remark, I believe Ronan is still in a coma.

  Even behind my dark sunglasses, the snow is too bright. Sunlight glistens off the fields. It’s slow going, even though the plows have been out. I pass one on the way and a plume of the white stuff showers the car.

  “Geez, that’s a lot of snow.” Persephone appears in the passenger seat, once more as Mama N. She sits as though human, but she’s floating slightly above the vinyl.

  Shade becomes visible as well, curling in my lap. I pass Harrington Farms and Mama Nightingale’s store. “You can’t go around impersonating my neighbor.”

  Persephone seems to think this over. “Who would you like me to be?”

  I’d like her to go away. “It’s unnerving when I see a ghost wearing someone’s face whose still alive and happens to be a friend. Pick someone I don’t know.”

  “Not a ghost, remember?” In an instant, she becomes a redhead with a lot of makeup and a sparkling green dress. The hair is swept into curls on top of her head, and her heavy eyeliner tips up at the corners. “Better?”

  The features look familiar, but I can’t place them in my everyday life. “I guess so,” I say. “That’s quite an outfit.”

  “I’ve always wanted to dress like a witch.”

  “A witch?” She doesn’t look like any I know.

  “Yeah, you know, Samantha’s mother on Bewitched, Endora. Now, she was a cool witch, a real piece of work.”

  I’ve heard of the show, but never watched it. “Yeah,”—I eye her, thinking she’s the pot calling the cauldron black—“a real piece of work.”

  My sarcasm doesn’t go unnoticed and she rolls her eyes. “He’s cute, you know.”

  “Who, Ronan?”

  She nods. “You do realize it might not be your job to save him.”

  My stomach drops. They say the dead know all, and ghost or not, she’s definitely dead. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  She looks out the window. “You can’t save everyone.”

  While I understand many things about the other side, I don’t have knowledge of everything. I’ve got to say, if they’re recruiting the likes of this spirit, they must be hurting. Whoever they are—she still hasn’t answered that. “I don’t save anyone,” I admit quietly. The heater blasts away, the fan noisy in the small space of the VW. “I’m not a healer, like Summer. All I do is communicate with the dead, cast an invisi
bility spell once in a while, and work on trying to free my mother’s soul from that thing we have imprisoned in the earth.”

  She chuckles. It’s a knowing sound, as though I’m in the dark about some joke. “I don’t think you give yourself as much credit as you should,” she says. “Who knows how many lives you’ve changed by giving them closure over the death of their loved one? Grief and sorrow can lead to depression which can turn to things like addiction and suicide.”

  There’s a cheery thought.

  “I don’t believe in closure after someone dies.” My throat feels tight, my mother’s face flashing in my mind. “I might be able to bring a little peace, but there’s never closure.”

  She glances at me, and I see questions in her eyes. “Is that really what you believe?”

  I don’t answer, taking the next right toward the hospital. Shade stands in my lap, putting her paws on the steering wheel.

  “Do you sense him?” I ask the cat.

  She meows plaintively. I get my hopes up, wishing I had Summer’s gift to understand animals. Lucky me, the only one I hear is Godfrey.

  As I pull into the parking lot, Persephone says, “He’s not here.”

  “You can tell? Do you know where he is?”

  She shakes her head, her large, dangling earrings jingling against her neck. “I don’t know, but I can sense that he’s not here.”

  “Then what was the big deal about getting here?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Ronan’s absence is confirmed when we reach the room. Tala, my dad, and Hale are inside with his body.

  “No change?” I ask after saying hello to each of them.

  Tala shakes her head. “They’re doing all they can, but there’s still too much swelling. I keep hoping he’ll squeeze my hand, or I’ll at least see his eyelids flutter—something.”

  Shade jumps on the bed and climbs on Ronan’s chest. She licks his face and kneads her paws along his collarbone. Her silvery eyes look at me and she meows again.

  I feel emotion welling in my chest and pushing into my throat. His spirit is not here, and even though I suspected as much, I’m still disappointed. Dad puts his arm around me.