by Eli Constant
My fingers search and I murmur ‘thank God’ when I find the double mechanisms I need to push outward to unlock the window. I’ve got it. In only precious seconds, fresh air will flood in. I’ll be able to breathe and think and save my loved ones.
Almost smiling, I touch the edge of the window frame below the locks and I push with all my might, not worried over breaking the window by lifting it too hard and quickly. That doesn’t matter.
But the window doesn’t budge. It won’t move. I know I’ve unlocked it, but it won’t move.
“Tori!” Terrance yells, for likely the millionth time… I don’t know, so arrested by the spirit’s memories.
I shove the window one more time, knowing it’s futile, yet I have to try. And then I’m standing, sobbing, blindly trying to see the woman I love and the precious children we share.
And then, I am falling. On the fall down, my left hand brushes against something hard with a small rounded edge. And the possession loosens, rushing out of me so fast I feel dizzy.
Chapter Six
Terrance catches me. He yanks me up into his arms and he carries me out of the apartment and into the fresh, life-affirming air.
As the clarity of the world slams into me, a wrecking ball of reality, I start coughing and I can’t stop. We’re next to Terrance’s cruiser. He sets me down on the hood and pats my back gently. “Breathe, Tori. You got to breathe, girl.”
I steady myself against the car and try to take a deep inhalation. It makes the coughing worse at first, but then it begins to settle down.
“What the hell happened in there?” Terrance takes a step away from me. He’s stood on the curb, his arms crossed over his chest, looking both concerned for me and professionally lost. Despite his supposed acceptance of me, and what I am, he’s still out of his depth with all of this stuff. It still stirs… uncomfortable feelings within him to see the supernatural in action.
I take another deep breath and I push myself off the hood of the car to stand. I’m only slightly unsteady. Bully for me.
“When we were out here before, I felt something. A presence. It wanted me to see those upper windows.” I point for effect. He doesn’t turn around though. His eyes are for me right now, no distractions. I can see his cop brain working behind his eyes.
“And?”
“And, when we went in, the presence was overwhelming. The father’s spirit I think, though I thought he would be at peace now. I’m worried about him. I worry that…” I let my words trail off. We’re here to solve a murder, which is what Terrance is focusing on. He won’t want to know the details of worrying for a soul. His job is the vessel, my job is the heartbeat behind the heart.
Terrance quirks an eyebrow and turns away from me to check out the exterior of the building again. “What are you worried about, Tori.” He says it absentmindedly, considering the windows.
“That the father wants more than to just give us information to help. I’m worried he wants vengeance. And a spirit like that… that lingers and has a singular, dark focus. They turn into something unpleasant.”
“You told me once that ghosts aren’t the same thing as spirits right?” Terrance takes a few steps away from me now, towards the building.
“Right… though, I sometimes use spirit, soul, and ghost interchangeably.”
“You think he’ll get stuck here? Be a ghost?”
“No, he knows who he is. He has a sense of what life was. He had connections. Ghosts aren’t as common, because they’re truly lost. Amnesiacs if you will. Floating like silver through the air. I think it’ll be worse than that, Terrance. He’s a man who watched his family die, who couldn’t save them. That’s a different level than simple unfinished business. I felt rage inside of me when I was in there. Pure, unfiltered, wrath. He’s feeding the anti-ether and it, in turn, is feeding him.”
“Anti-ether,” I see Terrance move his hand over his head, pausing at the few wrinkles that gather at the back of his neck when he’s looking up at something. “I don’t know what the hell that is, Tori, but it doesn’t seem pleasant.”
“It’s not.” I say, and we both fall quiet for a while.
“So what the hell’s up with the windows?”
“If you go back and look,” I exhale, steadying myself and my words, “I’m fairly sure you’ll find that they’ve been nailed shut. On the outside.”
Now Terrance does look at me, and then back at the building, and then back at me. “Son of a bitch.” With that, he strides away from me and towards the building, pulling out his phone. I assume, by his first words to the person who answered his call, that he’s getting ready to chew someone out for missing something so obvious.
Because he believes me. Without verifying it himself, he believes me. And that causes something warm and fuzzy to grow in my belly. A line might be between us, a line between human and supernatural that we both must toe to operate within our workings together, but despite that… Terrance still sees me as someone to trust.
Movement down a nearby street draws my attention, but all I catch is a glimpse of orange and the swaying of material as the figure moves. Shadows. And Spirits. And the long-gone-byes of humanity.
Ghosts everywhere, in waking hours and in sleep.
While I wait for Terrance to return, I decide to walk to the community garden between two buildings. It is close enough that Terrance will likely be able to see me as he exits the burned building. The flowers are beginning to burst into riotous life. The smell is an aphrodisiac floating through the air like ribbon so sheer it can’t be seen without straining. It is its own sort of mesmeric ghost in the sky. Invisible liquid platinum.
Slowly, I find my way to a bench. It’s dedicated to a Lisa Hamlin. I wonder if she saw it, if she stuck around in spirit long enough to see this dedication. Or maybe she’s watching now, hopeful the bench in her honor will bring someone joy. I cling to the optimism that people on the other side can still see their loved ones. I dream of it—a crystal ball for each beautiful soul gone past the waiting place, a mirror to the world long-lost, reflecting the lives of those they’ve left.
Though, my grandmother believed otherwise—that after a person is gone, they can only return of their own volition if they are controlled by rage. Wraiths that return without the magical infusion I must lend to pull kinder souls across. Despite the ache to see a loved one that has gone, you wouldn’t want them to experience the swallowing pain of wraithness. They would hurt you, because love would no longer exist in their body. Ghosts could see, I suppose, because they never leave and they lose themselves to the static cling… but they don’t even know who they are, let alone who their once-loved-ones are. They wouldn’t care if you dedicated a planet to them, let alone a garden bench. It would just be another untouchable nothingness in a world they don’t belong to anymore.
I think of it as spirit dementia. I’ve watched how that particular illness ruins the mind—because I have trapped a soul back into its physical vessel. I’ve held onto them too long, past the memories and human spark.
I suppose, in some ways, I’d like my grandmother to be right and me wrong. Unless there’s some sort of fail-safe to keep your relatives from seeing you in explicitly uncomfortable positions. Showering. Your daily constitution on the porcelain throne. In the midst of surprisingly bendy sexual relations.
I mean, I’d prefer my father not see me in the nude getting my carnal side on. Wouldn’t everyone? I’d hope so…
I’m still standing, staring at the bench and the woman’s name. My brain feels foggy, a bit overcome by the floral and herbal scents all around. Sitting down, I close my eyes and I lean my head back so I can focus only on the smells coming from the garden, from all the flowers around me. They’re so fragrant, so life-affirming. Doing so doesn’t help clear my head. That’s this time of year though—the warmth, the life growing. It is the very definition of new beginnings.
Something catches my interest. One particular scent forcing its way through the patchwork quilt of the o
thers. I open my eyes and stand. I walk aimlessly, my sense of smell dampened by using my eyesight once again.
“Where are you?” I mutter as my gaze roves over the perfectly-designed beds of flowers and greenery. So many colors. Finally, I find it. Hidden in the lavender. Blue Vervain. It’s inconspicuous, its purplish flowers hidden in the loads of fragrant lavender. I lean down and pick a sprig of it and hold it to my nose. It has no scent. Nothing I can smell right now, with the flowers basically shoved up my nose. “That’s odd…” my voice trails off and I start walking a little again. It’s not my nose that alerts me to the next odd plant in the community garden.
It’s my power.
Monk’s Hood. Or, in some circles, Wolfsbane. Not far after that find is a small patch of Foxglove hidden in the folds of a Buckthorn bush that is beginning to sprout its telltale glossy, dark purple fruit.
I move in a circle, taking in the expanse of carefully-constructed community garden with more diligence now. And I wonder… who in town is a witch. Because this isn’t just any old garden. This is a spell waiting to happen. I’ve lived in Bonneau all of my life. The garden was constructed five years ago. How long have witches resided here? Always?
If there’s a witch’s garden, then… I move towards one of the only large trees in the garden. It stretches up to the sky with leafy fingers on narrow branches. I find what I’m looking for quickly. The tiny symbol carved into the bark, kept freshly cut for protection. And beside that—the crest for a pixie clan. Not a crest like you’d see in Scotland or the likes. No, this is just a simple wearing-away of wood in a specific pattern. And to any pixie, it will shine as warning.
These are things I’ve only read about in my grandmother’s journals or, more recently, talked to Liam about. A hundred bucks says Liam has known, all along, that this garden houses a pixie familiar.
“Beautiful day isn’t it, Blud-ah Vas?” A voice, melodic and somehow as drowsy as the warm spring, comes to life behind me. I startle and turn around. I try to remember what she’s said, but the letters and sounds are a jumble.
The speaker is a tall woman with orange-red hair sweeping down her back in a long ponytail. Freckles so pale they’re nearly nonexistent play across her face. She’s so familiar, but I cannot place her. Her clothing is the kind of loose flowing linen you expect to see on rich folks in Malibu. I want to keep studying her, to remember her completely—it’s not an urge I understand. Yet, I cannot focus further. I am only able to cling to her hair color, those freckles, her height… which for some reason feels wrong. She should not be so tall.
“What?” The word falls out of my mouth almost incoherently. “What did you say?”
“I said it’s a beautiful day.” She walked towards me, but her gaze was trained behind me at the tree and its pixie mark.
“Yes… yes it is.” I move forwards as she continues to draw nearer. We brush shoulders as we pass, strangers among flowers rather than ships in the night.
“This garden is a bounty.” The woman is close to the tree now and she reaches out and brushes her fingers against the pixie mark. She pulls her hand back quickly as if shocked. Because she had been shocked—pixies are small, but they are not to be trifled with.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“Yes you do, Blud-ah Vas,” she turns and smiles wide.
That name… she’s said it before. Remember it. Remember it. I try desperately to cling to the name, to try and figure out the language. “What did you just call me?” The scents in the garden assault me once more, with less gentle spring kindness than before.
An arm links mine and I am gently guided back to the garden bench. My head tips against the hard edge of its back after I sit. The world is lost to me for a moment. Or am I lost to it? God, there is a beauty in being forgotten. Ether beyond, there is a dear satisfaction in letting the truth of everything slip by as if you are stood above it on an untouchable bridge.
I am angry when I am yanked back to consciousness.
“Tori!” Terrance’s voice travels to me, slicing through whatever has just occurred. Why I am sitting in this garden floods back. The family. The fire.
Standing, I glance around the garden—which is empty save for myself, the plants, and the hidden creatures who claim this land. I do not know why I find this strange. The garden was empty when I arrived. No one had arrived whilst I stood among the heady scent. Something nagged at me though.
“Hey, Tori! Come on!” Terrance is stood by his squad car now, waving me over.
“Over here!” I finally shout back, and begin walking towards the garden exit, past the herbs that will look just like any other flower to humans, past the bench for Lisa, past the fronts of the adjacent buildings.
Terrance is by his squad car, a grim look plastered on his face. His eyes, the navy blue of them bright in the sun, are enhanced by the reddened skin around his gaze. He’s been crying. I’ve never seen him cry.
“You were right.” Is all he says when I join him.
“I’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t.”
We don’t speak anything else. The ride back to the Victorian is as silent as the charred apartment building where the family had perished.
Because someone made sure they couldn’t get out, made sure they got their pound of flesh to activate the pentagram.
To do bad things.
Chapter Seven
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Terrance says through the open car window at me. I’m stood on the lowest step of the Victorian’s front porch, thankful that Dean has left the porch light on. Dusk is fading away into true night now. Terrance has his interior car light on so that his face is illuminated. He wears a mask of pain. “I’m gonna have more questions I’m sure.”
“Okay. I’m sorry, Terrance. I’m sorry I was right, and I’m sorry this case is wrapped up in supernatural crap. I know you accept me. You don’t know what that means in this world. But I also know you’re not happy that this kind of shit exists.”
“But it does.” He sighs out, gripping the steering wheel with both his hands, so firmly that his brown knuckles began to pale from the strain.
“But it does.” I agree.
He pulls away. I don’t wave, and neither does he. As the vehicle moves, creating more distance between us, I wonder if that’s the way it is always going to be. He accepts me. He believes me. Yet, the divide between human and non-human is never going to die away. It will always be there, windows nailed down. Immovable.
“Humans don’t understand us, Victoria. They never will.” Liam’s voice carries like silk to my ears. He’s using his intimate whisper-voice. The one that threads through me like gossamer smoke. I turn around and find him sat beautifully in one of the three rocking chairs on the porch. He’s got his legs casually crossed, his fingers tapping gently against each wooden arm. I’m surprised to see that he’s not in one of his perfectly-made suits. Today, he’s in a casual v-neck shirt and dark jeans. Somehow though, he makes that look like Armani.
“I’m human, Liam.” I move towards the door, fishing the key out of my purse. Dean will have locked up by now.
“Half-human. And they’ll never accept you. You’ll never be free trying to live among them.” Like liquid metal, he stands. He’s so… so damned effortless. It makes me feel awkward and gangly.
“I’ve done fine so far.” I twist the knob and push the door inward. As soon as I do, I’m hit by a wave of icy coldness. “Crap,” I breathe out. This isn’t a ghost or a spirit pushing through me. This coldness, this Antarctic freeze, can only mean one thing. A spirit is either on the cusp of wraith-dom, or has already given into that black void. “Who’s here?” I question. “I can help you.”
Liam is behind me in a heartbeat, sliding into the house through the small space I’ve left by stopping dead right past the threshold. “Ah. Lovely,” he comments. In a few fast movements, he’s gotten salt from the kitchen as well as one of the syringes I keep in the medical cabinet… for when I ne
ed blood, but don’t want to be bleeding when I have to use it, which isn’t often.
“Wait, Liam. Don’t banish it yet.” Finally thawed, I step forward. “Dominique? Is that you?” The ice in the air is familiar. The spiritual imprint still hovering about the corners of wraith-like shadows. “I can help you. Please talk to me.”
“Helppppppppppppppppppppppp,” a voice hisses. “Youuuuuuu don’tttttttttttttttttt helpppppppppppppppp. Liesssssssss. Bloodddddddddd. I want bloodddddddddddddddddddd. Payyyyyyyyyyyyy.” His voice is so garbled now, nearly unintelligible. And that’s saying something, considering the last time we spoke he was inside his dead wife’s body with a heat-desiccated mouth.
“I am helping, Dominique. We went to your home. We saw what happened. I felt what happened. We’ll make whoever did this to you pay.” I hold my hands up slightly, pleading with the broken spirit to release the anger that’s building. He has only moments before his clouding rage will claim him for the anti-ether. He is on the cusp of eternal pain. From there, it is only a breath from wraith. “Please, we will find the person.”
“Toooooooo lateeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Blooddddddddddddd. Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” His last word was so disintegrated that it crumbled around the edges, disappeared into the blizzard temperatures around me.
“Victoria, we must force him out now. He’s too far gone.” Liam opens the salt and begins to pour a circle. When he’s done, he drops the salt container to the ground and positions the syringe over his arm. His face doesn’t change expression as the needle pierces his skin. When he pulls back the bobber, the plastic tube begins to fill with his blood. And it is silvery red. Silvery red and slightly pulsing inside the new containment.
Have I seen him bleed before? Have I? He’s fought for me, taken hits for me, but have I seen him bleed like this?
He doesn’t miss a beat after the syringe is filled. He begins to draw runes in the salt, depressing the bobber slow and steady. The entire ring of salt begins to glow with a white-hot light. The blood is a red beacon in a sea of pale.
