Donn's Hill

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “I think it’s a poltergeist,” I concluded.

  Gabrielle muttered something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand, then said, “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s possible to banish an unfriendly spirit, and the process is a simple one.”

  “Do I need to find a priest, or a vat of holy water or something?”

  Across from me, Graham lifted an eyebrow. I turned away from him, wishing I’d stepped out into the hallway before making this insane phone call.

  “You watch too many horror movies. Just meet me at my greenhouse in ten minutes.”

  “You have a greenhouse?”

  “In my backyard. See you soon.”

  She hung up, and I turned around to hand Graham back his phone.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got to get over to Nine Lives.”

  “Well, you’re not walking over there. Not after fainting. Come on, I’ll drive you.” He grabbed his keys out of a little glazed bowl by the door.

  I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t want Graham witnessing it.

  On the other hand, whatever Gabrielle was about to help me do, it would almost certainly require going back into my apartment. I didn’t hate the idea of going back in there with an extra person as backup.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Whatever is in my apartment… it’s not safe.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ll go with you no matter what, but seriously, Mac, whatever happened up there to scare you wasn’t a poltergeist.”

  “What’s with you? Do you not believe they exist?” I asked.

  “I never said I don’t believe in ghosts. You can’t grow up in this town and not believe in ghosts. There’s just no way you’ve got one roaming around your apartment. Trust me.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” I said.

  Graham drove me to Gabrielle’s shop in his beat-up, banana yellow Geo Metro. Together we walked into her backyard where she kept a small greenhouse. The building had a stone base from which metal eaves curved up gracefully, giving the impression of a flower petal. Through the clouded glass, I saw plants and trees stretching toward the light. I felt a sudden urge to take up gardening, despite never being able to keep even bamboo alive on my desk at work.

  Gabrielle was waiting for us inside, surrounded by tall potted trees and long tables covered in leafy herbs. It smelled wonderful, like a walk-in diffuser filled with calming essential oils. The fear I’d felt in my apartment melted away, chased off by the scents of rosemary and chamomile. I wanted to stay in here forever, and never have to face whatever was waiting for me back home.

  Near the door, several bundles of some kind of herb were drying on a low shelf. They looked almost like cigars—if cigars were green, wrapped in red string, and had tufty bits of leaves poking out of them. Gabrielle was lifting them up one by one, rolling them between her fingers and sniffing their ends.

  “What are they?” Graham asked.

  “Sage sticks,” Gabrielle said. “They’re aptly named. Smell.”

  She held one of the bundles out between us. I stepped forward and sniffed it.

  “Smells like sage, lavender… and something else.”

  Graham leaned in and took a whiff. “Cedar, I think. It smells like the old chest my grandmother used to keep her sheets in.”

  “Very good,” Gabrielle said, nodding. “These bundles are used in a process called ‘smudging.’ It’s been used since ancient times for the purpose of ridding a dwelling of negative energy or unwanted spirits.”

  Unwanted spirits. I remembered what Yuri had said, about how they probably seldom encountered a friendly spirit because the homeowners weren’t interested in getting rid of it. Thinking of Yuri made me feel guilty for not telling Gabrielle about my new gig with the Soul Searchers, like I’d kept something important from my own mother.

  “Hey, I meant to tell you something. I was working with the Soul Searchers last weekend—”

  “Yuri told me. I’ve been waiting to call. I’m sure he’s given you plenty of homework.”

  My shoulders relaxed, and I smiled. “You know him pretty well, I guess.”

  “We’re old friends. I’m very happy you’ll be working with them. I think it will be good for all of you. Now here, take this.” She handed me a sage bundle.

  I pocketed it and looked around for Striker, who I found attacking a small pot of mint on a shelf at the back of the greenhouse. She opened her mouth wide to chomp on a long sprig then broke it off and swallowed it. It must have tasted good because she purred loudly and rolled around on the rough wooden plank, nearly knocking a few pots off the shelf in her ecstasy. I pulled her down and cradled her in my arms.

  Graham shook his head. “Typical cat,” he said.

  I looked down at Striker, who stared up at me with blissfully crossed eyes. Those aren’t the words I’d use to describe her.

  “Is this your familiar?” Gabrielle asked.

  “My what?”

  “Your familiar.”

  I immediately thought of cartoon witches riding around on broomsticks with black cats at their sides. “That’s a real thing?”

  She nodded. “Did you know that many of the women who were put to death for practicing ‘witchcraft’ were actually psychics? Their powers didn’t come from devil worship as so many people around them feared. They were just misunderstood cases of clairvoyants, mediums, and the rare telekinetic.”

  I stared at her. “So if this was a few hundred years ago, people like you would get burned at the stake?”

  “People like you, as well. Most of the superstitions about witches are based on pure nonsense, but there are some things that are still true about psychics and mediums today. Whether we call them ‘familiars’ or ‘pets,’ all of us tend to have at least one animal companion.”

  Striker wound between Gabrielle’s legs, and the older woman picked up the cat. They stared into each other’s eyes for a few silent seconds.

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said. “This is a very special cat. She’ll lend you strength today, and you’ll likely need it.”

  I hated to leave the soothing scents of the greenhouse, but Gabrielle shooed us outside. The four of us headed back to my apartment. When we got there, I stood back and allowed Graham to open the door.

  We found the room in the same state of disarray in which I’d left it. Paperbacks were scattered across the floor near the turret and a small puddle of water shimmered in the middle of the room. Striker trailed into the apartment with her shoulders hunched and her belly low to the ground. When she sniffed at the books, her tail puffed out to twice its normal size.

  Graham glanced up at the ceiling. “Doesn’t look like there’s been a leak,” he observed. “Shoot, I still need to get up there and see where those clanging sounds you told me about are coming from.”

  I shivered. With each passing moment, I became more certain that all the strange events that had happened since I’d come to town were connected. Every time I’d been frightened, water had been present: the wet footprints, the water on my bathroom floor, and now this puddle in the middle of my apartment. I was sure that the same person—or entity or whatever—had caused each of those incidents. Somehow the man in the bathroom mirror had followed me here from my motel room, and he was becoming aggressive. He was dangerous. If he could knock books around, what else could he do? Start a fire? Slam the wardrobe on top of me while I slept?

  I pulled myself to my full height. The time for worry and wonder had passed. It was time for action.

  “What do we do?” I asked Gabrielle.

  “I’ll instruct you, but you will be performing the actual smudging. This is a valuable skill to have. We begin by opening all the windows.”

  I cranked open the tall, narrow windows in the turret as wide as they would go. Graham propped open the little stained-glass window in the bathroom, and Gabrielle slid up the wide sash win
dow above my bed. A breeze blew through the room, bringing in the smell of the woods and the faintest hint of rain.

  Gabrielle organized our supplies on the kitchen counter: the sage bundle, a cereal bowl, matches, and a candle. “Place the sage in the bowl and then light it.”

  I did as she asked, setting the little green bundle into the bowl. I struck a match and tried to light one end, but the sage rebuffed the flame, refusing to catch.

  “It may be stubborn to light,” she said. “Use the candle.”

  I moved the match to the candle, and the wick caught fire. I then held the end of the bundle over the open flame, and it lit within a few moments. The aromas of lavender and sage wafted up to me.

  “For the next step, you’ll need to walk around the apartment, waving the bundle so the smoke can spread throughout each area. But don’t wave it around too forcefully,” she warned. “If you do, you’ll end up with bits of flaming sage and ash all over your floor. Make small, slow circles, and keep your bowl under the bundle to catch any embers that break off.”

  “That doesn’t sound too hard.”

  “Well, the physical part isn’t. Directing your mind and your will during the process is. To succeed, you must relax and keep your mind free of distractions. Keep a firm control on your emotions. Don’t allow fear to flood your body with adrenaline.”

  It was a tall order, considering my skeleton wanted to jump out of my skin and run back to the safety of Gabrielle’s greenhouse. I forced myself to walk slowly around the apartment, trying to keep my wave even and regal. I kept seeing the man’s face from the bathroom mirror in my head, but I countered it by imagining my brain as a whiteboard, where a giant eraser could sweep through and wipe the image away.

  Graham perched on the counter, watching me work. His long legs swung back and forth in a slow rhythm as I made my way around the room. Striker sat next to him, her tail gently flapping the counter in time with Graham’s legs. She sat straight and tall, never taking her eyes off me.

  “You’re doing well,” said Gabrielle. “Keep going. Focus your will.”

  On my second pass around the apartment, I pictured the smoke clinging to any bit of negative energy and carrying it out the open windows, floating away from the house and dissipating into the atmosphere.

  This is silly. My resolve wavered. Would this even work? It seemed like a spell, and I’d never believed in magic.

  Striker caught my eye from her place on the counter. She began to purr loudly. It was a comforting sound, and I suddenly remembered that I’d never really believed in ghosts before, either, yet here we were. I shoved my doubts to the side and continued with the smudging.

  I silently commanded the entity to follow the smoke outside and to never come back. His face kept trying to invade my thoughts, but I pushed hard against him. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes for a moment, pouring my will into the image of my apartment being cleared of everything that was unwelcome.

  Halfway through my third pass around the room, the space suddenly felt better. The air was hazy, and the scent of the herbs was very strong, but it seemed easier to breathe than it had before. I turned to look at the others. Graham’s thick eyebrows were raised in surprise, and Gabrielle was smiling.

  “Do you feel that?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Graham said. “It’s weird. Everything is less… heavy.”

  “Congratulations.” Gabrielle stepped forward, taking the sage bundle from me and stubbing out its smoldering end against the bottom of the bowl. “I believe we were successful.”

  “Thank you so much.” I pulled her into a tight hug, which she returned with her free arm. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she said. “You have a wonderful gift. If you’re willing, I’ll help you develop it as much as I can.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Good.” She gave me a final squeeze and walked off to pack up her supplies.

  Striker jumped down from the counter and stretched. She walked around the apartment, rubbing the side of her face on edges and corners, remarking her territory.

  “That was really something,” Graham said, slipping forward off the counter to stand next to me. “You’ve never done that before?”

  I shook my head and blew out the candle. “Nope. I’m not even sure I did it right, but it feels better in here now. Like the space belongs to me again.”

  “Well, you looked totally legitimate. I swear I felt—I don’t know how to describe it—like pulses of energy coming from you.” He lowered his voice, glancing at Gabrielle. “I honestly thought you were just imagining things earlier, but something definitely happened here.”

  “I wish I’d imagined it all. That’d be a lot easier to wrap my head around.”

  He smiled at me. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I smiled back. “I think so. I feel a lot better. I think it’s over.”

  And I really believed that was true.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cookies. Doughnut holes. Lemon bars. Coffee. My eyes swept the refreshments table. What a spread, I thought, as I grabbed a plate and started piling on the sweets.

  I need to volunteer for things more often.

  Someone sniffed behind me, and my shoulders tightened. I recognized that sniff. Before I even turned around, I knew it belonged to Penelope Bishop. The same disapproval that dripped from Penelope’s voice every time we spoke came through loud and clear in those little sniffs. I suddenly remembered why I’d been dreading this meeting.

  I turned around and saw her behind me in line, standing next to Brian from the coffee shop. He was talking to her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her small, cold eyes were fixed on me. Her nose was crinkled as though she’d just drunk some rancid milk.

  Not for the first time, I felt bewildered by her attitude. But I wasn’t going to let her animosity toward me ruin the experience of eating an obviously homemade lemon bar, so I turned and walked away from her with my plate of goodies. I felt like a squirrel, grabbing my food and running off to find a safe place to enjoy it.

  The meeting was being held in a small, square room in the basement of Donn’s Hill City Hall. The lobby of the building was grandiose with high plaster ceilings, arched doorways, and white marble floors. The basement, on the other hand, clearly wasn’t meant for the eyes of tourists. The ceilings were low, and several of the acoustic tiles above us sported yellow water stains.

  About three dozen other volunteers were crammed into the room with me. Most of them were milling around, sipping coffee and chatting. I spotted Dr. Lee across the room, talking with a gray-haired man in a sweater vest. She looked completely different without her white lab coat and stethoscope. We waved at each other, but I didn’t interrupt her conversation.

  A few people had already laid claim to some of the ancient metal folding chairs that were arranged in rows, all facing a chalkboard at the front of the room. I recognized a head of moppy red hair near the back and threaded my way through a knot of people toward the Soul Searchers’ cameraman, Mark. He wore a striped polo shirt and his familiar scowl. I plunked down in a chair beside him.

  His ginger eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Paying the price for a promise made out of spite,” I said. “You?”

  He gave me a confused look. “I’ve been volunteering for the last couple of years as an event photographer. You know, taking pictures of families having fun to put in next year’s ads.”

  I took a bite of the lemon bar, and the sweet, acidic flavor made my saliva glands kick into high gear. It was pure bliss in the best possible form—edible. So good, I struggled to keep from slipping off my chair and melting into a puddle on the floor.

  A loud scraping of metal chairs resounded as everyone around us took their seats. Penelope stood at the front of the room, looking more like she was about to walk a runway than lead a meeting. Her chic patterned dress was low cut and stopped well above he
r knee-high fur trimmed boots. I found the outfit unsettling; she was old enough to be my mother. But every time I saw her, she was dressed like a young starlet.

  She nodded and smiled at various people, gazing around the room with a regal expression. After a moment, she raised her hands to quiet the chatter. The conversations around us petered out, and Penelope’s chest swelled.

  “Thank you all for being here,” she began. “I’m thrilled that so many of you are willing to donate your time and talents to our wonderful festival.” She beamed around the room for a moment then launched into a glowing recitation of the history of Donn’s Hill’s Afterlife Festival.

  Her lecture was complete with PowerPoint slides. I learned that the festival had been going on almost since the town was founded in the 1860s. It had started as an annual reunion for the Driscoll family, all of whom were reported to have psychic abilities, including being able to communicate with the dead. As the family’s reputation grew across the country, their reunions began to draw audiences, and the festival was born.

  Mark leaned toward me. “If you were wondering how Penelope got so high and mighty, her mother was a Driscoll,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. I was pleased to find out I wasn’t alone in my dislike of the woman.

  Penelope went on to describe the evolution of the festival into its current incarnation. While the annual event grew in attendance and branched out to include more “family friendly” events such as a petting zoo, carnival rides, and musical acts, the core features remained unchanged—psychic readings, tarot workshops, crystals and herbs for sale, and most popular of all, séances.

  I shifted in my seat. The information was interesting, and I wanted to hear it, but these chairs were awful. They seemed to have been designed by the Spanish Inquisition. The back support was angled so sharply that when I tried to lean back against it, it dug in between my vertebrae. I began to panic. How long was this speech going to last?

  Penelope finally finished the history lesson and got into the nuts and bolts of running the festival. She passed out lists of volunteer opportunities, with brief descriptions of the duties involved and the times the volunteers would be needed. I had to hand it to her; she was one organized lady.