Trifles and Folly

by Gail Z. Martin

  Kell shook his head. “No. Too much going on. We were just out there a couple of weeks ago, and the whole feel of the place had changed. Juiced up.”

  “How?” Teag asked, leaning across the table.

  Kell paused, as if searching for the right words. “Look, I know that most people think we’re loony for going through old buildings looking for ghosts. Then again, Charleston promises the tourists more ghosts per square foot than just about any city in the US, so if believing in ghosts make you crazy, my team and I have a lot of company.”

  “We don’t think you’re crazy,” I said, with what I hoped was an encouraging smile. “We just want to know what you’ve seen.”

  He gave me a look as if he doubted that, then let out a long breath and ran a hand back through his brown hair. “The first time we went was over a year ago. We walked around the outside, and then Ryan’s folks got us into some of the buildings. We got some low-level EMF readings, nothing spectacular. It was enough to want to go back.”

  He sipped his Coke again as he considered what to say next. “The second time was about six months ago. This time, the readings were a lot higher, and we didn’t just get spikes on the electro-magnetic frequency meter, we got recordings that sounded like garbled voices, and video of movement where there shouldn’t have been anyone around.”

  “So we let a few months go by, and went back a couple of weeks ago. Ryan told me his group had some freaky experiences over there, and we wanted to see if things had gotten more intense.” He let out a rueful chuckle. “Hey,” he said. “Ghost hunters rush in where others fear to tread.”

  “And you got more than you bargained for?” I leaned forward, watching him as he spoke. I’ve always been leery of ghost chasers, since some of them are just in it for the thrills. In our business—our real business of dealing with dangerous magical objects—amateurs can get in the way. But I had the feeling that Kell was on the level.

  Kell nodded. “The front of the property wasn’t too bad, but the closer we got to the back, the more the instruments lit up with readings. Then we got hit with stones, only no one was around. The air got freezing cold, and we started to see shapes in the shadows that were moving toward us. That was freaky enough. But all of a sudden, it just seemed like some kind of power rose up and it didn’t want us around.” He shivered. “I’ve never felt something like that before, and I hope I never feel it again.”

  “You were close to the back, near where the sinkhole opened up?” Teag asked.

  Kell nodded. “Our readings were off the charts, but we didn’t get any photos, nothing that would prove what we saw.” He shook his head. “All I’ve got to say is, I’m not in any hurry to go back there.”

  Jocko sent out our pizzas then, and for a while nobody talked as we chowed down. Jocko serves up real New York pizza from a family recipe. I swear it’s the best in town.

  “When Teag told me about your interest in the Palmetto View property, I took a look at some of the filings about it,” Anthony said when we were down to the last few bites. “That land has changed hands an unusual number of times over the years, always in unfortunate circumstances. Fire, bankruptcy, structural collapse—if I didn’t know better, I’d think the place was cursed or something.”

  I winced, but I don’t think Anthony saw it. Teag did, and he understood. The plaza was literally built atop a tragedy, and the restless dead might not have been able to actively haunt it throughout those years, but their presence would throw off the area’s energy, make it vulnerable to bad things. The sinkhole—or something—had magnified that. Somebody was likely to get hurt.

  “Thanks for looking into it,” I said to Anthony. Then I turned back to Kell. “Is there anything else about the plaza that seemed off?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

  Kell looked as if he were debating with himself over how much to say. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision. “I didn’t realize it until just now, but every time we went out there, the same member of our team put in the request. Danny Thompson.” He shook his head.

  “Danny’s an odd sort. Not very social. I’ve often wondered if our group is the only thing he belongs to. He’s kind of awkward,” Kell said, looking a little embarrassed. “I mean, we’re all geeks, but the rest of us navigate the outside world pretty well—jobs, family, significant others. I have the feeling that Danny doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “Why do you think he was so interested in the plaza?” I asked.

  Kell sighed. “I don’t know for sure. I asked, and he said something about having worked there, but I don’t think he was telling me the truth. He’s too young to have worked there. Ryan told me once that Danny tried to join his group and went out with them a couple of times, but all he was interested in was ghosts, so Ryan steered him over to us.”

  He drank the last of his Coke. “Danny’s interest is—different—from the rest of us. A little on the obsessive side. I got the impression from some of the things he said that he was really into the occult—magic, that kind of thing. He used to talk about doing rituals to call up the spirits. That made everyone a little nervous. We’re about scientifically documenting paranormal phenomena, not pretending to be wizards.”

  “Did Danny go with you the last time?” Teag asked.

  Kell shook his head. “No. He told one of the guys he had to work. But then we saw his car a block away. I’m sure it was his. So I don’t know what game he was playing. I’m not going to go looking for him. We’re a pretty laid-back group, but Danny weirded us out.”

  “Did you get any other impressions of the ghosts over by the plaza?” I asked.

  Kell fiddled with his napkin. “You’re not going to believe me, but the second time we went out, we all heard someone humming a song. We didn’t realize until we got back in the van that none of us had been doing the humming. But we all heard the same song. The Wearing of the Green. It’s an old Irish tune.”

  Teag and I locked gazes, and I knew we were both thinking of Emily and her doomed friends. “Did you know that the plaza was built on top of wreckage from the Hurricane of 1885?” I asked Kell. “Wreckage that probably included more than a few bodies?”

  Kell’s eyes widened. “No. I’d never heard that. But it would make a lot of sense why the area seems so unlucky.” He frowned. “Is there a reason the ghosts would have gotten more active? Like an anniversary of the storm?”

  “No idea,” I replied. “But it would be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it?” Again, Teag and I looked at each other. Kell might think our interest was mere curiosity, but I had the feeling something had stirred up a supernatural hornet’s nest, which made it our business to take care of.

  Anthony had to go back to the office to finish up work on a legal case, so after we said good-night to Kell, Teag and I decided to swing by Danny Thompson’s apartment and see what we could find. Teag got us the address, and we drove down a side street in a low-rent part of town. Danny lived in a walk-up flat in a run-down old home that had been converted to apartments. We rang the bell, but no one answered.

  Sorren had taught us a few tricks about picking locks. Teag had the front door open in a few seconds, and we stood in the depressing entranceway. The paint was faded and stained. The floor sagged, and one dim bulb illuminated the corridor. Teag glanced at the mailboxes and nodded. Room 21 was at the top of the stairs.

  I tried to come up with a good excuse in case someone demanded to know why we were there as we made our way up the creaking steps toward the upstairs hallway. No one seemed to notice or care. I smelled pizza and beer and pot in the air as I climbed the steps. Maybe that accounted for Thompson’s neighbors’ lack of interest. Or maybe they just didn’t get involved.

  We rapped at his door, and waited. No one came, and nothing stirred. Teag knocked again, a little louder this time, but when there was no answer again, he pulled on one of the linen gloves we use in the shop to handle old paper, worked the lock and let the door swing open.

  “Not much of a housekeeper,
is he?” Teag muttered as we stepped into a filthy apartment. From the smell, no one had taken the garbage out in quite a while, and without air conditioning, it smelled like a dumpster in the sun. Clothes were strewn across furniture and floors. Dirty dishes wallowed in fetid dishwater in the sink. We moved through the small apartment carefully, trying not to touch anything.

  “There,” I said, pointing. Teag followed my gesture. Next to Thompson’s unmade bed was a stack of books on magic and spiritualism. He had enough candles and cheesy pseudo-magical paraphernalia to have kept an online spellcraft store in business for a year. I knew from experience most of the items were fake.

  “Looks like Kell was right about Danny’s interest in magic,” Teag said.

  I turned to look around the rest of the room. No family pictures, nothing that suggested Thompson had much of a life beyond his work. Even without touching his possessions, the room filled me with a deep, penetrating despair, a hopelessness that verged on madness. And beneath the gloom, I sensed a desire for vengeance.

  “Look,” I said in a whisper as I turned back toward the door. Thumbtacked to the wall were grainy pictures of at least twenty people who looked like they had been photographed by a paparazzi. A large, black ‘X’ had been drawn through each person’s image. It wasn’t hard to get the point. Danny had a hit list. And the longer we stayed in his apartment, the more of the vibe I picked up.

  “He’s angry, and he’s unstable,” I said. “He’s looking for a way to get back at people who’ve hurt him.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Teag said.

  “Wait.” I wanted to get a better idea of who Danny Thompson was. Not the fake magic items, but the man who wanted vengeance so bad he could taste it. Just the contact I had with the floor, stepping around Danny’s clothing, gave me a filtered reading. I saw a selfie Danny had snapped and printed out. He was a gawky, stoop-shouldered young man in his early twenties wearing a t-shirt and Levis. The graphic on the t-shirt was a hand with the middle finger up. Danny had a cocky grin, and he looked like a loser who thought he was on a lucky streak. That worried me.

  Then I saw a cheap plastic obelisk with a stick-on metallic disk that said ‘Best effort’. It was the kind of trophy someone won if the organizers were determined to give something to everyone, no matter how pathetic the level of participation. “Grab the obelisk,” I said, unwilling to touch it myself until we could get somewhere safe. Teag grabbed it and stuck it into the front pouch of his hoodie.

  We pulled the door shut after us and made our way down the stairs without being accosted. I didn’t know whether to be grateful that we didn’t get caught, or appalled at the lack of security. I settled for grateful. Since neither of us had anything better to do, I invited Teag back to my place to see if we could figure out what was going on. On our way, I got a text on my cell phone from Sorren.

  “He says he has information for us, and that he’ll be over in a little while. Oh, and he’s bringing friends.” Sorren’s messages and emails were usually cryptic for security reasons, so I wasn’t surprised that he left me wondering.

  “Friends?”

  I shrugged. “With Sorren? Who knows? Could be a Voudon mambo or a Hoodoo high priest—or something else entirely. I’m past the point of guessing,” I said. We picked up my Mini Cooper at the store and Teag followed me back to my place.

  I live in a Charleston single house, which has the narrow end of the home facing the street and the wide part of the house facing a fenced-in private garden. In fact, the ‘front door’ to the street doesn’t lead into the main house; it leads onto a porch—what Charlestonians call a ‘piazza’. The autumn air was pleasant, and I could smell wood smoke from a neighbor’s fire pit wafting on the cool breeze. A huge moon hung in the sky. It was definitely Halloween season.

  Baxter, my little Maltese dog, barked and yipped as I unlocked the door. He ran in circles around our feet, then danced on his hind legs to greet us, refusing to settle down until he had been duly fussed over by both Teag and me. Teag had brought the pieces of the sewing machine with him, and he headed toward the dining room while I made sure Baxter got his dinner and put the leftover pizza in the fridge.

  “Let’s see what I can get from Danny Thompson’s sorta-trophy,” I said. Teag took out the hard plastic obelisk and set it on my dining room table. I noticed that it was from a couple of years ago. Taking a deep breath, I got myself settled and then reached out to touch the award.

  This time, I saw the scene as an observer, not through Danny’s eyes. A roomful of people in restaurant uniforms were seated in front of a stage as a sales manager gave his rah-rah pitch and started handing out prizes. Members of the audience came up to the stage to accept awards for customer service, attendance, speed, and accuracy. More and more of the audience stepped up to take their awards, and pretty soon it looked as if everyone except Danny would go home with a trophy.

  “Danny Thompson.” The sales manager’s voice faltered, just slightly, and he seemed to struggle to keep a straight face. The audience murmured as Danny lumbered to the stage. “Best effort,” the sales manager said, barely keeping the laughter out of his voice. The audience tittered, but no one laughed out loud. They didn’t have to. Danny slumped back to his seat clutching the award, sinking as deeply as he could, looking as if he wished he could disappear. But the scowl on his face said something more. In that moment, if he had the means, Danny Thompson wished he could make all of his coworkers pay for his humiliation.

  “Snap out of it, Cassidy!” Teag was patting my hand, pressing a cool cloth against my cheek. I came back to myself groggily, and it took a whole glass of sweet tea before I could relate what I had seen.

  “So Danny’s a guy on the verge of snapping,” Teag summarized.

  I nodded. “Big time. I think that’s what he wants the magic for.”

  “Then we’ve got real problems,” Teag said. “Mind if I borrow your computer?” Teag asked. “I want to see what else I can find out about Danny Thompson.”

  “Be my guest. I agree—I think he could be the link in all this,” I replied, and Teag disappeared into my small office.

  A knock at the door brought me back to the entranceway, where Sorren and two other people stood on my piazza. “Sorry for the short notice,” Sorren said. He’s tall and slender, with blond hair and light gray eyes the color of the sea before a storm. He was turned back in the 1400s, but he’ll look like he’s in his twenties forever. Tonight, he had a dark hoodie over a black t-shirt and jeans. His hair was cut in a trendy style, playing up his European features. Before he was turned, Sorren was the best jewel thief in Antwerp. Now, he works through intermediaries to acquire and neutralize weapons of magical destruction.

  “Hi Sorren, Caliel,” I said, with a nod to the other man. Caliel was just a little shorter than Sorren, with short-cropped dark hair, skin the color of night and a broad, gleaming smile. He was dressed in white linen, with several colored strings tied at his left wrist, and a couple of veve charms on leather straps around his neck. Caliel was a Voudon hougan, and the descendant of a very powerful mambo. We had worked together before.

  “Greetings to you!” Caliel said with a broad smile, his accent thick with a Caribbean lilt. “It’s good to see you, but even better if it could be under different circumstances.”

  Baxter heard the newcomers at the door and came running full-speed, barking his fool head off. Sorren bent down and met his gaze, and Baxter dropped to a seat and went silent, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, looking at Sorren with a goofy glazed expression.

  “If you’re going to keep glamoring my dog, I wish you’d teach me how to do it,” I said in mock exasperation. Sorren could use his vampire mojo to become Baxter’s best friend and bring the yipping to a halt. It was a handy trick.

  “Cassidy, I’d like you to meet Alicia Peters,” Sorren said, introducing the third member of their party, a woman I did not recognize. Alicia looked to be in her late thirties, plump and unassuming but dressed in a
pulled-together casual style that said she was comfortable with herself. She had a pleasant face and light blue eyes, with black hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. I met her gaze, and felt a frisson of magic. I wasn’t sure what Alicia’s gift was, but I knew that she had power.

  “Very pleased to meet you,” Alicia said in a quiet voice with a strong Lowcountry accent.

  “Come on in and sit down,” I said, standing aside. After I had put out some chips and offered everyone something to drink, I sat down in an armchair in the living room with the others.

  “You got my message?”

  Sorren nodded. “And I may know what’s behind the problem, although I sincerely pray that I’m wrong.” I could hear a hint of a Dutch accent in Sorren’s voice, something that only comes out under stress. That worried me.

  “Did you bring the pieces of the machine with you?” he asked. I gestured toward the dining room table.

  “Alicia is a very powerful medium,” Sorren said. “My hope is that she can connect to the former owner of that machine in the spirit world and provide information on why the spirits have grown restless.”

  “You’ve been involved with Trifles and Folly since the 1670s,” I said. “So you were around for the Hurricane of 1885. I think it has something to do with the problem at Palmetto View.”

  “I’m almost certain of it,” Sorren said. Most people couldn’t meet a vampire’s gaze without being glamored like Baxter, but maybe it was my gift, or perhaps the long family affiliation, but it didn’t affect me. I looked him in the eyes, and saw concern. And when a six hundred year-old vampire is worried, it’s time for mortals to be very afraid.

  “Is Teag here?” Sorren asked.

  “He’s in my office, using the computer, following up on a lead,” I replied.

  “Then let’s start without him,” Sorren said. We moved over to the dining room table, and seated ourselves close to the broken sewing machine.

  Alicia settled herself into her chair and took a few deep breaths. Then she pulled the sewing machine pieces toward her, laid her hands on them, and closed her eyes. For a few moments, nothing happened, and we all stared at Alicia. Gradually, I noticed how rapidly Alicia’s eyes were moving beneath her closed eyelids, and realized that her breathing had grown shallower. A subtle change came over Alicia’s features, making her look less like herself somehow.