by Ann Aguirre
Yes, there it is.
As he’d said, I glimpsed our destination, nestled amid a thicket of thorns, across the dark arch of the bridge. I didn’t protest. His tone made it clear it would be a waste of breath. So I tipped him and slid out of the vehicle. My belly roiled, an echo of the upset from the train. The house did have a haunted, run-down air, justifying the stories that circulated about the place. Before we’d moved off more than two steps, the driver was already maneuvering the car in a slow five-point turn, being careful not to back into the ditch. I could pretend that was why he hadn’t wanted to come further—he didn’t want to get stuck—but that wasn’t the reason.
Shannon’s face was pale in the half-light, still unpainted from our hurried departure, and her cosmetic-free countenance offered stark contrast to the punky streaks in her black hair. “Shall we?” I asked her.
She squared her shoulders. “This idea seems worse all the time. But yeah, obviously. When have I ever let portents of doom discourage me?”
That time, my smile was real. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“Hey, you went to hell and back for me. The least I can do is check out a little ghost cottage.” In her tone, I heard awareness of what that rescue had cost me.
I didn’t want her to feel guilty, but a dark, uber-creepy road at night wasn’t the place for a heart-to-heart.
My head whirled with potential explanations. Maybe Booke was squatting here. But no. He’d told me once that he was stuck in Stoke; he couldn’t leave to help me even if he wanted to. Well, whatever the solution to this riddle, it lay inside the ivy-wreathed walls of the ghost cottage.
As we had been traveling a while, I set Butch down to do his business. “You can walk if you stay close.”
He responded with an affirmative yap. Since he held the title of world’s smartest Chihuahua, it was unlikely that he would go exploring in a place like this with night rolling in. I noted that Shan still hadn’t relinquished my hand, not that I blamed her. This place was spectacularly spooky. There were no normal night noises. No traffic. No signs of human habitation. Though it might be the time of year, I didn’t even hear birds or insects. It was like stepping into a dead realm, where you were cut off from all other life.
“This reminds me of Kilmer,” Shannon whispered.
Earlier in the week, I’d failed to access my mother’s magick, which meant I wasn’t a witch anymore, so it was no surprise when I couldn’t assess the place with my witch sight. That was the price ambitious witches paid; their power wasn’t compatible with the greedier pull of demon magick. I might be able to summon and bargain with demons, a power I didn’t want. I’d had enough of the creatures in Sheol, where I had learned they weren’t all good or evil, just like human beings. The realization weighed on me, but it didn’t make me want to get to know them better on the chance they were as honorable as Greydusk, the demon who helped me in the nether realm.
I sniffed the air. “I don’t detect the same hint of brimstone and decay, though.”
“I don’t think it’s demonic. It’s just . . . not right.” I could tell by her frustrated expression, that wasn’t what she wanted to say.
But I couldn’t pinpoint the precise word to describe what I was feeling either. It was a creeping sort of dread, like it could suck the life out of you, given sufficient time. If I let myself be dramatic, I’d call this limbo, a place where unmoored souls drifted in mournful silence. I didn’t articulate the idea out loud; there was no point. If the dead surrounded us, they’d make themselves known soon enough. Hell, they might announce themselves on Shan’s radio.
The mist deepened as I crept over the weed-choked stones. My shoes made little sound, just a rasp and scrape when I went from the rutted road to the bridge. I felt none too sure it would bear weight. I could imagine the masonry giving way, tumbling us down into the murky water below. Shan’s hand tightened on mine.
Somehow, we made it across the stonework onto the other side, where it felt colder. We shared a glance. Then Shan and I crossed the remaining distance to the front door. The ghost cottage radiated menace, as if the empty windowpanes were malevolent eyes; there were no lights inside. Cobwebs hung from the eaves, drifting in the chill breeze like the tattered pennants of a long-ago war. Here and there, bits of the outer wall had crumbled away, littering the yard like broken gravestones.
“I’ll lay odds if I turned on my radio, it would light up like the Fourth of July.”
I swallowed hard, unnerved by the prospect. Oh, I accepted the idea that the dead were all around us—and Shan could talk to them using said radio—but I had seldom sensed their presence so strongly. Her grip tightened on my hand as Butch nudged up against my shins, demanding to be picked up. Great, the atmosphere was affecting my dog too.
At least that means you’re not imagining it.
Obligingly, I scooped him up and tucked him into my purse, his safe space. He hid his head, like the bad stuff was about to commence right now. Shan spun in a slow circle, tracking the horizon, but there was only silence, and the thorn thicket, and then the darkness over distant fields dotted with quiet trees. The wind blew through the greenery surrounding us, and it whispered with a host of voices. Soft, sibilant, I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone raised the hair on the nape of my neck.
She stared at me, eyes wide. “Tell me you heard that. I’m too young to go batshit. I bet the asylums in the U.K. aren’t as posh as they could be.”
“I did,” I muttered. “And we’re not standing around to see what else happens. Time to get this party started.”
Six Impossible Things
I tried the doorknob and found it unlocked, as promised. It seemed hard to imagine that Booke actually lived here. The place was a ruin. Though the driver hadn’t said when the owner went back to Ireland, I could tell by the air of neglect that it had been years.
“He said it’s not as bad as it looks, inside.”
“It couldn’t be,” Shan muttered, “or we’d fall through the floor.”
Without further debate, I turned the handle, then nudged the door open. Old, unoiled hinges squeaked loud enough to announce our arrival. Peering through the door, I made out scuffed floors and rough walls, some with holes large enough for something scary to have crawled inside.
“This just gets better.” Shan stayed close as I eased over the threshold.
The moment we stepped in, heat sparked over my skin, like passing through a dense, hot fog. The temperature spike blanked my vision for a few seconds, and in that time I heard Butch howling, but I couldn’t see what was distressing him. Shannon held my hand tightly while we waited for the inexplicable blindness to pass. Eventually, the dog fell quiet, but I couldn’t be sure if that was good or bad. Finding him in my purse, I stroked his head to make sure he was all right; he stilled after a few seconds.
When my head cleared, the house was . . . different; it looked dated but cozy enough, full of esoteric tomes and a jumble of arcane implements, more or less, I realized, like the cottage Booke had showed me in one of our shared dreams. A calendar on the far wall showed December 1947. In a way, it was like time had stood still here, capturing a moment.
As the thought occurred to me, movement sounded down the hall. I tensed, taking half a step in front of Shannon. The gentleman who came into sight didn’t look dangerous, however. He was tall and thin with a shock of rumpled silver hair; his face was lean, pale from years of eschewing the sun, and he had gray eyes full of boundless sorrow. Artistic fingers showed their age in a slight thickening of the knuckles and a light dusting of liver spots. As I took stock of him, he extended a hand toward me for a polite greeting. On automatic, I accepted the gesture. Afterward I realized I knew this man. I’d seen his face in lucid dreams, but with thirty years pared away. He had shown me an echo of his youth—clever rather than handsome, but relatively unlined.
“Booke,” I said softly. It wasn’t a question.
“What happened? This better not be Sheol.” S
han knew as well as I that one didn’t pass into the demon realm without sacrificing a soul, so we couldn’t be there.
On the other hand, I did suspect we weren’t in England any longer.
At least, not exactly.
“I wasn’t certain I could get the spell to let you in. It’s been successful at keeping others out—and me in—for quite some while.” His weariness was apparent, and I smelled the magick on him, crackling ozone that raised the hair on my arms.
“You look tired,” I said.
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he gestured toward a grouping of chairs. “Won’t you both have a seat? I expect you have a number of concerns.”
“To say the least,” Shannon murmured. But she chose an armchair before the fire, which crackled merrily.
I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to begin. First, how did he get modern technology, when he was trapped inside some kind of spell? And how did he use it to contact the outside world? But those issues were more my own curiosity, so I put them aside for the moment. Oh, I’d get satisfaction at some point, but his problems took precedence.
“I’m happy to let you explain why you need us,” I said then.
“I feel as though I owe you a story first. Can I offer a bit of something to take the edge off? Tea and sandwiches, perhaps?”
From Shan’s expression, she was relieved that he ate. I didn’t blame her for wondering if we’d stumbled into a ghost story, but things seemed very real here. I nodded, setting Butch on the floor to explore. The dog trotted over to Booke, sniffed him cursorily, and then licked his hand. To my surprise, tears sparkled in his gray eyes as he picked my pet up and stroked his head gently. I could only imagine how lonely he’d been.
“Why don’t you just hold Butch for a minute?” He looked exhausted, trembling with it, and Booke didn’t demur when I added, “If you don’t mind my rummaging in your kitchen, I can fix the food.”
“By all means,” he said quietly.
I supposed it was time to learn all his secrets. When I moved through the cottage, I found the layout of the rooms to be exactly as he’d shown me in our shared dream, even down to the furnishings. It was a little eerie passing through places I’d only seen before in my mind’s eye. Shannon followed me, ostensibly to help, but I think she wanted to stay close to me too. If I passed through another trigger spell, she didn’t want to wind up stuck here alone. Not that I blamed her. After Sheol, I was lucky she was still talking to me. Not only had it been my fault that she was kidnapped, but I’d gone mental due to the latent presence of a demon queen. Now I had a hole in my soul where evil used to be. On top of the pain from losing Chance, I didn’t feel like myself anymore. Even the dream of returning to Mexico and launching my new pawnshop tasted like ashes on my tongue.
In silence, Shannon and I put together a light meal. The mystery remained, but at least we weren’t stranded in an abandoned cottage full of ghosts, rats, and spiders. Frankly, the latter worried me more than the former, as Shannon could command spirits, but rodents and arachnids did as they pleased. When we came back into the sitting room, Booke had his head tilted back, eyes closed, and Butch had settled into the crook of his arm. I let him rest while I prepared my tea with milk and sugar. Shannon and I ate in silence, and as we finished, he straightened in his chair.
“Thank you for that respite. You’d think after so long I would be eager to see people, but it is . . . more difficult than I expected.”
“What is?” I prompted gently.
“Making my deathbed confession.”
“You don’t mean that literally?” Shan asked.
“I’m afraid I do. And it is awful trying to find the words to explain how I came to this pass . . . and what I need from you now.”
If he suggested euthanasia, I was out of here. But I owed it to him to hear him out. So I said, “Don’t worry about framing it. Just tell us.”
“Very well. Long ago, longer than you can credit, I was a vain and foolish young man. I thought I could have anything I wanted . . . without consequence. My father was powerful, steeped in hermetic tradition.”
I nodded. “You mentioned the last part.”
“Did I? He encouraged me in this narcissism, until I became quite intolerable.” He paused, not so I would dispute his claim, but to reflect on some long-ago memory. For a few beats he stared into the fire, and then gathered himself visibly to continue the story. “Eventually, I came across a woman I wanted . . . who would have nothing to do with me.”
Shan eyed him worriedly. “Tell me you didn’t . . . ?”
“No, but that would have been cleaner. I wooed her with expensive presents and minor charms that lowered her resistance. Eventually, I had her.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“1939.”
Eight years before he vanished from the real world. I made a mental note, wondering if it had been shocking for a woman to take a lover during that era. “I don’t see the problem.”
“She was married to my father’s greatest rival.”
Okay, now I see the conflict.
Shan leaned forward, interested by the story. “How long did this go on?”
“Seven years. At first she was a conquest, but to my dismay, I fell in love with her. I tried to get her to leave her husband. I promised her all sorts of things . . . and I considered using magick to suborn her will.”
“Did you?” I asked through a tight throat.
That was one of the darkest sins a practitioner could commit, almost worse than trafficking with demons. If you used your gifts to enslave someone else . . . I shivered at the thought. If Booke had done that, I wasn’t sure I could help him, no matter how much assistance he’d rendered over the years.
He shook his head tiredly. “No. I couldn’t. It became an obsession with me—that I should win her heart fully or not at all.”
“What did she decide?” Shan wanted to know.
“To break with me and stay with her husband. She was with child, you see. And she thought it would be less scandal for a child than a divorce. At the time . . .” His voice trailed off, a helpless, wounded expression on his thin, pale face.
“The baby was yours?” I guessed.
“I suspect so, though in those days there was little way to be sure. The right spell might have told me, I suppose, but she wouldn’t consent to it. The child was her husband’s, she claimed, in the eyes of the law, and she couldn’t see me anymore.”
“I bet you didn’t take that well,” Shannon said.
A half smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “Rather the contrary. But I left her alone, as she asked, while I wallowed in wretchedness.”
“That doesn’t explain how you ended up stuck here.”
“It doesn’t. Ironically, after the child was born, she felt honor-bound to confess all to her husband. He forgave her . . . but he did not forgo vengeance.”
Aha. Now everything makes sense.
“So you’re stuck here because your former lover cleared her conscience at your expense,” Shannon summarized.
“Not as I would have put it, perhaps, but yes.”
“What are the specifics of the curse?” I turned my thoughts to practical matters, as I imagined he wanted help in destroying the spell. At this point, I wasn’t sure why that would bring about his death, but I needed information.
“Yeah, what is this place?” Shan added.
“It is the country cottage my father purchased just before the war, where I retreated to lick my wounds after Marlena refused me. It’s also where Donal Macleish confronted me for my sins against him. We . . . fought. I had some mad idea of making her a widow, claiming the child as my own.”
“You lost.” From the state of the house, that much was obvious.
“Yes. The result was the isolation you behold. He set the spell so I could never interfere in another marriage, never touch another woman.”
“But how?” Shannon demanded.
“This place is . . . between,�
� Booke explained. “Slightly out of step with the real world. Impossible for me to leave, impossible for anyone else to get in.”
“In time or space?” I asked, trying to understand the challenge we faced.
“Both,” he answered, “so far as I can tell. The spell does not respond well to any attempt to meddle with it. Or at least, it didn’t for many years. In the past six months, however, I’ve noticed a decay in its potency.”
I nodded. “No spell can remain intact forever.”
“Not unless it’s tied to a permanent power source.” Booke gestured. “But there are no ley lines here, no pocket of crystals in the earth. Macleish was a powerful practitioner, but he has been dead and buried these many years. His casting wanes.”
Shannon frowned. “But that’s good, right? I mean, you’ll get out soon.”
His expression twisted with melancholy. “Dear Shannon, I was thirty-six when Macleish confined me here. Do the math, my girl.”
I could tell Shan was crunching numbers by the way she looked upward and to the left, chewing on her lower lip. The truth dawned on her around the same time I worked it out. He looked sixty or sixty-five, tops. But he’d been trapped in this cottage, counting the solitary years until it was a wonder he hadn’t gone mad.
“You’re one hundred and two,” she breathed. “How is that possible?”
Booke explained, “Time passes at a one for two ratio here. I suspect that’s part of the curse, ensuring I live long enough to despise my own company.”
I considered. “So one day here is two out there?”
“Did Macleish send you to fairyland or something? This is like what happened to that Thomas the Rhymer guy.”
He mustered a smile for Shan’s wit. “It wouldn’t surprise me if a similar spell inspired the original tale.”
“So the curse is crumbling, which means you’ll die when you rejoin the normal time stream. All the years will catch up to you at once.” I thought I understood what he wanted of us now.
