K.J. Emrick - Darcy Sweet 13 - Ghost Story

by K. J. Emrick

  “I love you,” she told him.

  “I love you, too. Now. Let’s go send this ghost back to the eighteenth century.”

  Time was not their friend. Darcy had to remember that. “Okay. Wait for me here, will you? I need to get some things from the back. Watch the street and tell me if anything, uh, weird happens.”

  She could barely see his expression in the light from the waning moon, but if sarcasm had an expression, she knew this was what it looked like. “Right. Anything weird. Like a ghost causing a blackout or making an entire police force scared of their own shadows.”

  “Exactly. You know me so well.” She kissed his cheek, then went to her office behind the checkout counter. She had to do it mainly by feel, until she got into the office itself and got the flashlight out of the top drawer of the desk. Switching it on, she sighed in relief that it worked. It lit up the entire space, pushing the darkness away. She had been worried that whatever influence Nathaniel Williams was exerting over the town’s power would extend to things like flashlights, too. It didn’t, apparently, and she could breathe easier knowing that at least something had gone right tonight.

  “Millie?” she said quietly. “Are you here?”

  Sweeping the flashlight beam around she caught a glimpse of a shadow in the corner wearing a long black dress, smiling an encouraging smile. When she swept the light back quickly the old woman was gone again. Just an impression of her spirit, enough to tell Darcy that yes, she was here to help.

  “Good,” Darcy said. “I understand what you meant by how things would get worse. They’re a lot worse. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. I’m going to try an exorcism, but I could use you there with me.”

  There was no answer, and Darcy didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “All right, then. Let’s get what I’ll need.”

  From one of the filing cabinet drawers she took out a square box of salt. Sometimes she and Izzy had to have their lunches here, when the workday was busy. She had pepper and a small bottle of soy sauce and a few little plastic packages of ketchup and, yes, salt.

  Then from her bottom desk drawer she took out a small cardboard box, a duplicate of one she had put together to keep at home. No girl with abilities like hers could afford to be without one.

  Her Emergency Communication Kit.

  Calling a ghost to you and pushing one away from the mortal world might be two entirely different techniques, but they both involved a lot of the same gear. In this little box there were four tall white candles, matches because she’d learned the hard way you can’t light a candle just by wishing for it, chalk, and plastic snack-sized baggies of sage, basil, garlic, and a few other household spices.

  It didn’t seem like much, but she was ready.

  The book falling from the shelf up on the wall and landing with a thump startled her. The beam of her flashlight bounced in her hand and she very nearly dropped her container of salt.

  “Millie!” she whispered. “Don’t do that!”

  It was Millie’s own slim journal, and for it to have landed flat on its spine like that was impossible. The book didn’t just fall open to a particular page. It fell, bounced open, and then flipped through several pages before settling on the one her aunt wanted her to see.

  Darcy didn’t get freaked out by these things anymore. In fact, she welcomed her aunt’s advice in whatever form she could give it. Now, she looked down on a handwritten genealogy of the main families of Misty Hollow. The Graces, the LaCroix family, the Underwoods, and others. There were four full pages of these names. Darcy had read through them briefly on several occasions. She really couldn’t care less who was related to who, but it was interesting to know family lines could be traced back that far. Like those parts of the Old Testament with all the begats that no one really paid much attention to.

  This page had three of the major families on it. There were the Graces, the ones who Darcy and Millie were descended from. There was the Underwood’s, a broken line that had yet to be filled in because so many of them had left Misty Hollow and never been heard from again.

  The third family was a direct line from Roderick Chauncy. The leader of the original group of settlers who Nathaniel Williams had cursed for stealing the land out from under him. And then hanging him, of course. Darcy didn’t know if that was how it had really happened or not but that was how Williams had seen it. That was why his spirit held so much hatred and why it was still tied here in Misty Hollow today.

  Darcy followed the Roderick Chauncy line, seeing the names change over the decades as marriages brought in new bloodlines, down through the years to the present day where one final name was listed in the ancestral progression.

  Helen Nelson. The mayor of the town.

  Of course. All the pieces were in place again. A direct descendant of the original group leader was now mayor of the town. Darcy was a descendant of the lawman who had hung Nathaniel Williams and she spent a lot of her time solving mysteries and putting bad people in jail, plus she was engaged to an actual police officer and her sister was one, too. Add into that the fact that land in Misty Hollow was now being sold off to various companies to bring new commerce into the town, and you had history repeating itself.

  It was all happening again. The spirit of Nathaniel Williams had been stirring for a while now. Darcy was sure of it. All the bad things in town that had happened…she should have seen it. Even Chief Daleson commented on it. Things had gotten worse and worse here in Misty Hollow. Murder, kidnapping, and more. People doing bad things. Human beings at their worst.

  Maybe the reason wasn’t purely human, after all.

  “Thanks, Millie,” she whispered, before closing the journal and going back out to Jon. She knew who the real murderer was. She knew the reason the ghost had come out to cause havoc. She knew the method, and the way.

  She was armed for the exorcism with both the proper tools and the proper knowledge.

  It was time.

  ***

  The Town Hall looked all the more eerie for being the only place in town still awash in lights. Jon followed her step for step, so close that his body brushed up against hers. Up the steps they went to the heavy double doors at the entrance. Darcy put her free hand on the left handle, and Jon took hold of the right. Her other hand held her box tucked carefully to her side. They looked at each other, serious expressions mirrored in each other’s eyes.

  “Ready?” Darcy asked him.

  “Is no a choice?”

  “Not really.” She tried to smile at his feeble joke but it wouldn’t hold. Taking a deep breath she firmed up her grip and counted, “One, two, three.”

  They pushed on the doors together.

  They wouldn’t open. They were locked after hours.

  “Seriously?” Jon asked out loud.

  “Maybe the back door?” Darcy offered.

  “I’m not going to search all around this place for an opening that someone forgot to lock. There’s no time for that.”

  “You have a better suggestion?”

  Jumping back down the front steps two at a time Jon went to the front lawn, scouting around in the grass by the light of the flood lamps. When he found what he was after he bent down and scooped it up one handed.

  As he got closer, Darcy could see what it was. A rock.

  “You’re going to break a window?” Darcy asked him.

  “Well, we need to get in, don’t we?”

  “I know, but…you’re a cop. A straight-laced cop.” This time, she did smile. “I just never thought I’d see you breaking the law like this. It’s kind of attractive.”

  He bounced the rock on the palm of his hand a few times. “I never knew you went in for the bad boy type.”

  “I fell in love with you, didn’t I?”

  Jon winked at her, cocked back his hand with the rock in it and aimed for the nearest window.

  The doors unlocked with a loud, metal snick and swung inward.

  Jon managed to hold ont
o the rock but couldn’t stop his forward momentum. He ended up doing a windmill, barely keeping his balance, before steadying himself on his feet. Clearing his throat, he looked ruefully at the rock and then let it drop. “Well. Guess my bad boy moment will have to wait.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him, lifting herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I still think you’re cute. Now. Let’s go exorcise a ghost.”

  Even though the outside of the building was all lit up, the lights inside were at a muted low burn, like a brownout. They made their way forward slowly, ready for something or someone to pop out at them. Nothing happened. They made their way without any problem past the assessor’s office and a janitor’s closet, and other rooms besides.

  “Where are we going?” Jon whispered. He had his hands held up like he was ready for a fight. “Do you have a location in mind where you want to do this?”

  “I was thinking of Helen’s office,” Darcy answered in the same hushed tones. “I know I’ve felt Nathaniel Williams in there. His presence, I mean. And I’m sure that Helen has been speaking to him in there. It seems like the place to start.”

  “Darcy?”

  “Yes, Jon?”

  “Why are we whispering?”

  She blinked, and realized how foolish they were being. The ghost would hear them whether they whispered or not. She was glad that the lights were humming low so that Jon wouldn’t see her face turn red. “It seemed like the thing to do, I guess.”

  At the end of the hall was a T intersection. The hallway went left and right but in front of them was the door to Helen’s big office. “Mayor” was spelled out in black lettering on the frosted glass. There was no way of seeing what—or who—was inside. They listened, but heard only silence.

  “Think this one will be locked?” Jon asked her.

  “Probably. Did you bring your rock?”

  Jon’s phone rang in his pocket, loud in the silence, and Darcy had never seen him jump that high before.

  Trying to laugh, cough and breathe all at the same time, Jon took the cellphone out of his jeans and finally got the answer button pressed. “So much for being stealthy,” he muttered.

  “So much for your bad boy image, too,” she teased.

  He stuck his tongue out at her before putting the phone to his ear. “Hello, Grace. Now isn’t really a good time…”

  Grace’s voice was a muffled shout on the other end of the line. Jon’s face fell flat and he began pacing back and forth. “Yes, that’s a safe bet. We’ll watch for her. How’s Andrew? All right. Call an ambulance for him. We’ll keep you posted on our end. Right.”

  Darcy was on edge by the time he hung up and put the phone away. Well. More on edge than she had been. “Jon, what’s going on? What happened to Andrew?”

  He dropped his voice to a whisper again. “Helen clubbed him on the back of the head with that tall glass vase we had in the living room. Then she ran out of the house.”

  “Oh, no! You can’t be serious? How is he?”

  “Grace says he’ll be fine. She couldn’t say the same about the vase.”

  Darcy could not imagine Helen doing something like that. Was it because of the phone call Jon had made, telling her that the police suspected her of the murder? Why would she run? She should have stayed there at Darcy’s house. That’s where she was safe.

  “We need to do this quickly,” Jon told her, in a voice so low that she could barely hear it. “Are you ready?”

  “I guess. Why are we whispering again?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure I know where Helen went,” he said, reaching for the office door.

  It dawned on her what he meant. Of course. Once she understood, she kept her voice down as well. “You think she’s here.”

  “I do. In fact I’m certain of it. Just be ready for anything.”

  “You mean, like a homicidal ghost drawing us into a trap?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “Yes. Exactly like that. Here we go.”

  He turned the knob on the door. It squeaked once but it wasn’t locked. Silently counting to three, bobbing his head for each number, he threw the door open and they both rushed inside.

  Helen’s largish desk sat silently brooding under its thin plexiglass top. The desktop computer that took up one whole side of it was turned off. Book cases lined most of the walls, except where the three foot square painting of the beach hung, and where filing cabinets stood like short and squat sentinels watching them storm the empty room.

  No one was here.

  “Okay,” Jon said, “I guess that’s a little bit of luck for us. You want to set up while I keep watch?”

  He was so handsome in the low light, her brave protector, offering to defend her when he didn’t have his gun or even so much as a wooden stake. No natural ability to see or communicate with ghosts, either. That didn’t matter to him. He would stand by her to his dying breath. She loved this man. She always would.

  Putting her box on the desk Darcy opened it and began to take things out. “You know, we could elope. I guess. If you want to.”

  “What?” he asked, standing in the doorway and trying to look both ways down the hall at the same time. “You’re serious?”

  She nodded, biting her lower lip. She had always wanted the big, beautiful wedding that every little girl dreams of as a child. The thing was, she’d already had that with her first husband, Jeff. That hadn’t ended well, for either of them. Now she was grown up enough to realize she didn’t need the big ceremony with all of the trappings and fanfare. All she needed was Jon in her life.

  “Darcy…” he began, then stopped. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes?” she suggested.

  “Hey, wait. I already proposed to you.”

  “You call that a proposal?”

  She smiled as she said it, but she knew she was only talking to distract herself from what she was about to do. This was crazy scary and talking to Jon made it easier. He was more than just a hand to hold or a warm body to snuggle up to at night. He was good for her soul.

  They were good together.

  If it would make him happy, and make her happy, then she would get married in a paper sack.

  “You want me to propose again?” he asked.

  “A girl can never get too much of that sort of thing.” She checked the candles over to make sure they weren’t cracked and that their wicks were free of the wax. Good. Once she made the circle, they could begin.

  “You want me down on one knee every night?” Jon asked, his grin lopsided in the near darkness.

  “Maybe I do,” she said, sticking the matches into her pocket and gathering the candles up into both hands. She winked at him.

  “Well, maybe I—” His smile fell away and he looked off down the hallway. “Wait. What was that?”

  Darcy stood very still in the middle of the room, juggling candles and spice packets, straining her ears for any sound. “I don’t hear anything.”

  He sucked at the inside of his mouth for a moment, then nodded once. “I’ll go check it out. You stay here.”

  “Jon, no!” she protested. “You can’t leave me alone. Not here!”

  “I can’t let someone sneak up on us, either.”

  She knew who Jon meant by “someone.” If Helen was here, there was a good chance Nathaniel Williams had gotten to her again, somehow. They needed to know about it, sure, but Darcy did not want to be left alone in the creepy Town Hall with the creepy ghost who might just creep up on her at any moment.

  “Jon.” Darcy managed to put a world of argument into that one word.

  He came over to her, and hugged her carefully around the candles, and kissed her cheek. “Two minutes. I promise I won’t be any more than two minutes. If I see Helen, or anyone else, I’ll call for you. Okay? Stay in here, keep the door locked, and set up the communication ritual thing. I’ll be right back.”

  Before she could argue it any further, he was gone.

  Clenching her teeth, she took
just a moment to settle herself, twisting the antique silver ring around and around her right ring finger. She felt the intricately carved designs, the impression of the perfectly shaped rose against her fingertip. For years she had worn this ring, spun it around her finger just like this whenever she was nervous or scared, letting it bring her comfort and strength. She had never known what it really was. A perfect representation of the way of exorcism. The way to send an evil spirit from this plane of existence into the realm of the dead for good, and block them from coming back.

  Forever.

  With a deep breath she made herself turn away from the door and begin setting up for the ritual. The candles went into their little holders, made from metal screw-top jar lids. Each lid had a hole punched into the center just big enough for the candle to wedge through. Her other kit, back at her house, had fat candles but these long ones lasted longer and there was less chance of the wick getting swallowed up into the melting wax. The holders had been her own idea, and they worked great.

  Arranging the six candles into a circle on the floor in front of the desk, Darcy used the bags of basil and sage, and the box of salt, and very carefully laid out intertwining lines of each spice. There was just enough of the salt, and Darcy was glad of that, but it also meant she would only have the one chance at this. Leaving and coming back to try again wasn’t really an option.

  She checked her watch. The smiling face of the cartoon pony irritated her. It was too humorous and right now she wanted to be serious. Tomorrow, Darcy promised herself, she would get a different watch. This one had been a gift from Izzy’s daughter, so she would set it aside to still wear sometimes, but she needed something that suited her better.

  The time was eleven fifteen. It was late, and getting later.

  It was also four minutes since Jon had left her here.

  Swallowing, trying not to put too much thought into that, she sat down cross legged in the middle of her circle with a match in one hand. Jon would be back soon. It was a large building, after all, two stories tall plus a basement that Darcy herself had never been in. It would take a while for Jon to look through every room.