by Catie Rhodes
Steps slow, I drifted toward the entrance to the gymnasium, dread cutting at me. Another scene I didn’t want to see. I tried to stop, but my feet kept right on taking steps. At the doors, I tried holding my hands tight to my sides. One drifted out on its own accord and pushed open the door. Bodies moved around, some dancing, some talking.
I floated toward the table in the back, knowing what I’d find. Chase Fischer, the love of my life, sat with the girl who stole him from me. She giggled as I approached. Chase turned to me and smiled. Smoke rose from his tuxedo, drifting lazily to the ceiling. Then the garment burst into flames.
Chase acted as though nothing was the matter as the skin on his face rippled, parched, and broke open. He said, “We’re waiting for you down here. Just let go. Let it happen.” He repeated himself once, then again. His voice sped up, getting higher and higher until his words degenerated into an unintelligible shriek. The skin peeled off his body, leaving nothing but a blackened skeleton. Next to him, Felicia clutched her sides and convulsed with mirth.
I backed away from them, my heart an aching throb in my chest. My arms ached with blood rushing through them. I tripped on something and fell. I hurtled through a black expanse and came into a room where someone with a thick, flat accent ranted endlessly. Lights cast a dim glow, and my vision faded in. But I didn’t need to see the ranter to recognize Michael Gage’s voice.
We sat in the secret room off his study in the Mace House. It smelled like cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. Gage looked the same way he did after the final time we tangled. Blood flowed from his ears and nose. The whites of his eyes glowed red. He shuffled toward me, holding out one hand. “It’s you and me, baby. You can’t run. I’m always here, ready to play. Why don’t you take off your clothes?”
“Peri Jean? Fight. Do not let this happen.” Mysti’s voice shook the wood-paneled walls and made the light fixture vibrate. “I’m here. We’re going to get the ghost out of you. He’s trying to trick you. Do you hear me?”
I did hear her, but my mind closed off and drifted away, the way it sometimes did when I dreamed. The scene with Michael Gage dissolved. I woke up in a place I thought I’d forgotten.
The mildewy smell of dirty carpet filled my senses. Nasty fibers tickled my nose. My abdomen cramped, shooting threads of pain down my thighs. I wanted to get up, to at least lie on my beat-up couch, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was hold my hands laced over my belly where my ex-husband had kicked me before he stormed out, still screaming about the money he’d come for. A bolt of pain shot through me, this cramp worse than all the others, and a wetness bloomed between my legs.
“Peri Jean?” Mysti’s voice came from the bathroom. “Can you still hear me? Oh shit, Griff. I think she’s given up, let this thing have her.”
My eyes snapped open. I raised my head and surveyed the wreckage of the apartment I’d rented after my husband and I split up. The door to the tiny, cockroach-infested bedroom swung open, hinges groaning.
The dark shadow strolled out of the bedroom and came to stand over me. He made a clicking sound inside his mouth and pouted. “Such a hard, sad life. Let me make it better.” He leaned toward me and opened his mouth. His stench enveloped me.
I recoiled but was too weak to escape. Something inside me flip-flopped. A hum I recognized as the mantle’s power stuttered through me. The tips of my fingers and the skin on my face tingled and grew numb, like a vital blood vein was blocked or a plugged drain was backing up. An uncomfortable feeling of fullness swelled my insides. Then my magic began to work its way out. It came from my mouth in a thick thread and passed into the ghost’s open mouth. Deep inside, pain awoke, throbbing in the side of my neck. For some reason, the image of a funnel overflowing came to mind. A bright flash of pain jolted through me, like something had ripped.
I snapped to attention. This sorry son of a bitch was taking away my power. No way. Not if I had any fight left. I pulled myself together enough to let out a howl in the face of the spirit. Its force shoved him backward. I rolled onto my knees and pulled myself to a standing position using the back of the old, plaid couch I’d wanted to lie on a few seconds earlier when I thought I was dying. The dark spirit made a gesture with one hand, and a wave of black shot out at me. It hit me in the chest and knocked me to the floor. My clarity slipped away.
I smelled the damp earth, the medicinal smell of pines, and my own sweat. My hand hurt where it had been cut so my blood could be used against me. My magic blood. Something, some idea of what I should do, scratched at my consciousness, trying to get out. I tried to zero in on it, but a familiar voice interrupted me.
“Open your eyes, you worthless piece of shit.” I’d always recognize my mother’s voice, no matter how long I went without hearing it.
I did what she said before I could think better of it. Dirt covered her hair and filled her empty eye sockets. Something, some creature, writhed between her parted lips.
“Someone who kills her own mother doesn’t have a chance at redemption. Doesn’t deserve a chance.” She came closer. Things moved under her skin. I winced away, pressing my back against the tree, its sharp bark biting into my skin. “But you can make things different. Do something good for once in your life. All you have to do is give up.”
Jadine appeared next to my dead mother, eyes fixed on me, seeing me. “Peri Jean, girl, you gotta go back. You hear me?”
I managed to nod at her.
“Just listen for the real world. That’s how you get out of a bad vision.” She gave my shoulder a gentle shake.
“Get out, blind girl.” The ascot-wearing ghost’s roar of rage came from all around me.
Jadine winked out of sight.
I tried to do what she’d said and listened hard for the real world. Tap tap tap. The sound almost wasn’t there. I focused on it. A window appeared between two huge pine trees. Glass sheeted down to fill it. On the other side of the glass perched my raven. While I watched, he pecked the glass.
My vision whirled and changed again. I was on my back, lying on a bed, with people leaning over me. I breathed in, expecting to smell hospital grade cleaner but instead smelled dirty socks. Griff’s face, shiny with sweat, came into focus. Eyes wild and frantic, he held something under my nose. I winced away from it.
“Peri Jean?” Mysti leaned into my face. “That you?”
Bright light flashed in my vision, and a syringe with a long needle appeared in Mysti’s hand. I yelped and struggled against the arms holding me down.
The mantle rose up, wild and out of control, its power burning my veins, screaming through me. I pushed at the extra entity inside me and felt him lodge deeper. My breath came too fast, in dry pants, and my head swam with the surplus oxygen.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
“Let the fucking bird in,” I screamed.
Griff snapped his attention off me and stared at the window, mouth opening at the shining black raven perched on the sill.
“Let it in, Griff.” My voice was deeper, womanly in a way men wrote songs about, and the way I said words had changed into something more lilting.
Griff hurried to the window and struggled to open it. It came up with an ugly screech. The raven brushed past Griff, hitting him in the face with its wings. He staggered backward and sat hard on a clothes hamper. It gave a loud crack and crumbled under his weight. The raven flew at me and landed on my chest.
Caw. Caw Caw.
The magic burning inside my skin, pushing out sour sweat, knew his words. Open your mouth and let me pull it out.
I opened my mouth as wide as I could, and the bird leaned his beak into it. The entity inside me hooked razor-tipped claws into my soul, ripping and tearing. My scream rose and twisted with that of the dark entity. The pain bloomed as the raven pulled on the spirit.
A male voice, one I recognized as my tormenter, bayed like a dog at the moon, mad and wild. The raven leaned forward and tried again. The spirit tightened its hold, but the raven kept pulling until it ripped thro
ugh my soul, my psyche, whatever it held on to. My jaw stretched wide, aching as the raven pulled out the bad spirit. It came out as a worm of smoke and dark shadow, writhing against the bright sunlight.
“Spirit, I banish you from this house, bind you from doing harm.” Mysti threw salt at the swirling mass of shadow. It writhed like a slug. “Never force your way into another living body.” She threw salt again.
Laughter boomed through the room. My skin stiffened and broke out in gooseflesh.
“You don’t control me, witch.” The voice boomed against my eardrums, hurting them. The mirror in the glass bureau broke, shattering outward, the shards peppering me, cutting my skin. The room shook, ceiling fan swaying. The mattress underneath me rippled as something thick and long slithered through it.
I grabbed Mysti and used her to pull myself off the bed. She dragged me away from it, teeth chattering. Brad stepped between us and the spirit, clutching something in one fist.
The raven flapped its wings, pulling hard against the spirit. It looked the same way birds looked on windy days. Making all the effort in the world but going nowhere.
Brad uncapped whatever he held in his hand and pitched it on the spirit. The entity let out one last howl, and the raven towed it through the window and outside.
“This isn’t over, Peri Jean Mace. You’re mine.” A deafening crash echoed through the house. Outside, car alarms began blaring.
Travis, the kid who’d gotten more than he bargained for, ran out of the room and came back seconds later. “Every piece of glass in this house is broken. You people did it. I want my money back.”
“No refunds,” Griff snapped. He grabbed our belongings and motioned the rest of us to leave.
“Bullshit.” Travis stood in the door to his bedroom, blocking our exit.
Griff used one arm to shove him aside. “Next time, don’t contact spirits. You’re the one who brought that thing here. It’s your fault.”
Travis didn’t try to fight, but he yelled at us all the way out to our car. He threatened to call the cops, threatened to sue us, threatened to write a bad review online. Brad helped me into the backseat of Griff’s new SUV and slid in beside me. Mysti and Griff got in the front. We left with Travis still standing in the driveway yelling, car alarms blaring all around him.
“Think he’ll recommend us to his friends?” I managed to croak. Everybody laughed, everybody but me. That bad spirit told me he’d be back. Would he? Could he?
Jadine. Had she really been there? My cellphone buzzed with a text message. An unfamiliar number appeared on my screen with two words beneath it. You ok?
Had to be her. I tapped out my reply. Yes and thank you.
A freaky end to a fucked-up day.
3
I JERKED AWAKE, my room dark and my heart pounding. Where did my day go? Then I remembered stumbling up the stairs, legs weak with fatigue, kicking off my shoes, and climbing under my department store quilt.
I pushed off the quilt and got out of bed, shoving the house slippers Brad gave me for Christmas onto my feet. My hours-long nap had chased away the blinding fatigue the Coachman’s ghost left in me.
The memory of what he’d done, how he’d controlled me came roaring back. I shivered and crossed my arms over my chest. This was the first time a ghost had tried to possess me. I’d failed to stop him.
No matter how much I learned about myself and this power I had, something always lurked in the shadows, ready to let me know how unprepared I was for the hidden world of the supernatural. What if I had been alone? Would I be walking around with the Coachman controlling me right now?
The smell of something tangy drifted under my closed door. It was Griff’s turn to cook, so probably chili. The temperature was supposed to drop below thirty tonight. The weather in the Houston area was warmer than the northern part of East Texas, but we still had cool nights.
My stomach rumbled. I thought about when I last ate and remembered picking at my breakfast that morning, nervous about impressing my family. I’d had nothing else all day except cigarettes, water, and coffee. I snuck down the stairs, still shy about joining Griff and Mysti for supper, even after a few months of living with them. I came into the kitchen the back way.
Sure enough Griff stood at the gas-powered stove, stirring something in a big pot. He wore sweats, but his feet were bare on the gray stone floor. He set his stirring spoon down on the granite counter. I walked the rest of the way into the kitchen.
“Mysti’ll have your ass.” I grabbed the spoon rest out of the dishwasher, put his spoon in it, and wiped up the chili juice.
“It’s my house. I’ll ruin the astronomically expensive counters if I want to.” Griff raised one black eyebrow at me. “Your nap help?”
The embarrassment heated my face, and I shrugged. “There enough chili for me to eat too?”
“Peri Jean, please stop asking if you can eat meals here. When it’s your turn to buy groceries, you buy groceries for all of us to eat. When you cook, you cook enough for all four of us.” He took three bowls out of the cabinet and set them on the countertop. “If you’re hungry, you eat. Understand?”
I got out silverware and napkins and began setting the table. “Where’s Mysti?”
“She had a phone call to make. And Bradley had a date, so she ironed his shirt for him.”
I quit setting the table and made eye contact with Griff through the pass-through window separating the kitchen from the dining room. He rolled his eyes. I nodded in agreement. Mysti’s spoiling of her baby brother drove us both crazy.
“Chili? Again?” Mysti came out of the study, sweeping her robe around her. “I hope it’s not as hot as the last batch.”
“Ring of fire, baby, ring of fire.” Griff brought in the drinks. Beer for him. Water for me. Something odd and unpronounceable for Mysti. I brought the chili in and set it on a pot holder in the center of the table. We filled our bowls.
“You feel okay, Peri Jean?” Mysti stared at my face. “You’ve got those dark circles again.”
“The sleep did me good.” I took a few bites of chili and rehearsed what I wanted to say. “Look, I’m sorry things got so out of control.”
“Stop.” Mysti held up her spoon. “It’s I who should apologize to you. I never should have left you and Brad to get rid of that spirit. I saw how big it was but never imagined it would possess you.”
“My fault.” I put a handful of corn chips in my chili.
“To hell with fault. I want to know what he did to you.” Griff’s thick brows wrinkled into a frown. “You were crying, saying names of people who weren’t in the room, begging someone to stop kicking you.”
My scalp tingled as sweat broke out over it. I didn’t want Griff and Mysti knowing all that stuff. Without going into detail, I told them the spirit had taken me through my darkest times and used them to weaken me. I shivered as I explained how he’d sucked away my strength.
“What are you saying he did?” Mysti stopped eating and stared at me.
“There was this light that came out of my mouth and into his.” I set my spoon in my half-empty bowl. “It made me feel so weak and tired."
“Was he taking her power?” Griff, spoon held aloft, stared across the table at Mysti.
Her brows bunched together in a frown. “How am I supposed to know?”
We finished our meal in silence, all of us lost in thought. Mysti and I did the dishes while Griff took out the trash. I wiped chili spatters off the counter and expensive cabinets while Mysti quickly swept the floors. We had our homey routine down pat. The only weird part was the way I was a third wheel in Griff and Mysti’s home. Both insisted I stay as long as I needed.
I wanted to strike out on my own but hadn’t yet hit on where I wanted to go. Griff and Mysti’s home was in The Woodlands. Right down the road, huge apartment complexes lined both sides of I-45. All of them advertised move-in specials, but they weren’t for me. They seemed more like hives of buzzing activity than the safe harbor of home. Did
anybody consider this place, with all its lights and noise, home?
“Let’s go into the living room and talk about what happened tonight.” Mysti’s voice broke into my thoughts. She put the broom away and motioned me to follow her. Dread spread through me. Mysti and Griff wouldn’t call a meeting for shits and grins. I shuffled into the living room and fell into one of the huge recliners, the same way I approached Memaw’s lectures as a teenager.
Mysti sat on the couch with Griff. He set his laptop and files aside and joined hands with her. My worry kicked up a notch. She said, “Do you remember what the ghost said to you right before he left?”
“That he’d be back.” The chili sat in my stomach like a lump of cold grease. I stifled a sour burp.
“He called your full name.” Griff grimaced. “Remember?”
I nodded. Something about knowing someone’s full name moved around in the back of my mind. I chased it down and tackled it. “And full names have power.”
“A full name gives someone dominion over another.” Griff laced his fingers. “So yes, they have plenty of power.”
“While the ghost—what did that kid call him? The Coachman?” Mysti nodded and took a deep breath. “While the Coachman was inside you, he likely got way more than your full name. He probably created footholds inside you to ease his return.”
“In a perfect world, we’d know the Coachman’s full name.” Griff picked up his yellow legal pad, and I saw it was covered with scribbles. “Use it to turn the tables on him. But since we don’t have that right now…”
Mysti raised her hand. “I’ve made an alternate plan. Remember the first day we met, and I talked to you about how powerful the magic already inside you was?”
I thought back to the day, to the excitement on Mysti’s face, despite the ordeal she’d been through. She’d offered to mentor me right then. I nodded.
“Every witch has talents. One of mine—one I got from Petunia Leblanc’s mantle—is the ability to see inside others.” She waited for me to digest what she said before she continued. “At a glance I could see the depth of your magical abilities. Once you took on Priscilla Herrera’s mantle…” She smiled and shook her head. “No ghost should have been able to even think about possessing you. I want to understand why that happened.”
