by Lia Davis
She pointed to the books Ophelia still held. “The Book of Shadows has a contact number for the coven. Tell them I request them to aid you in capturing Francois. They are expecting the call. Everyone is on edge, knowing he is coming for revenge.”
Ophelia nodded and pulled out the book. She’d call the local coven, if for no other reason than to appease Gramma. Still, there was no explanation about all the things happening and the more Gramma talked about magick and witches, the odder things seemed to get. And yet the more things made sense. It was unnerving that maybe Gramma was right.
Besides, she’d love to believe that Anatoli was real and not a figment of her imagination. He appeared to be so handsome and kind, and his touch was loving. She’d longed for a man like him, but didn’t believe such existed in the real world.
It was just like her to be infatuated with a ghost.
The doorbell rang, sending a long buzzing noise down the hall and echoing in the living room. Ophelia snapped the book shut.
“Who could that be?” Ophelia set the book on the cushion.
“Cover the books with this. And move them off the loveseat.” Gramma’s voice strained and she held out a small coverlet. “No one can see them. Hurry.”
Ophelia rounded up the stack of books, set them on the end table, and covered them with the cloth. The doorbell buzzed again, long bursts of piercing sounds.
“I’m coming!” Ophelia jogged to the door, flipped the locks, and flung it open. “Ben!”
The shopkeeper took off his hat and made a small bow. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by and see how Betty is doing. Your visit set me to worrying. Is this a bad time?”
Hunched over and walking with a cane, Ben looked much older than he had while standing behind the counter at the store. Daylight didn’t hide imperfections and his face was filled with wrinkles and concern. Still, his eyes held kindness.
“Come on in. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you.” Ophelia opened the door wider and stepped back so Ben could enter. “She’s in the living room.”
“If it’s no bother?” He paused for her answer.
“No, it’s not. You stopped by at a good time. Come on in.”
She waited for Ben to enter then she shut the door. A blast of cold, piercing air whooshed down the hallway from the living room and hit her in the gut. She stumbled back. What the hell? Her knees weakened and she held on to the stair rail in the foyer. Ben didn’t seem to notice anything out of place.
He shuffled down the hall toward the living room. He’d been to the house many times over the years and knew it probably as well as his own. After a second to stabilize herself, Ophelia followed him.
“Betty, it’s good to see you.” Ben lifted Gramma’s pale hand and kissed it. “How’re you doing?”
Gramma pulled her hand back and coughed, covering her mouth with her arm. “I’m okay…Ben. How are you? It’s so good to see you.”
“Fine, just fine. A bit ricketier than the last time you saw me, but I’m okay. May I sit?” He gestured to the loveseat.
Gramma nodded. Her eyes rounded and she covered her mouth. What was she afraid of? Maybe she didn’t want Ben to see the books?
Ophelia moved to sit in the chair near the stack of covered books. Ben seemed off, almost agitated. He scanned the room like he was looking for something. Nothing had changed since the last time he visited. Must be hard for him to make the trek out to Hemlock Grove, but it was nice of him to visit Gramma, even if he was a bit crotchety.
Ben sat, propping his cane against the loveseat and setting his hat beside him. “When Ophelia came into the store the other day, she told me you weren’t doing so well so I thought I should come by and see for myself. You know how much you mean to me.”
Gramma’s eyes dimmed. “I’m not long for this world, Ben.”
“Gramma, don’t talk like that.” Ophelia scowled.
“It’s true, no point in pretending it isn’t.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Ben leaned forward. “We both know death is just a transition to the next phase. Everything is going to be okay. I still hate to see you suffering.”
Gramma started coughing, her voice caught in her throat. Ophelia rose to help her but the coughing worsened. Ophelia felt her head for any sign of fever but there was none. The cough appeared to be the only symptom that anything might be wrong.
“Is she okay?” Ben’s voice held concern.
Gramma turned a few shades lighter, her skin mottled and bluish. The cough turned into a wheezing sound, like she was trying to breathe through a wet straw. She gasped for breath and held her throat, tilting her head back in an attempt to get more air.
“Ben, I need to get Gramma to bed and get her some medicine. Maybe call the doctor. I’m sorry. You need to excuse us—we’ll have to visit another time.”
Gramma tried to wave them off but her whole body shook with each strained cough and her face grew even paler.
“Can I help in any way?” Ben leaned forward.
“It’s okay, though I appreciate the offer. I’m going to get her to bed right now and see how she does. But thank you.”
“No problem. I know my way out.” Ben stood, grabbed his cane and hat, then turned to Betty. “I’ll come again soon. You take care.”
Gramma coughed, unable to catch her breath.
“Thanks for understanding. See you soon.” Ophelia rolled Gramma’s chair close to where she sat in the upholstered seat.
“Not a problem.” He strode toward the front door, his cane tapping the floor as he walked.
The door clicked shut and Ophelia helped Gramma into her wheelchair. “Let’s get you to bed and get your meds. That was a bad episode.”
Gramma looked up at her. “I’m okay. I feel better. Must’ve just been a tickle in my throat. Nothing to get all upset about.”
Ophelia stared, hands on her hips. Gramma seemed to be breathing better. The moment Ben left, the coughing fit had stopped. Gramma’s pale cheeks had turned rosy again. Ophelia frowned. Something wasn’t adding up but Gramma was doing better; there was no denying that.
Something lifted her hair and she felt a light kiss on her neck and then a hug from behind. She closed her eyes to savor the feeling. If only Anatoli was real…
“He’s real.” Gramma peered up at her, her eyes shining. “Handsome, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were thinking you hoped he was real. I’m just telling you he is. I see him. He’s behind you, his brown hair pulled back and his blue-eyed gaze intense. He needs to be fully back with us, and I can help you with that.”
Ophelia shook her head. She wanted to believe. And the man Gramma described sounded like the one she saw in the attic.
“Gramma, you need a nap.” She wheeled the chair toward Gramma’s bedroom.
“And you, child, need to start believing in things you can’t see with your eyes, and trust what you see with your heart.”
8
After years of nothing, so much has happened in one day. I feel nearly alive with possibility.
My Ophelia is starting to believe! I saw the look in her eyes, and felt her relax under my touch. Is it too much to ask?
Still, I fear for her. She’s in so much danger and doesn’t even realize it. I have to help her but communication is nearly impossible.
I need to show her the pistols, but how do I tell her they will help her trap Francois?
How can I connect with her? When she saw me that moment, actually saw me manifest, my heart beat so strongly and I hoped for an instant that I was free from my eternal prison.
Alas, it was not to be.
I realize now, I’m but a ghost of a man, sentenced to a few whispers of touch. And fortunate enough to be free from that bottle. Still, I suffer. I cannot hold the woman who makes me feel whole.
And now, something else stirs my soul. The old man, Ben. He is not right.
I remember him being there when the witches burned d
own Francois’s house and the fire consumed so many souls. Ben was a warlock, too, and he saved me from the fire. But this wasn’t the same Ben here today. His aura was different, darker.
Panic stirs in my non-beating heart. No. The good Ben is gone. Hidden behind the old man’s face, somehow taking his form—was Francois.
Francois has taken his soul and is somehow using his body as his own. I don’t pretend to know the bounds of dark magick but if anyone can master them, it is Francois. He has done something that seems impossible.
My memories of Francois, once he harvested my soul in the duel, are faint, like clouds on a foggy river. I remember he had many bottles containing souls of the young. Every time he needed to extend his own life, he would consume another—oh, how the terrified screams would haunt me.
I had not yet been chosen when the great fire took the house, and when Ben plucked my bottle from the ashes, I maintained hope I would one day walk among mortals again.
Maybe that time is still coming.
If Francois doesn’t get to my Ophelia first.
* * *
Ophelia swept the casting circle clean at Gramma’s wishes, brushing east to west then south to north. The broom was not much more than a bundle of willow branches tied together and hung on the attic wall. Gramma said be sure to use it. Ophelia didn’t question why.
She had promised Gramma she’d do everything exactly as Gramma said, and that was enough. She’d do it. The dust swirled and sparkled in the air like glitter and she paused to watch it settle.
How many spells had Gramma cast here?
The circle had been on the floor a long time, and the boards around the outside of it were worn, like many people had walked around the loop over the years. She shivered. That’s exactly how the pattern had been worn into the floor. Not just Gramma’s generation, but the generations before…perhaps as long as Hemlock Grove had sat on the hill above the river.
Generations of witches had been where she stood now. She felt the residual power like skitters of electricity when near lightning in a thunderstorm. For the first time, Ophelia felt like she belonged to something larger than herself. She hung the broom onto its wall hook.
Yet, Ophelia wasn’t versed in the ways of white magic—she’d shunned any mention of it from the time she was a girl. Now, she felt a bit guilty.
Gramma had certainly tried to get her into it over the years, but had given up when Ophelia went off to the city to college. Ophelia leaned against the dusty attic walls.
Fate pulled her in two directions.
Had she been wrong to not listen to her family history and learn the ways? Or did she do the right thing and escape Savannah, Hemlock Grove, and all the old ways?
She hadn’t questioned her choices until this trip. Gramma had really pushed her. Gramma knew she was dying and was trying one last time to convince Ophelia that she was a witch.
“Maybe I am,” Ophelia whispered.
She scanned the attic for the first time realizing that everything was organized and orderly, not piled and in shambles like she thought when she first came upstairs. The attic was a sacred place. A place of magick.
Some things going on made no sense whatsoever, and yet the thrill of the unknown pushed Ophelia to continue to seek the truth.
The truth called to her. Begged her to search it out.
Especially the truth about the young duelist who’d supposedly been lost in a magickal duel over one hundred fifty years ago. She had one task that would try all her convictions and beliefs. She would try to bring Anatoli back.
Ophelia felt a bond to his lost soul. Could it be possible he was now wandering Hemlock Grove as a ghost?
Ophelia studied the setup in the center of the casting circle. She’d already changed the altar cloth to a crisp red silk scarf, and prepared fresh candles to light the area. She lit each, watching them flicker for a moment, swearing she could see faces in the flames.
Her gramma’s handwritten notes lay on the altar and she did her best to read them. She adjusted the position of the candles. If only Gramma wasn’t too weak to climb the stairs. But she was and this would be Ophelia’s ritual.
Her first.
What if she screwed it up? Could she condemn Anatoli to be forever lost? Could she handle all the pressure and do her gramma proud?
“I don’t know.” Her lone voice echoed through the attic. No response.
What had she expected? She stood back to look at the freshly swept circle. About six feet in diameter with a pentagram painted in white and touching the perimeter, the circle felt charged with its own power. She couldn’t deny it. When she stood inside, even just sweeping, the hairs on her arms stood and she felt stronger.
She looked at the list her gramma wrote. A few drops of witch hazel to finish cleaning the circle. She took the tincture from the shelf and dripped it around the circle. She set the dropper back on the shelf.
Done.
One by one, she continued to follow the instructions.
Set Anatoli’s bottle on the altar, along with a fresh apple to represent the fruit of patience and the promise of a seed-bearing fruit. A knife to cut any pain he might feel.
Then for the circle: a dish of water, a flower, a sliver of clear glass, and a red lit candle in the four cardinal directions. Water, earth, air and fire. One thing to represent each and to help keep the circle free from evil. Ophelia read the last instructions and then placed Gramma’s notes on the altar inside the circle.
The last preparatory thing. The final purification before the ritual.
Salt.
Gramma had specified which salt to use, among the many types on the shelf. Ophelia looked through the shelves of glass jars and found the one marked “casting salt.” A pale green, the bottle was small to hold something so important. She grabbed the bottle, then stopped cold.
Written in the dust on the shelf below, the words Beware of Ben stared back at her.
What the hell?
Who had been in the attic? Who could’ve written the words and what could they mean? A ghostly hand caressed her neck and she closed her eyes. So much had happened in the last few days. She’d never expected her trip back to Hemlock Grove would be filled with her gramma’s magick talk and wishing that a lost-passed man was real. And alive.
And now a warning against a man she’d known all her life. A good man.
What could explain everything that was happening, other than magick? She shrugged. She’d promised Gramma she’d do the ritual and cast the spell to see if it would help Anatoli. And that’s what she’d do. She’d tell Gramma about the message written in dust—maybe she would understand or know who could have written it.
Why would anyone fear Ben? He was one of the nicest men she’d ever met. Sure, he was a little kooky, but Ophelia was beginning to think everyone in Savannah was a little crazy.
Or maybe she was the crazy one.
She pulled the cork from the salt bottle and took a deep breath. The salt smelled of nights on the beach, the air full of the mysteries of the universe. A deep and ageless smell, the salt was precious. The bottle warmed in her hand. Careful not to spill it, she moved to the casting circle.
She’d called the coven leader earlier and the woman was going to gather everyone for the ritual to rid the town of the evil warlock tomorrow. But today, Ophelia was on her own.
She sprinkled the salt around the circle in a clockwise movement, chanting the words to seal out evil and hold good.
“Cast the circle thrice about, to keep the evil spirits out." Three times, she walked the outside of the circle and on the third time, she stepped inside, sealing her entry spot with a fresh dash of salt. She set the bottle on the altar.
Gramma had said they couldn’t risk evil slipping into Anatoli when he was vulnerable and that the salt would keep out any entities who might try to take advantage of his weakened position if he appeared. With some peace of mind, Ophelia relaxed, sealed inside the protective circle of white magick. Now that Ophelia was
in the circle, she couldn’t break it while she was doing the ritual, otherwise she risked herself and Anatoli.
Everything was ready. I can do this.
How would she know Anatoli was in the circle or even nearby? Faith was her only beacon. Hopefully, he would follow the bottle and be present.
If he was even a thing. She smiled. His touch certainly felt real. More real than any touch she’d felt from any man in years.
She knelt in front of the altar and closed her eyes, folding her hands on her lap. Clearing her mind of all excess thoughts, she waited and meditated. After a few minutes, she was ready to proceed. Power welled inside her.
The silence of the attic enveloped her like a consciousness of pure light. She focused on the words to call Anatoli.
Darkness aside, newly restore,
Return Anatoli as before.
Reunite his spirit and call him home,
His body to this plane, now as one…
* * *
Ophelia repeated the lines three times then opened her eyes. Nothing. A beam of sunlight from the lone window slanted across the attic floor, cutting a rectangle of gold in the center of the circle.
A low hum filled the air.
Then, a waver in the air like light shimmering on a lake surface appeared before her. She watched, her heart hammering. What was happening? The candles flickered and then a man appeared in front of her, his arms outstretched to her.
Anatoli!
Tall, maybe six feet, the first thing she noticed was his deep blue eyes. Brown hair pulled back and clothing from another time. It was him. She felt it with every bit of her being. She rose to rush into his arms.
“Help me.” His voice, firm and masculine, sent shivers through her. She never imagined it would be so deep.
She reached for him, and he disappeared.
What happened? She scanned the attic, not seeing him anywhere. She was alone again, no sign of Anatoli or anyone. She didn’t even feel his presence around her. Tears formed and she closed her eyes. Had she failed her gramma? Or was everything merely a figment of her imagination? Or had she doomed him forever with her half-cocked spell-casting ability?
