Puzzle (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  Murphy nodded and pulled out his own watch. He looked at her, and she pulled out her cell phone and told him her time. He smiled and showed her his. They matched to the second. “You may want to check the school’s clocks. Make sure your watch matches those. After all, Deville is winding his watch to those clocks.”

  Murphy nodded again, tipped his hat and took off towards the school.

  Mia watched the space he had occupied for a moment, while thoughts of what she had yet to do flooded her mind. She climbed into the truck and walked over to the computer console. She found her files and brought up a ley line map. She zoomed in until she had the area they were in. Mia noted the closest line was a few miles away. She followed it west until she saw a problem. It was a big body of water, a swiftly flowing body of water to be correct. Between Ira and his body in the St. Louis hospital was the Mississippi river. She frantically searched to find a ley line that moved across one of the bridges. There were none.

  She turned on the printer and printed out several maps. She had to confirm the location of the coma wing of the hospital with Audrey. Mia’s knowledge of St. Louis was minimal at best. Would Ira’s parents move him out of the hospital across the river? She doubted it. Why would they chance it? Even if they could convince the Levisohns that out of body travel was a real thing, she couldn’t guarantee Ira would even make it out of the building, let alone back into his body.

  “Problems, all I can see are problems,” she said, not realizing she said this out loud.

  “Maybe you need a fresh perspective,” Cid advised. He looked up from his project and nodded to the teens watching the video feeds. “Fresh eyes, fresh ideas…”

  “Fresh mouths,” Mia added. She rolled her eyes.

  “Give them a chance,” Cid said.

  Mia nodded, walked over and looked at what he was working on. Cid Garret was crocheting. Mia held her tongue and watched as his fingers flew, making interlocking chains. He picked up a rusted ring and placed it every four inches.

  “Is that iron?”

  “Yes and this is silver.” He pointed to the tiny link. “I’m making Burt a vest,” he said proudly. “My hope is to protect him from getting his ribs bashed in. The doctor says one more hit and he’s in big trouble.”

  This news hit Mia hard. “I didn’t know.”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know. So…”

  “I won’t tell Ted…”

  “Won’t tell me what?” Ted said, climbing into the truck. “You two keeping secrets from me?” He looked hurt.

  “Yes. You have a big mouth, dude,” Cid said.

  “It’s genetic,” Ted claimed. “Keep your little secret, if you can. I’ll try not to pry,” he said with an attitude.

  “Thanks, Teddy Bear,” Mia said and pulled him down and rewarded him with a kiss. “Can I borrow the terrible teens for a while?”

  “Kiss me again, and you can have them for two whiles,” Ted said.

  She did.

  “Come on, boys, bring your fresh eyes, fresh ideas and shut your fresh mouths,” Mia instructed.

  Dave looked at Ted.

  “You heard the lady. Get, vamoose, skedaddle.” Ted took the headset from Mason and watched as he followed Dave off the truck.

  “So tell me about the secret,” Ted urged.

  “Nope,” Cid said and resumed his furious needlework pace.

  “A hint,” Ted pleaded.

  “Negatory, and don’t bring out the waterboard. I’ve got no time for this nonsense.”

  “She’s not pregnant is she?” Ted asked.

  Cid turned around and stared at him. “Think. Would Mia tell me if she was pregnant and not you?”

  Ted scratched his head. “I guess not. But this is driving me crazy.”

  “Too late, dude, you went round the bend years ago.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “So we are looking for a pocket watch, a whistle and bones,” Shelby listed. “The watch is on the east side of the building, the whistle in the rafters of the big room, and the bones were last seen upstairs in room 252.”

  “Winds watch at midnight,” Murphy reminded them. “Secret. Stealth. Sneaky.”

  Ira looked at the farmer and cleared his voice, “Excuse me, but we can’t move these things. Even if we could, you don’t want us to?”

  “Not yet. Wait and tell,” he said to the young man.

  “When he goes to wind the watch, I’ll check out the gym, the big room,” Ira volunteered. “I’m sure I can get into the rafters.”

  “Fine, but you take Vane with you. I’ll reconnoiter with the boys,” Shelby said.

  Murphy left them. He moved through the building and pulled out his watch. It was the same to the second as all the other clocks. For once providence, or dumb luck, was on their side.

  ~

  It’s better than I could ever hope for. Trevor Deville has been a godsend. My junior varsity basketball team won state! The track team is shaping up. We actually had to request a larger trophy case. The principal is very impressed.

  Audrey looked up from her reading. Richie, who had been contented thumbing through Emma’s book, whistled. “It says here that if you cut off part of your finger, you can grow it back.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Audrey said dryly. “Just because the coach with Deville’s help was able to do magic doesn’t mean it will work for you,” she cautioned. “Besides, look at the price the coach paid.”

  “The last necktie,” Richie said, rubbing his neck. He spotted Mia and the teenagers. “Incoming.”

  Audrey turned around. “I don’t like that look. She’s got a problem,” Audrey warned Richie.

  Mia slammed the maps down and invited the boys to take a seat. “First things first, Audrey what are the odds of Ira’s parents moving him out of the hospital and across the Mississippi?”

  “One hundred to one,” she answered honestly.

  “Is he on life support?” Mia questioned.

  “No, but that boy’s body is depleted.”

  “Bad word,” Mia said.

  Dave looked over at her. “Cuss if you want to lady, there’s nothing we’ve not heard before.”

  Audrey waved her arms madly. “Don’t tempt her.”

  Mia allowed herself a crooked smile before sighing. “If… no, when. When we get Ira out of that building, I’ve got to get him back to his body,” she explained.

  “Drive him,” Mason said.

  “Driving works except… Well, let me outline what you can and can’t do when you’re walking out of your body. You can’t cross water unless it’s on a bridge with a ley line…”

  “What’s a ley line?” Richie asked.

  “Here’s the Cliffs Notes version. There are these pathways that are perhaps magnetic in origin. They connect thousands of ancient places of burial and worship. They are straight lines that some travelers – out of body walkers or OOBers - use to travel faster.” She paused, waiting for more questions. There weren’t any so she continued, “I can travel over water as I was saying on a bridge that just happens to be built over a ley line or on a boat traveling strictly along the line. I traveled this way to an island in Lake Michigan last year,” she informed them.

  “What’s the problem?” Dave asked.

  “No bridge crossing the mighty Mississippi in the area has a ley line attached.”

  “Get a boat,” Mason suggested. He got up and ran his hand along the map. “It’s a big river at this point, but it’s possible.”

  “What about the current? I’m talking, the boat strays ten feet off center, and Ira and I are cooked,” Mia informed him.

  “I see your point. But it’s not impossible. Timing is important because of the river traffic. A fast boat, big motor and a lot of luck,” Mason answered with a newfound confidence.

  Mia stood up and looked at the map. “I’m thinking,” she pointed to Cahokia and ran her hand to the river, “we need to have a boat with a great GPS here and travel across the Cahokia Mt. Shasta line.”


  “Really?” a nonbeliever with an Irish accent asked over her shoulder. “What happens if you don’t get off? Will you end up in California?”

  “Patrick, don’t mess with me,” Mia warned. “I’ve traveled other lines and unless you, well, too hard to explain, but you have to will the line to take you to Mt. Shasta. We are just going to cross the river with the aid of this line,” she explained.

  “How are you going to get back?”

  “Oh, I’m not traveling back. Ted will bring my body to St. Louis. I figure we can eat in a nice restaurant, go see a show.”

  “Alright, let’s see if I understand. You’re going to trust my eejit brother to navigate the Mississippi in a boat.”

  “He wouldn’t be alone. Cid’s got to go with him.”

  “Why Cid and not me?”

  “Cid can hear me. He’ll know when we arrive. You don’t believe in this nonsense, so I doubt that you’ll stick around if I’m late.”

  Patrick looked at her. “I’m coming. I’ll getcha a boat, girly girl, and I’ll getcha across the river. Then we’re square.”

  “Square?” Mia asked confused.

  “Callens pay their debts; this is Mason’s I’m paying. Your people helped him in his time of need.”

  Mia reached out her hand. “We’re square.”

  He narrowed his eyes and grasped hers repeating, “Square.”

  Audrey, pleased that Mia’s problem now had a solution, picked up the diary and continued to read. She skimmed over the mundane things: fights with the wife, his father being way too noisy, hanging around the little house, and other things that she found interesting but not pertinent to their present situation. She turned the page and got out a pink Post-it and marked the page, labeling it, “It unravels.” She looked at the date and checked her notes. This was the Saturday before Ira’s incident.

  They’re turning against me. The kids don’t want to take the elixir. The Levisohn kid is pissing me off. Too good to come to practice. He sent his mommy instead. I’ll fix his wagon. I’ll make him run. I’ll make him run hard.

  The child’s in a coma, and they’re blaming me! Prissy boy falls down and it’s my fault? I am angry and scared. Deville says he knows how to fix everything. I just need to get into the school.

  She read the detailed account of the preparations and then the last entry. Audrey looked up. “I finished the diary,” she told Mia and the boys.

  “I’ll go get the others,” Mia offered.

  “No, sit back down. I’ll get them,” Dave said.

  “Thank you,” Mia and Audrey said in unison.

  “You owe me a Coke,” Mia said.

  Audrey replied, “I’ll give you an IOU.”

  Richie asked, “Why does she owe you a Coke?”

  “It’s an old person thing,” Mason explained. “Like jinx. When two people say the same thing at the same time, we say jinx and they say that Coke thing.” He looked over at the women and found both of them glaring at him. “What?”

  “Old person thing? It’s classic, you eejit!” Mia growled. “Old indeed, and no more ma’ams. Another ma’am, and I’ll neuter you, are we clear?”

  Mason raised his bruised arms. “Take them. I dare you,” he challenged.

  Mia stood up and pulled a knife out of her pocket and flicked it open.

  Audrey’s eyes got real large. “Mia, calm down. Remember what happened last time…” she said, feigning terror.

  Mia looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, I don’t need that kind of trouble.” She closed her knife and sat back down.

  Mason looked at Richie in alarm. “She’s kidding, right?”

  Richie falling into the joke with Audrey said, “All I know is, quite a few bikers are now singing soprano, dude.”

  Mason dropped his hands into his lap. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to offend.”

  Mia smiled wide and winked at Richie. “You’re forgiven.”

  The men congregated around the table. Audrey brought them up to date with what she’d been reading. “If I can, I’d like to express my opinion.”

  Mike nodded. “Go ahead, we’re all ears.”

  “As we discussed, the influence of mercury on the mind is a bad one. Stewart King was exposed for long periods of time. He, at some point, got it into his head to use black magic, whether it was the discovery of Emma Peat’s spell book or the pressure by the administration to produce a winning team, I can’t really say. According to what I read, he started with stealing Trevor Deville’s watch chain and then his remains. Since the bodies of the others were buried along with his, he took the whole lot. He probably used the little house on his father’s property to sort the bones. Why he didn’t rebury the others, I have no idea. Instead he tossed them in the sea chest.”

  “Did he know Andrew Morgan’s bones were in there too?” Burt asked.

  “I didn’t find a mention of Andrew in the diary,” Audrey answered. “He performed a ritual to raise the spirit of Deville. His intention was for Deville to supply him with spells, hexes and whatnot to use to enhance the children on his sports teams and deplete the ones on the competition. This went on for a few years.”

  “I find it amazing that Deville was compliant all this time,” Mike said. He looked over at Mia. “What do you think?”

  “He could have been building power. Look how long it took Murphy to be able to influence things in this world.”

  “The coach mentioned that Deville gave him a binding spell, which he used to bring Deville into his body so that the spirit could attend a few of the track meets with the man,” she told the group. “I think we know that was hooey.”

  “Possession doesn’t need a ritual, to my knowledge,” Burt said.

  Mia was silent and let the others speak. She thought about her own personal experience with Murphy. The forced possession, although brief, was unsettling. When she under her aunt Bev’s supervision allowed him in was less so. She wondered how it felt to a person with a different set of skills. She was a natural medium, but she doubted the coach had these abilities. She looked over at Murphy who was sharpening his axe, listening. He looked over at her, and she dropped her eyes.

  “You’re pretty quiet,” Ted said softly.

  “Just listening and thinking,” Mia replied. She looked over at Audrey who had kept a timeline as she read the diary. Burt and Mike were asking her questions, and she flipped the book to show them where the entries were. “She’s a gem, isn’t she?” Mia said to distract Ted.

  It didn’t work. “How are you feeling? All this talk of possession…”

  “It makes me sad, somehow,” she said barely above a whisper. “Could we drop this for now?”

  He nodded and squeezed her hand to show her he understood.

  “I’m sorry to be a boorish imbecile,” Patrick announced. “But I’m thinking that we’re wasting time here. Yes, the coach was possessed. It really doesn’t matter when it happened. Maybe to you guys, but right now I’d like to know how this gets that lad out of that hell house?”

  “If we know the host’s state of mind then we can use this to perhaps separate the two,” Burt explained. “In our experience, research is vital. It stops us from blundering in and someone getting hurt.”

  “My bad,” Patrick apologized.

  “I do see your point though,” Burt acknowledged. “Audrey, please continue with your report.”

  “Coach King’s mental state was rapidly deteriorating. When he started losing members of his teams, whether they graduated or opted out, he was faced with having to choose from the less interested, less physical population of the school. Ira Levisohn was a bright boy with the potential for greatness. He was doing college level coursework at age eleven. Coach King got it into his mind that the child’s refusal to join the team was an attack on the coach himself. He vowed revenge, and we know the rest. The school fired the coach and took away his teams. When the school was closed by the EPA, Deville convinced the coach to enter the school and perform a ritual Devi
lle said would right all the wrongs.”

  “Ah, I’m getting the picture now,” Patrick said. “He tricked the man into doing something that would give him the power.”

  “Yes. He had the coach move all the things we have discovered out of the little house into the school and, in many cases, dug holes and buried the rest on the property. All of Deville’s things were placed carefully. The Springfield rifle was buried with the bayonet facing up. The coach probably was the one who put the mess kit on top so no one accidently stepped on the blade. The sea chest of remains was buried. I think more to hide the theft from the authorities than to imprison the soldiers. He brought Deville’s bones into the building and hid them in the north side of it. Since the admin offices were still being used at the time, he hid them in the second floor classroom. There is no discussion of the watch in the diary,” Audrey mentioned.

  “I think we can assume it’s there,” Burt said. “All the evidence and personal experience backs up the theory.”

  “I think the last entry in the diary says it all,” Audrey said and picked up the book and read:

  The EPA closed the school! Says the gym floor is making the kids sick. Deville says the time is now while the school is empty. We need to do a power spell. I looked at it and asked him about the sacrifice. He said not to worry; he had it already in mind.

  “I think we all know who the sacrifice was,” Mia said.

  “So the ritual was done, and the coach killed himself. Why is he still here, and what woke up the soldiers from their rest?” Cid asked, looking around the table at the blank faces of the participants before zooming in on Mia.

  “It’s a guess at best, but the trunk was found between the west power marker and the school. When Deville called for power, some of it must have bled into the trunk. It was only the slightest of amounts. Shelby must have gotten the lion’s share each time. When we found them the first time, only he had form. The rest were just wisps of smoke. I think that when Deville realized he had woken up his enemies, he started to protect himself.”