“Absolutely,” she said without hesitation.
“Good to know. Because if this doesn’t work, I want you to let me go too.”
“What?”
“If this spell doesn’t work, I don’t want to be stuck here as a ghost forever. I want you to promise that you’ll find a way to release me. From this existence, this mortal plane or whatever you’d call it.”
“But Bobby, you can’t be serious?”
“This isn’t a life,” he said, pleading. “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I can’t even read a book because I can’t turn the pages. I’m just always here, here but not here, and despite being with my mother, it’s lonely.”
“But I’m your friend now.”
“Yes, and I care for you. But what kind of relationship could we have, me being dead and all? Even if we could make it work, eventually you’ll grow old and die, and then I’ll be alone again.”
“Or maybe we’ll be together.”
Bobby laughed with no humor. “I already told you, I can’t see other spirits. Maybe you’ll go off to wherever Pete went, or maybe you’ll still be here, but we won’t be able to see each other. Whatever the case, I want you to promise me that you won’t let me stay like this forever. Please!”
“Bobby, I can’t—”
“Please! If you love me, you won’t let me linger on like this. If the spell doesn’t work, promise you’ll find a way to set me free.”
“I…I promise.”
* * *
Karen looked at the closest tombstone. She’d been walking for almost an hour and still hadn’t found exactly what she’d been looking for.
For that matter, she wasn’t sure she even knew for herself what she was seeking. The one she was looking at now had a woman’s name followed by:
Born July 4, 1960, Died December 10, 1999
Beloved Mother and Artist
She Brought Life to Those Close to Her
A gust of wind blew a long strand of her hair so it covered her view. She pushed it back behind her ear.
“Is that the one?”
The voice behind her was gentle but insistent.
“Are you getting tired of looking?”
Karen smiled as she turned to face Bobby. He stood a respectful two feet behind her, as if he was trying to give her the privacy while still being there if she needed emotional support.
Not bloody likely, she thought.
“Sorry, I didn’t intend to sound impatient,” he said. “Take all the time you want. Time is the one thing both of us have lots of.”
Karen nodded.
“I just need to find the right one.”
Bobby smiled. “I know. Really, it’s okay.”
“I’m not sure anything will be okay ever again.”
Bobby didn’t answer. What could he say to that?
Karen was determined not to drop a single tear. She tried to detach herself and concentrate on Bobby—dark brown eyes, pitch curly black hair, dimples she knew would appear when he smiled.
She exhaled and turned to the headstone. “I wonder what kind of art she practiced.”
“Do you want to check? You can Google it on your iPhone. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she really accomplished anything.”
Karen shook her head. “In a way I’d rather imagine my own truth. I think she assembled collages from nature, picking up stray oak and maple leaves wherever she went and then spending hours rearranging them to tell a story.”
She knelt and touched the granite stone, feeling the etchings of some of the letters.
“This isn’t the one,” she finally said.
Bobby joined her as she walked past a few more tombstones. None of them interested her. Only a few had called to her so far.
The sun was setting, casting a long shadow through the graveyard. Karen knew Bobby wanted her to find the damned stone so they could leave, but it wasn’t that easy. It had to be the right one.
If she couldn’t find it, she’d come back tomorrow, and the day after that.
“Did you know there’s two thousand people buried here?” asked Bobby.
She ignored him. A cool breeze blew, and she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. All of a sudden she moved to her right and fell to her knees in front of an old weathered stone.
“This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”
“Are you sure?” Bobby asked. “What makes this one any different than the others?”
“It’s just different. Your mother was right, that I’d know it when I felt it. And I’m feeling it now. Go get her.”
And with that, Bobby was gone. Karen waited, kneeling by the grave, feeling power buffeting her like a wind. The tombstone identified the deceased as Rebecca Louise Yomans, died only five years ago at the age of 27. Although Karen couldn’t possibly know, she got a flash of something that told her Rebecca had killed herself. Perhaps the power—a curse, as Penelope had said many who had the ability thought of it—had been too much for her.
She didn’t move as she heard footsteps approaching from behind, and then Penelope was kneeling next to her.
“This is it,” Karen said. “I’m certain of it.”
“I believe you,” Penelope said. “Even I can feel something. This must have been a powerful woman.”
“Very powerful.”
Penelope scanned their surroundings. “This is perfect, better than I could have imagined. We’re near the back end of the cemetery, far from the road. We’ll come back tonight and get what we need. You should rest. It’s going to be a long, strenuous night.”
Karen looked over at the librarian. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ready.”
Chapter 17
Karen thought she was ready, but she didn’t know if anything could have truly prepared her for the task at hand. In addition to the unshakable fear that they were going to be caught in the act, there was also the sheer exhausting strain of the work. She and Penelope working together with shovels, taking periodic breaks, still left the muscles of Karen’s arms trembling and feeling like they’d been liquefied. The work took several hours. Luckily the weather had turned mild in the past few weeks, otherwise the ground would have been frozen and the work much harder.
As they came closer to unearthing Rebecca Yomans’ coffin, the reality of what they were doing started to sink in. They were digging up a dead woman, intending to steal her skull. Whatever their reason, it still felt macabre and sick.
When they finally got to the coffin itself, Penelope sent Karen out of the grave, for which Karen was immensely grateful. Still, when Penelope pried open the lid, the smell struck Karen like a blow to the gut. After five years, who knew the stench of decomposition would be so potent. Karen clasped a hand over her mouth and turned away, barely managing to keep from vomiting on her shoes. Bobby stood nearby, unable to help but offering soothing words of comfort that failed to sooth or comfort.
Karen didn’t look, but she heard as Penelope detached the skull with the shovel, and she almost voided the contents of her stomach again. Penelope crawled out of the grave like some movie zombie, carrying her bundle wrapped in a dark blanket that she deposited into a bowling ball bag she’d brought. It would have been laughable had it not been so ghastly.
The two women began shoveling the dirt back into the grave, which went much faster. If anyone really scrutinized the grave, they would see that the earth had been recently turned, but the women did not concern themselves with that. Once the hole was filled in, they tamped the ground down as much as possible. The sky was just beginning to lighten when they got into Penelope’s car and drove away.
* * *
The spell worked and Bobby was restored in Pete’s body. Karen found it strange to see him staring at her out of another boy’s eyes, but she knew it was him. She could feel it. Finally they were able to be together, and the way he caressed her skin, kissed her neck…it left her moaning with pleasure and begging for more.
Their first night together, her first time with anyone, he entered
her gently, opening her slowly. She arched her back and urged him deeper. He complied, nibbling her ears as this thrusts came faster and harder.
Karen could feel her climax building, about to explode, when a putrid smell invaded her nostrils. She opened her eyes….
And screamed.
Bobby was on top of her but no longer in Pete’s body. He was in his own body…decaying, eye sockets empty, maggots squirming out of his mouth and falling onto her face, bones protruding through graying, flaky skin. She tried to push the corpse away but didn’t have the strength. Bobby was still inside her, and pleasure turned into pain as the dead boy thrust deeper, causing her to unleash an unearthly howl—
* * *
Karen awoke, her scream following her out of the dream. After their late-night adventure, Karen had crashed at Penelope’s house, falling asleep on the sofa without even showering or changing out of her grave-caked clothing. She checked her watch and found it was almost six. She’d slept the day away.
“Are you okay?”
The voice startled Karen, and she let out a high-pitched yelp. Turning, she found Penelope sitting across the room in the recliner. The room was dark except for the light bleeding in from the hallway, but the librarian’s face remained in shadow. Bobby was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m fine,” Karen said. “Just a bad dream is all.”
“It’s understandable. I know what we had to do went against everything you would have learned from a good Christian upbringing, but I assure you the worst is behind us. Everything else needed for the spell I can procure myself.”
“And what about the spell? It’s almost time, don’t you think you should start telling me some specifics of what we’ll be doing?”
Penelope hesitated.
“I know after what Pete did you’re nervous about telling me too much too soon, but I assure you I won’t jump the gun.”
Another brief hesitation, then Penelope nodded. “One mistake Pete made was not to wait for the Spring Equinox. It’s not writ in stone that the spell can only be performed at that time, but it is a time of renewal, when a witch’s powers are at their peak. It can only help ensure success. So on that night we will gather around Pete. I know the staff at the hospital fairly well and feel confident I can get them to give us a little alone time with him. We will have to anoint his body with the potion I will prepare and chant certain incantations.”
“The potion with the skull in it?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what Pete was missing?”
“No. Without my knowledge, he had obtained a skull himself.”
“Then what was he missing?”
“Well, there are two parts of the spell. The first prepares the body to welcome the spirit to inhabit it, to meld the new spirit with the body, but the other part of the spell has to do with selecting the spirit to be installed in the body, calling the spirit if you will. That requires something very personal.”
“Personal? You mean like a personal item that belonged to Bobby? Like an article of clothing or a favorite book?”
Penelope shook her head. “I’m talking much more personal than that. I mean something that came from his body.”
Karen held up her arm to showcase the bracelet she wore. “You mean like the hair you used in the talismans.”
“Hair is not potent enough for this kind of magick. It has to be something from inside.”
“Inside? You mean like an internal organ? How do you expect to get something like that?”
As if reading Karen’s mind, Penelope laughed and said, “Don’t worry, there will be no more need of grave robbing. I already have something that will do.”
“Like what?”
“When Bobby was a little boy, he had to have his tonsils out. The doctors gave them to me in a jar. I don’t know if they still do that sort of thing, but they did back then. I’ve kept them all these years.”
“His tonsils?”
“Yes, and I’ll use them in the spell to get Bobby in Pete’s body, and then I’ll finally have my son back.”
Penelope started to weep softly, and Karen thought about what Bobby had said at the cemetery, how his mother clung so tightly to him and just wouldn’t let go. What would happen if something went wrong and the spell didn’t work? There was no doubt that Penelope would try again. She would keep trying, no matter what it took, for the rest of her life.
And this made Karen think of her promise to him.
Karen stood, and Penelope composed herself and said, “You should shower here and change, I have some clothes that’ll fit well enough. If you go back to the dorm looking like…well, like you just dug up a grave, might draw unwanted attention.”
“Okay. Where’s Bobby?”
“He’s out back, said he wanted to be alone. He told me to tell you good-bye and to remind you of your promise.”
Karen had started toward the hallway but stopped suddenly, and instantly put up a mental shield around her thoughts. This was one of the first things Penelope had taught her, and she’d gotten quite adept at it.
“What promise was that?” Penelope asked in a casual tone. Too casual.
“I just promised him that I would make sure we got him back.”
“I promised him the same thing, and we’re going to keep that promise. Come hell or high water, the two of us are going to keep that promise.”
* * *
After scrubbing in the shower and changing into a pair of sweats that were a bit too big but serviceable, Karen left. She was happy to be away from Penelope, and even from Bobby, for the moment. What they had done, combined with the nightmare that lingered in her mind, had left her shaken and unsure of herself, unsure if she was doing the right thing.
Perhaps the coven was right. They had said that what Penelope planned was unnatural and wrong, and Karen had scoffed. After all, what could be wrong with a mother wanting her son back?
But after digging up a grave and severing the head of a corpse, even if Karen herself hadn’t done the severing herself…well, that certainly felt unnatural and wrong. In fact, what could be more unnatural and wrong than desecrating someone’s final resting place and defiling their body?
But there was context here, an ultimate goal that justified the means…didn’t it? This was all for Bobby, to restore him to life, to give him the chance that the car robbed him of all those years ago.
Or was that reasoning too much like “two wrongs make a right”?
Karen pondered these things on the drive back to campus, her thoughts circling like dogs chasing their tails. She kept thinking how different her life had been a year ago. Then she’d been a relatively normal girl with a strange gift to make objects move. She’d thought the problems she’d had then—her lack of friends other than Brittany, kind but indifferent parents—had been huge, but now she recognized how petty they were.
Now she was a full-fledged witch about to undergo a massive spell that could alter several lives, including her own. She was messing with life and death, something she’d been raised to believe was the domain of God alone.
And the only people she had to talk to about all of this was an older witch who had been known to keep things from her, and a boy who had been dead for years.
Whom she loved.
As Karen pulled into the student lot, she decided to take a page from Scarlett O’Hara. She wouldn’t think about it, at least not for the rest of the day. Her brain needed a break. Even though she’d slept so long at Penelope’s, she felt she could sleep more. She wasn’t only physically exhausted but also mentally drained.
She would trudge to the dorm, take another, longer shower, then crawl under the covers until morning.
She had just reached the dorm and was about to go inside when she thought she heard her name. Faint but distinct. She glanced around. It was dark, but the campus was well lit, and she saw no one. Probably her overworked mind playing tricks on her.
* * *
From the shadows of a cluster of nearby trees, t
he indistinct form tried to call out to Karen again but no sound carried on the night air. After she disappeared inside the dorm, the figure simply faded away.
Chapter 18
The winter had been mild, much milder than the West Virginia winters Karen was used to. There had been a little ice, a few snow flurries that didn’t accumulate, but no real winter in the strictest sense. She did get a kick out of the way people in South Carolina bundled up when it was only forty-five degrees out; they’d run to the store to stock up on milk and bread at the mere mention of snow, as if they feared they’d be trapped in their homes for weeks with no way to get provisions.
Now spring was knocking at the door, making its presence known with budding flowers and birdsong. A time of renewal, of rebirth…normally it was Karen’s favorite season, but this year it filled her with a mixture of hope and dread that left her slightly nauseated.
The second week of March, she was walking along the Swamp Rabbit Trail toward Traveler’s Rest, Bobby tagging along beside her. They had taken to having daily walks. Because the warm weather was bringing out joggers, power walkers, and bicyclers by the droves, they didn’t get to talk much during these walks, but that was okay. It was enough just to be with him. It made her feel better about…well, about everything really.
Halfway to Traveler’s Rest, Karen veered off the trail, Bobby following. They took a small paved path into a recently built physical fitness park. Instead of the usual equipment one might expect, this one contained work-out equipment, metal contraptions like torture devices, that would use your own weight to help you work your arms and legs.
The park was usually deserted. As it was today. Karen sat on a bench at the far end of the park, Bobby settling next to her.
“So,” she said, “are you getting nervous?”
Bobby laughed and said, “Oh yeah. Big time. Although I’m not sure if I’m more nervous that the spell won’t work…or that it will.”
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