A Ghostly Charm

by MJ Fredrick

  But that wasn’t why they were here. Keeping a respectable distance from Mal, she drew Cindi’s attention to the charm. “What do you mean, it’s a summoning charm?”

  “It calls the spirits.” She sat back, curving her hands over the arms of the chair. “The charm is a symbol of the island, a symbol, of sorts, of the first family, the McDavids. You see it on all the signs.” Cindi turned to Mal. “Did you ever wonder why Kayla and I chose to move to McDavid Island and open the shop?”

  “She said the veil was thin there.”

  “And you didn’t believe.” She smiled chidingly. “One of the McDavid daughters, Elizabeth, was Wiccan. The McDavids left their home on the mainland to protect her. She’s the one who opened the veil, and used the ghost world as her soldiers to guard her family. When their enemies would come, her army would chase them off.”

  “So why are they showing up now? Are we the enemy?” Maddy asked.

  Cindi pointed to the charm. “I believe this belonged to Elizabeth. It was what she used to call them.”

  Maddy dropped the bracelet on the oak coffee table between them. “That’s what’s causing this mess? The stupid charm?”

  “I believe so.”

  Mal leaned forward and picked up the bracelet, inspecting the offending object. “So if she used it to call them, can I use it to make them go away?”

  “I don’t believe you can. I don’t think you have the magic needed.”

  “But it brought them here.”

  “It awakened them,” Kayla corrected. “It’s always easier to wake someone than to put them back to sleep.”

  “Do you have that kind of magic?” Maddy asked, still not believing those words were coming out of her mouth. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes...

  “No, and neither did Kayla.”

  “So, what are we supposed to do?” Mal glared at her.

  “We came here to look through the books,” Maddy said. “Maybe we can find something in one of them that will point us in the right direction.”

  Cindi rose from her chair in a smooth languorous move. “They’re in the garage. I’ll show you.”

  ****

  “Holy hell.” Mal stood in the doorway of the detached garage and stared at the stacks of boxes casting shadows in the swinging overhead light. “Are these in any kind of, I don’t know, order? Grouped by subject or something?”

  Cindi shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t help her pack. Justin did.”

  Mal swore again. He should have brought Justin along.

  Maddy moved forward and rested her hand on a box. “What we need is island history. I’ll start here, you start there.” She pointed to the other end of the row. “Cindi, over there.”

  “Oh, no.” Cindi swept her hair back with one hand. “Not my project.”

  This time Maddy shrugged. “Your island.” And she dove into the first box.

  She waited until Cindi left before she dove into Mal as well.

  “What did you mean back there when you said you didn’t believe? You lead theses tours and you don’t believe?”

  He snorted, then sneezed at the dust he stirred up from the box.

  “You’re just in it for the money.”

  “Maybe.” He pushed back from the box. He didn’t want her thinking that about him, not when his reason for the money was, well, reasonable. “My sister, Kayla is into this kind of stuff, right, the crystals and the auras and the ouija boards.”

  “Right. I kinda got that.” She gestured toward the boxes. “But you didn’t believe.”

  “No.”

  “You thought she was foolish.”

  “I—wouldn’t say foolish. I indulged her, all right? She opened a shop here on the island, saying it was a place very close to the veil, you know, that separates the living and the dead. The thing is, this island isn’t exactly a hopping place. So Justin and I thought the kind of people who would go to her shop are the same kind of people who would go on a ghost tour, right?”

  “So you set it up to bring people to the island.”

  “Yeah. Justin, you know, he figured out what we needed to do to attract people, and we started the tours. It was a slow start, let me tell you.”

  “So you built your reputation on other tours. The Salem one, the Amityville one.”

  Smart girl. “Right.”

  “But the shop failed anyway?”

  He scrubbed his hand over his face. “The veil she insisted was so thin broke, or whatever. She started seeing ghosts. All the time.”

  “Like we’re doing now.”

  He looked toward the door, guilt dragging at him. “Yeah.” He squared his shoulders. “So I had her committed.”

  She dropped her hands to the box in front of her. “God, Mal.”

  “She wouldn’t take her meds, she wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t take care of her.”

  “Where is your family?”

  “It’s just us. Me and her.”

  “And your decision.”

  “Right.” He gathered his courage to meet her gaze then, and saw sympathy, not the derision he expected. Was she softening because he’d slept with her, or did she really understand?

  “But now you think she might have been seeing them all along.”

  He nodded wearily. “And I’ve had her locked up for nearly a year for something she couldn’t help.”

  “Mal, you couldn’t know,” Maddy said quietly. “If this is what she was seeing, you had to get her off the island, or she would have gone crazy.”

  “Maybe.” He opened the box in front of him again. “But locking her up with real crazy people doesn’t seem like the best idea, does it?”

  She didn’t say anything for awhile. All he heard was the thump of books as they hit the floor. “Do you go see her?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “And now, knowing what you know? What will you do?”

  “As soon as we get this taken care of, I’m going for her.”

  “And bringing her back here?”

  Mal snapped his gaze to Maddy’s. “Bring her back here? Are you crazy?”

  “She’s the one who told you the veil is thin here. Maybe she knows how to close it.”

  “If she knew, she could have closed it for herself.”

  “Maybe she thought she was crazy, too,” she murmured.

  That thought hit him square in the chest.

  “Because I didn’t trust her, she figured I must be right.” How many ways had he failed his sister?

  They worked in silence, other than the sound of books hitting the floor and the turn of pages. Both jolted when the garage door opened and Cindi stepped through, dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie. She lowered herself gracefully beside Mal on the garage floor. He glanced past her at Maddy, who had her nose buried in a book. Yeah, she wasn’t fooling him with her nonchalance.

  “Have you found anything?” Cindi asked, leaning over him to reach into a box for another book.

  Both grunted a negative.

  “Have you thought about perhaps destroying the charm? Maybe that would send the spirits back where they came from.”

  Mal looked up. “Just like that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cindi said. “You might see if we can find a ritual to cleanse the place in one of these books, and you can do both at the same time.”

  “Let’s look for a ritual, then.”

  ****

  If anyone had told Maddy she would be sitting on the edge of a ritualistic circle in the center of a graveyard at four in the morning, she would have had them locked up right next to Mal’s sister. Yet here she was, the damp ground soaking into her jeans, Mal sitting across from her, wresting her charm from her bracelet. Justin struggled to keep the fire burning in the wet grass. Beyond them, the ghost in the Sunday suit wandered among the gravestones, but so far ignored them. Maddy allowed herself a shiver before she turned her attention to what Mal and Justin were doing.

  Mal dropped the charm with a clank into the silver container that
Cindi had given him. Drawing a deep breath, he held it over the fire with a pair of barbecue tongs he’d grabbed from the Cindi’s kitchen.

  All three of them leaned forward to watch the results.

  Nothing happened. After several minutes, Mal shifted the tongs to his other hand and rested his elbow on his knee. A few minutes later, he shifted back and shoved his wet hair back from his face.

  “Any idea how long it will take?”

  Maddy sat back on her heels in frustration. “No. You want me to hold it?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hey, it looks like something might be happening,” Justin said. “The lines are starting to blur.”

  Maddy resisted looking, for a moment. But he was right. The silver shimmered, the loop that had connected it to the bracelet shifting and softening. Maddy took the tongs from Mal, and they all watched as the lines of the design filled in and disappeared. Mal blew out a breath of relief...and the symbol reformed in the container.

  “What the hell?” Mal snatched the tongs back, pulled the container to him. He whipped out a pocketknife and prodded the once-again-solid charm with the tip. His gaze snapped to Maddy’s. “What the hell?” he repeated.

  She shook her head. “See if we can melt it again, and separate it.”

  Mal dropped the charm back into the container and held it over the fire. This time when the charm melted, he tilted the container to drop some of the silver into the fire. But before the silver touched the flames, the liquid drew up and the charm reformed. Mal swore.

  “Now what?” Justin demanded, panic tightening his voice.

  “It’ll be morning in a little while,” Maddy said. “We can call your sister then. Maybe she can tell us what books to look into.” Suddenly she was so tired she could barely sit up. She wanted to curl up in bed next to Mal and sleep until this was over.

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Mal climbed to his feet and reached a hand to her, his attention on the ghost in the suit.

  “We have those books you got from Cindi’s, too,” Justin said, holding up his hand to Mal for assistance, then getting to his feet on his own when Mal ignored him.

  Maddy couldn’t imagine reading, could barely keep her eyes open as she staggered in Mal’s footsteps on the way out of the graveyard.

  They stopped at the end of the street. The approaching dawn did nothing to calm the panic in town. Ghosts wandered the streets, moving through walls to disappear, which induced screams of terror from people inside. Soon the people ran into the streets, only to be followed by a different ghost.

  “How many dead people are on this island?” Mal demanded.

  “Apparently it was once a British prison during the Revolution,” Justin said. “A lot of men died of cholera while being held there.”

  Mal turned to him. “This is information you had?”

  Justin lifted a shoulder. “Found it when you were at Cindi’s. Didn’t think it was relevant.”

  Mal watched another colonial soldier run past. “Really.” He started toward the inn again. “Not going to get much sleep with all this going on.”

  “At least they don’t seem to be hurting anyone,” Maddy said.

  Just then, a crash of glass sounded overhead. A scream of terror followed, and a man fell to the street in front of them, crumpled and groaning in pain. Maddy looked up to see a ghost standing in the window, this one in modern clothing. The ghost dusted his hands and turned from the window as Mal and Justin crouched in front of the injured man.

  ****

  Maddy was never so glad to get to the room at the inn. She was exhausted. God, she really hoped Mal could get in touch with his sister Kayla and that she’d know what to do. If they could get rid of the ghosts, this would be over and she could go home.

  Where she’d never see Mal again.

  She must be tired if that thought made her want to cry. But really, what place could he take in her life once this was done? He was clearly a con man. And how would she introduce him to friends? “This is my boyfriend, Mal. He leads ghost tours?” Yes, that would be exactly the step she needed to be taken seriously. She’d already admitted to herself that she wouldn’t be writing this article.

  She sat and looped her arms around her knees as Mal pulled his phone from his pocket. She held his gaze as he waited to speak to Kayla. As tired as she was, she wanted to give him that support.

  “Hey, sis. Yeah, I know it hasn’t been that long, but look, I have some questions for you. I need to know about the symbol that’s on all the buildings, Elizabeth McDavid’s symbol. Cindi said it was a summoning spell. I need to know how to reverse it. All hell’s breaking loose here.” He paused, tapping his fingertips on the night stand. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, sis. You have no idea how sorry.”

  He was quiet a long time as he listened, and his pain was palpable. Justin tried to say something to Maddy, but she held him off with a hand, reaching for Mal with her other. He gave her a brief shake of his head, denying her offer. Okay, for now, anyway. Instead, he picked up a pad and pen and started scribbling notes.

  “Okay. Well. We’ll do what we can. Then I’m coming to get you, sis. I promise.”

  He hung up the phone and looked at Maddy. “They’re not gone because the sun came up. They’re not afraid of the sun.”

  “So where are they and what are they doing?” Justin asked.

  “I don’t know.” He crossed the room and flipped through the pages of a book Maddy had brought from Cindi’s. “According to Kayla, the symbols are on buildings in a kind of pattern. The pattern itself acts as the gateway. To close the gateway, we have to do something at each place, in a certain order. Kayla also said the ghosts will not be happy when they know what we’re doing.”

  “They’re going to try to stop us?” Justin asked.

  “Yeah. Kayla said they don’t like iron, though, so I’m thinking we need to find us some of that.”

  “I’m on it,” Justin said, and headed for the door.

  Maddy scooted to the edge of the bed where Mal sat with the book about the McDavid girl. “What do you think? You think they want to go back behind the veil?” She stopped Mal’s hand as he flipped through the pages, and she pointed to the symbol. “There.”

  “Huh,” he said as he scanned the page. “In every house with a symbol, there’s another symbol inside. Thing is, we have to get into the houses, then find the other symbol.”

  “While the ghosts are looking for us.”

  “Right.”

  “So, how many houses does it look like we have to go to?”

  “I don’t think it’s the houses so much as they’re linked somehow.” “Like tunnels?”

  “That’s what I think. And it looks like we can start from here.” He looked up at Maddy. “Where do you think we can find the symbol in this place?”

  “You said tunnel, right?” Maddy climbed off the bed. “I have an idea.”

  Justin returned with two fireplace pokers just as Maddy turned the corner to the place where Bridget had disappeared into the walls. Yeah, Mal was looking forward to going back in there.

  “Best I could do,” Justin explained as he handed a poker to Mal. “Sorry, Maddy.”

  She scowled.

  “Did you guys bring your butter with you this time?” Justin indicated his girth. “No way I’m fitting in there, if you two got stuck.”

  “So what are you going to be doing?” Mal demanded.

  “I’ll be your tech support.” Justin waved a walkie and handed another to Maddy, who hooked it on her belt.

  “Then give this to me,” she said, snatching the poker from him. “Don’t worry,” she told Mal. “I’ll protect you.” Then she flicked on her own flashlight and led the way.

  She moved sure-footedly, bobbing the flashlight in front of her, edging around beams, sending him a warning glance over her shoulder. Now would not be the time to get stuck.

  “So you think Bridget was showing us the way?” he asked.

  “Not showing us. M
aybe looking for the way herself.”

  “So she wanted to go back to the other side.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she still could.” Maddy paused and pushed her hair from her face. “Why am I the one with the theories here? This is your line of work.”

  “Yeah, well. You see what that got us. In a hell of a lot of trouble.”

  “What did Kayla say?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the phone, when you apologized. What did she say?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, what do you expect her to say? ‘All is forgiven?’”

  “More along the lines of ‘I told you so,’ then?”

  “Yeah, kinda, and, ‘You’d be a lot better off if I was there and not locked in a nuthouse.’” He raised his voice in imitation of his sister’s voice.

  “Can’t argue there. We could have been working on this hours ago.”

  He grunted.

  “Stairs.”

  “What?” He jerked himself back from thoughts of Kayla and stopped himself from bumping into Maddy.

  “Stairs, going down. Ready?”

  “Um.” Answering no wasn’t an option, was it? “Where do you think they go?”

  “To the tunnel leading to the other spots on the island, I imagine. The McDavid house, maybe.”

  “I thought we were looking for a symbol here in the inn.”

  “And we may still find it.” She headed down the stairs slowly, flashlight beam bouncing from steps to rails to walls and back.

  The stairs ended abruptly, and there was a door, with the symbol carved into it. And no handle.

  “What the hell?” Mal demanded.

  Maddy leaned closer for a better look, her breath dusting away the cobwebs gathered in the splintering wood. “There’s a space here. I wonder.” She fished her charm from her front pocket—she hadn’t put it back on her bracelet after the botched ritual in the graveyard—and placed it on the door.

  It was a perfect fit.