Miss Hawthorne Sits for a Spell

by Katherine Hayton

  “A small group can’t defeat the Supreme’s power. Not alone. We need your help.”

  Wanda stood, mouth open, a frown creasing her face. “But there’s only us here. Even if we could go back, we’ve already tried and failed.”

  “You defeated Jake.”

  “I overpowered a talentless man. It’s not a challenge.”

  Cynthia tugged at Emily’s hand, her flesh as solid as Harvey’s had been a minute earlier. “You must go back. If you stay here, you’ll be as dead as us.”

  Emily planted her feet and stood her ground. “When I first talked to Agnetha, she told me since I could speak to the dead, I should be able to locate her brother easily. The dead are everywhere, she told me. I need their help now.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s just us here.” Cynthia pulled at Emily’s arm again, then dropped it in frustration when she refused to move. “Where’s this dead army you think exists? Do you see them?”

  “I could never see any of you until an accident scarred my brain. Does that mean you didn’t exist?”

  “Great. You’re speaking in riddles. What I know is that if you don’t stay in the realm of the living, you’re dead.”

  “Then I’ll be dead. It hasn’t harmed you any.” Emily tried to look around her but there was nothing but brilliant white light in every direction. With every second, even Wanda and Cynthia faded, absorbed into the radiance. She didn’t have much time.

  Do I really believe the dead are everywhere? Yes. Yes, I do.

  Emily put her hands over her abdomen, filling her lungs up from the base as a long-ago speech instructor had taught her to do. “I need your help. Every dead person who has a connection to Pinetar, I call upon you for assistance. A madwoman has taken up the mantle of Supreme and is not fit for the role.”

  Wanda had gone. Nothing but white was in her place. Cynthia barely existed.

  “My father passed a gift down to me but it’s only recently I’ve begun to use it. I’ve had no instruction so I must work from instinct. My belief is that I must now reach out to you.”

  A shape wavered in the unending brightness. The outline of a person, so familiar, so long-ago left behind. A hand reached out to take hold of Emily and draw her close, into a hug.

  “I am the father of Emily Curtis and I spent my life in service to this nation, just as she has begun to serve you now. I beseech you to join together with us, to fight against a powerful enemy.”

  Cynthia grabbed hold of Emily’s arm, appearing in full view with the blink of an eye. Wanda stood beside her, a row of people lining up as far as her vision now saw.

  “We will come.”

  “Okay, it looks like there’s something to this, Scarface. Lead us into battle.”

  Emily closed her eyes and felt along the love she held for her brother. She travelled its bends and curves until she could feel the cold of an earthly night.

  Peanut ran in a figure eight around her ankles, mewing. She laughed and bent to lift him up to her shoulder. “Come along, then. We can lead the charge.”

  In a blink, Emily stood back on the side of the road. The burned and flooded vestiges of the destruction which Agnetha had so far brought to bare lay in every direction.

  An argument played out in front of her, Terrence standing his ground.

  “You’re not thinking straight,” Agnetha yelled at her brother.

  Terrence flung his hands up into the air. “Of course, I’m not thinking straight. My girlfriend is dying in hospital today because of your actions.” He glanced across at Emily who took a second to rally, part of her still existing in another realm. “I’m sorry I broke into your house. Did you ever find the book?”

  She frowned, catching back up to speed with the scene playing out. “Yes, I found it. We were on our way to the hospital when your sister stopped us.”

  “They finally have the means to save Sheryl, and you stopped them? Are there any depths you won’t sink to?”

  “All I want is what’s best for you. It’s what any sister wants for her brother. Stop trying to take my love and twist it into something it’s not.”

  “Love.” Emily laughed, holding her brother’s hand aloft. “This is love. My brother moving home to care for me, even when I wouldn’t admit I needed it. That’s love.” She took a step closer to the Supreme. “A dead woman trying desperately to stay in this realm to ensure her sister’s safety. That’s love.”

  “Wanting your brother to avoid making a mistake that will cost him pain and years of his life entangled with a woman who’s wrong for him—that’s love too.”

  “No, it’s not.” Terrence’s whole body shook with the denial. “It’s possessive. I’m not some figurine you can store on your mantelpiece. I’m a grown man, capable of making my own decisions.”

  “But they’re bad. If you’d married Sheryl, your life would be terrible.”

  “So what? It’s none of your business. If you really loved me, you’d stand back and let me fail. You’d let me do the things I’m good at and stop trying to fit me into a box that only comes in the wrong size.”

  Emily saw Agnetha drawing up her strength, her power. A middle-aged woman whose energy was flagging, but she was about to give her all in another attempt at destruction.

  Well, two could play at that game.

  Emily raised her hands up, turning towards the flickering crowd of the dead as though she was a conductor in front of her orchestra. Wanda tilted her head back, the energy thrumming down to fill her, straight out of the sky.

  She dropped her hands, ready-set-GO! Wanda’s energy passed through all the dead spirits, shooting spirals of electricity straight out of their chests. No, their hearts.

  “It’s really easy once you get the hang of it,” Cynthia shouted, her face suffused with joy. She bore down, her sparks increasing in intensity.

  Again, Emily raised her arms, and the crowd fell still and silent. Again, she dropped them, and the streams of electricity flowed out of the congregating spirits, converging on Agnetha.

  “You’re just dead bugs!” The Supreme flung her hands up to fight against the pulses heading towards her. “You should go back where you came from.”

  “Not unless we take you with us,” Emily’s father called out, her mother joining in with his cry a second later.

  Next to her, Harvey raised his fists to the sky, shaking them in encouragement. The dead continued to pour forth from the other realm, spilling out until it seemed all of Pinetar’s decedents must be standing there.

  “Help.” Collapsing under the onslaught, Agnetha stretched a hand out towards her brother.

  Terrence stood firm, shaking his head. “Whatever you’re suffering, you brought it upon yourself.”

  The electricity continued to flow towards the Supreme until it became a glowing ball equal in strength to the door the dead had come from. With a gigantic thunder of sound, it suddenly compressed to the size of a basketball, then a tennis ball, then a ball-bearing.

  A whoomph and the electricity was gone. Agnetha dropped to the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Emily stared at the rows of ghosts, unable to give voice to everything inside her heart. A tear dribbled down her cheek, but she couldn’t raise her hand to brush it away. Her parents stood just metres away.

  “Where did they all come from?”

  She jerked around, staring at Crystal who was gazing at the crowd of the dead, her mouth agape.

  “You can see them?”

  “It would be hard not to. Barry!” Crystal ran, making for a large man standing near the edge of the group. Her hands travelled straight through his body, leaving her stumbling and laughing. “Are you really here?”

  “It’s good to see you kids helping each other out.” Emily’s dad stepped forward, nodding to her and Harvey. “For a long time there, we thought you’d never reconnect.”

  “Dad?” Harvey stretched his hand out, letting it brush through the side of their father’s arm. “Mum?”
r />   “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’re working together.”

  Emily moved a step forward as her mother spoke, wishing she was on the other side of the light, so she could still connect to them physically. She’d never wanted anything more in her life than to give them a hug.

  “We have to go.” Her dad looked over his shoulder, brow darkening as he watched the vibrant glow of light begin to dim. “Can’t get stuck over here. You’ve got quite enough on your plates without taking care of your parents, too.”

  Harvey grabbed hold of Emily’s shoulders and they waved goodbye. Peanut scrabbled with his claws in the dirt, being dragged backwards by some invisible force until she bent and scooped him into her arms. “You can stay.”

  Cynthia and Wanda resisted the force of the door closing. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back?” Emily asked the witch as she fought to hold her ground. “It mightn’t open up for you again.”

  “I’m sure. No matter what the other realm holds, it doesn’t have my sister. I need to stay here until I’m sure what happened to her.”

  “Ugh. Why is she still here?” Cynthia asked, pointing to the ground where Agnetha’s body lay.

  “Is she dead?” Emily walked over, picking up a stick on the way to give the body a poke. A reactive flinch told her otherwise. “Nope. Just unconscious.”

  “Her power is gone.” Wanda stood nearby, cupping her elbows and staring at the collapsed woman with something akin to wonder. “The sheen she always had about her—it’s left. She’s no longer our Supreme.”

  “Well, thank goodness. She hardly seemed fit for the role.” Crystal hooked her arm through Emily’s, smiling at the ghost witch.

  “You can still hear her?” Emily’s mouth fell open.

  “Loud and clear.” Crystal broke away to give her body an urgent pat. “I hope that doesn’t mean I’m dead.”

  “You’re fine,” Emily said with a smile. She poked her friend in the upper arm, dimpling the batwings there. “See?”

  “Keep your fingers to yourself, hey? I didn’t grow all this gloriousness”—she waved over her Rubenesque frame—“just for you to poke at.”

  “Should we tie her up while she’s still out for the count?” Harvey peered at Agnetha, standing a respectable distance back. “And what’s happening with Jake.”

  “Ugh. With what those two did to my sister, I hope they never wake up again.”

  Harvey gave Jake a kick, and the man groaned, then fell back into unconsciousness. “I don’t think we need to worry about either of them for a while.”

  “Wait.” Emily stared at Wanda in confusion. “What do you mean, your sister wasn’t on the other side?”

  “Oh.” Crystal blushed, blood rushing to her face in a flood. “I might know what’s going on there. In fact…” She clicked her fingers at Terrence who gave her a blank stare in return. “The phone?”

  He handed it over, and Crystal scrolled through the messages. Emily had to bite her lip. The device was her lifeline and watching it in someone else’s possession made her nervous, no matter how much she trusted them.

  “While you were having a disagreement with Agnetha, your mate Slim sent a text through. His gang got to the hospital in record time, so I gave him a few instructions.”

  “What instructions?” Emily narrowed her eyes at the medium, who shrugged.

  “I just laid out the plan as I understood it. At least, what we would’ve been doing if this maniac”—she jerked her chin toward Agnetha’s supine body—“hadn’t pulled us off to the side of the road.”

  Wanda stared, a slew of emotions racing across her features. “You mean they subdued the staff and blocked off the floor?”

  “Something like that. I’m a bit blurry on the details but I suggest we get down there now. From what Slim says, your sister is still plugged in and doing fine but they’ve got police camped outside along with a hostage negotiator.”

  “Oh, my.” Emily pressed a hand to her chest, a smile blossoming on her face. “I really thought we’d missed the window of opportunity.”

  “Thank the Mortal Guises for the stay of execution.” Crystal scurried for the car, slipping in the mud strewn about the place. “But if we don’t get a move on, it’ll be in vain. You’ve still got the book and the puzzle box, don’t you?”

  “I certainly do.”

  She reached for the driver’s side door handle, but Harvey put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think so. You and Crystal get in the back and be ready to jump out the moment the car comes to a stop. I’ll deal with the police and you work out how to get inside.”

  “But I can’t read—”

  “I’ll do the recitation. You handle the soul.” Crystal winked at Wanda and Cynthia. “Come on, ladies. Let’s get this done.”

  There were so many police cars pulled up outside, Emily began to think their mission would be impossible. Close by the hospital entrance, an inspector stood with a loudspeaker. He barked out a few sentences, all of them illegible to her ears.

  “Do you think we should slip around the back?”

  “Come with me,” Crystal said, pulling her out of the car. While she stumbled along behind her friend, the medium squinted up the side of the building.

  “They’ll have disabled the lifts, so it’s no use taking them. What we need to do is get into the stairwell, then text them when we’re on the right floor.”

  “All of which is postponed until we actually get inside.” Emily waved her hand at the line up of law enforcement. “No offence, but I think we might be outmanned.”

  “There’s a staff door,” Cynthia said, appearing out of nowhere as usual. Wanda trailed along behind her, face pinched with concern. “It’s meant to be kept clear as an exit but there’s a heap of cigarette butts telling me it’s frequently used. That means it won’t be alarmed.”

  “Can we open it from the outside, though?”

  “I’ll poltergeist it from the inside. Just move along the side of the building and around the corner.”

  Emily gripped her bag as she navigated down the dark alleyway. It would be too much irony to endure if she lost the puzzle box just as the plan was coming to fruition.

  Crystal did the same with the book, curling both arms around it in a protective shield.

  “Now wait out here,” Cynthia directed, “and I’ll go inside and push it open.”

  “Stand back.” Wanda stepped forward, raising a hand. “I’ve got this.”

  With a bang, the door flew open and slammed against the wall, straining its hinges.

  “Remind me not to get you in a bad mood,” Crystal muttered as she passed through the entrance, her voice hushed with awe.

  “It’s just a party trick.” Cynthia sniffed as she floated inside. Her obvious disgruntlement made Emily smile.

  “These stairs are going to kill me,” Emily said, loosening one hand from its death grip on her handbag to clutch the handrail. “How much time do we have?”

  “Just get up there and worry about the consequences in the morning.” Cynthia stayed a few steps ahead, giving a come-on gesture as encouragement. “You’ve done worse. Since you handled a few minutes of compressions without falling apart, these stairs should be a doddle.”

  They weren’t but Emily concentrated all her energy on getting up them. By the time they reached the third-floor level, her lungs had taken over as chief complainants.

  “Give me the phone and I’ll call Slim and the gang,” Crystal said. Her words came between pants as well but of the two, she was slightly fitter.

  A minute later, a sound of wrenching metal greeted them from the other side and Pig pulled open the stairwell door. “The police are going to town with the bribes,” he said, staying behind to shove a metal crowbar back into place. “I reckon they’re stalling to get their men into position. We won’t have long.”

  Emily remembered the room from her earlier visit and hurried there as quickly as her legs could carry her. The sight of Sheryl hooked up to the
implacable machines warmed her heart, where before it had been enough to make her blood run cold.

  The woman was alive. That was all that mattered.

  If the spell worked, she’d soon be a lot better off.

  “You’ll have to read it out,” Emily told Crystal, nodding her head. “If I need to do something with the puzzle, let me know.”

  Crystal opened the book, flipping through the pages. “Put the box by her head,” she ordered. “And no laughing at my pronunciation.”

  With a deep breath, she began.

  “I don’t think it’s worked,” Emily said, her voice half lost to a sob. They’d run through the spell, following the instructions with Wanda correcting them when they strayed. After the final words were spoken, the two women had bowed their heads and stepped back, waiting for the miracle.

  Ten minutes later, nothing had changed.

  “How long should it take?” Emily shot a nervous glance toward the corridor where the men from the Mortal Guises gang paced back and forth.

  Wanda leaned over her sister, peering intently at the unconscious woman’s face. “I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before. Well…” Her voice faltered.

  “Well, what?” Cynthia asked. Her tone was sharp, and Emily wondered if she was still feeling miffed about the staff exit door.

  “I tried it on a bunny rabbit once. But it didn’t really have a lot going on upstairs, to begin with.”

  Emily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Cynthia had no such compunction.

  “After all the struggle to get here, the least I expected was for her to gasp and sit up. That’s what they do in all the movies, isn’t it?”

  Crystal slung an arm around Emily’s waist and hugged her. “I promise, we’ll stay here for as long as we can and recite that spell as many times as we need to.”

  Wanda reached out a shaking hand and let a tiny whisper of energy reach out to caress her sister’s cheek.

  Sheryl gasped and sat bolt upright.