Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things That Byte (Dowser 8.5)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Jasmine glanced at Liam. “Ignoring a directive from an oracle isn’t the best idea, sorcerer.”

  “I understood it wasn’t time sensitive.”

  “Then why make the request at all? With everything else going on, why wouldn’t Rochelle have waited?”

  Liam shook his head. I was starting to feel a bit bad for him. He just wanted to be in control, in charge. He wanted to help. And we were all constantly shoving him back into place.

  A curl of a smile softened Jasmine’s face. “We are all just cogs in a big wheel, Detective. We take what magic brings us, and we try to do our best to sort through it.”

  Liam shook his head. “Witches, maybe. But sorcerers aren’t so idle.”

  “What about vampires?” Jasmine whispered. “Shall we go hunting in the dark together, sorcerer?”

  Liam swallowed, then nodded stiffly.

  Jasmine grinned at me saucily. “I hear the detective has a great big gun that he’s only allowed to use against hostiles.”

  “Who else would I shoot?” Liam asked huffily.

  Jasmine shrugged belligerently, then she leaned toward me. “Text me if you need me. But keep Benjamin with you, yes?”

  I nodded.

  She brushed my shoulder with the tips of her fingers. “We’ll find Jade, Mory. Liam was the last one to see her, so … if she’s still where he thinks she is, and I deem it safe, then you’ll use Ed and find her for us. But you’ll wait for my text. You won’t come looking for us until you hear from me. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Jasmine turned away without another word, appearing suddenly at the end of the hall to open the back door.

  Liam stepped into my space, leaning down to whisper, “Be careful with that vampire, Mory.”

  I scoffed. “What do you think he could do to a necromancer while in a graveyard, sorcerer?”

  Liam met my gaze, nodding curtly. Then he grabbed a coat slung over the stair railing and followed Jasmine out of the house.

  Borrowing Bitsy’s older-model Jeep, Gabby, Peggy, Benjamin, and I drove up to Mountain View Cemetery. Then we proceeded to stumble around in the dark for a bit while I used a PDF map I’d found online to figure out what Tony meant by ‘section.’ By ‘fourth row,’ I assumed he meant the bottom, since those were the least expensive interment niches. And though it took a long while — to the extent that we actually would have been better off parking on the opposite side of the graveyard — we finally found the wall of the columbarium that I hoped was Rochelle’s mother’s final resting place.

  Gabby and Peggy huddled off to one side. They were peering at the photo of the handwritten summoning spell that I’d taken a picture of earlier, then texted to Gabby in the SUV. As they did, they muttered between themselves.

  I had mostly memorized the spell before falling asleep, then had reacquainted myself with the particulars during the drive — at least as much as I needed to. I pulled a white pillar candle out of my bag, lit it, and used it to try to read the names and dates on the niches.

  “We need more candles,” Gabby said.

  “One will do.” I turned back at the end of the first wall, scanning the two top rows on my way back, just in case I’d been wrong about how Tony had numbered them. “More will attract too much attention.”

  “From ghosts?” Peggy whispered, thrilled but slightly concerned.

  “From the neighbors. My magic should shield me from casual observation, but I don’t have the kind of power it would take to mask all of you as well. Or a bunch of light.”

  “Where’s Ben?” Gabby asked.

  Benjamin was walking the perimeter of the graveyard — though mentioning that I could feel his magic was more of a personal admission than I felt like making. “He’ll be back. Why?”

  “It says here, in the spell, that we need a … corpse for the soul to inhabit. If we want to talk to it. Ben is, um … I mean, he’s kind of like a corpse, isn’t he?”

  “He’s already using his body,” I said wryly. Then, since Gabby and Peggy were both still staring at me, I elaborated. “Some necromancers use skulls and such to house the ghost they wish to speak to. For safety reasons.”

  “Safety?” Peggy echoed. “Talking to Rochelle’s mom could be … dangerous?”

  “Not to you. No.”

  “And to you?” Gabby was sounding strangely belligerent, as if she might have been thinking about withdrawing from the plan. And I was fairly certain that if I was going to pick up more than gender and possible age from the ashes of Rochelle’s mother, I was going to need an amplifier.

  My mother might have been dismissive of my power level. But she wasn’t exactly wrong.

  Sighing, I tugged my necklace out from underneath my sweater collar, careful to not snag the interior floats of yarn on the coins. “I don’t need to confine a ghost or shade into a skull to keep it from attempting to … possess me —”

  “Possess you!” Peggy cried.

  I ignored her outburst. “Because Jade made me this.” I let the necklace drop back against my upper rib cage. Its weight was comforting.

  Gabby and Peggy eyed my necklace for a moment, then looked at each other — likely communicating telepathically.

  “All right.”

  “Okay.”

  The twins spoke on top of each other, then turned their collective attention back to Gabby’s phone.

  Halfway along the second wall of the columbarium, I found dates in the early nineties — including three without inscriptions in 1995 and 1996, down in the bottom row. “Here we go.” I crouched, set the candle at my feet, and brushed my fingers against the stone panels affixed to the front of the niches. With barely any effort, I reduced the three possibilities to the two that read as female.

  “We need dirt from the grave of the soul we’re trying to summon,” Gabby said, disheartened. “Or … at least from the grave of an ancestor. We can’t get either of those, can we?”

  “Nope.”

  One of the females felt way older than the other, easily in her seventies when she’d died. Zeroing in on what I hoped was Jane Hawthorne’s place of interment, I dug my keys out of my bag, along with a small tin that held my extra stitch markers. I emptied the rainbow-colored daisy markers back into the bag, then pressed the open container tightly against the bottom corner of the blank stone plaque.

  “Sorry about this,” I whispered. Then I used the key to a bike lock that I’d misplaced a couple of years ago to scrape against the plaque, as gently and discreetly as possible. A few flecks of stone fell into the tin. I stared at the paltry scrapings, already knowing it wasn’t going to be enough — if it was even going to work as a replacement for grave dirt in the first place.

  Defacing graves was hugely frowned upon among necromancers. Well, most necromancers. The kind that worked through official channels. Respect was everything when it came to wielding any sort of magic. So I had to hope that an oracle’s request outweighed being disrespectful. I scrubbed the key against the stone more vigorously, gathering more flecks of stone.

  When I was done, I quickly capped the container so that I didn’t accidentally blow the flakes away. Then I settled down cross-legged in the damp grass that grew between the walls, placing my candle in front of the niche I’d defaced, about a foot and a half in front of me.

  “The spell also said something about a pentagram,” Gabby said quietly.

  “A secondary barrier,” I said. “Not necessary because I’ve already claimed this territory. But, um … I will ask you to join me.” I gestured to my right.

  Gabby tucked her phone in the pocket of her jacket, stepping forward and sinking to the ground beside me without hesitation.

  “And me?” Benjamin asked, appearing to my left.

  “If you can stay near, that would be great. But between you and Peggy, if you can just make sure no one wanders this way? I’m not sure I can split my attention between seeking out the shade and making sure that no one else is around.”

  “Cool.”
>
  “Sure.” Peggy stepped up to Gabby’s left. The four of us loosely formed a circle around the candle.

  Gabby shoved the sleeves of her jacket and shirt up her forearms, then reached for me with both hands. I removed my arm warmers and pushed the sleeves of my sweater up, ignoring the instant chill across my bare wrists.

  I reached for Gabby with my right hand, and she wrapped both of her hands around my wrist. The tin holding the scrapings was in the palm of my left hand, extending toward the candle and the niches.

  “Do you need Peggy to read you the summoning spell?” the amplifier asked.

  I shook my head. “The words don’t matter … just the intention.”

  “Okay. Say when.”

  I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. Then I opened my mind to the magic churning in the earth underneath and all around me. I exhaled, pushing away all the different strands of magic except the one tied to the tin I held in my left hand. “When.”

  Something tingled across my wrist. A shift of energy. Gabby’s power. The strand connected to the tin grew in my mind, tying forward to the interment niche that held the remains of the younger woman.

  Gabby’s energy prickled up my forearm, then over my elbow, tickling me.

  “Not too much,” Peggy murmured.

  “I remember the basement, thank you,” Gabby grumbled. “Well … sort of.”

  A presence bloomed before me. A shadow in my mind’s eye coming into being. “Jane Hawthorne,” I whispered. The tin warmed in the palm of my hand — not hot enough to singe my skin, but more than simply a transference of my body heat. “Jane Hawthorne. I summon you in your daughter, Rochelle’s, name. The oracle would speak to you.”

  The strand of magic tying the tin to the niches, to the shadowed presence, became more substantial. I channeled my power down it — the life force that was actually infusing the tin with warmth.

  Gabby’s energy tingled up over my shoulder. Then it suddenly stopped. She grunted, confused. “The necklace.”

  “It’s all right,” I whispered, directing all my attention to the presence that felt as though it was now crouched in front of me. “I think we’ve found her. Jane Hawthorne … oracle?”

  A cold hand settled on my left shoulder.

  I opened my eyes. Gabby, Peggy, and Benjamin hadn’t shifted. The hand on my shoulder wasn’t one of theirs.

  I cinched the fingers of my right hand around Gabby’s wrist so I wouldn’t lose hold of her. I placed the tin down, then reached up to hover my hand over my left shoulder, over the hand I could still feel resting there.

  “Jane?” I spoke the question to the shade I was fairly certain was crouched before me.

  The presence grabbed my hand. Gabby gasped, presumably feeling some sort of feedback through our connection.

  I struggled to keep my own heart rate under control, forcing myself to not pull my hand away. The strength of the contact might not have been an answer to my question. But for certain, it proved that I’d summoned more than simply an echo. Whatever — whoever — was touching me was more than a shade.

  And maybe … maybe even more than a ghost? I had only felt such a solid connection once before.

  With Rusty.

  I had the sudden urge to stand, to have my feet firmly planted, before I continued to address whoever I’d summoned.

  “I’m going to stand, okay?”

  Gabby nodded. The ghost loosened her grasp and withdrew her hand. But as Gabby and I carefully got to our feet, still grasping each other’s wrists, I kept hold of my connection to the presence I’d summoned.

  Keeping the candle between me and the ghost, I allowed my connection to the tin to ebb, feeding more of my necromancy directly into the swirl of energy I could still feel rather than see. “Jane Hawthorne?”

  A transparent woman appeared, standing before me. Smiling. She was taller than me, so taller than Rochelle, but shorter than Benjamin where he stood to her left — and whose expression told me he couldn’t see her at all. Her long straight white hair stirred in a breeze I couldn’t feel. She wore a summer-weight blue dress that fell to below her knees, patterned with what I thought were flowers. But on closer inspection, they were black butterflies.

  Rochelle had a black butterfly tattoo on her wrist.

  The ghost of Jane Hawthorne also wore a thick-linked gold necklace with a large raw diamond. Rochelle’s necklace.

  All right, fine. I had inadvertently summoned Jane Hawthorne’s ghost when I had simply hoped to verify her burial site. My mother would have been proud … or maybe totally livid. I could never be completely sure.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, necromancer.” Jane’s voice echoed through my mind, her words meant only for me. Her accent was American, but mild enough that it was barely a hint. “I have something I need you to show my daughter.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll bring Rochelle. I didn’t intend to summon you so thoroughly.”

  Gabby’s hold on my wrist tightened.

  “A ghost?” Benjamin asked, looking everywhere but the spot where Jane was actually standing.

  “Yes … I …” Peggy hesitated. “I feel something … another presence. That’s not possible, right? I mean, I shouldn’t be able to hear the thoughts of a … ghost.”

  “I cannot wait any longer,” Jane said sadly. “I must show you, Mory. You alone.” She lifted her hand, reaching for me.

  Allowing any contact between me and a summoned presence as strong as the one standing before me was a bad idea. For so many reasons. Including the fact that I hadn’t introduced myself — Jane’s ghost shouldn’t have known my name.

  Yet I raised my own hand, accepting her terms silently, so as not to confuse my companions.

  The ghost stepped forward.

  The candle flickered and died.

  Gabby and Peggy started muttering back and forth between them. But I had eyes and ears only for Jane. I hadn’t called for such a substantial presence since the time Rusty had returned to me.

  Jane’s fingers passed through mine. She frowned. “Necromancer,” she said. “This is of utmost importance.”

  “Tell me,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  She shook her head. “It cannot be translated into words.”

  My heart rate ratcheted up. This was an exceptionally bad, bad, bad idea. The dowser was going to kill me.

  I reached up, opening the clasp on my necklace with the hand that Gabby didn’t have in a death grip.

  “What are you doing, Mory?” Benjamin asked.

  “Hold this for me?”

  “No. No way. You’re supposed to keep it on.”

  “Ben.” I held the necklace out to him, keeping all my attention on Jane. “Hold this for me. Put it back on if I seem to be in trouble.”

  Jane smiled sadly. “I wish you no ill will. No ill effects. But this must be done.”

  Benjamin took the necklace from me.

  I reached for Jane. Her hand became solid in mine.

  Gabby and Peggy gasped. Benjamin went very still. I gathered that they could now see the ghost holding my hand.

  “It will take but a moment,” Jane whispered. Then without any other warning, she stepped toward me.

  She stepped into me.

  I gasped as all the air was pressed from my lungs. I stifled a cry as I momentarily lost control of my body. I looked at my outstretched hand, but I could no longer move it.

  Then magic welled underneath my feet. A fierce torrent of power. I’d never felt anything remotely similar. A white wash of energy flowed up through me, racking my body, wiping my mind.

  I tried to scream but I had no voice. I tried to fall but I had no body. I tried to think but … I saw instead.

  I saw.

  Images flooded my mind … elves and swords and demons and blood and a young girl, maybe eight years old, with light-brown skin and white hair. She was in the middle of it all.

  I saw.

  A city in ruins. Death roaming the streets. Chaos un
leashed.

  I saw.

  Everything.

  Then … nothing.

  A sea of blinding white.

  A moment of nothing.

  Jane stepped away from me.

  I stumbled. Gabby and Benjamin grabbed my elbows and kept me on my feet. Peggy was clutching her head.

  “What … what …” I was crying, tears streaming down my cheeks. My hands were shaking in terror.

  Jane took my hand in her own. “I’m sorry. But what needed to be done is done now, necromancer.”

  “That’s too much … I can’t even remember half of it. I … I … can’t remember any of it.”

  Jane nodded. “No need for you to remember. Now that you’ve seen, my daughter will see.”

  I wiped my face with my free hand. “Like how? She’ll read my mind?”

  Jane shook her head, her expression full of regret. “That is not how our power works. I have released the visions. They will find their way to Rochelle.”

  “Find their way … that seems like wishful thinking. This is too important. You must speak with your daughter.”

  The energy filling Jane — my energy — began to fade. I suddenly felt drained, epically tired. I struggled to fortify my connection to her through our still-connected hands, but she was becoming more and more transparent.

  “I must go.”

  “Please. I’ll bring Rochelle back.”

  “No. I would not have her see me this way. I waited for you, but now I must move on … there is more …”

  Jane’s mouth continued to move, but her words were unintelligible. Something was keeping her from talking.

  She was speaking of something that magic … or whatever you wanted to call it … didn’t want me to hear.

  “Tell Rochelle you couldn’t find me.”

  “I’m not going to lie, lady.”

  Jane laughed. “Then tell her I see her. Tell her I love her. I don’t regret anything other than the moments we didn’t get to spend together. Tell her I see her. I saw her for years and years before she was even mine. She’ll understand.”

  “I see her,” I repeated.

  “Yes. Thank you.” Then Jane faded away.

  One moment, I could feel her essence. The next, she was gone. Off to one of those other levels of existence.