‘The original curse,’ Rhea guessed.
‘Exactly,’ Max confirmed. ‘Even though the curse did not take effect when it was cast, the thought form arose during Natalie’s tragic death experience and it was drawn here by whatever voodoo charm had been first used to hex the house. All we have to do is discover this charm and remove it.’
‘And, as this entity draws its energy from a water and earth based source, Natalie must have left something pertaining to these elements inside the house somewhere.’
‘Could that have had something to do with the dripping I heard?’ Phillip wondered.
‘Well, the entity sure didn’t like you snooping around in the laundry this afternoon,’ Max confirmed Phillip’s suspicion, ‘so I’d say that’s a damn fine place to start looking.’
‘We might want to clear up the shattered glass,’ Rhea suggested, trying to make light of the horror.
‘If it means we get to keep the property, our lives and our sanity,’ Phillip reasoned, ‘it will be well worth a few scratches.’
‘I suggest we wait until morning before starting our search,’ said Max, ‘as the light will be better.’
‘Well,’ Rhea sighed in relief, not too keen on sleeping in the house anyway, ‘it’s a good thing I’ve got new blankets in the back of my car.’
In the first daylight hours they headed back to the house, their backs sore from the odd sleeping arrangements. The front door opened with ease and the three men headed straight for the laundry, whilst Rhea made coffee and laid out some food.
Phillip quickly cleaned up the splintered glass so that it could cause no more grief and as he swept the last of it away, he noted the dripping sound once more. ‘Hear that?’
Max frowned as he listened hard and then nodded.
‘Where’s it coming from?’ Phillip passed his dustpan full of glass splinters to Chuck who took them to the kitchen for disposal. Phillip checked the taps and connectors in the laundry and bathroom, but none were leaking. He turned to find Max down on all fours, with his ear to the timber floor in the laundry.
‘Listen here.’ He urged Phillip down. ‘Your ears are younger than mine.’
Phillip got down on his haunches, then hesitated. ‘Watch my back, will you?’ Max winked to indicate that he would, and Phillip placed his ear to the floor. ‘You’re right.’ He was excited by the fact and immediately headed outside to grab some tools.
Rhea was curious about all the noise and as she entered the laundry, bearing cups of coffee in hand, she nearly freaked out — her husband and Max were attempting to rip one of floorboards from the floor. ‘What are you doing?’
The floorboard gave way and cracked in half, whereupon the strong scent of sea water filled the room, the smell of which made everyone back away.
The smell swept past Rhea and into the house, and then all the doors slammed closed.
Everyone stood breathless a moment, waiting to see if the entity intended to retaliate further, but when all remained still and quiet, Max dared to speak.
‘I think we found its haunt.’
Once most of the floorboards had been ripped away, an old well was exposed.
‘Now what?’ Phillip stared down into the dark recess. ‘How are we going to dredge that? God knows how deep it goes and if Natalie threw some sort of voodoo hex down there it has probably disintegrated anyway.’
‘A bottle of water and some dirt might have done the trick if the right words were invoked,’ Max told them, remaining calm as he thought about the next step. ‘Do you have a water pump?’
Phillip smiled at the simplicity of what the old bloke was suggesting. ‘Will that work?’
Max shrugged. ‘We won’t know unless we give it a go.’
‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ Rhea seconded. She hated to think they’d destroyed the floor to no end.
‘I’ll rig it up.’ Phillip went to fetch the water pump.
‘I’ll give you hand.’ Chuck followed him outside.
‘So what shall we do with the water?’ Rhea quizzed Max. ‘If we let it flow on to the property won’t that release the entity into the great outdoors?’
Max shrugged. ‘I would tend to think that exposing the curse to the two elements it doesn’t have, air and fire,’ he motioned to the sun, ‘shall render it null and void.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Rhea ventured.
‘The way I see it … what have you got to lose?’ Max queried and Rhea saw his point.
Phillip dropped a hose into the well and ran another outside where the water could flow into the sun-parched earth. ‘Okay …’ He looked to everyone present as if asking if they were ready; secretly they were all worried that the entity would not take kindly to having its home disturbed. Nevertheless everyone gave Phillip the nod, and he flipped the switch on. The pump powered up and began sucking water out through the hose into the sunshine.
After a few moments when all seemed to be going swimmingly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
‘You really think this is going to work?’ Phillip uttered aside to Max who raised both brows.
‘I —’ he began but noticed that the door to the laundry had crept open and the casing of the pump had started to spark. ‘I think something is amiss.’
Suddenly the pump blew a pressure valve, and when water started flowing into the casing of the pump, Phillip knew they were in trouble. ‘Move it!’ He grabbed Rhea and wrenched her out the back door. Max and Chuck exited quickly behind them as the pump exploded in a shower of sparks.
‘Shit!’ Phillip growled as the sparks and smoke subsided and the pump died a sad death. ‘So much for that idea.’
‘Um …’ Chuck was staring at the electrical cord that plugged the pump into the wall. ‘What is that?’ He pointed to a visible electrical charge that was moving slowly down the power cord and toward the electrical socket on the wall.
Phillip moved closer, having never seen anything like it in all his time as an electro-mechanical design engineer. ‘I have no idea.’ His first impulse was to rip the power cable out of the socket, or at least switch off the power point, but Rhea held him back.
‘Don’t touch it,’ she demanded, as it was obviously live and faulty.
In that moment of hesitation the strange electrical phenomenon disappeared into the wall.
‘Oh dear,’ mumbled Max, not wanting to alarm anyone with the thought he was having.
‘Oh dear, what?’ Phillip urged him to voice his woes.
‘I’m not entirely sure, but what if our watery entity has been empowered by the electrical charge and is now using the electrical system to transport itself to a safer abode elsewhere?’ Max suggested meekly.
‘But surely the surge guard will shut down the power once the charge reaches the meter box,’ Chuck posited, ‘and trap the entity in the electrical wiring of the house.’
‘Double shit!’ Phillip ran around to the side of the house to view the old meter box. ‘The electrician has yet to fit an earth leakage breaker,’ he explained his distress to the others as he ran. ‘There’s nothing to stop it from accessing the mains power, the local power plant, the rest of the town and beyond!’
‘Oh my God!’ mumbled Chuck, as he ran after Phillip with Rhea and Max in tow. ‘I know you probably think that the people of Berrensborough deserve whatever they get, having kept you in the dark, but if that thing gets loose in town, we’ll never pin it down. We have to stop it here.’
Sure enough the strange charge passed through the meter box and started heading down the wire that connected their property to the mains power.
‘Think of something, honey,’ Rhea begged. ‘You’re smart. Can’t you think of something?’
Phillip did not even respond; he was already racing to toward his work shed.
‘What’s he doing?’ Chuck quizzed Rhea, who looked even more worried now that her husband obviously had something in mind.
‘I don’t know.’ She ran after Phillip to find out.
He
r husband emerged from the shed, strapping on a tool belt, and carrying a large leather strap and a very long ten-millimetre cable.
‘What are you going to do?’ Rhea pleaded, already knowing that whatever it was, it was dangerous and she didn’t want him to do it.
‘That’s a five-mil cable that the charge is running down.’ He pointed to the thinner cable running overhead, as he continued to make his way toward one of the more distant poles on the property. ‘So, if I clamp it off, I can redirect our friend down through this MCI cable and into this ten-mil cable.’
‘No,’ Rhea begged, ‘you’ll get fried!’
‘So long as I’m only touching wood, I’ll be fine.’ He kissed Rhea, and then passed the leather belt around himself and the power pole and then used the strap to climb the pole, carrying one end of the large cable up with him.
‘Careful!’ Rhea pleaded, biting her nails as he reached the top and began work.
The unknown entity was steadily moving along the power cable toward Phillip and as it inched forward Rhea feared for Phillip’s life. ‘It’s getting closer!’
‘I know, sweetheart. Don’t harass me.’
‘Um.’ Max hated to disturb the man when he was working. ‘Where are you planning on redirecting our friend to.’
Phillip clamped off the line, and realised that in his hurry to deal with the problem he’d screwed up. ‘Good point. Rhea, get the other end of that cable and plug it into one of the cells on the battery. And hurry!’
Rhea picked up the cable and ran with it. ‘Which cell?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he yelled back, ‘but once you see the charge enter the battery, and the amps rise, hit the knife switch and it should be trapped. Run!’ He glanced up to see the unknown entity hit the cable that was connected to the pole he was working on. He grabbed the plug of the ten-mil cable that he’d secured to his belt and went to plunge it into the MCI connector, but in his haste he lost his grip and the weighty cable dropped back to the ground.
Max and Chuck were both running with Rhea toward the shed.
‘Somebody!’ Phillip yelled. If he dropped down to the ground to retrieve the cable he’d never climb back up in time.
Chuck did an about-face and raced over to help Phillip.
‘Come on, Father, move your arse!’ Phillip sat holding the MCI connector that was about to be hit by their strange electrical surge and he didn’t really want to find out what would happen if it reached him and had nowhere to go.
Chuck, puffing and panting from his sprint, picked up the cable and began swinging it in a circular pattern, like a cowboy might swing a lasso.
‘We’ve got one shot at this Chuck. Make God proud!’ Phillip held out his left hand to catch the cable, whilst holding the MCI connector firmly in his right hand.
The priest let the cable fly up, right into Phillip’s awaiting grasp. ‘Yeehah!’ the priest exclaimed in relief.
The entity was nearly on top of Phillip. Although he was tempted to, he knew he should not rush. He pushed the connectors together until he heard a click and then pulled them slightly apart to be sure the connection was secure. As the charge reached the connector, he let go and slid down the pole.
‘Great work.’ Chuck slapped his shoulder.
Phillip felt this was no time for congratulations, as the charge had picked up speed and was now racing down the cable toward Rhea who was only just rounding the shed. ‘Holy Christ! It’s moving faster than it should be. Run, baby, run!’
As Rhea came to a stop in front of the battery, she spied the charge come round the corner of the shed and race up the cable toward her. Her fright nearly made her drop the cable, but they’d come too far to blow their chance of trapping this entity now. She let out a screech as she pushed the plug into a cell socket, and no sooner had she let go than the charge passed into the battery and the gauge on the cell suddenly rose to fifty amps.
Phillip came racing into the shed with Chuck hot on his heels. ‘Hit the knife switch, babe. Quickly, before it realises it has nowhere to go.’
Rhea threw the switch and everyone took a second to catch their breath.
‘Did we get it?’ Chuck queried. He could not relax until he knew.
Phillip checked the gauge and the amp reading indicated that they had indeed captured the beast. ‘It’s trapped in a lead casing.’ He unplugged the cable, just to be sure, and then kissed his horrified wife and held her close.
‘I’m so proud of you.’ Rhea squeezed her husband and collapsed into tears.
‘It’s all right, hon,’ he comforted her, ‘it’s over.’
‘So what happens to the entity now?’ Chuck wondered.
‘We remove all the connector plugs and wait for the battery to go flat.’ Phillip was fairly sure that that would be the end of that.
‘You are a brilliant man.’ Max smiled and held his hand out to shake Phillip’s and then Rhea’s hand. ‘And you are a very brave young woman.’
‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’ Rhea smiled broadly at the occult scholar.
‘And you, Father.’ Rhea looked across to the priest, who was quietly thanking God.
‘Yeah, Chuck, you did great.’ Phillip awarded the priest his due. ‘Where did you learn to swing a cable like that.’
‘Rodeo,’ he explained in a word, his response surprising the young couple. ‘Well, I wasn’t always a priest, you know.’
Bibliography
Ashley, Leonard R.N., The Complete Book of Ghosts and Poltergeists, Barricade Books Inc, New York, 2000.
Dunne, John J. Irish Ghosts, The Appletree Press Ltd, Belfast, 1977.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, Cheakmark Books, New York, 1992.
Hanning, Peter, A Dictionary of Ghosts, Robert Hale Limited, London, 1982.
Siblerud, Robert, Keeper of the Secrets, Sacred Science Publications, Colorado, 1999.
Sora, Steven, The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar, Destiny Books, Vermont, 1999.
About the Author
Since 1996, Traci Harding has had four trilogies and three stand-alone novels published by HarperVoyager Australia. Her books are published in several different languages, and are also available in e-book format from the Apple iBookstore, Amazon, Kobo, Google, ReadCloud, and Booki.sh. Selected titles are also available as a digital audio download through iTunes and Amazon — and as an audio book through Bolinda Audio.
To find quick links to all of the above, Traci’s other websites, and keep abreast of news, competitions and releases by Traci Harding, visit her new website:
traciharding.com
Or visit: voyagerblog.com.au/
the home on the web for lovers of science fiction and fantasy.
Copyright
First published in 2002 in the anthology Ghostwriting
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
A member of the HarperCollinsPublishers (Australia) Pty Limited Group
harpercollins.com.au
Text copyright © Traci Harding 2002
Cover image copyright © Terry Ludgate
The right of Traci Harding to be identified as the moral rights author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Cth). This book is copyright.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
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Curses Page 4
