Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  Everyone is silent for a beat.

  I adjust my position on the blanket. “So can you guys help me make this weird stuff stop happening? Make everything go back to normal?”

  “You’re a descendant of Cotton Mather living in Salem who can do magic. There’s nothing normal about your situation,” Mary says.

  “Touché,” I say.

  “Why do you think we always keep to ourselves?” Alice asks.

  “You? To look cool,” Mary says.

  Alice actually smiles. “No, our cool points come from me being so personable.”

  Mary rolls her eyes.

  Susannah’s expression is calm and quiet. “When you first moved here, people told you that we cursed you, didn’t they?”

  I think back to the fall and all the rumors that started then. “Something like that, yeah.”

  “We don’t even know how to curse people,” Mary says. “And if we did know, we wouldn’t.”

  “We’re here to find out what Sam knows, not to tell her our life stories,” Alice says.

  “Because withholding information worked out so well last time?” I say.

  “Samantha’s right,” Susannah says. “She might not have been talkative these past few months, but we set that precedent. Plus, she’s seeing drenched dead people at our school. Do you really think we can wait?”

  “Nope,” says Mary.

  “Fine,” Alice concedes, and gestures at Susannah to continue.

  Susannah looks at me. “We don’t do spells just to do them. Alice reads bones so we can try to prevent bad things from happening. And my readings of people help keep us from walking into traps.”

  I look at Mary, and she twists a curl around her finger. “Our families have been casting in Salem for a long time. There’s way more going on here below the surface than anyone realizes. We do our part to keep things on the up-and-up.”

  Susannah nods. “Now, there’s obviously something going on with you. Don’t bother to try and argue that there isn’t. From what Alice’s bones say, it’s most likely serious. Waiting is a mistake. We might already be late in sorting out whatever it is.”

  I pull at the hole in the knee of my jeans, considering her words.

  Mary leans forward. “What’s the problem? You don’t want to do magic?”

  “That’s definitely part of it.”

  Mary smiles. “Then what did you mean when you asked us to help you stop seeing spirits?”

  “I just thought…I don’t know what I thought. I just need it to stop.”

  “Magic,” Mary says.

  Shit. “I guess so.”

  Mary stands up. “Good. Well, now that that’s settled, let’s go eat lunch. I’m starving.”

  Did I just get outsmarted? I stand up, too. “There’s no other way?”

  “No,” Alice says, grabbing the door handle and peering into the hall. “All clear.” She opens the door wide.

  Only the hall isn’t empty. The little girl in the pink dress is standing in it; she’s got the same amused expression she wore in my dining room. I slam the door shut.

  Alice flinches. “What the hell was that?”

  Mary grabs Alice’s arm. “Please tell me it isn’t the drowned guy.”

  “No. A girl. Old-fashioned dress.” My voice is hushed.

  “Wait, you’re seeing two ghosts?” Alice looks at Susannah.

  There is a small knock on the door. I jump, but no one else reacts. I can tell by their faces that they didn’t hear it.

  “What can we do?” Susannah asks.

  I pace in the small dusty room. “You can come over to my house tonight and help me make this stop.”

  I take a deep breath and open the door again. The girl leans against the opposite wall, examining the end of her braid. The Descendants follow me out.

  “Go away,” I say in a low whisper.

  “Ada,” she says, and drops her braid. “My name is Ada.” She frowns at my expression. “Are you mad because I laughed about the blueberries?” She has a British accent.

  “No. I just need you to leave.”

  Ada seems unfazed. “My brother Fredrick has a bad temper, too. His cheeks get red just like yours. Once, he slammed the bedroom door on me. But his sleeve got caught on the latch and he fell, putting a huge hole in it. Papa was furious.” Ada giggles.

  The Descendants fan out around me, blocking me from view of anyone who might wander into the hall and see me talking to thin air.

  I lean down and make my voice stern. “Go away and don’t ever come back. I don’t want you here.”

  Her bottom lip trembles. I try not to notice it.

  “I only wanted to know if you found my boot hook. Mum will be mad if I lost it. It is the only one we packed to take to America,” Ada says with a wavering voice.

  To America? How does she not know where she is? I examine her old-fashioned clothes more carefully. I swallow. “How…are you getting to America?”

  She wipes at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “The Titanic. Papa says it is the largest ship in the world.”

  My head spins. “And you’re here because you’re looking for your boot hook?” My voice is less confident than it was a few seconds ago, and my thoughts drift to the hooked metal rod I found in my shoulder bag yesterday. With a shaky hand, I reach into my bag and dig it out.

  Ada takes it and disappears. I wish I could disappear, too.

  I lie awake in my four-poster bed, which is carved with black-eyed Susans. My phone sits next to me, and I stare at the armoire. I haven’t checked to see if Abigail’s letters are in the hidden compartment. The possibility that they’re there makes me feel like some part of Elijah is still around. And lying here in the dark, I can almost believe that he could blink in.

  He would look serious, like he always looked. I would tell him about my dad and about my dream. He would listen and offer advice that I would refuse to take. And every once in a while I would catch him watching me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  I twist the empty vase on my nightstand, the one he used to put a freshly cut black-eyed Susan in every day.

  A text lights up my phone: 12:27 a.m.

  Susannah: Here.

  I grab my flashlight and pull open my bedroom door. My black fluffy slippers mute my footsteps in the hallway, and I’m careful to step around the creaky boards. I head down the carpeted stairs and pause. This is the first time I’ve ever snuck around my dad.

  I tiptoe down the hall, into the kitchen, and stop. Mary, Alice, and Susannah stand on my patio, peering through the window.

  “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t do this at my house,” Alice whispers as I open the door. “My parents wouldn’t even notice.”

  I put my finger to my lips and Alice rolls her eyes. They follow me silently to the library. I turn on the flashlight, illuminating the floor-to-ceiling dark wood bookshelves.

  “Okay, I need your word you won’t say anything about what I’m about to show you,” I whisper.

  They all nod without hesitation.

  I weave around a reading table piled with books and stop at the old fireplace. I guess if there’s one thing I can count on these girls for, it’s secrecy. I reach into a niche in the brick, grab an iron hook, and pull. The wall paneling to the left of the fireplace pops open to reveal a door. Mary squeals quietly and clamps her hand over her mouth. Susannah smiles.

  Alice runs her fingers over the paneling and pushes the door open. “Are you kidding me? You have a secret passageway?” She and the others step through it.

  I follow them into the narrow brick hallway, shutting the door behind us and taking a lantern off the wall. I turn the little knob. Flame shoots up inside the old glass, and the bricks glow a warm red.

  “I’ll go first,” I say at normal volume, and hand the flashlight to Susannah. “You want to bring up the rear?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “The steps are steep and twisty,” I say. “So no one trip or everyone will go do
wn.”

  The stairs groan under our feet all the way up into my grandmother’s secret study. I haven’t been here since everything happened. I can almost see Elijah, with his furrowed brow, bending over a stack of old journals—his black wavy hair falling on his cheeks and a pencil lodged between his teeth while he tries to hold three books at once. It was his study, too.

  “This is like something out of an old British manor,” Mary says, and runs her fingers along the exposed wooden beams on the sloped walls.

  “When did you find this?” Susannah studies the heavy desk piled with papers.

  “Not long after I moved in, maybe a day or two. This is where my grandmother kept all those records about the Witch Trials you guys were surprised I knew about.”

  Alice wipes the dust off an antique candleholder that’s perched on a stack of books. “This is definitely worth traveling over here in the middle of the night for.”

  I open the leather trunk near the wall and take out a cloth-wrapped bundle. The Descendants join me on a faded rug. I pull back the folds of white linen to reveal a well-worn leather book with silver accents.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me. Tell me that’s not a spell book.” Alice is practically giddy.

  I open the cover and flip through the soft handwritten pages, skimming the spell titles as I go. “It’s from the late sixteen hundreds.”

  Alice smacks her knee. “How are you acting all casual about this? You have a secret study and a freaking spell book from the sixteen hundreds!”

  Mary laughs. “Wow, Alice, who knew you had such a thing for antiques. I can get you a job in my aunt’s antique store if you want. But you’ll have to promise not to make out with her armoires.”

  Susannah and I grin.

  “Laugh it up, clowns.” Alice points to the spell book. “But this is a big deal.”

  Susannah pushes a piece of wavy auburn hair off of her face. “Where did you get one this old?”

  “Elijah found it,” I say without looking up.

  “The spirit guy? Do you still talk to him?” Mary asks.

  I open my mouth, but stop myself before the words I wish I did come out. “Okay, I think this one should do it—‘Warding Off Unwelcome Spirits,’ ” I say, pointing to a spell and shaking away my thoughts of Elijah. “Unless you guys have something better.”

  I place the book in the middle of the rug so that the girls can read it. Alice practically pushes Mary out of the way to get closer.

  “This spell’s a great choice,” Susannah says.

  I scan the page. “Good. I’ll get these herbs tomorrow from Mrs. Meriwether’s garden and we can give it a try.”

  “I’m not so sure we need to wait until tomorrow,” Susannah says, and looks up at me. “There’s more than one way to cast spells.”

  “Ingredients and potions are for when you’re first learning. And, well, potions are really handy to have for certain things, like picking locks,” Mary says so nonchalantly that I almost think I misheard her.

  What are these girls getting into in their free time? An image of Susannah scaling the side of my house six months ago comes to mind.

  “With a group of four,” Alice says, “also known as a circle, you can bypass the ingredients and go straight to the words of the spell. More efficient.”

  “And eventually, you can cast without either of them. But we’re not there yet,” Susannah says. “From the skill you showed in the woods, though, I’m not so sure about you.”

  I brush off her last comment. “So we can try this now?”

  “Yes, but…,” Alice says.

  “But what?”

  “But I’m gonna need to come back here and read this entire book,” Alice says. “And I want you to reconsider our offer to join our circle. You think I’m asking you to get involved with some mysterious riddle. But my bones never tell me anything unless it’s important.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely going to say yes, now that I know you want to hang out with me for my spell book.”

  “That’s what you took from that? Idiot,” Alice says.

  Susannah interrupts before I can respond. “We wanted you to be part of our circle before we ever knew about this book. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been searching for one of these since we were ten. The one we use is only from the late eighteen hundreds. Alice just takes it as a sign.”

  Mary nods.

  I look at Alice, who has stubbornly set her jaw. “You can read the book and I’ll consider your offer. Let’s just do the spell.”

  Mary pulls out four black candles from her bag and places them around the book. Susannah lights the wicks and I turn off the lantern. The room looks better in candlelight, like it was always meant to be that way.

  Alice offers her hands to Mary and Susannah, and we form a circle.

  “Read us the words,” Susannah says.

  I clear my throat. “Lingering spirits old and new, walk the paths that you once drew. Avoid me now and evermore, unless our tales have tangled lore. From now on I will only find the spirits whom I need to mind.”

  “Again,” says Alice, and I repeat the words.

  By the third repetition, they say the words with me. Nothing happens.

  They all look at me.

  “What?” My voice is self-conscious.

  “The more you focus and mean the words you’re saying, the better it works,” Susannah says. “You can’t lead a spell if you’re apprehensive.”

  “So stop judging magic and get over yourself,” Alice says.

  “I…” But there’s no point. They’re right. “Okay.”

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a second. I start the words again and they all join in. Our voices meld together like a song, ethereal and layered. “From now on I will only find the spirits whom I need to mind.”

  A breeze bursts through the room, but not from a door or window. It swirls around us in circles, lifting our hair as it buzzes past. The pages of the spell book turn by themselves. I squeeze Susannah’s hand. Mary’s already white-knuckling my other one.

  The wind carries pieces of whispering voices, male and female. They murmur, like they’re far away. The buzzing intensifies, and our hair swirls more violently. The voices get closer, more precise.

  A journey…to start…help…no stopping…yet in my dreams I’d be nearer. Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer. They’re loud now, verging on wailing. Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer!

  Mary clamps her eyes shut. The wind is frantic, twisting in and around us, flapping our clothes. Our hands vibrate. The candles waver, but strangely don’t go out. Then all at once, the air whooshes away and there’s complete stillness. Our hair settles back around our shoulders.

  Mary’s eyes widen. “Those voices.”

  I drop Mary’s and Susannah’s hands as though I could drop the whole experience.

  For a second we all sit there watching the dust settle in the candlelight.

  “Are you convinced now that something’s going on?” Alice asks.

  “You can’t be sure what that meant. It could be total nonsense,” I say, but my voice betrays me by shaking. “It might have nothing to do with your riddle.”

  Before I even finish my sentence, the candles go out.

  “Alice!” Mary yells.

  “Samantha, the lantern,” Susannah says quickly.

  I pat the rug around me. Something slams onto the floor with a bang. Susannah screams. I catch the edge of the lantern with my hand and turn the knob. The small room lights up.

  A book lies open on the floor.

  “Maybe it fell off the desk?” Mary says, gripping Alice’s wrist so hard I’m sure it hurts.

  I close the book, and the black-and-white photo of Archibald Gracie’s Titanic cover looks back at me. I hold it out for the girls to see. The upper left corner is frayed. My stomach sinks all the way to my toes.

  “We got that in literature class today,” Alice says.

  “This is definitely my copy,” I s
ay.

  “Were you reading it up here?” Susannah asks.

  “No.”

  “It was a ghost?” Mary asks with a high-pitched voice.

  “This spell was supposed to keep spirits away, not attract them,” I say, trying to convince them as much as myself.

  Alice’s brow furrows. “Didn’t you read the description? It’s supposed to chase away the riffraff, keep you from interacting with every dead person from here to Timbuktu. But there’s no way you’re gonna avoid the ones you’re supposed to see. You could royally screw things up if you did that.”

  I put the book facedown, hiding the cover.

  Susannah studies me. “You know something about this, don’t you? Something you’re not saying?”

  Great. She’s reading me again. I make eye contact with her. “I had a dream.”

  I peer out my window at the maple tree, whose red buds glow in the early-morning light. My dad woke me up an hour ago. I was crying in a full sweat, and I haven’t been able to go back to sleep since.

  Gracie’s Titanic book peeks out of my schoolbag on the window seat. I can’t understand how it showed up during a spell for spirits to leave me alone. Was it the spell that moved it, or was Mary right that it was a spirit? Elijah once left a book in the library for me to trip over. It couldn’t be him, could it? And yet for just a split second the idea of having Elijah back is thrilling, however far-fetched it might be. My stomach does a quick somersault.

  I frown. Didn’t I just say I wasn’t going to think about him? “I swear, Elijah, if this is you…if you’ve been around and didn’t tell me, I’ll be…I will not forgive you.”

  I turn on my side and jerk the covers up to make a point. I lose my grip on the comforter, though, and my fingers spring back, smacking me in the face. There. If that’s not an accurate metaphor for my life, I don’t know what is.

  There’s a knock on my door and I sit straight up. “Come in.”

  “Was told to tell you we’re eating at my house,” Jaxon says as he pushes my door open. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I glance at my clock. There’s still another ten minutes until breakfast. “Just the usual, talking to myself.”