by Sara Hanover
“Looks like rowan wood,” he allowed. “And she’s taken Wiccan steps in harvesting it. If it isn’t what it professes to be, there will be a disaster.”
I ordered two bundles, but they wouldn’t arrive for at least a week. “That’s the best we can do. You don’t need any artifacts or relics?”
“I need to restore my gazing crystal, and I’m working on that. Other items are superfluous, and the more of a hunt we go on, the more we seem to be exposed. I’ll make do with the cane and gazer.”
I closed my laptop. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I build a circle of the items. Perform a ritual. Then drop a match.” A shudder ran through him, despite the lightness of his tone.
“Will it be awful?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t so bad this last time, but of course I didn’t have anything prepared. It could be excruciating. I have . . . there’s the weight of centuries that I need to remember and absorb. Memories.”
“Both good and bad.”
Brian nodded. “Some, I expect, are terrible. As a witness to human history, how could they not be? We are a striving and contentious people, often wrongheaded in our philosophies and ambitions. Yet we do try. We can reach out.”
“So you’re going to go through with it?”
“I must, I think.” He gave me a tired smile. “And Brian would say, man, just go with the flow.”
“He’s definitely picked up some of the attitude.”
But the professor didn’t seem quite finished. I waited. After a very long moment, he said, “I need a witness or two.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Morty would have been there for me, but.” And his words stopped.
I had just given my word to my mother. But then, he wasn’t quite ready yet, and we had three to five business days before the stuff came in the mail. A lot could happen in that time, especially if there was any delay. Like, for instance, the auction. “If you need me,” I answered. “I’ll be there.”
He smiled. “Cool.”
I laughed to see both the professor and Brian shining through.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE WRECKING CREW lined up to say good-bye with tired grins and big hugs. The bald-headed foreman gave me a stout embrace first, saying “I am Len Broadstone, cousin to Mortimer and second cousin to Hiram, here.” I hugged him back after I caught my breath.
“I appreciate everything so much!”
The two gingers got me both at once before letting go and going for my mom. “Kent and Lyle Kettlestone!” they cried enthusiastically. “Please send home your recipe for sweet tea. Almost as good as ale it is, and easier to get more work done after drinking it!”
The two seal-brown and curly-headed men shook my hand solemnly, one after the other.
“Brownstone Gemcracker and Jackson Gemcracker, father and son, related by marriage to the Broadstones.”
They waited politely while Mom dusted herself off after the gingers’ hug, and took her hand as well, while I made mental notes as to who was who, for future reference.
She clasped her hands and gave them all a fond look. “I can’t say how thankful I am, because I haven’t all the words. But come back whenever you wish for dinner, and tell your family they are fortunate to have you! And I’ll see that Tessa passes along her recipe.”
They all gave a shout and then, with a mighty clomping of thick-soled work boots, left our house, piled into their trucks, and were gone. Silence engulfed the house in their wake.
“Well,” said Mom. “Wasn’t that something?” Still in her workday outfit from a Saturday meeting, a faint dusting of sawdust covered her here and there, so she brushed herself off before saying to me, “I’ll be in my study. I have the beginning of a new article in my head.”
That meant I probably wouldn’t see her till breakfast, although she’d stick her head in to say good night, but I often slept through that. I caught her by the elbow as she turned away.
“Wait a minute. We need to see how Dad is doing.”
She stood frozen, her body so rigid I thought she might shatter if I forced her. Then, she said, “I already know he’s there.”
“But you haven’t really talked to him.”
“You can do that?”
I opened my palm and let the stone shine up at her. “I can try. It depends on how much energy he has, but he’s had several days’ rest.” I pulled at her a little, and the thought flashed through my mind that it used to be her tugging at me, my childish and reluctant body unwilling to go to new places and try new things as I grew up. The flip-flopped image boggled my mind for a minute or two before my mother sighed.
“All right. Do we have to . . . do anything? Take precautions?”
“Just one.” I went to the kitchen, got what I needed, and put my head out after swinging the pantry open. “Ready.”
The wrecking crew had built a magnificent new basement room which looked odd in all its gleaming modern glory, with Aunt April’s trunks and boxes, yellowed with age, put back against one wall. The shelves full of miscellaneous jarred goodies had sadly disappeared, although I’m not at all sure I could have talked Evelyn into exploring their contents with me. Too much potential to be a kind of horror show. I hoped Aunt April hadn’t gotten a good look at them and would miss them. The cabinet, on a straight and solid floor, still stood a little warped and slumped to one side, doors hanging slightly ajar, its wood and structure shaped by decades of being atilt. The lights, which could be set to any level, from blindingly bright to romantically hazy, stood at medium. It smelled fresh and neat and I wondered if the tiny little mouse had survived the makeover. With any luck, it had escaped to the garden where the garage might be a more suitable haven. The spiders had definitely been banished. The crew had also added a side door, quite sturdy, locked and barred against intruders, but useful if someone wanted to get out of the house without going up through the kitchen. It replaced the window with its delightful view of how things grew from below ground to upward. I’d miss that window.
I took a deep breath. “Dad? Dad, if you can make it, show up for a few minutes, okay?”
The basement held a different kind of silence than the quiet house upstairs had held. It almost felt as though it were listening, actively, but for what I couldn’t tell. Me, I hoped. Mom and me. Even if he couldn’t respond, we now knew from the poltergeist activity that he’d been around, reacting to our comings and goings, voices and presence. I couldn’t see malevolence in that, although knowing it definitely seemed more than a little odd.
Mom’s hand felt a little chilled in mine, despite my holding tight. Maybe too tight. I relaxed a bit and she squeezed my fingers back encouragingly.
I tried again. “Dad? It’s okay if you can’t show up. We’ll try again. We’re not giving up on you.”
I’d already done that once and was determined not to do it again. Not unless he gave me cause. The room felt a little cool around us, a nice break from what would be a hot and humid summer. I could see hanging down here, ghost or not, for comfort.
“Tessa.”
He sounded out of breath and very far away, but I heard him clearly, and from Mom’s slight gasp, she did too. I put my hand with the stone out and could feel myself grasping an unseen shoulder.
“We’re here.” I pulled Mom a little closer to me as she’d been hanging back slightly, and she touched the back of my wrist as if to let me know she stood with me.
He materialized slowly, mostly the upper torso, and his face looked a little strained.
“Hey! You had a couple of days off to soak in the rays and stuff. We were hoping you might like a little company.”
A shiver rain through my father’s transparent apparition. It was like seeing a ripple run across a pond of still water. “Mary?”
“It’s me.” She trembled in time with his ripple.
“Mostly. I mean . . . you’re not all there, honey.”
A short burst of sound that might have been a laugh. “No, I’m not.”
Not discounting his lack of energy, I waited for one of his dry quips, because Dad had always been a man with a quick answer. Nothing else came through. I shifted weight from one foot to the other. Strange thoughts filtered through my mind.
“Dad, where’s my dog? Where’s Baxter? Do you know?”
Mom started to open her mouth and I yanked on her hand. She closed her lips but looked at me funny. Why would I be asking about the dog? A couple of reasons, none of which I had shared with her yet.
That strange difference in time stretched out between us before he finally answered slowly, “Baxter’s gone on.”
I heard my mother suck a breath in and hold it. Under my hold, the stone pulsed a little, giving me spiky little jolts. I wondered if he could feel it, too, or just me. His sepia gaze slid past me. “Mary. You look good.”
“I think you mean tired.” She smiled faintly. “It’s good to see you, too. I thought—I thought we’d lost you. We’ve been busy. Tessa growing and me teaching. My paper is almost done.”
“About time.” Another ripple and my father’s image turned toward me. “And you’re learning, too.”
“I am. In leaps and bounds.” I dropped Mom’s hand and pulled a bundle out of my shirt with both hands, a large cardboard box of crystal goodness, as I let go of him, too. “Sorry, Dad.” I dumped the container of salt, pouring it all over the ghost.
Mom couldn’t see what happened, and for that I was grateful. The image split in two, one a great dark bulk of spitting fury and the other a barely visible, wavering reflection of my dad. He faded rapidly, a proud smile on his face, until he was barely there, seen only by the thinnest of existence.
I, however, stayed in the black gob’s face. “My dog’s not named Baxter. So, whatever you’re doing in our basement and to my father won’t work, because I’m onto you, M. Get out and stay out! You’re not getting the stone if I can help it, or the professor.”
“Foolish one. You’ve no real power.”
“Maybe not, but I held Remy off. Maybe common sense is better than magic.”
“She will pay for this.”
“Whatever. This room is part of my house, and you’ve crossed my threshold without being invited. The stone is mine, bonded to me, and here it stays. Get out. Now.”
The blob reared up and roared in anger, my mom scrambling backward to the staircase, while I stood my ground and gave him a nasty grin. It shrank into an ugly stain on the floor and curled in on itself until it could be seen no more. I took the salt shaker out of my jeans pocket, popped the lid off it, and dumped the last two tablespoons on the invisible but undoubtedly still there presence.
A squawk answered me, and the house shook to its rafters and then fell silent.
I looked at Mom. “Just making sure.”
“What was that?”
“A who, not a what, and it’s about what you think it is. Evil slime.”
Dad hadn’t faded completely away. He raised a hand to me. “Smarts run in the family.” His voice quavered. “And Barney did pass over, very peacefully,” and then he disappeared as well.
She came back to get me and pull me to the pantry staircase. “Is he gone?”
“Dad? Mostly.”
“He was there too?”
“Yeah, that was Dad. Possessed, I guess. Free now but that left him weak.”
“How did you know?”
“Just an uneasy feeling, like when you get an itchy back with no way to scratch it.” I sighed. “We’re not going to be able to talk to him for a few weeks, I think.” If ever. I had no way of knowing if what I’d just done had pushed him forward or not. Would I ever see him again? I hoped the power of the stone might keep him nearby until Brian and I could figure out what to do, but I had no idea. Magic had a lot more limitations than hinted at.
We hugged each other, and then Mom led the way upstairs, stopping now and then to look back over her shoulder as if making sure I followed and hadn’t disappeared behind her.
* * *
• • •
Brian cursed. Fluidly. In several languages before taking a deep breath and saying to me, “That could have gone quite badly.” No one needed a translation to know that he’d been as profane as he knew how, and I knew exactly who scowled at me from that young face.
“No kidding. Actually, I’m really just amazed at how good ordinary salt is at getting rid of the bad things.” I pulled my sneakers off and wiggled my toes. Free at last. “I had to do something, especially when I confirmed that it wasn’t my dad. Not entirely.”
“And now you’re overconfident. A fortuitous response leading to an unfortunate expectation.”
“Professor. It’s not like any of you are sitting down to teach me anything. I’m having to improvise here, and it worked once, so.” I shrugged. “And I can’t believe anybody would be happy if I’d just let something like that hang in the basement all he wanted.”
He sputtered a bit. Then he stood up straighter. “Has it ever occurred to you that he’s just crossed a great salted ocean and might be temporarily vulnerable to that particular substance? That it won’t last and using salt could fail you just when you need it most?”
“No, but now that you’ve told me, I’ll keep it in mind. Should I switch to holy water or silver?”
“Gah!” Brian flung his hands into the air. “Maybe and no.”
“See? Now I know even more than I did. Are Catholics the only ones with holy water?”
“Mostly.” Brian forced himself to relax enough to lean a shoulder against the door jamb. “He could have taken your hand.”
“Seriously?” I looked at my left hand, safe and secure at the end of my arm. “You mean lopped it off. But he didn’t.”
“Because he didn’t know he’d been exposed. Next time, he’ll be on the offensive, all the angrier for having underestimated you. He doesn’t like failures, even small ones. We’ve no chance if he decides to mount a full-scale attack with whatever strength he can muster. If he does that, he will punch through until he has what he wants, and when we’re all destroyed, he can rest.”
“Then teach me.”
His jaw tightened and I thought I could hear teeth grinding. “I can’t.”
“You said yourself that I found most of the relics for you. That I had the luck or something. Maybe I’ve a recessive gene hidden in here that knows how to work magic.” I tapped my chest.
He shook his head.
I measured a tiny distance between my thumb and forefinger. “Just a pinch.”
“Tessa. You don’t.”
“Maybe you don’t and can’t know. I mean, just like my dad, you’re not all there. Not yet, anyway.”
I looked across my bedroom at him and watched him chase thoughts through his mind like moths dancing around a flame before he told me, “You don’t want to be in this world. My world.”
“Maybe not, but I seemed to be up to my neck in it already. And if I am, knowledge would be a great thing. Teaching. Scholarly applications. Books. Instructors. Knowing stuff.”
He put a hand up. “All right, all right. I get it.”
“Do you? Good. When do we start?”
“When I’m restored.”
I picked my phone up and slid it to the calendar, reading it. “Mmmm, that’s no good for me. My life could be in danger at almost any time prior to that, and I need an immediate and firm date, I think.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Not willing to wait till next week when our shipments get here?”
“They could be out of stock. Stolen from the front porch by Remy. Waylaid by zombie postal bandits. Who knows what could happen?”
“All right then. We’ll start tomorrow.” He began to back out of my doorway and looked in briefly. “Good enough for you?”
“Yes.”
He made a muffled noise and I could hear him trudge down the hallway, feeling sorry for Brian who seemed to be almost permanently locked away behind the professor’s gruff nature. I wasn’t sure who would win out when all the dust settled. I didn’t think he knew either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IF THINGS BEING NORMAL meant boring, we slogged through by the barrelful for the next few days. I, for one, was really happy I’d gotten that paper done early, because Brian dumped five hefty books on me, three from back in the day when bookmakers didn’t have typesetting equipment, and said “Read these.”
He should have said, “Get these translated and then see if you can read them.”
I blessed the Internet gods who managed to make that odious task a little easier. Not easy. Never that. But easier. And it was tedious, like trying to pour molasses in the dead of winter. Eventually it works, but your arms might feel like they’re going to break off before gravity finally takes hold. I have to admit I asked for it. And by the time I’d waded through the first book, I almost believed the professor might be right. Maybe it was something you had to be born to, leaving me with quite possibly no talent at all. I gritted my teeth as I finally shut the first book, thinking I hadn’t learned a thing. Not one single thing.
The doorbell rang downstairs. I ran down to get it, wondering if Steptoe had decided to come back now that all the hard labor seemed done, or maybe Brian’s packages had come. Meal deliveries would continue, since we needed the free rent, despite my heartfelt plea to my mother to let me transition out, but it was Tuesday and not a delivery day. No packages or bowler hat and coal-dark eyes looked back at me through the peephole. I lowered my gaze and saw Joanna, standing there demurely, while one of those limos sat at the curbside, with two of those incredibly handsome and impeccably suited escorts waiting for her. I shoved my left hand into my pocket.
