A Haunting Is Brewing

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Even if he meant he was in love with Riley, though, it hardly means, what, that Tess got so jealous she killed him? And how? If it wasn’t suicide, the killer had to be strong enough to hoist Adam over the rail, right?”

  I nodded. “Frankly, I really don’t know what it all means. Annette was asking me about Riley—I bet she dug up her juvenile record.”

  “And here’s the other part: This dress she brought in, it has some strange vibrations.”

  “Strange how?”

  She got up and ducked into the back room for a moment, then returned with a yellow calico dress I remembered seeing Tess wearing on the porch at Spooner House, when they were sitting by the shrine. Lily handed it to me. It smelled of mothballs.

  “It’s hard to say, really, but the vibrations don’t quite seem human.”

  I dropped the dress.

  “I don’t mean a demon or anything like that,” Lily hastened to say as she lifted up the gown. Her nose wrinkled slightly. “I mean . . . I think it feels like one of the dummies. The dolls. And you can smell it, right? This garment hasn’t been properly laundered since it was taken out of storage.”

  “Are you saying . . . ?”

  “I’m wondering if maybe Tess has Reginald’s magic trunk.”

  ***

  I called my dad and told him I wouldn’t be home for dinner after all. Then, not wanting to call Tess directly for fear of tipping our hand, I phoned Mrs. Gutierrez and, through a mixture of cajoling and bullying, got her to look up Tess’s home address. When I hung up, I noticed Lily watching me, eyebrows raised.

  “Wow, I’m impressed.”

  “It’s a gift,” I said, then smiled. “Actually, it’s a hard-won skill honed by years of dealing with building inspectors and subcontractors.”

  “Want me to drive?” Lily offered. “I have a cherry red vintage Mustang.”

  “I’m surprised you even have to ask.”

  Tess lived with her “impossible” mother in the basement apartment of a house not far from the performing arts school, near Russian Hill. Though the house itself looked well kept, the entrance to the basement apartment was dreary; it was a utilitarian cement stair descending belowground to a nondescript door.

  Lily marched right down the steps but hesitated a moment before rapping smartly on the door.

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “I hate knocking on doors.”

  “Why? Is this like the phone thing?”

  “Oh no, the phone thing’s about electronics. The door thing’s about being shunned.” She drew her shoulders up toward her ears and shivered. “I hate that.”

  “What—”

  I cut myself off when the door opened halfway. Tess’s eyes were swollen and red with tears; her beautiful black hair was caught up in a sloppy topknot. She wore a big T-shirt, gray sweats, and fuzzy socks.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We were wondering if we could come in and ask you some questions,” I said.

  “It’s not really a good time.”

  “It’s pretty important.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Lily reached out and placed one hand on Tess’s arm. In her other hand, I saw, Lily carried a black silk bundle. She seemed to be muttering something unintelligible.

  “Okay,” Tess said with obvious reluctance, but she stood back and opened the door wide.

  Inside, the apartment was even worse than I’d feared. Tiny narrow slats just under the ceiling let in the only natural light, and half of these were covered in half-dead vegetation. Fluorescent lights buzzed. The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and mildew.

  Reginald’s doll was sitting on a threadbare brown and beige plaid couch. The magic trunk was next to it.

  “I know we shouldn’t have taken it,” Tess admitted to us. “The thing is, Adam was, like, obsessed with this trunk. No one else wanted it; it’s been up in that attic for decades. He even asked Mrs. Gutierrez and Lurch about it, but they refused to let him have it.”

  “When did you take it?”

  “That night. He was like, if he could jimmy open that trunk he could maybe get some good stuff. He was sort of an amateur magician. He kept saying if he had really good stuff he could do even more tricks.”

  “But then he decided to spend the night?”

  She nodded. “I guess. We came back here, but first he was pissed ’cause Reginald’s cape wasn’t in the trunk. And then we had a fight. He was screwing around on me, but he wouldn’t tell me with who. Can you believe that? Preston’s totally right; he says I shouldn’t put up with that sort of thing.”

  “So you brought the trunk back here, but then he left again?”

  She nodded. “He went back to look for the cape. He kept playing with that doll, and all this other stuff. I don’t even want it here, but I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. I was gonna try to bring it back when we were decorating, but it’s too big. Take it, please. I don’t want it.”

  Tess sat down on a ripped armchair and lit a cigarette while Lily and I packed up Reginald’s dummy and the few other vintage magic items.

  “Adam was my ticket out of this hellhole. What am I gonna do now? Preston says—”

  “Tess, listen to me,” Lily said, putting one hand on Tess’s arm. “You don’t need to attach yourself to Adam, or Preston, or anyone else. You are in control of your own fate. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She shrugged and continued to smoke while Lily and I closed Reginald in the trunk and each took hold of a leather strap. We had to stop and catch our breath a couple of times, but between the two of us we were able to haul it out of the apartment, up the steps, and place it in the backseat of the Mustang.

  “Could Reginald’s doll have . . . I don’t know, possessed her or something?” I asked as we climbed into the car.

  “I don’t think so,” said Lily. “I held him, and I didn’t feel anything like what I felt from the rest of his family dolls.”

  “You’re saying he’s not . . .” I searched for the word she had once used. “. . . ‘occupied’?”

  “Not in the same way. Which, if you think about it, makes sense: If he cast over his family, he wouldn’t have included himself.”

  I nodded. “So it can’t tell us anything?”

  “Well now, I didn’t say that, exactly,” she smiled. “I’d still like you to try to communicate with him. Even if doesn’t seem active now, that might all change on Halloween.”

  “Because that’s when he killed himself?”

  She nodded. “And because that’s the night when the veil between our worlds is thinnest.”

  “And here I thought it was all about candy corn and costumes.”

  “Not hardly, my friend. Not to cast any aspersions against candy corn . . . but Halloween’s a darn sight more portentous than that.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “So, it could have been Preston for the life insurance, or Ed Gaskin for the boost in ticket sales, or Tess because Adam slept with someone else and she was possessed by the spirit of Reginald. Is that about it so far?”

  Lily and I were in the back room of Aunt Cora’s Closet, heads bent low over the contents of the magic trunk, which were spread out on the floor, within a circle of salt that Lily had drawn “for protection.”

  “It all sounds a tad ridiculous when you say it like that,” said Lily with a shake of her head. “But back home we have a saying: Every fish ever caught had its mouth open.”

  “What are you thinking we should do next?”

  “We convince all the suspects that on Halloween, the spirits of the mannequins will return to this earthly plane. And that when the dolls came alive, they’ll be able to tell us what happened to Adam.”

  “So in other words we set a trap: Let them know and then wait in the attic and see who comes to destroy th
e dolls?”

  “It’s an idea.”

  “Yes, but not a good idea. I mean . . . really?”

  “Your part is to make a bunch of phone calls and convince all the pertinent players to show up at the ball, and tell them about the legend of the dolls coming to life. Also, I think Inspector Crawford should arrange for backup.”

  “I’m not sure how she’s going to spin that one for the SFPD: ‘I need some undercover officers in Halloween costumes for a sting operation involving magic dolls and a tormented ghost’?”

  “I have faith in your powers of persuasion.”

  “Thanks, but—”

  “I’ll brew, and tomorrow night at the ball I’ll cast a spell to help the dolls come alive, which will also serve to release the trapped spirits of the Spooner family. If we’re right, it’ll all work out just fine.”

  “And if we’re wrong?”

  She shrugged. “It shouldn’t be a problem. Not unless . . . never mind. It really shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Okaaaay,” I said. “And then, when we discover who killed Adam, he should be able to move on as well, right?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “You have experience with this sort of thing, then?”

  “Not exactly,” she said with a little frown of concentration.

  I hadn’t known Lily for long, but I had learned that look on her face meant her mind was elsewhere, no doubt cooking up a spell of some kind. All I could think of was the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Double, double, boil and trouble” . . . and something about eye of newt. . . .

  The whole thing sort of freaked me out, but if it could help Adam find peace, I was in. Besides, now that I was dealing with this whole occult world with disturbing regularity, I might as well learn as much as I could when the opportunity presented itself.

  “So, are you going to brew now? Could I watch?”

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m a solo act. It’s nothing personal—it’s just the way I function. Some witches operate in covens, and the power of the thirteen helps them to transcend this earthly plane and get in touch with their ancestors, drawing on that energy to affect reality. In my case I have to get into my own head, by brewing.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll need you there when I cast the spell to release the spirits of the Spooner family, however. You might be able to communicate with them, and for sure with Adam.”

  I nodded. I was in.

  Lily gave me a bright, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Mel. We’ll pull this off together, and think of all the good we’re doing for the Spooners, and for Adam.”

  I returned her smile. If nothing else, I thought to myself, the strangeness of Spooner House had won me a new friend. Someone who never seemed to think, even for a moment, that I might be crazy for saying I could communicate with ghosts.

  Unless, of course, she was crazy, I thought as I watched her gather items from Bronwyn’s herb stand: a pinch of salt, a bundle of stinging nettles, cayenne pepper.

  “I brew beforehand, by myself, then use that brew to cast,” she explained. “I draw the circle and say the charm. . . . You’ll see tomorrow. It’s not scary. I don’t think.”

  “I understand. It’s just a whole new thing for me.”

  She grinned. “You’re not the only one, believe me. I’ve been a loner my whole life. For me, the new thing is being open about it.”

  “I can relate,” I said. “I tried to keep the whole ghost-seeing thing under wraps, but it didn’t last long. Now I’ve been ‘outed’ by Haunted Home Quarterly, and we’re starting to get more calls about ghosts than renovation at Turner Construction.”

  “It happens,” she said as she gathered her supplies in a large black silk square, then tied it up in a bundle. “There’s so much beyond the veil, and so many things in our world that aren’t ‘normal’ . . . and most folks don’t have the first idea how to deal with them. So they meet someone who doesn’t think they’re crazy, and they latch on. There’s a hunger for knowledge out there.”

  “Speaking of hunger . . .”

  “Thai food?”

  “Lily, I do believe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  ***

  It took some fast-talking, but Inspector Crawford agreed to ask a couple of police officers to serve as backup for the Halloween ball. They would dress as a vampire couple. Lily provided them with capes.

  I completed my obligatory round of phone calls recounting the legend of the Spooner family dolls to everyone we could think of: each of the student volunteers, Uncle Preston, Lurch aka Ed Gaskin, and Mrs. Gutierrez. I was counting on their efficient gossip network to spread the word beyond that group, to anyone else who may have been involved in Adam’s death.

  I also tried to explain the situation to Adam. He seemed doubtful about our ability to find the person responsible for his death. But then, since he still wasn’t completely convinced he was dead, I guessed that was about par for the course.

  The following night was Halloween. Lily and I met at Aunt Cora’s Closet to don our gowns and masks for the ball. Then Lily gathered her satchel with her spell-casting necessities, I hoisted up the doll of Reginald, and we walked toward Spooner House.

  The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood dearly loves a party, and when costumes are de rigueur it doubles the excuse for fun. We had to push our way through assorted ghouls, goblins, and ghosts to reach our destination. We took turns carrying Reginald, but luckily, on Halloween, no one seemed to give a life-sized doll a second glance.

  As we approached Spooner House, I saw that the student decorating committee had come through: the garden was festooned with giant spiderwebs, complete with gargantuan black widows lying in wait. White figures fluttered in the eaves, approximating ghostly apparitions. Silhouettes of black cats decorated the windows, which were lit from within with an eerie orange glow.

  The garden was as full of people as Haight Street. We saw costumes of all stripes, from classic spooky Halloween garb to more unconventional getups reflecting political figures and visual puns. I noticed a handful of young men in rent-a-cop outfits, and I hoped they were actually providing security for the party and not just playing dress-up.

  “I guess they sold the rest of those tickets,” Lily said as we made our way up the porch steps, jostled by a rowdy group of partygoers who reeked of beer.

  I thought about Duff’s macabre prediction that Adam’s death would only add to interest in the Halloween party. The idea depressed me.

  “Backup’s waiting at the attic door,” said Annette as she joined us on the porch. She was dressed as an elegant witch: long black lace dress covered with a black cape, pointy black hat with netting, pointy black boots, red and white striped stockings.

  “Wow, you look great,” I said. “That style suits you.”

  “Always did love black.”

  A small part of me prayed that Annette—smart, cynical, world-weary Annette—wasn’t going to start studying witchcraft. There was only so much my heart could take. I needed some friends who kept both feet firmly planted in the non-supernatural realm.

  We showed our tickets at the front door and were waved inside. The foyer was bathed in black light and decorated with more spiderwebs, ghosts, jack-o’-lanterns, and skeletons. The air smelled like burnt pumpkin, and the sound system issued eerie pipe organ music, interspersed with ghostly howls and earsplitting screams.

  We pushed our way through the raucous throng to reach the stairs. As we walked up the curving steps, I noticed that the light fixture Adam had been hung from was now bedecked in gauzy gray strips; they seemed apt for this Gothic haunt. I peered over the rail to the crowd below but saw no obvious murderer watching us ascend, no one displaying clear-cut signs of guilt. On the contrary, with the house full of people playing at being monsters and serial killers, how would we find our needle in
this costumed haystack?

  When I started back up the steps, Adam was right behind me.

  “Mel, what is going on? Who are all these people?”

  “It’s the Halloween Ball,” I said over my shoulder.

  A man dressed as Frankenstein thought I was talking to him. “Yeah . . . I get it,” he said.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you, I—”

  He moved on without waiting for the rest of the explanation.

  “The Halloween Ball? Tonight?” said Adam.

  This time I just nodded.

  “I don’t like all these people here in the house,” he complained, and made a face at a man dressed as a zombie cowboy.

  Zombie cowboy shivered and moved away, a confused, worried look on his face.

  I wondered. . . . Maybe I wasn’t the only one who could sense ghosts, at least some of the time. Either that, or Adam was getting the hang of this haunting thing.

  The door to the attic was closed and locked. I used my key to open it, and Lily and I climbed up while Annette and the vampire duo tried to mix with the crowd, while keeping curious folks away from the steps.

  I plunked Reginald down with the rest of his family and watched the dolls while Lily set up: Spreading out a white cloth, she laid her supplies out in a neat row: a hunk of rope, several different kinds of plants, polished stones and crystals, a couple of small jars holding powders, and a big-mouthed Mason jar full of brew.

  She started mumbling what sounded like an incantation.

  “I told you, she gives me the creeps,” Adam whined. “What’s she doing now?”

  “Don’t you remember? I told you we’d be here on Halloween, and that Lily would try to release the spirits captured in the Spooner family dolls.”

  He eyed the mannequins warily.

  “Sometimes I think they’re talking to me,” he said in a small voice.

  I nodded. “You’re not crazy. They seem to be . . . occupied by spirits. Hey, Adam, why don’t you help shoo people away from coming up here. Unless it’s someone you recognize, like any of the students, or your uncle Preston, or Mrs. Gutierrez, or Lurch. We want them to come up.”