“No. My mom had allergies. Not to the animals themselves—to the work involved. She didn’t trust me or my sister to pull our weight in the care and feeding. I take that back. I had a hamster. For a day. That’s uh... a long story.” His face brightened and he pointed. “Here’s one of the lookouts.” He placed his hand at the small of my back and guided me to a flat piece of ground to our right that lay in the opening between some trees. My entire body tingled at his touch. Then I gasped at the view. The view from kissing rock had nothing on this one. From the higher vantage point, we could see the full expanse of the river as it gushed over the massive boulders around the bend.
“It’s gorgeous!”
“You should see it at sunrise on a clear day.” He pointed to the other side of the falls. “The sun comes up over that ridge and it looks like the trees are on fire. It sounds trite, but the only way I can describe it is that it takes your breath away.”
I turned to see his face when a wall of bright white light flashed in front of me. The blinding light was accompanied by an ear-piercing screech.
Instinctively, I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. The ground felt like it was crumbling beneath my feet and nausea overcame me like a wave pounding the shore. “Oh, crap!” I screamed. “What is that?”
Cal pulled me back from the lookout while I was bent over.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was muffled with my hands still trying to shut out the screech, which had gone as quickly as it came.
Hesitantly, I opened my eyes and pulled my hands from my ears. “Didn’t you hear that awful noise? See that light?”
“I didn’t see or hear anything. Here.” He helped me stand upright, then tipped my chin to move my face toward his. “I want to see your eyes.” He looked into my eyes seriously and intently; with professional care. “Do you get migraines?”
“No. Never.”
“What happened?”
“There was this flash of light—bright, bright light—and at the same time a horrible... screeching noise. Sharp, high pitched, and fast. Like someone turned it on and off again with a switch.”
I was just catching my breath when it happened again. “Oh, geez!” I screamed, doubling over and falling to my knees. This time, while the light flashed, the tiniest bit longer than the first, a vague outline formed in my vision. A tree? A person? It was hard to tell. Then it and the sound were gone and I found myself on the ground, pine needles pressing painfully into my naked knees.
Cal was on his knees next to me rubbing my back. “Are you okay?”
“It’s gone. Oh, this is... it isn’t fun. Make it stop.”
“Tell me when you think you can stand again. We should get back to the car.”
I waited a second for the nausea to pass, then let him pull me up. We turned and slowly started making our way back down the path toward the parking lot.
“Lean on me if you need to,” Cal said.
“I’m fine now. I think.”
He pulled the backpack off his shoulder and handed me a bottle of water. “Drink. Maybe you’re dehydrated.”
Water sounded good, and I did gulp it down, but I didn’t think it was dehydration. Truthfully, I was becoming very embarrassed. “I’m sorry to ruin the hike. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
He felt my forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”
With each step that we made it closer to the car, I was more and more thankful for another moment free from that agonizing pain to my eyes and ears. In all my life, I’d never had such a grueling experience, as short-lived as it was. And I was praying it would never happen again. Momentarily, remembering how my Grammy, my mother’s mother, had died of a stroke, I panicked. I grabbed Cal’s arm. “Do you think I had a stroke?”
“I’m an eye doctor, not a neurologist, but I don’t think so. Your speech was never slurred. Hold your arms over your head.”
I stopped walking and did as he said. He gave me a visual once over and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a stroke. It’s very possible you’re having migraine symptoms. I want to take you back to the office and get a look at your optic nerve.” Nice, caring and in control!
How sweet was Cal? Shane would have told me that he wanted to take me home and screw me silly, because in his mind, sex solved everything. This was a refreshing change. Someone who cared. I was feeling all silly and wilty—hard to tell if it was Cal or side-effects from my odd attack.
I gulped down the rest of the water. “Back to the office. Optic nerve. Sounds good.”
Five minutes into the ride back to Stephens City and the Stephens City Office Park, I felt as healthy and normal as ever.
“You’re right,” I said, feeling very happy and comfortably cozy sitting next to Cal in his car. “Maybe I was just dehydrated. I feel fine now.”
“I still want to look at that optic nerve. It will make me feel better.”
I smiled. He wanted me to feel better. I sighed inwardly. There’s nothing more romantic than a man who wants to take care of a woman. A girl can be as independent as she wants and as in charge as she wants, but it’s always a knee-buckler when a man is strong enough and willing to take care of her. Of me.
My cell phone jingled in my purse. I recognized the number right away. “It’s Mrs. Wiley,” I told Cal.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Sophie, this is—”
Before I could hear the rest of what she had to say, the flash of light returned, brighter, even more intense, followed by a quick sharp image of a pained Marmaduke. I heard him wail, then the image was gone. I was aware of Mrs. Wiley’s voice in my ear again. “...he needs our help.”
I could fill in the blanks. I didn’t need to ask her to repeat what I’d missed.
I pulled the phone from my face for a quick moment. “The flashing lights,” I told Cal. “It’s not my optic nerve—it’s Marmaduke. He’s in danger.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I YELLED INTO THE PHONE, PANICKED now. “Mrs. Wiley, what do we do?”
“I’m sensing a powerful epicenter of energy emanating from Dr. Callahan’s office. We should meet there.”
“We’re actually almost there now. We’re pulling into the parking lot.” The minute we turned the corner, I caught sight of Jonathan and the strangely-behaving army jacket girl who’d been in the office earlier that week. They stood together about thirty feet from the door of the office, as if in a trance. “Jina’s boyfriend is here,” I told her.
“Whatever you do, don’t go into the office until I get there. I’m just two or three minutes away myself. Find out what you can from the boyfriend. Maybe he’s hiding something.”
“That’s the boyfriend?” Cal asked when I disconnected. “Who’s the girl?”
“She’s the one I told you came in that day pretending to want an eye exam. When I thought they were thieves casing the place.”
He parked, and when I put one foot out of the car onto the pavement, I suffered another attack of bright light and screeching in my ears—the worst yet. More powerful, more painful, longer duration. “Oh, God!” I screamed, grabbing my head, waiting for relief. Cal ran to my side and kept me from falling over. When the event ended and I stopped moaning, he helped me stand upright.
“What the hell is going on, Sophie?”
“I’m not sure. Mrs. Wiley is on her way. All I know is that Marmaduke is in trouble and whatever that trouble is, it’s happening there.” I pointed to the office.
“I should take you home. Maybe the farther away we get, the better.”
I shook my head. “No, Marmaduke needs me. Plus, if distance were a factor, I would have been fine at the falls.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s talk to Jonathan and that girl to see what they know. It can’t be a coincidence that they’re here.”
Cal held me around the waist in case of another attack. Jonathan and his friend watched us approach them. Their eyes were filled with terror.
“Who’s your friend, Jonathan?”
�
�We didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he said, then turned his gaze back to the front door of the office.
Cal and I followed his glassy-eyed stare. Through the glass panes of the door, it was easy to see bright flashes of light as if a lightning storm were going on inside. The Venetian blinds that hung in the four windows along the front wall flopped and whipped about. A low roar rumbled underneath our feet.
I jumped when Marmaduke’s pained face flashed in one of the windows.
I turned back to Jonathan, unable to control my anger. “Jonathan, what have you done?”
“It’s my fault, not his,” said the girl.
“This is Astrid. She... I can’t believe this!” He shook his head. “I asked her to.”
“To what? Astrid, what did you do?”
“A raising spell. It was supposed to be easy. He was so sad. He missed her so much. My aunt is a witch.”
“She gave you the spell?”
“Not exactly. I mean, my great, great, great-something aunt was a witch. I thought I’d just give it a try. Maybe it was in my blood or something.”
“The spell. Where did you get the spell?”
“The Internet.”
Cal chuckled. I shot him a chastising glare. “This isn’t funny!”
He shook his head. “No, no, you’re right. It’s not funny at all. Scary. Bizarre. The laugh—a nervous one. Sorry. But Internet and witches spells...” He didn’t finish the thought. “Never mind. Not funny.”
We both looked back at the office in time to see more fireworks from inside, then the flashing image of Jina Bhandari, an expression of fury on her face that caused every hair on my body to stand on end.
“I don’t think my insurance covers paranormal storms,” Cal uttered under his breath.
Mrs. Wiley’s car pulled around from the back of the building and screeched to a stop a few feet away. She stared at the activity in Cal’s office while running to where we stood.
“What do we know?” she asked, panting.
“This is Astrid,” I answered, pointing to the girl. “She’s the culprit. Brought Jina Bhandari’s spirit back with a raising spell.”
Mrs. Wiley nodded. “That’s what I thought. Please don’t tell me you got the spell off the Internet.”
“We thought she’d appear in front of us, but she didn’t. We thought it didn’t work. But then I felt this pull one day. I came by and saw her following him.” She pointed to Cal. “We’ve tried everything to change it. Make it so she could talk to Jonathan.”
Mrs. Wiley’s face blanched. “What did you try?”
Astrid pulled her head down into her shoulders like a turtle hiding in its shell. “More spells...”
The low rumbling grew louder and louder. Where it appeared that the wind was only originating from inside, small funnels of dirt and mulch arose from the landscaping outside, underneath the windows. And the bushes swayed as if a breeze blew through them, yet I felt no wind at all. A loud crack caused us all to jump and yell.
“What was that?” Jonathan cried out.
“I think lightning hit the building.” Cal’s right arm was still bent in the air from his reflexive shielding.
“The energy is growing,” said Mrs. Wiley. “We need to go inside and stop this if we can.”
Cal’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. “That does not sound like a good idea.”
Another sharp flash buckled me to my knees. The screech was now the intensely high-pitched squeal of fingernails scratching across a blackboard, only a hundred times louder. I screamed loud enough for people ten towns away to hear. It was the only way to keep the pain from ending me altogether.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the squeal ended, but was replaced by Marmaduke’s pleas. “Sophie!” he cried out. “Help!”
“Do you hear that?” I yelled, while grabbing Cal’s leg.
“You mean your screaming?”
“No! Marmaduke. He’s crying out for help.”
He pulled me to my feet. “You can’t go in there. It’s killing you.”
I pushed him away, stumbling closer to the office. “I’m going in there. He needs me.”
A strong wind brushed past my calves, then migrated higher and higher until I realized that we were being engulfed by a massive funnel cloud. We shielded our eyes from dust and debris. The only way we could hear each other was to yell above the din.
“You’re not going in there without me!” Cal turned to Mrs. Wiley. “What do we do when we get in there? Is there a plan? A spell?”
“I’m a medium. Witchcraft isn’t my area,” she yelled back. “I know a woman, but she’s unreachable. I tried on my way here. But I have one idea.”
“Does it involve Sophie going through more pain?” he hollered.
“If we don’t do something now, she may die with both of those souls in there!”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” shouted Astrid. She reached to hold back the hair that blew in her face.
Cal readied his keys. “What if your idea doesn’t work?”
“Then hopefully I can at least calm them down through communication.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“Let’s cross that bridge if we reach it,” shouted Mrs. Wiley, pushing her way into the wind toward the door.
Cal and I followed Mrs. Wiley, and Astrid and Jonathan followed on our heels. The five of us struggled against the force of the wind that seemed to hold us close, yet felt compelled to keep us away. After a couple of tries, Cal was able to force the key into the lock.
“Let me go in first,” shouted Mrs. Wiley. He pulled on the door and allowed her to step past him. Oddly, inside, despite the flapping blinds, the wind was barely detectable, but the minute Mrs. Wiley stepped in, items in the room began to levitate.
Chairs, papers, the computer, pens, pencils. Everything. Outside, we strained against the wind gusts. Mrs. Wiley grasped my arm and pulled me in. “Astrid, get in here!” she shouted.
Astrid obeyed and I released a sigh of relief as the intense pounding relented.
Cal stepped in to stand close behind me. He poked me and pointed up where the ceiling should have been. Should have been, because instead of a ceiling, there was only a swirling black storm cloud.
Inside the spinning cloud, Marmaduke and Jina were held in suspended animation. Marmaduke’s face was contorted, as if in agony. Jina’s eyes were filled with hate.
“Sophie,” instructed Mrs. Wiley, “see if you can talk with Marmaduke. Find out what’s happening, what’s keeping him there.” She took Astrid by the hand. “Young lady, you need to listen to me carefully. I’m not sure you’ll understand everything I’m about to say, but do your best to do exactly as I say.”
Astrid nodded, wide-eyed.
“Why is she stuck up there like that?” Jonathan cried out. “Jina!” he screamed. “Jina, do you hear me?”
His plea made no change. Around they spun, Marmaduke and Jina, like two people in an amusement park ride.
“When anything in the physical or spiritual realms is duplicated precisely, they fall away as if they never existed in the first place. This happens with thought, with emotions, anything. This is why you can dispel an upset by talking about it. What you need to do, Astrid, is duplicate very, very exactly, the original spell. Forget everything you tried after. Put yourself in the moment, imagine where you were, how you felt. Then recreate that moment and that spell absolutely precisely. I can’t stress the importance of the duplication here, Astrid. Can you do that?”
Astrid nodded vigorously while Jonathan paced under the black cloud, staring at his beloved Jina.
“Sophie!” Mrs. Wiley chided me. “Marmaduke! I need you talking to him during this. Contact him if you can. The stronger he’s attached to you and to this plane, the better his chance of being pulled from whatever this is.”
I’d been so caught up in her instruction to Astrid that I’d fallen down on my duty to connect with Marmaduke.
“Are you sure about this?
” Cal whispered in my ear.
“I’m sure.” I took his hand. “Stay close, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I saw Astrid close her eyes. I did the same and spoke out to Marmaduke. “Marmi? Are you there Marmi?”
Nothing. My heart sank.
“Try again, Sophie,” said Mrs. Wiley. “Astrid, go back to that moment when you cast the spell. Feel what it was like. How it smelled. Was it warm or cold?”
I found the circumstances distracting, to say the least, but I gave it another go, boosted by the gentle, encouraging squeeze of Cal’s hand. “Marmaduke? It’s me, Sophie.”
Flash. My eyes were closed, but the flash of bright white light was still nearly blinding. In my head I heard Marmaduke, his voice garbled, disjointed. He was calling me. Then he sent me images. They came fast, like photo shots displayed briefly in my mind, but it was enough for me to understand. He’d gone to talk to Jina and keep her from ruining my date with Cal. She was responsive at first, but then she grew angrier and angrier, eventually pulling him into a vortex that now held him prisoner.
Tears streamed down my face. Over and over, I could feel and hear Marmaduke begging for my help.
“I’m here, Marmi! I’m here. Don’t go anywhere!” I called out, opening my eyes and locking onto his. I must have created some sort of link, because he blinked.
To my left, Astrid was reciting a string of words that made no sense.
I worked to keep my connection to Marmaduke strong. “Marmaduke, hang on!”
Another blinding flash accompanied by the intense, piercing screech and a sharp pain in my stomach as if someone had rammed a spike through me. I grabbed my middle and fell into a heap on the floor.
“Stop!” I heard Cal yell.
“So-oh-ph-ieeeee...” Marmaduke called to me.
“No!” I shouted to keep Cal from halting our progress. “I can—” Another acute pain tore into my shoulder. It felt like someone or something was taking a bite out of me. I grunted through the agony.
Astrid was chanting, the room spun. Cal shouted and shook me. I was vaguely aware of Mrs. Wiley talking to Jina in a calming tone.
Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1) Page 15
