Charity Shop Haunted Mysteries

by Katherine Hayton

  “What is it?”

  “There’s been a court order issued.” Harvey gave her a look so dripping with sympathy that Emily wanted to slap him. “They’ve agreed to withdraw life support from Sheryl Hawthorne. They’ve unplugged her machines today.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  You were too slow.

  Emily staggered backwards, her legs giving way. She cast her arm out to try to catch herself but only managed to crack her knuckles on the dining table. The spell book—the thing she’d fought so hard to find—slid out of her grasp.

  “Sis, are you all right?”

  Harvey swam in and out of focus. A pulse beat through Emily’s head, far too consuming to focus on anything else.

  This is it. The bone fragments have slipped. You’re dying.

  Her brother’s hand grabbed hold of her shoulder but the only sensation she recorded was pressure. He might as well have been touching somebody else.

  “Snap out of it, Scarface. I don’t mind you on occasion but it’s far too early to put up with you twenty-four seven.”

  As though a bucket of ice water had been thrown in her face, Emily snapped out of her shock. She sat up, pressing a hand to her chest as her heart stuttered, then returned to its usual steady beat. The book lay awkwardly underneath her leg, a bruise where she’d fallen on top of it already forming.

  “Stay down. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “Don’t,” Emily called out, trying to catch the phone out of Harvey’s hand.

  He jerked away, out of reach, but his thumb stopped pressing the keypad. His right eyebrow arched up, nearly disappearing into his hairline. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. I feel foolish enough about fainting without calling in the cavalry to witness my shame.” Emily brushed down her skirt and pulled the book out to one side. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

  “I’ll get the car out, then. We need to go to the hospital.”

  “It’s already out.” Emily waved a hand towards the driveway. “And I was just picking you up to take you there.”

  Except it doesn’t matter now.

  A wave of tears overwhelmed her, and Emily buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t bring herself to glance at Wanda. Her emotions were raw—they wouldn’t be able to absorb the ghost’s on top of them.

  “I have to go,” Wanda said, her voice a thin shadow of itself. “I need to check.”

  “No, you don’t.” Cynthia sounded as firm as a nineteen-fifties school ma’am. “You stay here, Witchy-poo and keep Scarface company. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  “Don’t stand up!” Harvey yelled as Emily struggled to her feet.

  When she managed to stand unaided, he hovered around her, his hands opened to catch her if she fell.

  “I know it’s an awful shock,” he said, checking the phone message again. “But the court wouldn’t have made the decision if they didn’t think it was the right one.”

  “That’s rubbish!” Wanda shook her head, her voice gaining in volume and strength. “They’ve been hoodwinked by the Supreme. Just like she once tried to get the better of Sheryl and me.”

  “Try to think of the people whose lives will be saved because of her generosity as an organ donor,” Harvey continued. “There’ll be people who can see, and breathe, and… and…”

  “Filter waste through their kidneys?” Emily suggested.

  “You can’t give up on her. There’s still a chance.” Wanda spun around, her arms open. “If you speed to the hospital, you might get there in time.”

  “What time was the message sent?” she asked Harvey. “The original one to Gareth, not his to me.”

  “At eleven o’clock,” he said, his face a study in misery.

  “That’s just an hour after we left the courtroom,” Emily said, biting her lip when the world wavered in front of her again. “The judge must have considered the application as his next case.”

  The tears came again, and Emily gave in to the wrenching sobs. Ugly crying. She didn’t care who saw.

  “Perhaps you should lie down,” Harvey suggested. “What have you had to eat today?”

  “I don’t remember.” Emily wiped the last of the tears away with the back of her hand, gratefully accepting Harvey’s handkerchief when he handed it across to her. She blew her nose and inhaled a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “I might go to bed for a while. If I’m not up by six o’clock, would you come and wake me?”

  Harvey nodded, again following her with his hands spread like a catcher’s mitt until she was safely in her bedroom. Wanda stood at the end of the bed, but Emily still couldn’t look at her. She didn’t have anything to say.

  “Hey,” she called out just as her brother left the room. “Did Dad ever say what happens when you’re not able to help a ghost out with their plight?”

  He jerked his face away, but not quickly enough for Emily to miss the look of fear written on it. “I don’t know. He never said.”

  She lay on the bedspread, closing her eyes. She could chase him up for the truth later if it even mattered. Whatever the answer to her question, she’d know it soon enough, first hand.

  “Could you wait out in the lounge?” Emily asked the room, not bothering to open her eyes to see if Wanda still stood there. “I’d just like to be by myself for a minute. Once I’ve had a nap, we can sort out what comes next.”

  After a minute passed with no reply, she cracked open an eyelid and breathed a sigh of relief to find the room empty. Her phone beeped again, and she half thought about turning it off, but in the end, played out the message after reducing the volume.

  “You don’t really know me,” the phone recited, “but it’s Terrence Salem and I need your help. I’ve left a special book upstairs in your charity shop and I want you to bring it to me. I think you know what it’s for.”

  He recited an address, a street and number Emily didn’t know, then the message continued, “Please don’t tell my sister, Agnetha. This is nothing to do with her.”

  Emily’s eyes flicked open, and she stared up at the ceiling.

  She might have lost her chance to help Sheryl Hawthorne, but she could still help herself. If Agnetha could really remove the scars from her accident, here was her chance.

  Please don’t tell my sister…

  But, as Terrence had pointed out, Emily didn’t know him. What did she care what his wishes were?

  Emily’s mind was chasing itself in circles when Cynthia announced her presence with a harsh cough.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake. I can’t say the same thing about Sheryl, but she’s certainly not dead.”

  Emily sat upright, a quick gaze confirming Wanda wasn’t there. “Why not?”

  “Don’t sound so upset, I thought it was good news. As far as I can see, the hospital hasn’t got around to switching anything off. I don’t know why. Perhaps the court changed its mind again.”

  With a frown, Emily picked up her phone and saw a new message. She asked it to play.

  “Sergeant Winchester here. The young woman you revived is being withdrawn from life support tonight, at eight o’clock. They’re waiting until everyone who wants to has the chance to say goodbye. I thought you might want to know.”

  “What’s that?” Wanda hovered in the doorway, half in and half out of the room. “Sheryl’s still alive?”

  “She is until eight this evening.” Emily struggled to her feet, wiping her hands over a face still swollen from crying. “How long will the ceremony take?” She glanced around the room, her stomach lurching when she didn’t see the spell book.

  Cynthia gave a chuckle. “It’s in the other room, Scarface. Don’t have another attack.”

  “It won’t take more than an hour,” Wanda said with a beaming smile which then faltered. “You’ll just need a bit of time to sort out all the Latin.”

  “The what?” Emily stared at her in confusion. “You never mentioned…”

  “It’s in the book,” Wanda interrupted. �
�It’s all laid out, simple enough for anyone to recite aloud.”

  “Anyone who can read, you mean,” Cynthia said with a little snigger. “You really got the wrong woman for this task.”

  “Harvey? What’s the time?”

  Her brother came to the door, frowning as he saw her brushing her hair. “It’s ten to six. I was just about to call you.”

  “We need to get to the hospital, right now,” Emily said. She tilted her head back, letting her fingertips feel their way along her unsightly scar. The thought of contacting Agnetha about Terrence could wait. First, she needed to do everything in her power to save Sheryl.

  “Are you feeling worse?”

  As Harvey’s face filled with alarm, Emily realised she should explain a few things. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. In fact, I’ll drive. According to an expert, I need you to read through a spell written in a foreign language. It’ll take a while to sort out how to say it.”

  Although he followed her out the door willingly enough, taking hold of the spell book with something akin to reverence, Harvey frowned. “What are you talking about? Why are we going to the hospital?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Emily reassured him. “We just need to kidnap a patient then perform some ancient ritual over her. I’ve been told it won’t take much longer than an hour!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Deciding that any extra help would come in handy, Emily directed Harvey to pick up Crystal on the way. She was just finishing up with a client and with Emily’s assistance got them out of her parlour in a few seconds flat.

  “I can’t believe you finally got everything,” Wanda said, her voice a mixture of excitement, relief, and intense worry. “Once you recite the spell, my sister’s spirit should fly out of the puzzle box and turn her back into a full human being.”

  “Why do you need to kidnap Sheryl?” Crystal asked after Emily filled her in on what was happening.

  “Because we don’t need the hospital turning her off, mid-sentence. It’ll be better if we can take her off-site.”

  Harvey was pouring over the instructions and suddenly reached out a hand to grip Emily’s upper arm. The car swerved. Three living passengers drew in a sudden breath.

  “How about you just talk rather than grabbing me?”

  “Sorry, it’s just… You know you can’t actually kidnap her from the hospital, right? I mean, if the machines are the things keeping Sheryl alive right now, removing her from them will have the same effect as the court order.”

  “Oh,” Emily said in a small voice. “I should’ve worked that out for myself, shouldn’t I?”

  “What’s that?” Crystal asked, leaning forward. “Is there a change of plan?”

  When Emily repeated the problem, Crystal nodded. “What you actually need is someone to provide a big distraction. Long enough to keep everyone’s mind on other things.”

  “Or,” Harvey suggested, his voice hesitant, “we could just move her to a different room. While the hospital is sorting out its red tape, we could plug her back in somewhere else.”

  “Would that work?” Crystal asked. “What happens if the machines just reset themselves when they’re unplugged.”

  Emily thought back to her overly long hospital stay. They were well out of the time period when earthquakes had rattled Christchurch and caused power surges and dips but the rebuild hadn’t been beyond the protection of a crew digging through the wrong part of the road.

  “They should have a memory. Long enough for a hospital to switch from mains power to its back-up generator.”

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” Cynthia said in an amused tone. “You’ll turn her off and Sheryl will die? Because that’s what’ll happen if you do nothing.”

  Emily nodded, her determination returning. “Right. We just have to hope it all keeps going long enough to swap Sheryl into a different room. Cynthia, you’ve been at the hospital, where’s a place we can move her?”

  “Just a minute.” Harvey held his hand up as they pulled up near the market garden. “I think you’re forgetting there’ll be staff there. It’s not as though you can just wheel a patient through the corridors without someone spotting it. You are moving an entire bed.”

  “How about we just get there and sort it out later?” Wanda cried. “We’re wasting time.”

  “It’s not a waste of time,” Emily chastised her. “We’ll still get to the hospital at the same time, whether we talk it all out during the journey or not.”

  Harvey and Crystal stared at her in amazement, privy to only one side of the conversation.

  “Well, that’s got her told,” her brother said with a small laugh.

  “I think we’ve been looking at this from the wrong side,” Crystal said, snapping her fingers. “We’re trying to keep Sheryl out of the reach of the hospital staff, right?”

  “Right,” the carful chorused back.

  “Then we should kidnap the staff on duty. If we bung up the lift by pressing the emergency bell and put a broom handle or something through the doors from the stairwell, we’ll only be dealing with a few staff members, won’t we?”

  “Cynthia?” Emily asked, giving her a quick glance over her shoulder.

  “On it,” the ghost said, disappearing.

  “This all sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” Harvey said.

  When Emily flicked her eyes towards him in concern, her brother seemed to be enjoying himself more than she’d seen him so far. “I don’t suppose you have a few friends you can call as a back-up?”

  “If you think it’ll help,” he replied earnestly, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

  “Oh, my goodness.” Emily wanted to slap her forehead, only stopping because she still had to hold on to the wheel to drive.

  “What?” Crystal and Harvey sang out.

  “I know the perfect people for the task and they’re already in Christchurch.” She fumbled for her phone and passed it back to Crystal. “Call up the number under Slim and Co. Ask him if he could get the entire gang to the back entrance of the hospital by seven at the latest.”

  “You think we’ll make it by then?” Harvey said, looking up from the spell book long enough to glance at the clock.

  “Until somebody proves it otherwise.”

  Emily kept her eyes steady on the road, easing her speed as high as she dared. With her attention focused, she missed most of the phone call to the Mortal Guises, but Crystal nodded as she finished. “They’ll be there. Now we just need to meet them in one piece!”

  “You’re sure you’ll be okay, reading out the spell aloud?” Emily asked, falling into the familiar pattern of nervousness—checking and rechecking.

  “I’m sure.”

  Cynthia came back into the car, appearing glum. “There’s five nurses on duty for the ward, plus a porter. There’s no way we can take care of all of them.”

  Emily relayed the information to the car before filling the ghost in on the new additions to their plan. “We’ll be fine. Even if it’s just Slim and Pig who comes along, they’ll be able to handle a bunch of nurses.”

  “It’s a lot more than those two,” Crystal said, staring wide-eyed around the car since she didn’t know where the ghost was to address. “Slim promised us everyone on the ground at gang headquarters, at least a dozen.”

  “Is it just me, or does this sound like we’re developing a solid plan?” Emily asked the car at large, tossing a wink towards Wanda. “I mean, we’ll all end up in jail for a million years when this is over, but for the moment it feels pretty fantastic.”

  “There’re still so many things that can go wrong,” Wanda said, wringing her hands together.

  “Why don’t you concentrate on summoning up some sparks you had on hand the last time we visited the hospital?” After a second without any reaction, Emily added, “Unless you think it’s not worth Cynthia learning your secrets.”

  “Oh, yes.” The ghost’s eyes sparkled, and she clapped. “Come on, Witchy-poo. Give it
up for Sheryl’s sake.”

  “You know,” Harvey mused as he closed the spell book. “It’ll be nice when this is all over and you go back to only talking to people that I can see as well.”

  “Look out!”

  With Wanda, Cynthia, and Crystal all screaming the same command at the same time, Emily’s head nearly exploded. Her foot was pumping on the brakes before she recognised the figure standing in the middle of the road.

  Agnetha. Dressed in full ceremonial robes.

  She threw a bolt of electricity at the car and it flashed on the bonnet, making it impossible for Emily to see the road ahead. In a few steps, she wrenched the door open even as the car continued to move.

  “Did you really think I’d let you get to the hospital and wake-up that traitor? It’s not going to be that easy!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As Emily fumbled with her seat belt, the air inside the car shimmered, growing steadily hotter. She pushed against the door, tumbling out to land at Agnetha’s feet.

  “I told you not to mess in matters of life and death,” the Supreme cried, flicking her hand to crack the air like thunder. “Did you think you could just go against my wishes? Since you don’t want to take advantage of my generosity, I’m happy to put a stop to you right here.”

  Another crack, this time lightning scarring the night sky. Emily fell backwards, scrambling to crawl away with arms and legs too terrified to move.

  “No, wait.” Harvey’s voice sounded far away.

  When she flicked her eyes in his direction, he moved slowly, his limbs as wobbly and untrustworthy as hers.

  “Leave her alone.” Cynthia walked straight up to the Supreme, anger written large across her face. “That’s my friend you’re hurting.”

  “Ugh. A dead thing.” Agnetha flicked a finger and Cynthia went flying. “You have to watch out for those. The dead bugs are the worst.”

  A flash of electricity hit the Supreme in the middle of her chest, throwing her backwards. Wanda stood beside the car, her arms raised to either side, energy crackling in the surrounding air.