Spirits Rising

by Krista D. Ball

CHAPTER 6

  Why Can’t Lesbianism Be Contagious?

  Research failed.

  I sat in front of my easel and stared out through my balcony window, and back at the easel. I had all the lights off, except for the kitchen light on the other side of the house. Its soft glow did not compete with the full moon outside. I couldn’t see, but could hear, the surf slamming against the rocks below and I could taste the salt in the air.

  The quiet helped regenerate my worn defences. Or, as Mrs. Saunders would say, “Calmed me nerves.” I smiled, letting positive memories engulf me and heal my damaged spirit. I’d survived seeing Jeremy. I discovered who was putting the pamphlets in my door and could now put aside some of my suspicions. I could relax a little more.

  I so needed to move to somewhere with a population of zero.

  Twinges of stress stabbed at me. Moving would kill Mrs. Saunders. And, I would not recover my own bruised mental defences if I did not settle things here first. So, to help calm the heart-pounding panic of failure in my chest, I reviewed my evening’s actions.

  First, I’d called Mom, who’d been living in Ontario since Dad retired. She gave me a few suggestions, but admitted she didn’t know how I could put these spirits back into their resting places. Mom was even surprised that I’d managed to banish them at all; she said old native spirits were generally too strong for someone like me.

  Thanks Mom. Always can count on you.

  Mom’s passive aggressiveness aside, her advice along with David’s rant had given me an idea. I spent a good portion of the evening searching the Bible for details about demon possession. Though possession was not the same as manifested spirits, the causes and treatment, if you will, overlapped more often than not. I didn’t find anything appropriate to the situation. Crunching gravel caught my attention. It was nearly midnight. I put my notepad down and looked out the window. Jeremy was there, getting out of his car.

  I walked to the kitchen and opened the door. He gave me a sheepish smile and a brown Tim Horton’s cup. I accepted the caffeinated liquid of the gods.

  “I couldn’t sleep and I saw you posting on Facebook earlier, so . . .” He shrugged.

  “I was just taking a break. Listening to my cousin talk about her daughter’s pooping habits calms me down,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Besides, I wasn’t on there all night.”

  “I didn’t say you were.” He gave me his signature wide grin. Eternal ancestors, that smile made my stupid heart pound faster. “I just figured you could use some coffee. Tim’s is still open late for the tail end of the tourist season.”

  I motioned for him to come in. “You drove twenty minutes to bring me a coffee?” I said, arching an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be at your girlfriend’s house?” It came out snarkier than I had meant. I stammered to add, “I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble hanging out here.”

  He slipped his sneakers off. “Donna’s in Corner Brook. Her grandmother’s in the hospital, so she’ll be there for a few days.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said and I meant it. As much as I wanted to hate Donna, she was just too nice. Like, romance novel nice. Perfect, even. And so perfectly nice that I couldn’t even hate her out of principle.

  I sighed.

  Jeremy shrugged and walked into the kitchen. After pulling out a chair, he sat down. “I talked to Donna before I came over. She doesn’t mind. Besides, I haven’t really seen you in a month.” He motioned vaguely in the air. “With all the spooky stuff going on, I thought I could lend a hand.”

  “Thanks, I could use it.” I said and pulled out of a plastic bag some molasses cookies Mrs. Saunders had made for me.

  I put the plate down on the table and we slipped into an easy silence, the kind that only good friends manage with each other. I didn’t look at him and instead concentrated on sipping the lukewarm coffee.

  I ignored the mental chiding my inner voice gave me. I didn’t renew my work contract so I could take a month off in Mexico to get that man out of my head. Seven thousand dollars, a second-degree sunburn, and a drunken one-night stand, and still I was letting this idiot back into my life.

  Get a grip, Rachel.

  “Any idea how you’re going to fix all this?”

  “Nope,” I said bitterly.

  He eyed me. “You called your mother, didn’t you?”

  “Yup,” I said and reached across the table for the scotch and poured some into my coffee. I motioned to question if Jeremy wanted some. He shook his head.

  “She still giving you a hard time about not working?”

  “Yup. It was hard to convey the doom and destruction while defending myself.” I sipped my coffee. The back of my throat burned and I gave a little shudder.

  “Two years on the rock and you still can’t handle your liquor?”

  I scowled at him. “Listen ‘ere, me b’y, I’se can talk like ye Newfs and I’se can ‘andle me liquor.”

  Jeremy snorted. “You sound like you’re down ‘‘round the bay.’ “

  “Oh, right. There’s only two kinds of people in Newfoundland: those from St. John’s—”

  “Townies,” Jeremy confirmed.

  I grinned. “Townies, and those from the bay. Even if they don’t live near a bay, they’re still from the bay.” I shook my head. “That makes no sense.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I only enforce the rules, I don’t make them.”

  Silence fell between us and as we sipped our hot beverages.

  “So, zombies,” Jeremy said.

  “Zombies,” I repeated once more, “aren’t real.”

  “Whatever. Can you fix it?”

  I leaned back in my kitchen chair. “Well, I’ve done some research on the spell Manny downloaded off the Internet. He didn’t even take it off one of the big Wiccan sites. This spell is about stirring up the spirits of anything in an area.” I looked at Jeremy. “This place is full of powerful spirits.”

  “That’s why he ended up with Vikings?”

  I nodded. “We’re what? Twenty clicks from a friggin’ world heritage site where Vikings once had a bloody town. And the entire western coast of Newfoundland has seen several groups of natives over its history. The place is alive with, well, dead things.”

  “Are you sure your . . .banishment didn’t work?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. All I can do is know they are nearby and throw pebbles at them. I’m worse than useless.”

  Jeremy shot me an annoyed look. “You’re not useless.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “I’m just frustrated. I can’t figure this out. Mom believes an expression of faith might bridge the gap between this side and the other. She suggested using old stories and songs to communicate with the Beothuks, at least. The Vikings might respond, too.”

  “That’s not much to go on.”

  “Nope.”

  We were quiet for a moment. “How are you doing with all this?”

  “I believe in ghosts and all that weird shit. I saw one when I was a kid.” He shrugged. “There’s just a difference between that and seeing what happened out there.”

  I nodded. I understood what he meant. My own powers started developing when I was six. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that’s my earliest memory of my abilities. I didn’t tell anyone until I was fifteen, and that was after a three-month stint at a mental hospital in Ottawa. Teenage hubris, thinking I could handle it on my own.

  “Mom says most of us experience one supernatural event in our lives, but very few will accept it.”

  “Did you inherit your, er”—he waved a hand—”powers from your mother? Oh, wait, never mind. You’re adopted. Could your real mom have had powers?”

  I frowned. My real mother dumped my two-day-old self on an RCMP officer’s front step at four in the morning in the middle of February. Thankfully, that was who became my dad. “I doubt my egg donor had any abilities, including the ability to stay sober.”

  “Don’t like her much, huh?”

  “Can�
��t hate someone you’ve never met,” I said with little conviction. I stood up from the table and opened my fridge. Eating helps me think—that’s why I’ve been packing on the weight lately. Unfortunately, all that stared back was mayonnaise, mustard, butter, and a block of mouldy cheese. In all the excitement, I forgot to pick up groceries.

  I grabbed another soft cookie from the plate before opening the cupboards. I found the box of Kraft Dinner, the ol’ standby for middle-of-the-night munching. “Want some KD?”

  He eyed the fridge. “With what?”

  I picked up the Scotch bottle. “Any noncorrosive liquid can be used to make really good Kraft Dinner. It’s a scientific fact.”

  “Scotch is pretty corrosive.” Then he said, “And that isn’t real KD.”

  I looked at the generic box of macaroni and cheese. “So? It’s all the same.”

  “Heathen. You haven’t really made it with Scotch, right?” He cocked an eyebrow, all Spock-like. I resisted the urge to jump him and rip his clothes off.

  Words cannot express how badly I needed to punt this man out of my life.

  “I lived with a couple of friends in university. The first month, I bought two cases of the cheapest no-name brand I could find and spent the rest of my grocery money on liquor.” I grinned. “Trust me when I say anything can make good KD.”

  A high-pitched shriek split the silence of the night air. Jeremy jumped from the table and flipped on the porch light. Mrs. Saunders was rushing across my backyard, still wearing her multicoloured wool slippers, one hand over her heart, the other holding her cane. She was screeching like a banshee.

  “Help! Demons! Dear God, help!”

  I flung open the door. “Mrs Saun—” my voice died. A total melee of red-painted men clashing with the fur-and-leather men broke out behind her. My banishing had not worked.

  And, worse, they’d followed me home.