Dark Possession

by Carol Goodman

  Still … the house looked just like the one I remembered from this summer. I parked the car and walked up the path. About halfway up, one of the jack-o’-lantern tops opened and a screeching black cat popped out. I jumped and let out a high-pitched squeak. From inside the house came the faint titter of giggles.

  Regaining my composure when I ascertained that the cat was an animatronic creation of wire and fake fur, I continued up the path. On the porch steps, a goblin erupted from a pumpkin and a diaphanous ghost flew out of the shadows. I yelped obligingly and brushed past spider-laden cobwebs and dripping green ectoplasm to ring the doorbell. Deep moans and chain rattling ensued. The door was swung open by a witch in green face paint.

  “You’re early!” she screamed gleefully. “Halloween’s not for two more nights.”

  I easily recognized Ann’s daughter, Jessica, from her eager smile and the epicanthic fold in her almond-shaped eyes.

  “Early? Clearly I’m too late! I was looking for Jessica Chase and her mother, but I suppose you’ve already turned them into frogs and eaten them!”

  Jessica collapsed into giggles. “Silly, I’m Jessica!”

  “No! Are you sure? The Jessica I know works at the newspaper and saves lost cats. She’s not a witch.” But her mother is, I thought. I wondered how much Jessica knew about her mother’s vocation.

  “You can be both!” Jessica crowed. “And I can be anything I want to be,” she added a bit more defensively.

  “Yes, you can,” Ann said, coming up behind Jessica. Although not in costume, Ann was wearing an orange turtleneck and a necklace made up of plastic pumpkins. “Can I help you, Dr. McFay? Jessica’s right that it’s a little early for trick-or-treating.”

  “I was hoping we could talk,” I said.

  “If your dean knew you were here, we could both be in trouble,” Ann said, darting her eyes toward Jessica.

  “I think my dean would be surprised to see your house all decked out for Halloween,” I replied.

  I didn’t mean it as a threat exactly. I’d never tell Duncan Laird on her, but Ann didn’t know that, and I was desperate.

  “Okay,” she said, her face grim. “Come on in.” And then, turning to Jessica and giving her a smile that completely transformed her face, she added, “Jessica will make some of her hot mulled spider for you.”

  While Jessica went to prepare the hot mulled spider—“Don’t worry,” Ann told me, “it’s just hot apple cider with cinnamon and cloves”—Ann took me into the living room and closed the pocket doors. The room, decorated in Stickley Mission furniture, had even more Halloween decorations in it.

  “It’s Jessica’s favorite holiday,” Ann said, moving an orange-and-black pumpkin pillow over on the couch and sitting down next to me. “I couldn’t bear to tell her she wasn’t supposed to celebrate it this year. But if the nephilim find out …”

  “They might cut off your supply of Aelvesgold for Jessica?”

  Ann nodded grimly. “Do you know what the life expectancy is for a child with Down syndrome?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mid-forties. And that’s an improvement over the mid-twenties prognosis I was given when Jessica was born. She’s forty-four. I suppose some would say I’m lucky to have had her this long and that a life with Down syndrome isn’t worth prolonging further—”

  “I would never say that,” I broke in. “Jessica’s …”

  “Special?” Ann suggested with a wry smile. It had, in fact, been the word that had come to mind. “That’s the euphemism, of course, but with Jessica it’s …”

  “True?” I finished for her. “Jessica’s a witch, isn’t she?”

  Ann looked around, as if suddenly wary that the ceramic black cats and grinning ghouls on the coffee table might be listening. She spoke in a low whisper. “You must promise not to let the nephilim know. I’ve kept it a secret, afraid others would take advantage of her power. At first I refused to even admit it to her, but then I saw that it was just confusing her to have so much power and not train it. So I began working with her.” A tentative smile appeared on her face. “She’s the most powerful witch I’ve ever encountered. But if the nephilim found out …”

  “They would use her power for their own ends. I understand,” I said, getting to my feet. “And you’re right. I’m putting Jessica in danger even being here.”

  “But why did you come, then? You came here to ask for my help, didn’t you?” Ann asked, grabbing my hand.

  “Yes.” I explained why I needed a witches’ circle for Halloween night. “But I see now why it would be too dangerous for you. I’ll figure out some other way—”

  “No!”

  I looked up. The voice came from the now-open pocket door. Jessica stood there, holding a tray of steaming apple-shaped mugs. “No. You need a witch. I’m a witch. I want to help.”

  “Jessica—” Ann began.

  “No, Mommy!” Jessica stamped her foot, rattling the mugs. Other things in the room rattled. Ann got up to take the tray from Jessica’s hands.

  “You’re always saying I can be whatever I want. You’re always telling me to act like a grown-up. Well, I’m a witch, and I’m grown up enough to make my own decisions. I want to help Callie and her friends get rid of the neff-ums.”

  “Your mother’s right,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Isn’t it too dangerous to let these bad men bully everybody in town?” Jessica asked, looking from me to her mother. “Besides, Mommy only told them she wouldn’t be part of your circle. She never said I wouldn’t,” Jessica concluded with a sly, proud smile.

  “Ann,” I said, “I didn’t come here to involve Jessica.”

  “I know,” Ann said with a sigh. “But, as usual, Jessica’s right. It’s always more dangerous to give in to bullies. Jessica and I will both join your circle on Halloween night.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I DIDN’T SLEEP that night. Every time I drifted off, I was back in the Greenwood. I knew William Duffy was there with me, but which William Duffy? The tender lover of my dreams, or the one Duncan Laird had shown me? I was afraid that if I saw the monstrously hideous version, I wouldn’t be able to go through with the ceremony and open the door, so I stayed up with my Wheelock’s Spellcraft, LaFleur’s History of Magic, and half a dozen other magic books. Ralph pored over the pages of the books with me as I studied all the spells I could possibly need to become the hallow door. I was running out of time. It was time to cram, as I had for my PhD orals. I’d stayed up three days straight then, and my life hadn’t literally depended on a thorough knowledge of English literature.

  It turned out, though, that my body had different needs than it had three years earlier. I made it halfway through Saturday night before I started to crash. I brewed more coffee and combed Wheelock for stay-awake spells. There was one for keeping sleep at bay for forty-eight hours, but it came with a host of dire warnings that ranged from mood disorders to a weakened immune system to hyperanimation (whatever the hell that was!). But what choice did I have? I needed to stay up until I found the door spell. I mixed the ingredients for the stay-awake spell in the kitchen while Ralph ransacked the cabinets for a snack.

  “Sorry, guy,” I told him. “I promise that once this is over I’ll go shopping.”

  My bare cupboards reminded me that I needed to buy candy for Halloween night. And decorate. Everything I read insisted that the observance of Halloween was crucial to the success of opening the hallow door. Besides, maybe doing something other than reading Wheelock would unlock my brain enough to figure out a strategy, so I spent the early hours of Sunday morning up to my elbows in raw pumpkin gunk.

  I carved three jack-o’-lanterns. Having read in Wheelock that properly made jack-o’-lanterns were threshold guardians for your house, I uttered the words of a warding spell while I carved. First was a traditional jack-o’-lantern with triangle eyes and a snaggletooth smile. Protect my home, I asked him. Getting into the mood, I made the second pumpkin into a warty-fac
ed witch. Watch over all who are in it, I asked her. I was amazed at how well it came out. On the third I carved a scary cat so realistic that, when I showed it to Ralph, his fur stood on end and he ran away.

  “Scaredy-cat,” I yelled after him. But when I turned the pumpkin back around, even I was surprised at how lifelike the cat appeared. I took the three jack-o’-lanterns out onto the front porch. As I arranged them on the steps, I spotted Evangeline Sprague, my nonagenarian neighbor, retrieving the Sunday paper from her front lawn.

  “Happy Halloween!” she shouted, waving to me.

  She had tied white cloth ghosts to the branches of an old apple tree by her front porch and had her own little family of jack-o’-lanterns on her stoop. Inspired by her example, I went back in to get more decorating supplies. I found an old pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, which I stuffed with the straw I’d picked up last week to use as mulch. I arranged the makeshift limbs of my scarecrow in a rocking chair and placed the snaggletooth jack-o’-lantern on top. Then I found a black dress and leggings, stuffed them with straw, and propped them under the witch-head pumpkin. I just needed a witch’s hat …

  I ended up going downtown to McGuckin’s Variety Store and buying a slew of decorations and candy. I spent most of the day decorating my yard and front porch, hoping some inspiration for the door spell would come to me while I warded my home. As I draped spiderwebs over my front porch, I wove in another protection spell. And as I attached plastic ghosts to pulleys, I called on the spirits of my ancestors to watch over me. My efforts inspired my neighbors. Cheryl Lindisfarne from two doors down dropped by to say she was glad to see I was getting in the spirit.

  “With all the fuss, I felt a little funny putting out decorations this year, but now that I see you doing it, I’m going to tell Harald to pull out all the stops. He’s got a coffin with a zombie in it whose eyes bug out when it opens.”

  “Ooh,” I said, jealous. “I’ll come by later to see it.”

  By five o’clock, my house looked like it belonged to the Addams Family. Standing back to admire it, I noticed that all my neighbors had followed my lead and decorated their homes with the trappings of Halloween. Down the street, a troop of diminutive fairies, ghosts, and goblins was shrieking with delight at Harald Lindisfarne, who was dressed as Herman Munster.

  Yikes! There were already trick-or-treaters. I’d forgotten that parents took their little kids out before dark—and dark was not so far off now.

  In fact, it was just that moment when day slid into evening. The sun setting behind the mountains in the west lit up the east side of the street but cast the west side, where Alpha House stood, into shadow. It looked as if the street were divided down the middle. Where the two sides met, the air shimmered and crackled with energy. I could feel it from my toes to my fingertips—the turning. This was the moment when the year turned from light toward dark, the hinge of the year, as Moondance had called it, a liminal time when boundaries—between light and dark, seen and unseen, death and life—could be crossed. I felt the weight of a world teetering on the edge. Would I be able to become the hallow door and cross over to Faerie and into seventeenth-century Ballydoon?

  My mind, like the planet, seemed to be turning toward the dark, but then I noticed an odd assortment of trick-or-treaters heading my way. Three women dressed in long black robes, the middle one carrying a lantern, were walking down the middle of the street, along the dividing line. The lantern carried by the middle figure swayed back and forth, casting an orange glow that pushed away the edges of the dark just a little and lit up their faces. I recognized Adelaide, Phoenix, and Jen.

  They stopped opposite the Lindisfarnes’ house. Jen took a long taper from beneath her robe and lit it from the lantern. She walked slowly, cupping the flame with her hand, into the Lindisfarnes’ yard and spoke to Cheryl, who was dressed as Lily Munster. Cheryl nodded yes to whatever she had been asked. Jen walked up to the front-porch steps, knelt beside the jack-o’-lanterns, and lit each of them with the taper. As each flame was kindled, a warm glow spread outward from the pumpkin. It lit up the faces of my ordinary, down-to-earth neighbors with something decidedly extra ordinary. I felt the warmth of that glow two doors down.

  Jen rose to her feet, rejoining Phoenix and Adelaide, and they proceeded to Evangeline Sprague’s house, repeating the same ritual. I saw Evangeline’s old face suffused with that otherworldly glow.

  As the three women approached my house, I noticed that the brothers of Alpha Delta Chi had come out to their porch to watch the procession. They stood with arms crossed over their broad chests, expressions inscrutable in the shadows. For the first time, I thought about who these boys really were. Their fathers were nephilim, but presumably they had human mothers. Were they all completely unreachable?

  I walked to the middle of the street to meet the women and inspect the lantern more closely. It looked like an ordinary hurricane lantern, the kind they sold at McGuckin’s Variety, but the flame inside glowed fiercely.

  “We kindled it from a needfire,” Jen told me.

  “That’s a fire you make by rubbing two sticks together,” Phoenix added. “We did it at a crossroads at dawn while saying a spell to protect the town, and now we’re carrying it through the whole village, lighting everyone’s pumpkins.”

  Phoenix herself was lit up like a jack-o’-lantern. I wondered what the crash from this high would be, but I reminded myself that the former addict wouldn’t have to worry about that if we didn’t succeed against the nephilim.

  “The needfire protects the house where it’s lit,” Jen said more soberly, as she withdrew a long thin piece of wood from her cloak. “We’ll light yours now.”

  I walked with Jen to my front porch and watched her light the three warded jack-o’-lanterns, each seeming to leap to life. As we returned to the other two women, I saw that the Alphas were still watching us. “I have an idea,” I told Jen. “Can you give me one of those tapers?”

  Jen handed me a long piece of wood, watching me curiously as I lit it from the lantern and then crossed over to the dark side of the street. The flame sputtered and I felt a corresponding shudder inside, as if I’d become a hollow pumpkin and the needfire had been kindled inside me. I cupped my hand around the taper, sheltering the struggling flame, and kept going, feeling the light inside myself growing with each step. The boys on the porch shifted uneasily as I approached. At the foot of the porch steps, I paused, the flame cupped in my palm, and looked up into the face of Adam Sinclair.

  “It occurs to me that you probably haven’t had much choice about what side you’re on,” I said.

  Adam’s upper lip twisted into a sneer, but his eyes, I noticed, were focused on the flame in my hand, which was burning steadily now.

  “We’re on the winning side,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I replied. “Or maybe not. But it’s going to be a long night. Who knows what will wander out of the woods? Why not take what protection you can?”

  “We don’t need …” Adam began, but then his eyes widened. I turned to see what he was looking at. The last light had faded from the street. The woods loomed dark behind my house, but not entirely dark. There were small flickering lights in the shadows and, when the wind stirred, the sound of creatures moving through the shadows—a scritch of nails and a heavy leathery thudding of wings. Turning back to Adam, I saw that his face had turned white. Suddenly he looked very young. “Sure, why not?” he said, shrugging. He picked up one of the tiki candles left over from their luau party and carried it down the steps to me. He tilted the glass sideways and water ran out of it, nearly extinguishing the taper. I heard a gasp from one of the boys on the porch. I steadied the taper, which was barely long enough to reach the wick inside the glass. The flame hissed and sputtered when it touched the damp wax. I held it against the wick, waiting for it to light, my fingertips beginning to burn.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass in class,” Adam said, so softly I wondered if I’d heard right. But then the wick caught, an
d in the glow of the flame I saw a look of contrition on his young face. At the same instant, I felt something click inside myself. What had Nicky said? A good teacher is a door to other worlds. I’d opened up a new world for Adam—a possibility of becoming something other than what the nephilim wanted for him—and in doing so I’d become a doorway. This was how I’d be the hallow door.

  “That’s okay, Adam,” I said, feeling grateful to the boy for what he’d unwittingly done for me. “You’ve got plenty of time to make it up to me. Just keep your brothers safe tonight and we’ll get a fresh start tomorrow, okay?”

  He nodded and turned away, carrying the lit candle up the stairs. I turned and walked across the street, where the three women waited for me on my front porch. Adelaide was shaking her head at me. “Why did you do that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It felt …” I looked back at Alpha House. Glass tiki candles lined the railing of the front porch, their glow a barrier against the dark. “… right,” I finished. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go check something in Wheelock. I’ll see you in the circle at midnight.”

  In Wheelock’s section on teaching magic, I found what I was looking for. When I opened the footnote, I located the spell to become a doorway. It turned out I had already completed the first two steps: make a blood bond to the door you want to open, and empty yourself of all prejudgments. The third step was simply a spell I had to recite at the moment I wanted to open myself. I committed the spell to memory and changed into a long green skirt, body-hugging bodice, and white lace blouse, with a tartan shawl I’d had since childhood wrapped around my shoulders and pinned with the Luckenbooth brooch. A sprig of heather in my hair from the heap of them I found strewn over my bed and, voilà, I was Jennet Carter, off to the Greenwood to rescue Tam Lin. When my doorbell rang, I was ready with a bowl of miniature Kit Kats and Hershey bars.