by JL Bryan
Its awful hands reached toward my face—
Stacey burst out and added her light to mine, and the apparition vanished.
“Are you okay? I saw you light up.” She swung her searing white light from me to Aria's still-closed door. “Did you see anything?”
“Definitely. Did you?”
“Just that cold spot on the monitor. It rushed toward you!”
“Yeah, I noticed.” I clicked off and holstered my flashlight. “I shouldn't have been so jumpy. I spoiled the observation.”
“Don't be so hard on yourself. You're lucky it didn't give you a push.” Stacey pointed her light at the long, steep front staircase only a few feet away, the long balustrade overlooking it from the upstairs hall where we stood.
“This house has far too many places to get pushed to your death. Nobody's going to be safe here without some serious remodeling.” I shook my head. “Let's head back. Maybe we'll get a return visit, but it'll probably lay low after we torched it with all that light.”
When we returned to the room, I wrote down as much as I could remember of what I'd seen, and even tried to sketch the unusual bits of clothing it had worn. Maybe this really was a job for an art school graduate.
“I don't know what it was,” I told Stacey, “but I don't think it was some lady who died in the twentieth century. It's something older.”
Stacey shivered. Older entities tended to be more twisted, more removed from their lives. A centuries-old one might be barely human at all anymore, though it might have grown adept at feeding on the energies of the living.
I would have to convince our reluctant client to allow us to stay and continue the investigation, because there was no way I was going to leave them to face an entity like this on their own.
Chapter Six
We met Cherise and Aria in the kitchen before they could head off to school—Cherise to the university where she both studied and taught, and Aria to her dearly beloathed new middle school. They both had coffee, though Aria was just fourteen, which seemed a little young to me, but then she hadn't been sleeping at night and still had to leave for school before dawn.
Stacey and I had decaf, since it was approaching bedtime for us. The job tends to be a nocturnal one. Ghosts usually avoid sunlight and other intense sources of whole light that can scramble or distort their own weird electromagnetic fields. This isn't an absolute rule, and there's a bit of selection bias because people tend to be home at night and away during the day.
“We observed a cold spot in the hall,” I said, catching them up while Stacey replayed the thermal video. “When I went to investigate, it formed a partial apparition and moved toward me in a way that seemed hostile.” On the video, the cold spot swelled and deepened before rushing toward my yellow-orange form.
“That's right outside my room,” Aria said. “I told you, Reesey!”
“Couldn't that just be a draft?” Cherise suggested. “We have all these furnace problems.”
“The temperature fluctuations, possibly, but not the apparition I saw. I believe it fit the description of the cadaverous skeletal one Aria told us about yesterday.”
“So you see what I mean!” Aria said.
It was hard to read Cherise's expression behind her glasses. Her lips were pressed tightly together; she obviously didn't like what she was hearing and seeing, but who would?
“My initial hypothesis is that this entity is not the ghost of Piper Marconi, but of someone who lived much earlier.” I brought out my description and my clunky sketches where I'd attempted to record what I'd seen—not so much the rotten corpse bits, because ew, but the hints of clothing that indicated we were dealing with a real oldster. “He was wearing a strange hat, and I think maybe a jerkin.”
“A what?” Aria asked, snickering a little. At least she was smiling.
“A stiff leather jerkin,” I elaborated, mainly so she would snicker more. “A kind of short tunic. Which would be normal if this was the Middle Ages. The other clothes don't exactly look like they came from L. L. Bean, either.”
“Is he wearing a dead cat on his shoulder?” Aria asked, pointing at my very poor drawing.
“That's supposed to be a cape,” I said.
“Oh. Oooh. Sure, I see it. That would have been my next guess, promise.”
A thudding sound echoed outside, as if something massive was crashing its way down the street, banging through the potholes.
“The bus.” Cherise glanced at the clock on the stove. “You'd better go catch it.”
“Can't I stay home today?” Aria asked. “I'm so tired, and the ghost detectives are here. I might actually be able to sleep for once.”
“You are not missing school,” Cherise said. “All you have to do is walk out there. Hey, at least the bus stops right in front of our house, right? No more hiking six blocks every morning like in Athens.”
Aria groaned and pulled on her massive backpack. “It's because no other kids live on this whole stupid road. Did you know that, just because of me, every kid who rides my bus has to get up ten minutes earlier now? Because they know it. And they make sure I know it. Every day.”
“I'm sorry,” Cherise said. “I know your new school is an adjustment.”
“I'm not going to adjust. I'm going to stay myself and just wait it out.” She walked out toward the heavy front doors.
“She is having the worst time of it,” Cherise said, shaking her head once her sister was gone.
“We found something else, but I didn't want to upset her with it. After our encounter with the entity, we went back over the feeds from our gear in the hallway, looking for any corroboration with the cold spot. And... our microphone picked up something. It was too low for us to hear, but Stacey amplified it.” I nodded at Stacey.
She pulled up the isolated audio clip and played it.
The voice sounded angry and harsh. I still didn't understand the words.
“I think it's another language,” I said. “We'll need help identifying and translating—”
“It's German,” Cherise said, quietly.
“Do you... happen to know German?” I asked.
“I'm better with French, Italian, and Spanish,” Cherise said. “They're like three pretty sisters. Triplets. German's not my strong suit, but this is clear enough.”
“What's he saying?” Stacey played it again, letting it loop every few seconds.
Cherise hesitated. “'Leave this house. You do not belong.'”
The three of us listened to the angry Germanic voice on the recording again, hearing it for what it was: a warning, maybe a threat.
“Okay,” I said, and Stacey killed the playback. “Here's what I recommend: we need to investigate further. We need to understand the history of the place, and we especially need to know what Dr. Marconi was up to in that library. I don't think our medieval German guy is someone who lived here, but he certainly feels territorial about the place now. Maybe he was accidentally conjured by Dr. Marconi's occult experiments, or he could be attached to an artifact in the collection.”
“There are a couple hundred artifacts in the collection, most with no label or description, in addition to all the books,” Cherise said. “Could he be attached to a book?”
“It's possible. Can you help us identify anything from medieval Europe? Artifacts and books.”
“I'll do what I can. Now it's about time for me to get to work, so...”
“Sounds good.” I rose to my feet, taking the hint. “We'll find a hotel nearby and get some rest.”
“You'll probably want to drive to Washington or Athens for that.”
“Athens!” Stacey said quickly, and Cherise smiled a little. “I love that place. I went there for an art show in college. And a couple concerts. And various after parties.”
“Assuming you're right, and this house is haunted,” Cherise said. “Are all ghosts necessarily malevolent?”
“Most aren't. They're just echoes. The malevolent ones aren't as common, but they can be very
dangerous.”
Cherise nodded; she seemed to be taking it in, thinking about it. Maybe she was adjusting to the idea of the supernatural—the idea that it was real, and the idea that it was happening around her.
We agreed to meet back at the house in the late afternoon, and Stacey and I headed outside to our van. I was feeling tired, but also worried for our clients. The kind of research and rituals that Dr. Marconi had been pursuing could open a paranormal Pandora's box. Maybe they'd even led to his death, and whichever entity had killed him still stalked the hallways of the old house.
Chapter Seven
As it turned out, Athens was our best choice for cheap lodging. The combination of food, gas, and lodging was probably going to be more than what I could realistically charge Cherise for the case, given her existing financial struggles and how reluctant she'd been to have us there at all.
I couldn't leave them alone with something evil and dangerous, though. Cherise and Aria were planning to stay for another ten months.
Stacey and I checked into an extreme budget motel on the highway outside Athens, the kind of place that inspired us to bring our own sleeping bags rather than come in contact with the blankets provided.
I sat on my bed—and sleeping bag—with the lamp on and the old book we'd found hidden in the weird altar-table in the library.
“Some light reading?” Stacey asked. She'd already switched to pajamas and now slid into her sleeping bag on the other bed, her camping pillow under her head.
“I can read this now or I can read this over in the giant spooky old house,” I said.
“Good point.” She yawned. “But I thought you liked the house. You're usually a megadork for libraries.”
“I'd probably feel more megadorky about this one if it wasn't so focused on death and demons,” I said. “The front rooms of the house are nice. Almost lulls you into believing it's all going to be Jane Austen and Tennessee Williams.”
“Then, pow! Satan's Book of Forbidden Recipes,” Stacey said.
I sighed and reluctantly opened the leatherbound book. “Time to peer into the dark side.”
“Have fun. Just let me know the Cliff's Notes version, 'kay?” She pulled some kind of organic hemp sleeping mask over her eyes and turned away from the light.
“'Kay,” I replied.
Reading through my magnifying glass, I took in the first page.
Invocation
I call upon the wisdom of ancient seers, mystics, prophets, the wise men and women of the ages,
the spirits who wander
the choirs of angels and the hordes of demons
the old gods and new
“He's really not leaving anyone out,” I muttered to myself.
The journal entries were rarely dated, but they began in 1989, not long after his wife's death from a congenital heart defect, about the time he began withdrawing from public life.
His intent was made clear early on:
If only I could speak with my beloved once more—she was taken too soon, too young, and my heart turns to cold ash at the loss of her, where once a great hearth fire of passion blazed—she was my one true path, the angel of my life, lighting the path of the future, a path that now lies as dark and hopeless as the night falling over her grave.
Okay, so it was hard not to feel a little sympathetic. How many times had I wished I could speak with my parents once again, after they'd died when I was fifteen? I'd seen ghost after ghost, but not my parents—not until recently, when portions of them that had been captured by the ghost of Anton Clay were finally freed. Even then, I'd had only glimpse, a flickering moment, as they moved on to the next world along with Clay's other victims, his other captive souls.
Clay was finally gone, and my parents with him. They had all shaped my world in different ways. The loss of my parents had been severe. It remained severe, and I supposed always would.
So I understood why Dr. Marconi might have been tempted to reach out to his deceased wife, feeling her absence acutely every day, every moment.
I skimmed through the pages, trying to form a general sense of the journal before I dove into the details.
His handwriting became increasingly shaky and scratchy over the years, harder to read. He'd copied into the book a variety of incantations and conjuring spells, some in English, some not. Everything was aimed at summoning spirits, contacting the dead, communicating across the barrier between this life and the other side.
An entry that appeared years later, past the point where his writing had turned sloppy and his entries undated, was noticeable because it began with extra large letters: SUCCESS! PRAISE TO ALL HOSTS!
I stopped to read that part, naturally:
...after so many years and failed attempts, I have successfully evoked my beloved. I saw her first in the scrying sphere, then later in the upstairs hall, walking as if to our room. She reached our bed and wept. She is insubstantial, and sometimes alarmingly invisible and silent, but she has returned to me...
Things apparently didn't go as well as he'd hoped, though, because another entry followed, several days later:
My beloved girl continues to weep. She speaks with me some, in fragments, but she cannot be happy. I have ripped her from the light of Paradise, and she fears she will never return. Her existence is cold now, and she no longer possesses senses of touch, taste, or smell. She takes no pleasure in our reunion, so I take none, either.
She lies beside me at night, sometimes whispering to me, sometimes silent and refusing to answer me though plainly visible. Sometimes I neither see nor hear her, and only the painful chill in the air signifies her presence.
Yet, though her state is much diminished, I confess I could not bear to again be without her. She must remain here. I will find the keys to her happiness. I will open her spirit's heart and find again the great affection she had for me in life.
I set down the journal and magnifying glass and yawned, rubbing my eyes, the combined exhaustion of yesterday's long drive and the long night finally catching up with me. Tiredness, my old friend, was sometimes the only thing powerful enough to overpower the feelings of fear and anxiety that came with facing the restless dead, the memories of them clinging to you when you went home like psychological mud and filth from a bad day's work.
When I clicked off the lamp, sunlight seeped through a crack in the motel room's stained old curtains. I took one of the two plastic coat hangers from the closet and clamped the curtains together, creating more darkness.
Back on the bed, I pulled my sleeping bag around me and closed my eyes.
Instantly I saw the cadaverous face, the dark eye sockets, the rotten old clothes, the skeletal hand reaching for me. The snarling German voice.
My eyes flew open, and suddenly I was grateful rather than annoyed for the corona of sunlight seeping around the window curtains. This is exactly why I didn't wear a sleeping mask like Stacey. I own one, because sometimes I just need it to sleep during the day, but I don't like it because I have frequent work-related nightmares, even between cases. It can be panic-inducing to open your eyes on solid darkness when you need the reassurance of light.
I sighed. Then I took a deep breath, imagined each part of my body relaxing, and slowly counted backwards from twenty to one, one number per long in-and-out breath.
The trick relaxed my mind, maybe not completely, but enough that I could slide down into a troubled sleep. I found myself lost in a maze of a library lit by black candles, with diseased-looking crows pecking at the old leather volumes and ripping the parchment inside, skulls watching me from the higher bookshelves, skeletal hands reaching out through the lower shelves to grab at my wrists and ankles.
I finally awoke in the early afternoon and decided I'd had enough bad dreams for one day.
A hot shower helped improve my mood, though the dismal motel shower with the weird splotch stains kept it from improving too much. I definitely wouldn't be soaking in this tub at any point, not even if the apocalypse happened and this was
the only bath tub left on Earth.
“Wake up, sunshine.” I gave Stacey a shake when I was ready. “We're visiting their graves today.”
“Aw, no. A creepy old graveyard?”
“But first, the local courthouse and library to dig through property records and old newspapers on microfilm.”
“Aw, can't we just skip to the creepy old graveyard?” Stacey yawned and reluctantly began to dress.
Chapter Eight
We stopped for a quick lunch at a place near the motel called Locos. I didn't expect much, but we'd struck some surprising gold, food-wise. My sandwich was a “Gobbler” with grilled turkey and bacon. Maybe I was just hungry, my appetite and mood restored after several hours at the cheap motel, which really emphasized how bad the emotional climate was at the old house in Philomath.
We checked out of the motel, not entirely sure our possessions would be safe while we were away working all night, and not really wanting to commit ourselves to another day's stay, either.
Soon we were chugging down the road in the van again, Athens behind us and a tree-lined highway ahead. East of Athens, for a long way, was a panorama of tiny historic towns, farmland, and protected forests pretty much all the way to the Savannah River, flowing toward home, where I personally would much rather have spent the night than the rundown motel.
The drive gave me plenty of time to catch Stacey up on my preliminary reading of the journal.
“Aw, he just wanted to summon the spirit of his poor wife, who died tragically,” Stacey said. “It's like a Hallmark Channel movie. Well, maybe a Halloween one.”
“It doesn't sound like it worked out for either of them,” I said. “And I suspect he pulled something else through from the other side, too.”
“Like the medieval jerk in the jerkin?”
“Exactly.”
