The Ghost Hunter's Daughter

by Caroline Flarity

  “Gross. It’s coming out of the faucet like that.”

  “That water looks dirty to you?” Geneva asked.

  “Yes,” Anna said, “and worse than that. It’s…I don’t know, infected with something evil.”

  Feeling woozy, Anna took a can of seltzer out of the fridge and sat back down at the table. The implications of what she’d just witnessed began to dawn on her. Doreen’s mom had been surrounded by the empty paper cups. Take one pill with a full glass of water. Those were the typical instructions, weren’t they? Cindy was consuming a lot of tap water. Plus, she’d been stuck right on top of a portal underneath her couch. A double whammy of bad juju. Could whatever was in the water be as dangerous as the portal spew? A prickly rash of gooseflesh shot down her arms. What if it was worse?

  Anna remembered waking from the picnic-inferno nightmare. The first thing she did was drink a glass of water. Soon after she’d spiraled down to the point of cutting herself. If there was a portal in her room she would’ve seen it upon returning to her body. The water she drank must have caused her scissor-wielding meltdown. Something in the water was having the same, and possibly more potent, effect as the portals.

  “Geneva, I have to tell you something.”

  Geneva stopped rinsing puke down the drain with the murky water.

  Anna exhaled. Here we go.

  “I’ve had some pretty nasty thoughts lately, violent ones. There’s this kid Izzy at school. We’re pretty much mortal enemies at this point. It’s a long story. Anyway, yesterday at school, I was thinking about getting rid of him, you know, permanently. Kind of planning it out in my head. And there’s this girl, Sydney, who I fantasized about hurting. The weird thing is, she’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t even hate her that much.”

  The color evaporated from Geneva’s cheeks. She sat down next to Anna and cleared her throat, wide awake now.

  “Thoughts like that can be a normal way to process stress,” Geneva said. “As long as you’re not seriously considering acting on any of these fantasies. You’re not, right?”

  Anna shook her head. After going out of body, the thought of hurting someone made her feel ill.

  “But when I got home from school, I drank a glass of water and started having violent thoughts about myself, and…I did something.”

  Geneva stiffened. “Anna, what did you do?”

  “I cut myself on my thigh,” Anna said. “It wasn’t deep.”

  Geneva had a strange look on her face.

  She’s judging me, Anna thought. But that wasn’t it at all.

  Geneva lowered her head. A section of blonde hair fell into her face.

  “I have to confess that I’ve been having similar impulses,” she said. “Violent feelings toward my ex and…his student friend. That’s why I’ve been sleeping here. I thought the portal fumes at the office might be behind these urges. But the urges are growing harder to resist. Before I finally fell asleep tonight, I thought about going back to California and attacking him, tearing him apart, really dark stuff. I kept shooting Emi around the living room, looking for portals, but there weren’t any. If my ex was anywhere nearby, I’m not sure I could’ve stopped myself. There was so much hatred inside me. I can still feel it wanting bloody revenge. Needing it.”

  Geneva hesitated. “I sound psychotic.”

  “It’s okay,” Anna said. “I get it.”

  Geneva nodded, relieved, but then the lines on her forehead deepened again. “If the two of us are having these kind of thoughts”—she gestured to the sink—“so is anyone else that consumes this water: drinks it, cooks with it, does their laundry in it, or god forbid swims in it. Things could turn much uglier. There could be widespread violence.”

  “The demon must be behind this,” Anna said. “Maximum chaos and misery. That’s what demons always want. For us to kill each other, and ourselves.”

  Geneva nodded, her eyes steely slits.

  Anna sipped on the blissfully cold seltzer water, trying not to imagine Geneva ripping anyone’s face off. They’d uncovered something significant. But what could they do about it? Scrounge up some holy water, then track down the demon and attempt to douse him with it? That would be exactly what the demon expected them to do.

  Geneva drew her hair back from her face.

  “The portals may not be the root problem affecting Bloomtown after all,” she said. “They could be a symptom of something more treacherous. Like an open sore that suggests an underlying infection, or perhaps a spark that starts a much more powerful engine. Water appears to be the perfect conduit of energy, positive and negative. But what, besides inflicting misery, is the demon doing with all this energy?”

  “The demon’s stronger now than it was,” Anna said. “I remember that it couldn’t stay inside my mother for longer than a few hours at a time, even when she was too weak to fight. Now it seems to have set up permanent camp inside Saul’s body. It must be using the energy as power.”

  “Yes, but to power what?” Geneva tapped the water glass with her nail until it came to her. “Where’s the engine? How is it accessing the water supply?”

  There was only one answer, and it had been holding court over Bloomtown for as long as Anna could remember. The water tower.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bad Juju

  “How much salt does it take to de-spook an entire water tower?” Anna asked as Geneva maneuvered her hatchback through the back roads of Old Bloomtown. Once they turned onto Route 33, the towering pines gave up their sandy roadside sentinel to a strip of behemoth fast food signs. The restaurants were all closed, but the reds and greens of the aurora borealis cast fleeting hues on the golden arches of the McDonald’s as they drove past.

  “Well, let’s see, the average water tower holds 1.5 million gallons of water,” Geneva said. “A safe bet is that we need a whole lot of salt.”

  Anna shivered in the passenger seat. They were totally unprepared for this, but they couldn’t wait. Who knew what horrors would unfold overnight if they did? There was also the advantage of surprise. The demon knew its cover was blown and would expect an attack, but it hopefully didn’t know that they suspected the water tower was the source of the infection. If the poisoned water was behind the demon’s growing power, clearing Bloomtown’s water supply—and fast—was their best option. Anna was connected to Source and therefore, in theory, should be able to perform the blessing, but she’d never attempted to make holy water before.

  They pulled into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. A bell on the door jingled as they walked inside. Anna spotted the aisle with the familiar blue-wrapped canisters, each adorned with an image of a little girl in a yellow dress. But there were only six left, not even close to enough. They carried three canisters each to the checkout counter.

  “Do you have any more salt?” Anna asked the cashier, who didn’t bother looking up from her phone. The cashier’s tangled hair was pushed back from her face by a pair of glasses. A similar pair of glasses was perched at the end of her nose.

  “We got what’s out there,” the cashier said, still focused on her phone.

  “Right,” said Anna. “But I was wondering if you might have any more salt somewhere else, maybe in the back?”

  The cashier sighed loudly. “Like I said, what’s out there is what we got.”

  Anna glanced at the woman’s name tag. “It’s just that it’s kind of an emergency, Evelyn.”

  Evelyn looked up then, pushing her glasses back on her nose and assessing Anna with a frothy glare.

  “Oh, well in that case, tell you what I’ll do,” Evelyn said. “I’ll quit my scrabble game”—she waved her phone at Anna before placing it behind her on a stack of Us Weekly magazines— “leave HockeyDad77 completely in the lurch, and lock up the front door so as not to leave the register unattended. Other customers, they can wait, since we got a little queenie here with a salt emergency. Then I’ll make my way into the back room and search the inventory. Yep, just start ripping open boxes, tearing t
he whole place apart if that’s what it takes to make sure your every need is met.”

  Anna’s eyes traveled to the large cup of tea that the woman had just about drained. Perhaps the charming Evelyn was affected by the noxious water, or there could be a portal somewhere in the store. Then again, maybe Evelyn was just a jerk.

  “Just an FYI,” Anna said. “Sarcasm isn’t a good look.”

  “Ain’t that a shame. I guess I’ll have to drop out of the Miss South Jersey pageant now, and I had my acceptance speech all memorized. Now are you going to buy something, or what? Because loitering ain’t allowed.”

  “We’ll take these,” Geneva said, gesturing to the canisters on the counter and taking out her wallet. “Please.”

  Geneva turned to Anna when they got back into the hatchback. “You know,” she said, “you can catch more flies with honey.”

  Anna was baffled. “And why would I want to do that?”

  “It’s an expression that means showing someone a little kindness gets you a lot further than hostility.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m sure that little scene was all my fault. It had nothing to do with the shady water special she was drinking.”

  Geneva raised a brow. “What was it you were saying about sarcasm?”

  They both laughed, the brief levity easing their nerves. But they fell silent after pulling back onto the two-lane highway. The water tower loomed eerily in the backdrop of Route 33. The white paint, visible against the dark sky, had taken on the creepy shimmer of the aurora borealis above.

  The only other convenience store open past midnight was the WaWa at the gas station. The moment they walked in, it was obvious that the scowling, tattooed skinny guy behind the counter wasn’t going to be overly helpful, and there was only one canister of salt sitting on a dusty shelf. Anna hung back, letting Geneva handle it.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Geneva said, “is it possible that you have any more salt? Maybe you’re getting ready to restock your shelves and have some handy? I’m looking to buy as much as possible.”

  “Try Costco,” he said, stone-faced.

  “It’s not open. Nothing is. You’re our last hope unless we want to get on the turnpike, and our need for salt—sounds silly—but it’s kind of time-sensitive. So, if you did have any, it would really help us out.”

  “Lady,” he said, smacking his gum. “I make nine dollars an hour, and you want me to help you out?”

  Anna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from chuckling. But the smile on Geneva’s face didn’t waver as she reached into her purse and took out her wallet.

  “How about if this hour,” Geneva said, placing a bill on the counter, “you make twenty-nine dollars.”

  They left the WaWa with a full box of salt canisters still wrapped in plastic. Apparently, some flies didn’t like honey after all, but cash was always palatable. They now had a total of eighteen canisters. It would have to do.

  • • •

  By the time they pulled up to the roped-off gravel road leading to the Bloomtown water tower, the predawn light dimmed the shimmer of the aurora borealis. After Geneva parked the dented hatchback, Anna crouched on the dusty road and poured salt from the canisters directly into her backpack. When her backpack bulged to capacity, they poured the remaining salt into the satchel that held Emi. After securing the salt, they ducked under a rope, ignoring a weathered no trespassing sign. The weight of her backpack pulled on Anna’s shoulders as they passed the small pumping station at the base of the tower.

  The area of patchy grass surrounding the tower was shrouded in an uneasy stillness. No insects buzzed, no birds sang an early-morning song. Although creepy, the silence had an upside. The pump was off, which meant the tank was full. Anna and Geneva had researched the structure online before they left the house. Water was pumped from a local reservoir up into the tank, and gravity created the water pressure that brought it back down through Bloomtown pipes and faucets. The tower held about a day’s worth of water, which was accessed in the mornings when demand was high on the regional water system. Their arrival right before the morning rush was well timed.

  Anna counted six steel legs supporting the water tank that loomed a hundred feet above them. A spindly ladder was attached to one leg, extending all the way to the roof of the tank. It was the only way up. Anna craned her neck back. The tower hadn’t looked as high from the road. Geneva must have been thinking the same thing. The crease between the woman’s eyes was deep enough to stand a quarter in.

  “I’ll go first,” Anna said.

  “Wait,” Geneva said, taking both of Anna’s hands in hers. “Close your eyes.”

  Anna reluctantly obliged.

  “I think it's important that we take a few moments to acknowledge that although what we’re about to do may be illegal—well, it is illegal—our intentions are for the greater good of this community, and by extension, mother earth as a whole.”

  Anna rolled her eyes under her closed lids. They really didn’t have time for this.

  “We good now? Can I open my eyes?”

  “Yes,” Geneva said. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Swear on my life.”

  Anna gripped the ladder’s bottom rung, wincing when rusted metal flakes scratched her sweaty palms. Why would they place the ladder so far from the ground? Her arms protested as she pulled her body up, grabbing for a higher rung, and then another. Her feet flailed, searching for and then finding the bottom rung. Buzzing with adrenaline, her thigh muscles burning, she began to climb, reminding herself that there wasn’t a choice. She had to move forward. The demon that killed her mother was trying to destroy everyone she had left, and she couldn’t let that happen, not this time.

  The ladder rattled in Anna’s hands as Geneva began her ascent. A thick guilt unfurled in Anna’s chest. Because of her, Geneva risked an arrest record, injury or worse.

  They scaled the rusty ladder for several minutes, climbing slowly and in sync to keep it from shaking. About halfway up they stopped for a break, both of them breathing hard. Anna used her legs to secure herself to the ladder and wiped her clammy raw palms on her jeans, smearing rusted steel on the denim. She looked down at Geneva.

  “Should have worn gloves, huh?”

  Not up for chitchat, Geneva nodded, white-knuckling the ladder. They got moving again, both of them focusing on their hand and foot placement and not looking down. There was no wind, which should have been a good thing, but instead the unseasonably muggy air felt heavy, like it was pressing down on them as they climbed.

  The ladder finally deposited them at a wraparound catwalk encircling the fattest part of the water tower’s bulb. Anna immediately plopped down on the meshed metal of the catwalk’s floor. She trembled with relief, but this was not their final destination. Looking up she could see the much smaller catwalk that encircled the very top of the bulb. That’s where the hatch was located, usually accessed when the tank was full.

  Anna looked out at the twinkling lights of Bloomtown. The corridor of Route 33 was lined with glowing streetlights, while the residential areas were shrouded in darkness. It wasn’t much, but it was hers, the only home she’d ever known. Freddy and Dor were down there somewhere, probably drinking awful hospital coffee and waiting to see Dor’s mom. Freddy would stay with Dor all night if he needed to, distracting her with dirty jokes.

  “We need to keep moving,” Geneva said. It took a few more minutes to reach the tiny platform at the pinnacle of the tank. The bulbous surface was studded with small metal grips that they could place a foot or hand on if needed.

  Antennas were bolted to the inner radius of the roof in a spikey, silver crown. They were a good omen. Cell phone companies often leased space on top of water towers to get better reception for their customers. Insulated wires were fed up through the tanks to provide electricity to the cellular antennas. This meant there might be a relatively easy way to access the tank’s interior.

  Anna squeezed through a gap in the antenna spikes, carefu
l not to touch the metal. They were in luck. The hatch on top of the tower was rusted shut but not padlocked. After a dozen or so attempts, with both of them yanking on the hatch and groaning like juiced-up gym rats, it cracked open. They squatted next to it, shining their flashlights down into the hole. But instead of water, they saw a series of wooden planks—a platform—about six feet down.

  “What the hell?” Anna said.

  “The workers who installed the antennas probably built that,” Geneva said. “I doubt the water ever gets up that high.”

  “Hold my legs,” Anna said, ducking her head down into the hatch before Geneva could refuse.

  It was dark inside the tank, oppressive, like there wasn’t enough air. Anna fumbled for the flashlight in her back pocket, freezing when she heard a faint splash. Crack balls! Did she drop the flashlight? She patted her back pocket. No, it was still there. Anna could scan the top interior of the tank from her position, but the wooden ledge beneath her was blocking her view of the water.

  “Help me up,” Anna yelled, placing the flashlight between her teeth. Geneva took hold of her outstretched hands and then pulled her up by her backpack straps, maneuvering her out of the hatch and into a sitting position on the roof.

  “Thanks,” Anna said.

  Geneva only nodded, her lips cemented in a tight line. Demon got your tongue? A crazed laugh built in Anna’s chest, but she resisted it. Keep it together, Fagan.

  “We have to get down on that ledge,” Anna said.

  “Oh, hon, I was afraid you were going to say that.” Geneva’s forehead was peppered with beads of sweat. “It doesn’t feel safe. I don’t like it.”

  “But we can’t get to the water from here.”

  Geneva rubbed the crystal on her necklace. Anna braced herself for another speech about mother earth, but instead Geneva turned into a responsible adult at just the wrong time.

  “Going up that ladder was one thing, and believe me I wasn’t happy about it, but climbing down into this thing? You could fall. You could drown. I’d never forgive myself, and your father would kill me.”