by Darcy Coates
The library was a mess. She felt a rush of shame at the sight of the overturned table and broken chair. In a twisted way, though, my anger might just be my salvation.
She knelt behind the table and began picking up the scattered talismans and herbs. Damascus, the medium, had grabbed his music player and the more expensive equipment, but he’d been so eager to escape Mara’s wrath that he’d abandoned the smaller trinkets. Mara went through them carefully, turning them over and examining them, then gave a small cheer as she found what she’d been searching for. On the inside flap of a small, cheap bible was the inscription, Spirited Encounters: Evereca and Damascus, verified spirit mediums, followed by a phone number and post office box address.
“Verified by who?” Mara snorted then bowed her head. You’re in no position to mock them. They’re your last chance.
Mara dialled the number. Her phone rang twice before it was answered. “H-hello.” She hadn’t planned anything to say, and her mind went blank. “Uh—this is Mara. You were at my house a little earlier—hello? Hello?”
They hung up on me. Of course they would. Honestly, I’d hang up on me as well.
Tears built, but she brushed them away. Then she looked at her phone and saw, to her horror, she hadn’t been hung up on after all. Her battery had died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Company
Mara sat on Blackwood’s porch. Night had thoroughly descended, and she was left with nothing but a torch to light the trees surrounding her. Animal calls bounced through the night air. The wind was cooling, but Mara was reluctant to return to the house while the rocking chair continued to groan.
Everything hurt. Her head throbbed from crying, her pride was shredded, and her heart felt as though it had been through a meat grinder. Every time she tried to come up with a plan, she ended up circling through the same unanswerable questions. Where will I live? What will happen to Blackwood? Is there any chance Neil will forgive me?
A faint rumble floated through the cold air, and Mara started upright. She strained to hear more and was rewarded as a vehicle’s engine became clear.
The headlights were the only discernible part of the van as it rounded the bend in the driveway. Mara grinned and shook her head as it slowed and eventually came to a halt near the other side of the clearing. They actually came back. These people are either really desperate for the money or way more idealistic than they have any right to be. Probably both.
The woman bounded out of the van and approached Mara. Her companion followed at a slower, more cautious pace.
“Hey!” Evereca stopped a little outside Mara’s reach. “You, um, called?”
Mara couldn’t fight the wonky smile that was forming. “You have no idea how glad I am that you came back. And, jeeze, I’m sorry about… all of what happened this afternoon. I really messed up. But my house is haunted, and I don’t want to be alone tonight, and if you could maybe get rid of the ghosts that would be pretty cool, too.”
Evereca’s grin scrunched her whole face up. She moved forward, arms extended, and pulled Mara into a fierce hug. “I knew it. Of course we’ll help. We’re verified mediums, you know.”
“A-ha, yeah.” Mara awkwardly patted the woman’s back. “That’s—that’s what I need, I guess.”
Evereca drew back and gave her a quick, searching look. “We kinda got off to a rough start today, huh? How about we try again. I’m Evereca.”
“That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard,” Mara said cheerfully, shaking the woman’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here.” It was hard to see in the dark, but she thought the other woman’s face turned pink.
“Uh, well, my name’s actually Erica. Evereca is my spirit-medium name. It sounds more impressive.”
Mara let her breath out in a rush. “No, it sounds like something you’d find in a Mary-Sue fan-fiction contest. Erica’s way better.” She turned towards the man and gave him the warmest smile she could manage. “Do you have a sensible name, too, or am I going to have to call you Damascus?”
“Damian.” A slow, faintly impressed grin was curling his lips. “Where’s Neil?”
“I chased him off because I’m a horrible person.” Mara kept her voice bright despite the pain that cut through her at the sound of Neil’s name. “But at least I didn’t murder him. So, y’know, I’m doing better than the average.”
The joke had been a last-ditch effort to maintain her cheerful facade. As soon as the words left her mouth, the horror of her situation washed over her, and she doubled over. She pressed her palms into her eyes until stars shot across the back of her eyelids. For a second, it was a toss-up between being sick and collapsing, but then Erica’s arm threaded around her shoulders and pushed her towards Blackwood.
“Let’s get you inside, yeah? We’ll have a seance set up and your house cleared in no time.”
“Nuh-uh.” Mara tried to pull back. “Shouldn’t go back in. It’s not safe.”
“Naw, it’ll be fine. You’ve got us with you now.” The glee in Erica’s voice was unmistakable. Mara dropped her hands from her stinging eyes to see the other woman staring up at Blackwood with unabashed delight. “This place is incredible. It’s… it’s like it’s buzzing. Did you feel the attraction as soon as you saw it?”
“Uh…” Mara remembered her first day at Blackwood, when the supposedly locked door had opened without objection and the vast building had enthralled her.
“It attracts people like you,” Erica continued, oblivious to Mara’s discomfort as she ushered her through the front door. “People with the gift. Yours is really strong, so you probably feel the house’s pull really strongly, too. Now, where’ll we go? The library again? It’s got awesome atmosphere.”
Mara had no energy left to object. She let Erica lead her through the house while Damian trailed behind. She shot a look at the rocking chair as they passed it, but the blood had disappeared, and it sat dormant. It’s almost like having company dulls the haunting effect.
As they entered the library, Mara grimaced at the sight of the scattered equipment. “Sorry about that, by the way.”
Erica patted Mara’s shoulder. “It’s cool. Dame?”
Damian took one end of the table while Mara and Erica lifted the other. It was heavier than Mara had expected, but they managed to correct it. She propped her torch upright on the surface to diffuse its light, and Erica cheerfully forced the candles back into their holders and lit their tips. Damian left while the women collected the trinkets, then he reappeared with two extra seats from the dining room. They sat down, Mara on one side of the table and the mediums on the other.
Mara sighed, breaking the silence. “Okay. I want to apologise—again—for this afternoon. I was raised in a spiritualistic household. It wasn’t a great experience for me, and I’ve spent the last four years avoiding any mention of ghosts. So, um, I sort of overreacted when I found out my boyfriend had set up a seance.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Erica leaned forward as excitement lit up her face. “Honestly, I’m pretty excited to be back here. I’ve never seen a house like Blackwood before. Did you know a renowned spiritualist called Victor Barlow built it? He was really quite brilliant—”
Damian caught the sour look on Mara’s face and tapped his companion’s arm. Erica obediently fell silent.
Mara inhaled and held the air for a beat before saying, “Yeah. He’s my great-great- grandfather.”
“A-ha.” Erica’s eyes shone in the candlelight as she shuffled her chair closer. “I knew you had to have some sort of gifted history. Did you know about Victor before buying Blackwood, or did it call you to it?”
A headache was growing at the back of Mara’s skull. She massaged her temples as she tried to find a peaceful way to express herself. “Look, today’s been a really, really bad day. I don’t understand half the things you’re saying. I’m having to confront the idea that I’ve been wrong about something pretty damn substantial for most of my life, and it feels somewhat like having surgery without an a
naesthetic.”
“That’s quite all right.” Erica had been slowly leaning closer and was nearly out of her chair by that point. “I’ll be glad to guide you through this period of discovery—”
“Stop.” Mara held up a finger to halt Erica’s progress. “I believe in ghosts. But I don’t believe in you. Not yet anyway. You symbolise everything I’ve hated for the majority of my life. But I’m willing to give you a chance because—well, I’m sort of out of options right now. Can we make a deal? I’ll do my best to trust you and follow your instructions. But in return, I want you to cut the BS. No tricks. No smoke and mirrors. No stupid fancy stage names, props, or attempts to look cool. You can impress me by dealing with Blackwood’s ghosts. All right?”
The two mediums looked at each other then nodded. “That’s a deal,” Erica said.
“Great.” Mara tilted her head towards the jumble of trinkets she’d collected off the ground. “Do we need all of these?”
Erica hesitated, and Damian spoke in her place. “No. They’re almost all for show.”
“Really? You don’t even use the bible?”
He shrugged. “It’s more for demonic spirits, which we don’t deal with.”
“Those things are nasty,” Erica agreed.
“Neil mentioned he was Christian when he called us, so we bought the bible on the way to pick him up. We figured it might get us in his good books.”
Mara sucked on her teeth as she nodded. “Was the chanting also for show?”
“Not entirely. It creates atmosphere, but we also use it as a meditation to help Erica centre in on what beings are in the house so she can figure out how to handle them. But it doesn’t do anything for the ghosts per se.”
“C’mon, you’re giving away all our trade secrets,” Erica hissed. Damian gave her a patient smile.
Mara swallowed and traced a pattern over the wooden table. “So you can… what? See spirits?”
“I can’t,” Damian said, “but Erica can sense their presence and get a feel for what they looked like, how they’re feeling, and when they died. She’s basically really good at picking up on spiritual energy.”
Mara grimaced. “Yeah, that sounds made up.”
“Don’t worry; it’s not.” Damian’s mouth twitched. “Everyone and everything that’s alive is sustained by energy. It’s what separates, say, a plant from a rock. When we die, our energy can sometimes be left behind—like a residue. With a strong enough energetic imprint, you get a ghost.”
Mara glanced towards the doorway to the foyer. “I’m guessing violent deaths leave more energy than peaceful ones.”
“Bingo. Murders, betrayals, insanity, that sort of thing—if the victim is full of very strong emotions when they pass, it can leave a residue.”
“Or if they feel maligned,” Erica interjected. “Super strong resentment or regret can make ghosts, too.”
Mara thought through all of the spirits she knew of in Blackwood. The mother cradling her dead child after killing her husband. The man who broke a hole in the attic’s roof and threw himself to his death after losing his family. Robert Kant, a tortured soul. The insane wife, butchered by her husband as she tried to claw her way out of her room. Yeah, they all count.
“Normally, residues will fade,” Damian continued. “It can take many hundreds of years, but eventually they stop being strong enough to be felt. They can also be released by someone with spiritual aptitude.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?”
“We’ll give it a try.”
Mara placed her elbows on the table, laced her fingers, and rested her chin on them. “How much experience do you have?”
“Heaps,” Erica said instantly. Mara narrowed her eyes and let the silence stretch until Erica cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to the table. “I’ve been practicing heaps, at least.”
Great. They’re rookies. “The van looks new,” Mara observed.
Damian gave a nonchalant shrug. “We officially opened our business last week. You’re the second house we’ve visited.”
“Have much luck with the first?”
They shared another glance. “Th-there were some complications—” Erica started.
“We botched it,” Damian finished.
“Well.” Mara tried to keep her voice cheerful. “There’s plenty to practice on here.”
“You bet.” Erica’s mood was instantly restored. “Like I said, this house is absolutely buzzing. It’s got to be built on a massive spiritual hotspot.”
“Explain that.”
“Well, it’s sort of like…” She cast around for a moment then snapped her fingers. “Like acupuncture. Have you ever had that?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, it’s great. I had this crick in my neck that just wasn’t going away and—”
“Focus,” Damian murmured.
“Right. So the idea behind acupuncture is that you have all of these energy points around your body. Sometimes they become blocked, and that causes problems. Now, imagine the earth is like a really big body. It has all of these energy points scattered around. They’re locations where spiritual energy naturally collects. The Bermuda triangle includes a cluster of several large patches, and a lot of famous haunted locations are built on these spots.”
“And Blackwood is one of them,” Mara said.
“Exactly. My skin’s tingling from the power. I’m guessing Victor Barlow could sense it, too, which is why he built Blackwood here in the first place. He was really into experimenting with spiritual connections and getting closer to communicating with the afterlife, and he probably thought being on a hotspot would help. Except, of course, it backfired.”
“Robert Kant stumbled on it.”
“Robert Kant was drawn to it.” Erica’s voice was rising with her increasing excitement. “He would have had some basic spiritual aptitude; I’m sure of it. Everyone who’s come to Blackwood has. It repels normal people. They either get a bad vibe from being here or find something about the house they don’t like. But people like you and me—people who have the gift—are attracted to it. You love Blackwood, don’t you?”
Mara opened her mouth, but she couldn’t disagree. She knew that, after everything that had happened, the building should repulse her. But there was something almost magnetic about it that made it hard to hate. It was like being in a relationship with an abusive partner.
“Exactly.” Erica looked far smugger than Mara thought she had any right to. “Blackwood called you just like it called Victor Barlow, and just like it called Robert Kant, and just like it called every other poor soul who lost their life here. It craves people like you.”
Mara had a sudden flashback to her childhood: Miss Horowitz, caught in the throes of a seance, bellowing, “Beware the home that craves!” She shook her head. “You’re saying it wasn’t a coincidence that I bought the house my great-great-grandfather built?”
“Not at all. You inherited his gift and were naturally drawn to the same place that attracted him. You’re—how can I put this? You’re like a battery that never runs out. You’re constantly leaking a low amount of spiritual energy. When you’re frightened or stressed, you produce more. When you’re calm, less. The house, and the spirits in it, consume your energy to become stronger. That means the house’s activity will become more severe with each day you spend in it.”
Mara frowned. Erica’s theory was consistent with what she’d experienced. “Why did Victor Barlow build his house on a hotspot if he knew it was dangerous?”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been dangerous at all when he found it. Spiritual hotspots aren’t inherently bad—it’s just what happens on them that dictates their state. If Victor had died a peaceful death, this would probably be a really pleasant place to live. You might have a few extra dreams or have an easier time communicating with the dead, but that’s it.”
“But because of Robert Kant—”
“Everything went to hell, yeah. A murder on a spiritual hotspot is a sure way
to taint it. I didn’t get time to research this place—Neil kinda insisted on a rush job—but would you happen to know any of its history?”
Mara quickly filled her companions in on Robert’s multiple victims, his suicide, and as much as she could remember of the subsequent families. Partway through her story, the rocking chair began to creak again. They all pretended not to notice.
Damian’s face darkened as he listened. When Mara had finished, he turned to Erica and whispered something in her ear.
“Stop worrying; we’ll be fine,” Erica laughed.
That’s the sort of thing I’d say to Neil. Fresh pain cut through Mara. What’s he doing right now? Would he be having dinner with his mother and trying to pretend like nothing happened? How much does he hate me? She shuffled forward and tried to bring her mind back to more immediate matters even as her heart felt as if it were being crushed. “What’s the plan? Do we need to deal with the ghosts one at a time?”
“Probably not,” Erica said. “To keep with the acupuncture analogy, the house’s energy has been blocked by a violent death. Probably either Victor’s or Robert’s though it could be one of the children, too. Following that, every other death at Blackwood has increased the energy level. There’s been a lot of bloodshed in this place. It’s built up to the point where it’s ready to explode. All it needs is an acupuncture needle to unblock the cause, and all the other spirits will dissipate with it.”
“And the acupuncture needle is…?”
“Me!” Erica looked thrilled at the idea. “I wish I could get some cameras in here. It’s going to be pretty amazing.”
Mara thought of the camera that had captured Keith and Sal’s last moments and shivered. “Stick with a low-key approach. Do you need to do anything special to unblock the energy, or does it sort of just… happen?”
“The easiest way is to hold something that belonged to the spirit and concentrate really hard on releasing it. Before we do that, though, we’ve got to find out who the main ghost actually is. I’ll need to do some meditating to work that out.” Erica glanced at the trinkets, and a guilty smile flickered over her mouth. “They’re only for show, but d’you mind if I…?”