by John Everson
The Ouija board was there, where she knew it would be. It lay on the floor where it was left. She had a feeling there was still a power and a mystery here for her to uncover in this room, but now was not the time. Closing the door tight behind her, she took the Ouija board and left.
She closed the pantry door and walked past the dead body of Travis, past the unconscious body of Nick. Quietly Jenn pulled out the fireplace stone and slipped the witchboard back into the secret compartment. Then she replaced the stone, checking to make sure it fit snugly. No evidence.
Just as she finished, a knock came at the front door. Jenn took a deep breath, crossed the room and opened it. Scott was there with two paramedics in blue shirts.
“Over there,” she said, and they passed her to help Nick. “Be okay,” she whispered as they took him out of the room on a stretcher minutes later.
Almost as soon as Nick was gone, Captain Jones appeared at the door. He was in plainclothes, a deep blue polo shirt and jeans.
“What happened?” he asked. His face looked careworn.
Jenn shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. But . . . the Pumpkin Man came. And I think I finally sent him away. Banished him.”
Jones looked around and then hard at her. “‘Banished,’ huh?” He gave a grim chuckle. “Sounds like you’ve become a part of the Perenais family.”
“Yeah,” she said. She couldn’t read his expression. “I don’t know if they’d want me, but I’m here to stay. In River’s End, I mean. And I think the Pumpkin Man is gone for good.”
“That’s really all I care about,” Jones said. He glanced around again. “You’d best have a solid story for the police statement we need to take tomorrow. Just sayin’.” He raised an eyebrow and gave her a look that said, And make it a good one. “The ambulance is taking your friend to Sonoma County Hospital. Are you going to follow?”
Jenn nodded. She went to get Nick’s keys.
“I’ll lead,” the police chief offered. “I’d like to know he’s going to be all right.”
“Thanks,” Jenn said. “So would I.”
The captain nodded but didn’t leave. He stared at her without speaking for a moment, and then he took a breath as if to marshal his thoughts. Finally he spat out what he was thinking: “If you’re going to stay on and live up here, I’d rather be on good terms with you than bad. I’d like you to keep me in the loop on . . . well, on how things are going. I helped your aunt out of a jam once, and she was always good to me. I’d do the same for you, if you needed it.” He cracked a weak smile. “I hope things are better here in the future.”
Jenn shook her head. “Thanks, Captain. I didn’t expect any of this when I came here, but I think my aunt Meredith would have liked for me to stay. I’d like to break down the local legends that have to do with this house and family. But I’d like to try to fit in.”
Jones laughed. “Maybe you can organize the first witches bake sale.”
Jenn stared at him. “Are you calling me a witch?”
“Aren’t you saying you want to become one?”
Jenn thought about the witchboard she’d just hidden away, about the history of the Perenais family that she still needed to understand, and about the blood-spattered Book of Shadows lying open somewhere in the basement crypt amid dozens of broken powdered bones. Some secret place in her chest that she’d never felt before warmed. And for maybe the first time in her life she felt at home, secure in herself despite being surrounded in dark mystery. The Pumpkin Man had done horrible things, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t good to come of witchcraft. Did it?
Without answering, she followed the captain out of the house. “Yes,” she said, “maybe I’m saying that after all.”
John Everson is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of the novels Covenant, Sacrifice, The 13th and Siren, and the short-story collections Deadly Nightlusts, Creeptych, Needles & Sins, Vigilantes of Love and Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions.
John shares a deep purple den in Naperville, Illinois, with a cockatoo and cockatiel, a disparate collection of fake skulls, twisted skeletal fairies, Alan Clark illustrations and a large stuffed Eeyore. There’s also a mounted Chinese fowling spider named Stoker courtesy of Charlee Jacob, an ever-growing shelf of custom mix CDs and an acoustic guitar that he can’t really play but that his son, Shaun, likes to hear him beat on anyway. Sometimes his wife, Geri, is surprised to find him shuffling through more public areas of the house, but it’s usually only to brew another cup of coffee. In order to avoid the onerous task of writing, he holds down a regular job at a medical association, records pop-rock songs in a hidden home studio, experiments insatiably with the culinary joys of the jalapeño, designs photo collage art book covers for a variety of small presses, loses hours in expanding an array of gardens and chases frequent excursions into the bizarre visual headspace of ’70s euro-horror DVDs with a shot of Maker’s Mark and a tall glass of Newcastle.
For information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.
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