The Gold Touch That Went Cattywampus

by Amy Boyles

  I laughed behind my hand. “Fine. Then I’ll hover around your legs like a puppy dog and won’t let you out of my sight. Ever. How’s that?”

  Roan tapped the air. “That would be too much. How about we bring it down a notch?”

  “Then I shower and leave. Let’s say you and I take up later?”

  He smiled. “Perfect.”

  So that’s what happened. I ate my scrumptious breakfast, wishing it would never end, then showered. After a quick goodbye to Roan, I waited outside for Alice to pick me up in her Caprice Classic.

  After about five minutes, I saw her coming up the road, going five miles an hour. Now, Alice was a cautious driver, but this? This was a little much.

  She braked to a stop, and I opened the passenger door.

  “Watch the glasses, Blissful. I wouldn’t want them getting broken.”

  I glanced down to see a pair of what looked like swimming goggles except with much rounder lenses, sitting on the seat facing forward as if the glasses themselves were looking out of the windshield.

  I picked them up and slid inside. “Going swimming?”

  “I’m an old lady, Blissful. My swimming days are over. Now if Mr. Hodges asked me to go skinny dipping, I might say yes. But other than then, I’m a land lover.”

  I cringed at the idea of Alice skinny dipping. There were just some thoughts I didn’t need to explore. “Well, who do the goggles belong to, then?”

  “For your information, I’m working on a pair of ghost-seeing glasses.”

  Let me explain something about Alice. She was kind. She was sweet. She would give you a tin of chocolate just for visiting her on a Sunday, but she had wacky ideas when it came to spirit hunting.

  When I first met her, she thought you could trap spirits in a box of water balloons.

  I’m not kidding. I had thought she’d been broken away from that train of thinking, but obviously remnants still lingered—as witnessed by the goggles.

  “So, Alice,” I said lightly, not trying to let her think that I believed her idea was bat-crap crazy, “how do you think you’ll be able to see ghosts through those glasses?”

  “It’s funny you should ask, Blissful,” she said in her wobbly old-lady voice. “I figured if I layer a whole bunch of bifocals one behind the other, the glasses would act as a huge magnifying glass. They would magnify even the smallest of things, and that’s how a person like me will be able to see spirits when you’re not around. Because as you well know, I can only see them if you’re in the vicinity, and not always then.”

  I shook my head. “Alice, you know I see spirits all the time. It’s not always a blessing. Often it’s a curse.”

  “Oh, I know it’s hard on you. But Ruth and I have always wanted to be ghost hunters. Since you’ve arrived in Haunted Hollow, you’ve made that dream a reality. It’s just…for once, I’d like to see what I’m missing.”

  Alice had lost her daughter years ago. It had obviously been hard on her, but I’d been able to offer some comfort. I had found her daughter and reunited them. Alice had spoken to her daughter from the dead, and it made her happy to know her daughter was at peace. But what Alice wanted…it was painful at times. Seeing spirits wasn’t what everyone thought it was cracked up to be.

  I shook my head. “Alice, you know that I hunted spirits for a living before I ever came here. The pain that most of them have endured is not something I would want you to take on for yourself. You hear about their suffering, what happened to them in life, what made them become trapped on earth. It can be impossible to bear. I’ve met children who died before they ever should have, at the hands of another. I’ve encountered men and women killed by jealous lovers. It’s a lot to absorb.”

  Alice made a little whimpering noise in response.

  I studied the goggles. “But if you want to see spirits, then maybe all of that is stuff you can handle. But all can say is this—if at any point you decide what you see is too much and you think it’s best to get rid of the glasses, then do so.”

  “When I’m near you, then I can see spirits,” Alice said.

  That was true. One of the many quirks of my abilities. That’s how Ruth and Alice could see the spirit last night. It didn’t always happen, but it often did.

  Alice nodded toward the goggles. “I just want to know that if I had to, I could hunt ghosts on my own.”

  “Why? Are you planning to leave us?” I asked.

  Her back straightened with pride. “No, I just like to be independent.”

  I nodded in understanding. “I get that.”

  We arrived at Southern Ghost Wranglers, our headquarters located in downtown Haunted Hollow. The town wasn’t that big, just large enough to be swamped by tourists, tour guides and enough shops vomiting ghost paraphernalia that we were on the map.

  Haunted Hollow was the second most haunted city in the States, right behind Savannah.

  Alice parked and I scooped myself out of the bucket seat that was the Caprice. Seriously, how could anyone get out of this car?

  But I managed to make it out and wait for Alice on the curb. We went inside and found Ruth at the phone, listening quietly to the messages that had been left overnight.

  Alice went to her desk, where her basket of yarn and nothing else sat. “Looks like I need to make some more booties.”

  Alice had rows of baby booties displayed in the window. Sometimes I wondered why we didn’t call the place Southern Ghost Wrangler Booties, but you know, people might get the wrong impression and think that somehow our business had to do with rear ends.

  You never knew what went through the mind of some of the crazies in the world.

  As I plopped down at my desk across from Ruth, she placed the phone in the cradle. “Heard from the Wilson family.”

  That was the family from last night. “What’d they say?”

  Ruth smoothed a few loose strands that had come out of her silver bun. “Said the house felt different.”

  I smiled. “Good. Did you tell them I’ll head over in a little while to explain what happened?”

  She nodded. “They’re expecting you.”

  “Great. What else?”

  “It seems,” Ruth said, “that a family living just outside of town says they have a problem.”

  “Do you think my ghost goggles might work on it?” Alice said hopefully.

  “I’m sure,” I said, not wanting to crush her feelings. If a microscope couldn’t see ghosts, how could a pair of giant bifocals?

  “What sort of problem?” I directed to Ruth.

  “Well,” she said slowly and in a voice that I didn’t like the sound of, “it seems one of the family members has been acting strangely.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled to attention. “What do you mean, strangely?”

  Ruth dropped her gaze to the desk. This was going to be bad. I wish she’d just spit it out.

  “Ruth,” I warned.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you.” She placed her hands, palms down on the table, and studied them. “The sort of bad where the kid, a boy—teenager—walked to the edge of the living room, then put his foot on the wall, walked straight up to the ceiling and kept right on walking until he reached the floor again.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Alice said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “No,” I said automatically. “We’re not getting involved.”

  “Blissful, this family needs help.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a demon they’re dealing with. We—I don’t do demons. Tell them to call a priest.”

  “They already have. He hasn’t had any luck getting rid of it.”

  I frowned. There could be a reason for that. The house could have a portal, and the demon would flee through it when the priest arrived and then return after he left.

  “No demons,” I reiterated. “They’re bad news. You don’t want to mess with them.”

  “Then what about Roan?” Ruth wagged her finger at me. “You’re not going to get off the hook tha
t easily, young lady.” She jabbed her finger on the spine of her notebook. “They called us because they’re out of options. They need help. We help people.”

  I raked my fingers over my face, letting my nails dig into the skin. It felt good. “Roan is only just learning what he can do. If we ask him to help, he will. And what if something happens to him? What if he can’t banish the demon? What if—what if the demon attaches itself to Roan? What then, Ruth? Could you live with that?”

  Ruth buttoned her mouth and stared at the desk. “When you put it that way, of course not. But Blissful, we didn’t get into this business to choose who we help.”

  I pressed my fingers to my temples. A headache was blooming, and I didn’t like it one bit. “You don’t understand. I don’t get involved with possessions. I’ve seen them go wrong.”

  “Blissful,” Alice said, her voice full of worry, “what is it you aren’t telling us?”

  I shut my eyes tight, hoping the world would melt away. This wasn’t a place I wanted to go. It wasn’t a place that I wanted to deal with. Give me the biggest of the bad. Give me the nastiest of the nasty, but I did not like demons and I didn’t want to face one ever again.

  I didn’t want things to go the way they had the last time I confronted a demon. They couldn’t. I didn’t know if I could deal with it again if they did.

  “Blissful,” Ruth said quietly, “what is it you’re hiding from us? What is it you don’t want to say?”

  My stomach knotted. “What I don’t want to say is that I’ve faced a possession before.”

  “And?” Alice said, her voice shaking.

  “And”—I lifted my gaze to meet hers—“I ended up being taken over.”

  Blissful

  “What happened?” Ruth said.

  “That’s if you want to talk about it,” Alice added quickly. She rose from her desk, picked up a Christmas tin and brought it over to me. “Here, Blissful, have a no-bake cookie. They always make things better.”

  There was no doubt that sugar didn’t hurt a situation. But I’d already had enough of it in the stuffed French toast.

  I waved her away. “It’s okay. I’ll tell you the story.”

  Alice rubbed my shoulders. “Don’t feel you have to do it because of Miss Bossy over there.”

  Ruth scoffed. “I’m only trying to keep this business going. We got a call from a family that needs our help. We help people. That is all.”

  Ruth folded her arms and glared at Alice.

  “It’s not fair,” I said. “I should’ve told y’all before. But to be honest, I hadn’t thought about it. When I arrived in Haunted Hollow, I was on the trail of Lucky Strike. And after that we had case after case of haunted houses. It’s kept me busy. But nothing can prepare you for facing a possession—nothing.” I gritted my teeth. “Not even all the experience in the world can get you ready to face that.”

  Ruth rose and came around to sit on the lip of my desk. “Then why don’t you explain it to us so that we understand?”

  I nodded. Ruth didn’t like me backing down from a job. I didn’t like backing down from a job. This wasn’t the Blissful they knew. The Blissful they knew attacked challenges like a shark.

  “My dad got a call about a spirit he’d been hunting. He asked me to come with him, to do some training. When we arrived at the house where the spirit was supposed to be, we discovered a young girl had been possessed. She’d given the name of the spirit we were searching for so that my dad would show up.

  “Dad had tangled with demons in the past, but it wasn’t something he liked to dance with. Encounters with demons end badly when ghost hunters get involved. We’re not trained for them. Fighting demons is the job of the clergy, not us.”

  I exhaled a shot of air. Alice squeezed my shoulder encouragingly. “I know just what you mean. When I face off against a seven-layer trifle, I sometimes think it’s not a task I can complete to my best abilities.”

  “Alice,” Ruth said, “I don’t think you can compare a dessert with a demon.”

  Alice clucked. “Oh, you would if you saw the trifle I’m talking about.”

  Ruth rubbed her eyes. She was already exhausted from Alice today, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock. “Please continue, Blissful.”

  “The demon had tricked us.” I slid my hands over the desk and laced my fingers together. “It was after my father. It wanted him to pay for something that had happened between them in the past.”

  “What was that?” Alice asked as she slowly munched away on a no-bake cookie.

  “My father had discovered the demon on one of his outings. He did what anyone would do—he called a priest. The priest ended up wounding the demon severely and managed to banish it, at least for a while. But demons are hard to get rid of. They need to go to hell and never return.”

  I shivered at the thought of a demon returning for revenge.

  “Go on,” Alice prodded.

  I cleared my throat. “So anyway, as soon as we arrived at the house, the demon jumped out of the girl and straight into me—as revenge against my father for calling the priest.”

  The air in my throat cut off. I was back there, thrust into the moment when the demon launched into my body and I was pushed aside, shoved to the very corners of my mind.

  I gripped the desk, digging my fingernails into the lid of it. “I was forced out of my own mind, shoved and locked away. I could watch, could hear what the demon was saying, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t fight. I was powerless.”

  Tears pearled in the edges of my eyes. I shut my lids tight and ran my face over my sleeves, wiping my skin dry. “They told me it lasted two days. That for two solid days I had been taken over, powerless to do anything to stop it. When I came to, I remembered everything—every vile word that escaped my mouth, every vile thought in my head. I even attacked my father and the priest. They had to tie me down so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone or myself.

  “I had lost all control, and even though that thing was gone, cast out of me, I could still feel the oppressive weight of the demon from time to time. I could feel it hovering over me, lurking in the shadows, watching and waiting for another time to return, to catch me and snatch me away again.”

  I paused.

  Alice exhaled a long breath.

  “It took a long time to get over that feeling,” I said. “And it’s not something I want to relive.”

  “But you’re with a demonologist,” Ruth said. “Does Roan know?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Being with a demonologist is different from facing a possession.”

  They exchanged a look that suggested I was crazy.

  “I know it sounds crazy. I know it does, but once a demon makes a full-on possession and attaches itself to a human, then the demon becomes stronger. A demon without a physical body is easier to handle. I would face off against a demon in a swamp any day before I was looking at an exorcism. Make sense?”

  Alice took the last bite of her no-bake cookie and opened the tin. The scents of cocoa powder and peanut butter filled the room. They were overwhelming and impossible to ignore. Since we were talking about such a hard subject for me to deal with, my willpower evaporated, and I snagged a cookie from the tin, biting into it with relish.

  Ruth tsked. She was not moved by my speech. “So what am I supposed to do for this family with the possessed child—a child, mind you, that cannot defend itself against a demon?”

  Oh no. This was the guilt trip of the century. No matter what I said, Ruth wasn’t going to change her mind about it. She wanted to help the family, and who could blame her? I couldn’t. If I had a heart, I would jump at this opportunity.

  I would call Roan, let him know what was going on and see what he thought. Did he feel that he was capable of coming face-to-face with pure, unadulterated evil?

  My gaze snagged on Ruth’s. She studied me, her eyes searching, hoping that I wouldn’t let her down.

  This is why it stinks to have people rely on you. Or at least it sti
nks to have people rely on me. If this were the old days, the ones where I was a ghost hunter for the government, I wouldn’t have cared because this was somebody else’s problem. But with Ruth facing off against me, I felt like this kid—who I didn’t know, I’d like to add—was actually my problem.

  I sighed and slid down in my chair. “Fine. You win. I’ll talk to Roan and see what he thinks. I’ll ask if he believes he’s capable of facing off against a possession. I’m not sure what all he’s learned so far about demonology, so don’t expect much.”

  Ruth’s face glowed with relief. “Blissful, I knew you’d come to your senses.”

  I cocked a brow. “As if I’d ever lost them.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Alice chimed, “you might’ve gotten hit by a nasty piece of pottery last night that knocked some of the smarts out of you.”

  I shot Alice a withering look. “I did not get hit by pottery. I did not lose my senses.” I rose, popped the last bit of cookie in my mouth and brushed crumbs from my pants. “I’ll go talk to the family from last night and then discuss the situation with Roan.”

  “Blissful,” Ruth said.

  I pulled my hair over one shoulder. “Yes?”

  “You’ve made me proud.”

  I opened the glass door. “Hold that thought until we’ve actually helped the kid.”

  A hint of a smile curled on Ruth’s face. I didn’t return it. Instead I walked outside, my stomach coiling into knots. When I stepped onto the curb, I realized that I hadn’t driven myself to work.

  Sheesh.

  I went back inside. “Alice, can you give me a ride to my car?”

  Alice hustled over. “Sure thing. I need to pick up more yarn anyway. If I’m going to start crocheting hats, I’ll need more supplies.”

  As we headed to the car, I noticed that downtown was more crowded than usual. A few vendors were set up on the sidewalk, and I saw that one man in particular had a large crowd gathered around. He spoke to folks who wore eager expressions on their faces.

  I watched for a moment, but as I couldn’t get a good listen, I quickly let the thought of him slip away as I slid into Alice’s Caprice Classic.