by Stuart Jaffe
He moved fast, planning on barreling into the secret room and get to work, but when he entered the study, his legs stopped moving. He stood in front of the desk, facing the open wall, seeing the room beyond with its dark candle, cold walls, false doors, and painted circle. One thought repeated in his mind — be careful.
The last time he stood here, Rolson had attempted to arrest him. But all that time, Rolson never noticed the gaping hole in the wall or the secret room. How could he not see it? Could the room be protecting itself somehow?
Another thought entered Max’s head — why hadn’t Hull’s people ripped this house to pieces? They owned the place. For the last bunch of days, they’ve been stuck because of the police, but before Sebastian’s murder, they had free run of the place. With access to their personal witch, they could have easily found the secret room. Best Max could figure — either the Hulls had searched the house and determined the gold was not on the premises or the House employed some type of magic that prevented the Hulls from finding anything. There was clearly a ward preventing Drummond from entering the room, why not others?
It always came back to magic.
And that was why he came back, too.
“Make up your mind, Max,” he said. “Either go in or get out.” He had to assume that Rolson would find out he had broken in again, and that this time, he would be arrested without fail. Time was ticking away.
Max pulled out his phone and texted Sandra: Hey, Hon. Find anything?
A few seconds later, his phone chimed. Nothing yet. Only just started. You?
He typed back: Nothing yet. But that made the decision easy. They needed the case to move forward. Max puffed up his chest, and though his bowels gurgled, he entered the room with the painted circle.
Though the room had not changed from his previous visit, everything about it seemed different. The black candle looked darker. The walls looked colder. The paint looked thicker. Even the barren furnishings looked more barren.
Perhaps the change had resulted from his own anxiety, but Max doubted it. Magic behaved strangely, and he had become accustomed to its unpredictable nature — well, he had learned to live with it, even if accepting it proved more difficult. Mostly, though, Max knew that he didn’t know enough. If given the choice, he would rather deal with ghosts. That, at least, made sense.
“Great,” Max muttered to the empty room. “Now I’m thinking ghosts make sense.”
He walked around the circle, looking for any hint of what he should do. He had seen several magic circles before — mostly drawn by people trying to kill him — but the symbols had never been consistent. He guessed that the different combination of symbols produced different results. The symbols at his feet meant nothing to him, though. The majority, he had never seen.
“Cal?” His voice sounded hollow against the stone walls. He looked at the stern portrait on the wall and waved. “Cal Baxter. My name is Max Porter. I’m the one you keep trying to contact. I’m here in your house. Tell me how I can help.”
Silence.
Max squatted next to the circle. He considered touching the paint again, even dangled his fingers over it, but pulled back. I just don’t know enough about magic. Following a hunch when researching worked fine, but doing so outside of books, in the practical world, often led to undesirable consequences — death being chief among them.
He pulled out his phone and brought up Sandra’s number. She would know the answer. “Or she’d yell at me, tell me to get out of here, and nothing would be accomplished but the start of an ugly fight.” Except he had nobody else to call.
Call? He looked at his phone. He didn’t have to call anybody. Instead, he did a quick search for websites dealing with magic — the real thing. Tapping from one site to the next, he rushed through them until he recognized one of the sites Sandra had used before.
Reading for a few minutes, he found a lot of basic information he already knew. Then he saw the links for Spells, Curses, and Circles. Circles led him to a long scrollable page filled with symbol after symbol after symbol.
He didn’t see how the images had been organized, and part of him thought they hadn’t been organized at all, but at the bottom of the page, he found another link that led to an explanation of how the symbols could be used. Basically, one constructed a sentence around the circle. The key symbols had to be at the key compass positions while the less important symbols filled in the gaps. Materials used in making the circle were important, and what the spellcaster said while standing over the circle was equally important.
“That’s it?” Max closed his phone in frustration. He knew that somewhere on the Internet, maybe even on that specific site, he would find a more detailed and useful explanation, but he lacked the time for such research.
He stared at the circle. It seemed to shimmer — as if it had become a warm pool inviting him in for a dip. Maybe it would work. If he stood in the center and called out for Cal, maybe they would connect. Merely touching the circle had started this; perhaps jumping in fully would complete it.
Max.
That had not been his own thought, yet it echoed in his head. It had a complex voice as if more than one person spoke. A gentle, feminine voice coupled with a harsh, graveled masculine voice.
Come to me.
“Cal?”
Reach down.
Max looked at his feet. Though he had no recollection of moving, he now stood in the center of the circle. His head lolled and he rocked as if he had been drinking for hours. Part of him screamed to get out of the circle, but that scream grew quieter every second until he heard nothing but a steady hum.
He bent down, his hands swaying over the circle like a bad orchestra conductor, and he squinted against the bright shimmering. It never stopped. Back and forth the light played on his eyes, and his body flowed with the rhythm.
Reach down.
The multi-voice spoke over the steady hum and it made sense. He should reach down. He should touch the circle.
So, he did.
With a painful jolt like a kick to the head, Max’s brain ignited with images. He saw the horned-beast hovering a few feet away. As the voice had been more than one voice, the image of the beast comprised other images, too.
He saw a scrawny character, hunched over with a weasel smile, and at the same time, he saw an overweight fellow, full of pride at his wealth. He saw an anklet of a gold cross and a leather bomber jacket. A fuzzy image, out of focus, hung in the back of his sight — a red and black checkered pattern. Separate, these images meant nothing, but together they formed the horned-beast. Yet Max could only see the pieces by turning his head one direction or the other. If he looked straight on, he only saw the intimidating visage of the horned-beast — large, hairy, angry.
Another jolt struck him simultaneously in the head and the gut. Max doubled over, gripping his stomach. He strained for air that didn’t burn while hearing a long wheeze from his lungs.
He looked up. The horned-beast had vanished. For a second, Max’s head cleared. He put a foot firmly in front, ready to launch out of the circle. He knew he was in trouble. But he could do that. He could get clear of the circle. All he had to do was push off —
Images flashed rapidly in his head — each one a bolt of lightning, bright and painful. Gold. Stacks of gold bars. Trains rolling. A man in the tropics scribbling over a piece of paper. A woman carving a circle into the ground — a witch. A battlefield of the Civil War — blue and gray racing toward each other, shouting, firing weapons. Gold, again. The horned-beast.
Max clutched his aching skull. “I don’t know what you want!” He yelled to hear his own voice above the unrelenting hum.
You!
The word vibrated in his bones. He fell to his knees, and his body arched backward. Locked in a steady stream of cramped muscles and fiery jolts, he found it impossible to focus on any one thought.
Even as he heard Sandra’s warnings repeating in his mind, he saw the horned-beast floating before him. Flashes of gold an
d trains blended with images of Sebastian and magic circles. He felt like he sat in an electric chair at a multiplex playing all its films at once.
The horned-beast lifted a clawed hand and dug into Max’s head. No blood, no sense of tearing skin, but he sure knew the creature peered inside. Max’s right arm flailed backward, smacking the tall candlestick. The black candle banged onto the floor and rolled toward the wall. The horned-beast never paused or even noticed the disruption. It simply continued to dig in Max’s brain.
But it wasn’t ripping up his gray matter. Rather, it seemed to be plugging into Max’s memories. Every time it moved, old memories popped up before Max’s eyes.
He saw his eighth birthday party — a pool party with kids running around at the YMCA, cake in their hands, sugar highs glazing over everyone’s eyes. He saw an afternoon in high school — a bully who had followed him home one day, cornered him behind a church, and pummeled Max in the belly before sauntering off with a mean snicker. He saw his wedding — Sandra radiating love and beauty with every wide smile.
His memories shifted to more recent times — Korner’s Folly, the witch coven, the Hull family, and even the German POW work camps set up in Butner. Then he saw the detective that had changed his life.
“Drummond,” Max whispered. Though he would never admit it, a tear dribbled down the side of his face as he recalled meeting Drummond for the first time and all the difficulties they went through in order to free him from his curse.
The pain disappeared. The horned-beast flew back. Its eyes stared at Max for a moment, and Max swore he saw a hopeful look in that creature’s expression.
It nodded at him, and Max passed out.
Chapter 19
“How dare you,” Sandra said, her face so tight it looked as if it might fold in on itself. “After all we have been through, after all we have seen and done, you want to go off on your own to do such a stupid, reckless thing — dealing with magic like that.”
“I was trying to protect you from —”
“Stop trying to protect me.”
“I’m your husband and I love you. Of course I’m going to try to protect you.”
“That’s an excuse. You knew I would be against you doing this. I’m sure Drummond would be against you doing this. You weren’t trying to protect me as much as you wanted to avoid having me stop you.”
Max had no more to say. After all, she was right.
When he had awoken, his body had been moved from the secret room back into the study. He had gasped for air as if bursting from the ocean after nearly drowning. It took him ten minutes before he had enough control over his body to phone Sandra for help. To her credit, she didn’t question him. She merely drove over and picked him up. But now that they had been home for an hour, now that they were safe, she wanted answers.
Unfortunately, caught up in her rage of the situation and his defense, neither of them gained any ground in finding answers — until Drummond entered the trailer and said, “I don’t mean to pry but I’ve been floating above listening to all this, and I got to ask you, Max — was it worth it? Did you learn anything?”
“Well, there’s definitely a ghost in that house, and I’m guessing it’s Cal Baxter.” With a deep breath, Max unloaded the whole story. He told of looking up the spell on the Internet, the weird voices he heard in his head, the images he saw, and the way it took him over, luring him into the circle. When he finished, he looked to Sandra and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Sandra held his hand against her chest, her eyes watering. “You are more important to me than anything. Don’t do this again. I can’t have you leaving me.”
Max leaned over and kissed her. “I promise.” He knew things were far from perfect between them, but this simple exchange eased their tensions for the moment. Most married couples he had known had something similar — a gesture, a phrase, something that said We still love each other and we’ll be genuinely nice right now, but later, this argument will have to be finished. Often, when they found the time to finish the fight, one or both of them had figured out a simple, calm solution, and they never had to argue further. Max’s kiss and promise gave them both enough room to turn their attention back on the things threatening them — Hull, Rolson, magic, witches, murder. The usual.
“Okay, okay,” Drummond said. “The important thing here is that Cal Baxter is in that house, and it sounds like he’s been bound.”
Sandra let go of Max’s hand and straightened her posture — all business. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think it’s Cal Baxter, or you don’t think he’s bound?”
“Both. First off, we were all in that room, we all saw that circle. That thing did not look like any binding curse I’ve ever seen.”
“No offense, Doll, but there’s more binding curses than probably anybody’s seen.”
“True, but this didn’t share anything with being a binding curse — other than a circle.”
Max said, “Okay. I’ll buy it. But why don’t you think it’s Cal Baxter?”
“Because of the images you saw. If this had been Cal Baxter, why didn’t you see anything that looked like Cal Baxter?”
“I don’t really know what he looks like.”
“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t look like some horned-creature. And if it was Cal Baxter, why wouldn’t he communicate easier with you? We had no problem with Drummond when he was bound, or any other ghosts we’ve seen.”
“So what are you saying?”
Sandra paused, letting the weight of her coming words to press fully on Max and Drummond. “I think it’s a summoned spirit. I think it is a creature that has been pulled into our world unwillingly and is stuck in that circle. When you touched the circle, you connected to it, and it’s been trying to strengthen that connection ever since. I think it was trying, perhaps, to possess you, to take over your body, to somehow get out of the trap it’s in.”
Drummond pursed his lips in thought. “You’re saying this is some kind of summoned spirit, trapped in the Baxter House, and you’re getting all this because Max saw an image of a horned-beast?”
“Admittedly, it’s a lot of speculation, but whatever is in that house, I’m sure it is not the bound ghost of Cal Baxter.”
Max’s face paled. “Is it a demon?”
Sandra shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s a Heaven or Hell, Angels or Demons, or any of that. I only know that these images are from something that doesn’t want to be where it is, and it’s trying desperately to communicate. Perhaps with good intentions, perhaps not.”
“What do we do about it then?”
Drummond’s face brightened as he clapped his hands, but Sandra spoke first. “I’m not sure. I think we should be cautious about going back to Baxter House until we know how that connects with everything else. Now, I looked into this NGFS — turns out it’s a school called New Garden Friends School. A ‘Friends’ school, or ‘Friends’-anything for that matter, belongs to the Quakers. They’re the ones who founded Greensboro.”
Max winked. “You’re starting to sound like me.”
“Just because I’m not yelling at you doesn’t mean I’m not still ticked off. Save the cutesy stuff for another time.”
Crossing his hands in front of his chest as if to deflect an attack, Max tried to charm Sandra with his smile. When she merely stared at him with one eyebrow raised, he nodded his defeat and gestured for her to continue.
She held her look for a bit longer. “NGFS Upper is a private high school and a middle school. The Lower school — K thru sixth — is near Guilford College, but the Upper school is in that field. They built a gymnasium a few years back. Before that, it was a different private school — might have been a special needs school, that wasn’t exactly clear, and I couldn’t get much more information — and before all that, it was a field.”
“The photographs are of a field. Maybe it was an old farm at some point.”
“Probably. Regardless, it doesn’t seem
to connect much to anything.”
Drummond clapped his hands louder this time. “If you let me talk, I might have something to share. You know, something important.”
Max said, “Hold on. Sandra, did you finish?”
She feigned a hurt look at Drummond. “I suppose so.”
Max spread his hands in an expansive movement. “The floor is yours, sir.”
Drummond rolled his eyes. “Well, while you were nearly getting yourself killed and the missus was finding empty fields with schools on them, I went ahead and found the witch. You’re not going to believe this one — she’s on our side.”
“You’re right, I don’t believe it.”
“No, really. She’s a captive. Hull has her trapped there. She’s a prisoner. When you saw her at the fights and she reached out for you, she wasn’t giving you up. She was crying out for help. That symbol on her hand — she belongs to a group called the Magi group. They’re an old organization, secret kind of thing, and get this — they are fighting the Hulls.”
Sandra stood. “Are you serious?”
“Sweets, I would never joke about something like this. I’m telling you, this Magi group has been around for over a hundred years. According to the witch, back in the early days of North Carolina, back when Tucker Hull broke away from the Moravians and started delving into magic, a group of people formed to fight back. Over the centuries they ended up with many allies. She claims one of them was O. Henry. I don’t know if I believe that part, but they certainly named themselves after his story.”
Sandra’s face tightened again. “Where the hell have they been the last few years? We could’ve used some help. Now, they want to show up and screw with our lives like everybody else.”
Wagging his finger, Drummond said, “I knew you’d feel that way, so I made sure to ask her. She told me that shortly before you two moved down here, William Hull had struck them a serious blow. It’s taken them this long to recover. The way she looked when she spoke, I got the sense that this blow was more than financial — they lost the lives of people important to them. Anyway, the point in all this is that we’ve now got the best lead we have to anything. We got magic, we got Hull, and we got Rolson all wrapped up with this witch.”