by Bryn Donovan
Nicole reached out to touch Aaron’s shoulder, hesitated, and then shook it briefly. “Hey. It’s time to do the thing.”
They went down to the garden. Nicole held the flashlight as Aaron used a pocketknife to dig little holes in the earth for the black candles. As she crouched down to take a better look, she said, “All the sudden I feel like this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
Aaron tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Yeah, chances are it’s not going to work.”
Nicole huffed. “I’m afraid it will work.”
“We’ll see.” He set the last candle in its place, completing the circle, and packed loose dirt around it to keep it in place. It was the only one that stood up straight. The rest jutted at odd angles. “Good enough,” he muttered. “You’ve got the lighter?”
Nicole’s hand shook as she lit the first candle. She was crossing a line, messing with things that humans were supposed to leave alone. But the ghost hadn’t exactly left them alone, had she?
As Nicole lit the next few candles, she looked over at Aaron. The light of the flickering flames made his face even more beautiful, the sharp shadows accentuating the angles of his jaw. He was watching her, but it was almost too dark to see his eyes—just a glint in the shadows.
In a low voice he said, “No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you, okay?”
Nicole’s heart warmed. “I’ll take care of you, too,” she murmured. The words resonated with deeper significance than she’d intended. Taking a deep breath, she lit the final candle.
“Here we go,” Aaron said and straightened up. Without hesitating, in a loud voice, he said, “Polly Shepps, I summon you. Polly Shepps, I summon you.”
His tone suggested skepticism. As Nicole stood up, her mind flashed back to a friend in her childhood who’d dared Nicole to say “bloody Mary” three times in front of the bathroom mirror. Despite the added pressure of the other girls at the slumber party, Nicole had refused. She wasn’t an idiot.
Aaron said for a third time, “Polly Shepps, I summon you.”
A breeze kicked up, caressing Nicole’s bare arms. Feeling equal parts foolish and scared, she said, “I thought you were supposed to say, Summon thee.”
Aaron shrugged. “Seemed pretentious.”
“Doesn’t look like she’s answering.” Had they done something wrong? Nicole scanned the garden. The white roses and camellias glowed as though they were their own light source, although the rest of the garden looked black and flat.
Something in the corner of her vision shimmered. She whirled around.
“Look over there,” Aaron said in a low voice. He was pointing in the opposite direction.
Nicole’s heart grew heavy. Dread pulled her down as though it would drag her into the earth and bury her alive. Mist, glowing like radium, snaked across the garden toward them from several directions at once.
Aaron closed his hand around hers, lending her his strength. Wasn’t he scared? His expression reflected calm focus as he witnessed what unfolded in front of them.
The plumes of mist wrapped around one another. They formed a pillar, and then the shape of a body and a head, and finally a woman, insubstantial and undeniable.
On one side of her head, blond hair in marcelled waves gave the impression of glamour. The other side of her head was smashed in, the eye unseeing and precarious in its broken socket. Blood covered half of her face, her neck, and the shoulder of her gingham housedress and apron.
Nicole might have screamed if she could have drawn a breath. Aaron hadn’t mentioned the wound. He squeezed her hand slightly, perhaps in apology for not warning her.
“Polly, we know what happened to you,” he said. She could imagine him speaking to one of the patients at his hospital in the same tone. “We’re very sorry for you, but you have to stop bothering us. You should move on to a better place.”
Polly’s face screwed up in loathing and fury. “Not after what you did to us.”
The strangeness of the words drew Nicole out of her terror. “Who’s ‘us’?” Her voice quavered, but she continued. “You and me? We’re not connected.”
Polly turned to face her, the left eye too damaged to focus. Knowledge gleamed in the good one.
The ghost knew everything about her. Nicole could feel it. How a man had planned to marry Nicole, only to abandon her like the boyfriend before that. Polly knew every sharp word and wound. Somehow, she’d linked to Nicole’s memories, if not her very soul.
The spirit let out a bitter laugh that sent a shiver through Nicole’s whole body. Then she turned back to Aaron. “You know what you did.”
Aaron took a step between Nicole and the ghost. “You’re confused. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“You will. You know it.”
Nicole covered her mouth. This spirit knew Aaron’s soul, too, and the fears that haunted him.
Aaron clenched his jaw. “I won’t.”
“You’re all the same,” she spat at him. “We can never move on!”
“I’m moving on,” Nicole insisted. Maybe her mantras would help Polly, too. “I’m independent. I’m strong.”
Polly screamed like an animal in agony. Nicole released Aaron’s hand to protect her ears, hunching over. Then Polly was gone.
In front of Nicole’s eyes, a pristine camellia blurred. It formed itself into the image of a grinning skull.
With a small shriek, Nicole jumped back, grabbing onto Aaron. He stared at the rosebush directly in front of them. The white blooms had rearranged themselves into more skulls. The garden had become a place of death and nightmare.
Nicole sprinted to the back door. He followed her at a slower jog—couldn’t he move any faster? Nicole made it inside and he lagged behind, casting another look over his shoulder. “Get inside!” Nicole yelled at him, and once he did, she slammed the door behind him and locked it.
Standing in the brightly lit dining room, she blinked hard. The flowers can’t come in here. Or could they? Maybe they could wind themselves into the cracks of the doors and the windows, break through the foundation, and grow up as far as the guest room, the blooms of skulls staring at her from every corner. “Oh, God.”
“Nicole!” Aaron wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to his big, powerful body. “Hey.” He smoothed the back of her hair. She could feel his heart beating, strong but not too fast. “You’re okay.”
Was she losing her mind? “Did you see—”
“Yeah. Some kind of illusion.” He looked out the back door. “It’s back to normal. Just flowers.”
He’d spent a lifetime dealing with terrors in his own mind, Nicole realized. It made him less frightened by a spirit. But Nicole felt like she was about to shake apart.
She pulled away from him. “I can’t stay here. I’m going to a hotel. Like you said.”
His forehead creased. “Hang on. I’ll try to talk to her again. She’s probably still out there—”
“That’s why I’m leaving!”
Shit, Aaron thought as Nicole scampered up the stairs. He was always saying the wrong thing.
Aaron strode after her. By the time he reached the doorway of the guest room, Nicole was tearing clothes out of the closet and throwing them into a big nylon suitcase.
The encounter with Polly Shepps and the macabre vision that followed had made his hair stand on end, but now, he felt truly scared. She would leave, and he’d never see her again. “Nicole, come on. You said you couldn’t afford that.”
“I don’t care.” She yanked open a drawer and tossed bras and underwear into the suitcase. Aaron’s gaze landed on a red lace thong. She brushed by him to go into the bathroom. “I can’t take it! She won’t listen, anyway!” She gathered up her toothbrush, cosmetics bag, hair dryer, contact lens solution, and everything else she could carry.
If the house had been on fire, she’
d have hardly moved faster. She dumped the armload of toiletries onto the wadded-up clothes in her suitcase. “She says we can’t move on? I’ve moved on!”
“If you leave, she’s still going to bother me.” Aaron hated making this argument, but it was the only one he could think of besides I want you to stay because I’m crazy about you, which he doubted would persuade her. “I need you to help me get rid of her.”
Nicole paused at this. Then she closed the overflowing suitcase and pushed on the top to compress the contents. “No, she won’t. She never bothered anybody till I was here. Maybe she’ll follow me to the hotel, but I doubt it.”
Aaron doubted it, too. In all the ghost stories that floated around this town, he’d never heard of one being that mobile. Roaming a particular bend of the road or field, sure, but heading across town, no. It didn’t seem like they knew how to use buses.
Nicole zipped up the suitcase, a decisive, final sound in the silence. She plopped it on the floor and dragged it out the door. He was in her way, her face inches from his neck. She said, “You can’t stay here,” and squeezed by him.
Aaron walked after her. At the end of the hallway, she bent to pick up the heavy suitcase.
Silently cursing, he intervened and carried it down the stairs. “Thanks,” she muttered. He didn’t reply.
Regret and uncertainty filled her eyes. “I wanted this to be a fresh start, you know? To see what it was like to be on my own. Not with ghosts. Not with...” She broke off.
Not with you, she meant. Hell. A few days ago, he’d been glad that she would only be in the house a short time. Now she was leaving, and he couldn’t stand it.
Taking her face in both hands, he crushed his mouth down on hers, inviting her lips to open, urging her to reconsider this idea that she couldn’t let him into her life.
She returned his kiss, fierce, her back arching. For a wild, joyous moment he felt sure he’d persuaded her.
Then she pulled back. “I’m sorry.” She turned her face away. “I’ve got to go.”
CHAPTER NINE
Nicole stabbed at the pile of hash browns with a plastic fork. For three days now, she’d stayed at the hotel, and in the mornings, she loaded up her plate because breakfast was free. It held her until dinner, saving her money. She skimped on dinner, too.
However many nights she stayed, it would all go on her credit card. She hadn’t had a paycheck in weeks, and the money in her account needed to cover a deposit and the first month’s rent, not to mention renting a U-Haul to get her furniture and stuff down here, and the gas for the trips between here and Chicago.
Last night she’d eaten at McDonald’s. The savings had been somewhat mitigated by the fact that she’d bought wine to drink in the hotel room while watching Friends on Netflix.
The normalcy of the problems on the sitcom had depressed her. No visions of horror, no crippling self-doubts. She’d drunk too much, and now her head throbbed.
She’d done exactly what Aaron had suggested in the first place—emailed Francie to say she couldn’t stay in a haunted house. Well, it had taken her until yesterday to send it. The house would be fine for a few weeks.
Nicole had almost mentioned that Aaron next door probably wouldn’t mind checking in on the house now and again, but Aaron had already tried to help with that cursed house enough. Besides, Nicole couldn’t figure out a way to mention him without making it sound as though something had happened between her and Aaron, when nothing had.
Yes, he’d charmed her. And his honesty about himself had impressed her, and he’d made her feel gorgeous and talented. And when he’d kissed her, she’d felt like her whole body had come into bloom.
Nicole’s chest ached. Her brain kept trodding up and down this path. The fact was, she barely knew him. The haunting had been the only real thing that had drawn them together. The terror and her attraction to him were all tangled up like thorny vines, and the whole experience was already like the memory of a long-ago trip, intense and utterly unreal.
Her mom texted her. I just got an email from Francie. I’m worried about you. Call me.
Hoo, boy. From Mom, I’m worried about you meant I’m worried and also kind of mad. Even if this hadn’t been the case, Nicole wouldn’t have looked forward to the conversation. She would call anyway, though. Not immediately—Mom probably didn’t even expect Nicole to be awake yet. It was only six-thirty in the morning.
Nicole slathered her biscuit with butter from three little foil-topped packets as she stared at her laptop, reading about an apartment complex a few miles from her new job. So far, she’d visited five buildings and applied to three, and she was still waiting to hear back from one of them. One manager had already called her to let her know that the current tenant wouldn’t be moving out after all.
Another had emailed to say he’d leased the apartment to another applicant. Nicole had no idea why the guy had passed on her. She had a decent job lined up, good references, and the money for the deposit. Maybe she seemed haunted. Polly Shepps hadn’t troubled her these past few days, though.
Was the ghost still pestering Aaron?
Guilt plagued her, as it had done ever since she’d left. She logged onto Facebook. She could send him a private message, nothing romantic, just to check in.
A new photo on his wall showed him and a male friend with two attractive women at a bar. Nicole shut the laptop. Clearly, Aaron was doing just fine.
Aaron was getting ready to go home when Monique, a new nurse on the shift, called after him in the hallway. “Can you help me out? Phil doesn’t want to take his meds this morning.”
“I’ll talk to him.” This wasn’t Phil’s first time at Inglenook, and he knew Aaron. He might be more likely to listen to him. Monique said, “He’s in the common room.”
A few patients sat at one of the tables, drinking coffee and griping about only getting two breaks a day in the small fenced yard to smoke. This wasn’t the intensive treatment unit, or the dark side, as the patients called it. Here, they wore their own clothes, mostly sweat pants and sweatshirts, though without deadly temptations such as belts, drawstrings, and shoelaces.
Phil, a gaunt-faced man of sixty-two, sat alone in the corner looking out the window. Aaron pulled up a chair next to him. “Hey, Phil. Monique says you don’t want to take your meds.”
Phil didn’t look at Aaron. “They make me too foggy.” His voice was dull.
Aaron sighed inwardly. “I know they do at first. You’ve been off them for a while.” He didn’t point out that Phil stopping his meds was the main reason why he’d wound up back at Inglenook. Phil was a smart guy. Even if he didn’t admit this right away, he would eventually.
“You’ll adjust to them again, like before,” Aaron continued. “But you need them for your bipolar disorder.” Phil said nothing.
It would be a lot easier if Phil had family members encouraging him in his treatment. But Phil’s wife had left him, and his relationship with his grown daughter was tenuous at best.
On a fundamental level, patients did better if they were loved. A nurse at a hospital couldn’t do that much, but Aaron would do what he could.
“You remember I was at your gallery show?”
The older man looked away. “No you weren’t.”
“I sure was.” When Phil was healthy, he created gorgeous, moody, oversized paintings, which a couple of big galleries in Atlanta had also featured.
Aaron hadn’t actually gone to the show on purpose. He and a few friends had been out for First Friday Art March, mostly for the music and the free drinks at the galleries. Being discreet, Aaron had done no more than say hello to Phil.
Now he said, “You need to get better so you can paint.”
“The meds aren’t good for my painting.”
“And this is?” Aaron gestured at their surroundings.
Phil demanded, “What piece did you like
best?” A test. He really didn’t remember seeing Aaron.
“The one in the cane fields. With the woman who looked like a ghost.” Aaron glanced around the room and then said to him in a lower tone, “You know, I talked to a ghost this week.”
The patient’s head jerked up. “What?”
“Yeah, a few times, actually.”
Phil’s eyes narrowed, and Aaron could only imagine what was going through his head. What was that saying? The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Aaron said, “She’s stuck in this loop of...pain, and anger. But I haven’t seen her for a few days. The girl next door left, and the ghost stopped showing up.”
Shit, he could get fired for talking like this. It had been a long shift, and since Nicole had left, nothing had felt right.
Going out with Wade and Jess and Jess’s sister the other night had cheered him up a little. It hadn’t been any kind of date: Jess’s sister was married and had been in town for a real estate convention. After saying good night to his friends, though, Aaron had felt just as empty as before.
Phil asked, “You think the ghost found some peace?”
A heavy feeling settled over Aaron. “I think she just gave up trying.” His supervisor passed by in the hallway. “If you could not mention this to anybody else, I’d appreciate it.”
For the first time, a shadow of a smile passed across Phil’s face. “Yeah, all right.”
“Listen, take the pills, but tell me and Dr. Raines how it’s going. We can always adjust the dose.”
The older man grunted. “All right.”
“Thanks, man.” Resolving this, at least, gave Aaron a weary satisfaction. He stood up.
“You liked this girl?” Phil asked.
So many times in the past few days, Aaron had started to contact her, and he’d stopped himself every time. Nicole wanted away from the house, from him, and the whole business. How could they pursue a relationship when she was too terrified to set foot in his neighborhood again?
“Yeah,” he told Phil. “I really did.”