Karma Moon—Ghost Hunter

by Melissa Savage

  Madame Drusilla opens her eyes, snips three more roses from the bush in front of her and places them carefully in the basket.

  “See?” I say to Mags. “I knew I heard something.”

  “Thank you,” Madame Drusilla says to her basket, and then pulls herself up, dusts the loose dirt off her backside and heads toward the main building.

  We follow after her and her talking flowers through the back door and watch while she unlocks her office door.

  She has her very own office just a half flight below the lobby. There is a gold sign that has her name engraved on it in fancy lettering.

  Madame Drusilla, Spiritualist

  “We were wondering if we could interview you about the stuff that’s going on here at the hotel.”

  “My rate is fifty dollars for a fifteen-minute reading,” she tells us.

  “But we don’t have fifty dollars,” I say. “We spent most of our money on the bumper boats.”

  “And the giant water walking balls,” Mags adds.

  Madame Drusilla turns to face me. “What do you have?”

  I pull two dollars out of my jeans pocket and Mags pulls out three and some change.

  “We have five dollars annnnnnd…ten, twenty…thirty-eight cents.”

  Madame Drusilla nods and holds out her hand. “I’ll take it.”

  I put the money in her palm and watch her fold up the bills with the coins inside and stuff them in her blouse.

  “For five dollars and thirty-eight cents, I will give you six minutes,” she tells me, pushing the office door open.

  A waft of scorched strawberries hits us like a tropical-fruit-scented tsunami.

  “Ooooh!” Mags says, pinching her nose. “Something’s very wrong in there.”

  “Please have a seat.” Madame Drusilla turns the lights on and waves a hand in the direction of two chairs set up at a small round table.

  “I think your strawberries are done,” I tell her.

  “That’s incense,” she says, pointing to a smoking stick in a bowl on a table covered with a black tablecloth.

  I sneeze.

  “You mean that smell is on purpose?” Mags asks.

  “Incense is said to profoundly heighten awareness of mind, body and soul,” Madame Drusilla tells us.

  I may be more in tune with my woo-woo than Mags is, but in this case, I agree wholeheartedly. Incense just plain stinks. And it makes my nose itch. How could the smell of scorched strawberries help you know anything?

  I sneeze again.

  Madame Drusilla’s room is filled with multicolored scarves with small gold disks sewn in along the edges. Silky scarves covering the tables, silky scarves lining the walls, and even silky scarves hanging over the window blinds, which makes her office real dark inside.

  In addition to the incense burning in a bowl, there are tiny tea light candles lit on every flat surface. In one corner is a small waterfall that’s supposed to sound calming but makes me need to pee instead. Dr. Finkelman has one in his office and that one makes me need to pee too. Ever since the whole Bloody Mary theory, I keep the bathroom light on permanently, and just to be safe, I figure it’s best just to hold it as long as humanly possible. That cuts down on unnecessary trips to the toilet.

  This time is no different.

  I cross my legs and pull one of the chairs out from the table while Mags does the same on the other side.

  “You have your choice between tarot cards and the crystal ball, or I can read your aura.”

  Mags sticks a thumb in my direction. “Ask Karma,” she says. “She’s the woo-woo expert.”

  “Mmm,” I say. “We’ll choose tarot cards.”

  Madame Drusilla nods and places a large deck of cards with a weird sun on them between us and then begins setting different crystals around the cards in a circle.

  “What are you doing now?” Mags asks.

  “These are crystals. They help to elevate vibrational frequencies and aid in the connection to other planes,” Madame Drusilla tells us. “Quartz in particular magnifies all the energies around us and also protects us.”

  “Oh, I’m all about crystals,” I tell Madame Drusilla, showing her my leather satchel hanging from my neck. “I brought a collection of bravery ones with me.”

  “Good thinking.” She smiles. “So, I’m guessing you girls came with a specific question for me?”

  “Yes,” Mags says. “Who is the woman Mr. Plum and now Chef Raphaël have seen in the hotel? Is it Mrs. Honeycutt or are there evil spirits present? We need to know once and for all.”

  “Wait,” I say. “That’s not the question. What about—”

  “Karma,” Mags snaps. “We are not asking that question.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “Because.” She subtly juts a chin in Madame Drusilla’s direction. “Ee-shay ay-may ee-bay in on the ony-phay aloney-bay.”

  PIG LATIN TRANSLATION: SHE MAY BE IN ON THE PHONY BALONEY.

  I nod.

  “Our official question is the one about Mrs. Honeycutt,” Mags states firmly.

  “Yep,” I say. “That’s the question.”

  Madame Drusilla nods and then reaches out to hold my hand and then Mags’s. Me and Mags hold hands too while Madame Drusilla closes her eyes and breathes in and out again.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  “Thank you,” she says to the ceiling. “Yes, thank you for your guidance. Thank you. Thank you.”

  I look at Mags and she looks at me.

  “Eird-way upreme-say,” Mags leans over and whispers in my ear.

  PIG LATIN TRANSLATION: WEIRD SUPREME.

  I kick her under the table and give her a good glare.

  “Thank you for your guidance for these lovely girls, who are searching for answers about Mr. and Mrs. Honeycutt,” Madame Drusilla tells the ceiling.

  It makes me wonder if she hears the ceiling talk too.

  I mean, I’m not judging…just wondering.

  Then we watch her open her eyes and say, “The cards…are ready.”

  I swallow.

  She turns the first card over.

  “The death card,” she says.

  WHAT-IFS

  You definitely should have picked the crystal ball.

  I swallow. “The d-death card?” I say.

  Madame Drusilla touches it with the tips of her fingers. “This card indicates that…someone is very, very dead—”

  Mags scoffs. “That cost us five dollars and thirty-eight cents? I could have told you that for free.”

  Madame Drusilla places the card back on the deck and leans back in her chair with her arms folded over her chest. “I cannot move forward with such negativity,” she says.

  “She’s talking about you, you know,” I tell Mags.

  “I know she is,” Mags says.

  Madame Drusilla gives Mags a good eyeballing and then asks her, “Has anyone ever told you of your past life?”

  “Ah…no,” Mags tells her.

  “Uh-huh,” Madame Drusilla says, examining her. “I see a tortured soul.”

  “Mmm.” I nod, leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed too. “That would explain a lot. Especially your aversion to green foods. That’s just weird. It’s not even an official phobia.”

  Mags gives me a look and points another thumb in my direction. “Why don’t you tell Karma about her past life.”

  “She doesn’t have to,” I inform her. “I already know it. My name was Betty Lou Wewak and I was a warrior princess.”

  Mags snorts again. “Where’d you get that?” she asks.

  “My spirit guide told me.”

  “Oh, your invisible friend, Luna Shadow, told you that?”

  “First of all,” I say, “she’s not
invisible, she’s a light being. And secondly, her official title is Almighty Spirit Guide Supreme.”

  “Uh-huh, and I suppose Crystal Mystic confirmed it.”

  “Well…duh,” I tell her.

  That’s when Madame Drusilla looks at her watch, stands up and says, “Our session has concluded,” while I give Mags a good glare across the table.

  * * *

  After our five-dollar-and-thirty-eight-cent session, me and Mags head up the grand staircase reeking of charred fruit.

  “A total waste of five bucks. Check,” Mags is saying.

  “Yeah, you and your negativity,” I agree. “She should have given us a refund on account of your pea soup channels ruining everything.”

  “Did you smell that in there?” Mags goes on. “If I had to smell her burnt strawberries five more minutes I would have blown chunks all over her talking roses.”

  “You know what your problem is?” I ask her. “You are too earthbound. You really need to be in better touch with your woo-woo.”

  “Yeah well, you are too woo-woo,” she tells me. “You need to reel it in.”

  “You need to reel it out,” I tell her.

  “Yeah…that’s still not a saying,” she tells me.

  “Is too.”

  “Here’s the thing,” she says. “You don’t draw a line at anything. You have no line. You believe everything.”

  “I do too have a line.”

  She stops and puts her hands on her hips. “So, what is it then? What’s your line?”

  I think about it.

  “My line is the existence of unicorns…and fairy portals. Wait, do I believe in fairy portals?” I think about it. “Yes. Yes, I definitely believe in fairy portals. I want to change my line to alien abductees. Unicorns and alien abductees are my line, final answer. I don’t believe in those…yet. But if I actually witness a real live unicorn or alien abduction, I reserve the right to move my line.”

  She blinks at me.

  “What?” I say, throwing out my hands.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why? What’s your line?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “It used to be ghosts,” she says. “But since the séance, I have to rethink my line.”

  “Fairy portals?” I ask.

  “Nope.”

  “Abductions?” I ask.

  “Nope, my line is definitely before alien abductions, fairy portals, big-haired cowgirl vampires and Bigfoot.”

  “Oh, Bigfoot is totally real,” I say.

  “Hello? A dude in a suit? Check.”

  “Watch the videos,” I insist.

  “The point I’m making here isn’t about Bigfoot,” she says. “It’s about Madame Drusilla being a huckster.”

  “Okay, maybe some Bigfoot hunters lie,” I tell her. “But sensitives don’t ever lie. It goes against everything they believe in.”

  “We’re not talking about Bigfoot!”

  “You’re the one who brought them up,” I mumble.

  “Can you focus,” she says.

  “On what?”

  Sigh. “We know there have to be multiple spirits here, right?”

  “Right,” I say.

  “There’s the woman.” She starts the list on her fingers.

  “Yep.”

  “Whoever she is,” Mags goes on.

  “Probably Mrs. Honeycutt,” I say.

  “Hopefully,” she says. “And there’s the whole issue of leaving the board open.”

  “Yep,” I say. “Which means the spirits being experienced in this hotel could be anyone.”

  “True,” she says. “First things first, we need to rid this hotel of the spirits we have invited in by accident. When is Charlie Brown coming over?”

  “You’d better not call him that to his face,” I remind her. “He’s coming over tonight and he’s bringing a bunch of stuff with him.”

  “What stuff?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Some sort of Rid o’ Ghost Kit.”

  “Okay,” she says. “So that’s the plan?”

  “I think freeing the Stanley Hotel of unwanted evil spirits is definitely the plan,” I agree.

  “Then what?” she asks.

  “I guess we keep trying to reach the Honeycutts,” I say. “But at the same time investigate the phony baloney. I really think Ruby Red is up to something.”

  “Oh, totally, she is phony baloney big-time,” Mags agrees.

  We keep walking up the grand staircase past the lobby, past the ancient golden-framed portraits of the Jewel family, and past the second floor. When we’re on the last flight of steps just before the third-floor landing, Mags stops and leans against the handrail.

  “It’s not that I’m saying Madame Drusilla is a liar,” she says. “It’s just her stuff is obviously, totally random and can apply to anyone. Like fortune cookies—”

  “Hold it right there,” I say, pointing a stern finger in her direction. “Say what you want about Bigfoot, but never, ever dis the almighty fortune cookie.”

  After dinner that night, Mags and me watch as Nyx unloads the contents of his backpack on the red steps of the Stanley Hotel. Everything you would ever need to rid a place of ghosts.

  RID O’ GHOST KIT

  1 salt shaker

  1 handful of dried leaves

  1 get-rid-of-ghosts handbook

  “Ghost-Hunting for Dummies,” Mags reads off the cover. “There’s an actual book about this?”

  “There are lots of books about it,” Nyx informs her.

  Mags gives me a look.

  “Yeah, open your mind, why don’t you,” I tell her, which promptly earns an eyes-to-the-sky roll.

  “The salt is to form a protective circle,” Nyx goes on, holding up the shaker. “It’s more potent than candles. A spirit with enough energy can easily blow a flame out.”

  “That’s exactly what happened to us,” I tell him.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I figured.”

  I wide-eye him. “You know everything.”

  He shrugs with a sly grin, and I come to yet another conclusion about Nyx and his eyelashes that go on for days. He’s even cuter when he smiles. He has these straight white teeth and a dimple on his chin that pops in every time he grins.

  “The salt makes a protective circle with just a small opening so the spirits can leave once we let them know they’re not wanted,” he says.

  “How about doing a double-layer circle,” I suggest. “You know, protection times two? Two is always better than one, right?”

  “Yeah…it doesn’t really work that way,” he says. “Plus, you need to have a space for the spirit to leave this plane of existence or you’re just going to frustrate the ghost. And I don’t have to tell you, we don’t need any angry ghosts.”

  “Maybe we leave two spaces?” I say.

  He snuffs a laugh out of his nose. “Two is better than one?” he asks.

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  He snuffs again.

  I put my hand on his arm. “I’m not kidding.”

  Mags points to the clump of dried leaves. “What’s with that?” she asks.

  “This”—he holds it up—“is sage.”

  I stick my nose in the dried bouquet. “Smells like what my mom adds to the Stove Top stuffing at Thanksgiving time. She always added extra spices to the flavor packet to make it her own.” I give it another sniff.

  A pervy I GOT THE CHEDDA BABY feeling makes my stomach roll just thinking of how me and Dad will spend our second Thanksgiving without her.

  No one will set the folding table in the kitchen with the paper plates with leaves on the edges. No one will spread the red vinyl tablecloth with the rip that Mom always hid on the side wedged up against the wall. No one will buy one of those pop-up paper turkey
centerpieces from Party Fair on Fifth Avenue. And no one will cook a Marie Callender’s still-frozen-in-the-middle pumpkin pie, either. Mom always took it out of the oven too early. But I never complained. Pumpkin pie is good no matter if it’s cooked all the way through or in Popsicle form.

  At least last Thanksgiving when we went to Denny’s for turkey platters, the whole Totally Rad crew came too, including Big John’s girlfriend, Gloria, and The Faz’s wife, The Fazette—whose real name is Kat but no one ever calls her that.

  Even if the pope himself decided to join us for turkey platters at Denny’s this year, it wouldn’t make it as special as with the red vinyl tablecloth and the pop-up paper turkey.

  There’s still one person missing.

  Maybe Mom will bring her suitcases home for a strip of grass. Then maybe we’ll grill the turkey on the barbecue and just pretend this nightmare never happened.

  WHAT-IFS

  Don’t hold your breath.

  I swallow down the lump that starts in my throat and focus.

  “Burning the sage is called smudging,” Nyx tells us. “The process cleans the space of any unwanted evil spirits. So this with the salt should be all we need.”

  “This is it, then?” I ask. “It’s all we need to clear the angry ghosts?”

  “I just need you to take me to room 217.”

  “Uh-oh,” I say, eyeing Mags.

  “It needs to happen in that room?” she asks. “You can’t just do it out here?”

  “Of course it has to be in the room,” he says. “What’d you think?”

  “We thought we could do it anywhere,” I say.

  “If you really want it to work, it should be in the room where you originally conducted the séance,” he tells us. “That’s where the highest level of activity will be.”

  “Huh,” I say, looking at Mags. “We don’t, you know, technically have the key card to the room.”

  “So?” He shrugs. “Just go get it.”

  “Easier said than done,” Mags says.

  “What does that even mean?” he asks.

  “The first time we got into the room, we got the key card by not…so ethical methods,” I say.