by Tess Lake
I’m not really sure what the laws are regarding siege weaponry. Is it okay as long as you keep it on private land?
As I passed it, I noticed the tarp was growing moss.
I couldn’t see the ghost girl but I could sense her trail. It was like a line of cold water in the warm ocean.
I slowed down and walked through the trees that made up the thick forest that covered this part of our land. It was a little too dangerous to be running through. Generations of Torrents had built out here and generations of Torrents had abandoned what they’d built. The entire area was scattered with old cottages, dried-up stone-lined wells and random storage sheds. Some were so old and decrepit a sneeze could bring them down. When we were teenagers we once found a stash of wine bottles in one of the cottages. We drank a few, got very sick and the next time we went back they were gone. We still have no idea whether they belonged to Aunt Cass or one of the moms.
I walked by an old stone cottage, following the line of cold. Torrent Mansion is up on a hill and the grounds stretch out behind it. If you go far enough it ends in a cliff on one side and on the other side it gently slopes down to join agricultural land. There are steps cut into the cliff but they’re old and crumbling. Underneath the hill are various caves, which were used in the past by smuggling pirates and most likely by Torrent witches.
I left the cottage behind and walked further into the forest. I was sensing I knew where the ghost girl would end up.
I wasn’t wrong. I found her in the middle of the clearing, standing outside a circle of large gray stones. They not as impressive as Stonehenge, but they’re still pretty cool. We don’t really know who constructed it and the stone isn’t from anywhere in this area. It’s deep gray and embedded with bits of shiny black volcanic rock that sparkle in the night and reflect the starlight. Now, during the day, they were gray and dull.
The little girl turned around and looked at me as I approached the side of the circle.
“You’re a witch, aren’t you?” she said with a kind of breathless excitement. “I know you are because you have a talking magic cat.”
She wasn’t scared of me, so I decided to run with it. Besides, she was a ghost. It wasn’t like she could tell anyone.
“That’s right. I’m a witch and so are my cousins who run the coffee shop. My mother and two aunts are witches and my great-aunt is a witch. So is my grandma. We all live in the mansion back there. My name is Harlow Torrent.”
“I knew you were a witch. No one else can see me, but you did. You waved at me. Can you do magic?”
“Of course I can.”
I held up my hand and focused my mind on the image of a butterfly. I felt the magic stir and move down my arm. On my palm a small warm yellow glow appeared. It formed itself into a butterfly made of light. I lifted my hand up to my lips and blew it off my palm with a puff of air. The butterfly fluttered over to the ghost girl. She held out her hand and the butterfly landed on it.
“Wow,” the girl breathed.
I could feel the golden butterfly slowly draining my energy. I could keep it up for a long time, but magic like this could soon tire a witch out.
“Okay, it’s going to fly away now,” I said.
I mentally gave the butterfly a little nudge. It took off, fluttering up into the air, and then gently faded away.
“That’s amazing. Can you teach me to do that?” The little girl walked closer to me as she said this, her fear seemingly forgotten. I felt her joy wash into me. She was like a walking emotional storm and right now I was basking in her enthusiasm. I didn’t want her to vanish, but at the same time, I couldn’t lie to her.
“You have to be born a witch,” I said as kindly as possible.
“I thought so,” she said quite seriously. “Seems about right.” She was suddenly so serious that I almost laughed. “Can you see my dad too?”
That sinking feeling was back again.
“Sometimes ghosts look like real people to me, so I’m not –”
The little girl burst into tears, and I could have punched myself in the face for being so thoughtless.
“I’m sorry, I mean… um… I’m really sorry.”
I wanted to hug her. But if I did that she would bounce away from me like a rubber ball and I didn’t want to make anything worse. The girl wiped her nose, which was leaking ghostly snot, and looked up at me, her breath hiccupping in her chest.
“It’s okay. I knew already.” She took a shuddering breath. “My dad is tall and big and he has black hair and he wears glasses so he can see properly. He has a big black beard and he wears T-shirts with cartoons on them. Have you seen him?”
“I haven’t seen anyone like that yet. But maybe I can help you look for him. Do you know his name? Can you tell me yours?”
The girl shook her head and stared at the ground.
I knelt down to bring myself down to her level.
“You can’t remember your name?”
The little girl shook her head again. A ghostly tear dripped from the end of her nose and splashed into nonexistence at her feet.
“Okay, well, how about you make up a name for now, and when we find out your real name we’ll start calling you that?”
The little girl smiled at me and looked around for a moment. “Okay, well, I’ll be Holly, then. That’s Holly with a Y. You spell it H-O-L-L-Y,” she said.
“That’s a great name. Nice to meet you, Holly. I’m Harlow. I would shake your hand, but you might bounce off me.”
“Oh, yes, I already know that. A car bounced me off a building before. It didn’t hurt,” she said matter-of-factly.
So she knew she was a ghost. I was fairly certain the bones out on Truer Island were hers and the adult skeleton was probably her father.
Working with ghosts and their memories is tricky. I saw John Smith twice a week and he didn’t remember anything about his life. It was very easy to say the wrong thing and the ghosts could incorporate it into their thoughts and end up repeating it back to you. You could lead them in the wrong direction. I’d have to be very careful to see if I could discover her name or any other information about her that might help Sheriff Hardy.
First I had to get her feeling comfortable with me so she wouldn’t disappear.
“Do you want to come back to meet my magic cat? His name is Adams. I’m not sure he’ll be able to see you, but you can see him.”
“Okay,” Holly said.
We walked back through the forest, the leaves crunching under my feet. Holly moved silently across them. She was a ghost, so she didn’t interact with the real world. Strangely, I could hear the fabric of her jeans rubbing as she walked. It seemed my ability to detect ghosts had become a little stronger recently. Normally I wouldn’t hear every little detail like this.
“Can you cast magic spells to punish bad people?” Holly asked out of nowhere.
“We can. We try not to because it’s not good to hurt people or be bad to them. Sometimes curses can rebound on you too.”
“I see,” Holly said, serious again.“A monster killed me and my dad out on the island. Do you think you could cast a spell on the monster?”
The air suddenly felt cold like it had back at the side of the trench. She was so matter-of-fact about it. A monster? I glanced at her – how old was she exactly?
“How old are you?”
“I’m five.”
I had to be very careful here. If I upset her, she might suddenly forget and stop talking.
“We can cast spells on monsters. Do you know what the monster looks like?”
“It’s big and shaggy. It has green glowing eyes. It can hide itself flat on the ground and then it suddenly jumps up to get you. That’s how it got me and my dad.”
The deep cold intensified and I felt that hollow pain again. The loss welling up from inside me. An entire life snatched away. Tears prickled the corners of my eyes. I squeezed them shut and took a deep, shuddering breath. When I opened them Holly was gone. The chill faded after a moment.
“Holly, it’s okay. I know you’re scared but I can help you. I promise.”
I waited for her to reappear, but she didn’t. Eventually I walked back to the mansion.
Chapter 5
By the time I returned to the mansion, I was feeling slightly better but had zero desire to go inside to do any work. I could hit the Internet to look up missing fathers and daughters but that didn’t seem like a good idea either.
I decided to walk down to the main part of the mansion instead. I found Aunt Cass wearing a bright yellow hardhat talking with one of the builders about the plans.
“Beveled edges. That’s what we want,” Aunt Cass instructed.
“I understand,” the builder said wearily. He trudged off inside the mansion.
“It’s a good thing I’m here. They keep trying to take shortcuts.”
I was about to make some noncommittal sound of agreement when Aunt Cass suddenly frowned at me and stepped forward to grab my hands.
“You’ve been spending time with a ghost. Is it a teenager or a child?”
Her hands felt incredibly warm on mine and I realized I must have been chilled through.
“A child. Her name is Holly and she’s five years old. I saw her this morning out on Truer Island and she followed me here. She might still be here.”
Aunt Cass shook her head.
“She’s not around right now. She’s a murder victim?”
“I think so.”
I told Aunt Cass about my morning and the skeletons that were dug up. I also told her that Holly said she was killed by a monster with glowing green eyes that jumped out of the ground.
“It might be a monster, but she is a child. They can misremember things because their imaginations can overwhelm the reality. Does she know that she was murdered? Has she seen her bones?”
“She knows she’s a ghost, and she knows that the monster got her and her dad, but I didn’t get a chance to ask her whether she’d seen the bones or not.”
“Okay,” Aunt Cass said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly between her lips. As she did I felt a surge of warmth from her hands that rushed into mine, up my arms and through my body. I shivered as I suddenly became aware of how cold I was. The push of magic washed through me and within a moment I was warm again. Aunt Cass let go of my hands and pointed her finger at me.
“Child and teenage ghosts are dangerous. Their emotions can be sharp and powerful. If you’re not careful you can be pulled into them. Help her, but make sure you stay warm. It’s all too easy to get dragged into their sadness.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “Sheriff Hardy has probably had the bones removed by now. I’m not sure I can show them to her now.”
“No point – that cold is loss. She needs to be reunited with someone she loves and who loves her. Her father, her mother. It could even be someone she knows just enough so she can feel some love to counter that cold. Now come inside and make me a drink,” she said.
Well, that was quick – the standard Aunt Cass had returned and was back to ordering me around.
I followed her inside through the front doors of Torrent Mansion. Back when I’d returned to Harlot Bay (more than a year ago now) the family was living in another house on the property. Unfortunately… I’d Slipped… and burned it to the ground. We were forced to move back into the mansion, which was a decaying wreck marking off time until it collapsed. My mom and aunts had gone into debt to renovate the center of the mansion and also one end of it so Molly, Luce and I could have our own private space.
Now, everything was changing. For starters, there was sawdust almost everywhere. I don’t know how the builders did it but it seemed to be sprinkled in every corner and collected on tables. It dusted the main dining room and worked its way into the kitchen behind it. There was even sawdust in the doorway, slightly grimy where the builders had stomped in it with dirty boots.
I’d met a few of them, and they were doing their best to keep things clean rather than face the wrath of my mother and aunts, but the fact is that building is dirty and it makes everything messy.
“Coffee,” Aunt Cass instructed and sat down at the kitchen counter. I prepared the drinks, the normality of it making me feel better. Aunt Cass took hers and stomped off to the front room without a word of thanks to me. I sipped my coffee and let go of my desire to call out something snarky. Aunt Cass could be helpful at times, and there were even rare moments of kindness, but she was very much like a cat. One instant she’d be nice and the next she’d be biting your hand. The TV clicked on in the front room as Aunt Cass settled back to watch some sort of police investigation series.
I took my coffee and went down the back stairs into the basement below. Nothing had escaped the winds of change. There had been photos of me, frozen next to Grandma, that my cousins had taken, playing dress up. They were all gone now and Grandma had been shifted over to the very back corner of the room. She was still in the same pose she’d been in for the last twenty years: hands out in front of her like she was holding an invisible ball, a slight smile on her face as though she was very happy with whatever she was doing.
Aunt Cass had shut down any conversation I attempted to have that drew a link between me being frozen for six weeks with my hands shaping an invisible ball in front of me and Grandma being frozen in the same pose. My mother and aunts refused to talk about it as well, saying they didn’t know why she was frozen or how it had come about. In the end I’d dropped it after I realized I wouldn’t get any information out of any of them.
Last time I’d Slipped (during the Butter Festival) I’d gained the power to see auras. Too late though, Aunt Cass realized I might be able to see an aura around Grandma. We’d rushed down to the basement and I’d taken a photograph which revealed strands of light going up from her hands through the ceiling. We’d rushed outside and I had taken one more photograph which showed the glowing strands stretching over Harlot Bay in the direction of Truer Island. But they’d faded away before we could discover where they went.
Discussing this was also off the table according to Aunt Cass.
I sat on a chair and talked to Grandma as I sipped my coffee. I told her about my day and Holly the ghost and at some point I found myself talking to her about Jack and how I’d inadvertently stood him up and how I was hurt that he hadn’t tried to speak to me again even though I knew he was in town.
“I mean, if he likes me he should try to find me, right? It’s a bit of discouragement – what, he can’t handle that?”
Grandma’s watched the invisible ball and didn’t say anything.
“Well, yes, it’s stupid not going to my office. I can’t avoid him forever, or his half-brother. Besides, it’s my office! I was there first. You know what? You’re right. Tomorrow I’m going back. It’s a plan.”
Feeling energized, I said goodbye to Grandma and went back upstairs, dropping my coffee cup in the sink. The energy only lasted as far as the front door to our end of the mansion. As soon as I walked inside, I started feeling sleepy, so instead of writing an article reporting on the bones, doing any research on the mysterious lost treasure of Truer Island or doing anything of any use to anyone, I went to my room and lay down on the bed. Adams soon joined me, making himself comfortable against the other pillow, purring quietly to himself.
It was only midafternoon and I swear I only blinked before I heard Molly and Luce talking in the lounge. I sat up on the bed, feeling very disoriented. Had I slept? I must have. I rubbed my face and then got up, taking myself out to the lounge. Molly and Luce were huddled together discussing something. Plotting is probably the more appropriate term. The moment they saw me, Luce hastily thrust whatever it was she was holding behind her back.
“What are you talking about? What are you hiding?” I asked, suddenly suspicious, and still quite sleepy.
“Nothing. Not hiding anything. It’s a menu,” Luce said.
“What are you hiding it for?”
“I’m not. I was just… nothing. Stop bein
g so paranoid.”
She put the menu on the kitchen counter. It was from Valhalla Viking, which is a Viking-themed bar downtown. They’ve recently expanded and added a moderate-sized restaurant.
“You want to go to Valhalla for dinner?”
“Maybe. People say it’s good.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway, first guests tonight for the Torrent Mansion Bed and Breakfast. That should be exciting,” Molly said, making an obvious attempt to change the topic.
I was too sleepy to deal with this right now, but my suspicion was growing quickly. I didn’t need any magic power to see the future: Molly and Luce would invite me to come to Valhalla with them and their boyfriends, and when we got there I would put one hundred dollars on it that Jack would be too.
They were meddlers, like their mothers. I kept my concerns to myself. However, I guess the truth is maybe my love life needed a little meddling. So I took the get-out-of-conversation-free card Molly offered.
“No witchy business to talk about tonight. I wonder what Aunt Cass is going to do.”
I glanced at the clock – it was nearly six. That meant dinner would be starting within a half hour. The very first guests of the Torrent Mansion B&B were Mary and Harvey Lincoln. They had booked online through the very rudimentary website the mothers had managed to set up.
They’d been due to arrive around four today, which meant they were probably already here. From the moment their booking showed up there had been some quite heated conversations around how we were all to behave at dinner, given that guests would now be attending.
Molly’s phone chimed in her hand. Her face turned dark when she read the message.
“My mother would like to remind everyone that we are to dress appropriately. That means no low-cut tops, no short skirts and no revealing skin.”
“Since when do we dress like that?” Luce asked.