Poltergeeks

by Sean Cummings

  I didn't have to repeat myself. An almighty crash shook the house as all the furniture fell to the floor at the same time, and I had to grab hold of the wall to keep myself from landing square on my butt. I felt a blast of spectral energy pass through my body as the spirit flew into the soft toy, and I allowed myself a satisfied smile. My idea actually seemed to be working.

  Seconds later, the only movement in the house besides my thumping heart was the small bear's arms and legs. The stuffed animal turned its head toward me and winked!

  "OK, that is too creepy."

  I heard the front door open and then Marcus' familiar voice call out.

  "Yo, Julie, everything okay in here? I've got your backpack and Mrs Gilbert is sitting in her car waiting to get back in the house."

  No sooner had the words left his lips than the floor started shaking again. A jolt of force swept Marcus off his feet, smashing his body into the stippled ceiling with enough force to leave an impact crater.

  "Julie!" Marcus gasped. All the colour had drained from his face and his eyes flashed with panic. "C-can't breathe!"

  A gale of supernatural fury blew through the front hall, sending me tumbling into the kitchen. I struggled to get to my feet just as Mrs Gilbert's refrigerator toppled over onto its side, spilling its contents all over the linoleum.

  "Julie… h-help!" Marcus choked. Chunks of drywall fell to the floor as I quickly got to my feet and reached for my magic. I pushed my senses through a thick film of dark energy that was pouring through the floor vents and spreading across the carpet like an oil slick. It pulsed and throbbed with an eerie green glow, forming an enormous ghostly hand that clamped Marcus' body tightly, squeezing the air from his lungs and smashing him against the ceiling like he was a rag doll.

  I raised a spell, tapping into Marcus' terror and my own panic at seeing my best friend attacked. A wave of energy washed over my body as I lashed out at the vaporous hand with a blast of magic.

  "Subsisto!" I bellowed, as I clamped my left hand around my amulet. A stream of power flew out of my closed fist like a five ton truck, screaming down the hall and shattering the vaporous hand. Tiny shards of malice dropped to the floor, where they dissolved into a harmless mist. Marcus fell from the ceiling, bouncing off Mrs Gilbert's sofa and landing face-first on the carpet.

  "Marcus!" I shrieked, as I grabbed the teddy bear and raced down the hall. "Marcus, are you okay?"

  He gave his head a hard shake and slowly rolled over onto his hands and knees. His t-shirt was ripped in about four different places and there was blood on it.

  "Ow," he said quietly, as he presented me with my back pack. "Poltergeists hurt. A lot."

  "This was way more than a poltergeist, Marcus." I chewed my lip. "There's some pretty badass dark magic at work here. The poltergeist is a spirit that was yanked from the other side and I think I must have pissed off whoever did the yanking… damn, you've got blood on your shirt. Are you hurt?"

  "Just my feelings," he said without blinking. "My shirt got wrecked courtesy of Slippers the Siamese cat. So, was that an actual spell that smashed me into the ceiling?"

  I nodded as I slipped my backpack over my shoulders. "Yep, and we need to get the hell out of here before whoever conjured it decides to take another shot at us. You didn't lose our pledge money did you?"

  "No," he said. He tossed me the collection bag. "The only thing I lost is any affection I might have had for cats. What's up with the teddy bear?"

  "Just call it a temporary shelter for a wayward spirit," I said. "We'll take it back to my house because I'm going to have to include my mother in this one."

  "That bad?" he asked.

  "That big," I said grimly as we walked out the door.

  Perfect. I was going to have to play second fiddle after all.

  Go Team Julie.

  Chapter 3

  We got back to my place after a five-minute jaunt up the path from Mrs Gilbert's. My house, incidentally, isn't exactly popular with the neighbours, whose manicured lawns and professionally landscaped flowerbeds are a major-league contrast to the weed-infested goat farm my mom calls an ecosystem. Then again, ninety percent of the weeds crawling up the fence and across our driveway have a magical purpose as they are key ingredients for potions, so they're kind of necessary in our line of work. We trudged up the front path. Marcus reached for the doorknob, but I snatched his hand away at the last second.

  "Don't assume those sentinels are down. I'd hate for you to lose an appendage," I said firmly.

  He grunted. "Oh yeah. I just figured since your mother's car is in the driveway…"

  I gave Marcus an understanding smile as I whispered a word of magic and disarmed the sentinels. "You've had a traumatic day, so don't sweat it," I said easily. "Just remember that protective spells don't distinguish between good and evil, okay? They're magical booby traps."

  "Gotcha. Your forte is witchcraft, mine is physics and online gaming. You wanna remind me why we hang around together, again?"

  "Number one, you're going to get me an A in physics," I said, giving him a slight nudge. "And number two, you're the voice of reason when I decide to go and do something risky and dangerous."

  He grunted. "Ah, glad we've got that sorted out then."

  Marcus isn't exactly suitable material for the cover of a romantic novel. He stands about five foot nine and has just enough of a mischievous streak programmed into his DNA that you wonder half the time whether he's a genius or a shit-stirrer. His clothes hang off his spindly body like bed sheets on a laundry line, but he has a kind face and a quirky smile that reveals itself when he's completely intrigued by stuff like math and science – my natural enemies.

  He's known me since kindergarten and he's grown up realizing that I'm, well, not exactly like other girls. Marcus first learned about my being a witch back in grade four when I stupidly boasted that inanimate objects could defy gravity. He called bullshit so I levitated a pair of winter boots in my basement and my spell went haywire somehow. I'd just managed to raise the boots about a foot off the ground when one of them went rogue. It flew out of my magic circle and smacked him in the side of the head leaving a bump the size of a grapefruit.

  He took it in his stride, of course. After my mother grounded me for three days, she realized that our secret was out; at least when it came to my best friend. So Marcus became a fixture in my magical life. Mom has established one basic rule when it comes to my best friend; namely, don't try to teach him witchcraft. Naturally I broke that rule about two weeks after the "flying boots of doom" incident. I decided to teach Marcus a simple feat of magic because in my eight year-old mind, it just wasn't fair that I was a witch and Marcus wasn't. All he had to do was to draw on his spirit and move a paper clip two inches across a smooth surface. So I drilled him for a week on how to tap into his spirit and the poor guy wound up concentrating so much that he gave himself a nose bleed every single time we tried the spell.

  Marcus was heartbroken, but over time he's learned that witchcraft isn't just something you decide to take up one day as a hobby, it's basically imprinted in your DNA or something. First off, there are witches like me and then there are Wiccans. They're kind of like… How about the difference between a paramedic and a surgeon? Wiccans are a breakaway sect of witchcraft. Like us, they have covens, but they're more into pagan rituals and practicing ceremonial magic. A true witch is someone born into a family of witches who can trace their lineage back for hundreds of years. We are gatekeepers to the human world. We have a long history of doing battle with supernatural threats and we keep close watch over the compacts: agreements with the non-humans that dwell in the mortal world. All of this is done through formal witches covens and a centralized Grand Council that meets twice a year during the summer and winter solstice. You can leave a coven and go it alone as my mother and I have done, but you still fall under the authority of the Grand Council. If you break the rules, someone from your local coven comes knocking at your door. If your offence is serious enough,
well… use your imagination.

  The smell of horseradish seared my sinuses and brought a flood of tears to my eyes as soon as we walked through the front door. In the kitchen, Mom was hovering over a huge stock pot with a gas mask over her face, stirring a vile-smelling concoction with a wooden spoon. She's self-employed. If you Google "Calgary" and "Naturalists" you'll find Mom's web page, "Donna Richardson – Earth Healing – Herbology". There's a really bad picture of my mother's head photoshopped onto a cheesy sunset background that she uses for a web banner. She charges a hundred bucks an hour to concoct everything from healing balms to stress-reducing teas that her clients swear are better than anything you can buy at a Walmart Super Centre. The downside? That goat farm in our front yard can be seen from outer space and the neighbours are always complaining that our place is bringing down their property values.

  I plugged my nose and waved my backpack in the air to grab her attention. "Mom, whatever you're boiling in that pot is going to melt the paint on the walls," I complained. "When you're done, I need your help with something, okay?"

  She turned her head toward me. The gas mask made her look like a giant insect in an apron. "One minute," she said, her voice muffled. "This is almost done. I'll chat with you on the deck. Hello, Mr Guffman, you've got blood on your shirt."

  "I had a brief battle with a traumatized cat I was trying to rescue," he said, pulling on his shirt collar.

  "I hope you won," she said pointing her wooden spoon at the door. "You both might want to get out of the kitchen before you succumb to the stench, okay?"

  Marcus and I padded down the hall to the enormous French doors leading to our deck, and stepped outside again. The teddy bear inside my backpack was rolling around, giving the bag a life of its own. I hoped the spirit wasn't about to lose patience. The last thing the residents of Lake Sundance needed was a poltergeist wreaking havoc inside the home of a witch, because it's a bit like a magical armoury in our basement. Mom has enough spell-making material stored downstairs to level five city blocks.

  "Spirit… God! Just chill out okay?" I snapped. "We're going to figure this out in a minute so please stop whatever it is that you're doing in there."

  It must have heard me because the flopping about inside my backpack ceased. Marcus took a seat on our vinyl lounger, and the morning sun gave way to a wave of heat that told me it was going to be another scorcher of a Sunday.

  "So, you figure it's a poltergeist, eh?" Marcus said, eyeballing the backpack. "I'd have thought malevolent spirits were more interested in haunting vintage homes."

  "Why, Marcus," said my mother, as she stepped outside and onto the deck. "Whatever gave you the impression that poltergeists are exclusively malevolent?"

  She'd rolled her long red hair into a thick bun that was fixed to the top of her head with bobby pins. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed down at the backpack and I could tell from the slight edge in her voice that my discovery had thrown a wrench into her plans for the day.

  I spun around on my lawn chair and held out my bag for my mother's examination. "Sorry, Mom, we ran into this about forty minutes ago at Mrs Gilbert's house. It chucked the old biddy out the front door and launched Slippers the Siamese cat through the chimney."

  Mom gave me a surprised look. "That doesn't sound like your average poltergeist," she said grimly. "Do you know the spirit's name?"

  "No. Why do we need to know its name?" I asked.

  She grabbed the backpack and placed it on the patio table and stepped back a couple of feet. "Because if you were thinking of conducting an exorcism, aside from being grounded for the rest of your natural born life, your exorcism wouldn't have worked."

  Marcus sat up. "Why's that?" he asked. "It's a spirit. I mean, it's dead, right?"

  The backpack started rolling around on top of the patio table as Mom stretched out her hands to get a feel for the spirit's spiritual signature. Naturally this rubbed me the wrong way because she was clearly laying the dramatic gestures on just a little bit too thick; possibly because Marcus was watching and definitely to remind me that she was the sensei and I was still the lowly apprentice.

  "This is a minor spirit," she said, concentrating. "I don't feel any menace attached to it, so that's a good thing. The reason you need to know its name is because you can't impart your will to the exorcism spell without a name. It just won't work."

  Ugh. I should have known better. Names act like a conduit for magical energies. Without knowing the name of the spirit, it would be the same thing as trying to turn on a lamp that doesn't have a bulb in it.

  Mom pursed her lips tightly and studied the rolling backpack for a moment. "It seems to me we should probably glean as much information from this spirit before sending it back," she said. "I'll admit I'm kind of concerned that it manifested as a poltergeist and attacked Mrs Gilbert."

  "How come?" Marcus asked. Mom had a look of genuine worry on her face.

  "Because it went nuts in Mrs Gilbert's house and after I got it into the teddy bear you got drilled by some kind of dark spell," I said. "Mom is saying that it could have done any number of things, but to attack a person who is alive, well, I guess that's probably not a good sign."

  Mom positively glared at me. "Marcus was attacked? Julie, what the hell was Marcus doing in a poltergeist infested house. He could have been killed!"

  "But I didn't detect any malice, Mom," I said. I wasn't going to hear the end of this for weeks. "I even told Marcus to stay with Mrs Gilbert. This all happened just as I was about to leave!"

  Marcus nodded and tried to help. "It's my fault, Mrs Richardson. I probably should have stayed outside."

  Mom clenched her jaw. "Indeed. We'll talk about this later, young lady. In the meantime bring the backpack to the shed and throw it in the circle. Make sure you bind that ring good and tight because whoever pulled that spirit into the mortal world will probably be looking for it and if they attacked Marcus, they won't even think twice about attacking us."

  God, I just can't win! I try to help Mrs Gilbert reclaim her house and I wind up getting chewed out in the process. Realizing that Mom was definitely going to lay into me once Marcus went home, I let out a sigh of resignation and headed to the shed with my best friend in tow.

  Yep. My life rocks.

  Chapter 4

  The ring my mother was referring to is a four foot in diameter marble circle set into the floor of what she calls "the shed". It's actually a protective ring that contains or preserves whatever is inside, but it takes a whisper of magic in order for it to work, otherwise it's pretty much useless. The shed looks like your average double-wide storage barn, but that's just from the outside. If martial arts masters have a dojo to practice their craft and train a worthy apprentice, our shed is a supernatural dojo where Mom does everything from experimenting with new spells and potions to teaching me to control my magic; which tends to go a little bit nuts if I blow my concentration.

  I decided it was a wise choice to call my mom in on this one, so I handed Marcus the backpack and I slipped the key into the old railway switch padlock on the shed door and disarmed the protective spells carved into the doorframe. We stepped inside and three large candles immediately lit up, giving the dusty room a warm, orange glow.

  I pointed to the ring in the center of the cold cement floor. "Just put the backpack in the center of the circle, Marcus," I said.

  He shuffled to the middle of the shed and gingerly placed the bag inside the ring. I knelt at the twelve o'clock position and touched the edge of the shining marble circle with my index finger with a whisper of magic. The barely audible words flowed out from my lips, charging the air with supernatural energy that tingled and hummed for a few seconds until the ring arced with a blinding white flash and then quickly snapped shut. I allowed myself a satisfied smile and I stepped back and waited for Mom to arrive.

  Marcus sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. "So, uh, Julie," he said. "What happens now?"

  I gave him a shrug and fixed my gaze on the backpa
ck. "Just some low-level magic. Mom's going to release the spirit from the teddy bear and we're probably going to grill it for information."

  His lips curled up into a mischievous smile. "Nice. So you're going to play good cop, bad cop, is that it?"

  "More like spiritual social worker," I said flatly. "She's going to try to get its name, but more importantly, we gotta figure out whether it can offer any clues as to who yanked it into the mortal realm."

  Marcus nodded and shifted his weight onto the heels of his hands. "You know, most people our age are hanging out at the mall or partying as opposed to having an intervention with a dead person."

  I shrugged. "Yeah, and when they run face first into a class-five spectre that decides to crash one of their boring parties, who are they going to turn to for help?"

  He raised a finger. "Good point."

  The backpack continued to move as if we'd stuffed a puppy inside.