“Does that matter? Can’t she have her own views, decide for herself what’s right and what’s wrong?”
“In some things, there is no leeway,” Boden said. “Penelope has proven herself unethical. Remember, she lied to you and manipulated you.”
“As did you all,” Karen pointed out, glancing at Jacoby, who remained silent on the beanbag.
“To be fair, Avandale and I tried to approach you directly, but you were...shall we say, less than receptive.”
Karen couldn’t deny that so she changed the subject. “Is that the only reason you banished her?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Willow snapped.
Karen ignored her. “So perhaps the reason Penelope felt she couldn’t be honest with me about her intentions was because of the way she was treated by this group.”
“You don’t know us,” Boden said, “but there is nothing but respect and love here. If you’ll just give us a chance, you’ll see that this is an environment in which you could truly grow.”
“Please, listen to them.”
Karen turned to find Jacoby kneeling next to her chair. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
“They can help you,” he said with a sad smile.
“You say ‘they’ like you’re not a part of it.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’ve done my part. I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Leaving? To where?”
“To nowhere. To nothing.”
With a frown, Karen looked around at the coven. “What is he talking about?”
Boden sighed heavily and his face screwed up in another of those gas-grimaces. “I guess if we want you to trust us, it’s time for full disclosure.”
“Just spit it out.”
“You see, Jacoby isn’t in the strictest sense...real.”
Karen felt as if the ceiling were caving in on her, and she fought her way through the rubble. “No. No way. Jacoby can’t be a ghost too. I’ve touched him.” And here she put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, to illustrate her point. “I’ve seen him pick up things. Other people have seen and talked to him. He’s real.”
“No, I’m not,” Jacoby said, placing a hand over the one clutching his shoulder. “But I’m also not a ghost. You can’t be a ghost if you were never alive.”
“What are you talking about.”
Boden cleared his throat. “Jacoby is what is called a thought form.”
“Thought form...what is that?”
“Guess Morgane hasn’t gotten around to teaching you about that yet,” Willow said with a smirk.
Boden silenced her with a stern look. “A thought form is a kind of group magick. The coven joined our collective powers together and formed Jacoby, from our minds he was molded into flesh. He is corporeal but not permanent. Once his purpose has been served he will dissipate. At least until he is called again.”
Karen looked at the coven, staring into the face of each member, searching for any sign that this was a bizarre prank. Finally she looked at Jacoby, at his sweet and innocent face. “They’re serious?”
He nodded. “Yes. I’m here to help. That’s my sole reason for existing. Last time they called me, I was sent to Morgane just after her banishment to try to help her finish grieving for her son so she could move on. However, she recognized me for what I was and performed a spell that prevented me from appearing to her.”
“So you remember? I mean, when they call you, you don’t start over fresh but remember previous times they called you?”
“I remember everything.”
“And what about in between, after you...dissipate? Do you remember that?”
Jacoby shook his head. “I don’t exist during those periods, so there’s nothing to remember.”
“That sounds so cruel.”
“It’s not cruel,” Avandale said. “Jacoby isn’t a person, he’s an extension of the coven, a manifestation of our collective power. It’s not like living and dying—it’s more like being turned on and off.”
Karen smiled at Jacoby. Then she removed her hand from his shoulder and stood. “I think I’m going to go now.”
Boden seemed surprised by this. “But...so soon? Surely you have more questions.”
“No, I think I’ve received all the information I need. Learned quite a bit, in fact.”
“I told you all this was a waste of time,” Willow grumbled.
Crimson shushed her, then got off the bed and walked toward Karen. At first Karen thought she was going to bar her way from the apartment, but the woman merely said, “You know where our place is now. If you ever need us, don’t hesitate to drop in.”
Karen thought about shooting back something sarcastic and snide, but there was no need. She didn’t doubt that these people had good intentions, but in their own way they had been as dishonest and manipulative as Penelope. She glanced at Jacoby one last time. That odd, sweet boy...it was hard to wrap her brain around the fact that he wasn’t real, that he had been conjured from thin air just to bump into her on campus that day.
Finally Karen mumbled, “Thank you all for your time,” and left.
Chapter 12
Karen had missed quite a few classes lately so she had a lot of work to make up. Since her scholarship was contingent on maintaining at least a 3.0 GPA, it was imperative that she not get too far behind. She had an English Composition paper to finish, a ton of reading for Psychology, Statistics homework, and some slides to go over for Art Appreciation.
She was sitting at her desk, surfing the web on her laptop.
But she was doing research. Research on the life—and more pertinent, the death—of one Robert Anthony Jersey.
It had taken her a while to find the information she needed, since she hadn’t known Bobby’s full name or where he’d died. She’d had to add “Penelope Young” into the mix and had finally hit pay dirt.
First she found the obituary with a grainy black-and-white photo. Poor quality, but she easily recognized Bobby. She was surprised by how hard this hit her. It had been several days since she’d found out that Bobby was dead, but seeing that obituary brought it home in a way that made it seem more real, more tangible. And the pain she felt was also very real and tangible.
Backing up a bit, she found an article about the accident itself. According to what she read, it happened pretty much as Bobby had described...with one difference. He said when the car hit him, he died instantly, but the article was dated a month and a half before the obituary and said that young Mr. Jersey was in a coma. So apparently he had lingered for a while before finally passing away.
With a sigh, Karen closed the internet browser and sat motionless for a moment. She glanced at her bed, then opened one of her desk drawers, pulling out the bracelet Penelope had given her. Placing it on her wrist, she stared at her lap and said, “Hello, Bobby.”
“Hi,” Bobby said quietly. She looked up and saw him standing beside her bed.
“Funny, even though I can’t see or communicate with you without this talisman, I could still sense that you were here. I even knew exactly where you were standing.”
“You have a lot of power.”
Karen nodded and turned her gaze back to her lap. “That’s why you and your mother want me.”
“That’s not...I mean, I hate that I lied to you. I didn’t want to, but Mom thought it was best, that you would never want to help otherwise. But I do care about you. I want you to know that, whether you help or not.”
Karen didn’t answer right away, and silence settled in the room like a third, uninvited person. Finally, after several moments, Karen took a deep breath and banished this unwanted visitor. “So...Wisconsin, huh?”
“Yeah, that’s where I was born. And where I died. Funny, when I was alive I never left the state, rarely even left my hometown, but since my death, I’ve been all over the country.”
“Because Penelope was looking for someone to help her...right?”
Bobby nodded. “She says she doesn’t have enough power to do the spell on
her own. She’s traveled around for years, joining different covens, trying to find someone that would lend their power.”
“And I guess most of the covens she encountered responded the same way as the one here in Greenville.”
“More or less. Just before we moved here, we were living in New Orleans and there was a young man there named Pete Huston who offered assistance, but...let’s just say it didn’t work out.”
“But for some reason your mother thinks it will work out with me?”
“She says you have more power than any witch she has ever met, a lot of it yet untapped.”
“I suppose she wants to help me tap it. For altruistic reasons, of course.”
Bobby stepped near her...but not too near. He was being overly cautious—which Karen recognized as a sign of respect—and she appreciated that. “I meant what I said before. If you choose not to help, I won’t think any less of you. I’ll still be your friend.”
Karen smiled at him, but the effort exhausted her and the corners of her lips fell after only a few seconds. “So what’s it like?”
“What?”
“Being dead.”
Bobby blanched.
“Come on,” Karen said, “now that the cat’s out of the bag, we may as well talk about it.”
She sensed resistance from Bobby, but in the end he relented. “Well, it’s weird, but like anything else, I guess you get used to it. I mean, I know I’m not alive, but I still feel like me, you know? I mean, all the thoughts and feelings that make me Bobby Jersey are still here, even though physically I don’t exist. I know none of this is real.” Here he paused and held out his arms. “I don’t have a body anymore; this is just a manifestation with no real substance. In fact, I can only see myself when I’m being seen by someone else, like you or my mother. Otherwise, I’m basically just consciousness floating around.”
“Can you go anywhere you want? Like think about Paris, and you’re there?”
A smile broke across Bobby’s face. “Afraid not. I seem to be linked to my mother. Must be a familial thing, a blood bond or something. I can’t be too far away from her.”
“Have you tried?”
“Oh yes, believe me I’ve tried. But if I go too far, it’s like I get pulled back, as if I’m on a tether or something.”
“Do you ever get the sense...I mean, is there anything in your experience to indicate there’s something more than this, something beyond this reality?”
“You mean like a tunnel and a bright light?”
“Guess that sounds silly,” she said with a laugh.
“No, and believe me, I’ve looked for that tunnel, that light. Especially in the first few years. Being disconnected this way, here but not here, it gets exhausting.”
Silence slipped back into the room, hung out with them for a few more minutes, then made another quick departure.
“Do you remember anything from the coma?” Karen asked.
Bobby frowned. “What do you mean? I told you, I died instantly when the car hit me.”
“Not according to one of the articles I found online.”
“What article?”
Karen turned to the laptop and pulled up the page from her browsing history. Bobby stood behind her and read over her shoulder. The article seemed to disturb him.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have shown you this,” she said, closing her laptop.
“No, it’s just...I mean, I always assumed.... So, the other side of the room looks pretty bare.”
She followed Bobby’s gaze to what had been Brittany’s side of the room. It was indeed quite bare; even the bed had been stripped.
“Brittany’s still in the hospital. She’s lucky, all things considered. A broken arm, a few cracked ribs, a concussion, but it could have been much worse. But she’s not coming back to the room. She had her friend Summer come and gather her stuff. I guess they’ll be rooming for the rest of the semester.”
“She’s not saying you did it, is she?”
“No, she told the police that when the shelves collapsed, she’d been looking right at me and I wasn’t touching the crank.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but...I get the feeling she suspects something. Enough that she doesn’t want to be in the same room with me anymore.”
“Don’t beat yourself too much. I mean, I know you and you’re not a bad person. I know you would never intentionally hurt anyone. You just need to learn how to control your power.”
“I agree. So I guess we should go see your mother.”
* * *
They sat in the circle behind the house, Karen and Penelope facing one another over the altar. Bobby stood outside the circle, as if afraid to enter. Or perhaps he couldn’t. Karen didn’t exactly know the rules. But she was here to learn.
Penelope offered a slight smile. “Welcome back to the circle, Still Waters.”
“So what, are we a coven now? Can you call it a coven if there are only two people?”
“How about we just call ourselves friends?”
Karen pondered this one for a moment before saying, “I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten how you lied to me, and I can’t even say I’ve fully forgiven you for it. But...the truth is, I do understand why you did it. Wanting your son back, wanting to give him another shot at life...I can’t see it as the horrible thing the coven makes it out to be. You wanted me to get to know Bobby and care about him, and you succeeded in that. I want to help him; I want to help you both.”
“Karen, this is a good thing, sincerely.”
“I want to make it very clear, though, that whatever trust I had in you has been eroded, and you’re going to have to work to rebuild that. I don’t want any more lies or I’ll walk away. I mean it.”
Penelope nodded solemnly. “I understand.”
“I guess you know I talked with the coven.”
“I figured you would.”
“I had to be sure that what you’re planning to do—what we’re planning to do—wasn’t going to harm anyone. They said that if it was someone who had recently died, you could install Bobby’s soul in that body.”
“That’s correct. It sounds simple, but it requires so much power.”
“And you think I have enough?”
“With some to spare.”
“But...the thing is, the coven said the body would have to be very fresh, fresh enough that the brain would not have suffered much deterioration.”
Penelope nodded with a knowing smile. “Are you asking if I’m planning to kill someone to get the body?”
Karen opened her mouth to refute the claim but closed it again. “I am just trying to figure out how you could find a body that fresh. Are you just going to hang out in the ER waiting room and hope someone drops dead right next to you?”
“I am still trying to work all that out, but the truth is we have time. It’s not like we can do the spell tomorrow. It takes preparation and must be performed on the Spring Equinox. That gives us the time we’ll need to explore your power, to develop it, so that we’ll both be ready.”
Karen sat in silence for a moment then took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m in. But this is a quid pro quo. You have to teach me not only to develop my power but how to control it. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“Deal.”
Standing, Karen awkwardly held out her hand, and the librarian shook it. “I need to get back to campus. If I don’t start seriously focusing on my schoolwork, I’m going to get kicked out.”
As Karen walked out of the circle, she paused by Bobby, said good-bye to him, then disappeared around the corner of the house.
Penelope and Bobby stood quietly until they heard her car pull off down the street. Then Bobby said, “We shouldn’t lie to her anymore.”
“It wasn’t a lie so much as an omission. I’ll tell her when I think she’s ready to hear it.”
“She’s not stupid, Mother. I mean, you’ve been trying to find someone to help you with this spell for years, but you ha
ven’t figured out how you’re going to get a body? She’s going to realize that doesn’t make sense and start asking more questions. If she finds out we’re still keeping things from her—”
Penelope turned on Bobby with blazing eyes, instantly silencing him. “Just calm down. I will tell her...eventually. When the time is right, I’ll take her to meet Pete.”
Chapter 13
Karen walked along the breezeway that ran the length of the John E. Furman building. The brisk January wind blew leaves along the path in front of her, and she pulled her coat tighter, her backpack hanging heavily on her shoulder. The sky was a solid blanket of gray. They were calling for sleet later in the evening, but so far there was nothing but this frigid wind.
The sound of footsteps made her glance up. When she saw who was approaching from the other direction, she almost thought about stepping out of the breezeway and crossing the quad. But she’d already made eye contact so she continued, plastered a smile on her face, and said, “Hi, Brittany.”
Brittany looked like she was considering bolting herself, but she fabricated an equally unconvincing smile. “Hey, there. Long time, no see. Sorry we didn’t get to hang over Christmas break.”
Karen and Brittany had traveled to West Virginia separately and had not spoken nor seen one another during the holiday. But they hadn’t spoken or seen one another much at all since Brittany had gotten out of the hospital and moved in with Summer.
“Oh, and happy belated birthday. I meant to get you a card last week, but the beginning of the semester is so hectic, you know.”
“Sure,” Karen said. “So how’ve you been?”
Instinctively, Brittany held her left arm, the one that had been broken in the accident, against her chest. “I’m okay. Been Skyping with Derek a lot. I hope to go see him over Spring break.”
Derek was currently in a rehabilitation facility in his home state of Pennsylvania, learning to adjust to life as a paraplegic. As far as Karen knew, he was still claiming amnesia regarding the night his spine had been broken in the cemetery. Karen wasn’t sure if he was pretending or if he honestly didn’t remember. Either way, she was glad she didn’t have to see him.
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