I shrugged, trying to look unafraid. “I’m not all that keen on dying, so I don’t see why that would be a problem.”
“Like I said, it’s instinct.”
“And the point of this is what?” Phineas broke in. “Why would she need to go out of body?”
“As bait,” said Rebecca.
“Points for not mincing words,” I said.
“Exposing a soul to shadow eaters, it’s like throwing bloody meat into a shark tank,” Rebecca went on. “We’d attract them to us. They’d follow us.”
“And in this disembodied form, we can move, I assume?” I asked.
“As long as you have control of yourself,” Rebecca said.
I was starting to get excited. “So we run, or float, or whatever you want to call what a soul does, to some sort of bonfire we’ve set up ahead of time, waiting to be lit. The birds follow us. And as soon as they’re on top of it, Phineas throws a flaming rag in a bottle—”
“Love how you assume I won’t be one of the people performing this advanced and complicated out-of-body ritual,” Phineas broke in.
I ignored that. “We don’t get burned when it ignites, because we’ve left our bodies behind. But the shadow eaters get roasted. We get physical again, and everybody wins.”
“Well, the birds don’t win,” said Phineas.
“Exactly,” Rebecca said. She looked back at me. “Are you willing to learn? It will be dangerous even to practice, so there’s no shame in refusing.”
“I’m willing.” I said it without hesitation, now that I’d had a minute to get comfortable with the idea. I was pretty good at rituals. And the situation called for bold measures. Plus, frankly, it sounded like a cool thing to learn.
I was keeping one of my usual lists on my phone. I added Learn to have out of body experience underneath Find Amias’s mother, convince her to give us A’s true name. I frowned at the latter item.
“Let’s revisit his mother for a second,” I said. “We’ve got some rituals I learned from Martha that we can try.” I turned to Rebecca. “Do you have any others, for finding somebody?”
“None we haven’t tried already,” she said.
I created a new note and looked back at Phineas. “What do you remember about her? Tell me everything.”
Everything wasn’t much, unfortunately. She had dark, curly hair, and a pinched expression, not unlike Madeline Underwood’s. She rarely laughed, but she sang, and had a beautiful voice. She’d seemed to have a connection with animals, like Amias.
She went by Alice, but it would have made sense for her to change her name when she ran away. She’d have had time for several human families by now, and her last name could be anything at all.
“So we’re looking for a cranky, dark-haired woman of indeterminate age, who might or might not be called Alice, who has a nice voice and maybe a pet or two. Out of the population of the entire world, and possibly some other planes of existence as well.” I closed the note and shrugged at Phineas. “I don’t get why you’ve had a hard time with this, you slacker.”
Phineas went into Lady’s Slipper that afternoon, and bought great quantities of lighter fluid and firewood that took him a bunch of trips to bring back. Over the next couple of days, he dug several small pits at various points around the farm, and surrounded them with stone.
He also brought back some strychnine from the home goods store, just in case it proved handy. I warned him against using the poison in any sort of traps that Wulf might find interesting. Phineas was almost comically offended that I would accuse him of forgetting about Wulf’s safety like that. The next time he went into town, he brought Wulf with him, as if to prove how close they were.
Rebecca spent a few days—while I felt the time slipping away, and Halloween hurtling toward us like a physical thing—lecturing me before she would even let me try the spell. Like many rituals, it involved blood, and an incantation.
I learned the incantation in a couple of hours. I knew the language it was in, although I couldn’t speak it. It was the same as the one I’d used to banish ghosts into the canteen. Even a couple of the words were the same. Rebecca spent the rest of the time instructing me on how to maintain control once I was out of body.
“Focus on something earthly, worldly, physical,” she said. “Something you want to return to. Hold it in your mind. It’ll be your anchor, the way a remnant would be if we were sending you elsewhere. Whatever else you’re doing, keep that image with you. It will guide you back.”
The guiding me back part was, of course, the trick of the thing. It wasn’t just that I had to make that happen. It was that I had to do so within, according to Rebecca’s best guess, fifteen to thirty seconds. After that, the likelihood of being able to resist my soul’s instinct to move on would be greatly diminished. And even if I managed to get back into my body, if it had been separated from my soul for too long I might fall into a coma, or there could be permanent brain damage.
“How sure are we about this time limit?” I asked. “There are always people on TV who’ve had near death experiences, and they were dead for like five or ten minutes.”
“A ritual is more powerful than a car accident,” was Rebecca’s answer to that.
“Can’t we just do one that’s less powerful, then?”
She looked at me like I was a complete idiot, which I took as a no.
When it was finally time to try the ritual, we set up in Rebecca’s kitchen. She said it would be easier for me to contain my soul if we were indoors. She handed me a candle to put in a silver holder, while she sharpened a dagger made of bone. (I did not ask whose bone.)
I caught a familiar scent, and held the candle to my nose. Then smiled.
“Skullcap!” I said.
Rebecca seemed impressed that I recognized it.
I didn’t mention that I chose Wulf as my anchor. But he was a natural choice; if I failed to come back, who would feed him excessive amounts of table scraps? I didn’t want to go to the afterlife with that on my conscience. So I held his image in my mind as I started the incantation.
While I spoke, I nicked my neck, just where it met my shoulder, with the dagger. Once covered with my blood, the blade had to be sprinkled with salt, then passed three times through the candle’s flame. After that it was just a matter of finishing the last few lines of the incantation. It was a very simple ritual.
But then, the ritual was the easy part.
I was expecting it to hurt, like going into the netherworld had hurt, and the evocation ritual, and that brief moment when Phineas had brought me into his plane. But with this, there was no pain at all.
Ironically enough, I felt almost grounded as my soul left my body. Or at least, what I’d always thought of as grounded. But maybe centered was a better word. Balanced. Secure within myself, even as there was no longer a self to be within. Serenity had never come easily to me. That might have been the first time I really felt it.
It was hard not to hang onto that feeling. A lot harder than I expected, even though I’d been warned.
The plan was, I was to leave my body only for a second, without trying to move away from it or do anything else, then slip immediately back in.
But I didn’t want to. I wanted to float out of the house, and over the lake, and see what came after that.
Was this what it felt like, when you died? If so, I had a newfound respect for all those ghosts I’d banished over the years. If it was this hard to resist moving on, they were a pretty strong bunch.
I forced myself to think of Wulf.
And I still didn’t want to.
I started to move toward the window.
I don’t know what would have happened, if Wulf hadn’t howled. But he did, maybe sensing that I was in danger. Or sensing the insult of being left behind. Or just sensing that it was dinnertime. The sound broke through that shell of serenity, and I came back to my senses. I focused on my body, still standing where I’d left it, and rejoined it.
Rebecca was frowni
ng at me. “That was a bit longer than we agreed on,” she said.
“How long?”
“About six seconds.”
“Well, that’s not so bad. And I’ll get better at it.”
I did. I practiced for the next two days, until I cut my time in half.
The rituals we did in an attempt to find Amias’s mother were much less successful. It wasn’t long before I gave up and admitted that Phineas was right. If she was even alive, she was well hidden. Probably magically hidden. We weren’t going to find her in the short time we had.
Phineas was busy with his own projects, setting up various traps and defenses around the farm, and I didn’t see him much except at meals. I found myself anticipating dinner, just so I could sit next to him and have someone besides Rebecca to talk to.
Left to my own devices one afternoon, I took a walk with Wulf and ran into Phineas at the edge of the woods, shooting what looked like a crossbow at a target he’d hung from a tree.
I watched for a few minutes before he said, “Am I not supposed to know you’re there?”
“I just didn’t want to screw up your concentration. Or startle you and get shot.”
“You’re always assuming I’ll do something stupid.”
“Yes, but I’m always joking.”
And now that I know everyone back home seems to think you’re at least halfway incompetent, I should really stop that.
I stepped closer. “Crossbow, huh? Old school.”
“Stonebow, actually.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Size, shape, ammunition. This is a little smaller, and curved differently. And it uses stones instead of bolts.”
He took a shot, and a second later a hole appeared in the target.
“For smaller game,” Phineas said.
“Like birds?”
“Exactly.”
“Can I see?”
Phineas handed me the bow. It was clearly old, and had just as clearly seen a lot of use. The wood was notched and scratched in some places, and in others worn as smooth as polished stone. “I take it this isn’t something you picked up in Lady’s Slipper?”
“No, Rebecca had it stored away. Your talk of plastic weapons reminded her of it.”
“But it’s not plastic.” I handed it back to him. “And Amias can set wood on fire just as easily as he can heat up metal.”
Phineas shrugged at that. “This is what we use back home. I was raised hunting with one. I’m more comfortable with it than a gun.”
I nodded at all the holes in the center of the target, glad I could offset my teasing with something supportive to say. “Looks like you’ve got really good aim.”
He walked to the tree and started picking small, round stones up off the ground. When his back was completely to me he said, “I always wanted to catch him.”
“You will catch him.”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t.”
“Phineas—”
I still couldn’t see his face, but his laugh interrupted me. “You don’t understand. This isn’t me lacking confidence and needing a pep talk. I meant, I always wanted to catch him. As in, make him face justice. Because it’s my job, obviously. And because of our history. And also because presenting him to my superiors, locked in a vessel, seemed like a great way to prove myself.”
“And now you’re thinking it’s not so great?”
“No. I’m thinking presenting them with his head would be better.”
“Phineas!”
He turned back toward me, and his face held its usual open, easy expression. He didn’t seem the least bit upset. “Figuratively, of course. I wouldn’t actually cut off his head.”
“But you don’t want to catch him anymore.”
Then his eyes got hard. “I’m not going to give him the chance to turn the tables on me again. This time I intend to kill him.”
I don’t know, maybe a better person than me would have steered him away from killing and back toward catching. Encouraged him to let justice run its course, or whatever the cops always say to the vigilante killers on TV shows.
But as far as I was concerned, killing Amias sounded like a dandy idea.
A little less than a week into our stay, I got a call from Norbert. “I haven’t got any new facts, but the tone of Madeline’s emails has changed,” he said. “She’s snappy and anxious. Things are not going well in some area of her life. Let’s hope it’s the training monster birds area.”
“You’re still reading her email? Norbert, stop it! I’m never going to get to see my family again as it is. You can’t be involved anymore.”
“I thought there were lives at stake here? That supersedes Charlie’s tantrum.” Norbert said it with such force that for a second I was offended on Charlie’s behalf, before I remembered that it was for my sake that Norbert was being that way.
“You’re right,” I said. “But she’s too smart to say anything definitive in writing. If we haven’t gotten anything from her by now, we’re not likely to. It’s not worth risking your relationship with Charlie over. How is he, by the way?”
“Moody,” said Norbert. “He misses you.”
“Does that mean he’s softening?”
“No. He doesn’t think you can change.”
“He’s probably right.”
“But he’s worried about you. Where are you, by the way? Maybe I can drop into conversation that I heard it from Martha, or something. He’d never admit it, but he’s dying to hear you’re okay.”
“I’m in New Hampshire, a place called Grey Lady Lake. Safe and sound. He doesn’t have to worry and neither do you.” I had another question, but I’d been saving it for the end of the conversation, in case I burst into tears and had to make a hasty exit. “How’s Warren?”
“Warren’s great. Getting excited for Halloween. Loves his teacher this year. High spirits like always. You don’t have to worry about him, at least.”
I wasn’t sure it made me feel better, to know that Warren had accepted my absence from his life so easily. But I supposed it was better than him pining away. One of us ought to be happy without the other, anyway.
That same afternoon, witches began arriving from all over the country, people who were tied to Rebecca mostly through family—grandparents, great-aunts—rather than a deep personal connection. But their traditions were clearly important to them. They treated her with great respect, and spent their days helping her fortify the boundaries of the farm, not only to keep things out, but to actually harm anyone—or anything—that breached the barrier.
I pointed out that this was a dangerous game to play. What if some poor hiker stumbled upon it unawares and got himself zapped or cursed or whatever would happen? But time was running out, and they were in no mood to hear it.
Apart from that, it might as well have been a scrapbooking convention, for how normal these women (and one man) were. Stay-at-home moms, accountants, librarians, grandmothers, college students. There were around twenty in all, sharing rooms, sleeping on couches and air mattresses.
The change in the atmosphere was incredible. Despite the deadly threat that was approaching so rapidly, all gloom was driven from the house. Everyone hung around laughing and drinking wine when they weren’t working, and made being a witch look a lot more appealing than Madeline Underwood and her garden club did. This was the kind of witch I supposed Wendy was. I couldn't help but wish I was one, too.
By the time all the expected guests arrived, the farm was overrun. I was assigned a roommate, a petite hypnotherapist named Claudia, who was uncharacteristically soft-spoken for someone from Texas. I gave her the bed and took the air mattress on the floor, so I could be the one to deal with Wulf’s breath in my face all night. She seemed to like Wulf, so we all hit it off just fine.
“So this ritual she’s going to teach us tomorrow, how hard is it?” Claudia asked me the first night, before we went to sleep. “She said it was dangerous.”
Rebecca had selected four of them
to learn it, Claudia among them. She wanted to be sure there were enough people and fires around the farm on Halloween to handle the shadow eaters, no matter which direction they came from.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “If I can learn it, it’ll be no problem for a real witch.”
“But you are a real witch. Rebecca said you were really talented.”
That was news to me, and I won’t deny that it was satisfying to earn Rebecca’s praise, even secondhand.
It only took the other witches—the real witches, which no matter how nice Claudia tried to be, I was not—two days to learn the out-of-body ritual. I noticed that Rebecca didn’t feel a need for endless classroom instruction before she’d show them how to do it. So much for her confidence in my talent.
We only had four days to go, and the place had the feeling of preparing for a gigantic party and a gigantic hurricane, both at the same time, when I got a call from Wendy.
“You sure you don’t want to come up here?” I asked her. “I bet you and Granny would feel right at home.”
But Wendy didn’t laugh or make small talk.
Instead she said, “Madeline Underwood killed her husband. With a frigging ax. She’s in jail.”
Phineas didn’t come with me. There was no time for us to be duplicating efforts, and he said he thought this situation might be better served by girl talk. Sure, because that’s what girls do when we get together. Braid one another’s hair and talk about killing boys with axes.
“You’re the charming one,” I argued.
“Compliments won’t work. I still need to see a couple of people back home, and I’m running out of time.”
“Fine. Don’t forget to stop and see your mother.”
Phineas gave me his one-sided smile. It was such a familiar and easy thing, at a time like that. I guess that’s why I had an almost, but not quite, irresistible urge to hug him.
“Drive carefully,” he said. “And be careful when you visit her, too. Just because she’s behind bars doesn’t mean she can’t do any witchcraft.”
“I bet it does,” I said. “But I’ll be careful.”
I thought a lot, on the drive back down, about what I would say to Madeline. I remembered what Norbert had said the last time we talked. Things aren’t going well in some area of her life.
Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3) Page 10