I stopped, letting the others to pass by. “You did?”
“Yes. He was older, maybe sixteen. He was talking to a girl with long brown hair and gray eyes. Maybe a girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” I asked, feeling strangely possessive.
Merry laughed. “I’m only speculating.”
“Was he happy?” I asked, chewing my lip.
“He was smiling.” Merry’s brow furrowed and she licked her lips, as if deciding whether to tell me the rest. “Of course, that is only the most likely timeline.”
“I see.”
She held up her right index finger, as if checking the direction of the wind. “My abilities seem to be heightened here. If I sense anything that might be helpful, I’ll speak up. But I’m still not sure of the rules, and I have a feeling they can change on a whim.”
“Yes,” I agreed, as the clouds parted, all drifting in separate directions.
“The energy here is making me ill,” Eve said. Indeed, her skin had taken on an orchid yellow coloring. I hadn’t realized she was so sensitive.
Merry placed her hand on Eve’s lower back, and her ivory complexion slowly returned. Merry stumbled when she was done, drained by her recent healing work with Eve and the tree.
It was twilight over Main Street, with the blue quickly receding from the sky. Rolling fog collected around our ankles and the metallic scent of October rain clung to the air. We reached the spot where the Town Square should be. It was a vacant lot, with tall grass dotted with beer bottles. There were no streetlights at this end of town, and Ruth Anne used her flashlight to cut through the growing dark. Her beam found a banner strung between two telephone poles: The Haunted Dark Root Festival.
Eve put her hand on her hip. “Halloween? Are you kidding me? Like we don’t have enough frights running around in this world. I guess it’s too much to ask for a Christmas or an Easter setting here.”
Ruth Anne smirked. “Do you really want to see the Netherworld’s version of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus? Because I imagine they’re both quite horrifying.”
“I’m going to scout the area before we move on,” Shane said. “I can’t quite make out which way to go from here yet, but we are close. I just need a few minutes to regain my bearings.” Shane pulled a flashlight from his pack and turned it on.”
“You couldn’t have pulled that out sooner, Boy Scout?” Michael snorted.
“I’m no Boy Scout. You’d be wise to remember that.”
I tried to steal a glimpse into Shane’s open pack. “What else did you bring?” I asked, remembering all the noise he made in his apartment while packing.
“Not much. I like to rely on my wits, mostly. But I did bring this,” he said, holding up the flashlight. “Also, some jerky, my lucky horseshoe, my…”
“Horseshoe?” I interrupted “You brought a horseshoe? Why?”
“I’ve taken it on every trip I’ve made since I was eleven, and it’s brought me safely home, every single time. Like I said, it’s lucky.”
Michael rubbed his brow. “As much as I’d like to play Guess What’s in My Sack, I think we have more pressing things to attend to.”
Everyone looked at me, awaiting my direction. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as I considered our options, shivering as the temperature steadily dropped.
“It’s not really cold,” Michael said. “Your mind is reacting to the setting.”
“My mind knows that’s true,” Merry agreed, pushing up her cardigan sleeves defiantly. “But my body disagrees.”
“Shane, I appreciate your offer to scout things out, but I think we should all explore the town, together,” I said. “We just need to stay within eyeshot of one another. Or at least earshot.”
Shane nodded. “You’re right. I’m not used to traveling with a group. Let’s stay close.”
We walked down the center of Main Street. Black and orange banners flapped above us, announcing the upcoming festival. Yellow-eyed jack-o’-lanterns lined the sidewalk like luminaries, and homemade signs announced Samhain specials in shop windows. I wasn’t certain why we were here, but it felt right, and I kept my eyes open for signs of my son or where to possibly plant my tree.
We began to see people. The crowds grew thicker with each step.
“What year do you think we’re in?” I asked Paul and Ruth Anne, our resident historians.
“The late ‘70s, judging by the shopfronts,” Paul said
“But look at the getups these people are wearing,” Ruth Anne said, covering the side of her mouth. She pointed to a woman in a poodle skirt and penny loafers walking beside a man sporting a purple mohawk and a Ramones T-shirt. Others wore traditional witch, ghost and monster costumes, most of them made of cheap plastic. “I don’t know who’s dressed up for the holiday and who isn’t.”
“I think timelines are overlapping here,” Merry said. “Everything is jumbled up but still working together, like when you throw random ingredients into a cauldron but the spell still takes. It’s just kind of… distorted.”
My ankh began to glow. I lifted it to show the others. “We must be on the right path,” I whispered, so excited I nearly kissed it.
“Boy, this place looks different,” Eve said, as we stood in front of Miss Sasha’s Magick Shoppe. There were no curtains in the window, and the door was wood, not glass. A ‘Closed for the Holiday’ sign was tacked on the door, with a promise of a ‘Secret Sale’ the next day.
“I wish I could have known Mama when she was young,” Merry said, peeping through the window. She gasped and tapped furiously on the glass. We all crowded around Merry as Miss Sasha appeared from the stock room, wafting smoke from a green candle around the shop - the color used for prosperity spells. Her hair was long and curly, and she wore bell-bottoms and clogs. She checked her stock, nodding to herself as she inspected each and every bin.
“Now where did I misplace my spell book?” she asked accusingly, loud enough that we could hear through the glass. She raised an eyebrow and looked around, her eyes sliding past us, focusing on a bare shelf. She blinked and shrugged, then returned to the stock room.
“Mama never misplaced anything in her shop,” Merry said.
“I…uh…wonder…” Ruth Anne took off her pack and showed us Mother’s Book of Shadows. “Gah! Did I screw this timeline up?”
There was a collective inhale as we considered the ramifications of altering time, and we exhaled in relief when Mother reappeared with her book open in her hands. Then, as if someone changed the channel, the image of Mother in her shop abruptly blinked off. The room was completely bare.
Shane turned and pointed to a neon sign across the street. ‘Delilah’s Deli,’ he said with a grin. He raced across the street, dodging the phantom trick-or-treaters as if they were real. He knocked on the window and beckoned me over. “I think Uncle Joe’s in there!”
When I reached him, he took my hand and pulled me into the café. The doorbell chimed as we entered and a few plaid-and-paisley wearing customers wearing looked up curiously, paused a moment, then resumed eating. I wasn’t sure if they’d seen us or not. Were they spirits or memories? Or were we simply invisible time-travelers, watching from the safety of a future timeline?
“It was pretty nice back in its heyday,” Shane said, inspecting the metal-rimmed tables and padded booths. The curtains were starched and there were fresh sunflowers on every table. The café smelled like pumpkins and coffee. The jack-o’-lantern on the pie counter, carved in Elvis’ likeness, lent the restaurant a charm even Dip Stix hadn’t achieved.
“I see him.” Shane squeezed my hand and pulled me towards a booth in the far corner. Joe and his partner, Leonard, were huddled behind a plastic menu. “I just want to listen for a minute,” Shane whispered. We got so close that I felt uncomfortable, but neither Joe nor Leonard noticed.
“I don’t like any of this,” Leonard said, after taking a hard bite of his sandwich. “Why Sasha insists on having that vile warlock stay here is beyond me.”
He crumpled his napkin onto his lap and dropped the sandwich back on his plate. “We’re men. We can supply all the masculine energy needed for Sasha’s domes and whatnots.”
Joe laughed. “Whatnots? We are Sasha’s whatnots, Leonard. I know this is hard on you, since you weren’t raised in the craft like we were. She may be dramatic, but she’s the strongest sorceress I’ve ever met. If she says something’s coming, and we have a chance at salvaging this world before the shit hits the fan, then we need to do whatever we can to help. Even if means Armand is part of that equation.”
“Hell, Joseph. Maybe this is all in our minds. Maybe we’re all just smoking too much weed.”
“Or not enough. Have faith, Lennie.”
“I lost my faith when my priest said I wasn’t allowed into confession.”
“The world may be misguided, but we don’t have to be.”
The scene crackled, then splintered away and the booth was empty. The red vinyl bench was now worn and aged and covered in dust, though the rest of the diner remained unchanged. Shane and I turned towards one another.
“You saw that, right?” I asked, looking around. Everyone else had remained in place.
“I saw my uncle and Leonard,” Shane said, nodding. “They were talking about Sasha and Armand.” He looked back at the booth. “That was the most I’ve ever heard Leonard say. Damn, why didn’t I get to know him when he was around? Or spend more time with my uncle, for that matter?”
“Because when we’re young we have no perception of time, or the awareness that it will ever run out.” Ruth Anne said, from behind us.
“Jesus! You scared the hell out of me, Ruth Anne!” I said, turning on her. “Don’t do that again! Where’s everyone else?”
She pointed to the window. Three faces were pressed to the glass, staring in at us. “I’ve been conducting a few experiments,” Ruth Anne said, showing me an antique compass and her high-priced electromagnetic reader.
“Watch this.” She grinned, walking about the café, casting the EMF device over the oblivious diners. It flashed wildly, like she’d just won a carnival prize. “Paranormal activity!”
“Ya think?”
“But wait, there’s more.” She flipped open her compass. The needle spun, left then right, then backwards and forwards. Just like the clocks. “It doesn’t work here,” she said, stuffing it into her pocket.
“It’s a reminder to not take things for granted here,” Shane said, his eyes remaining on the empty booth.
“This diner is brimming with residual energy,” Ruth Anne said. “It must’ve had a big impact on many people’s lives.”
Shane smiled and thanked her with a squeeze of her shoulder. Residual energy was the permanent imprint of memory or soul, absorbed into stones or structures or even objects. Strong emotions and memories were especially prone to imprinting. People may come and go, be born and die, but their shadows lived on indefinitely.
My wand vibrated beneath my sweater, and I saw the soft glow of its orb through the yarn. I had almost forgotten it was there. I tapped it, as an Old West sheriff taps his trusty pistol before heading in to a den of outlaws. It vibrated again and I drew it out. The light expanded, and soon the diner was awash in fluorescent yellow light. One customer actually noticed – a young woman whose eyes I recognized from a much older body. She was one of Mother’s friends, who died in the late 1990’s. There were ghosts as well as memories here.
As the light spread to all the corners of the room, other shapes were illuminated – a hodgepodge of patrons whose clothing and hairstyles spanned at least four decades. None noticed the others, and some even shared the same booth, their forms overlapping. I covered the tip of my wand and some faded away. The diner had begun to feel claustrophobic.
“Classic,” Ruth Anne said, scribbling into her notebook.
“What?”
“When a place has real meaning to people, they leave part of themselves there.”
She pointed to a booth where a young couple sat. I stared intently, as their faces and fashions flipped like a deck of cards. One moment they were young and sharing a milkshake, the next they were sharing a burger and their booth with two small children. And then, the woman sat alone, staring into an empty coffee mug with somber eyes.
I turned away as Ruth Anne gleefully continued her notes. I wasn’t comfortable watching someone else’s life so intimately. Shane came up beside me, his hands thrust deep inside his pockets.
“You okay?” I asked, brushing a wisp of hair from his face.
“I would just love a couple of do-overs,” he said.
“Amen,” Ruth Anne agreed. “Let’s get out of here. It’s starting to creep even me out.”
The others were waiting for us outside of Dip Stix. Except for one.
“Where the hell did Michael go?” I asked.
Merry shrugged. “He said he’d be right back and not to worry.” She smiled and rubbed her hands together, nodding towards the pie shop. “I can smell them, and its making my stomach rumble. Do you think it’s safe to eat the food here?”
“I have no idea,” I said, my own stomach reacting to the savory smells of cinnamon, apple and pumpkin.
“They say that in Heaven, you get to enjoy all the earthly delights,” Merry noted.
“I don’t think we’re in Heaven,” I pointed out.
“What’s that noise?” Eve asked, looking down the road.
I heard it, too. A low rumbling sound rolled up Main Street. Shane and Ruth Anne cast their lights down the foggy road.
“It sounds like a parade,” Merry said.
“It is a parade!” I said. “The Haunted Dark Root Parade.”
A horse-drawn cart appeared through a curtain of haze. A scarecrow was mounted in the bed, with a large pumpkin for a head. Its mouth was carved into a cruel smile and its eyes blazed as its straw hands flapped in the wind. The horse slowed as it passed by, snorting and sniffing the air, but it didn’t stop. Next came a family of vampires, packed into a wagon. They waved jovially to the bystanders, tossing out treats. And then came a procession of pallbearers, carrying a wooden coffin filled with candy.
The costumes were simple, not the elaborate outfits Mother made for us in later years. I scanned the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. It seemed the entire last century was represented among the spectators.
Michael reappeared next to me, his face grim as he took my wrist. “Maggie, we need to leave. Now.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I see why!” Ruth Anne’s flashlight fell on a group of people pushing through the crowd on the other side of the street, heading straight for us. Their hands were reaching and their eyes were feral. They were focused on Michael.
“What did you do?” I demanded, as both he and Shane pulled me away by my elbows.
Michael’s free hand went to the cross dangling on his chest. “I may have uh… tried to save a few souls.”
“You did what?”
“They saw the cross and… responded to it. I just let them know their sins were absolved and they could move on. I guess they misunderstood the latter part of my message.”
“Beware of false prophets,” Shane growled. “But we’ll discuss that another time.” He closed his eyes, quickly trying to get a read on which direction to go. Eagle Mountain was no longer in sight.
“I say we leave Michael here and let him sacrifice himself,” Eve cried out, dodging an open-mouthed specter grabbing for her hair. “This is his fault.”
The spirit horde gathered other souls on its way toward us, like a tumbleweed collecting debris as it rolled. Peeling off of Main Street, we ran for the quickest cover – the woods.
“Those aren’t memories, they’re ghosts,” Ruth Anne confirmed, firing a heat sensor device over her shoulder. “See, the bars are red, which means they’re emitting energy.”
We scanned the trees, looking for a path into the forest. So much of the landscape was altered from what I knew. The woods were thicker, deeper, darker and more om
inous.
“I got a lock on Montana!” Shane said, pointing. “Let’s hurry before I lose it again.”
I glanced over my shoulder as we ran. The ghost army was still coming, some spryer than others. I caught site of a familiar face in the crowd, one with a particular lightness to his step and a glowing aura.
“Albert? “I called out, stopping abruptly. He was the first spirit I directly communicated with, and he had inadvertently helped me find my ankh. “Albert!” I ran back to him, parting the advancing throng, my arms out. They ignored me, their focus still on Michael.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said, hugging him. He felt surprisingly solid. “But Albert, why didn’t you go into the light?”
“We can’t find it,” he said, returning my hug. “It just closed up.” He leaned in and whispered. “They say that things are changing in the worlds. We’re not sure if anyone finds the light anymore, but they must, huh? Or else there’d be more of us, right?”
I nodded, wondering if this had anything to do with the ailing Tree of Life. “It will reopen. I promise you,” I said.
“I hope so. Thank you.”
We hugged again. “I wish I could do more.” I felt the weight of the responsibility I carried in my pocket.
“Send my wife my love,” he said. “That will give me peace.”
“Hey! She can talk to us!” A shrill female voice cried, her bloated hand pointing at me. The others all stopped, diverting their attention from Michael.
“Uh-oh,” Albert said. “You’d better go.”
But they were already on me. Their fingers, in various forms of decay, raked at my hair and pawed at my clothes. “Help us!” they moaned.
I screamed, swatting them away. The more I pushed back, the more appeared. I was being swallowed in the crowd. “I don’t know where your light is!”
“She lies!” an old man accused, grabbing for the glowing tip of my wand. “She has the light! She stole it!”
They pressed in on me. They smelled like winter and dirt. “Mine!” They chanted in unison, and I didn’t know if they meant me or the wand.
The Shadows of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root Book 5) Page 8