by Etta Faire
I set my phone alarm for the following minute just to make sure everything was working properly then shuffled downstairs.
There was a message on my machine. It was Rosalie.
“Get over to my house quick. The package came. I repeat the package came. We can figure out what Feldman is now. See if it’s safe to do a channeling. Hurry. We need to open the Purple Pony at eleven.
I gulped. I knew she was talking about the ingredients for the sapientia formula. I almost didn’t want to find out what I’d channeled with now.
I looked around for my water bottle, my mouth dry and chalky, as my alarm went off. My phone had been working just fine.
Chapter 13
The Sapientia Formula
I parked my car in front of Rosalie’s cottage, which was tucked in the part of Potter Grove not too many people lived in anymore. I always guessed this division must’ve been built by a guy who thought cars were a passing phase. Narrow streets and no sidewalks. But it was why she could live off of nothing.
A wind picked up as soon as I stepped out of the car causing the loose shutter hanging crooked on her modest two-story to bang along the paneling like it was going to fall into her lawn, a term I was using lightly because it basically consisted of overgrown bushes, colorful empty pots, and a large sculpture of a unicorn drinking from a fountain. She sure loved her unicorns in life.
Rosalie rarely invited anyone over. I’d only been to her place one other time, and the only thing I remembered about it, aside from the fact it was full of books stacked everywhere, was that it was dark. Probably why she spent most of her time at the Purple Pony.
The smell of over-cooked pine needles took over my senses as soon as she opened the door, which was only just enough to let me in. “Come on,” she said, waving a plastic yellow-gloved hand at me. “We’ve got to hurry.” She closed and locked the door as soon as I squeezed inside like she was suddenly wanted by the FBI or something.
In addition to the gloves, she had on a plastic poncho and goggles with a cloth mask dangling from her neck. She handed me the same get-up. “We need to get this formula made, cooled, and tested while we still have adequate lighting, which I guess means while we still have daylight.”
“I think we’ll be fine. It’s barely ten o’clock.” I squinted into the darkness that was her living room. We were not going to get adequate lighting here.
There were even more books than I remembered. No wonder it was so dark. They were stacked from floor to ceiling and the stacks covered most the windows.
I quickly put my outfit on and slipped into the kitchen where I noticed the same recipe book from the other day out and opened on the counter. Three other equally large and maybe even older books were also opened in various parts of her kitchen: One along the stove, one propped against the microwave and another balanced along an empty pot.
“There are discrepancies in the recipes of the sapientia formulas from one book to the next. Can you believe it? I guess we just pick one and go with it. I’m boiling down the goat fingernails, half the charcoal, and frankincense now because all the recipes call for that. But maybe look through the books to see which recipe is best.”
“Now how would I know that?” I asked, coughing through what I now knew was goat fingernail fumes. I put the cloth mask back over my face and picked up the large gray book on the pot, scanning the entry for the formula.
“There’s going to be plenty here. Enough for me and Mr. Peters,” I said, checking her reaction out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t mention the part that I wasn’t even sure I wanted the spray anymore because then I would have to admit that I already channeled with Feldman.
Rosalie barely looked up from the bottom cupboard she was searching through. After clanging through pots and pans, she emerged with a blender.
“I’m only doing this for you,” she said, her voice muffled through her mask. “Because it’s important. If this entity is a poltergeist, a demon, or a curse, you cannot channel with it.”
I stared blankly at her. Now was the perfect time to mention that I’d already done a channeling, but then I couldn’t. She would feel like she was doing all this goat-fingernail-boiling for nothing.
She went on. “So don’t talk to me about Louis Peters. I don’t care about Louis Peters.”
“What happened with you two, anyway? What’s your full story?” I asked, noting the side effects in the gray book included possible infertility. I tossed it aside and moved onto the purplish black book propped along the microwave.
“Classic Barbie and Ken story. He was captain of the football team and I was the cutest cheerleader.” She chuckled through the dust mask while she stirred the pot simmering on the stove that was about to boil over.
“You never confirmed yesterday. Is he the boyfriend from the unicorn vision?”
She didn’t say anything, so I knew he was. It was hard for me to picture balding, pudgy Mr. Peters as the hippie who broke Rosalie’s heart.
“This was the late 70s when we met, mind you. Louis was so straight-laced back then. Hair down to his knees, but he was already manager of the bookstore in Landover Mall. So responsible. I went in for a book. I wasn’t even planning on applying for a sales job. But I was instantly intrigued by this hippie in a suit. If I remember right, he told me to come back with shoes and he’d give me a job…”
I continued reading while she talked. The worst side effect in the purplish black book, aside from bleeding gums and the possibility of opening doors to the hosts of evil, was constipation. The recipe was still in the running.
She pulled her mask down so I could hear her better. “Long story short, we dated, fell in love or so I thought, and I got scared. He started talking commitments, long-term junk that hippies didn’t talk about back then. He wanted to get married, of all things. I was nineteen and he was talking forever-stuff to me. Got down on his knee with a ring and everything.”
Her pot began smoking, blackening the wall behind it with burning frankincense while a foul smell circulated through the kitchen. She waved a towel over the smoke and turned down the flame. “I think we’re ready for step two. This is where the recipes differ. Which one are we going with?”
I pointed to the dark green book she showed me a few days ago when I first learned about the recipe. “I guess we should stick with the original.”
“What’s next?” she asked.
I took a second to look. “Drop a small chunk of dry ice into the boiling mixture as soon as it comes off the stove.”
She pointed to the red cooler at the back of her kitchen. I opened it and the vapor from the dry ice drifted around me. “So, what happened next with you and Louis?” I asked as I used the provided tongs to carry a small chunk of the dry ice to the sink.
“I broke up with him. But we were always breaking up and getting back together again. No big deal. It’s what we did. The whims of youth. But this time, when I called to see if he was ready to get back together again a couple months later, he seemed different. Aloof. I found out through my sister that he’d gotten another girl pregnant and was about to marry her. We’d only been broken up for two months, tops. So, I guessed he didn’t love me like he’d always said he did. I guessed his proposal meant nothing. He was just checking boxes on a to-do list of life. And since I said ’no,’ he moved onto someone else.”
My eyes watered but when Rosalie looked over, I quickly sniffed back my emotions. “Damn dry ice,” I said, in case she noticed.
She handed me the box of tissues that were sitting at the edge of the sink. “Yep, that damned dry ice, all right,” she said, chiseling off a piece of it. “I really hated that stuff for a long time until I had the dream about the unicorn and realized everything happens for a reason.” She plunked the small chunk into the mixture and it bubbled over everywhere, spilling out onto the stove and the floor. She jumped back and threw a towel over the spill. “No matter how messy or awful it seems at the time, it was meant to happen. Louis was meant to have his kids, a
nd I was meant to start the Purple Pony… That’s what the unicorn symbolizes. Everything is always happening as it should be.”
That was the part of the story that never really made sense, how the glittery disco-ball of a unicorn symbolized so much depth. But, like always, I went with it. “That is an awful story, and I see now why you think Mr. Peters deserves a demon in his basement. But maybe, now that you’re both single, the unicorn and the universe are saying you two are meant to be together again,” I said.
“You’re reading way too much into a unicorn,” she replied.
“Let’s call him and offer to find out what entity he has in his basement, for free. Just as a test run on the spray.”
“I am too old for dry ice anymore. If I date someone, it’s gonna be because that someone cherishes me. Cherishes. Not because they’re checking boxes off a damn to-do list in life.”
“Maybe he’s changed.”
“And maybe I’ve changed too. Plus, this mixture cost an arm and a leg. You know that, right? Apothecary ingredients don’t come cheap, especially when you have to ship them damn express. Give it to him for free? Honestly.”
“I’ll talk to Jackson’s lawyer. I’m sure the estate will cover the costs since Jackson clearly doesn’t want me channeling with a dark spirit.”
That seemed to make her smile a little. I handed her the phone while I shredded a small pile of charcoal, never mentioning the fact I had already channeled with Feldman.
Chapter 14
Testing Spirits
“I was supposed to open the Purple Pony an hour ago,” Rosalie said as I helped her out of her car in the parking lot of Chez Louie. “Plus, I don’t want Louis to think there’s anything more to this than business.”
“You’re just showing me how to use the spray,” I said. I didn’t tell her I noticed she’d snuck on some mascara and a cuter blouse before we left her house.
It was a typically chilly day in spring. The ice had long melted, but it still wasn’t warm enough to go without layers that included a jacket yet.
“All the books mentioned some possible side effects to the sapientia formula,” I said as we made our way over to the restaurant.
“What kind of side effects?”
“Stuff like bleeding gums, hair loss, opening gates to the hosts of evil…”
She shook her head but didn’t stop walking. “I’ve found those things are kind of like the warnings on the Viagra commercials. Nobody really gets a twelve-hour boner.”
I nodded, even though I was pretty sure some people actually did.
“But just in case you’re worried, I brought protection,” she patted the flowered cloth bag she was carrying, like I’d know what that meant.
Mr. Peters was already waiting for us at the basement door.
“I’m losing business right now, just so you know,” Rosalie snapped when Mr. Peters pushed the creaky door leading to the basement open again. “Purple Pony’s supposed to open at eleven.”
Mr. Peters looked down at his perfectly shined shoes. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
Rosalie was no longer paying any attention to him. As soon as she peered into the darkened basement, she rummaged through her bag and pulled out the yellow handheld EMF reader. “Oh my,” she said, over and over as we all stepped inside. She pushed past me. “Very interesting.”
Before I started working at the Purple Pony, Rosalie was the town psychic and medium. She read cards and did seances, but her powers were not nearly as strong as mine, for reasons I still had no idea why.
She mostly seemed to rely on objects to tell her when ghosts were around, like the EMF reader clicking and sputtering in her hand. It supposedly picked up electrically charged objects that the naked eye couldn’t see. My naked eyes could usually see them, though, but not today. The device was going crazy. And I wasn’t seeing any entities.
The little doohickey had a scale that went from green to yellow then to red. The dial was flickering almost at the end of the red zone. A small light on the top of the device flashed on and off and an alarm beeped. “Holy crap,” she kept saying, showing the device to me and Mr. Peters, even though we could both hear it beeping away. “I’ve never seen it do that before.”
“Let’s do this spray and get out,” I said. “Once we figure out what the entity is here, we’ll look up how to get rid of it.”
Rosalie fumbled through her bag then handed me a pair of yellow gloves and a dust mask.
Then she handed a set to Mr. Peters, who chuckled and stared at it.
“Tell your hair and gums they’re welcome,” she said to her ex-boyfriend, in the same tone a distant aunt might use when her ugly Christmas socks didn’t get the reaction she was expecting. She tossed me the spray bottle, and I walked over to the brick area where I’d seen my face before.
“We need as much lighting as possible,” I reminded her, motioning for Mr. Peters to pull the blinds on the basement window up. He was still fumbling with the gloves, shaking his head like he was grappling with what was happening here. A reality his practical mind had probably never considered before.
Rosalie yanked the blinds up on the only window, a tiny one near the top of the wall. But even with all the lights on and the blinds up, it wasn’t doing much to light the room. “I hope this is adequate enough.”
“For what?” Mr. Peters asked. No one answered him.
Rosalie grabbed her phone and set the timer while I sprayed the area thoroughly, just like the instructions said, until I saw a green mist appear.
“Two minutes and counting,” she said, starting the timer.
“W…what are you expecting to happen,” Mr. Peters asked in a tone that seemed a lot like he was holding back laughter under his mask. “The restaurant is already opened for lunch. I should get up there. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for mystic tom foolery.”
Rosalie shot him a look. Her voice was muffled and mumbly when she talked through her mask. “I’m losing business by being here too, Louis. But at least your business is open. The Purple Pony’s closed now.” She didn’t mention the fact that we maybe saw three customers a day in the off season. “And, this is a service I don’t usually provide for free.”
“I’m very sorry,” he quickly added. “I am very appreciative.”
After her phone beeped, I misted again then pulled my phone out of my pocket to bring up the photo of the color descriptions.
Mr. Peters read over my shoulder. “So, this is like a mood ring?”
“In a way…” I said, my eyes fixed on the mist.
The drops seemed to hold in midair a little longer this time. Slowly, a dark reddish-orange tinge emerged in front of the bricks with black mist floating all around it, circling it.
I turned my head to the side, mesmerized by the sight. But as soon as I took one step forward into the mist to get a better look, something shoved me hard across the room.
I whacked against the corner of what could only have been a covered couch, and an instant pain shot through the back of my neck and across my shoulders.
“You okay?” Rosalie asked, helping me up.
I moved my arm around a little. Pain was everywhere. “What was that?”
“Hell if I know. You just shot across the room on your own, but let’s go. We don’t need to wait to find out,” she said as we ran to catch up to Mr. Peters, who was already standing in the doorway, holding the door open.
“Well?” he said, pulling off his mask after shutting off the lights and locking the basement again. “What did you find out?”
“Looks like you have an angry ghost transitioning to a poltergeist,” I said, rubbing my arm as we made our way up the stairs. “But I’m actually not sure. It was a little more muddled than I thought it’d be.”
“So all of that and you’re not even sure what’s in there?” he said. “I thought it’d be gone by now.”
“All of that?” Rosalie snapped. “You talk like that was a huge inconvenience for you. We spent all morning making the
damn spray then we came over here…”
“Thank you once again,” he said, in an almost angry, resentful tone. He pointed to my arm. “Would you like some ice? I assume you have your own insurance for this… ghost busting.”
“I’m fine, Mr. Peters,” I said. “But that’s all we can do for you. We’re not Ghostbusters. We spent a lot of money making that spray, and we can’t risk getting hurt just to help out an old… friend.” I stumbled over that last part. I was pretty sure Rosalie had been right. There really wasn’t much love here. Mr. Peters was merely using people to check off boxes in his life again. This box happened to read, “Get rid of the demon as cheaply as possible.”
“I hear burning sage might get rid of ghosts,” he said, a hopeful lilt in his voice.
“Give it a try,” Rosalie chimed in. “I sell bundles at my shop. Lighters too. No discounts, and I don’t deliver.”
My arm still stung as Rosalie and I walked out to the parking lot together.
“At least now you know how to use the spray,” she said.
“Yeah. And at least now we know what color Mr. Peters is too,” I said. “You were right. I think he was using both of us that time.”
She turned around and stared at the pharmacy a second, her graying dreadlocks never even moved in the wind. “Sage,” she said, shaking her head. “If he thinks sage is gonna get rid of those things, he’s crazy.”
“Those things?”
She looked at me. “You saw that, right?”
“Saw what?”
“There were two colors in that mist. One orangish red, the other black. It’s worse than a demon in there. There’s also a curse.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but I was pretty sure most of Potter Grove would see that curse color if misted.
Chapter 15