by E. E. Holmes
“This sounds pretty serious,” Tia said, looking down at the writing on her legal pad and shaking her head. “In the world of paranormal investigation, this sounds like an emergency case. Injuries? Deaths? It might be the kind of thing he’d drop everything else to go and help with. There was even a preliminary book proposal included in the paperwork.”
“I guess so,” I said, still not convinced. “He was always really eager to get into places that other teams hadn’t explored. He practically did a tap dance when he got the permission to investigate the library, mostly because St. Matt’s had never allowed paranormal teams into any of its buildings before. Well, if he was going to this place, did he leave any contact information for where he’d be staying?”
“Yes, and we’ve already tried the phone number. It rang a few times and went to voicemail, but it was one of those automated voices. Sam left a message, but we haven’t heard back.”
“Okay,” I said, sliding out of my chair and starting to pace. “No emails being answered, no phone messages being returned. Something is definitely still off. There has to be someone else we can … wait! The whole team must be with him, right? I’ve seen what one of those investigations entails, and there is no way it’s a one person job. We just need to get in touch with one of the other team members, and I’m sure they could tell us what was going on!”
“That’s a brilliant idea!” Tia said. “Jess, um, could you come sit back down? You’re making me dizzy and I can only hear like half of what you’re saying.”
“Right. Sorry,” I said, and hopped back into my chair. “Does Sam have any way of getting in touch with any of the other team members?”
Tia bit her lip. “I don’t know. I’ll ask him. Do you?”
“No, I only met them that one time. Well, except for Annabelle, and she…wait, I think Pierce said she’s got a shop in the city.”
“Oh, really? That would be a good place to start. Do you know what it’s called?”
“No, but she does palm and tarot readings, and she sells all that mystical garbage—you know, like candles and crystals and books about auras.”
Tia raised an eyebrow. “Mystical garbage? Really, Jess? Haven’t we had enough experience with all of this to at least acknowledge that it isn’t garbage?”
I pressed my hands over my eyes and took a deep breath. “I know, I know. My entire existence right now is a sea of this ‘garbage.’ I’m trying to kill my inner skeptic, but she’s not going down easily. She’s a plucky little bastard.”
“One of the many reasons I love her,” Tia said. “But seriously, how hard can it be to find? How many shops like that can there be in town? I’ll hop on the internet and get searching. In the meantime, tell me what you know about the other team members and I’ll put Sam to work tracking them down.”
I wracked my brain for any details I could come up with about the rest of the group. “I don’t even know most of their last names. Dan was a recent MIT grad. Oscar was a local historian —I think Pierce said he’d written some books on haunted locations in the area. Iggy was…huge and tattooed, that’s pretty much all I know about him. And come on, Iggy can’t be his legal name anyway, can it? I mean, who names their poor kid Iggy?”
Tia’s lips twitched as she continued scribbling.
“Annabelle’s last name is Rabinski. And Neil’s last name is Caddigan, but I’m not sure if he’d be much help, he wasn’t a regular team member. Actually,” I said, with a sudden spark of realization, “Neil was there the day I said goodbye to Pierce. He came by Pierce’s office as I was leaving.”
Tia stopped writing and looked up at me. “Really? Do you think it’s possible he knows something? Could he even have told Pierce about the Deer Creek Inn?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Pierce said Neil is a demonologist. Maybe he even thought the activity at the Deer Creek Inn was demonic, because of how violent it was?”
Tia shivered. “Wow, I really hope not. Ghosts are bad enough, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they are,” I said. “But even if he isn’t involved in the Deer
Creek thing, he could still have some information. Pierce could have said something to him about it. And he’s from England!” I suddenly remembered. “Maybe I could even track him down over here.”
“Good idea,” Tia said. She looked down at her notepad and sighed. “Well, I’ve got a few good leads here, so Sam and I will get started.”
Sam’s name made me remember something else, something equally important, if totally unrelated.
“Hey, I never asked you! How was dinner at Bellini’s?” Tia flushed and a broad grin slowly crept across her face. “It was really, really nice. We had a great time. He brought me flowers and everything.”
It was my turn to grin. “And?”
“And what?”
“Oh, come on, Ti, don’t make me beg! Did he kiss you or not?”
Tia flung her hands up over her face, and I watched her ears turn from pink to scarlet. Then she nodded, emitting a little high-pitched giggle that was muffled by her hands.
“Woohoo!” I proceeded with an elaborate celebratory dance that turned her giggles to gales of laughter, and by the time I had completed the finale (a truly epic kick line complete with jazz hands) we were both wiping away tears of mirth. Finally, we laughed ourselves into silence.
“Thanks for helping me with this, Tia. And I’m really happy for you and Sam.”
“Thanks, Jess. We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
“I know. And in the meantime, just tell me one other thing.”
“What?”
“Is Sam a good kisser? Too much tongue, or…?”
She hung up on me. As expected.
I was still cackling to myself when the door opened and Hannah came in.
“Who were you just talking to?” she asked me. She glanced around as though expecting to find someone, living or dead, sitting in the room with us.
“Tia. She was filling me in on what she found out about Pierce.”
“Oh, what is it? Did they find him? Is he okay?” she asked, crossing to her desk and depositing her bag on it.
“No, we still don’t know where he is, but never mind that for a minute,” I said, with an impatient wave of my hand. “I can fill you in on that stuff later. What’s going on? Tell me what happened…I mean, if you want to, obviously you don’t have to,” I finished lamely.
“Of course I want to,” Hannah said, and she smiled at me, and the smile lit an answering smile on my face.
This was still such a shaky, fragile thing that had grown up between us. I felt like one mild disagreement or one stiff breeze could topple it right to the ground. I just sat and waited for her to talk.
“Well, once Keira had me away from the rest of the group, she explained that Finn’s rune should have stopped any spirits from getting across, even if we wanted them to be there,” Hannah said. “And so she asked me about how they got there in the first place, and I told her as best I could.”
“How did they get there?” I asked. “Because I wasn’t really paying attention and they weren’t interacting with me at all, so I didn’t know they were there until you told Finn.”
“I could feel them out there, wondering about me,” Hannah said. “I knew they wanted to come closer, and I could tell they wanted to talk, so I just thought about inviting them in. I didn’t even really mean to do it. I was just bored with all that relaxation nonsense, and I started thinking how nice it would be to have someone to talk to, but I guess that was all it took. And then they were there with us, inside the circle. That was it.”
“But the rune should have stopped them,” I said.
“Yes. They should have been stopped at the border of Finn’s circle, and then Finn would have to open it to let them through. But I guess I sort of skipped that part, without really meaning to.”
“Wow. And that was a big deal?”
“Yes. So Keira told me that, because I was able to summon the spirits to me, I m
ust be a Caller.”
The word sent a little shiver through my body before I could even form a single thought or feeling about it, which was disconcerting. “What is a Caller?”
“They’re very rare,” Hannah said, and I could detect a note of pride in her voice that I had never heard there before. “A Caller is someone who has the ability not only to communicate with spirits, but to exercise some control over them without the use of castings.” She almost sounded like she was reciting the definition out of a textbook, and I knew that she was just repeating back what she’d been told. “There have only been three in the last century, other than me!”
“This must be what Karen was trying to find out about. Did you tell Keira about the escape from New Beginnings and —”
“No, I didn’t forget what Karen said,” Hannah said, a little impatiently. “I didn’t mention that part of things, even though I probably should have. But it doesn’t matter, because I didn’t need to. Keira seemed quite sure of what was happening without me needing to elaborate on it. She seemed sort of excited about it, but also a little scared.”
“Scared? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe scared isn’t the right word. Almost…like it gave her a little thrill or something.”
“So then she took you to see Finvarra?”
Hannah nodded. “We went straight to the North Tower, and she was waiting for us there.”
“What is she like?” I asked, my voice involuntarily hushed. I couldn’t help it. I felt much the same way about Finvarra as Keira did about Hannah being a Caller. The High Priestess was shrouded in mystery, a figure who seemed to dwell with one foot drifting along in legend and fairy tale and one foot planted firmly in real life.
Hannah didn’t seem to think my tone was strange, though. On the contrary she was looking around the room, as though trying to find the right description written on the walls somewhere. “She seems like one of those people that no one ever really gets close to. I don’t mean she wasn’t nice, or anything. She smiled at me and shook my hand, and wanted to know how I was settling in; but she was still very…distant.”
“Okay. So what happened?”
“She asked me the same sorts of questions Keira did, and then she asked me if I could try calling a spirit right there in her office. I wasn’t really expecting that, so it made me nervous, but I tried to do what she asked. I closed my eyes and sensed someone right away, which isn’t surprising in this place. There was a spirit of a woman passing the base of the spiral staircase. And then I pulled her right into the room with us.”
I shook my head incredulously. “That must have freaked them out.” Hannah actually giggled. “Yeah, it did. Finvarra couldn’t believe it. I think she thought Keira was exaggerating or something. I told her it was really easy to summon them, but she obviously wasn’t expecting it to be that easy.”
“So what did she say?”
“She said that Keira was right. I’m a Caller.”
“Wow, that’s…how do you feel about that?” I asked.
“I’m excited, I guess,” Hannah said, her eyes shining with it. “I want to find out more about it, of course, and Finvarra said that there will be work to do to control it.”
“Control it?”
“Yes. She said that it’s likely that I’ve been Calling spirits to me for years without even realizing it.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t really make sense, though. You knew what you were doing when you brought those spirits into the circle.”
“No,” Hannah said, and the smile faded from her face. “Actually, it probably does make sense. When I was younger, and I was lonely or didn’t like the place I was staying, I would sometimes wish for ghosts to find me. I called it wishing, but really what I was doing was Calling them. I always thought it was an answered prayer when they suddenly appeared to me in those places, but I’d brought them there myself.”
“You actually wanted ghosts around you? On purpose?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I cringed. “Some of those places must have been really bad if you preferred Visitations.”
“They were,” she said quietly, and didn’t elaborate.
“But you must have better control over it now,” I finally said to break the silence. “You’re not doing it unconsciously, like when you were little. Why would you want to suppress a gift like yours? It must come in really useful sometimes.” I thought back to the trouble I had finding Evan when I needed to talk to him, and thinking how convenient it would have been to just pluck him from wherever he was at the time for a little chat. And then I thought about how much I still wished I could do it, and came dangerously close to tears. I shook them back and focused on Hannah, who was already answering me.
“They didn’t say anything about repressing it. I don’t think they meant it that way. I think they just want me to get a better understanding of how it works. Finvarra said they would try to arrange for a new mentor for me.”
“A new mentor? Is there actually another Caller here at Fairhaven? I thought you said there’ve only been three in the last century?”
“I don’t know, they didn’t say. Maybe it’s just someone who knows a lot about it. I guess I’ll find out, if they reassign me.” Hannah let out a long, low sigh. “There was one thing about the conversation that bothered me, though.”
“Oh yeah? What was it?”
“Well,” Hannah said, squirming uncomfortably. “She kept asking questions about our father.” I was completely brought up short. “Our father? Why in the world would that come up?”
“I don’t know. She seemed to think it might have something to do with why I had this particular gift.”
“But the Durupinen are all women. It wouldn’t even make sense for our father to have anything to do with it.”
Hannah frowned. “That’s what I thought too, but she kept asking. She didn’t seem to want to take my word for it that I didn’t know anything about him. You don’t know anything, do you?”
I shook my head. “That was the one subject mom would never budge an inch on,” I said, a touch bitterly. “She really freaked out when I would ask about it. She just said it was a horrible, horrible mistake, and never to bring it up again. It was usually accompanied by a really bad drinking binge, so I learned to avoid the subject like the plague. He’s not even listed on our birth records. No name, nothing.”
“Do you think maybe she just…didn’t know who it was, and she was too embarrassed to admit it?” Hannah asked, not meeting my eye.
“No,” I said sharply, bristling at the implied judgment. I saw Hannah flinch at my tone and felt instantly ashamed of myself. I went on, more gently. “I used to think that sometimes, when I was younger, when I was really mad at her. But not now,” I said. “Her reaction was just too intense, too emotional. No, she definitely knew who he was, but she didn’t even like to think about it.”
“And you don’t think Karen knows anything about him?”
I shook my head. “I asked, when I first went to live with her. She said she never even knew Mom was seeing anyone. She couldn’t believe Mom had hidden it from her; they were really close back then.”
Hannah shrugged dejectedly. “Well, it seemed important to Finvarra. Maybe she’ll try to investigate for herself. If she could find me, she might be able to find him, too.”
We sat together for a few minutes, both contemplating the possible repercussions of such a thing. My father had always been a blank space, a hole that I felt no urge to fill. It’s hard to miss or care about something you never had to begin with.
Finally, Hannah sighed. I looked up and saw that she was smiling again. “A Caller and a Muse in the same family. Who knew we were so talented?”
I smiled back. “It would have been a lot nicer to be talented at something normal. Why couldn’t we have been ballet dancers? Or star basketball players?”
“Or spelling bee champions?” Hannah suggested.
“Or rodeo bull riding champions?”
“Is that really more normal than this?” Hannah asked with a laugh.
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “But I think if I had to pick between eight seconds on a bull or another freaking ghost popping out of nowhere to scare the shit out of me, I might just pick the bull.”
8
BOUND
THE NEWS THAT HANNAH WAS A CALLER spread through Fairhaven like wildfire during a wind storm, but it did little to change our outcast status and, in fact, seemed only to add another layer of mistrust to our interactions. This, Mackie explained, was probably because most of the Apprentices had never even heard the term “Caller” before, and didn’t really understand what it meant.
“I had to ask Celeste to explain it, and she didn’t know much about it either,” Mackie told us. “Sounds like a pretty handy gift to have, though.
Sort of the opposite of what a Caomhnóir can do, you know?”
“Too bad you couldn’t learn how to reverse it, Hannah,” I told her. “Then maybe we could get rid of Mr. Personality.” I cocked my head over toward the Novitiate table, where Finn was bent low over a journal, scribbling rapidly with a piece of toast dangling out of his mouth.
Karen seemed relieved to learn that Hannah’s talent had a name, and that it wasn’t unprecedented. “I have to admit I was nervous. I’d never heard of anyone being able to do what you do. I’m glad you will have the chance to understand it better now,” she said the next day, when she came by to have lunch with us. I couldn’t help but think her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she said it, though, and I wondered if she wasn’t as relieved as she was letting on.
I would have to wait to find out though, because Karen informed us that she would have to fly back to Boston for a couple of weeks to help with a case at work.
“I was hoping to stay at least until the Initiation next month,” she said, “but my firm is drowning without me, and I’m afraid I’m going to jeopardize any chance I have of being made partner if I don’t go back and help bail us out, as it were. I’m going to try to get back in time for the Initiation.”