Broken Spirits

by S. A. Hunter

  Contents

  Title Page

  Mystery Box

  Say What Now?

  Coming Attractions

  A Lump of Death

  Reading, Writing, and Interrogation

  Bad Touch

  K-I-S-S-I-N-G

  Living Nightmare

  Girl Talk

  Getting Sleepy

  Unexpected Offers

  Waking Up

  Author's Note

  Broken Spirits

  Book 3 in the Scary Mary Series

  by S.A. Hunter

  © 2013 S.A. Hunter

  Smashwords edition

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people unless permitted by purchase agreement. If you would like to give this book to another person, please download an additional copy for each person.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Karri Klawiter

  artbykarri.com

  The Scary Mary Series

  Scary Mary

  Stalking Shadows

  Broken Spirits

  Other books by S.A. Hunter

  Unicorn Bait

  Dragon Prey (coming Nov. 1, 2013)

  I wish to thank the usual suspects: my parents, Rya, the readers, and my co-workers who have allowed me to run away a number of times to write.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mystery Box

  As Mary walked home from school, all of her attention was focused inward on one thing: she was going to the homecoming dance. The fact still amazed her. She, the most feared girl in school, was going to homecoming. With a date.

  It just boggled the mind. She’d talked to Kyle that day about the dance, and it’d been almost a total disaster. He still couldn’t believe she’d said yes, and she still couldn’t believe he’d asked her. Homecoming was two weeks away, and reservations had to be made and clothing coordinated. He’d wanted to know what color her dress would be. She had to tell him that she didn’t know. They talked about what sort of restaurant to go to. She liked Chinese, but he wasn’t a fan. He suggested a steakhouse. She unconsciously wrinkled her nose as she said okay. He quickly backpedaled and offered Italian. They agreed on that. She shook her head as she went over what they’d decided: dinner, leave from her place at five, and a white corsage. She’d been oddly touched that he wanted to give her one.

  She stopped to get the mail. She leafed through it as she went up to the house. It was the usual credit card and car insurance offers. She grabbed the screen door to go inside and kicked the package waiting there. It was the size of a shoe box. She picked it up and saw it was for her.

  “Oh, boy. What the heck is this?” she muttered, turning it around in her hands. She hadn’t ordered anything. Her name and address was handwritten in thick, black, blocky letters. There was no return address. It had a bit of heft. The postage said it weighed 1.57 pounds.

  When she went inside, she didn’t call out to Gran because she knew her grandmother was in with a client. She dumped her book bag on the floor and set the package on the coffee table. She thought about leaving the package alone until Gran was done. Getting strange things in the mail felt like something to be suspicious of, but Gran wouldn’t be done for another hour at least.

  She sat down on the sofa and found herself staring at the package. It looked innocuous enough. It wasn’t ticking or growling. Maybe it was a present. She didn’t know why someone would send her a present out of the blue, but it was a nice thought. The flip side was that it could be a piece of hate mail. Maybe it would turn out to be a voodoo doll made to look like her with all the limbs ripped off. Obviously, the voodoo doll hadn’t worked, but unfortunately, that seemed more likely than a present. If it were some sort of prank or hate mail, she would rather open it without Gran seeing it and becoming upset. And she was really curious about what it was. Maybe it was something she’d unknowingly lost?

  She seized the box and gave it a careful shake to make sure she hadn’t missed any ticking or growling sounds. Or maybe she should worry about hissing. A box full of snakes would be bad, too. She held the box to her ear and heard no ticking, growling, or hissing. Satisfied that she was in no imminent danger from her mysterious package, she pried the tape up carefully. She slowly pulled open the flaps, wishing she’d thought to put on some sort of mask or eye protection. Maybe gloves. She should probably be wearing gloves, but she was too far along now to stop and equip herself. Once the flaps were totally peeled back, she allowed herself to fully look inside and found nestled on a bed of Styrofoam peanuts another box.

  The inside box wasn’t cardboard but made from a dark wood, maybe walnut. The center of the top had a pentagram with intricate inlaid carving around it. She reached in to lift it out and received a physical shock. It was like a powerful static shock but with goose bumps. The shock passed quickly. She jerked her hand back and looked down at the box in distrust. The shock hadn’t hurt her, just startled her. She didn’t know what the sensation had been. It had not been normal. She quickly went to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of oven mitts. That would teach her to never keep going when she could stop and equip herself.

  She came back to the coffee table with her hands safely covered and reached down to pick up the wooden box. She set it on the coffee table and placed the cardboard box to one side. She studied the wooden box’s top. The design looked vaguely Celtic, but she didn’t recognize it. The pentagram obviously meant it was an occult object, but she’d never been affected by an occult object before.

  She tried to open it with her mitt-covered hands but couldn’t seem to get a good grip on the lid. She’d have to use her bare hands. She steeled herself and slipped off one of the oven mitts. Pinning the box to the coffee table with her still oven-mitted hand, she extended her bare index finger and let it just barely touch the box. Her finger tingled again, but the sensation died down pretty quickly. It didn’t go away exactly, it was like when she smelled something really strong, but then her nose got used to the smell and stopped smelling it. The tingle reminded her of when she held a ghost’s anchor. It was a psychic sensation, not a physical one. The psychic sensation wasn’t the same, though. An anchor had a low hum about it while this box had a higher buzz. She tentatively touched it with the rest of her fingertips. Each new contact tingled, but the sensation quickly faded away. Still perplexed, but feeling the box was safe, or at least safe-ish, she removed her other oven mitt and tried to open it.

  The lid wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t figure out why. She saw no lock. It was obviously meant to be opened because it had small metal hinges on the back. Perplexed, she set the wooden box aside to look inside the cardboard box. She rooted around in the Styrofoam peanuts and snagged a folded piece of paper from the bottom. It had her name written on it. She opened the piece of paper and immediately went cold. It was a letter to her, and at the bottom, it was signed Ezekiel White.

  Mary,

  If you’re reading this, then it means you have somehow killed me. I can’t fathom how, but the pig entrails are rarely wrong.

  I send you this box, then, as my dying curse. Don’t bother trying to open it. You can’t. Don’t bother trying to destroy it, either. And get rid of it at your own peril.

  --Ezekiel White

  Mary grabbed the cardboard box to look at the postmark. It was three days old. Mr. White had sent it the day he died. She couldn’t believe he’d sent it. Why would he have mailed anything to her? He’d intended for the Shadowman to kill her. She picked up the wooden box again, her confusion ruling out all of her caution. Even as her fingers tingled, she shook
the strange box to hear what was inside. There was something, but it was muffled. She couldn’t tell what it was.

  She could hear Gran finishing up with her client. Mary grabbed everything and took it to her room. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she didn’t want to show Gran. Mr. White’s betrayal and death had hit Gran really hard. Mary had found her looking through some old scrapbooks with a sad look on her face. When Mary had asked what she was looking at, Gran had closed the scrapbook and said “bygone times”. Her voice had sounded so sad that Mary hadn’t asked any further questions. She’d caught a glimpse of a black and white photo of a young Gran flanked by two men. She recognized Grandpa on her left and the other smiling man looked like Mr. White. They’d had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were all smiling widely for the camera. This final act of hatred would devastate Gran.

  “Mary, are you home?” Gran called.

  “Yeah, Gran. Just putting my stuff away.” She shoved the box under her bed and promised herself she’d come up with a better hiding spot later.

  She went back down to the living room and joined Gran on the sofa. Gran had the remote and had turned the television to a game show. “How was your day at school?” she asked.

  It’d been her first day back since Mr. White’s death, and with how crazy things had been, with how crazy she’d been, she hadn’t told her yet about Kyle asking her to homecoming. “It was fine. I’m going to homecoming with Kyle.”

  Gran turned to her and blinked. “The boy we helped with Ricky?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “You like him?”

  She was kind of surprised by Gran’s incredulous tone. “Yeah, he’s pretty okay. Why?”

  Gran shook her head and turned back to the television. “Nothing. I just thought you were interested in his brother.”

  Mary grimaced at the mention of Cy. “I was, but he’s dating Vicky.”

  “So now you like Kyle instead?”

  She didn’t understand her questions. “Yeah, why?”

  Gran waved off her question. “Nothing. That’s nice, dear.”

  Feeling weird about Gran's questions, Mary rose from the sofa. “I’m going back upstairs to do homework.”

  Gran nodded absently. “I’ll call you for dinner.”

  “Where are you ordering from?”

  Gran shrugged. “Don’t know. How do hamburgers and fries sound?”

  “Sounds fine. Yell when the delivery person gets here.”

  She went back to her room. She’d lied about doing homework. She’d get to it later. Right now, she needed to figure out what this box was that Mr. White had sent her. She pulled it out again and stared at it. What could the curse be? Mary had no experience with curses. Gran didn’t make them. As far as she knew, Gran had never been consulted to break one either. Mary remembered reading that deathbed curses were the worst kind. But she felt like Mr. White calling this his dying curse was a little melodramatic. When he’d written the note, he was alive and well. Remembering how sallow and thin he’d appeared, Mary amended that thought. He, at least, hadn’t been desperately fighting for his life at that very minute.

  She stared and stared, but the box did nothing. If it was Mr. White’s dying curse, what was it supposed to do? How was it supposed to mess her up? She poked it to test the tingle. It was weird, but it wasn’t making her quake in her boots. She shook it again. Whatever was in there didn’t rattle around. There was just a dull thud sound.

  “Mary, dinner’s ready!”

  Ready? She pushed everything back under the bed and went downstairs to find Gran at the stove. She’d cooked dinner instead of ordering. Mary gave her a silent disapproving scowl as she swooped in and took the two plates of cheeseburgers and French fries. Mary had given up trying to make Gran use the crutches at home to keep weight off her sprained ankle, but she still tried to keep her from standing for any stretch of time. Gran’s ankle was on the mend, but it was slow. The swelling had gone down, but she still limped a lot and winced when she moved too quickly. Mary worried that Gran’s ankle wouldn’t fully heal if she didn’t keep off of it. As Mary rushed to get napkins, ketchup, and sodas out, Gran shut off everything on the stove and hobbled to her seat. Mary made a point of putting the cushioned footstool by her chair to prop up her foot.

  “You know, you’re ignoring everything you told me when I hurt my ankle. You wouldn’t let me get up for anything. You tried to get me to use a bedpan.”

  “That was only the first few days, and I’m much better now. It barely gives me any trouble.”

  Mary shook her head, knowing better than to argue. She put ketchup on her cheeseburger and took a bite. No matter how much she nagged, Gran would always be more stubborn than her, just like she’d always be older. “How was your day?” she asked around her bite.

  “So, so. Do you remember Mrs. Polk?”

  Mary swallowed her bite with a painful gulp. Guilt and sorrow constricted her throat. “Did she come looking for Chowder?” Chowder had been Mrs. Polk’s dog. She’d left the ghost dog with them because he’d caused problems with her new living dog. He was supposed to have been safe with them. Instead, he’d been destroyed protecting them.

  Gran reached over and patted her hand. “No, Mrs. Polk has lost her latest dog Tipsy, a Dachshund. She asked for my help finding him.”

  “When you say lost, do you mean location-wise or road kill?”

  “Location. She thought maybe I could sense him and tell her where to find him.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Gran sighed. “No, I’m not capable of that. I read her fortune and was able to tell her that Tipsy will reappear but not how or where. There are those who can do that. It’s called remote viewing. They think about what they want to see and it appears in their mind’s eye.”

  “Huh. That sounds like a neat trick.”

  “Yes, it was considered such a ‘neat trick’ that the CIA and the KGB tried to train soldiers to do it to help them with espionage.”

  “Really?”

  Gran nodded.

  “Could anyone in our family ever do that?”

  Gran didn’t answer right away. “I think I remember hearing about an uncle or someone who once could. Abilities are prevalent in our family.”

  “How’d he use it?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t recall.”

  “Still, it sounds pretty neat. He could’ve been a detective, specializing in missing person cases. He could’ve been famous.”

  Gran frowned. “He didn’t use it that way.”

  “Why not?”

  Gran shook her head with a shrug. “Maybe because he wasn’t as clever as you.”

  “Did anyone else have some different abilities?”

  Gran smiled. “What? Precognition, clairaudience, and remote viewing aren’t enough for you?”

  “I was hoping for some telekinesis or telepathy. Ooh, what about pyrokinesis?”

  Gran laughed. “No, thank goodness.”

  “So no X-Men in the family?”

  Gran’s brow scrunched. “That’s one of your superhero movies, right? I watched it?”

  “Yeah, it had the bald guy in a wheelchair. You thought he was cute.”

  Gran grumbled. “Older men are not cute. He was hot.”

  Thankfully, Mary wasn’t taking a sip of her soda when Gran said that, or she would’ve done a spit take.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  That Saturday, Mary had the house to herself. Gran had gone out shopping. She’d asked Mary if she wanted to go along, but she’d said no. She’d led Gran to believe she was going to just laze around the house, but she had plans. Or rather a plan. She was going to bury that box. Mr. White had sent it to her to mess with her. She still didn’t know how, but she wasn’t going to play along. Mr. White’s letter said she couldn’t open it or destroy it. Fine. She’d bury it and forget it. How was that for revenge?

  She grabbed the trowel from the back porch and stopped short as déjà vu hit her. She’d too rece
ntly used the same tool to bury something else. Her hand with the trowel shook, and her eyes became wet. The grief hit her by surprise. She took a few deep, calming breaths. She couldn’t let it debilitate her. She needed to deal with the box.

  Her first instinct was to bury it far away. Maybe not even on the property. She played with the idea of going out to find an abandoned lot somewhere filled with trash and junk, but she worried that that might activate whatever curse was on the box. She wished she could curse Mr. White for not telling her what the blasted curse he sent her was. Though the little dog deserved better company, Mary went to the crooked tree and began digging a few feet from Chowder’s mound. She couldn’t help speaking to the grave. Being able to speak to ghosts made it hard not to speak to someone even when their ghost was no longer there. It made her feel a little better, too.

  “Hey, boy. Need you to guard something for me. Can you do that?”

  She could almost hear the ghost dog’s pants, but they were only echoes of memories. Still, it made her smile to think about. One day unfortunately, the echoes would fade, and she’d have trouble even remembering what he’d looked like. Mr. White had done that. He’d taken Chowder away from them. She really wished she knew a curse that she could hurl at him even if he was dead.

  She’d put the strange box back inside the cardboard box it had been mailed in so she wouldn’t have to touch it. She’d also put Mr. White’s letter in the cardboard box as well. Everything involved was going in the hole. She was hiding a lot from different people. She hadn’t told Rachel about destroying the Shadowman. She’d shut Kyle out from all of it. And now she’d resorted to literally burying her secrets from Gran. Mary wasn’t sure if she liked the person she was becoming. Lying and hiding stuff weren’t scary. They were underhanded and despicable. She couldn’t even bring herself to keep up a running chatter with Chowder. She felt alone.

  She went back inside and turned on the TV to distract herself, but nothing was holding her attention. The box kept intruding into her thoughts. What had Mr. White sent her? What was it supposed to do? Her grand plan to forget it seemed to be failing. It was a relief when the phone started ringing. She checked the caller ID and recognized Rachel’s number.