by E. E. Holmes
Patricia dropped her face into her hands and began to sob quietly. “I knew it,” I could hear her saying, over and over again. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
“It may just be that Reggie is trying to comfort you,” I said, my voice shaking as I tried to stay professional while fighting a mad desire to burst into tears myself. David nodded encouragingly. “But there’s also the possibility that he’s trying to communicate something to you, something he wants you to know.”
“You mean about where he is? Or how he… he…” Lionel couldn’t finish the question. The word we all knew he couldn’t bring himself to say hung heavily in the air between us.
“Yes,” I replied, so that they knew I understood what it was they couldn’t say. “And I want to be honest with you about what my abilities are. I have no interest in disillusioning you or building up your hopes. I don’t see spirits walking around the world, as clear as living folks. For instance, I can’t see him sitting there next to you on the sofa, even if that’s where his spirit happens to be. For me, spirits always reveal themselves in bursts of energy. Sometimes that energy will manifest as a visual flash—almost like I’m watching someone’s memory. Other times, it might simply be a wave of emotion that washes over me. Other times still, I might pick up on a word, or an image that provides a clue as to what the spirit is fixated on.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that David was as captivated by what I was describing as the Thompsons were. If he could have done so without seeming rude or unprofessional, I knew he would have whipped out a pen and paper and started taking notes like an overeager student in a college seminar. He managed to restrain himself, however, and when I caught his eye, he had settled his expression into one of calm attentiveness. Confident that he was going to allow me to finish, I went on.
“It’s possible that I won’t be able to get a completely clear message from your son. Even since you’ve walked in the door, the energy around you has faded considerably. That doesn’t mean that he’s not here,” I added hastily, seeing the stricken looks on their faces. “But it may mean that he’s not keen to communicate with the crazy tarot card lady.” I tried to smile and was rewarded with a weary sort of nod in return. “But I think, if you stay here while we continue to investigate, we will have better luck understanding what’s been happening to you, and what’s happened to Reggie.”
Patricia and Lionel looked at each other, engaging in the kind of silent conversation only truly connected couples can have. Then they turned back to David and me and nodded in unison.
“Of course,” Lionel said. “We’ll do anything to help. That’s why we’ve asked you all here.”
With the Thompsons now present and seated in the living room, the rest of the team reconvened at the tech table to come up with a new game plan—a plan which, as it turned out, centered around me.
“I think we need to give Annabelle the space to connect,” David said at once. “But it would be foolish not to have equipment running at the same time, in case there is communication that might be documented in another way.”
“Yeah, a two-pronged approach,” Oscar said, nodding his agreement. “That seems the best use of our resources.” He looked up at me, smiling sheepishly. “Not that I’m calling you a resource, of course.”
“I’ve been called worse,” I replied, smiling back.
“Where do you think you’d like to set up?” David asked me. “Do you want to do another walk-about? Or maybe stay with the Thompsons?”
I bit my lip, thinking. “The thing is, I think Reggie might be frightened of us—or at least wary. Otherwise, he would have stayed behind to try to communicate with us instead of following his parents out of the house. Even the initial energy I sensed when they walked in the door has faded—like he’s trying to hide from us for some reason.”
“Well, we are a bunch of strangers who have invaded his house,” Iggy said reasonably. “And his parents said they’ve tried absolutely every avenue to get help, so he might be just as wary as they are at this point. Maybe he’s trying to protect them by avoiding us.”
“Huh,” Pierce said, scratching at his beard. “I hadn’t considered that, but you have a point. Not everyone believes in the validity of ghost hunting, and I imagine that even applies to ghosts.”
“So how do we convince him we’re here to help and not to take advantage of his parents?” Oscar asked.
“I… think maybe I need to try to make direct contact with Reggie,” I said slowly. “Maybe if I can earn his trust, he will try to use the tools available to him to get his message across to his parents.”
“That’s a good idea,” David said. “And like we said, we can wire the room from top to bottom, for redundancy. Where do you want to do it, Annabelle?”
“Let’s get in his space,” I replied. “His bedroom.”
While David explained our plan to Lionel and Patricia, Oscar, Iggy, and Dan moved the bulk of the equipment to Reggie’s room. They set up stationary video and thermal cameras to cover every angle, and left them recording. They placed voice recorders around the room as well, and left them on. They provided me with an EMF detector and showed me how to use it, though, as Iggy said, I was pretty much a human version of the thing to begin with. We also put a number of Reggie’s parents’ belongings in strategic positions around the house, documenting exact positioning, in the hopes that we might be able to catch the movement of objects to Reggie’s room, as his parents had reported. Finally, when we had been as thorough as it was possible to be, they left me alone in the room.
I sat down on Reggie’s bed and took a deep breath, realizing as I did so just how nervous I really was. I’d interacted with hundreds of spirits, sensed them effortlessly, but never with this kind of pressure, never with this kind of an audience. I knew my abilities were real, but here I was, suddenly wondering if they were all just in my head.
“Get a grip, Annabelle,” I whispered. “People are depending on you.” Then I raised my head, cleared my throat, and began.
“Reggie, if you can hear me, my name is Annabelle Rabinski. I’m not being paid to be here. I’m not using your parents for publicity or anything like that. In fact, I’ll be happy never to talk about tonight again, to anyone, if it will put your mind at ease. The only reason I’m here is to try to help you.”
A gentle whoosh of energy permeated the room, and I knew Reggie was listening.
“If you think all this ghost hunter stuff is bullshit, you’re not alone,” I said, making a mental note to apologize to the team later. “I was convinced of that myself, until tonight. But I sensed you at the convention last weekend. I sensed your energy around your parents. I even saw and heard you for the briefest moment, when you told your mother not to cry.”
Another whoosh. The EMF detector in my hand lit up like a Christmas tree. Every hair on my head felt electrified at the roots. I felt the question more than I heard it. It formed in my head as a thought, rather than echoing in my ears as a sound.
You heard that?
“Yeah, I did,” I replied. “I could see you, too—the shape of you, just for a second. You were behind her, trying to put your hand on her shoulder.”
The energy in the room intensified as Reggie’s excitement grew. Again, his question reached me as though dropping into my head like a coin into a bank.
Help me. Please. You have to help me.
“That’s what I’m here for. I know you’re trying to get a message to your parents. What is it? What do you need them to know?” I asked.
A creeping feeling of numbing cold came over me, and a feeling of suffocating pressure. For a moment, the room had no air, just crushing weight and darkness. Then it was over, and I was left gasping for breath.
“Buried. You’ve been buried somewhere,” I whispered. “Do you know where?”
Nothing. No coin into the bank.
“Okay, you don’t know where you are,” I deduced. “But can you tell me who put you there?”
A d
uality entered my consciousness. Two. Two figures. Male.
“Do you know them, Reggie? Can you tell me anything about them?” I whispered.
I heard a clinking sound and whipped around to stare behind me. There on the windowsill, which had been empty not a moment before, was a set of keys. I recognized it right away as the set that Oscar had carefully placed on the coffee table in the living room—it had the same braided leather keychain on it. Slowly, I leaned over and touched them with a single finger. The cold was radiating from them and the energy of it was so intense that I received an actual shock.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What does this mean? Is it the keys? Are the keys the clue? Should we be looking for a key?”
And even as I stared at it, the set of keys trembled, vibrated, and with what I knew to be a massive effort on Reggie’s part, fell from the window sill and slipped down between the bed and the wall.
With my heart still hammering at having witnessed the keys move, I shoved my hand between the bed and the wall to retrieve them. My fingers fumbled around and finally closed not on the keys, but on what seemed to be a piece of paper wedged tightly between the boxspring and the wall. I tugged on it, but did not want to tear it, whatever it was. I slid off the bed, grabbed the leg of the bed and pulled hard, managing to slide the heavy oak frame an inch or so out from the wall. Then I peered under the bed and saw that the trapped paper, freed at last, had fallen to the floor beneath the bed. I slid my head and shoulders under the bed to retrieve it, and pulled it out into the light.
It was a photograph. A photograph of three boys posing in front of a sleek red car. One of them was Reggie, with an easy smile. I turned my attention to the other two.
All at once, I was mentally assaulted by a barrage of images. Two boys rolling up to the sidewalk in that red car. An argument. Blinding pain. Confusion. Hands bound. Darkness. Fear. Cold.
I slipped from the bed, overcome with nausea and dizziness. Somewhere I heard concerned voices and pounding footsteps, but I couldn’t focus on them.
“They did this to you. Your friends.”
The energy sang with relief that someone had heard him at last.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Tell them. Please.
Suddenly, David was beside me, tugging at my arm, hurling frantic questions at me.
“Are you okay? Annabelle, what happened? Can you speak to me?”
I held the photo out to him and tried to speak. My voice sounded weak and slurred. “This was why he was leaving everything on that window sill. He wanted his parents to find this photo. He couldn’t move it himself because it was too tightly wedged between the bed and the wall— he didn’t have enough energy. These are the boys. The police need to find these boys and search for this car. They did something to him. That’s what Reggie’s been trying to say.”
Pierce stared down at the photo and then back up at me, wonder all over his expression. “Are… are you sure?”
“Yes!” I cried. “Yes. Go. Give this to the Thompsons. Tell them… tell them this is what Reggie wants them to know. I’m fine, just go!”
Without further argument, David took the photo from my trembling fingers and ran from the room with it. I sat on the floor, a feeling of wonderful release and calm coming over my body. And although I did not see nor hear him, Reggie’s gratitude sang in my bones, and I knew I had done what I could for him.
§
Over the next few months, our tiny moment of connection with Reggie Thompson rippled out into the world. I’m not sure how Lionel and Patricia convinced the police to follow the tip of the boys in the photograph, but somehow, they did so without dragging me into it. Within two weeks, the boys had been arrested for Reggie’s murder. Within another week, Reggie’s body had been recovered, buried in a construction site only a few miles from his house. And though the community had to endure the agony of a trial and the knowledge of what had befallen Reggie at the hands of two of his most trusted friends, it was at least more bearable than the agony of not knowing at all.
But even as Reggie’s story faded from the newspaper headlines, my relationship with David and his team solidified into something lasting, and it was cemented at last when David walked into my shop four months later, a small cardboard box in his hand.
“Hey, I’ve got something for you. Well, two things, actually,” he said by way of a greeting.
I looked down from my perch atop a ladder, where I had been restocking books on witch hunts and Wiccan spells. “Really? Should I be alarmed?” I asked.
“Just come down here and open it, will you?” David replied, rolling his eyes.
I descended the ladder and wiped the dust from my hands. “Okay, then. Let’s have it.”
David reached into his coat pocket and dropped a smooth, heavy something into my outstretched hand. I looked down and blinked in surprise at a round, clear, resin paperweight. Suspended within it were little paper squares painted with gold letters that spelled out, “Carpe Diem.”
I looked up at David, bewildered. “What’s this?”
“It was Reggie’s. His parents wanted you to have it. They gave it to me after the memorial and asked me to pass it along to you.”
My eyes filled with tears. “I just couldn’t go. It was too…”
“I know,” David said, his voice gentle. “They understood. But they still wanted you to have this. As a thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I placed the paperweight on the counter beside my cash register.
“And these are from me. Well, from the whole team, actually.” He held out the little cardboard box. I lifted the lid and extracted a business card from the top of the pile inside and read the tiny print:
Annabelle Rabinski
Psychic Medium
Ghost Hunters of Central Massachusetts
I looked up at him, my mouth falling open.
“It was presumptuous, obviously, to have the cards printed, since we haven’t even asked you yet,” David said quickly. “But it felt like a good way to demonstrate how much we really want to make you an official member of the team—you know, if you want to be.”
“What were you planning on doing with them if I said no?” I asked, smirking.
David shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I thought if I put it in print, it would come true. So, what do you think?”
I gazed at his anxious expression for a moment before allowing my smirk to break into a genuine smile. “I’d be delighted to join you, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my ability to keep the shop running.”
David’s face split into a grin and he thrust out a hand, shaking mine so hard I nearly dropped the box of cards. “That’s great! Oh, sorry. That’s… that’s really great. Thank you. And we understand—your business comes first. We’ll be glad to take you whenever we can get you.”
“Okay, then. It’s a deal.”
“Brilliant. You won’t regret it,” David said.
And he was right. I never did.
3
Carrick’s Story
I HEARD HER before I ever saw her.
Yes. I’ll start there. That was the beginning, really. It began with a laugh.
The new Apprentices and Novitiates were arriving upon the grounds—a hectic and disorganized process that I detested. My training had taught me to be hyper-vigilant of excess noise, movement, and activity, and so move-in day was a headache from start to finish. I felt like every nerve, every sense was heightened beyond my threshold for tolerance. Finvarra looked down over the proceedings with her usual air of detachment and calm. As Deputy High Priestess, soon to be groomed as High Priestess, she had overseen many move-in days.
“You’re on edge, Carrick,” she said, and though I was not looking at her, I could tell that she was smirking at me. I could hear it in her voice.
“Yes,” I replied, and left it at that. Far be it from me to complain, particularly about situations over which I had no control.
“Don’t worry. We’ll soon be settled from this chao
s into our usual chaos.”
“I’m not worried,” I insisted. “And yes, normal chaos I can handle.”
“I’ve yet to encounter anything you could not handle.”
“You’re too kind.”
She moved away from the window. I remained, scanning the crowds below, on high alert for disturbances or disruptions.
“What are your thoughts, then, about this new crop of Novitiates?” she asked me a few moments later, when she had settled behind her desk. I turned to see that she was flipping through the roster and registration forms that I had brought up to her office at her request. “A rather large group, isn’t it, that your men are taking on this year?”
“It is,” I acknowledged, taking time to weigh my next words. “They are versed, though. Largely older bloodlines, with good role models. I am hopeful they will be competent in the basics, at least.”
“Let us hope so, after last year,” Finvarra said with a sigh.
I cleared my throat but did not reply. It had only been a few months since we had had to expel a Novitiate from the ranks, and the fog of scandal still hung over the barracks. It had caused quite the uproar amongst the Council as well, given that the young man was from a Council family and therefore very prominent. But I had argued my case, and prevailed. Exceptions could not be made for one who chose to flout the Code of Conduct simply because he was from a Council family. Indeed, his position was, in my opinion, a further strike against him. Who among the Novitates, I insisted, could have known better what the expectations were? Who should have had a greater sense of duty than a young man of such a pedigree? His trespasses were, in my view, all the greater given his privilege and upbringing.
It was rare that a member of a Council family be met with true consequences. Many of their indiscretions were swept under the rug or else minimized and met with a mere slap on the wrist. But there was no such leeway in the Code of Conduct as it applied to the indiscreet relations between Caomhnóir and Durupinen. There could be no leniency there; upon that much, there was universal agreement.