Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

Jaxon opens the door for her. For a split second he turns to look at me. Then he goes around his truck and gets in. They pull away without even saying goodbye. The Jaxon I know would never leave me here. Ever.

  “Shit.” I kick the ground.

  I pull out my phone and type in my group text to the Descendants.

  Me: Any chance you could pick me up at Niki’s?

  Alice: Niki’s??? We just got to school. Sit tight for a minute. I’m coming.

  I push the heavy lunchroom door open. Alice, Mary, and Susannah sit at their usual table near the window, and I head straight for them.

  “I heard Sam had a total meltdown this morning about Jaxon dating Niki,” Blair says loud enough for me to hear as I pass. I know I shouldn’t, but I look at her.

  The girls sitting with Blair laugh. I catch Matt watching us from the next table.

  Blair soaks up the encouragement. “Apparently, she showed up at Niki’s house today all weepy and—”

  “You know what’s a good story, Blair?” Matt interrupts. “The one from last weekend when you got drunk, broke your high heel, and face-plan’ed right in a pile of—”

  “Shut up, Matt!” Blair snaps, turning instantly red.

  “Oh, I thought we were tellin’ stories? I guess we’re not,” he says.

  I smile my thanks to him, and he nods.

  I sit down at the table with the Descendants.

  “Dude, if this day gets to be too much, just say the word and we’ll cruise out of here and eat donuts in my soundproofed room until we pop,” Alice says.

  I laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s all hearts and rainbows over here.” I open up my lunch bag. “How likely do you think it is that Niki and Blair will just drop this whole rivalry?”

  “Not very,” Mary says. “As far as I can tell, Niki makes it her personal mission to spread gossip.”

  “You’re telling me. There’s been an abnormal amount of whispers and looks today. I never thought I would say this, but I actually prefer getting questions about dead people.” I unload my enormous Meriwether lunch onto the table.

  “So…I have a theory about what happened—”

  “Suze,” Alice warns.

  “With Jaxon this morning,” Susannah continues.

  “Susannah. Seriously?” Alice’s voice is rough.

  Susannah and Alice stare at each other.

  “Mary, what’s going on?” I ask.

  “Susannah thinks Jaxon’s under a spell,” Mary says. “But Alice wasn’t convinced and wanted to check it out before we said anything to you. She worries that you’ll get upset if we’re right. Or if we’re wrong.”

  I look at Susannah, my heart beating a little faster. “Wait. Really?”

  “She’s having one of her feelings, which aren’t always right,” Alice says pointedly to Susannah.

  “I do have a feeling,” Susannah says. “And I’ve had a feeling that something wasn’t adding up for a while now. I’ve known Jaxon since we were in kindergarten, and the Jaxon I know would never, under any circumstances, leave you stranded on the sidewalk. It’s just not who he is. Plus, something doesn’t feel right about him. I talked to him today. He seems…cloudy, I guess is the best way to describe it.”

  Could that really be what’s going on with Jaxon? Please let that be it. Wait, that’s terrible that I’m hoping he’s under a spell.

  “You’ve said a couple of times that Jaxon wasn’t acting like himself,” Susannah says to me. “I saw him at breakfast that morning at your house. And yeah, he was overly straightforward, but not unbelievably so. But then there was that bracelet thing with Niki….”

  My stomach flip-flops. “Spells in objects. You don’t think that’s how he wound up under a spell, do you?”

  “We’ve gone to school with Jaxon all our lives, and we’ve seen him date girls before,” Susannah says. “He’s calm and casual about it. Then all of a sudden, in a matter of a few days, he’s head over heels for Niki, buying her a dance bracelet and blowing you off? We’ve never seen him like this. I spoke to Dillon.”

  “More like cornered him,” Mary says with a smile.

  “And even he agreed that Jaxon’s Niki obsession is over the top,” Susannah says.

  “Actually, Mrs. Meriwether said almost the same thing at breakfast this morning,” I say.

  Susannah nods like I’m confirming what she already knows. “One of these things alone wouldn’t be so strange, but all together they paint a really distorted version of Jaxon. And when someone changes their personality overnight like that, I don’t see another explanation except for a spell.”

  “Two things,” I say. “First, how do we confirm if he’s under a spell or not? Second, what does it mean if he is?”

  “If he’s under a spell,” Mary says, “my two cents is that it’s some kind of love spell. And the bracelet gives us a place to start from.”

  “I’m not following,” I say.

  “We might need to destroy the bracelet,” Mary says. “Preferably burn it.”

  “So we need to steal it from him?” I ask.

  “No,” Alice says. “From everything we’ve read, he’ll have to give it to us willingly. For love spells to work well, some part of you has to want to participate. And until you choose to stop participating, the spell can’t be broken. However, if he’s under a spell, it’s going to be hard to convince him to give us that bracelet.”

  I sit on my bed in a pile of Titanic notes. My phone vibrates.

  Susannah: Is Jaxon home?

  Me: Yeah. I’ll text you as soon as I finish eating.

  Alice: Deal

  Mary: Hugs 

  Alice: No one needs a hugs text with a smiley face. No one needs a smiley face, period

  Mary: No one needs a grouch text either

  Alice: I have no idea how we ever became friends

  Susannah: Because you’re secretly a softie

  Alice: Um, no

  “Sam!” my dad calls from downstairs. “Dinner.”

  Me: Eating now 

  Alice: I want out of this circle

  Susannah: Who said you were in? 

  I make my way down the stairs and toward the kitchen. The smell of melted cheese and tomato sauce greets me.

  The small table in the kitchen is set. A pan of steaming stuffed shells, which I know were made from scratch, is sitting in the middle.

  My dad walks toward the table. “Cheesy garlic bread and veggie meatballs because I know you love them.” He places them down on the table.

  “Thanks,” I say, but there’s no enthusiasm in my voice.

  I slide into my chair and he sits across from me. I focus on piling stuffed shells onto my plate.

  “Sam, I know you’re upset,” he says.

  I half grunt, half laugh. “I’m not sure ‘upset’ describes it.”

  “No, probably not.” He hesitates, like he’s considering his approach. “I know you really like your friends here.”

  I look up at him. “I do.”

  “And I know, believe me I know, how hard it was socially for you in New York.”

  “Then why do you want to move me away from them?”

  “I don’t want to move you away from them. I want to move you away from Salem. And I don’t, under any circumstances, want you doing magic. I know you can’t hear me on this. You think I’m being mean. But it’s the furthest thing from my intention. I’ve always wanted you to experience having best friends, and I can see how much these relationships mean to you. The girls can come and visit on weekends. I’ll send a car for them myself, or pay for their gas, or whatever it takes. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  “Taking me away from Salem is hurting me. It’s not just my friends. I mean, it is. But it’s also this house with all of our family stuff in it. It’s the weird town that treats Halloween like it’s the last party before the apocalypse. It’s Jaxon and Mrs. Meriwether. It’s a lot of things.”

  My dad almost laughs. “You know, I wanted
out of this place from the moment I could drive. But your mom wouldn’t hear of it. To her, Salem was the world. It was part of her identity in a way that I’ll never fully understand. I’ve never told you this, but I truly believe that she would still be alive if we hadn’t stayed here.”

  I tense. I know exactly why she died. “You think it was because of magic?”

  He nods. “That’s why I don’t want you to learn it or be anywhere near it. You are the most important person in my world. And I won’t risk you, even if you’re mad at me for the rest of your life.”

  I exhale. “Dad, the magic isn’t gonna go away if we move back to New York. I see spirits.” I pause. “I’ll just be that strange girl that everyone thinks is delusional. It’s not like that in Salem. People here actually believe that I see them, and they don’t think I’m a pariah. They like me for it.”

  My dad’s eyebrows push together. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”

  “Well, at least you can admit it,” I say.

  “I guess so. Although, frankly, the idea that you’re seeing dead people scares the hell out of me.”

  “Sometimes it scares me, too.”

  “We could try hypnosis.”

  “Dad.”

  “I’m not allowed to try to help?”

  “You’re not allowed to try to fix me. I’m not broken.”

  I stand on the brick sidewalk outside of my house with my arms wrapped around my chest against the night air. The girls pull up to the curb.

  “You ready?” Mary asks, getting out of the Jeep.

  “Ready,” I say. “Although I still can’t figure out what Jaxon and a love spell could possibly have to do with the Titanic, the Collector in Redd’s warning, and all the Myra objects.”

  “Yeah, but if we find out he is under a spell, it would be too much of a coincidence for it to be happening right now,” Alice says as we walk to Mrs. Meriwether’s front door. “And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Agreed,” I say. “Plus, if it is the bracelet, then we’re talking about another spell in an object.”

  “But what possible connection would a spell on Jaxon have to a spell on Titanic passengers?” Mary asks.

  “Not a clue,” Alice says, “which is why I’m seriously hoping we find out it’s not a spell.”

  Susannah knocks. It only takes a few seconds for Mrs. Meriwether to answer.

  “Girls! What a lovely surprise. Come in.” She closes the door behind us. “You’re just in time to try my lavender lemonade and my cream puffs filled with white chocolate mousse and crushed raspberries.”

  Mary’s mouth opens. “Can I live with you?”

  Mrs. Meriwether laughs.

  “Is Jaxon home?” I ask.

  “In his room,” Mrs. Meriwether says. “Want me to call him down?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll just pop upstairs for a minute.”

  The girls follow Mrs. Meriwether to the kitchen.

  I take the stairs fast, running my fingers along the driftwood banister, and stop in front of Jaxon’s closed bedroom door.

  I knock. “Jaxon?”

  He opens it, and his familiar woodsy scent billows out. “Sam?”

  “Can I come in for a minute?”

  He steps aside, and I walk past him into his navy blue bedroom, which is filled with handmade furniture. There are model ships on the walls.

  “So what’s up?” Jaxon says without any of his usual friendliness.

  “Just wanted to see if you had the history homework,” I say.

  “It’s in the packet. Page twenty-seven, I think. Was that it? I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

  “Also, I saw you got one of those bracelets.”

  “Huh?”

  “The bracelet you were wearing the other day with the anchor on it, the ones the dance committee’s selling?”

  “Uh-huh,” he says, staring at his phone and not looking at me.

  Man, is he rude. “I was thinking about getting one myself.”

  “Cool.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look at yours?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “You’re saying you’re not going to let me see your bracelet?”

  “I guess not.” He types on his phone, and a small piece of the blue cord peeks out from under his sleeve.

  “It’s right on your wrist. Is it such a big deal to take it off for a second?”

  Jaxon eyes me suspiciously. “Sam, I’m busy.” He looks down at his buzzing phone, and the tension leaves his expression. He smiles.

  “Dude, you left me stranded in front of Niki’s this morning. The least you could do is look at me instead of your phone for the two minutes I’m in your room.”

  Jaxon answers his phone. “Hold on just a sec, Nik.” He looks at me. “Sam, I gotta go.”

  Well, that settles that. I walk out, because I don’t know what else to say. Jaxon’s definitely under a spell. How did I not notice this sooner?

  I quickly head down the stairs and into the kitchen. The girls all look at me with questioning eyes, and I’m pretty sure my face betrays the answer.

  “Cream puff?” Mary offers.

  “No thanks. I just ate a big dinner,” I say.

  “Now wait a minute,” Mrs. Meriwether says. “You look upset, Sam. Was Jaxon rude? He’s been in a mood recently.”

  “No, not exactly,” I say.

  “We think Jaxon might be under a love spell,” Susannah says.

  Did she just tell Mrs. Meriwether that? The world blurs for a second.

  “Samantha was checking out the bracelet he’s wearing to see if it has a love spell on it, and my guess is that it does,” Susannah says, and looks at me.

  Mrs. Meriwether places her hand over her heart.

  “Samantha, I think you should go home,” Susannah says, her voice measured and confident. “Alice, will you go get the spell book? I think between what we brought and what’s growing in Mrs. Meriwether’s garden, we’ll have enough ingredients if we need to do an additional spell.”

  “A love spell?” Mrs. Meriwether says. “I knew something wasn’t right about the way he was acting toward Niki, but I wouldn’t have guessed this.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I say, incredulous. “If he’s under a spell, I want to help break it.”

  Susannah shakes her head. “Your father already wants you to move away from Salem. This is only going to further convince him that magic is bad. And breaking the spell or not won’t depend on you being here.” She pauses. “Also, if you care about your dad and Mrs. Meriwether’s friendship, you won’t strain it by doing magic in front of her.”

  I waver. “But it’s Jaxon.”

  Mrs. Meriwether nods, tension pulling at her forehead. “I don’t want you to go, either, honey. But Susannah’s right. Go on home and we’ll keep you updated. And I promise if we need you we’ll call.”

  Alice drags me down the hallway and out the door like a mother pulling her child away from the playground.

  I stop when we reach the driveway. “You’re not going to tell her everything that’s been—”

  “Are you insane? Definitely not. We’ll tell her it’s Niki’s fault and that’s it. And you need to keep yourself calm. You already did your part. Let us take a whack at it. I didn’t know Suze was gonna out us like that, either. But she always has her reasons, and as much as I fight her, when everything comes to light…she’s usually right.”

  I chew the crap out of my pen cap and stare out the window at the Meriwethers’ house.

  Elijah blinks in.

  I swing my legs down from my window seat and take the cap out of my mouth. “What’s the update?”

  “Alice took Susannah and Mary home, and now it is just her and Mrs. Meriwether. Jaxon is thoroughly refusing to cooperate. They have tried everything from logic to bargaining to get him to willingly take off the bracelet. Currently, he has locked himself in his room and is talking to Niki.”

  “And Mrs. Meriwether?”


  “Committed to finding a solution and shaking large spoons at whoever did it.”

  I smile at the visual. “How does this connect to everything else, Elijah? If this is just Niki being infatuated with Jaxon, then I get it. But if it’s tied to the Titanic and possibly to the Collector, what’s the motive?”

  “I could not say. It seems more likely that Niki attained a love spell. But the fact that it came in an object is troublesome. When did you notice the change in his behavior?”

  I tap the pen against my note cards. “I guess I really noticed a shift the day after the drowned man gave me the dog collar.”

  “The day after you went on a date with Jaxon.”

  “It wasn’t a date.” Who cares if he thinks it was a date?

  “Is it possible someone thought Jaxon was distracting you from focusing on Myra?” he says.

  I consider his words. “You’re saying you think whoever’s behind this might have wanted us to find Myra so badly that he or she would actually try to eliminate Jaxon?”

  “It is not an entirely good reason, but it is the only one I can think of,” he says.

  “No, it actually could make sense,” I say. “All of those Myra objects showed up in a really short period of time, like someone urgently wanted us to find her. And in that case, maybe Jaxon was a distraction. But what’s the rush? Why didn’t this person just trap her himself?”

  “Perhaps he or she could not locate her,” Elijah says. “I did a great deal of searching, you will recall, but it was you who ultimately found her.”

  “Elijah, do you think Redd could be right? That this person is actually collecting spirits?”

  “I think that it is more logical than not, considering what we have observed,” Elijah says.

  “You are invited back,” Ada says, and Elijah and I jump. She stands in the middle of my room. Her hair is in braids again. Only this time there is no joy in her expression, no laughter.

  My heart thuds. “Ada?”

  “You are invited back,” she says again, a little louder.

  “Invited where? To the Titanic?” I ask.

  She nods.

  I move toward her, but she takes a step away from me.

  “Who told you to tell me that?” I ask.