by Apryl Baker
“Yeah, Doc, I think we figured that out already,” Eli says with just a hint of sarcasm.
The annoyed look Dan and Caleb give their brother has my eyes widening. It’s identical, and in that moment, it’s so easy to see they are brothers. I’m not the only one to see it, either. Eli blinks several times and then shakes his head as if to clear it, but the similarities between Dan and Caleb are too strong to ignore.
“I would say that Jonas made a deal for eternal life, but his wife’s deal trumped it,” Mr. Malone says thoughtfully. “The demon he made the deal with couldn’t un-ring the bell, so maybe he gave Jonas eternal life through the ghosts trapped here? As long as he’s able to siphon energy off them, he can maintain his base of power.”
“Old Jonas is having issues with that,” I tell them. “He’s losing his hold on some of the ghosts in residence. He told me that they’re growing just as strong as him.”
“And that’s why he wants you,” Mr. Malone’s shrewd gaze centers on me. “Doc says you are made up of ghost energy, a beacon of shining light to lost souls. If he has you, he can pull more ghosts in and feed off you for an eternity, he’d cement his power.”
“That’s exactly what he said,” I agree, “and that’s exactly why we have to stop him.”
“Mattie, it wouldn’t just be him we’d have to contend with.” Mr. Malone sighs. “There seem to be a lot of the bad ones here. You’ve met some of them.”
“Yeah, there are a lot of bad ones.” I nod. “But there are so many that are just lost. They call to me and I can’t ignore them, not after what I felt, what he did to me.” I shudder at the memory of all that despair that consumed me. I was ready to just give up after a couple hours. I can’t even begin to imagine what these other ghosts have gone through for God knows how long.
“Your gift is still working properly, then?” Doc asks, relieved. “I was worried that the tattoo the boys gave you would cause it to have issues.”
“It was hard at first,” I tell him. “Took me a minute to figure out how to hear only one voice in the hushed whispers, but piece of cake now.”
“So we just need to find his bones and torch him,” Caleb says. “If he was buried in the cemetery, it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“It’s never that easy,” I say. “This guy, he’s twisted, Caleb.”
“Mattie’s right,” Doc interrupts us. “I did a lot of research into the history of the house and its occupants. Jonas Sinclair was rumored to be of the devil himself, dabbling in sorcery and alchemy.”
“But he’s dead,” Dan interjects. “Doesn’t that mean he can’t do as much damage as he could before?”
Caleb and Eli both stare at him as if he’s a simpleton. Dan has never wanted any part of the supernatural world, but because of me, he’s had to learn about it. He just doesn’t want to wrap his head around it or he’d know better than to ask that question. Just because you die doesn’t mean you’ve lost your hold on anything.
“And how long have you been hanging out with the ghost chick?” Eli asks, his voice full of derision.
Dan glares at his brother. “It’s my fault I didn’t grow up a freak show like you?”
I wince. Does he think I’m a freak show, too?
“Brilliant,” Eli sighs, looking right at me. “Now you’ve upset Mattie…again.”
Dan whirls to face me. I try to keep my expression as blank as possible, but he knows me too well.
“Mattie, I didn’t mean you…”
Whatever,” I wave it off. There isn’t time to think about it right now. “Back to getting rid of Jonas. Why do you burn the bones?”
“His bones are a physical part of him,” Mr. Malone explains. “They keep him anchored to this plane of existence. If we destroy the bones, his anchor goes away and he moves on.”
“So all the ghosts I see are anchored here because of their bones?”
“Not necessarily just the bones,” Mr. Malone tells me. “It just has to be something with a strong emotional or physical tie to the ghost.”
“Something like this house?” I ask. “He’s spent a long time here, this house is his power base.”
Mr. Malone frowns. “Well, it just got a little complicated.”
“You don’t say?” I ask sarcastically. “Considering he probably knows exactly what we’re planning, what would you suggest?”
“No element of surprise,” Caleb muses, “but what if we split up? Two of us take the bones and the rest of us stay here and combat the house?”
“You make it sound like we’re going to war,” Dan scoffs.
“We are, little brother.” Caleb grins. “Welcome to the family business.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dan pitched a fit when Caleb suggested he go to the cemetery with him, leaving me here at the house. It’s not like I can leave. Jonas isn’t going to willingly let me out of this house. He plans on feasting off me, which means I have to die. Dan has no idea how to combat a vengeful spirit, especially one that made a deal with a demon. Caleb was right to make him leave. He’ll only get in the way of what we need to do here.
What that is, though, I don’t know. Eli, his dad, and Doc have been clustered together in the corner since Dan and Caleb left. I asked where Ben was and discovered Mr. Malone sent his youngest son back to the hotel with his mom earlier. That’s why I hadn’t seen him all night. I’m glad the kid’s safe from this mess. I know he’s probably used to it, but I don’t think it’s something someone so young should have to deal with.
I know there’s talk about burning the house down, but I don’t think it’ll work. It’s not just the house. There’s a cellar, a barn, slave quarters, and numerous other buildings on the property. We can’t burn it all down. Personally, I think our best bet is Eli’s sword. Jonas ran from it earlier. The problem is getting it close enough to him to do some damage.
“How you holding up?” Eli asks, startling me.
“Peachy,” I tell him. “You guys come up with a plan?”
“Dad wants to burn it down, but it’s not gonna work.” Eli shakes his head. “There’s too many buildings he could have left a piece of his DNA in.”
“I had the same thought.” I nod in agreement.
“We’re having a hard time coming up with an alternative plan. Our usual smash and bash isn’t gonna work here.”
“There’s one thing I can try,” I say hesitantly. It’s not something I want to do and I’m not sure I can since they put that tattoo on me. “I can ask the ghosts in the house. They may or may not answer.”
“That’s not a bad idea, Mattie,” Mr. Malone says from behind us. “A séance could cause a lot of unwanted problems, though. There are bad things in this house that could use it, too.”
“You’re looking at the ultimate Ouija board standing in front of you,” I remind him. “No need for a séance. I just have to open myself up and ask.”
“Can you still do that?” Doc asks. “Will the tattoo let her do that?”
Mr. Malone shrugs. “It didn’t alter her abilities, just gave her a buffer to them until she learns to control them. If she was talking to a ghost earlier, I’d say she’s on her way to doing that, but I’m not sure if it’ll hinder her from talking to all the ghosts at once or not.”
“Won’t know till we try,” I tell them.
“Do you need anything in particular?” Mr. Malone asks me.
“Just quiet so I can concentrate.” I go over and plop down on one of the couches. “I’ve only done this once before and those ghosts wanted to talk to me, so I’m not sure it’ll work here or not.”
Mr. Malone nods and he and Doc take a seat on the other couch. Eli settles himself beside me. I ignore the queasy feeling his presence causes and instead close my eyes.
The room is quiet and I let myself relax. I can feel the energy in me that allows me to speak to the ghosts. I’ve been getting better at accessing it since my time as a hostage. I grasp hold of it and let it spread through my body, and when I feel it re
ach my hands, I let it spiral outward, encompassing the whole of the property. The ghosts can feel my power and are drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. They are unable to escape my call.
Cold creeps into me, burning me, as the spirits flood the house. The air turns frigid and I can hear the kitchen sink down the hall start to run. I know without looking that every window and mirror in the room have iced over. I’m shaking from cold and Eli pulls me onto his lap, wrapping me in his heat. For once it actually lessens the pain of the cold, it takes the edge off. Odd, that’s never happened before.
“I need help,” I call out to them, speaking in my head. “I want to help you, to free you from this place, but I need your help to do that.”
Immediately, I’m bombarded on all sides and my head explodes in pain. “Stop, stop,” I say. “Not everyone at once, I can’t understand you all.”
Instant relief. I’m shocked they stopped so quickly, but then again, I’m offering them freedom.
“How can you help us? We have been trapped here for an eternity.”
I open my eyes and see a man of about forty or so standing in front of me. He’s wearing an old bowler hat, his pants and shirt so reminiscent of the 1920’s. I blink. Moonshine runner is my first thought. He grins at me and nods.
“How did you die?” I ask him.
“My brother and I were coming back from a run and we got shot by the sheriff. We was in a territory we didn’t know, so we didn’t know how to dodge him. Ed lived and I died.”
I loved his accent. His i’s were stressed, giving his speech the quaint charm of the mountains. “You were a long way from home if you were in New Orleans.”
“New Orleans?” he asks, confused. “No, we was up in Virginia when we got caught.”
“Then how did you get here?” I ask, just as confused. “We’re in New Orleans right now.”
He frowns, thinking. “When I died, I saw this bright light. It felt good, peaceful like, and I remember walking towards it and then…then I was here in this house and Jonas was telling me I had to do penance for what I did in life. I did some bad things, ma’am. I deserve penance, but not this. He hurts us all the time and we’ve tried to stop him, but we can’t. It ain’t right, all us suffering like this.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” a woman spoke up. “I was in a car crash in Arizona and ended up here.”
She is standing across from us, wearing jeans and a Poison tee shirt. Her blonde hair is all frizzed and puffed up like they wore back in the nineties. Her face is bleeding from a cut above her eye and several others covering the entire surface of her face. That’s not what killed her, though. It has to be the long shard of glass firmly lodged into her throat. My guess is she went through the windshield.
“What did Jonas tell you?” I ask curiously.
“Only that I was now a part of his family. I tried to leave, but there’s a barrier up around the house. It won’t let us out.”
That I didn’t know. I focus my thoughts and try to push outside the property. I can get through easily enough. Why can’t they?
I can hear them then, all of them, wailing in the background. They’re suffering so much and the reaper in me needs to help them, but how? I can’t shake the knowledge I know how to help them and it frustrates me that I can’t figure it out.
What I can do is open a doorway to the Between, the place between the living and the dead. A reaper usually ferries the soul through the Between as they pass from this plane to the next. There are very bad things in the Between that would gobble up a poor lost soul. If I open that up, I’d be condemning them to a worse fate than here.
“My friends and I are trying to destroy Jonas,” I tell them, “but we don’t know where he hides. If we can find him, we can kill him.”
“You can’t kill him,” another voice pops up. “He’s too strong. If you try, you’ll get killed same as us and then no one can help us.”
That voice belongs to a little boy of about ten or so. His skin is a dark ebony color and he’s sitting next to Doc, swinging his legs back and forth. His face is haunted and his eyes are bruised. There’s no obvious death wound on him, though, so I’m not sure how he died.
“How did you get here, sweetheart?” I ask him softly.
“I died here.” He shrugs. “We didn’t have enough food and I had to give mine up for the little kids. I went to sleep one night and woke up here in the big house.”
My heart goes out to him and I want to make everything all better. He’s just a little boy and I can see the suffering in his eyes. Jonas has been keeping them afraid, feeding off their fear for God knows how long. It isn’t right, not at all.
“Emma Rose, have you learned nothing?”
My head snaps around to see the painter lounging in the corner. His black eyes are shining with something like frustrated anger. How is he here? I thought he was just in my dreams.
“Dreams are easier to reach you in, but when you open yourself up like this, you let us all in, even Jonas. Don’t you feel it? He’s starting to drain you again.”
I close my eyes again and search for something off. I hadn’t felt anything, but then again, I’d been too busy listening to the ghosts. Ah, he’s right. I can even see it. My energy is being siphoned, pulled out from me and down the hall.
Wait, if I follow it, I can find him.
“Yes, you can find him, but unless you deplete his power base, you can do nothing to stop him,” the painter tells me.
“Why do you care?” I ask him. It’s odd that he’s trying to help me. Then again, I don’t think he’s ever really tried to hurt me, either. Sure, he’s scared me before, but he’s never tried to kill me.
His smile sends shivers up my spine. It promises so much and nothing good. “I have a vested interest in you, Emma Rose, and I mean to see you safe until I collect you.”
The threat is obvious and sets my own hackles rising. “Look here, buster…”
“Shush, child,” he says, his own irritation as obvious as my own. “I’m trying to help you.”
I shut my mouth.
“Good. To deplete his power base, you have to cross the souls over.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Yes, you do,” he counters. “You’ve done it before without even thinking about it. Think back to that day in the group home, the day all those ghosts were able to leave. You thought it was because the woman died, but as you know now, she was very much alive. It was all you, Emma. You opened that portal for them.”
“Why do you keep calling me Emma?”
“Because it’s your name, of course.”
“You know who I am?”
Instead of answering, he continues as if I hadn’t just asked the question. “You can open the door to the Between easily enough, but the portal to cross over is entirely different. That portal opens up and allows other reapers to help the souls to the next plane.”
“How do I do it?”
He sighs. “I’m not a reaper and so I can’t tell you. The answer is inside of you. Just think back to that day, think about what you did, what you were feeling. Let it flow from there.”
That day is NOT something I like to think about, but if it will help these people, I’ll try.
One of the many therapists I have been to over the years taught me a technique to remember things I don’t want to. You take a physical reminder of a memory and use it to recall things you don’t want to. I pretty much blocked out everything about that day, but I need those memories now.
I look down at my hands. They are scarred and slightly misshapen. A sledge hammer destroyed them. Mrs. Olson had done it while I’d been strapped down to a chair, unable to help myself. I open and close my fists, feeling the pain it still causes me and I remember running, my ankle twisted and my knee out of socket. The fear eats at me, makes me start to shake with the reminder of how helpless I felt.
I remember Mrs. Olson falling over the railing and I remember sinking down, thinking I was dying. I remem
ber all those ghosts who had helped me despite their fear, but mostly I remember Eric. He’d sat with me, held my hand, and told me it was going to be okay, that he was there with me. I’d felt safe and loved and so peaceful. It had been okay. We would cross over together.
There’s a gasp and the voices start to crowd in on me again, all of them excited and afraid.
I open my eyes and I see it. One of the walls has turned into a tunnel of soft, glowing light. I did it. Ohmygosh, I did it.
“It’s okay,” I tell them. “That’s where you’re supposed to be. You need to cross over. Go into the light. Someone is waiting for you there.”
“I see my brother!” the moonshiner says, excitement in his voice. “He says he’s been waiting for me for a long time.”
“Then go,” I tell him with a smile. Once he crosses into the light, the others begin to follow. They are like a stampede set loose. I can feel them flow from this world to the next. Hundreds of them.
“They’re coming, Emma Rose,” the painter whispers in my ear. “His guard is on the way. Tell them to be ready to defend you. You have to finish this or you can’t defeat Jonas.”
“Eli!”
“Yeah?”
His voice sounds a bit hushed. I glance at him. He and his dad are both staring at the portal with awe. They can see it?
“You see that?”
He nods. “It’s beautiful. You did it?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “but we got problems. Jonas is sending his nasties in to stop me from helping the ghosts cross over. If we don’t drain his power, we can’t defeat him. You have to keep them away from me until I finish this.”
He turns those beautiful aqua eyes to me and there’s something dark and forbidden in them. His face is hard and determined. He’s so beautiful in this moment, it hurts my eyes to look at him.
“They won’t touch you.”
He and his dad stand, swords drawn, as the doors to the library are blown open.
God help us now.