A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Seven

by K. J. Emrick

  With one hand, she pushed back her wet hair, reminding herself that it actually was raining outside. The real world, reflecting her inner turmoil.

  Enough of that.

  She pushed it all aside, everything except her worry for her daughter, and settled herself more comfortably on the tiled floor. She was sitting cross-legged, with her hands upturned in her lap, ready to begin. Usually, she’d be surrounded by a ring of five candles. She’d skipped that this time for fear of setting off the hospital’s sprinkler system with the smoke. She was wet enough as it was, and suddenly being sprayed by jets of water when she was reaching out to the spiritual plane would not help her concentration one bit.

  So instead of candles, she’d opted for a circle of ground rosemary, a spice well known for increasing memory and concentration. Eyebright worked better, but in the middle of January it wasn’t exactly easy to get her hands on. Rosemary was available on the shelves of any grocery store. The bottle in her kit still had the price tag sticker on it.

  Speaking of spices… she held up the little packet she’d made from a torn strip of paper towel from the dispenser over the sink. It was folded up around the mixture she’d put together just a few minutes ago, the top of it twisted up tight so it wouldn’t unravel. It was about the size of gumdrop. Just a gumdrop, she told herself. That’s all it was. Just a nasty, gross, paper towel wrapped gumdrop.

  Darcy stared at it with a grimace, and then popped it into her mouth.

  She chewed on it, counting slowly in her head to thirty, forcing herself to keep it in her mouth the whole time. The taste was less than pleasant. Actually, that was an understatement. What it tasted like was what she imagined beach sand at a nudist colony would taste like. She’d never tried this before, and she prayed to God that it was worth it.

  When she was sure it had been half a minute, Darcy pulled the short plastic trashcan over closer and dropped the wad of it out of her mouth. She was careful not to spit it out, using the tip of her tongue instead to push it out. She was saving the spit for later.

  She usually had to hold a personal item of the person she was trying to reach, too. A locket or a photo or whatever. It helped make the connection between the world of the living, and the world of the dead. She didn’t have anything like that this time, because the link was already strong. The person she was going to reach out to… was her own daughter.

  Or rather, the thing she suspected of being inside of her daughter.

  Darcy took a deep breath in and pushed all the noise in her head away. “Colby,” she whispered to herself. “Colby. I’m here.”

  Deep breath in, deep breath out, and focus within yourself. Just breathe.

  Darcy worked the steps of the spirit communication the same as she had dozens, maybe hundreds of times before. She cleared her mind, and found her center, and stepped into it.

  When she did, she found herself in an endless place, surrounded on all sides by swirling eddies of mist that moved like they were alive. Alive, and watching. Gray and white and shadowy black, it was everywhere, and it was endless. There was no ground where she walked. There was no sky above her. This place didn’t really exist, after all. It was a complete fabrication of her mind, an empty space that could act as a bridge between where her body rested in the world of the living, and the next place where the spirits of the dead resided.

  This was by far the most intense aspect of her gift. It took a lot out of Darcy every time she performed a spirit communication. Sometimes it took her just minutes to recover afterwards, sometimes it took hours. It all depended on how long she stayed in this place. It had been harder on her still when she was young and just learning how to use these talents she’d been born with.

  For Colby, it had been even worse.

  It was when Darcy had remembered that one time when Colby tried to perform a spirit communication by herself, at the tender age of seven, that she understood what had happened. All these years, and she thought that her daughter had come out of that trance unscathed by her experience. She thought everything was fine.

  She’d been wrong.

  “Colby?” she called out into the misty void. She looked around, trying to see through the roiling depths of the mists. She saw shadowy forms that skittered away when she tried to focus on them. It might have been just her imagination, or the layers of thick fog playing tricks on her mind. It might have been ghosts who were attracted to her presence, too. It was hard to tell.

  Either way, there was no answer from her daughter.

  This was the realm of the dead, and Colby had no place here. Darcy was only going to be able to reach out to Colby’s spirit—her essence, or what many called the soul—because they were family. Mother, and daughter. They were connected through their genes.

  Through their blood.

  The presence of two blood types in Colby’s one sample meant something very different to Darcy than it had to Doctor Malik. Where he saw a clerical error, she saw it for what it really was. Something that had no medical reason for existing. Something unexplainable to men of science who didn’t believe in ghosts, or the veil between life and death, or the existence of good… and evil.

  “Colby?”

  Her voice echoed back to her from all directions, louder and softer and distorted. Other voices, nothing more than whispers, joined in with her own. They mocked her, and called out to her, and laughed or cried or hissed in anger. She was used to this, as much as anyone possibly could be. These spirits were only curious about her, and what she was doing here, and as long as they kept their distance, she didn’t pay them any mind. It was when they came close, begging for her help or demanding that she listen to them, that she got worried. Ghosts weren’t always at rest. Rest in Peace wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be.

  All around her, the mists moved.

  Darcy sighed, and the sound of it was like a hurricane howling in her ears. Her emotions were getting away from her again. Telling yourself to stay calm was all well and good, until you were in a place like this. There was no up here. There was no down. Distances meant nothing. Colby’s inner spirit could be wandering a hundred miles away or right next to her and Darcy would never know, if she didn’t answer.

  Experimentally, she flung out her hand to one side, stirring the mists into a frenzy but finding nothing. Nope. Not there.

  Frustrated, she fisted her hands up tight against her hips and screamed into the twilight darkness. “Colby!”

  Colby, her voice echoed. Colby COLBY colby cOlBy!

  Then, from some distant corner of the endless space, she heard a single whisper cutting through everything else.

  “Mommy?”

  Darcy almost cried in relief. Deep breath in, deep breath out, she reminded herself. Center. Keep your center. “Colby, come to the sound of my voice, okay? Can you hear me, honey? Follow my voice and come this way, all right? Come to me.”

  “Okay.” Her voice came at Darcy from a long distance, distorted like she was hearing it through a tunnel, but by the end of that one word it was loud and clear and right next to her.

  Just like Colby was.

  She was blurry, and indistinct where she wasn’t nearly transparent. She wasn’t really here anymore than Darcy was but that didn’t stop her mother from wrapping her in her arms and holding her close. There was barely any substance to her. “Colby. You scared me, honey.”

  “Mom? Why are we here?” Colby blinked around them as if only now realizing this wasn’t her hospital room. “Did we do a spirit communication?”

  “No, I did that, honey.” Darcy put her hand to her daughter’s forehead, feeling a ghostly sort of heat that was a pale reproduction of what Colby was actually feeling back in her bed. “We needed to have a talk about what’s happening to you.”

  “Here?” Colby stretched and yawned. She was still in her hospital gown, her dark brown hair with its usually hidden auburn highlights mussed from lying on the pillows. “You couldn’t just wait for me to wake up and talk to me then?”
r />   “Not this time. Sorry, but it needed to be here.”

  “How come?”

  They’d done this sort of thing before. This was how Darcy was teaching Colby to do a spirit communication the right way, by coming into the in between space with her and guiding her. This was nothing new for her daughter.

  Tonight, she wanted Colby here for a different reason.

  Sometimes, rare as it was, the spirits on this side of the veil didn’t stay here. When people saw ghosts, it was because someone had died but wasn’t ready to move on, for whatever reason. It didn’t happen often. If every dead soul who had ever passed on showed up on Earth at the same time, there would be no space left for the living. It only happened sometimes, but it did happen. For the most part, ghosts were harmless. They needed help, or they wanted to watch over family members, or they just got lost. They came and they went, and they didn’t bother anyone.

  A very few of them, the darker ones, could become malevolent and devious. Evil.

  Dangerous.

  Which was why Darcy felt she had to take this step with her daughter, drastic though it might be.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Colby again.

  She looked up at her with a face that was so very similar to Darcy’s own, with eyes that trusted that everything would be all right, so long as her mother was here with her. “Sorry?” she asked. “What are you sorry for?”

  Darcy rocked back on her heels. “This.”

  Drawing her hand back she shoved it forward, hard into Colby’s chest. In this in between space, with their bodies incorporeal and hazy, her palm went into her daughter… through her daughter… and out the other side…

  Tearing a ghost from her daughter’s body.

  Chapter 11

  Colby screamed, both in pain and in distress, and fell over into the mists, curling up in the fetal position with her hands wrapped around herself. The sound of that scream echoed out across the nothingness and bounced back at them. It was so loud that Darcy was sure Jon must have heard it back in the hospital.

  The ghost screamed with her. Darcy wanted to grab Colby and wake them both up, right now, bring them both back into the world of the living and leave behind this ghost that had been possessing Colby. The only thing stopping her was that she knew it was too much of a risk. This spirit… this entity… it had been attached to her daughter for four years now. There could still be stringy, invisible connections between them that would end up dragging the ghost along, right back into her daughter.

  Darcy faced off with her. It was a woman, middle aged and haggard looking, her face pinched and narrow. She was in a gray dress that had probably been out of style more than a hundred years ago. Her hair was the same color, drawn up in a loose bun on top of her head. Around her neck, a necklace of heavy silver links reflected a light that wasn’t there.

  “You,” the woman accused Darcy, pointing a crooked finger. “I knew you were too smart for your own good.”

  Her accent was French. Actually, Darcy had the impression that she was speaking French and somehow the words were being translated by this in between place. Any other time she would have found that fascinating. Right now, she didn’t care. This was the reason for her daughter’s sickness, and it ended now.

  “You’ve been infecting my daughter.” Darcy held the ghost’s stony glare and didn’t back down. “You need to leave her alone.”

  The smile that crossed the woman’s face was made of ice. “Whatever would I do that for? She is so young and strong. Tres delicious. Leave?” she laughed. “Why would I ever? I am very comfortable inside of her. As they say, like seeks out like. Blood seeks out blood.”

  She hovered through the air, closer to where Colby lay writhing and whimpering.

  Darcy threw herself in front of her daughter, arms held out, determined to block this ghost from possessing Colby again. If she had to put herself in harm’s way for her child, then so be it. “You need to leave her alone!”

  “Hmm?” the woman hummed. “Oh cherie, you are not nearly strong enough to stop me. If you try, you will only end up hurting your precious little one. She needs me now. She is, how you might say, addicted to my presence. Removing me from her will be a horrible experience for her. I, however, am already dead…”

  Darcy glared at the ghost. “Don’t you threaten her! Don’t you touch a hair on her head! Don’t you—”

  In the middle of a breath she found herself face to face with the woman. Darcy hadn’t seen her move. She was just there.

  “You are nothing to me,” the ghost warned. Her voice rose, and the mists began to spin, and the whoosh of air rushing through nowhere pushed at Darcy from all sides. “In this place, I have the power. Leave her for me, you meddling woman, or I will make sure you lose her forever.”

  “What?” The panic that had been rising inside of her threatened to overwhelm Darcy now. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, it is very simple. Until now, I have allowed her to be who she is. I could change all that, you see. I could overpower her with a single thought. In this place, or in the world of the living. It makes no difference. She will be lost to you, and in her place will be only me.” Her face changed, growing darker as her jaw stretched to impossible proportions and her lips curled thinly. Her eyes dragged wider. She was horrifying to behold. “Your daughter will speak, and her voice will be mine. She will walk, and you will not recognize her. She will be the shell, and I will use her as I see fit… unless you stay away.”

  Darcy was terrified, but she stood her ground. It was hard to do in a place with literally no ground to stand on, but she kept herself between Colby and the ghost and forced herself to meet the raging, ancient hatred in those eyes. Come Hell or high water, she wasn’t giving up.

  In this case, Hell was closer than any of them had realized.

  “You can’t have her,” Darcy insisted. “She’s my daughter, and you can’t have her!”

  The ghost reached for her, touched her lightly, her fingertips sending ice through Darcy’s cheek. “Pretty, and brave. I see why your daughter looks up to you the way she does. But you will still fail. Colby Sweet is mine.”

  That spectral, insubstantial hand shoved her, and Darcy felt herself falling through the mists. She reached out, willing herself to find Colby, and wrapped her hand around the very edge of her daughter’s hospital gown. She clutched it tight and pulled.

  Then Colby was in her arms, and she was holding her baby girl safe.

  The ghost laughed.

  Colby looked up at her mother with eyes that were no longer her own. They were brown now, almost black, and they shone with malicious humor.

  “I told you that she was mine,” Colby said in the ghost’s voice.

  Darcy felt like her heart had just stopped. She couldn’t let herself scream, even though she very much wanted to scream. She wanted to run away and hide and pretend none of this was happening, but it was, and she had to put an end to it. Only she could do that.

  The ghost smiled with her daughter’s mouth. “She will be mine forever, and we will live the life that was taken from me so unjustly. Why do you fight me? Haven’t you wondered why your daughter is so strong with her gift already? So young, and so strong? Between her natural gift, and the wisdom I slip into her thoughts, she will be the most powerful witch in our family line. Perhaps, in all of history.”

  Darcy did not let go of Colby. She knew if she did, it would be all over for both of them.

  “We,” she said, “are not witches.”

  “Oh, mother,” Colby laughed in that voice that wasn’t hers, with its French accent. “You have no idea who you deal with.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Darcy took just a moment to prepare herself. That’s all the time she would have.

  The ghost laughed at her again, twisting Colby’s face until it was that of a middle-aged woman, drawn and haggard. “Do you see? You know nothing.”

  “I know you,” Darcy said, strong and clear through the enfolding layers of m
ist. “Leave my daughter alone, Willamena.”

  Hearing Darcy call her by name surprised the ghost. Colby’s mouth dropped open, and for the first time there was uncertainty reflected in those off-color eyes.

  In that moment of indecision by the specter who was holding her daughter hostage, Darcy worked up as much saliva in her mouth as she could, and spit.

  It covered Colby’s face. Her cheeks, and her forehead, and even her eyes. Darcy felt sick doing this when the spirit was in Colby’s body but there was nothing else she could do. She’d tried everything else. This was a last resort.

  The packet of herbs she had chewed on before performing her spirit communication had tasted truly nasty. Dried coriander, clove, rosemary and thyme, just a pinch of each mixed together and wrapped into that torn piece of brown paper towel. A dash of salt on top of it had drawn the mix together. The residue was still layered over her tongue and the inside of her mouth with a nasty aftertaste that she probably wouldn’t be rid of for a week.

  Each of those ingredients were known for their ability to repel evil spirits. There were others that were more effective, based on what she’d read previously in Great Aunt Millie’s journals, but she’d been limited to what she had with her in her spirit communication kit. Even little plastic spice jars took up a lot of room and she couldn’t keep everything she might need with her.

  If she’d known she was going to perform an impromptu exorcism here in the in between space, she would have come better armed.

  Her spittle, laced with the protective herbs, had the desired effect. Willamena threw back Colby’s head and screamed, and it was both voices that Darcy heard. Her daughter’s body shook, every muscle twitching until she seemed to be undulating like she had no bones, only flesh. Only substance.

  Every inch of her steamed.

  Darcy held on tight, and braced herself against the endless void, and pulled Colby away as hard as she could.