by Leslie Edens
Oskar turned to Lily. “Okay, answers. There’s a society in this town.” He hesitated. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this much.”
Lily sneered, the candlelight throwing wicked shadows over her features. “There’s a lot of societies in this town. Which one do you hail from? The vampire role-players? The zombie gamers? Perchance the coven of witches? Alien hunters? Or are you more the werewolf type?”
“I’m not a werewolf,” said Oskar, snickering.
“Yeah, Lily. Oskar’s no werewolf.” Trenton folded his arms. Then his eyes bugged out. “Wait, are there really werewolves in Portales Espirituales?”
“No, of course not. She’s just referring to all the fake paranormal societies around here. The ones that cover up real paranormal societies like—” Oskar gulped. “I’ve said too much.”
Something creaked, long and low, above us.
“I’d better let him tell you,” said Oskar. “It’s not my place.”
“Let who tell us?” asked Lily.
Trenton shivered. “It’s so cold in here.”
“The head. Maximilian Pollander,” said Oskar. He put his arm around Trenton. “Let me warm you up,” he whispered.
It had grown clammier and colder as we spoke, mist filling the space. Maybe it was smoke from the candles. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. What I did care about was Trenton snuggled securely under Oskar’s attractive bicep. So not fair!
Lily rolled her eyes at them.
Footsteps sounded, hollow echoes in the crypt.
“What’s that?” I whispered, looking from Oskar to Lily. I noticed how much I was shivering.
A black shadow moved out of the darkness and took shape as a tall man wearing a cowboy hat, his hair gray, his eyes sad.
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” he said, waving at us. He set his cowboy-boot-clad foot on top of a coffin and leaned on his knee, scanning around the room. “Name’s Max Pollander. I hope you all had a safe journey up to this point. From here on, things might get awful weird.”
Chapter Six
The Society
“Weird?” I said. “Weirder than hiding in a crypt?” I didn’t want to tell him what I’d been through that day, but weird didn’t begin to describe it.
“This crypt is protected by the spirits,” said Max. “It belongs to an ancient noble family. This place is what some call spirit blessed.” Max’s sharp eyes burned into mine. He didn’t flinch at their golden fire, as some did. Instead, he took off his hat and tipped it. He placed it on his bent knee.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Heather Despair,” he said.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, nodding at him. What was this guy’s deal? He acted like he knew me. But he also watched me like a hawk.
“Young Oskar tells me that the other two are your chosen companions. Altogether, that makes four. That so?” His eyes never cut away from mine, the whole time. Pretty unnerving. I’m used to people turning away.
“You mean how many people are in our group?” Couldn’t this guy count? “Yeah, there’s four.”
“However, Miss Despair,” he continued. “I believe you also have a brother. One Samhain Despair?”
“He’s missing,” I said, before I could stop myself. Something about the way Max held my gaze—it made me want to tell him things.
“It seems he missed his opportunity,” said Max. “A different destiny lies in store for young Sam. As for you and your companions, we will escort you to safety.”
“Thank you,” said Oskar, bowing his head respectfully.
“We see things down here nobody else sees,” said Max, then he looked Trenton up and down. “Name is Trenton Lloyd Minch. No one in particular. A wild card.”
“Hey! I’m awesome, thank you very much,” said Trenton.
“Yes, you are, sweetness,” I heard Oskar murmur. Trenton blushed bright red and snuggled even closer to Oskar.
How’d this Max guy know everyone’s names? He must have gotten them from Oskar. And what was this society?
Max stepped in front of Lily, who gaped up at him, her eyes huge behind her over-sized lenses.
“Lily Benavidez? Liliana Renée Benavidez! Oh, my All!” said Max. “Arturo swore you would come around, but I never thought I’d see the day! An honor to have you among us!”
“Do I know you?” Lily stared at Max.
“We know you,” said Max, rather ominously. “Think of me as a family friend. Like an uncle.”
Lily stared at Max, whose features seemed to flicker in the dim light of the candles. “Did you know my uncle?” she asked. “My uncle Arturo, who died?”
Max nodded. “Yep, I knew him. We got a seer on the make here! Arturo swore you were the one—not your brother, not your sister, but you.”
“What one?” Lily went nearly cross-eyed, as she and Max stared each other down.
“Every generation in the Benavidez clan has one. Looking at you now, I can sense he was right,” said Max. “You like spiritualism, don’t you? Communing with the dead, that sort of thing?”
Lily frowned. “Not exactly. Trenton and I are trying to be paranormal investigators. We made up this club, just the two of us.”
“Wait one second,” I said. “I thought PEPPIC was a large organization. You mean it’s only you and Trent?”
“You can be a member too, Heather,” said Trenton. “You’ve earned it.”
I fumed. “There’s only two of you? I thought you had knowledgeable people you were reporting to. That’s not a club! That’s like a game you two were playing!”
“Hey, it’s no game!” said Lily. “Look where we are.”
“I came to you with a real problem. My missing brother. And weird, unexplainable paranormal phenomena in connection with his disappearance. I paid you twenty dollars, for cripes sake! Now I find out you have no clue what you’re doing! If it wasn’t for me and Oskar, we wouldn’t have gotten this far!” I folded my arms and glared. Lily glared back. Then she lowered her eyes. I’m pretty hard to stare down, for most people.
“Hey, kids. Settle down,” said Max. “Lily, you and Trenton obviously have a strong attraction to spiritualism, whether you realize it or not. This will grow in time. Heather, the loss of your brother and the rise of your powers are indeed connected, as you suspect. Though perhaps not for the reasons you think.”
I waited for him to tell me some reasons, previously unthought by me, that made sense. When he didn’t say anything, I demanded, “If you know something about Sam’s disappearance, you’re welcome to share it!” We were trying to find him, after all. That, and not die at the business end of a bolt of blue electricity.
Max slapped his knee, like he’d heard a great joke. “A séance is just the thing for all of you. We’ll clear this up.” He flipped his hat, and it landed perfectly on his head. “Not far from here resides a lady who has lived a hundred years. Maybe she’s spirit blessed, too.” He winked. “Whatever the case, she knows things. She is on close terms with the spirits. She will help you.”
“I hope she’s going to help us find Sam,” I said.
“She’ll tell you what she can. And she’ll tell you things I can’t. This New Four is all right by me,” said Max.
“That’s a relief,” said Oskar. “I took a risk bringing them here.”
Max took his foot off the coffin and started moving into darkness. He gestured for us to follow. “Come on, kidlets,” he said.
“What’d he call us?” Trenton had a weirded out look on his face.
Oskar tugged Trenton’s arm to follow. “Max will take us there safely.”
I glared around at everyone in general. Particularly Oskar and Trenton, who now were holding hands. Trenton saw me glaring and shrugged. When he passed by me, he whispered in my ear, “Don’t look so mad. You’d do the same.” He grinned at me and stuck out his tongue.
I gave him a weak smile. “I guess you’re right.”
“Could you at least specify where we are going?” said Lily.
Max smiled back at her. “You don’t realize? We’re visiting Abuelita.”
“My abuelita? My great grandmother?” Lily stood up in a hurry. “What’s she got to do with this?”
“I suppose in a way, she’s everybody’s abuelita. The grand, ancient lady of Portales Espirituales. Please follow me and stay close.” He walked into the shadows. I couldn’t see him at all, but I heard a door creak open slowly. A breeze must have entered, for the candles behind us went out all at once.
I stumbled along with the rest, upward in the dark, feet clunking on stone stairs. Our footsteps echoed and things crunched under our feet. I brushed spiderwebs from my hair. Soon the dim light from the sky outside shone on our faces. Max stood above, holding open what looked like a cellar door—little more than a slab of wood, thrown over the entrance to the crypt.
We walked out of the crypt and into another world.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t another world, but the graveyard of Portales Espirituales. But the lush lawns, thick bowers of gnarled, ancient trees, and mossy gravestones resembled another world, so distinct were they from the desert we’d left behind, outside the gates.
I gazed around at the deep shadows and patches of mist. Even the sky had dimmed, clouded over like we were in for a rainstorm.
“I will never understand how Portales Espirituales manages to keep this cemetery so green,” I said. “They must have an underground watering system.”
Max looked back at me. He shook his head. “That’s a question for later. Many things mysterious now. Hark the house on Hollow Hill and stay to the shade.”
He led us between two rows of massive trees, their roots twisting deep into the earth, their branches clasping overhead. Pretty good cover, if we were hiding from something. I squinted to see the end of the tree tunnel. By looking straight between the tree rows, I could see a hulking structure on the horizon.
I stopped. I pointed, my hand shaking. “It can’t be!”
“Hey.” Lily stopped too. “It’s the old Hollow Hill mansion. Boy, I’d forgotten how massive that place is! I haven’t seen it since they converted it from a museum into a bed and breakfast. Guess it’s a crash pad for college students and squatters now.” She clucked her tongue. “They say it’s too haunted for anything else. Pity. Astonishing piece of architecture. Too bad it’s rotting away.”
“That’s my house,” I said in a choked voice.
Trenton patted my shoulder. “Uh, no. Heather Despair. You can’t just have anything that appeals to you. I think we learned that lesson.” He clutched Oskar’s arm.
“No, I mean it’s really my house! I used to live there. My family owned it.” I traced the lines of the house’s distant silhouette with my finger. Seven years it had been, since I’d seen it. Seven years since Dad died and we had to move away.
“I wasn’t always a junkyard rat,” I said. “Once, I had a complete family and a real home.”
Weirdly, it was Oskar who turned to me with sympathy clouding his hazel eyes. “I know, right?” he said. “And I wasn’t always a paranormal fanatic. But here we are, Heather Despair. Times have changed.”
I cocked my head at him. What was this?
“Oh, I know a lot about that old mansion,” he said. “I’ve seen the records of previous owners. The Despairs lived there for ten years. You. Your brother Samhain. Your mother and your father, Able Despair.”
“Yes, Able,” echoed Max. He waved us forward.
“That information is in your private collection?” I was stunned.
“It’s common knowledge in spiritualist circles,” Oskar said.
Max gave Oskar a sharp look. “Shh. Let Abuelita initiate them. You keep quiet.”
“I’m sorry.” Oskar bowed his head.
We all stared at the crumbling mass of the house up ahead.
“I never knew a family actually lived in there. It’s such a dump,” said Lily.
“You just said it was architecture,” said Trenton, knitting his blond eyebrows.
“I said it was astonishing. That does not imply in a good way. It’s kind of horrendous, don’t you think?” Lily squinted at the hulking shape, growing closer by the second as we walked.
“The Vic,” I whispered. “We called it the Vic. Short for Victorian.”
“It’s creepy. I don’t want to go in there,” said Trenton, squeezing Oskar’s arm.
“We must meet Abuelita. This house is safe from them,” Max intoned in a deep, hollow voice.
“Why . . . why not go to Abuelita’s house? It’s not far from here,” said Lily. Was her voice shaking? She was scared, the paragon of logic?
“Not safe enough,” said Max. “Besides, we don’t want them to find out where she lives.”
Lily gave Max a puzzled frown. “Is it that hard to look her up in the phone book? Or ask around—a billion people around here know my great grandmother.”
“All I will say,” said Max, “Is Abuelita didn’t get to be a hundred years old by living recklessly. Her identity and her location—these things are cloaked from them. And she is not in the phone book. She has an unlisted number.”
“Oh,” said Lily, and she gulped as we neared the house.
Max said, “If she were seen meeting with you four, I assure you, it opens Abuelita up to attack. Those attacks we know so well. She is not as strong as you, young ones. She could not fight them, as Heather did. It would be her end.”
“Who are they?” I whispered.
“Shh!” said Max. “We approach the threshold.”
I couldn’t see any threshold or marker, but we’d reached the end of the tree tunnel. Max tiptoed up to a thick patch of azaleas. “Back here,” he said.
He pushed his way between the thick bushes. I followed, then Trenton and Oskar, and finally, Lily. I lost sight of Max, but it didn’t matter. I knew the way from here. I lifted Sybil from my backpack and let her run along behind me. She panted happily, sniffing and scratching and peeing on the bushes.
“Home,” I said, and I climbed the winding path that switched between bushes. I almost bumped into the locked garden gate at the top. Tall and wooden, it would be difficult to climb. I knew an easier way.
Next to the gate, the lumpy old tree still stood. I felt around in a hole between two branches. Sure enough, deep within, I grasped a large metal gate key.
I strolled up to the gate, then realized the others were hanging back. Above us stretched the crazy profile of the Vic, overladen with turrets and balconies, surrounded in covered porches and hidden gardens, the whole of it topped with widow walks and pitched roofs. It resembled about five Victorian houses, in all their complexity, knitted seamlessly together. Nothing made sense on the inside either, the rooms all lapping into each other without rhyme or reason. I’d grown to love it anyway.
“Come on,” I said. I fitted the key into the lock. I was about to turn the key, when the gate slid open on its own. A tall figure in a hat and long coat, face wrapped in scarves and mufflers, came lurching out. I screamed. The Paranormals gasped, and Sybil started barking.
The strange person stumbled toward us, hands raised, making a garbled sound. Fear caused the energy within me to rise. I held my hands before me, zapping with blue sparks.
“Back off,” I said. “Unless you want to find out if those scarves are flammable.”
The weird figure groaned and howled. I drew my hands back, ready to release a big bolt of power, then Lily shrieked, “Cousin Art? Is that you?”
A smile stretched wide between the scarves. “Mijita? Is that my cousin Lily?”
“Yes, it’s me! But what are you doing here?” Lily walked up to the scarf-covered person. “You scared us half to death!”
“This is your cousin?” I stared, along with Trenton and Oskar, at the scarves and gloves and sunglasses, the wide-brimmed hat and long coat. Besides that wide smile, nowhere could I see the man I assumed was underneath. My spectricity fizzled away.
“Yes, he sometimes gives me rides. Cousin
Art likes to drive.” She smiled at him fondly.
“You kids better come inside,” said Art. “Max goes no further, so I’m here to help Abuelita. You too, huh?”
“Sure.” Lily entered the gate. I picked up Sybil, deposited her into my backpack for safety, and entered. Inside the gate, things were just as I remembered. The stately garden trees, with their long, bent limbs stretching to earth. The flower beds thick with white blooms, and the fountain with a quiet pond surrounding it. Nothing had changed since the day I left. I gaped, then I heard a slam behind me. There stood Art, before the closed and locked garden gate. He saluted and stared into my eyes. The sunglasses blocked his expression, but he didn’t seem to find my golden eyes unnerving either.
“Heather Despair,” he said, extending a hand covered by a driving glove. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I wanted to tell you, I knew your dad. He was—”
Art’s voice trickled off. He stared up, into space.
“Yes? He was what?” I said. I searched the outside wall of the house, where Art was staring. Same old unpainted, dingy exterior and high Victorian windows. I saw nothing of interest, except the house could sure use a new coat of paint.
“He was what? Going to paint the house?” I said in exasperation.
“Uh, no. Sorry. I mean, yeah, probably so. It needs it, don’t it?” Art laughed, his mouth opening wide. He leaned forward. He slid his big sunglasses down until I could see his eyes. They were warm and brown, with a hint of intensity in the center. Reminded me of Lily’s. “He was a good man. No matter what they say. Nobody could have avoided—”
He stared upward again. I looked. Nothing there.
“Nobody could have avoided what?” I said.
“I’m sorry. I can say no more. Must take you inside.” He ushered us in, pushing from behind like a big, scarf-covered sheepdog until we all squeezed through the kitchen door.
“Wow. It hasn’t changed either,” I said. The walls were still painted yellow, with a long middle table taking up most of the room. Sunshine still lit up the humble little kitchen. I remembered it as the sunniest room in the house.