by Blythe Baker
“Go ahead and take a seat on the couch,” Mrs. Bickford said, lifting her teapot off the stove and bringing it to the sink. “Jim says he seems to remember you saying you like green tea. I have some, would you like that?”
“Yes, I do like green tea,” I said. “And that’d be great, thanks.”
I took a precarious seat on the edge of the cushion, folding my hands in my lap. I nervously looked around. For some reason, it almost felt like I was sitting in a teacher’s office, waiting to ask for a better grade or a chance to retake a test.
“Honey and milk?” Mrs. Bickford asked from the fridge.
“Sure,” I said. Anything to maybe make this question a little easier.
“So…” Mrs. Bickford said, setting the teapot on the stove to come up to heat. She turned around and walked into the living room, taking a seat in the armchair. She smiled at me. “What is it you needed?”
I sighed, twisting my hands together nervously, my palms beginning to sweat. “Well…it’s not an easy request,” I said. “And I promise that I wouldn’t need to borrow it for more than just a few hours, tops – ”
“It’s okay, dear,” Mrs. Bickford said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
I pursed my lips, exhaling through my nose. “Funny you say that…” I licked my lips as Athena took a seat at my feet. Just having her close by was enough of a comfort. “Mrs. Bickford, I was wondering if I could borrow your ghost speaking ability again.”
Mrs. Bickford’s smile remained where it was for a few seconds, and then the realization of what I was asking hit her. It faltered, and turned completely upside down as she stared at me. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, especially after I accidentally took it last time, but I promise you that I know how to return it, and that I’d only be borrowing it for the evening tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Mrs. Bickford asked, and even in the dim light of the cabin, I could see she’d lost some color in her cheeks.
I leaned forward. “I know that this gift means everything to you. I know it’s your only means of communicating with your husband. And I hope you know that I am not taking this request lightly. I have zero intention of keeping it. I would never want you to have to suffer like that again.”
Mrs. Bickford huffed, leaning back in her chair. She turned her face up to what I could only assume was Mr. Bickford. Her brow furrowed. “Good point, Jim.” She turned back to me. “What do you need it for?”
She already knew about my ability to take gifts, and she knew probably more than she let on about what I might be. She’d never said anything, but she might be the only person who could’ve guessed what I really was, based on my behaviors and actions.
“I need to speak with a ghost that might know something about my family’s history,” I said, decided to choose honesty with her. “I have some questions about what they might have been like, and no one in town has any knowledge of them. It doesn’t help that I don’t have any names to go on…and that I was gone for almost thirty years.”
“How do you know that this ghost is going to be able to help you?” Mrs. Bickford asked.
I couldn’t be annoyed with her asking these questions. This gift was hers, and she’d already experienced what it was like without it…and she’d not been pleased. If I were in her shoes, I’d also want to know what my gift was going to be used for.
I sighed again. “Because I’ve already spoken to this ghost the last time I had your gift.”
Mrs. Bickford frowned. “So if you’ve already spoken with her, then why do you need to do it again?”
“She disappeared before I was able to get any more information from her,” I said.
“And what makes you think that she’s going to willingly tell you anything this time?” Mrs. Bickford asked. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she turned and looked over at the air, and glowered. Then she huffed again before turning back to me. “Jim informs me that I’m being too stingy. He says you’ve never given us a reason not to trust you. And that if it’s going to help you find your family…well, then I should be more willing to help.”
I glanced in the direction she’d been looking. I smiled, hoping I was looking somewhat in Mr. Bickford’s direction. “Thank you for understanding.”
She got up from her seat as the teapot began to whistle. “Would you like to take my gift before or after you’ve had your tea?” she said in a somewhat cool tone.
“I don’t want to take it right now,” I said. “I hoped I could come by tomorrow around eight and just take it for an hour or two.”
She seemed to soften somewhat. “Well…alright. I’ll be on a call with someone about some new cabin designs at that time anyways, so I guess that’ll be fine. Maybe Jim could go with you and help. I’d hate knowing he was around but not being able to talk to him.”
“Honestly, I’d rather he stayed with you and kept an eye on things here,” I said. “But we can discuss that more tomorrow.”
I enjoyed a hot cup of tea with her and her husband, while I asked her about the new cabin designs she had in mind. It seemed that she intended to have some new ones built come the spring, and she hoped to give me one of them, especially since they’d be bigger. She said she’d already discussed it with Aunt Candace, who agreed to put some money into giving me a nicer place of my own.
“And when you move out someday, it’ll be a great place to rent to vacationers,” Mrs. Bickford said.
When I moved out, huh?
Athena and I headed home when Mrs. Bickford yawned a few times in a row, apologizing.
“You know, I’m not sure that she really wanted to agree to it,” I said to Athena as I unlocked the front door, longing for the blankets on my bed as I shivered. “But I think Jim talked her into it.”
I think he sees you as an ally to his wife, Athena said. When you went to visit her in the hospital after her fall, maybe that convinced him you were trustworthy.
“She’s right to be concerned, though,” I said. “I just hope I’ll be able to find the answers I need.”
8
“Look, just because I said I would go with you doesn’t mean your familiar can sit on my lap like this.”
I glanced over at Delilah in the passenger seat. Athena was indeed sitting on her lap, curled up in a cute little ball.
Delilah, on the other hand, was leaning as far away from her as she possibly could, her nose wrinkled like she’d sniffed something putrid, and hands gripping both the door and the center console. Anything to not have to touch the fox lying on her.
Athena opened one eye as I eased onto the gas pedal when the light on the outskirts of Faerywood Falls turned green.
I’m just keeping a watch on her is all, Athena said, opening one eye. She can’t do anything shifty if I’m here.
I smirked.
“Don’t you give me that look,” Delilah said, her nostrils flaring. “And why does this feel like you’re trying to get me to like you or something?”
“What do you mean?” Bliss asked from the back seat.
Delilah clicked her tongue in annoyance. “It’s like you’re pretending we’re best friends or something, going out on a little trip in your car.” She equipped a mocking tone. “Ooh, are we going to see a scary movie? Or are we all going to get our nails done together?” She wiped the fake smile from her face and rolled her eyes. “Please. This couldn’t be more pathetic.”
“And yet, you’re here,” I said.
I could feel the heat radiating off Delilah.
The cemetery appeared at the bottom of the hill that we crested. Fog had started to settle into the lower parts of the valley, including the gated and fenced resting grounds.
I pulled the car off to the side of the road, and Delilah had already opened the door before I’d even come to a full stop.
“Hey, easy there,” I said, glaring at her as I put the SUV in park.
Delilah unbuckled her seatbelt an
d got out as if Athena wasn’t sitting on her.
Thankfully, Athena seemed to expect it, since she jumped down out of the car and landed on the sidewalk gracefully, her beady eyes fixed on Delilah as her tail swished back and forth.
“By the way, how did someone like you afford a car like this?” Delilah asked, peering back inside the car, her pencil-thin eyebrows one long, furrowed line.
“What does it matter?” I asked.
“I’m just wondering because I heard that your car got washed away in that horrible storm a few weeks ago. How did you get this thing to replace it?” she asked.
“None of your business,” I said, getting out of the driver’s side, maybe slamming the door a little too hard. My cheeks were pink, and I didn’t want her to see it.
Good call, Athena said. The last thing you need is a rumor going around about you and Cain Blackburn right now.
“My thoughts exactly,” I murmured as I walked around to the back of the car.
Opening the back hatch, I pulled a backpack out and slung it over my shoulder.
Delilah’s eyes flashed when she saw me with it walking around to where she and Bliss stood on the sidewalk. “Is that where my book is?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” I said, walking right past her, not even looking at her.
Bliss, snickering again, started after me.
Delilah let out a grunt through her clenched teeth as she followed after us.
The cemetery was quiet. In the distance, up toward the top of one of the sloping hills inside, there was a green-topped tent. Blue tarps were scattered across the grass.
A fresh grave for someone else. Thankfully, it wasn’t someone that I’d found. I’d gone to Mrs. Bickford’s daughter’s funeral. It had broken my heart to stand with her and watch the fat pearly tears streak down my landlady’s face as she watched them lower her own flesh and blood’s casket into the ground.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Delilah demanded hotly from behind.
“Yes,” I said. “I spent way too much time at this person’s grave, so I don’t think I’ll soon forget it.”
A chill ran down my spine as we got closer. The last time I’d been here, it had been when Evan Foster attacked me, and tried to kill me. And the time before that, it was when I’d heard his wife, Olivia Foster, cry out in terror. But when I’d reached her, she was already dead.
I’d done my best to suppress those memories, but they were coming back in full force.
Thankfully, the only ghost I’d seen so far that night had been Mr. Bickford, and that was just after I’d taken Mrs. Bickford’s ghost speaking ability back at her cabin. He’d thanked me, and I promised them both I’d have it back before long.
I just hoped this would all go smoothly.
We followed along the dirt road that the vehicles visiting the cemetery would use, the same road that Sheriff Garland had parked his car on when he’d come running through the graves to help me when Evan had pulled the knife out on me.
The narrow path between the head stones seemed far too familiar to me. As my breath hung in the air like little clouds, I thought back to the night that I’d met Isabella the first time.
“Alright,” I said, coming to a stop beside the headstone. “We’re here.”
“This is it?” Delilah asked, looking around. “Why was I imagining that we’d be going to one of those mausoleums or something? But no, just an ordinary grave of…what’s the name? Isabella Delvin?” she asked.
Bliss knelt down in front of the stone, and stared at the dates. “She was so young when she died…”
“Yeah…” I said.
“Delvin…wait, I think I remember that name,” Delilah said. “Wasn’t she the girl who committed suicide? Drowned in the lake or something like…thirty years ago?”
“That’s her, yeah,” I said.
Delilah snorted derisively. “And what in the world do you want with this girl, huh?”
“Again, none of your business,” I said, glaring over my shoulder at her. “Our agreement was that I’d give you the book if you woke her up for me. Not that I’d answer any of your inane questions.”
“Whoa, sheesh,” Delilah said. “Fine. Move out of the way, and you’ll have your ghost.”
Bliss and I stepped out of the way, Athena hovering behind me in the shadows.
Delilah raised her hands, and an orb of grey light appeared in her palms. It was more dark than light, though, almost like it was made of pure shadows.
When Evan Foster had told me that he’d woken Isabella from her grave, he’d never really talked about how he’d done it. But seeing the swirling black magic in Delilah’s hands made me suddenly realize why the council of eleven didn’t want spell weavers to use it. It exuded evil, as if it would suck up any and all light in the surrounding area.
She lifted one hand high into the air, the swirling vortex in her hands expanding. The other hand, she pointed at the ground at the foot of the gravestone.
The shadows seeped out from her outstretched palm, like a strong wind, and struck the earth. The grass shuddered like it was being dug up from underneath, and the ground beneath our feet began to tremble.
Bliss flailed and grabbed onto my arm, her eyes wide and round. “What’s happening?” she asked.
I didn’t know, and couldn’t form words to answer her. I was starting to regret ever choosing to do this in the first place.
Lightning crackled in the air above our heads, and a swirling wind began to rush between the headstones like a stormy sea.
It was hard to stay upright as it knocked against us. It encircled the grave, spinning so fast that it almost looked like it was becoming a cyclone.
And just as I shielded my eyes with my hands, unable to stare through the wind that pressed in on me from all sides, it all stopped.
For a brief moment, everything was silent and still. The wind had stolen the breath from me. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
And saw the glowing silhouette of Isabella Delvin hovering above the churned earth.
Delilah brushed her hands off, turning to look at me. “Alright. Job done. Where’s my book?”
As I watched Isabella, it almost felt like I was staring at a stationary projection of her, not her actual ghost.
“Is…she there?” Bliss asked hesitantly.
“Yeah,” I said, taking a step toward her. “But she’s not moving.”
“She needs time to wake up all the way,” Delilah said. She held out a hand to me, brushing some of her blonde hair from her eyes. The wind had made her hair look as if she’d come back from an eighties band concert. “Now give me the book.”
I shifted my eyes back to Isabella. Her head was hung, her chin touching her chest. Her silvery hair was completely still. “I don’t know if you did it right,” I said. “Why isn’t she moving?”
“It’s fine, this is what always happens,” Delilah said.
“When was the last time you did this?” I asked.
Delilah’s eyes narrowed. “I thought we agreed on you giving me the book in exchange for waking her up, not inane questions?”
I scowled, but pulled my backpack off my shoulders. Unzipping it, I pulled the red book from inside.
A large part of me seriously debated keeping it, refusing to give it to her, but what would that make me?
A mischievous faery. I wasn’t going to be known for being like that.
“Here,” I said, tossing the book at her.
She stooped to snatch it from the air just before it hit the ground. As she stood, she cradled it in her arms like it was a baby.
Just then, a terrible scream rent the air, causing us all to turn and look.
The ghost of Isabella had suddenly started to move. She was convulsing like she was having a seizure.
“Isabella,” I said, jumping in front of her. “It’s me, Marianne. Do you remember me?”
But she didn’t respond. Her whole body expanded like a spring, and then she turned and
fled through the cemetery, heading toward the part of the forest that surrounded the lake.
“Bliss, stay with Athena,” I said. “I’ll be back!”
I didn’t wait for a response as I took off between the headstones after her.
I pushed myself to run as fast as I dared in the heavy grass. Rocks made me stumble as I darted around holes in the ground, and more than once, I used the gravestones as a sort of hurdle, trying to keep up with Isabella.
“Isabella!” I shouted, trying to draw her attention. I didn’t understand. When I put her to rest, did it somehow erase her memories or something? Or was she just disoriented from being pulled back from the other side unwillingly?
I couldn’t be sure, but I wasn’t all that far behind her when we reached the trees.
I reached a familiar place along the hiking trail, an overlook that had a view of the lake below. It was still almost two miles away, but even at night, it was beautiful to look at with the moon reflecting off it, like a mirror made of mercury.
I slowed down to a stop as I realized that she had, too. Her hair was fluttering in stronger wind than I felt, as was the hem of the silk gown she wore. Her eyes seemed fixed on the lake below.
Panting, I bent in half, my hands on my knees as I tried to regain my breath. I hadn’t run that much since high school. And even though Athena and I went for walks almost every night, I still didn’t have nearly enough endurance to keep up a sprint like that.
Breathing heavily, I straightened, the muscles in my back protesting. I wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ground until the sky stopped spinning and I could wet my lips again.
“Marianne…”
It was Isabella’s voice, distant like it had been the last time I’d seen her.
I gazed as her as she turned her head slowly to look at me.
“Isabella,” I said, around gasping breaths. “You…remember me?”
She turned to face me properly. “You were the one who saved me from my bondage. How could I forget?”
“You didn’t seem to remember me…a few minutes ago,” I said, wiping some of the sweat that had beaded up on my face. “When we woke you up.”